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Episode 234 - On The Line of Exile

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 54s·held·Dec 8, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

2024 pinball year review: solid Stern output, expensive market, mixed IP choices, American Pinball struggles.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss 2024 pinball releases and industry trends, noting a conservative year marked by pricing pressures and mixed game reception. Major successes included Stern's Metallica Remastered and Uncanny X-Men, while John Wick flopped despite expectations. They critique American Pinball's Barry O's Barbecue Challenge as a thematic and conceptual failure, and discuss Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as polarizing. Dennis hints at a Rumor Corner exclusive: Cuphead is 'on the line' but 'not on the assembly line' at American Pinball.

Key Claims

  • John Wick underperformed significantly despite being expected to be a huge hit

    high confidence · Dennis: 'It is most definitely not [a huge hit]... John Wick ended up flopping way harder than probably anyone expected.'

  • Metallica Remastered limited to 500 units and sold quickly

    high confidence · Dennis: 'those Metallica remastered LEs, which were limited to 500, that went quick.'

  • Game sales in 2024 are down compared to 2023

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'I do think that game sales are down this year. I think it will be a weaker year than 2023 was for total sales.'

  • Avatar Battle for Pandora received mixed reception with praise for lighting but gameplay concerns

    medium confidence · Tony: 'I remember that the lighting got really really praised a lot of people who did play it had some issues with how the game played'

  • Barry O's Barbecue Challenge was American Pinball's worst release in company history

    high confidence · Dennis: 'this was their worst release in the history of the company' and 'it was clearly done by a bunch of people who know nothing and have no passion about barbecue'

  • American Pinball plans to use Barry O's layout as a white label game for different themes

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'they talk about using the layout as a white label game for different themes and stuff'

  • Cuphead at American Pinball is 'on the line' but 'not on the assembly line'

    medium confidence · Dennis Rumor Corner: 'it is on the line at American Pinball, according to the sources of Rumor Corner, but it is not on the assembly line at American Pinball'

Notable Quotes

  • “John Wick crashed and burned. Uh, somebody walked up and shot John Wick in the back of the head instead of the dog.”

    Dennis @ mid-discussion — Colorful summary of John Wick's unexpected commercial failure

  • “It is on the line at American Pinball, according to the sources of Rumor Corner, but it is not on the assembly line at American Pinball.”

    Dennis @ Rumor Corner segment — Cryptic hint about Cuphead status; distinguishes being 'on the line' from 'on the assembly line'

  • “I don't want to see drippy, drippy meats on my back box display. I just don't.”

    Tony @ Barry O's discussion — Visceral critique of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge theme execution

  • “Barbecue places don't want pinball machines. This is not Pizza Hut... It's all about the turn. It's all about getting the turnover on the tables.”

    Dennis @ Barry O's discussion — Market analysis of why barbecue theme fundamentally doesn't work for location placement

  • “I don't know what's going on with American Pinball. I never know what's going on with American Pinball. Every single thing about that company at this point makes zero sense to me.”

    Tony @ end of Barry O's discussion — Expression of deep confusion about American Pinball's direction and strategy

  • “Stern's definitely farming that remaster field. If you own Sam games, get ready for them to be devalued because, wow, Stern – all that told them was do it.”

    Dennis @ Metallica discussion — Signal of Stern's remaster strategy and potential secondary market impact on original Sam releases

  • “I think we're in a little bit of an interesting place when it comes to licensing and themes right now. It will be interesting to see what licenses and what things happen next year.”

    Dennis @ licensing discussion — Observation about conservative theme choices and IP licensing trends

  • “The JJP Avatar thing, that was a flash in the pan, it felt like.”

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyPinball BrotherscompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyEvil Dead Pinballgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball's strategic direction questioned by hosts; company appears unable to execute on IP or theme choices; Cuphead in limbo status

    high · Tony: 'I don't know what's going on with American Pinball... Every single thing about that company at this point makes zero sense to me'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts considering moving Rumor Corner behind Patreon paywall as rumors now widely available online in collated form; requests from listeners to bring segment back

    medium · Dennis: 'Rumor Corner doesn't really serve a good purpose anymore... They're so everywhere now. They're almost collated at this point'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Barry O's Barbecue Challenge criticized as conceptually and thematically flawed; themes don't align with actual barbecue restaurant operations and customer expectations

    high · Dennis: 'perhaps the worst concept and execution of a pinball theme I have seen... drippy meats... barbecue places don't want pinball machines'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Evil Dead theme integration praised as successful strategy despite horror IP limiting audience; Spooky leaned into sculpts, callouts, and accessories to enhance appeal

    high · Dennis: 'spooky's evil dead is... one of the best theme integrations done in years... they leaned into the sculpts and such to really encapsulate the world'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Conflicting rumors about Cuphead status at American Pinball; Rumor Corner provides clarification that it's 'on the line' but 'not on the assembly line'

    medium · Dennis: 'there have been rumors that it's on the line at American Pinball. And now there are rumors that it is not on the line at American Pinball'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.153

