DPP #131 "What's Coming at Comic Con?"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·23m 43s·analyzed·Jun 27, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Rumors of Godzilla anniversary edition, Metallica remake with new art, and Comic-Con announcements.

Summary

Don discusses multiple pinball rumors ahead of San Diego Comic-Con, including potential Aerosmith Pro, Godzilla 70th Anniversary black-and-white edition, and a heavily reimagined Metallica remake on Spike 3 with new artwork and concert footage. He also covers the arrival of Pedretti's Funhouse remake at a Wisconsin location and reflects on market normalization with declining sales requiring higher game quality.

Key Claims

Only about 1,000 John Wick LE units may actually exist, potentially due to market downturn
low confidence · Don reports hearing this as a rumor, not confirmed, speculating on sales decline impact
Godzilla black-and-white anniversary edition is coming, consistent rumor from multiple sources
medium confidence · Multiple independent sources reporting same rumor; Stern typically does announcements in July around Comic-Con timing
Metallica remake in development for Spike 3 with completely new artwork by band-selected artist, larger LCD screen, concert footage integration, and no Dirty Donnie involvement
low confidence · Described as 'telephone' rumor with unsourced hearsay; origin unclear but Don presents as significant information
Metallica remake originally planned for November but may move to August-September due to softened sales and production line availability
low confidence · Completely unconfirmed timing shift; Don explicitly acknowledges unreliability of this information
Pedretti is launching remake business with Funhouse remake arriving at District 1 Arcade in Stevens Point, Wisconsin
high confidence · Don directly observed production photos of Rudy heads; confirmed location placement; includes 1.0/1.5/2.0 code upgrade options
Stern exhibited at San Diego Comic-Con last year with Venom reveal; likely pattern suggests similar 2024 announcement
medium confidence · Documented 2023 precedent; Don speculates based on typical Stern strategy and Comic-Con exhibit floor timing
American Pinball planning new game, Jersey Jack considering Harry Potter or Muppets, and Stern working on another Cornerstone title
low confidence · Speculation based on industry patterns; no sources cited for these predictions
Metallica band allegedly visited Stern factory and requested upgrade similar to Jersey Jack's approach with large screen implementation
low confidence · Hearsay report; Don questions reliability of entire Metallica rumor chain

Notable Quotes

“so i put out there like would you be interested in aerosmith pro and some people are like yeah you know i mean kind of so if you were waiting on one i want to get one”
Don @ ~3:20 — Establishes Aerosmith Pro as interest-list item with uncertain confirmation status
“The games that are coming out now were in development two years ago. Hi to COVID. Everybody's going nuts. And now these games are finally getting ready and they're shipping and they're going into boxes. But going forward the games we're gonna see they you gotta come with some fire with some dripping lava or you're just not gonna have a sales success”
Don @ ~9:30 — Key market observation: quality bar raised due to oversupply and normalized demand post-COVID
“I haven't talked to the purchasing director for the Comic-Con convention, and they've told me this. I've got nothing to base this on other than, you know, kind of what's flying out there... I'm just connecting dots where lines don't exist”
Don @ ~18:45 — Explicit acknowledgment of speculation vs. sourced information on Comic-Con Godzilla announcement
“go and sell your metallica now because this is the one you're gonna want”
Alleged unidentified player (reported by Don) @ ~30:00 — Drives urgency narrative around Metallica remake; sourcing extremely weak
“either the band or somebody else has picked an artist to do a complete overhaul art package of the play field, the cabinet. And I think that would mean taking Sparky out as well because that was Dirty Donnie's design”
Don @ ~32:15 — Major claim about Metallica creative overhaul; low confidence in sourcing
“I don't know how much of this is true and how much is just fluff. People might be just feeding me toxic stuff, but this was pretty earth-shattering when I heard this”
Don @ ~33:00 — Self-aware disclaimer about Metallica rumor reliability
“if I owned one, I think the time to sell your Metallica in order to buy this next one was about three months ago”

Entities

DonpersonStern PinballcompanySan Diego Comic-ConeventGodzilla 70th AnniversarygameMetallicagameAerosmith ProgamePedretticompanyFunhouse 2.0 / Rudy NightmaregameDistrict 1 Arcade

