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Ep 160: 6 Years!

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 2m·analyzed·Feb 18, 2025
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TL;DR

Ep 160 reflection on Lyman legacy, licensing complexity, American Pinball crisis amid staff exodus.

Summary

Loser Kid Pinball Podcast celebrates its 160th episode and 6-year anniversary, reflecting on a recent emotional episode featuring legendary pinball designer Lyman F. Sheats Jr.. Hosts Josh and Scott discuss listener reactions, the Silverstein concert experience with Shane, and extensively analyze licensing issues in pinball (Back to the Future, Star Wars), American Pinball troubled trajectory following David Fix departure, and concerns about the company's viability given staff turnover and customer service failures.

Key Claims

  • Stern originally had Back to the Future license but dropped it due to excessive licensing restrictions, not marketing concerns as Chris K claimed on Nudgecast.

    high confidence · Josh and Scott correcting claims made by Chris K on Nudgecast podcast about Stern dropping BTTF license; they cite Flip N Out Pinball podcast and Triple Drain Pinball Podcast podcast where Christopher Franchi announced Dutch secured DeLorean rights only.

  • Dutch Pinball secured only the DeLorean for Back to the Future; they could not get Marty McFly or Doc Brown due to the same licensing restrictions that blocked Stern.

    high confidence · Josh citing Christopher Franchi announcement on Triple Drain Pinball podcast that Dutch got DeLorean 'and that was it.'

  • American Pinball is contractually obligated to release their next game, but could potentially escape through bankruptcy or closure; the game is substantially complete with code work remaining.

    medium confidence · Josh and Scott noting they received correction from someone about American Pinball contractual obligations; game is 'pretty much done' and they're 'working on code which seems to be the problem with everything.'

  • David Fix was fired from American Pinball along with most of the team that worked on the next project.

    high confidence · Josh and Scott discussing David Fix's Pinball News interview: 'pretty much everyone that had worked on the next project had been fired.'

  • American Pinball next game has been questioned by developers who played it about what makes it fun; the company couldn't provide a compelling answer.

    medium confidence · Scott: 'we did talk to someone that's had hands-on with it that develops pinball machines...they had questions of like what makes this game fun right And the American couldn't answer that question.'

  • American Pinball customer service has deteriorated significantly, with customers reporting unanswered calls and emails about broken machines despite promises to respond.

    high confidence · Josh citing Fix interview feedback: 'I have bought American product. I've got it in my home. It is broken. They have promised if I call, they will answer. I can't get a response to my email. I can't get a response to my phone.'

Notable Quotes

  • “And there was a lot of people saying, I just wish I could have thanked Lyman. And through this episode, we felt like we got a little closer to Lyman and thank him.”

    Josh (host) @ Early in episode — Captures the emotional core of episode 159 about Lyman Sheets and community gratitude for his contributions to pinball.

  • “Thank you for your hard work, your dedication to our hobby, both on and off the clock, Lyman. For going back to games on your own time because you knew there was something missing.”

    Christopher L (Wombat Pinball) @ Reader email segment — Representative of listener sentiment about Lyman's legacy; demonstrates how his code updates defined games like Walking Dead and Monster Bash.

  • “I don't see anybody really wanting to buy the next game even though it looks interesting...if you don't want to answer them, we can speculate and project here.”

    Scott (co-host) @ American Pinball discussion — Blunt assessment of market confidence in American Pinball's upcoming release despite visual appeal.

  • “My optimism for American Pinball is super low because I just don't see it. They've been lost for a while.”

    Josh (host) @ American Pinball analysis — Summarizes the hosts' overall stance on American Pinball's viability after 7 years of operations.

  • “It's like you've eliminated all the cooking staff in the kitchen but you still have the ingredients.”

    Josh (host) @ Dave Fix interview discussion — Metaphor explaining concerns about manufacturing games without original designers and development team present.

  • “You've got no one that has been in pinball working there. You've got a bunch of people manufacturing.”

    Scott (co-host) @ American Pinball personnel analysis — Identifies core problem: new leadership (Ron from Polycade) lacks pinball industry experience.

  • “Imagine if you had a YouTube pinball machine, but you couldn't get Bono or The Edge. Yeah, yeah just why would you do it why would you do it right.”

    Josh (host) — Illustrates the licensing paradox: securing a major IP but losing essential characters/elements undermines appeal.

Entities

Lyman F. Sheats Jr.personJoshperson[name withheld pending review]personChristopher LpersonShane SilversteinpersonZach SharpepersonNicoleperson

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community confidence in American Pinball's next release has collapsed. Hosts report no enthusiastic pre-orders, quality control concerns, customer service failures, and structural problems (staff exodus, lack of pinball expertise in leadership).

    high · Josh: 'My optimism for American Pinball is super low because I just don't see it.' Scott: 'I don't see anybody really wanting to buy the next game.' Listeners reporting broken machines and unanswered support calls.