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, December 8th. This is episode 234. I am Tony. I'm Dennis. You're back. I am back. What's been going on? I had my trip to Florida, my 23 hours, because we changed our flight to an earlier flight. So I spent 23 hours in Florida, my first ever trip to Florida.
0:38
And it was almost all either doing work-related stuff or asleep. So Florida seemed nice for the short amount of conscious time not working that I was there. Yeah, that's great. It was warm, which was way better than up here. Yeah, it was pretty cold this last week in particular. So that wasn't bad.
1:02
I watched the Arcane finale since it had finally come out. I had a conversation going on our Discord about audiobooks,
1:13
and it had come up. Somebody had talked about they were listening to the audiobook of Sonny Bono's audiobook and was talking about how sad it was because it is like brutally sad to start, as they said, or I'm not Sonny Bono, Bono's book. I had the wrong name, Bono's book.
1:41
And it was brutally sad to start. And I was like, well, I don't know if I'm really in the mental place in the holiday time to listen to a brutally sad audio book and i needed to listen to an audio book because i was waiting for wind and truth to come out wind and truth didn't come out until friday after i got back from my trip so i needed a different book to listen to on my trip so i was like well matt deneman who did um dungeon crawler carl has several other books out including a standalone book called uh kaiju battlefield surgeon and i was like oh that's a standalone book. I'll just grab that and listen to it. And that'll get me through because it's like 20 hours and that'll get me through the trip and everything. And it did that very well. It got me through the trip. Probably should have paid more attention to the description of the book before I bought it and started listening to it. When the description opens with fantasy meets horror in this gore soaked standalone adventure um the the this book probably should have had uh the phrase on it trigger warning yes because it has all of the triggers in it i mean it was uh it was brutally sad and massively gory and very horrifying. And it was the first time where I ever had an audio book or even a book where I had to sit down at one point and decide, am I going to finish this story? Not because it was so bad. It was very enjoyable. It was written well. I was interested to see where it went. But there were points of time where I just wanted to skip sections of it because it was just so, so gruesome and had so much just straight up almost torture porn going on. And I'm just like, and I finished it, and I finished it, and it was a story. it it very festive it was it was brutal yeah i mean it was truly truly brutal uh and sad and disturbing and lots and lots and lots of uh mental health issues in that book so so i segued from that to wind and truth because you know it finally came out yeah it finally came out and i mean it the stormlight archive books are also rife with mental illness it's kind of a requirement to be a character in those books or at least to be a main characters you have to have uh some form of mental illness because they all do so uh yeah that's been enjoyable so far Okay. After a point. Other than that, the only other thing I did was in December, Amazon Prime got Babylon 5. And I haven't watched it in several years. And that's like my favorite sci-fi show. So that's what I've been watching when I've been watching stuff instead of listening to audiobooks or reading physical books or doing anything else. So it's been busy. Yeah. Bill, busy is good. Yeah, it is. It is the season. Yes, very much so. What have you been up to? Oh, a couple of games. So Callisto Protocol, I think I started it right around when we last recorded. I got that for my birthday, and I had it on my list a long time ago. I didn't remember what the game was about. So I was playing through it, and I was like, this is very Dead Space. And I guess the director of Dead Space is the director of Callisto Protocol. Oh, that makes sense. And then I was going along and I saw one of the YouTube channels I watch is What Happened. Right. Or the series that he has called What Happened. And a Wahabung came out on Callisto Protocol while I've been playing it because the game was plagued with issues. So anyway, I'm not through it yet. I feel like I'm getting close to the end. But yeah, so that is very much in that kind of mutated horror style. Not quite. it's a little more zombie-esque than Dead Space, but Dead Space is fairly zombie-esque, because the creatures looked less humanoid, I'd say. So anyway, but it's been fun. It's got a different combat mechanic, very melee-heavy style. Which, speaking of melee-heavy style, the other thing is, as of Thursday, Marvel Rivals finally released. So I had played the beta a few months ago of that game, so that's been pushed out. That is very much the hero-shooter style. however a lot of characters are exceedingly melee characters like they are in the comics and such so uh the number they're not directly ripping off overwatch characters yes when they're not so there's a lot of there's a lot of capable all right it is not lost on me that black widow plays like widow maker maybe that one's more on the nose than anyone else but yes but but but so on the nose that even calling out the name even though the character was created 50 some odd years before yes did you hear about that no oh no okay i'll shift this section because it's like five seconds in the video game section okay uh mike ybarra the former blizzard boss put out a tweet about marvel rivals complaining about how it was just a overwatch ripoff And one of his complaints was the fact that Black Widow was just a Widowmaker ripoff, even the name. Yeah, the name. And people started pointing out that the character of Black Widow was created 50-plus years before Overwatch existed.

Dennis @ Avatar discussion — Assessment of Avatar's limited cultural impact despite production quality

Metallica Remastered
game
Uncanny X-Mengame
John Wickgame
Jaws 50th Anniversarygame
Avatar Battle for Pandoragame
Barry O's Barbecue Challengegame
Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandgame
Cupheadgame
Princess Bridegame
Funhouse Remakegame
ABBAgame
Godzilla 70th Anniversarygame
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Pinbar Clayperson
  • $

    market_signal: 2024 described as 'conservative' year with companies holding line on pricing while raising accessory costs to protect margins; overall sales appear down

    high · Dennis: 'very conservative year... companies trying to hold the line on their game prices, while it does seem to me that some, namely Stern, seem to be trying to raise the prices on accessories'

  • $

    market_signal: Dennis identifies growing market pressure from pricing and perceived inflation impact on pinball sales, suggesting overall sales down from 2023

    high · Dennis: 'high perception of inflation, which while better than it had been, say, the prior year, has applied a lot of pressures on what people expect out of pinball'