Signals

?
business_signal: Pedretti Pinball launching remake business; Funhouse 2.0 (Rudy Nightmare) confirmed in production with component manufacturing (40+ Rudy heads observed)
high · Don directly observed production photos; confirmed location placement at District 1 Arcade Stevens Point; code upgrade options (1.0/1.5/2.0) verified via buddy's purchase information
~
sentiment_shift: Metallica LE secondary market timing window for profitable resale already passed (~3 months ago per Don); future collectors advising to wait for remake rather than holding current generation
medium · Don reports hearing this advice from unspecified community members; implies rumor circulation beyond Don's podcast; suggests broad awareness of remake plans
?
design_philosophy: Metallica remake represents complete creative overhaul from original: new artist selected by band, entirely new artwork package, new LCD screen size, concert footage integration, removal of original Sparky design
low · Sourced through 'telephone' rumor chain; band visit to Stern factory cited as motivation but unverified; Don questions authenticity of entire claim
?
event_signal: San Diego Comic-Con exhibit floor announcement expected in June 2024; Stern historically exhibits and reveals flagship titles (precedent: Venom 2023)
medium · Don references 2023 Comic-Con timing pattern (exhibit reveal ~June 29); speculates Godzilla 70th Anniversary will be 2024 announcement based on July release window
$
market_signal: John Wick LE production shortfall rumored at only ~1,000 units vs. expected quantity; attributed to sales downturn and buyer market shift

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.071

0:00

Well, what's up everybody out there? Don's coming back at you again because my rumor episode stirred up a little bit of news that I want to talk about. More rumors for you guys. Also, the first Funhouse on location in Wisconsin is about to drop. If you want to go play that remake, I'll share the details. Coming up!

