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Pinball Galore

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 24m·analyzed·Aug 14, 2014
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.040

TL;DR

Blockade crew covers pinball marketing, new games (Hobbit, Big Lebowski, Deadpool), and Farsight TPA platform technical strategy.

Summary

The Blockade Pinball Podcast hosts discuss Stern and Jersey Jack's marketing efforts at Comic-Con, Dutch Pinball's Big Lebowski table in development, Zen Studios' Deadpool and Diner tables, Jersey Jack's upcoming Hobbit release, and extensive discussion of Farsight's Pinball Arcade platform challenges on mobile devices including potential hardware cutoffs and the need for a version 2.0 rebuild.

Key Claims

  • Stern Pinball had Iron Man and Metallica machines at Comic-Con San Diego with Kurt Hammett present for autographs

    high confidence · Host (Shut Your Trap) directly observed and discussed Stern's presence at Comic-Con with specific machine examples

  • Spooky Pinball's one-off Godzilla machine has been in service for approximately seven years and experiences mechanical failure (lightning flipper spinning)

    medium confidence · Referenced from Spooky's recent podcast episode; describes flipper failure during use at Godzilla Fest

  • Dutch Pinball is developing Big Lebowski pinball with painted (non-photo) artwork and three playfield levels including bowling mechanics

    high confidence · Host discovered announcement and describes detailed features visible on BigLebowskyPinball.com including promotional rug offer

  • Jersey Jack Pinball's Hobbit is set for release when the third movie comes out (approximately December)

    high confidence · Host and guests discuss confirmed release timing and licensing constraints around movie clips

  • Zen Studios removed Guardians of the Galaxy references due to obtaining the license, releasing the table in parallel with the movie

    medium confidence · Hosts discuss Zen's timing strategy with movie releases as cross-promotion opportunity

  • Farsight's Pinball Arcade has a dedicated Android developer on staff who participates in forums

    medium confidence · Bonzo (Jared) provides update from Android forum community; developer identity not confirmed on-air

  • NVIDIA Shield tablet uses Tegra K1 chip and supports DirectX 11/12, making it capable of running high-quality Android gaming with PC-level performance

    high confidence · Bonzo provides technical specifications and discusses capability to handle higher-fidelity TPA assets

  • Zen Studios refunded customers when they had to discontinue platform support (360 to Xbox One transition) and delayed Xbox One launch to enable table transfers

Notable Quotes

  • “I just never made the connection before—pinball and comics go hand-in-hand. Stern at Comic-Con makes total sense with all their Marvel properties.”

    Shut Your Trap (host) @ early in episode — Establishes the marketing insight that drove the whole discussion about manufacturer booth presence at conventions

  • “Deadpool's sitting there mocking saying 'who puts a mini pinball table on a pinball table?' and then 'this has got to be better than the Iron Man table we put out earlier.' It's so self-referential and captures the spirit of the character.”

    Shut Your Trap @ mid-episode during Zen discussion — Highlights Zen's design philosophy of thematic consistency and meta-humor in Deadpool pinball

  • “These guys have got huge pedigree and thank God, no photos—all painted imagery, realistic painted imagery back to that old style of art.”

    Shut Your Trap @ Big Lebowski discussion — Praises Dutch Pinball's artistic direction choice to use traditional painted art over photography

  • “They've probably already shipped their one-off Godzilla machine to the event for about seven years, and it really only gets an outing to Godzilla Fest. It gets hammered by kids and adults and the flipper completely spun around and failed on them.”

    Jeff Strong @ Spooky discussion — Demonstrates how heavily machines are used at conventions and the durability challenges

  • “If Farsight were to enable something like dynamic lighting on Android, that would be enough reason for me to repurchase over time. I would be happy to throw more money their way.”

    Bonzo (Jared) @ TPA version 2.0 discussion — Articulates what community would accept as justification for re-purchase of TPA content

  • “I think at some point they should create a separate app that is nothing but Stern and modern Stern that can handle current software. If that completely wipes out 360 and PS3, so be it.”

    Bonzo @ TPA platform strategy section — Proposes radical platform segmentation strategy to unblock TPA development

  • “Imagine being able to take a table with you to tournaments and play it in digital form with accurate physics and get deep time to learn the rule set. That would help you excel in tournaments.”

Entities

Blockade Pinball PodcastorganizationStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyDutch PinballcompanyZen StudioscompanyFarsight StudioscompanySpooky PinballcompanyBig Lebowski Pinball

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Farsight potentially unable to absorb customer refunds if forced to cut off older iOS/Android device support; unlike Zen Studios' historical approach, Farsight's financial capacity questioned

    medium · Bonzo notes Zen refunded customers during platform transitions but 'I'm not sure whether Farsight might be able to absorb' refunds; implies financial fragility

  • ?

    community_signal: Farsight Studios has hired dedicated Android developer on staff who participates in community forums; improvement from previous multi-hat arrangement

    medium · Bonzo confirms from Android forum knowledge; notes developer is 'forum enabled which is awesome'; developer identity not disclosed on-air

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dutch Pinball intentionally using painted (non-photographic) realistic artwork for Big Lebowski instead of digital/photo imagery; positions as return to classic art style

    high · Host emphasizes 'thank God, no photos' and praises 'painted imagery, realistic painted imagery back to that old style of art'

  • ?

    event_signal: Spooky Pinball's custom Godzilla machine has been in service at Godzilla Fest for ~7 years with recent mechanical failure (lightning flipper malfunction)

    medium · Referenced from Spooky's recent podcast; indicates machine durability challenges under heavy public use at conventions

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Zen Studios removed Guardians of the Galaxy references upon obtaining full license; released table in parallel with movie release for cross-promotional impact

    medium · Hosts discuss Zen's timing strategy and licensing implications; used as example of effective movie tie-in marketing

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.252

0:00
B-b-b-baby! It's Dying Time! Spanning the globe, this is the Block A Podcast. Hey, joining us today is Jeff Strong. Howdy. Jared Margs, from a bathroom. G'day, mates. From the telephone booth on the highway. We've kicked him out of the sound recording booth And down into a basement that's all tiled in Because we just don't want to stare at him That's right I'm pretty used to it in Australia We're always down under somewhere Exactly We also have Bonzo with us Guten Tag And I'm your host, Shut Your Trap Here comes the rush Order up So, we've got a relatively pain-free episode for you all today, in that we really don't have anything wonderful to talk about, so this can be a little loose, a little goosey, and we'll see where we go from there, but we're going to try and add a little more pinball than usual, as well as all the other crap that we like to talk about.
1:16
What about slurpees? Come on. We might squeeze in a slurpee talk or two, but they're not really doing anything this month, so nothing terribly exciting there.
1:30
You know, I want to say, since joining Twitter, I've started to understand the benefits of joining Twitter. By the way, you can reach me at ShutYourTraps. You can reach the podcast at Blockade. And I don't think either of you two had... Bonsai, you don't have a Twitter account, do you?
1:47
I do, but I usually don't use it. but you were just about to tell me why I should. It's hashtag Drexclown, if anyone's interested.
2:01
Okay, and obviously Jared is at Jared Morgz. No, so I started... No, hashtag. Got that wrong already. Yeah, hashtag is what you want to talk about. Don't use Twitter, man. So I started following Stern Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball, and I was amazed at how often they're actually active.

medium confidence · Host references Zen's historical approach to handling platform transitions; implies Xbox delay was customer-driven

  • Stern Pinball discussed digital pinball strategy in a recent Wired Magazine interview, expressing enthusiasm for digital companion apps

    medium confidence · Host references recent Stern interview in Wired; specific quotes not provided

  • Dutch Pinball (Big Lebowski developers) previously re-engineered Pinbot with new dot-matrix displays described as 'arguably some of the best dots ever'

    high confidence · Host and guests confirm Dutch Pinball's pedigree with Brighter Pinbot restoration; widespread industry recognition cited

    • Shut Your Trap @ Digital companion app discussion — Outlines competitive and practical value proposition for Stern digital companion strategy

  • “If they were to do a cutoff at the end of Season 3 and just say 'here are the new specs you have to have,' it would draw a line in the sand.”

    Bonzo @ TPA hardware strategy — Proposes specific business decision point for Farsight to manage technical debt

  • “It's like they burn the early adopters. You buy the movie, then five hours of extra material comes out. I don't want little tiny upgrades—I want the upgrade of all upgrades.”

    Bonzo @ LOTR disc upgrade analogy — Explains customer hesitation about incremental TPA purchases vs. major versioning

  • “And if you pre-order [Big Lebowski], they'll ship you a rug which will tie the whole room together.”