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball appears to have limited 2024 output; Cuphead status unclear despite being only major title expected from company

    medium · Dennis: 'this was the only thing they put out in 2024' (Barry O's); implies Cuphead not released as expected

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Metallica Remastered unexpectedly successful, surprising Stern with strong demand despite limited 500-unit LE production

    high · Dennis: 'I think they were also surprised at how well Metallica Remastered did... those Metallica remastered LEs, which were limited to 500, that went quick'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Major sentiment shift on John Wick from anticipated hit to surprising commercial failure despite containing expected IP and gameplay elements

    high · Dennis: 'John Wick crashed and burned... it is most definitely not [a huge hit]... flopping way harder than probably anyone expected'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern appears to be farming remasters aggressively following Metallica's success; limited to 500 units to manage scarcity

    high · Dennis: 'Stern's definitely farming that remaster field... Metallica remastered LEs, which were limited to 500, that went quick'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Licensing and theme IP selection appears increasingly conservative in 2024; manufacturers repeating themes (X-Men, Pirates, Avatar, Guns N Roses) due to safety/familiarity

    medium · Dennis: 'I think we're in a little bit of an interesting place when it comes to licensing and themes right now... very conservative year'

    • 7:54
    He deleted the tweet. Yeah, he probably pretty much had to. Yeah, no, that's – he should have – honestly, it wouldn't even have taken that much research. He had to know the character of Black Widow was in the movies before Overwatch was out. So, I mean, that alone should have been like a clue.
    8:14
    Poor Mike. Very hard life. So anyway, I've been playing that. It's been fun so far. So I bought my little – it's like a half season for the first season. So I bought my season pass to work on my battle pass with that. And I would say the biggest thing, they added a lot of characters, so it really has quite a robust roster. Definitely not enough maps. They've got more than they did in the beta, but it still just feels very samey on the map front. Of course, Overwatch had years of time to develop a lot of maps. Anyway, but I have been enjoying that. So that is what I've been doing. And with all that said, let's go ahead and let's hop into pinball. Pinball time! All right. There's not a lot here. We were one of the earliest, thank you, Spooky, to cover Evil Dead Pinball in our prior episode. So that's what most of the shows that I have heard have been doing, has been talking about Evil Dead Pinball. But we talked about it first, so there's nothing. It's so weird. Normally we're the last people to talk about it. You ain't. First or last. But this time we were first. I don't know what to do with my hands, but I know to give Spooky credit for letting us go ahead and have that as a major selling point for this show. That it doesn't cost anyone money to listen to. However, I wanted to go ahead and open with a comment someone left on our Pinside thread. Pinbar Clay wrote and said, just want to say I love the show, never miss it, and had no idea there was a dedicated Pinside thread until Dennis mentioned it on the last episode. But for heaven's sake, stop depriving us of Rumor Corner.
    9:46
    All right. Well, the dedicated thread is really just – it's really just a link, the episodes. There are a few people that – mostly it's people posting corrections in the thread. It's not like an active thread. I honestly would discontinue the thread except it is one of our higher referral methods to show last I looked in terms of third-party sites. Whereas Tilt Forums, I finally dropped the thread. I posted a note I think a couple months ago on there saying I ain't getting any traffic from Tilt Forums, so I'm tired of logging in here and putting this link in because it's just a waste of time. But Pennside is not a waste of time. We do actually get some people that seem to just listen through Pinside for whatever reason. So anyway, that's why that thread exists. Rumor Corner doesn't really serve a good purpose anymore. There are rumors constantly being reported like in print media online at this point that if you want rumors, they're everywhere. They're so everywhere now. They're almost collated at this point. So I just don't really see the point in having a constantly going Rumor Corner. Tony and I have discussed the idea for Patreon at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers, going ahead and saying, you know what? Rumor Corner is going to be something that we put behind the paywall, and then we give it to you. We're still discussing that. However, because Pinbar Clay brought it up, I will give you a Rumor Corner right now.
    11:18
    Rumor Corner. Dennis Greasel's got the news before Napa Caves. Is that right, Tony? Yeah.
    11:32
    Okay, so here's the Rumor Corner rumor. Those of you who have been following the other rumors out there about American Pinball's Cuphead, you've probably been seeing, if you read the ones that are reported online, there have been rumors that it's on the line at American Pinball. And now there are rumors that it is not on the line at American Pinball. And I know what you all are saying. You are saying, Tony, Dennis, I need Rumor Corner. Help us. What is the reality? What is the truth?
    12:00
    Answer this mystery. Is it on the line or not? This is the answer. It is on the line at American Pinball, according to the sources of Rumor Corner, but it is not on the assembly line at American Pinball. Well, that's weird. Indeed. What does it mean? That is the mystery of the corner. I only have one question for you, Tony. Are you not room retained? I guess. I'm still trying to figure out how it's on the line, but not on the assembly line. It's not on the assembly line, but it's on some other line. That's what that means. I wonder if it means it in the it like in queue It in the file to the ether man man They in the cloud The cloud They making sure it all the wibblies wibble and the watch it watch it and it goes ping ping ping and all the good stuff before it goes on the line to be assembled Well, one never dives too deeply into the mysteries of Rumor Corner. We really just allow it to exist in its corner and provide rumors. So there you go. That's Rumor Corner. All right. last thing that I have for the pinball section is actually a discussion for us to hold about pinball for this year. So because things are super light, as we had noted, you know, there's not much in