  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball fired Dave Fix and nearly entire development team. Replaced with Ron (from Polycade/arcade background) and staff lacking pinball industry experience. Critical institutional knowledge lost.

    high · Scott: 'pretty much everyone that had worked on the next project had been fired.' Josh: 'You've got no one that has been in pinball working there.' Ron joined February from Polycade, not answering phones.

  • ?

    product_concern: Next American Pinball game lacks clear design differentiation or play appeal. When shown to experienced pinball developers, company couldn't articulate what makes the game fun.

    medium · Scott: 'they had had questions of like what makes this game fun right And the American couldn't answer that question.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: American Pinball experiencing systematic customer service failure. Customers report unanswered calls and emails about defective machines; company made promises to respond but isn't following through.

    high · Josh citing Fix interview feedback: 'I have bought American product...broken...promised if I call they will answer. I can't get a response to my email...can't get a response to my phone.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.187

0:00
thanks for tuning in to loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 160 we are quite up there aren't we scott we're getting old you know it's funny because i kept like screwing up the intro kept saying what was it episode 159 like even though we're like on one well 159 was pretty important because we did the lyman episode right we did the lyman episode yeah and that was amazing but Before we get into that, you know, one of Lyman's recent games, Metallica, that's right behind you. I got to come to your house and play it. Yep. Where did you get that Metallica from? Well, I'll tell you what I got on top of the Metallica. If you look top, I finally got the Metallica topper, and I completed the package. I am going to get the shooter out. I know it's silly, but I'm totally going to get it. And Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out Pinball, they'll definitely take care of you. Looking for that new game or used game, they'll definitely hook you up. And don't worry. I know they're on vacation this week. They sent out the notices saying, hey, we'll be out of the office for the week. Zach is crazy good, though. Like he's still he'll still check back. He'll still get you taken care of. You know, while we were at the Silverstein stuff, I was getting messages. A friend of ours, Matt Shablam, had referred a friend of his to us to help him buy through flipping out. And I did all that while we were playing pinball. Zach had it done. He's like, I got one. I've got a Mandalorian in stock. seriously the whole deal was done within like 30 minutes and out the door i mean holy crap yeah and actually we were we were talking to dan uh who runs keto's uh our local bar and uh he's the one who actually we asked him about uh oh i saw pulp fiction was here and he said yeah uh actually saw zach posted one he got it out here so again new used he can definitely help you out and he has good prices. He really does.
1:54
It's been a minute since we recorded. You know, we did the Lyman episode. That was fantastic. Then I went to California, so I was gone. You were gone. I can't tell you the outreach and outpouring from the Lyman episode. It was amazing. People love Penny. People love the Sharps.
2:10

  • Star Wars pinball has different licensing restrictions between films; Return of the Jedi has fewer clips available because licensing changed and artists gained more control over their likenesses.

    medium confidence · Josh explaining Star Wars licensing: 'whenever you're playing Return of the Jedi, they don't have access to a lot of those clips. Because that was right when, apparently, that's when the licensing turned.'

  • American Pinball is on its fourth iteration/reboot as a company; historically, companies rarely survive multiple reboots to become successful.

    high confidence · Scott: 'This is American Pinball 4.0. Okay? Yeah. So this is the fourth version of a company that's called American Pinball.'

    • @ Licensing discussion

  • “It's money, right? So next time you're playing Star Wars, keep an eye on that.”

    Scott (co-host) @ Licensing restriction discussion — Core insight that licensing restrictions come down to financial negotiations between manufacturers and IP holders.

  • “I will at least give Dave props for being open and transparent with the answers, whether or not you agree with the answers, that's a different situation.”

    Josh (host) @ Dave Fix interview reflection — Acknowledges Fix's willingness to engage despite disagreement on company direction.

  • “Pinball's in a place where it's trimming the fat right now. It is. Yeah, they're contracting it. If you can't prove that you can bring to the table, you're not.”

    Josh and Scott (hosts) @ Industry consolidation discussion — Describes current market dynamics as consolidation and elimination of underperforming manufacturers.