    Shut Your Trap @ Big Lebowski discussion — Humorous example of Dutch Pinball's thematic marketing execution and attention to IP detail

    • game
    Hobbit Pinballgame
    Deadpool Pinballgame
    Diner Pinballgame
    Guardians of the Galaxy Pinballgame
    Pinball Arcade (TPA)product
    NVIDIA Shield Tabletproduct
    Comic-Con San Diegoevent
    Godzilla Festevent
    Free Gold Watchorganization
    Wizard of Oz Pinballgame
    Pinbot (restoration project)game
    Kurt Hammettperson
    Shut Your Trap (Chris Frebus)person
    Bonzo / Jared Morgzperson
    Jeff Strongperson
    Flippy Floppyperson
  • $

    market_signal: Customer hesitation around incremental TPA upgrades vs. major versioning; community willing to re-purchase only for substantial improvements (dynamic lighting, significant graphics retooling, not minor patches)

    high · Extended LOTR disc upgrade analogy from Bonzo; articulates 'I don't want little tiny upgrades—I want the upgrade of all upgrades' sentiment; reflects broader customer reluctance

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Pinball's presence at Comic-Con San Diego with Iron Man and Metallica machines, including Kurt Hammett signing appearances, positioned as effective geek/comic audience engagement strategy

    high · Host directly observed Stern at Comic-Con with specific machines and celebrity appearance; discusses alignment between pinball and comic/pop culture demographics

  • ?

    announcement: Jersey Jack Pinball's Hobbit is confirmed for December release aligned with third movie; uses video content from films; similar display implementation to Wizard of Oz

    high · Hosts confirm release timing and licensing constraints; playfield art already shown; movie tie-in strategy explicitly stated

  • ?

    announcement: Dutch Pinball has announced Big Lebowski pinball with painted artwork, three playfield levels (bowling sublevel, main level, unrevealed upper), promotional rug pre-order, and website reveal

    high · Host discovered announcement via BigLebowskyPinball.com with detailed features described; confirmed multiple playfield levels and thematic marketing elements

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern Pinball discussed in recent Wired Magazine interview expressing enthusiasm for digital pinball and companion apps; waiting on 'technical aspects to be in place for these new pins to roll off the line'

    medium · Host references Wired interview; quotes Stern's desire to integrate digital versions with physical machines; implies active strategy development

  • ?

    technology_signal: Farsight's Pinball Arcade platform facing systemic graphics quality inconsistency across seasons due to older hardware support; community and hosts discussing necessity of hardware cutoff strategy

    high · Extended discussion of texture limitations, Season 3 quality improvements, device spec constraints, and whether platform needs version 2.0 rebuild; hosts cite 'disappointed in texture quality thread' as evidence of community concern

  • ?

    technology_signal: High-end Android tablets (NVIDIA Shield with Tegra K1, DirectX 11/12) now capable of PC-level pinball gaming performance; potential to enable higher-fidelity TPA assets previously impossible on mobile

    high · Bonzo provides detailed technical specifications; proposes Shield tablet could run TPA with PC assets via APK if enabled; represents hardware capability inflection point