the wake of Evil Dead that has happened in the hobby. We're near the end of 2024. We've got one more episode here before just before Christmas. And then is that our last episode of 2024 i think it is i think so anyway we're close it's like right before right we're close because we got one like a couple days before christmas so um yeah we've got one on the 22nd that's the last one of the year yep all right so i figured all right um we might who knows what sort of recap things we'll plan for that we're not at the point of we're writing up those show notes uh but for this one i wanted to go ahead and have a chat because i don't really expect much in the way of well i mean if there's if there's a new release there's a new release and we'll cover it like a new release. I would be amazed if there was a new release. You never know with Stern. I mean, a lot of times they have put out something in December. I'm not really expecting it in the wake of their remaster of Metallica coupled with it hasn't been that long for Uncanny X-Men, but you never necessarily know. It just sort of depends on if they want to get a head start on their January release. If they want to do something like that, they might release it post-Christmas before New Year's. They could. I personally don't think so, though I think we're not going to see anything from them until the new year. However, I thought we should have just a little conversation, just a little back and forth, Tony, about things that we thought were sort of the most interesting, good, bad, or whatever, just as long as they're interesting in terms of 2024 happenings. I'm keeping that pretty general. But in order to serve as a refresher so we know, and this is not comprehensive because you get nuanced when you start throwing in things like the anniversary, 70th anniversary, black and white Godzilla and all the rest of it. But here are some of the key 2024 releases that did happen. Obviously, Evil Dead from Spooky is the most recent. Out of Stern, we saw Metallica's remastering, which is more than a vault. So I threw it in here. It was seen as a big deal. Uncanny X-Men, John Wick. Jaws was real early in the year, but it is a 2024 release. DPX, PX, PX, PX. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. JJP, we got the Avatar Battle for Pandora. Not Elton John. That was actually last year. Pedretti Gaming did the Funhouse remake. Pinball Brothers did ABBA. American Pinball had Barry O's Barbecue Challenge and The Princess Bride out of Multimorphic. I would say those are some of the, I would name those as the key releases of 2024. So kind of using that, but we can talk about anything besides the games if we want. But I was just kind of wondering, Tony, anything you want to start with an item that you thought was really interesting, good or bad, but just that you found sort of interesting in pinball this year. I need to play more of these games. That's what's interesting.
    16:02
    Much like you, I've not had a chance to go out and play games quite as much as I was used to there for a while. This whole year has been kind of rough for me when it's come to actually going out and playing games. So I've not gotten a lot of time on all of the new ones. Several of them I've gone out and played, but I've not been being as deep a part of the tournament scene as I used to be. So it has been more of a I go out and play on my own time type thing. But I think overall, the big thing this year, and I think the big driving thing that we're going to be looking at, especially going into next year, is just going to be the cost of things and how the changing economic realities affects the hottie as a whole. I think that's going to be the big thing.
    17:00
    It could be. I don't think it's going to be the most interesting thing. The most interesting thing is always going to be to see what new games come out and which ones should be a huge hit and don't. Uh, obviously John Wick crashed and burned. Uh, somebody walked up and shot John Wick in the back of the head instead of the dog. Uh, it's the game that I would have expected to have been a huge hit just off out the gate. And it is most definitely not, uh, Avatar is, I've, I've not had a chance to play it, But I'm always – it's weird to me to see basically repeat themes coming out from other companies. It's weird. And it's weird to me that JJP has done it twice.
    17:50
    Yeah. I mean, it is interesting. But, I mean, even Stern repeats their own themes too, like X-Men. Like X-Men. So, I mean, it's one of those weird things that there's so much out there to see repeats, especially when repeats aren't necessarily – Specifically, I mean, I guess I can see Avatar. It's been a long time since the last Avatar came out. But then, like, Pirates. I don't know that Pirates really needed a repeat when it had happened. But obviously that wasn't this year. Sure. But Guns and Roses, too. Guns and Roses, that was definitely a repeat. And some people loved that game.
    18:28
    It's an interesting – I think we're in a little bit of an interesting place when it comes to licensing and themes right now. It will be interesting to see what licenses and what things happen next year. Yeah, I think this is a very – I'm going to use the word conservative. It's a very conservative year, not surprising in the wake of the pandemic, in the wake of people now getting back to doing more travel and other things, and in the wake of at least a high perception of inflation, which while better than it had been, say, the prior year, has applied a lot of pressures on what people expect out of pinball. I think we've seen companies trying to hold the line on their game prices, while it does seem to me that some, namely Stern, seem to be trying to raise the prices on accessories in an attempt to make the profit margins that they were hoping to do by upping game prices. But they worry about the impact on sales, which I believe, despite – I can't say from all accounts, but despite certain accounts, I do think that game sales are down this year. I think it will be a weaker year than 2023 was for total sales. Even though, by and large, it does seem like it's a mixed reaction on gaming this year. I think Stern actually overall had a pretty solid year. I agree with you. John Wick ended up flopping way harder than probably anyone expected. Obviously, there was the controversy of the lack of guns in the art that caused a lot of people to really hate on that game early on. However, we saw the same thing happen with Jaws and Shark No Eat Ball being a whole huge thing, something that Stern ended up leaning into with a lot of humor, doing things where people could even stick a ball in the mouth of the toy shark on the game and stuff, really playing into that. And that being said, on the flip side with John Wick, there are lots of guns and gunplay in the video assets that go on in the game. But regardless, having played John Wick, there's plenty of reason not related to controversy about why that game is not popular. Yeah, I agree. Because it's not that fun of a game, in my opinion. But everything else that they did was. So we have not played the Uncanny X-Men. However, the fan response has been huge. Jaws is probably of all the games I have played of 2024 releases it's my favorite of the year easily which isn't too surprising given it's an L1 title but it's a fun player if you don't want to play the technicality game I would agree with you I'm not playing no technicality if you wanted to play the technicality game in that case then like you said Godzilla is the best game of the year because they had the special anniversary I haven't played that version It doesn't matter.