    • Penny Sheets
    person
    David Fixperson
    Christopher Franchiperson
    Chris Kperson
    Ian Jacobyperson
    Joelperson
    Ronperson
    Gary Sternperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    John Borgperson
    Matt Shablamperson
    Danperson
    Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization
    Flip N Out Pinballorganization
    American Pinballcompany
    Dutch Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Nudgecastorganization

    licensing_signal: Both Stern and Dutch Pinball unable to secure primary character rights (Marty McFly, Doc Brown) for Back to the Future. Dutch secured only DeLorean. Licensing restrictions driven by financial/control demands from IP holders.

    high · Christopher Franchi announced Dutch got 'DeLorean and that was it.' Josh confirms Stern dropped license for same reason. Same structural licensing problem appears across multiple studios.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Discussion of when licensing restrictions make a game unworkable. Core characters (like Marty, Doc in BTTF) are vital to IP appeal; missing them creates incomplete experience. Contrast with games like Jurassic Park (Nedry only) that work through different framing.

    medium · Josh: 'Imagine if you had a YouTube machine but you couldn't get Bono or The Edge...why would you do it?' Metaphor about core driving forces in bands/licenses.

  • ?

    community_signal: Episode 159 featuring Lyman Sheets generated unusually strong community response. Listeners expressing gratitude for his code work on Walking Dead, Monster Bash, Metallica. Emotional connection between designer and players evident.

    high · Josh: 'I can't tell you the outreach and outpouring from the Lyman episode. It was amazing. People love Penny. People love the Sharps.' Christopher L email details how Lyman's code made him fall in love with pinball.

  • $

    market_signal: Industry is in contraction/consolidation phase. Manufacturers unable to prove market value or differentiation are being eliminated. American Pinball surviving on borrowed time; next product viability critical.

    high · Josh: 'Pinball's in a place where it's trimming the fat right now...If you can't prove that you can bring to the table, you're not.' Scott: 'American Pinball 4.0...usually there's a core group that continues...they've been lost.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Dave Fix's Pinball News interview generated more community discussion than Gary Stern's appearance on same episode. Fix's candor about American Pinball challenges resonated more than executive-level commentary.

    medium · Josh: 'Gary Stern was on the same episode...No one talked about the Gary Stern episode. They're all talking about the Dave Fix interview.'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Licensing restrictions are fundamental industry constraint, not exception. Affects Stern (BTTF, Star Wars), Dutch (BTTF), other manufacturers. Often driven by actor/artist likeness rights, not just IP holder demands. Money is primary driver.

    high · Discussion of Star Wars (Return of Jedi licensing turn), Hulk (one pose/eye only), various examples showing consistent pattern of restrictions tied to financial settlements and rights holders.

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball's parent company likely near end of patience. Company has been unprofitable for 7 years across multiple iterations (Houdini, Papa Duke, Baller, Fix era). Next game performance critical to survival.

    medium · Josh: 'if you are not making money by selling your product, then you are losing money for your parent company. And apparently eventually your parent company is going to be tired of it.'

  • ?

    product_launch: American Pinball's next game is substantially complete from design/mechanics perspective; code work is primary remaining task. Game visually improved over prior releases but lacks demonstrated market appeal or player confidence.

    medium · Josh: 'the game is pretty much done like they're working on code which seems to be the problem with everything right.' Scott: 'I'm excited about the next project. But...I don't have any faith.'