    • 2:25
    I've started learning things. It's quite incredible because, I don't know, I guess I was being very passive and just trying to see what was popping up in the world of pinball and stuff.
    2:37
    I'm not on pin side that much, so I'm not really up on what's going on. And I'm on the TBA fans forum for the most part, and nobody's talking about real pinball there.
    2:48
    It's all speculation on what's coming up next in pinball arcade. But so anyway, with Stern, I noticed that they were at Comic-Con in San Diego. And I thought, why is pinball going down to San Diego for a comic book convention? and then it dawned on me with, oh yeah, they have a ton of pinball games that are based off of Marvel properties. So I know they had, I believe they had Iron Man down there. I know they had Metallica, which then they had Kurt Hammett come down to their booth and sign their machine and was doing autographs and stuff. And I was like, man, what a great thing for promotion when you've got that many geeks walking around and they're going to drool over your machine. It's awesome. Yeah, it's a really good fit, Pinball and Comics.
    3:39
    They tend to go really hand-in-hand. I know that, I think it's Pinball Podcast, no, Spooky Pinball, they actually regularly go to the Godzilla event local to them, and they actually bring their own Godzilla pinball with them that they've made, their one-off, and it just gets hammered. In their last podcast, they were saying that the flipper actually completely spun around and failed on them. It was one of those lightning flippers. Whoa, wow. And it just completely spun around and failed on them. I mean, the machine has been apparently there for about, they've had it for about seven years, and it really only gets an outing down to Godzilla Fest or whatever they call it.
    4:22
    So, yeah, it tends to get hammered by kids, adults, everybody. So, yeah, a lot of these conventions and stuff, they put a pinball there, and it really does draw people into your booth. Yeah, I just, I never, I don't know why I didn't make the connection before. And, I mean, again, you think about Zen and all the marble tables that they do, it should have been a no-brainer. But, you know, there you have it. I just, I didn't put the connection together with it.
    4:53
    Speaking of them with Zen. Yeah, I was going to say, maybe you're going to talk about the same thing. But didn't they, they took down all the references to Guardians of the Galaxy recently. I think they were sort of shooting at it. Yeah, they did. Because, well, Zen got the license, didn't they? They actually released the pinball table almost in parallel to the movie. Yeah, yeah. If only Pinball Arcade had done that with World Cup Soccer.
    5:20
    Yeah. And again, didn't Zen also release their soccer table just like maybe a month before the World Cup started? Yeah. Yeah, it's like... It's really not played anymore, but, you know. But even still, it's like, talk about, you know, there's a way of doing cross-promotion. There's a way of selling more of your table at a hot moment and timing it correctly. And it seems like Pinball Arcade is just missing some really sweet opportunities.
    5:54
    You know, obviously, they could have, if they had the license and blah, blah, blah, we all know that, but just go with me. if they had have had World Cup 94 it would have been perfect to release that during the World Cup you've got Doctor Who about to start up again if they had that table it would be perfect to put that out at the same time I mean there's so many but the only thing they seem to take advantage of is Halloween but instead we get lights, camera, action that's spooky yeah Yeah, but what I was going to say about Zen was, yeah, with Guardians of the Galaxy, that was perfect timing for them putting that out. And then I noticed that they had Deadpool, and I hadn't tried the demo of that. And so I tried the demo. Holy crap, that table's funny.
    6:44
    I mean, it's got a mini pinball table on the pinball table, and Deadpool's sitting there mocking. He's like, who puts a mini pinball table on a pinball table? and then he says, at one point I heard Deadpool say, this has got to be better than the Iron Man table that we put out earlier.
    7:03
    I was just like, that's so awesome. It's all totally being self-referential and capturing the spirit of the character.
    7:10
    Yeah, it was all sorts of good. I don't pay for Zen full price, so I'll be waiting for the Steam sale, but I'm looking forward to putting some time into that table because, I don't know, I like a good humor table. Yeah, it's a fun table. I've got it on Android, and it is good fun to play. And, yeah, the call-outs are really, really funny the first couple times you hear them. They do start to wear on you a little bit. Well, that is Zen in general.
    7:39
    Well, yeah, yeah, true. Anybody that's played any of the Star Wars tables, you're just like, Shut up, Yoda! Yeah, yeah, it is a bit like that. But, yeah, it's a fun table. and you kind of just block out the sound calls after a while. They still add to the game, and don't confuse it with being like, don't buy it because the sound calls will annoy the heck out of you, because they won't. They do fit the game, and it actually works pretty well. And on the flip side, currently in beta, and who knows, by the time this podcast comes out, it'll probably be right available for purchase, but they've got Diner up in the beta, and I was playing that and the music in that. And I know this is one of the things that bugged me about that table. We're so repetitive.
    8:27
    And it's just like, after playing, again, I'd messed around with a couple of the Zen tables, and I'm not a fan of their techno soundtracks that they put in the pin.
    8:36
    But it was interesting, just such a jarring jolt going from what a modern table sounds like, according to Zen, and then going to this table that was, what, 89, 90? The glorious days of MIDI. Yeah, yeah.
    8:56
    The other thing I was going to say was also with the Twitter with Jersey Jack, how, again, it's been kind of like, you know, I haven't heard much from them or anything.
    9:08
    You know, you hear occasionally about Wizard of Oz being out in the wild or whatever, but I noticed that they were doing a lot of functions just in the New York area and bringing the tables with them and kind of putting the word out there in that respect. So it was like, okay, so there's actual... These companies are actually doing something. What's the story in The Hobbit? Is that still coming soon? Yeah, they've been showing pictures of the playfield.
    9:34
    Not the toys or anything, but just the playfield art. So you can kind of make your assumptions of what it's going to be doing. I think it is set for release when the third movie comes out. Okay, so like December, I think. Yeah. I wonder what sort of preview Jersey Jack get of the Hobbit series. I mean, sure, there's a book and everything.
    10:00
    But I wonder if they're going for more of a movie tie-in or whether they're going for more of a book tie-in. No, they're doing movie tie-in. It's got the Wizard of Oz look to it in terms of the art. Is it using the actual actors and stuff? Yes, yes. So they probably need to wait for the third movie depending on what their NDA level gets them as far as plot. I don't know. It depends on what toys you're using. You know, it all comes down to what toys you're using. I mean, I'm sure there's going to be a smog on there, which they already now know what he looks like. And, you know, what, you're going to have some gold ingots around? I don't think they're going to be putting five armies on the table.
    10:42
    I think we've pretty much seen everything that you're going to see in the world, and they can go ahead and produce a table, and anything else will be software updates in terms of video. That's right. I think they're probably going to lean heavily on the video. Heaps of movie snips, which is probably why they have to wait for the third movie to be released. It's going to be plenty of movie snip content in there. which, you know, it looks great on those displays in the Jersey Jack product. I went and played the LE at Free Gold Watch when I was over in San Fran, and it was amazing.
    11:19
    It's very cool what they're producing there, so I'm really looking forward to that particular table. Hopefully we'll see it down here in the colonies, but, you know. Yeah, I still haven't got my hands on it yet. Yeah, I played it in Vegas. I think The Hobbit will probably, like Jared was saying, really take advantage of the screen even more with the movie clips and stuff. I mean, Wizard of Oz was pretty sweet as far as what they did with it. What I'm really looking forward to, and I just discovered it today, I had no clue it was being put out, but Dutch Pinball is making the Big Lebowski pinball. Oh, yeah. And holy crap are they doing a bang-up job on it. Have you seen the following? It looks awesome. Yes. That's what I was going to say. It's like bowling and pinball go hand-in-hand, right? So now you've got this totally themed-out table. And again, I'm not big on the licensing aspects of tables, but this one just, come on, it just works. And the bowling is like those old games where it was the hanging pins that were flat and you knock the pin and it flips up. So you've got that in the sub-level, and then you've got the main level, and then they haven't revealed what's on the upper level.
    12:31
    Not yet. I guess they'd be pretty nice there. And these guys are a real pedigree. They're the guys who re-engineered Brighter Pinbot. Exactly. With brand new dots, and arguably they're actually, a lot of the industry is saying, probably some of the best dots ever in a pinball game.
    12:49
    So these guys have got a huge pedigree, and it's really good to see them actually getting into table development rather than just mods. Right, exactly. New software, essentially. But I think the thing that most impresses me is, thank God, no photos. It's all painted imagery, realistic painted imagery, but it's back to that style of art.
    13:13
    And old stuff. Yeah, exactly. And so I was clicking around on their website, which it's, if you just go to www.
    13:23
    Excuse me while I fumble around here. Jeff, take care of that. if you go to BigLebowskyPinball.com you can see everything there is about the table currently I'm sure they're going to be updated they've got videos on there and stuff but the videos that they're producing so capture the spirit of the film that you know these guys absolutely love it and the references that are going to be thrown into this you've got to believe are going to be incredible and to the point that they even put an outline of the rug on the back glass, and if you pre-order they'll ship you a rug which will tie the whole room together.
    14:04
    Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's going to be pretty sweet. I think a lot of people are going to be dropping some cash on this one. It's going to be pretty nice. Yeah, well, that's just like your opinion, man. Yeah.
    14:24
    condition my condition was in man i've got certain information all right certain things have come to light and you know has it ever occurred to you that instead of uh you know running around uh blaming me you know given the nature of all this new shit you know this could be a a lot more uh uh uh uh complex i mean it's not just it might not be just such a simple uh you know What in God's holy name are you blathering about? Hey, you know what we haven't done in a long time?
    15:00
    Let's talk Android with Jared. Hey, yeah, that's right. Yeah, we haven't for a while. So there's been only a few threads in between the beta threads for the latest table, which is Diner, as we've covered. A couple of people were having some just technical issues, which we were trying to help them out with. some people complaining about how the app store sucks for them. And we go, well, that's great. Here's a way of working around it and using gift cards and the particular individual wasn't listening. So we went, okay, well, there you go. Solution given. Do what you like with it.