    21:15
    I've played enough Godzilla to know that it's better than any of the other games this year. But that doesn't count because that's not technically a this year game.
    21:24
    And I do think Stern was, while they were probably surprised at how poorly John Wick did, I think they were also surprised at how well Metallica Remastered did. That game. I mean, people have talked a lot of praise about the Uncanny X-Men, but it was pretty easy, even with a reduced count, to get a hold of an LE. those Metallica remastered LEs, which were limited to 500, that went quick. And, of course, that is a very successful layout.
    21:51
    And so I think that – Yeah, that – yeah. So Stern's definitely farming that remaster field. If you own Sam games, get ready for them to be devalued because, wow, Stern – all that told them was do it. Do it. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that Metallica is probably one of their best music pens. Oh, yeah. And one that didn't have a history of a lot of vaults. Right. Like ACDC got vaulted a lot. Yes. There were some other games in the Sam lineup that had a lot of vaults. Iron Man, of course, is probably the most famous. Star Trek got vaults.
    22:24
    So there are plenty of other Sam games that didn't. And even if they did get vaults at this point, if they're going to do video assets and stuff, I think there's going to be a lot of room for growth out of that. Yeah, the JJP Avatar thing, that was a flash in the pan, it felt like. again I still haven't played it so I have no comment on the gameplay however I just remember that the lighting got really really praised a lot of people who did play it had some issues with how the game played not that it played like not like it had not to the degree of like John Wick which was also a new designer but rather that it just I don't know in some very general level it didn't really quote unquote work for people like they I don't know if it was so much the rules as the layout but just like it felt like there wasn't a lot there compared to you know everyone's always going to go back and compare to wizard of oz and such um i'd say spooky's evil dead is i would have said it would is one of the best theme integrations done in years except labyrinth already kind of set by standards so but i think it's right there with labyrinth in terms of like they leaned into the sculpts and such to really uh try and encapsulate the world of evil dead which as we talked about last episode was really smart for them because as a basically a pure horror theme it will struggle to find a wide audience so you've just got to really lean in on people that are okay with having horror uh getting this because it's got bruce's voice in it it's got the clips from the show and it's got the sculpts that are celebrating it's got a really cool topper and all of that sort of thing and so i think they did the best they could with a theme that they love more than the world loves um so pretty smart there um in terms of negatives uh i do want to i mean some of this stuff again flash in the pan sorts of things i i for a hot minute i heard about the funhouse remake and then i kind of quit hearing about the funhouse remake it's funhouse it's not the it's not the game that would be at the top of my list to remake but but um but i imagine it's done all right uh pinball brothers abba barely ever hear anything about that i've heard it plays better than queen which we have played and correct and uh but it's a less popular band at least in the states than queen was so uh so again you don't you don't hear too much about it um i remember there was a little bit of buzz like at tpf regarding the princess bride but i I don't know. I haven't seen a wave of people saying like they did with Weird Al where it's like we are going to get a P3 now. I haven't. But I don't follow all the same threads I used to. So true. I just don't know if it had some cool features to it, but it just it didn't seem to get the same. Even though I think it's a better pick than Weird Al, it didn't seem to get the same reaction like Weird Al did when it was announced. But again, that was in the pandemic and people were different. Right. Well and I feel like the kind of people who are like oh wow I going to give multi a chance and oh I really excited about this were pulled into the weird out A large number of them don own a machine anymore I talked to a lot of them who got their machine and had it for a short time And then we're just like, no, this isn't what I want. I don't want it in my collection and got rid of it. Well, and that, I mean, for most pinball collectors, that's a pretty typical thing that they know. Like getting rid of a machine is normal. So it just doesn't lend itself to their model. their particular business model. Correct. However, again, the overall reaction to the gameplay, I remember playing Princess Bride, and I thought it was fun. I thought so.
    26:02
    There are two standouts that I think were, I mean, saying it's like John Wick, which we already talked about. There are two standouts for games that have not done so well. But that depends on what we mean by not done so well. So the first one that sales-wise did perfectly fine but got judged hardcore, including by me, was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a very polarizing game hiding behind its sculpts where it still, I think, sold out. Oh, I'm sure. But reaction to, there is no code of note in it, mixed reaction to the animation and display, polarizing art package, terrible layout,
    26:42
    and of course, the notion of whether or not it is okay to celebrate J-pop at this stage, which basically, even though he wasn't involved with the project, was taking his design and changing just enough of it to actually make it work.
    26:58