0:30

Who doesn't love those Denise-y vibes? Can we get another drip? Thank you. I appreciate that. What's up, everybody? Just did that rumor episode, and no sooner did I post that one and people started listening to it, then I started getting little feeders coming from me. You little birds are tweeting quite a bit out there. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you're X-ing. Is that what we're calling it now? X-ing? So I got some more of that to talk about. I just heard today also that the first Funhaus in Wisconsin, which I'll be looking at the second location one available, will be out there if there are three people left that are interested in a Funhaus remake. Pedretti's putting them together. I saw the picture they posted of the Rudy heads today. There's like 40 of them sitting on a table, and somebody's like, you guys are savage. You're like, oh, look, there's all 40 heads that you're going to make and sell this machine. My God, you guy, quit poking the bear. Padretti over there. They're launching their remake business. We'll see how well they sell. I don't know that they picked the title that I would want to purchase because Rudy, although I'm into things that are weird and creepy, it's just weird and creepy in the wrong kind of way, like in the taking itself too seriously way or something. I don't know. But if you want to play a District 1 arcade in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, my home base for pinball tournaments, only 90 minutes from District 82, 90 minutes from Madison, Wisconsin, and three hours from Minneapolis. If you want to come by, it'll be there. So I'm sharing that. District 1 Arcade, Stevens Point, go there. It's where I go and hang out. It's a cool place. They've got about 10 pins in there. It's a brewery kind of brew pub kind of place. So they've got your hipster malt brews and things. Every now and then they do like a special one. They have some kind of pineapple upside-down cake stout or something that was completely delicious. It tastes like diabetes in a glass, and I got it every time I went there. I got a growler full of it. It was that good. Anyway, so if you want to go and play yourself some fun house, from what my buddy was saying, even though he bought the whatever they call it, the classic version, not the midnight version, there was an upgrade he was able to put in for a couple hundred bucks that allow you to play the 1.0, a 1.5 code, and then apparently the 2.0 Rudy Nightmare will be in there with some apron upgrades. So I'm back in town Monday-ish. I think I'll swing by and go check it out, and then I can kind of report back how it plays, how it feels, whatever. I think it's still Funhaus. How great can it be? I did play a Funhaus recently, though, in Florida, and it was fun. So there you go. There you go. Anyway, all right, so that's out of the way. Get to some rumors. I'll start soft, and then we'll go hard. Okay, how about that? So first off, Aerosmith Pro, I think it's happening. I know I mentioned last episode that Corbin at MadPinball.com is his email address, is taking an interest list for Aerosmith Pro. and I was like, okay, let's put it out there. That's fine. Nothing wrong with putting out an interest list for a rumored title that may never come out. You know, Flippin' Out has had one for Harry Potter for probably seven years or so. I think I'm probably on there twice even. So, you know, that exists. But like at the same time that, okay, we saw the stickers and then we saw people starting to dump the pros and then these little Tweety Birdies have told me that the pro is a thing. so somebody and it could be completely just made up of whole cloth but yeah that might be happening so i put out there like would you be interested in aerosmith pro and some people are like yeah you know i mean kind of so if you were waiting on one i want to get one although i don't think this is a game that's like in that limited availability here's the thing it came out before insider connected so by and large every aerosmith that you find out there unless an operator is savvy enough they haven't put the kit in there so you can't go and log in and get the things. I know District 1 has an Aerosmith. You can log into it and get those achievements, so I'm happy for that. And if they fix some of the issues that people have had with the locking trunk and the toy box, I think it could be a go. I think it could be kind of cool. So I don't know. The thing is, with what's happening with pinball and things are kind of back to normalizing, sales have dropped right off of a cliff from what I can see. I'm hearing rumors that perhaps a thousand John Wick LEs aren't actually in existence. How about that? And that may be because of the downturn. Now I'm hearing all kinds of sorts of different things, but what that speaks to is that we have more companies than we've had before in recent memory. We've got a ton of machines and the capability to make them out there, but we have buyers that are a little bit more nuanced. They're not all like me that are insane, just gobbling up anything they can get their hands on. Although even me, I'm full in the arcade. I can't bring something in until I at least get something else out there. So that's like a net shift of zero. So what I'm getting at is that the game's coming forward. If they're going to be sales successes, they've got to be great. And I think that's what we're going to start to see. The games that are coming out now were in development two years ago. Hi to COVID. Everybody's going nuts. And now these games are finally getting ready and they're shipping and they're going into boxes. But going forward the games we're gonna see they you gotta come with some fire with some dripping lava or you're just not gonna have a sales success is what I'm seeing right you might see a theme that like okay I kind of dig that theme but you know or if you have a game that shoots well and looks amazing like an Elton John but it not a theme that people are fired up for you might not see that much Now, Elton John came out at the perfect time. Tail end to COVID. People are fired up. The return of the Richie. The shots are great. JJP's best shooting game by far. If that's their new standard, I am so excited to see what they come out with next. Yes, Genghis, even if that is Muppets. You don't ever watch no Muppets and grew up in Sesame Street. so go watch this when Godfather was announced or rumored I had never seen the Godfather movie although culturally I was aware of all the tropes of it so I went out and watched it because of that so if you haven't seen some of these movies you haven't seen Labyrinth I can't imagine going up to a Labyrinth machine and trying to play it and get into it having never seen the film like what a psychotic looking machine this must be Why is David Bowie up here with a Karen haircut and the biggest bulge you've ever seen in children's entertainment? And who are all these Muppets? And what's going on? Because Jennifer Connelly, the main character that you kind of identify with as she goes through this weird world, your connection to reality, she's not in it at all. All it is is freaking horrific monsters out of context, like walking into Pan's Labyrinth. What is going on here? So if you haven't seen Labyrinth out there, maybe go and watch it, and then you may appreciate the game a lot more. But I can't imagine walking into something like that and not getting it. So out of context, Muppets is like, yeah, this could be Barney the Dinosaur for all I know. What's the deal here, you know? But the nuance and the humor that's in there. There was just a – was it a Ron Howard-directed Jim Henson full-length movie is out on the streaming services? I've been hearing great things about that. That may help kind of with everything else as well. So we'll see what's happened. Okay. what's the next rumor moving up in our order of of hype right so godzilla right godzilla 70 the 70th anniversary of godzilla i think it's the 70th um they're doing black and white anniversary editions of games it worked amazingly well with elvira i love the look on the monsters premium black and white so what else are we going to see black and white apparently godzilla and that's been a consistent rumor from multiple people out there that are sourcing back to me or that i'm hearing and conversation, conversation. God, I've been in Wisconsin too long. So I guess that's happening. But when is it happening? Well, supposedly Stern is dropping something in July and lo and behold, July is just around the corner. What was Stern doing last year in July? Let me take you through the Wayback Machine for a moment. And if you will remember, there's a little event in Southern California called San Diego Comic Con, like the hugest pop culture convention on the planet? At least in the United States, for real. This is where Marvel announces their next 10 movies. They have panels with all the stars there. Everybody's flown out here. Every influencer within a stone's grasp of a thread and an ex and a Twitter is going to be there on site as well. Stern was there last year with Venom. They showed up with nearly empty pockets.