    15:40
    But apart from that, not a great deal is happening. Oh, there is one thing that's happening that's relating to me, and that is that I have just got confirmation that the NVIDIA Shield tablet will be shipping to me from the US because it's only available in the US. So I'm actually having to get it. Neener, neener, neener.
    16:04
    Yeah, well, it's only available in the US, but a dropshipping company will ship it to the colonies, so I'm getting them to do that for me.
    16:13
    So this thing is in another thread that's happening on people like hate fans where the thread's disappointed in texture quality or something like that. Yes. We're talking about how the textures are limited, arguably because of the mobile platforms. I think this tablet, which is basically like a PC that you hold in your hand, but it's powered by Android, it's using a Tegra K1 chip. I won't go into the technical vagaries of it, but it's basically the TLDR is a very, very, very powerful Android device, so much so that I would think that if Flippy Floppy wanted to enable an APK with PC assets in it, I reckon it would run it no problems at all. Power.
    17:05
    Yeah, it's pretty epic. So this thing should be shipping its way over to my place, maybe in time for my birthday, which is next week. So that'll be pretty sweet. next week being the 14th of August. So, yeah, send me presents.
    17:22
    Or at least a card. Something to show you care, you know. We're not going to say happy birthday to you, though, because we don't want to pay for those music rates.
    17:33
    Exactly right. But, yeah, that's the interesting thing that I think is going on at the moment. The mobile markets, and this is certainly the case with iOS 2 with their 64-bit architecture that's coming into play. We're looking at mobile devices that can actually keep up with PCs now that are running apps that before were only in the PC domain. This tablet, I think, ships with DirectX 11 or DirectX 12, whatever the latest one is. So the thing is designed for games, and more and more devices like this are coming out. So I think that the shift from just being a thing that you read, your email on and do a bit of a Candy Crush saga or something light like that is the days that are actually going and these things are turning into fully fledged gaming rigs. This thing actually the Shield tablet will actually let you connect it via HDMI to your TV, enable console mode and then you can actually use it as a video game console.
    18:35
    It's crazy. It's very cool. As far as Android goes, that's kind of it. I did actually on the subject of Android, those of you in Ryan Bruton or Ryan Roughton, I managed to catch him the other day. He's had his one, so he's had his baby. Good. Doing very well. I couldn't actually get whether it was a boy or a girl out of him, but things are going really well for him at the new company that he's working for.
    19:08
    And And, yeah, the usual sort of craziness that you get when you're a new father is he's experiencing that firsthand. So, yeah, I think he's doing really well. So I don't know. I don't think he listens to the podcast. But if you are listening, Ryan, g'day, mate, and good luck with the little one.
    19:28
    And if you aren't, screw you. Yeah. That's right. No, as far as first thing. A shout out. Hey, as far as Farsight goes, I haven't really been keeping up with the Android forum. Now, have they hired a new dedicated Android developer, or is it just like somebody's wearing multiple hats, or what's going on? Well, the ever-awesome Flippy Floppy is still sort of leading the charge in the Android area. He's sort of acting as sort of like the coordinator. They do actually have a dedicated Android developer on staff now, and the great thing is that he actually does posts in the forums so he is forum enabled which is awesome Who is he so we know?
    20:17
    Yeah, sorry Who is he so that we know? That's a very good question I might need to flick over to the Android forum on my tablet You Google that in the meantime Do we think just pure speculation here do we think that Farsight with Pinball Arcade will eventually have to cut off and I know we've asked this question before but cut off certain generation of Android and iOS so they can move forward with these better platforms Absolutely they're definitely going to have to and I actually think I surprised they haven done it already I am too I think it would be in their best interest personally to at the end of Season 3 just boom cut Okay, here's the new specs that you have to have. It would draw a line in the sand and say, look, this is it. I mean, it's not like you see a lot of people rocking an original iPad or iPad 2 anymore.
    21:19
    Pretty much everybody's gone at least to a Retina screen. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, it is a prime time for them to actually decide what hardware they're going to support. And, you know, for those customers that are on older hardware, I know that Zen, back in the day when they actually also had to draw the line in the sand, they had to refund some customers. And, you know, that's probably something they can absorb, but I'm not sure whether that's something that Farsight might be able to absorb. depending on the amount of customers that might need to go off a particular platform. But if you covered the entire season, I mean, if you took it up all the way through season three and then said the cutoff, hey, you've still got tables that are working for that amount of time. There's no refund needed. It's not like they cut it off mid-season after somebody had already pre-ordered the entire season, and then, of course, a refund would be due. It goes back into that whole thing of you've gotten what you've paid for. you're just unfortunately not going to be able to advance any farther. And if you, though, buy a new tablet, I know at least in the case of Apple, I'm sure it's the same thing with Android,
    22:35
    you know, hey, I've got a new tablet, I can now handle this stuff, great, all your purchases transfer over. So now you're back up and running. Yeah, that's true. So I don't think there's, I think so long as they do a cutoff at a season, they would be able to get away with it. the bigger question is though does Farsight have the balls to do that?
    22:53
    It takes a fairly large cojones to actually go you know what your device we're no longer like certifying TPA to run it. You can give it a go but no support you know and I think that's probably what they're going to have to do moving forward. It will save them so much hassle doing it if they do decide to do it on both iOS and Android and they can i actually had this discussion in um the disappointed in texture quality thread where you know there was a long long post on there so if you want to go and read it you can but um it was basically saying look the only way i can really see them getting to the point where graphics are made consistent across all seasons and everything is to just you know do basically tpa version 2.0 and sort of start from scratch, give themselves time to go back through the tables, retool, like get new graphic imaging stuff and maybe a high camera or a flatbed scanner or something like that that can do high-res scans and do the teardowns from the outset and do all that hard work up front, which they would have been doing up to the lead-up of the initial release with the four tables. but you know that's got its own challenges as well for them that's going to stop their revenue stream and it's you know it's i wouldn't like to be in their shoes they've got a tough decision to make regarding the future direction of the platform i think it would be rather interesting to know uh what their sales figures are like in emerging markets like china india brazil for example because i think at least for android you will have quite low spec devices for quite a while and there are many people living in these countries.
    24:50
    That's true. It is sort of like an untapped market but the market is such that the device specs required to run TPA correctly sort of limit that market at the moment.
    25:06
    Yeah, it would be interesting to find out those figures, I guess. Yeah, I'm just curious to see how they would handle it. Obviously, I'm not a fan of them, if they needed to, then charge you to own all the tables again. I think Zen realized that when on the 360, and they were going to have the available on Xbox One, and not be able to transfer tables that you owned to the Xbox One like they were from PS3 to PS4, and there was a large enough outcry that Zen went, yeah, you know what, we're going to delay until we can make that happen with Xbox. I mean, they obviously saw the damage to customers that it would do, whether or not Farsight realizes that kind of damage. I don't know. I think they're pretty aware of it. They get enough questions about people wanting to cross-grade from iOS to Android for Pete's sake. The question is in people's minds. I mean, it's fair enough. People don't want to spend money they don't want to spend. But I think it depends on the level of upgrade that would be, you know, theoretically given in the theoretical version 2.0. So if it suddenly looked like pro pinball, everybody would be like, okay, here's my money. Yeah, totally. Shut up and take my money. I'm trying to screen now, right?
    26:34
    And look, put it this way, from my perspective, and this is purely my perspective, if they were to enable something like dynamic lighting and stuff like that on Android, that would be enough of a reason for me to repurchase over time. I would be happy to throw them more money their way for retooling and probably having to completely redo the Android engine and arguably probably the custom sound mixer, which causes so much problems on Android at the moment. You know what I kind of equate this to?
    27:13
    What's that? I'll give you an example here. Okay, so you got Lord of the Rings, right? And they came out with the basic movies, and then they came out with the extended version. So, of course, I wound up double-dipping,
    27:27
    and this is all back in the DVD day, right? Yeah. So I had both the theatrical and the extended. And then a few years later, I finally get a Blu-ray player, and they come out with Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray, and I go, eh, you know what? I'm not going to double-dip just yet. I'm going to hold off, because there's probably going to be a packaged altogether version. And sure enough, they came out with a packaged altogether version, and I still didn't bite because by that time, Hobbit was coming out. So I go ahead and I buy Hobbit, and then, of course, they announce extended edition. And I went, nope, I'm not going to do this again. I've been bitten once before. Been bitten once before. I'm not going to do this again. So I'm waiting for all three extended versions to come out because then they're going to get packaged into one. But then the question is, are they then going to package all of that together with the Lord of the Rings trilogy so that you have a six-movie box set that's all together and it's the uber-awesome collection? It's like there's a certain point where you start going, you know what? I know what they're going to do, so I'm just not going to purchase at all because I don't want to get burned somehow because that's inevitably what happens. It's like they burn the early adopters.
    28:33
    It's like, hey, thanks for buying our movie. Oh, to all these people that never bought it, yeah, here's five hours of extra material. Oh, and you guys already have all this stuff. Oh, too bad. If you want it, you're going to have to buy this also.
    28:44