    Right. Very. That one was a weird one to me, even though I think people saw it coming from a mile away, given the nature of what was getting set up with DPX. And then one that you and I do have experience, multiple games worth of experience on, Barry O's Barbecue Challenge. perhaps the worst concept and execution of a pinball theme I have seen in my entire time in this hobby. And I was in this hobby when WWE came out.
    27:28
    Seriously, nothing from how often it broke. The very first game you and I played at TPF reset on us. It did. After the first ball was done to a layout, which is not the worst layout in the world, but is just a hodgepodge of berry tropes to just dripping meats rotate. I mean, you talked about the kaiju surgeon and traumatizing with gore. But I mean, I like delectable barbecue. I'm in Kansas City. We, you know, for us, but barbecue is like the political solution to everything. But I don't want to see drippy, drippy meats on my back box display. I just don't. The hot rod aspect to the game felt like it was in, at least at the time we played it, was in no way integrated to the theme. It was a bad theme. And again, barbecue is life out here, and it's a bad theme. And then you start hearing notions like the expectation that barbecue joints were going to buy the game. It's like, you do not, you don't understand barbecue. Look, this, again, this is the third time I'm saying it in as many seconds. This is barbecue country here. Barbecue places don't want pinball machines. This is not Pizza Hut. Look, you walk in. There are two things you do. You stand in line to get your barbecue, and you eat your barbecue. It's already made. It's barbecue. You're not sitting there waiting for them to bake burnt ends. It's not a pizza. And these places out here, if they are sucky barbecue, they go out of business right away. We only tolerate good barbecue around here. So there's no need to have pinball machines to keep you in a barbecue place. It's all about the turn. It's all about getting the turnover on the tables. A bar and grill, a pub, a pizza place, it can make sense to have a game room for a variety of reasons. For a barbecue joint, all that floor space is wasted money that could have been made on tables. Totally missing the market. It is not a market that will buy that sort of stuff. It's not a car dealership with plenty of showroom space. It's not how barbecue works. but it was clearly done by a bunch of people who know nothing and have no passion about barbecue because you didn't own it barry may have had that passion but unfortunately he wasn't there when the game finally came out to be able to tell them barbecue joints are not going to be buying this game get real guys but if they had any knowledge of pinball once they played this they'd be like no i don't want to drive customers away i don't want to drive away my customers it was so And I had no expectations. Oh, yeah. I was like you. I had zero expectations. But when you consider the polarizing and I would argue flawed release of Galactic Tank Force, Galactic Tank Force at least tried to do something that felt like it wanted to be pinball. This is – and then they talk about using the layout as a white label game for different themes and stuff. I'm just like I don't know what's going on with it. I never know what's going on with American Pinball. this was their worst release in the history of the company.
    30:30
    And I, what a sad thing, but this was the only thing they put out in 2024. Yeah. Cause I ain't no cuphead with you.
    30:39
    So I don't get American pinball at all. I, it doesn't make any sense to me. Every single thing about that company at this point makes zero sense to me. But anyway, so, okay, that's just, I thought we would have a fun little chat about pinball for 2020. No, I mean, there was some interesting stuff. There were some good things. There were some bad things. I mean, I don't think it was the best year since we started the podcast, but I don't think it was the worst year since we started the podcast for pinball stuff. There were a decent number of games that came out. Yeah. So we at least had stuff to talk about. It's not like some of those early years where our year-end review would be us talking about everything Stern put out, That was it because nobody else put a game out that year. Yeah.
    31:26
    The year where Rush won everything. That was a really light year. That was a light year. All right. Well, we can go ahead and go over to video games. We actually did get a couple of emails related to video games, so I put them in the start of our video game segment. The first one was written by – they're both from a Chris, but different Chrises. So the first email was from Chris G., who wrote in and said, Dennis, don't fall into the trap of playing work the game. Excuse me, satisfactory with Tony. You work hard enough. I welcome a Daft Punk game. Well, the Daft Punk part was a reference to pinball, but I put this in because clearly Chris does not want me to fall into the trap Travis Murray did and start playing satisfactory.
    32:12
    And he's using his words to fight against what you've tried to do. seduce people into building factories. I mean, if you let Satisfactory take total control of your life,
    32:26
    this qualifier is so specific. He is correct. It does become work the game. I play it, but I've not been playing it to that extent. I specifically will go out of my way to play other things instead of it just so that I don't fall into the I get off of work and then I sit down and when it's time to relax, I start working again. So I think it's a very important thing because it is a game you can fall into that. I understand where he's coming from. He's not wrong. I should probably avoid it then. But it is definitely a game that lends itself to that. well chris g wanted to warn me uh chris c did not want to warn us but he did want to alert us he wrote in uh saying just gonna leave this right here and he posted i put a screen grab of of part of what he had but it was a link to reddit uh which was a thread discussing how star citizen has now raised over three-fourths of a billion dollars in funding and given you've followed star citizen for so long i thought this might be a good time for you to i know we talked about it not all that long ago but yeah like last step like last episode but now with this with this threshold being reached i thought tony what i mean yeah they did this is a lot of money it's a lot of money and there's still it depends on some people will say there's a lot to show for it there's people who've been playing star citizen in its various alpha builds for years now it's open free weekend or like two weeks free for everybody thing that they did, went over really well. It did a very good job, and they got a lot of people buying in and a lot of good press. They're getting closer to the release of Squadron 42. They're supposedly in line. It's coming up soon. I don't know what soon is, sometime in the next couple of years.