9:03

I've grown an appreciation for Venom Premium. I think the Pro is a Led Zeppelin of a game. I don't think I'll be, I'm not going to be that harsh on it. It's better than Led Zeppelin, but I mean, come on. So they showed up there with Venom last year and they revealed it. So are they going to do this again? Now we've seen Stern reaching out to influencers trying to grow pinball, which helps us all. So thank you for doing that and putting the marketing budget behind it to get more people in the game. That's more people to play against and it's more of a market to cater to. It's more listeners for podcasts, more buyers for t-shirts and overpriced mods and more reason for companies to try to not go out of business and bring the damn heat that we want to see. So last year, the exhibit floor was revealed for San Diego Comic-Con on June 29th, which is coming up in a matter of days. So I went to the website today, and it's not released yet. I went to the rumor sites, and there's talk, but there's no map. But if we see the Stern Pinball, which I think they're going to be, is back at San Diego Comic-Con, what, besides John Wick and the 400 missing LEs, are they going to be bringing with them? And I think bringing the mother kaiju game, the greatest game in the modern era, in a new black and white anniversary package to San Diego Comic-Con would make complete sense to me. So I'm just connecting dots where lines don't exist, okay? So I don't have this hard and fast, you know, I haven't talked to the purchasing director for the Comic-Con convention, and they've told me this. I've got nothing to base this on other than, you know, kind of what's flying out there. And, you know, I got a passion for, you know, being able to connect the dots here to where their logical conclusion is. And so based on the trajectory that Stern has established, I see it landing them in San Diego with one of these Godzilla premiums. So they had mentioned that, you know, everybody was soured. And I was soured for them when they came out with the 30th anniversary Jurassic Park edition where they just called it an LE. And then all the ordinary LEI owners were like, I thought we had one of the only ones ever made. Now there's a ton more of them. What's that going to do to the value of my game? Kind of sucks, you know? But it is what it is. That's what they did. So in lieu of that, supposedly this is another premium machine. But it will be, you know, probably of limited build. You know, although I don't think they're going to call it quite limited. Who knows? They might make 7,000 of these games and flood the market. I don't know. But if any game was to do that, I'm glad it's this one. So, are they going to release this at the $96.99 premium? Here it is. It's this version. I think that would make sense to me. I think if Stern wanted to get that $13,000 MSRP on a Godzilla premium, the way that you do that would be to release included with the game black and white art blades custom powder coat armor That a little better than just the wrinkle that we get from the factory upgraded armor the King Ghidorah that came out for it instead of doing the gold wings, do the silver wings, so it fits with that black and white aesthetic. I think you take the shooter rod, which is essentially an egg, that blue egg thing, and you do a black and white version of that included. And then I think you do the topper, the $1,000 L1 topper with the Godzilla up there, and you do a black and white version of that. Here's why I think that would work, because you've got to go and make the black and white Godzilla figure that sits behind the bridge already. You already have the tooling for it. Toho, the licensors, approved it. So you have it there. You've got to make them anyway. Make another one for the topper in the same gray scale color, and then do a gray scale color-looking topper, and have that included, and call it the 70th anniversary package. Don't put a limited plaque on it, but you sell that, and then you could probably get 12,999 for MSRP or whatever you can get. I think that would be the way that I would pitch it if I was in on that meeting and being paid for my opinion, which I'm only tangentially kind of am. So that's what I would think. Let's see what happens. I don't hear any confirmation on any of that. But if I was planning on, you know, Stern, this was going to be the LE, the black and white LE version, and they were just going to come out with another run of 1,500 of these, right? That was the plan before the bad blowback from the 30th anniversary Jurassic Park. But I think you could still get the goal. The goal is to get money from the customers. And the way that you do that is you include all these in a package that are black and white. And, like, that's the only way to get them. They won't be available after market. What about black and white expression lights on Godzilla? What would that look like? All right, that would be the ultimate package. If they did a black and white version with, like, some white expression lights that were in there, We had the art blades and everything all ready to go. Because here's the thing. Everybody that owns a Godzilla has bought at least one mod for it. And many of us have poured a ton of money into getting every Lior mod for it, getting the Stumbler mods because they're so amazing, the integration with those little boards that he does, the lollipops.