    And I'm not saying that that's what TPA is doing, but it's that sense of I don't want little tiny upgrades. I want it to be the upgrade of all upgrades that we're not going to have to worry about it ever being upgraded again. That's when I'll go ahead. That's when I would do the additional purchase. But until you do that, no.
    29:05
    That's a good point. Like, it's a fair point, and, you know, you don't want to go through and keep throwing money. I mean, as much as we love the franchise and love what Farsighted are doing with the franchise, you know, there's a limit to how deep our pockets go, and it would need to be a pretty significant change for me to, you know, throw money at it. I mean, if the tables were significantly redone graphically and were as crisp, all the tables were as crisp as Season 3's. Yes. and they had a little bit more dynamic lighting. Things like the strobe light on Attack from Mars was fixed. These sort of things that, you know, they're citing technical limitations on at the moment. All those things are fixed. But, yeah, I'd be happy to put extra money their way because, you know, that would be worth it. And knowing what I do about the software development lifecycle, that would take them a fair bit of time to do.
    30:03
    So, yeah, fair enough. Here's some more money, guys. I still think they should also go with the idea that I had before, which was at some point create a separate app that is nothing but Stern and the modern Stern that can handle, that they can actually do the current software that is in Stern, and whatever you have to do to make it work, that's what your baseline for your current platforms are. So if that completely wipes out 360 and PS3, so be it. If you now have to have only an iPad Air and this NVIDIA tablet you're getting, so be it. Yep. If you want to play it, that's what you need to do. Exactly. But at least allow it to be there rather than keep on going, oh, we can't deal with it because of the software limitations. Well, you know, fine. but I think and take the hit on the revenue that you may or may not make from those platforms exactly because once again we've heard just recently I think it was in Wired Magazine or something like that that Stern did their interview and mentioned once again about digital pinball and how they see it being advantageous and how they would love to use it and it's like come on it seems like they're ready they're just waiting on the technical aspects to be in place for these new pens to roll off the line and be in digital form as well you know yeah what a great thing to actually have i think i don't know whether we've touched on this like i think we might have talked about this in the green room at one point of the podcast like when we weren't recording but what a great thing to actually have a digital companion app for stern and actually as part of getting uh a table like a pro table you know you get a digital version free of charge. Yeah. And it's basically a beta testing bed for the software for them. They use it to release software updates first, test them digitally, work out what works and what doesn't, get real life feedback on the code from their customers and then roll those out into proper upgrades for the physical machines. Ah, yeah. Anybody that's plopping down eight grand for a table, they're not going to be dissuaded from doing that based off of a digital beta version of the same table they're not going to turn them away and they're not going to be like oh you know what, no this table sucks, I don't want to drop 8 grand no, they're buying it regardless thinking of like using the iOS and Android beta channels option, it could be a perk for Stern to actually include a beta testing channel for table purchases. So those folks who have actually purchased a table get access to the new software code before anyone else does. Man. That sort of exclusivity would actually be a real selling point. And imagine being able to take a table with you wherever you go and be playing it. Go to tournaments and actually have time on these tables that you might be playing at a tournament in digital form with accurate physics and get some really deep time to learn the rule set of them. And that will help you excel in tournaments. You know, there's so many good reasons for Stern to partner with somebody that already has a pedigree and can actually produce tables.
    33:38
    You see where I'm going here, don't you? How about pro pinball? No, I'm just kidding. Well, it would probably align with the release schedule of soon a little bit more. Like, you know, the time to market would actually sort of be similar at the moment. And Barnstorm Games, I'm sure they'll get faster as they start to hopefully release the other back catalogue of Pro Pinball. And who knows, we might actually start seeing real-life versions of Time Shock coming around to an Arcade New Year, because that was news too. It wasn't on the social medias, how they're actually producing a real-life version of Time Shock through Silver Castle Pinball. So, you know, that's pretty awesome to actually be able to go walk up to a Time Shock pinball and play it. Yeah, that is pretty awesome. I've got to say, though, I am looking more forward to the digital version, just because I'm thinking, like, you know, most new pins that come out, you see them, you know, here and there. but having the digital version in my living room at all times is a little more appealing to me because I only go to Vegas once in a great while so otherwise they're just going to be in dudes' basements probably around the globe. Yeah.
    34:55
    It's certainly in the case of Wizard of Oz. While it is capable of being operated as a coin-operated machine I think the original intent of that machine was for home use only. so the ones that were on location here in Brisbane or actually Queensland down the Gold Coast it had a lot of problems like it wasn't really up to the constant hammering that it was getting on that location because it was really it was designed robustly but robustly for a home market well that's a complaint with most turntables also I mean that's why they have their pro essentially why they have their pro models because they took away all the toys it would break from the constant hammering.
    35:39
    There's a real bugbear I have with Pro, particularly on ACDC Pro. Which they're re-releasing. Yeah, classic Lord of the Rings trilogy. Exactly, huh? Yeah, crap. Anyhow.
    35:54
    For those that don't know, they're re-releasing ACDC Pro Pinball and they're now putting in the moving bell and what was the other? Shoot, I've completely drawn a blank on the second thing that they're adding. Oh yeah, LEDs. That's right, LEDs. So all those that purchased the original Pro version, they just got screwed.
    36:19
    Well, you could look at it this way. Those people who originally purchased the Pro version probably need to upgrade their tables by about now because all their ramps will be cracked and a lot of the Playfield toys are on there. all the Thunderbolt lights will be hammered to heck and it'll be pretty huckery. Because that's the thing with Pro. At least with ACDC Pro, CERN, for whatever reason, did not put on ramp protectors. Whereas the LEs and the, what's the, the Prims, all had ramp protectors. So you walk up to one in the arcade and the ramps are smashing.
    36:58
    And, you know, you look at it and go, why didn't they do that? This is the model that operators will be buying to recoup costs because it's cheap, and they'll be able to flip it as far as cost versus maintenance versus space on the floor. And they don't put ramp protectors on it? Why would you do that, Stern? Silly, silly move. Well, because apparently there's a $3,000 price difference, and that's how much those ramp protectors must cost. I don't know. The thing is, you can't actually buy the ramp protectors if you don't have a pro. If you don't have an LE or a premium, you can't buy them. Is Cliffy not making them? No, they're not, because they exist, you see, for the premium LEs. So he's actually not. But I think if he had enough demand, he probably would. The problem is, by the time you work out you need ramp protectors, your ramps are screwed anyhow, and you've got to do fiberglassing. You've got to fiberglass them and try and, like, fix them up. and the location that actually has an ACDC near me has used putty on the backs of the ramps because the hairpins at the back of the ramps get really hammered and that's where they crack. So they just bog them up and it's such a bodgy job. But it does the job. But as far as resale value for that table, you can forget it. It's game over. so you know Stern Belly Williams back in the day they had you know bits of metal on the entries to all ramps regardless you know if you think about it though Belly Williams back in the 90s they were essentially all limited editions in today's market they were all LEDs they all had drop targets they didn't have stand ups in place of drop targets and it kind of enrages with me a bit.
    38:54
    There is these levels that you can go for and the levels actually cut out some of the key playfield things like drop targets. They should not be a premium or LE feature. They should be part of a standard game. They're drop targets. You know? Anyhow. I'll get off the soapbox. Stepping off that soapbox.
    39:17
    Here, here. Let's move away from pinball just for a few minutes or 45. Hop on your segue. Yeah, I know. Hop on my segue and let's go into the final edition since it's the end of summer movies. We're going to talk about the movies that are coming out this month, the month of August.
    39:43
    The movie starts in one minute. Now playing at a location near you. Aw, come on. Um, okay. Thank you, enjoy the film. Get the quick rundown of what you guys think. Are they crap? Should we go? That kind of business.
    40:12
    Let's start with what just opened, and we've already kind of touched upon a little bit, Guardians of the Galaxy. I just went and saw it last night, actually. Did any of you guys see it? I've only saw the trailer so far. Me too. This is a bit of a dead segment for me because I have two kids and it's like trying to actually get to movies in the cinema. It is somewhat of a military operation.
    40:36
    Rally the troops. I'll just sit here quietly and look at the forums and stuff while you guys talk about this. We like to hear your impressions, though, as far as what you think of anticipation of the trailers and such. Exactly. So don't be afraid to tell me. Yeah, you could be just going, God, I wish I didn't have kids so I could see that, or thank God I have kids so I don't have to see that. You know, we could take it on that front. Your thoughts on the ambiance were just stellar, mate.
    41:09
    Yeah, that was a interesting discussion, the old ambiance. Anyhow. I will say I enjoyed the movie. I didn't think it was amazing or anything. But I heard somebody mention about how what's rare about Guardians is that it's the return of science fiction comedy, which, truth be told, yeah, we have not had that in a long time. It just made me want to really see it. It just made you really want to see it? Yeah. The other thing that somebody mentioned, and I kind of went, you know what? that kind of hit this close is that the kind of sci-fi that it is kind of like the fifth element, where it's very colorful, kind of jokey.
    41:52
    You know, it's not hardcore violence. It more just you know people getting shocked and falling to the floor kind of thing So it winds up being the kind of thing that is fairly kid The jokes that are double entendre risque will go right over their heads They'll never catch it.
    42:11
    But I had a good time with it. It was pretty cool. I enjoyed it. It also made me understand, what is it, Infinity Gauntlet in Xen. because it deals with these Infinity Stones and Thanos, I think is the name of the guy. I had no clue when I was playing Zen Binball what that whole table was about. Now I actually have somewhat of a clue. That's good. Thanks.
    42:37