    34:35
    They've released some cinematics from Squadron 42 that are, I'll be honest, they're amazing. They look really good. It's some really interesting stuff.
    34:50
    It's also at the point that the audio for Squadron 42 was recorded so many years ago. I read an article that one of the voice actors forgot that they were in it until they saw the trailer and heard themselves. They're like, oh, yeah, I forgot I recorded that. That's funny. Because it was so long ago.
    35:11
    But I just can't. There's been starting over the last several years to be more and more pushback about it being this never-coming, never-ending game that's just earning huge amounts of money. And they had all sorts of issues, and the return to the office stuff that they fired up last year caused some issues and some waves throughout the community. But it's still rolling along. I've still not played it. I bought into it when it initially launched all those years ago.
    35:48
    My $100 is part of that almost a billion dollars. You're a part of that. I'm part of that, but we'll see. I mean, it is. What are they showing? They're showing that 5,400,000 people have bought in to it. So I wonder how many of those people don't even remember it. I wonder how many of those people are not alive anymore. I'm sure there's a good number of them.
    36:22
    We'll see. Okay. I don't know. We'll see where that one goes. Well, thank you for sharing your thoughts on Chris's email. All right, so what have we got that is not Star Citizen related? Well, big thing. Been some talk about in the Discord. The early access to Path of Exile 2 launched Friday. I'm not playing that because I'm busy playing Marvel. I'm not playing it either. I've been trying to thin out my early access games. but they had more than a million early access redemptions. They even came out and said, okay, there's probably going to be some queues opening weekend. There's just no way around it. And they did have multiple launch issues, which, again, isn't a surprise for an early access game with that many people trying to get it. From some people I've talked to, though, it sounds like for an early access game, it's pretty good. so none of their issues have been hugely groundbreaking so good for them, I mean Path of Exile is definitely the game for the people who like the just left my head yeah what style of game is it? I don't even remember it's a Diablo style game but that kind of looter type game So the original Path of Exile kind of became the big thing when Diablo 3 failed So Path of Exile 2 will hopefully let people scratch that itch who have not been happy with Diablo 4 So we see we see how that one goes As much as i hate to say this i not surprised at this at all nintendo alarmo hardware was their hardware release the october hardware beautiful has been so popular it's so cool except for the one with making the splatoon sounds to wake you up that it has they've had to delay its full release in japan because they don't have enough So far, it's only had a full release in Europe and the U.S. In Japan, it's only being released to Nintendo subscribers, the big Switch subscribers. Prolex killer. But they're so far behind on making them, and they're so popular that they've pushed back their general release. Because if you ordered one right now today in Japan, you wouldn't get it until sometime in February. That's how popular Alarmo is. That's right. You didn't believe in it. I was like, it's a cool clock. People are going to love it. People love watches and clocks. They just don't know it. Apparently. Nintendo has also, in their ongoing fight with the modding community and more specifically the piracy community, has – let's go deeper. one of the a subreddit that was called like switch pirates or something like that yeah it was kind of on the nose it was on the nose it was super obvious what it was it wasn't we like trees we make we make pirate ships out of sticks oh that would have been so cool though now i went there to be we make them out of switches switches yay uh but they're pirating switch stuff one of the mods of the subreddit turned out to be, surprise of surprise, a huge pirate that they're suing and they're going after. And they filed to get information from all 200,000 subreddit members because they think a lot of them were involved in piracy as well. For some reason, these people on a piracy subreddit they thought might be involved with piracy. They're going on a fishing expedition. so uh with yeah we'll see we'll see how it goes we'll we'll see how that well that works through the courts for them but um maybe don't do your illegal stuff online like directly just like everybody who's committing crimes don't live stream yourself robbing the bank it doesn't help you in any way shape or form or when you go really really fast in your car that you're purportedly reviewing and then you blur out the speedometer and don't remember that that car also has a speedometer over by the glove box yeah yeah don't do that yeah don't do that either basically don't just don't do stuff don't do don't do crime yeah well here's the thing maybe don't drive 100 miles an hour through a school zone maybe maybe maybe no matter how much you like your cyber truck cyber type i did see a funny video online where they were somebody they they they they slashed up the video of the the the cyber truck selling oh it's got all the space to store your stuff and it's and it seals so in the rain your kids stuff in the back doesn't get wet and it's so they'll doing the clips of that interspersed with the lady opening up the rear of her hearse and showing how much stuff you can store in the purse and all that's funny i i like those ones i've seen a few of them where they'll they'll clip the person like doing the show-off ASMR where she'll tap stuff and she'll go, Rolls Royce. And then there's someone else that does it like, You go. It was very much that style of video, but instead of the Cybertruck, it was a hearse.
    42:13
    And then when it ends, the Cybertruck is all driving off and stuff, and then it flips over to the hearse, and you just hear Dragula blaring as loud as he can. Dragula, yes, yes. So, Foam Stars from Square Enix. No, Foam Star. It had such a great year from its launch back in the early spring or like maybe even late winter. Call it February or March launch. And then in October, it went free to play because it was doing so well. Yes, always the greatest sign. It's always the best sign when you go to free to play less than a year after release. Well They're kicking out a new season Called The Party Goes On Oh yeah It's the final season Oh yeah And they're going to end overall support For the game They're leaving the servers up For now They're leaving the game active and out there But They're not going to be doing any more major work And no content will be created for the game after this. They're just going to create a thing where you can basically choose of the several seasons that have come out while the game's been open.