16:17

You know, as far as like what the trans lights going to look like, is this going to look like a Jersey Jack game with a, you know, a 10 ADP, you know, 32 inch monitor in it? I have no idea. but apparently what we're going to see is the same layout that we've seen with the classic metallica probably reworked where it makes sense you know as games have been released and the new versions have come out improvements were made on them you know from early hobbits a black arrow edition you know some upgrades and things were made uh wizard of oz did the same thing by the time they got to the cherry brick road edition or whatever the heck they called it where they took out the monkey because it was causing problems so whatever problems existed with metallica reportedly have been fixed. I haven't heard if the subway's staying or not or if the hammer's being swapped out for something else. But what I am hearing, and this was pretty shocking to me, was that the original art package from that game is out. And actually, so is the Dirty Donnie artist. He won't be involved in this version of Metallica. But in fact, either the band or somebody else has picked an artist to do a complete overhaul art package of the play field, the cabinet. And I think that would mean taking Sparky out as well because that was Dirty Donnie's design. I don't know how much of this is true and how much is just fluff. People might be just feeding me toxic stuff, but this was pretty earth-shattering when I heard this. I got really interested in it. So I think we're getting the ultimate version of Metallica. The rumor was that the band visited the factory back at the old location, saw what was going on in the industry probably saw what Slash was doing with Jersey Jack and said we want something like that Not this you know red dot media display but we want like the big screen and everything And so this is apparently the culmination of that, uh, from the, the Sam era to the spike three, right? Cause Metallica, I don't think it was spike one. I think it was Sam. Um, that's what we're supposed to see. So this ultimate version of Metallica Don, when are we supposed to see it? Well, I guess it was supposed to be November, but due to softened sales and I guess availability on the production line, this may move up to like an August to September. Again, I don't know for sure. I'm not the pinball show. You know, I don't get inside, you know, I'm not a dealer, right? My distributor doesn't give me this type of information. I don't even know if this type of information is even solidified from Stern itself, but we may be seeing it a little sooner. So does that mean you need to go and take your Metallica LE and go throw it on pin side right now with everybody else is probably going to be doing the same thing because if I heard it, I know other people probably heard this too. I don't know. I guess not. Like if I owned one, I think the time to sell your Metallica in order to buy this next one was about three months ago. And so we missed that window and you would have to know about it before you would even know about it. So it is what it is. So if it's a game that you think you can get some money for and you're not playing it all that much anymore and you want to take it on some podcaster's rumor well knock yourself out um for me i'm gonna wait and see um if this game was revealed today and was available to buy at standard msrp i think i'd also wait as well partially because i have no room um you know and partially because i have no room that's that's basically that's basically the only reason i want this game but i'm willing to wait for it um because as we get closer and into the fall season i think We're going to see a whole lot of new stuff from everybody. American Pinball is going to have something. Make it He-Man. Will it be He-Man? If you're doing He-Man, would you please do a hero version and a villain version so I can go and buy the purple Skeletor version because that's what I want. I want to take a Snake Mountain play set and put it on as a topper and go all out with He-Man. We're going to see something new from Jersey Jack, and it might be Harry Potter, or it might be Muppets, or it might be something completely amazing. Stern's going to have another Cornerstone. On top of this one, will it be X-Men 97? Will it be an X-Men but not 97? Oh, what about that? I haven't heard that from a ton of sources, but that popped up somewhere. I forget where I saw it. But yeah, what if they did Avengers Infinity Quest style where like Avengers is like a huge movie franchise with Marvel, but rather than going through the hassle of licensing all the rights to all those characters and their actors and their call-outs, you just went to the comic book and just dumped the comic book out. and while Avengers was high energy and high interest level, you put out an Avengers game, but you don't have to pay for all the call-outs and everything and get the approvals and all that business. So would that be the same thing with X-Men? X-Men's hitting right now. Disney's doing this big media push with it. So you put an X-Men game out there and X-Men's back in the public consciousness? Sounds pretty shrewd. Sounds like a good business decision, although from a creative standpoint, I think I'd rather see the other stuff going on. So that's what I think. That's what I heard. uh mild that's the pro premium and le rumor of the week that i've got straight through to your ear holes because i'm going to regurgitate it out as soon as i get it uh what else do i have i've just been having fun man having fun in pinball just finished recording we are pinball version or episode number four with jengas that's out everywhere podcasts are available probably even where this one is available whether you're on podbean or you get google or apple podcast wherever we are pinballs out there a conversation format between myself and the jankster as we talk about pinball themes and whatever else happens to cross our minds so far it's been super fun heck i even got a line of merchandise for starting for it so if you want to get a t-shirt and represent a couple people i've already reached out to order them before i even announced them and they're already shipping their way out so you know if you want you can email us there at wearepinball69 at gmail.com or email me here at donspinballpodcast at gmail.com. Also, and follow the Facebook pages. We're all having fun. It's just pinball. Who cares?