    So it really is more of a sci-fi movie than a superhero movie? It's not a superhero movie. No, it's not a superhero movie. It's a sci-fi movie. It's spaceships and pew, pew, pew. and I like a bit of pew pew pew in my movies but yeah no it's nobody with superpowers it's you know aliens and technology now is this based on an actual comic book or is this something yeah it's apparently it's kind of an obscure comic book it's one of those even comic book geeks a lot of them are like no I always skip that one I never bothered yeah Yeah, try to muck with the Lestron. It's like a spin-off of a spin-off type of thing. Yeah, I mean, think about it. You've got a talking raccoon and a tree that only says, I am Groot, you know, as some of your main characters. No, no!
    43:31
    You know, honestly, I think I'd rather see this than something like another Spider-Man reboot. And this is good. It's something completely different, but in the same vein. I don't know. I think, because I skipped seeing the most recent Captain America, I had no interest in that, but this I was all over. So, you know, there's something to be said about that. Okay, let's move on to what's coming out. I know this week we have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Mmm, cowbunga. Yeah, anybody on board with that? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a Michael Bayham experience. Yes, it is a Bayham experience. Well, he didn't direct it, but he produced it, so, you know. There's going to be lens flare in there, you know it. Oh, yeah. it's required lens flare I can just see the katana sword from Leonardo just coming out of the screen at you in old school 3D days you know in the 50s when 3D was like all new and shiny again they were doing a paddle ball at you and they waved the sword out into the audience and everyone would go ooooh you get like whiplash from the reaction I saw a trailer for a movie called Into the Storm which I just went, oh I didn't know they were making a sequel to Twister Is Bill Passion in it? Well that's literally what it is It's about a super storm but it's tornadoes I'm like, oh boy Is there any sharks? No, I don't believe there's any sharks Did they jump the shark?
    45:15
    I don't know. That was one of those where, again, I saw the trailer, and I was just, like, scratching my head. I was like, really? Oh, okie dokie.
    45:22
    How about, I'm actually curious about this one, Let's Be Cops. I'm not even worried about that one down here. Well, you know why you might not? You may know why you guys might not, because I don't know if you guys get the TV show New Girl.
    45:37
    Oh, Zoe. But two of the actors from that, is it Damon Wayans Jr.? I don't know, one of the Wayans. Oh, okay. And the guy that plays Zoe's current boyfriend on the show, or on again, on again, Nick. Oh, I like him. And basically they're going to a Halloween party, and they dress up as cops, and on their way there to the party, everybody takes them for real cops, and they realize how much fun it is to have that kind of control. And so they kind of go overboard and get a cop car and start pretending to be actual cops. and, of course, hilarity ensues. But I don't know. I kind of like the manic energy of the trailer. Yeah, that might not be too bad. I've got to admit, New Girl isn't really too bad of a show. I mean, my wife watches it. I enjoy it. Yeah, it's funny. I really like the Nick Miller character. I mean, he's the kind of guy you'd like to sit around and have a beer with. So this movie could have some potential. Yeah.
    46:35
    Expendables 3. I never saw the first two. I guess you're not the target audience I'm not going to go see it I'll wait for video because I really didn't like the second one that much speaking of cross promotion there's a PC game called Broforce which just released a free standalone upgrade whatever that's called Expander Bros so you can play some Broforce with all the Expendables characters. Oh, interesting.
    47:11
    All right. Good timing. So you might want to try it. The only reason why I'm curious to see Expendables 3 is just because Harrison Ford in a helicopter blowing things away just kind of thrills me, and then having Gibson, Mel Gibson as the bad guy, just also kind of, I want to see that. Oh, wow. Yeah, I could see him rage a little more. I love Crazy Mel. That's, you know, nothing... That's the only role for him. Exactly. I don't want to see him trying to do comedies or anything. I just like him going off his rocker.
    47:42
    It's realistic. He can do ground splits. Yeah, it's a funny play. Which I've got to mention, did you guys catch the trailer for Mad Max Fury Road? No, I didn't. Oh, my God. You've got to go.
    47:57
    Well, actually, I did Twitter it. If you go to my Twitter feed, I don't know if I put it on the Blockade Twitter feed. But anyway, go to Shut Your Traps. Yeah, you did. I saw your tweet about it. That trailer is nuts. It is fantastic. I am so jazzed for that movie. It's ridiculous. And I have to wait until 2015. Like, deep 2015.
    48:20
    Why do they advertise these movies so early? Why do they do it? I don't get it. Well, you know what? I think in the case of this movie, it's been... They finished it a year ago, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, it's one of these that it's... I don't know if it's so effects heavy because he said that he's doing like 80% physical, you know, practical effects and 20% CG.
    48:42
    I think it's more of a question of the studio not quite knowing when and how to release it because it's, I don't know if it's a tricky property to market, but I think releasing the trailer this early was basically to shut people up from speculating that it's a turd.
    48:59
    Yeah, that would be my fear because, oh man, you don't want to ruin the legacy. No, but the trailer basically wound up being the best thing coming out of Comic-Con this year, according to everybody. Well, that's encouraging. I mean, everybody was talking about it, and I'm just over the moon over it. So I think it did its job.
    49:20
    I'd say. Everyone will start developing a thirst for Guzzoline again. Yes, Guzzoline. Last movie of the summer that I think any of us would even care about would be Sin City 2. oh that would be something I'd like to go and see oh we finally found one yeah no that one I think I will definitely go see I loved the first one I think it's totally unique yeah it is it was well it was certainly unique back then let's see if the sequel carries it through it won't be unique because it's been done but I think I'd like to see it again like that style again it'd be very cool it's not just that it's unique, it's unique and it worked pretty well. I really enjoyed the film quite a lot.
    50:08
    Now, of these movies that we mentioned, I know Guardians, Mutant Turtles, and Sin City, they're all available in 3D. Now, we've teased this topic.
    50:20
    We've avoided this topic. But here we go. Jared made a statement a couple of podcasts ago that 3D is the only reason to go to an actual movie theater to see a movie. and I gotta disagree too but Jared why do you say that well I think that the advances in home theater technology and TV technology allows you particularly things like 4K TV displays now we're getting into an era where you can actually if you want to set up something pretty amazing at home with 3D viewing and get an experience that's quite close to a movie theater.
    51:09
    And I think 3D in the movies is different to 3D at home because of the different technologies they use, particularly if you go to see a 3D movie in something like IMAX, where you're just immersed in the movie. That's very, very different to watching it at home.
    51:29
    but for me, for my money, I would probably, and also I guess probably the caveat here is, as I've said before, I've got kids, it's very hard for me to get to movie theatres.
    51:44
    If I have a good set-up at home, I'll probably just wait until it comes to digital download or physical media and actually just watch the movie at home in the comfort of my lounge. do any of you guys have a problem I know for me it's all about the size you cannot mega screens there's details no it doesn't work that way it does not work that way I've tried to me it's having your entire peripheral taken up by a screen it's seeing it with an audience because there are certain movies I'm sorry you cannot watch a Rocky movie at home and experience it the same way that you watch it in a movie theater. Same thing with comedies. The event.
    52:34
    And if I stay at home and just turn on my TV, that's something I do on a regular basis. But I'm not that often at the cinema. But when I go to the cinema, I take my girlfriend with me. There are other people. We are waiting for the movie to start. And it's just more exciting than watching TV at home. Yeah, it's something special. As I said, I don't go to the movies that often, so if I go to the cinema, it's a movie I really want to see. So the part of looking forward to the day you can finally see the movie plays another role in it. And I think just that it has to be an event. If it is an event, it's more fun. It's funny you mention the word event there, Bonzo, because we actually have a chain of cinemas here called Event Cinemas. and it's maybe what they're trying to tap into there as far as what they're trying to give customers. You know, they've got the mega screens and the movie theatres bristling with speakers and, you know, massive subwoofers at the front of the thing, which, you know, it's really hard to replicate in your living room or, you know, to some degrees, even if you have, like, a dedicated media room as some houses are actually getting now.
    53:53
    Yeah, that sort of stuff's pretty tricky. Bonzo, do you like 3D or not? I very much enjoyed it in Avatar, but it was always a letdown in every movie after that. Yeah, see, that's for me, it's got to be a director that knows what they're doing with it. Yeah. And it can't just be tacked on. Exactly. It has to be planned through from the beginning. Yes.
    54:19
    And that's, I think, why I stopped. To me, it's got to be film-native 3D or planned as 3D from the very beginning.
    54:28
    And again, there's only a few directors who I'll trust. Up until yet, I haven't watched the Hobbit movies in 3D because I didn't want to be distracted by everybody was complaining about the 48 frames and it being hyper-real and looking like a soap opera. And I didn't want to have that take away from my enjoyment of the movie. And I figured, hey, I watched the first three, you know, were the rings in 2D, why shouldn't I watch the Hobbit in that way? And I think with this third one, though, I might actually just experience it just to see, but it'll be my second viewing. I'm not going to ruin my first viewing with being distracted by it. But that, for me, is the problem with 3D. If I'm watching a kid's movie in 3D, an animated 3D, I think it works wonderful, and I don't think about the 3D, but when I'm watching a live-action movie, I tend to suddenly start thinking about it. do you think it's because the director chooses the focal point in the when they're doing the cinematography where they actually choose the focus point and that is the point that you must watch otherwise everything else is out of focus do you think that spoils it a bit no because they do that in 2D also you know it's whenever they shoot a long lens you're there what they want you to see is the only thing is going to be in focus and everything else is going to be out of focus also. I guess that's true.
    55:51
    I don't think that's the case with 3D. I think the problem is that often they don't... You get distracted because they are purposely throwing something at you and that brings you out of the moment instead of immersing you. Exactly. And that's, I think, why Avatar was so brilliant because it just immersed you. You weren't aware of the 3D-ness of it. That was the only good thing about the movie. It was just 3D. Oh, don't even go there. The script was terrible.
    56:20