    43:32
    You'll just be able to go back through and choose one of them and play it. That's it. Okay. The Splatoon killer failed. If only they had been in Alarmo. They'd have had a chance. That's what they should have been. They needed more hardware. That was the problem. It should have shipped with a foam gun. uh playstation has there are reports coming out of no surprise that they're working on a handheld version of the ps5 you think they'll call it something fun like the ps high five you know i'd say no that's silly but the truth of the matter is i'm sorry is is i mean they literally called their last portable the psp so i mean they'll they'll do something right well i I mean, that one was on the nose, but... Right. But it wouldn't surprise me if they did something weird. I was just thinking because it fits in your hand, so high five. It melts in your hand, not on your console.
    44:31
    Okay. Well, the amended version. Yeah. It'll be a big hit. It'll be huge. I mean, Microsoft has talked about it. Everybody's talked about it. The Steam Deck has done extremely well on the PC side for Steam, so we could see it. One of these days, Microsoft has decided that they're going to get rid of Xbox avatars. Dennis, your avatar is going to die. No, I don't even know where he hides anymore. He's gone. He's out there living on, but not for long. Not for long. To be fair, this is only the new avatar system since Xbox One. Yes. The original Xbox 360 avatars, they're fine. They're not getting rid of those avatars. Those avatars are hardwired into the system. There's so many things that actively require them. There are games that make you play with the avatars. So they're not getting rid of those. It's only the new avatars that they rolled out for the Xbox One series stuff that they're like, there's not enough engagement. We're getting rid of it. Well, they're not on the dashboard or anything anymore. They used to be a big part of the console's menu system. Right. And they just aren't. Like, I don't know where to find my avatar, quite frankly. Well, nobody uses it. But if somebody did use it and spent money on the cosmetics, they're going to be refunded that money. Oh, that's nice. My 360 one, one of my little cosmetics, I don't think I ever bought a cosmetic. But you used to be able to sometimes get them, like, achievements. You'd get them for certain things. And so I have the little Meat Boy from Super Meat Boy as my companion. and I had to win Super Meat. That's why I won Super Meat Boy. I wanted the little pet. I wanted the pet meat. And that game was so hard. And I have never won a hard platformer since I won Super Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy was a hard game. It was. And for those that are like, really? You're that good? You got through Cotton Candy Alley or whatever it was called? No, just a regular game as Meat Boy. Not the other. Not the Super. Like, it was Meat Boy. So it was like, no, there was more harder than what I did. That was hard enough. You didn't have to go through the new game plus where they're like, oh, okay, you think you're good. Time to go cry in the corner. Yeah. I had to get through all the regular levels and go and rescue bandage girl and get back out with her. I got through and I got to her. I was like, yes, I did it. And then it's like, no, now you must go back the way you came. I'm like, no.
    47:04
    And now it's an escort quest. Oh, Baldur's Gate 3. Oh, my gosh. Still? It's been out forever. It's been out for over a year. Their actual playership, we talked about it last episode, is higher now than it's ever been since the mods came out. The Game Awards changed the rules to allow DLC to count as a new game so that Baldur's Gate 3 has a chance to win again. Well, and it probably will. And if that's not enough Considering Liren has basically said Oh no we're done with Baldur's Gate We're moving on to our new games now That said Next year they're putting out Patch 8 which is to be the last Major patch That includes 12 new subclasses So a new subclass For every one of the classes And full cross play. So if me on my computer wants to play with you on Xbox, we can.
    48:10
    I might finally get this game. That's all going to be part of their patch 8. So that's going to drive their numbers even higher. Okay.
    48:21
    And to end on an upper, a high note. I hate that we still talk about this game. I love it, actually. I hated it when I saw it come out I laughed when it was a piece of trash I know it's not a piece of trash anymore It just goes to show If you give yourself almost 10 more years to work on something Anything could be turned around You can polish a turd that's for sure Just takes enough time and elbow grease No Man's Sky 8 years after release Has now on Steam moved up to very positive. Yay.
    49:03
    Eight years. That's all it takes. So you're saying there's a chance. From the overwhelming negative, just complete crash and burn that this game was on launch, it's now like the shining beacon of I can fix it. It can be done. We have the money. so see and then we see what happens with foam stars and you're like why don't you try square they just need to try harder they just need to put more time into it eight years polish it i mean it's just no man's sky to have spent all this time and moved it up so much compared to like concord that was out for 12 days and then they deleted it and gave everybody their money back They were like, let's pretend this has never been made.
    49:54
    This isn't the game you're looking for. Concord, isn't that a grape? What are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. Didn't he spend years and millions of dollars on that game? I don't even work in gaming. I don't know what you're talking about. I do tax software. What do you mean?
    50:12
    So there we are, Dennis. There's our video game look. Okay. Well, we will have one more episode of 2024. We will. out in a couple of weeks just before Christmas so you'll have something to listen to while you drive to the in-laws. But until then, if you want to reach out to us about anything to discuss, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. You can also reach us at facebook.com eclecticgamerspodcast. And as I mentioned earlier in the show, we are at patreon.com eclectic underscore gamers where you can support the show for as little as a dollar a month. We're at Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And so we will be back in two weeks Until then, my name is Dennis. I have been Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.