    Pocahontas 3D. Just the dialogue. But even like Prometheus, I loved the 3D in it because I actually felt that it added to the movie and it wasn't a distraction to the movie.
    56:35
    And I can't say that about a lot of movies that way. That being said, the Blu-rays that I have been buying, I've been buying the 3D versions I don't even have a 3D TV yet, but it's because I know I'm going to buy a 3D TV, and I do want to still see them in 3D. I think for me, instead of in the theater, I don't like the upcharge. I can't stand the fact that I'm paying extra. Yeah.
    57:00
    Jared, do you guys pay extra for 3D? Yeah, we do. It's usually $2 or $3 a mole. Yeah. I don't like the glasses because it makes everything darker. Well, it's hard for me because I wear glasses. Yeah, exactly, and you have to put them on top of your glasses.
    57:16
    It makes it a lot dimmer, too. I mean, some of them are better than others, but I can't really see in the dark very well either, so it just makes it even worse.
    57:25
    I'd rather just watch 2D, man. It's good enough. Unless it's a really spectacular experience like Avatar or something like that. Then, yeah, it's worth it. But in general, I'd rather just... I think Gravity was the last one I saw in 3D, and that was well worth it. That would be. Oh, yeah, a second one I liked in 3D. Yeah, Gravity was Gravity. But again, because you knew that that's what it was being designed for, you know? Yeah. It's the way to tell it.
    57:54
    Have you guys played video games in 3D? Nope. I tried. My brother has a 3D monitor. I tried a couple games. It was actually pretty cool.
    58:05
    I don't think there are really too many games that are, you know, really specifically designed for it. Yeah. Where it's kind of like Bonzo was saying, kind of more of like a tacked-on thing. I've only played Zen in 3D and it was spectacular you beat me to it there's ShiteyTrap I tried very early on they forgot to take the 3D option out of the Android version because their code is very similar between platforms they didn't actually exclude 3D so I happened to connect back then my Transformer TF300 up to my monitor, which was an LG monitor that supported 3D, and I had little 3D glasses. I thought, oh, yeah, well, I'll plug it in and just start playing it. And lo and behold, the thing switched to 3D on me. I went, what?
    58:56
    And it was choppy. You couldn't play it. It was so choppy. Even when I overclocked the device, you still couldn't play it because it was so choppy. And I actually, probably mistakenly, I told them, hey, 3D in mobile, this is awesome. And they took it out. So they should have left it in because today's generation of mobile devices could totally do it. And it looks amazing.
    59:23
    Man, why don't you just leave it in? Yeah, they should have just left it in. I don't know why they took it out.
    59:29
    But it looked great. Like for pinball, I think it's really necessary because it gives it the depth that you need. It gives that illusion of 3D. Well, not only that, what I really noticed was on the ramps, you suddenly realize how steep a certain ramp was, or how steep or shallow. It makes that difference, and it's the same experience as standing in front of an actual table, because you're not moving around. It's not all first-person shooter kind of whatever. This is the standard position that you're going to be standing in, and it works amazingly well. That's the other reason I'm on 3D TV.
    60:07
    Yeah, it's great. I really wish, I don't know, I'd love to see the 3D option put back into mobile platforms, because I'm sure the iPad could do it too. Yeah. Like, it would be totally capable of pushing 3D. Well, but then you'd have to have, you know, eyeglasses or something and whatever it is. What it does, like 3D, it drops the frame rate. So this is why you get chalk. So it drops the frame rate in the case of Zen from about 60 to about 30. because it's got to have 30 for one eye and 30 for the other eye as it switches.
    60:46
    So if they're going to push 60 frames per second per eye, then that's going to take some grunt to actually pull that off. So that's probably why they had to pull it. There are some games that are doing some interesting things with 3D, like MLB The Show on PS4 and PS3. If you are playing with a friend and you both have the glasses on. Yes. One person can see the pitching view in their glasses and the other person sees the batting view, so it's like a totally different experience. They've done the same thing on certain racing games. Yeah. Pretty sick. That's cool. So it's basically split screen. Like, it's a new generation split screen. That's awesome. That's really nice. And that way you can also, like, if you're playing Madden or something like that, you don't have to worry about the person seeing what play you're picking. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking too. and with MOB, the pitches, the pitch selection, all that. Yeah, it really helps with that sort of thing too. That's pretty cool. I know that only works on active shutter glasses. It doesn't work on the passive glasses.
    61:51
    But yeah, no, I think that's a cool use of it. Hey, did you guys, well, we'll start off with this because I know that it's not going to be any different. But Bonzo, please tell me, please tell me Germany report for us. Yeah, of course. Quite a long one once again.
    62:15
    Once again? Well, I figured that was going to be the case. Have you guys played any tables, actual physical tables recently?
    62:25
    You know, I was at the movie theater the other day to see the certain monkey movie. They have a Sharky shootout there, and I was going to play it. Yeah, I was all excited. But then I realized we only had plastics and no quarters, so that kind of sucked.
    62:44
    It's no pinball for me. It's just the world we live in, this plastic world. Yeah. How about you, Jared? Start tap and pay on pinballs. I don know if you guys have that over there in the U but the NFC in your credit card where can just tap it over a proximity reader and you pay for things Really On mobile machines No, no, no. Oh, I was going to say, you should. I was going to say, man, you guys are really ahead of the game. How good would it be, though? I mean, in some arcades, they actually have card reader systems, like in a chain of arcades over here called Time Zone. They've got swipe cards, so you can learn Get your tokens and stuff. Yeah, it's a cool idea. It makes the whole arcade cashless, which means you don't have to run around in empty cash boxes every week. So it makes it easy for the operator. Anyhow. It's easy for the operator. The problem is for the customer, because instead of charging a buck for the game, they charge, like, a buck five. And so you'll never have... So you'll empty your card out, and it'll be like, you have 35 cents on your card. Oh, but you can only load a dollar at a time. It's like, ah, you... yeah they get you you're right well i saw one table this was a while back but i'll i'll count it um i actually saw a transformers pin in the wild but the problem down here in australia is because we don't use we don't have quarter pricing down here we have dollars um we they either charge a dollar which is really rare these days, or $2. And this was $2 a play.
    64:24
    And it's a Transformers. It's not worth it. It's really not. I went, wow, I want to play this. I've never played it before. And I went, oh, $2. Come on, guys. It wasn't even any cheaper if you used tokens. Like, it was still four tokens, which cost me $0.10 each. So that was one. And then the other day I saw in the city a Tales from the Crypt by Data East, and it was actually probably worth the $2. They had completely done it up with LEDs, including LED flashes, which are really expensive if you're ever fitting out a pinball machine. LED flashes are probably one of the most expensive things you put on there as far as lights go.
    65:08
    And I have to say it just changed the game, hey? It was very blue, I have to admit. It had a lot of blue LEDs in there. But it was really nice. It had some mechanical issues. The top flipper was busted, so it was really hard to shoot the crypt.
    65:25
    You kind of just had to hope it bounced in there, which is like trying to bounce one into the crypt is like the hole-in-one shot on No Good Gophers, right? and the sound my god the sound was just it's like someone the board was corrupted I don't know whether it was a ROM issue or a hardware issue but it was terrible it was screechy and it was just yeah unlistenable it just spoiled the game because I mean that game is all about the sound calls with John Casilla as the cryptkeeper like screeching at the top of his voice at you you know it's part of the game and it just wasn't working So that's $2 too much, if you ask me. I actually reported the issues to the people, so I might drop in there again today and see if it's working. So yeah, they're the two that I played recently.
    66:16
    Well, as some of you might know, because I bragged about it last week, I posted photos and everything of it. I went to my pinball league and got to play some exceedingly, exceedingly rare tables.
    66:37
    I started off the day... Yes. I started off the day playing and this is the second time I've been to this guy's house. He basically... Our Pinball League is hosted at people's houses and this particular gentleman opens his house once or twice a year to the Pinball League to come and play in his... I don't want to just call it an arcade. It's a Nirvana Wonderland. And so last time I was there, Kroll wasn't working, but this time it was. And so I was like, okay, I've got to try this thing out. And it's pretty interesting. It was kind of easy.
    67:14
    I mean, I was able to keep a ball going for a long time. But what would trip me out was it has a lower play field that is a miniature pinball table below. And it kind of reminded me of on Family Guy how they have the mini pinball. The ball had a little more weight, and it's heavily, heavily magnified, so I don't know how big this actual thing is on the underside of the playfield.
    67:39
    But it was kind of cool just playing this little tiny miniature pinball machine down below the frame. It was all I wanted to do. I could care less about what was going on in the upper playfield. I just kept on trying to get the ball to activate the lower thing. So anyway, Kroll was kind of interesting. I also got to play once again Loch Ness Monster which is the only one of its kind in existence and is that a reskin? no it was made by this company called Gameplan and I believe it never got out of prototype so they finished off the table itself it's completely done but as far as I know if what people have told me is That's the only one in existence.
    68:28
    I also got to play King Kong from Data East, which I know has a storied history. And that one was pretty cool. And I'm not a Data East fan at all.
    68:40
    But it had this, the midfield flipper was extra long. They called it a King Kong flipper or something like that.
    68:48
    It was kind of cool. It was this really long flipper. It had this super steep ramp. So size does matter. I guess so. I couldn't tell you what the object of the game was itself, but it played really cool. Like the object with all Don Reiss games. Shoot the things. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. It was a flashy game. But it was pretty interesting. I enjoyed it. I got to play Woe Nelly, which... Big Juicy Melons. Yeah, Big Juicy Melons.
    69:19
    Look, it's an EM. There's no two ways about it. It doesn't play any different than any other EM you've ever played. It's all about the artwork. It's totally LED'd out, which is kind of a trip seeing that on an EM and still having the bing-bongs go at you.
    69:38
    It's an EM, but it's all modern guts in it, right? It's actually got a custom board in it. Yes, but it still has the scoring reels and the chimes. What impressed me the most about this thing, though, was the cabinet. The cabinet was awesome. Because it was like this wood crate, and it felt... I'm not sure if it was actual real wood or not, but it's kind of like if you go to Disneyland and you feel their wood fences. They're so heavily coated with lacquer and stuff so that nobody gets a splinter that you couldn't tell if it was real wood or not. But that's basically what it was.
    70:14
    And it's set upon what looks like two other fruit crates, and the way that they got the rake on the table was basically there was a 2x4 shoved underneath it and then two Coke cans for extra shimming. It was really an awesome design look to it. And then because of that, you could not nudge this machine to save your life.
    70:40
    This thing was like it was dynamo bolted into the ground, right? Oh, yeah, because it's got such a large footprint instead of having just four legs, it's crates that it's sitting on. So it's really hard to nudge this thing back and forth. So it felt like it was just built, birth of solid. It was a pretty cool build.
    71:03
    Sounds like one of those machines that as an operator, you put in one place and you leave it there. Pretty much, pretty much. I also got to play, which I have to rub it into, Jared, a Whitewood safecracker. yeah I saw a picture of the PIX that is that reminded me when I saw the PIX on your Twitter feed I was going man that is almost like super pro mode safecracker because there's nothing to give you clues about what you need to shoot for except for the flash no and somebody had gone on it with a sharpie they'd written on the inserts what that particular insert would be so you kind of had a clue what was going on what was weird was the first game I played on it was not the standard safecracker mode it was like assault mode or something like that Yeah, Assault Mode, Break the Vault. What you do with that particular mode, if you win a magic token in the game, you reinvest it back into the machine. It unlocks a special game mode called Break the Vault or Assault Mode. It's just like this massive six-ball or four-ball multi-ball all the time, and you're just smashing the vault, and you can actually earn tokens. Yes, I never played that before, and that was what it started with. So I don't know if he just had it set for that to be the mode. to start up with or not, because it wasn't that way the last time I'd played it.
    72:21
    And then the other one that I played that was exceedingly rare, that I put in time this time as was the last time I played it, was Wizard Blocks.
    72:29
    And I gotta say... Yeah, and I was not a Pin 2K fan based off of Episode 1 and Revenge from Mars. I like the humor in Revenge from Mars, but I still find... Yeah, me too. The play layout, the playfield layout was still pretty boring and ho-hum, but with Wizard Blocks, you can so tell it's a Pat Lawler game.
    72:53
    But there was actually some variation of where to shoot, and there was, again, a mid-flipper and shooting side ramps, and it was pretty cool. I had a good time playing that, and I could see where they were going with it.
    73:09
    So that was pretty interesting. Anyway, those were the highlights of playing in that place. I played a ton of other games too, but those were certainly the Wunderwall. You lucky bastard. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I saw the quick video run-through. It wasn't a walk-through. It was a run-through of the other games there. And there were things like, I think there was a Judge Dredd there, and there were a couple of other... Was it Dirty Harry? is that right? I'm trying to think. I'm just trying to recall from memory what there was, but there were some nice titles there. I know that for sure. So this guy's got like a bar and it's got a wood fire pizza oven. It's got a nightclub and it's got a pizza oven and it's got this home theater. Home theater and the seats were motion seats, D-box seats. So they tilt and rock.
    74:09
    Yeah. It would be pretty amazing to go there. we don't really have anything. If I was going to do my own sort of arcade, that's sort of how I'd do it. You know, probably without all the whitewoods in it, because there's no way you can get those.
    74:25
    He's like an ex-industry guy, this guy, hey. No, he's not. He's not ex-industry. No, he's not an ex-industry. He's just a severe collector, and he's got inns with the former designers. Many of his tables came from designer living rooms.
    74:42
    So most of them, the ROMs are prototype ROMs. We were warned about that before playing the tournament, that most of these tables are not going to be running the same way that you're used to these tables, even if they look like the regular table. They're often running on prototype setups. It's pretty crazy.
    75:04
    It's pretty nuts. Hey, Jared, I know you have what we'll call a mailbag of stuff you want to get to. yeah i just um i know a lot of other podcasts um sort of talk about the feedback and stuff they get we generally don't for some reason i thought it's probably time to change that i know that um i'm a big avid listener of the pinheads pinball podcast which is an australian production done by um a guy who's actually in the radio industry it's really good and it's such a buzz to hear your name read out on air, so to speak, in a podcast.
    75:44
    So I just wanted to, there's a couple of things I wanted to do. I just wanted to, first of all, give a shout out to the Pinball Podcast, Don and Jeff. Hey, guys, thanks for listening. And we all heard your little comment in one of your, I think, the last podcast you did about the change in name and the change in structure of what we talk about on the podcast.
    76:10
    The guys are saying that, hey, they've got big balls, this is going a little bit of pinball and 45 minutes of movies.
    76:17
    So, yeah, we just wanted to try and mix it up a bit. And, yeah, we really appreciate your feedback and the fact you're listening to us. So thanks heaps for sharing a bit about the podcast and if you've got any other suggestions about what we might want to do, what you might want to hear in a podcast with perhaps less structure, then, yeah, we'd love to get some more ideas from you guys because, yeah, I really enjoy listening to your podcast. So it's a great production.
    76:48
    I also have a – I guess it's kind of like an award. There's no prize attached. It's just something that I noticed the other day and I'm going to call it For Great Justice Award. Okay. And this is a... Those geeks who are listening to the podcast will know what For Great Justice means.
    77:11
    So this is for services of excellence in the Android forum and dedication to beta testing. There's a user called Kingo and for a while he's been looking at the view angles of all the tables in Pimple Arcade, and he just noticed some real inconsistencies. So what this guy's done is gone through each table, looked at all the plunger cams, and noted all the inconsistencies in the plunger cams across all the tables. And I commented, I said, dude, that must have taken you so, so long to go in, capture it, and record your feedback. And I'll tell you what, it's pretty eye-opening to see the disparity between all the different plunger cams and the bugs in each of the plunger views. And it's a little bit revealing. It's just one of those, again, one of those low-hanging fruit items that the team can actually do to clean the game up a bit when they have a chance. So it was really, really nice to actually see that sort of effort being put into beta testing. And, you know, for those people who do take the time to beta test, it's kind of what we're here for, you know. We do try and do the best we can to help out Farsight produce a quality product at the end of the day. So, yeah, it's really cool to actually, yeah, see people doing that. So that was really awesome.
    78:45
    So let's jump into the podcast and interview section. We'll have a look at the feedback for Ambiance. at the moment, which was a fun episode.
    78:56
    So, hey, Russell Bergeman, thanks very much for your feedback, mate. He's saying that the podcast was great. He agrees that more polished and added features are needed. This is in the game, not our podcast.
    79:16
    So, yeah, he'd like to see the artwork issues get a bit of attention too. and he'd like to see he actually made mention of a lit back box topper on Pinbot and getting some of that wiring wired in. So yeah, they're really good suggestions, Russell. So thanks for those. It'd be really great to see that type of thing. And Buzz1126 wants those Sloopy 10 commandments in printed form so he can display them proudly on his wall. I think he's a big fan. I guess I could probably do something about that and post those at some point. Yeah, actually, the Slurpee chat actually raised a fair bit of good discussion. Eaton Beaver here, also, by the way, really good username, man. Every time I read your username, I laugh.
    80:06
    He was talking about the disparity in size of the cup sizes, where they're getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and he's not happy with that. So, yeah, really good feedback coming through. So, yeah, keep it coming, guys. We're always really interested to hear what you think of the podcast and how you consume it and what you like to see in it. So if you find that we've taken too long on a segment, let us know and we can tweak it because, ideally, we want something that you want to listen to. So if you give us some tips, we're most likely inclined to do something about them. So, yeah, keep the feedback coming. It's great. I'll add in that last time we requested if anybody could submit artwork for a new logo we would vastly appreciate it we had one submission by pinballwiz45b so thanks appreciate it it's not quite what we're looking for but keep trying again logos are different than just graphics and logos are a tricky business that's why we don't want to do it I think to show you trap. We kind of left the door pretty open with what we were after, too. So, I mean, the fact that PinballWiz45B actually took the time to go, you know, why don't I throw something together?
    81:27
    Without very much scope at all, it's really good. It's great that he's done that. So, yeah, thanks to each of that. So, again, people, it's still open, though. If you would like to submit a logo, you may do so. The email is blahblahblockade at gmail.com. Send send whatever you got to that and we'll take a look.
    81:49
    And if we wind up using your logo, we'll have you on the show for a little spell and we'll talk to you.
    81:56
    Beyond that, do we have anybody else that we wanted to say hello to? I don't think we do. I think that's all the shoutouts for now. Fantastic. Yeah. Well, hey, I think we're going to close up shop. I do want to tease that we have arranged with Bobby King to talk to him specifically about the Addams Family Kickstarter. Hopefully we'll be able to get all the details about what's going into getting that Kickstarter going, the history of it, what it means to Pinball Arcade having that game in there, all manner of questions. We're going to stick that into the next podcast, I believe.
    82:40
    But it might change. Basically, we'll probably have it whenever the Kickstarter is about to start. It's kind of up to Farsight when they'll be able to allow us to release that. So, keep your eyes peeled for that, because it might come sooner than later. We don't know.
    82:57
    Yeah, we really don't, because we don't have any idea what's going on there. Nope, we're at their mercy on this one, so stay tuned for that. It should be interesting.
    83:06
    Beyond that, go play some pinball, people, and enjoy your time. Go see a movie. And please, give us feedback. Again, Twitter at ShutYourTraps, at Blockade, at JaredMorgz, and whatever Bonko is there.
    83:27
    No, I won't count. All right, everybody. We will see you all next time in the Blockade. All right, boys.
    83:39
    So, do we talk about organs? No. That is the question. Alright, fair enough. That was easy. I'm in a good mood now. Don't spoil it.