    • Amazing. Like, let me, let me read one email to you just to give you an idea. This is from Christopher L. He said, Hey, Josh and Scott, I wanted to reach out to you guys and say thank you for a great episode to Educated Alignment. It was great. It was a great listen. It was nice to feel a little bit closer to the legend. Thanks to everyone's memories. He got back into pinball back in 2014 and he found the Walking Dead pinball machine and he fell in love with it, right? That's what sucked him into pinball. You know, fast forward, he got bit by the silver ball bug. He now has eight in his basement. He's like, John Borg did a good job with the layout. but really what makes this game is Lyman's code. I truly made me fall in love with pinball. I also own a monster bash remake le, which one of Lyman's earliest games and still is my grill. And that I, that I cherish owning his voices forever immortalized through Lyman's lament, which we didn't bring up on the last episode, but I love Lyman's lament. That's such a memorable moment in that pinball machine, you know, and that extra special, if you, if you get the extra special Lyman talks to you on that one, um, So unfortunately, I never got the chance to meet Lyman.
    3:20
    I would love to talk to him just five, ten minutes about pinball. Truthfully, the reason I wanted to meet him would have been to thank him. And there was a lot of that, too. There was a lot of people saying, I just wish I could have thanked Lyman. And through this episode, we felt like we got to be a little closer to Lyman and thank him. Wrapping this up, Christopher L. says, thank you for your hard work, your dedication to our hobby, both on and off the clock, Lyman. For going back to games on your own time because you knew there was something missing. something that could have been better or be even more fun than it already was just to say lyman thank you for being such an influence to myself to many others to learn pinball to appreciate its depth and the love of the game i don't know if you can pass this along to penny which we are right now and as i would love for her to know that story i'm sure is one of thousands here but that was my story and without lyman's genius who knows if i would have ever been entrenched in the love with the hobby that i am today and thank you loser kids for all your hard work and dedication the hobby as well love listening you guys keep up the good work christopher uh chris l with wombat pinball so chris thanks thanks for sending that into us man that was uh i sent that over to scott while he's in california he's like dude that's amazing so yeah it's fun we we definitely wanted to keep the episode upbeat um we all know the tragic end um and so things to think about is our lives are interconnected with other people regardless of how we feel about it and if uh and i know we've plugged it before but if anybody is feeling down or feeling needs definitely go seek help please go and reach out because there's a there's a vacuum in the universe if you do something that removes you from it and it it affects so many people there's so much collateral damage on it and if there's anything that we can do to help people to reach out and to get mental health treatment, happy to do that. But we didn't want to dwell on that because we really wanted to focus on the positive aspects of Lyman. So I just wanted to plug that now again. Just again, think about it. You mean more than you think. Yep. Totally agree. And so I'm just glad we were able to do the episode i just i had something tugging at me saying yep you know when it when sadly when he passed we talked about doing something and i know it didn't feel like it didn't feel like the times i know slam tilts really close was really close yeah so i thought it'd be cool to do you know they do their episodes the cluster bucks where you get everyone together i thought it'd be memorable to do something like that but i felt like that's their thing right like i didn't want to step on their toes and be like hey and so you know we talked about back and forth and I don't know it's been three years I felt like it was finally time and it just it was funny because like we talked about doing this episode and I pitched the idea to Zach Sharp and the next thing I know like within 30 minutes all the Sharps were on board and Penny was on board as well and it was it wasn't it was crazy it was meant to be right like it was it all worked out perfectly so it was fun to hear the behind the scenes and we unfortunately we don't know the people behind the fandom we really don't and getting some of the behind the scenes like um the stories about you know lyman showing up at the pennies with the flowers and you know things like that that was nice just to connect the human to the legend and it's uh it's just nice to hear all the behind the scenes and to really realize how So just, I guess, getting back to it, that we don't realize all the little things that we do in life that people remember. Yeah, I agree.
    7:11
    So we also went to Silverstein. Yeah, that was amazing. We'll pull that. Okay, so I'm wearing my Silverstein shirt. If you're looking on the YouTubes, Josh and I got the same shirt. I will point out that I selected mine first. and Josh decided to... I think all of us there bought the same shirt. Yeah, we did. But I am on record as saying that that's the one I wanted and then everyone else is like, well, that's the one I wanted too. Yeah.
    7:41
    I would say the best part about it is... By the way, Shane is a great guy, awesome guy. They just finished their tour in Toronto and he was snowed in. Was it Montreal? It was Montreal. I know it was back in Canada. So so but they were snowed in. He was having a hard time getting back to Vegas, which was funny because I was driving through Vegas at that time. But it was fun because we went to a local bar in the afternoon. So not not a lot of traction. And so we were we were playing pinball. And I just thought this is in many ways for him to be a lead singer of a well-known band. And there was at least, what, 3,000 to 4,000 people at the show. And it was a big show. It was a good-sized show. Yeah, and they were the headliner. But it was fun because it was just four of us playing in this nearly empty bar, and he was able to, I guess, interact on a human level without having anybody come up and bug him and everything. It was just a lot of fun. And then at the end, he's like, well, I should probably get back to the show. And we're like, oh, we could give you guys. He's like, no, I'll just take one of these scooters. you know, those ones that you scan your phone on. Yeah. And I thought that that actually probably is a nice grounding for him to be able to say, hey, I can get up on stage and people know me and people will wear my shirts and all that kind of stuff. But I still have a personal life that is still private. Like, you know, it's intimate, I guess. It's not bugged by. I would say in many ways, fans, you reach a level of fame at some point that fans can be oppressive.
    9:26
    And it was just nice to see him behind the scenes. He was just chill, just had a good time. And he was talking about his Metallica. He got his through the Metallica website, which I thought was hilarious. Yeah. And what made me chuckle is we were kind of razzing each other too. It was funny because we're like picking different games to play. And I can't remember who picked Deadpool. But Shane's like, I'm not. It's like, I'm not a fan of Deadpool. Like, it's all right. Like, I'll play it. But like, it's not my, not my go-to. And like, ball. Then he like GC'd it. Yeah. Yeah, he's like a half a billion points. And we're like, oh, I'm Shane. I don't like Deadpool, but I'm going to blow this game up. Playing for like 30 minutes. All right, you're good. No, it was great. It was great. And if you haven't checked out, him and Ian Jacoby of Nudge Magazine have started up a new podcast called Nudge Cast. If you haven't checked it out, they've done five episodes so far. It's been really, really good. It's cool because it's kind of showing a different side of the hobby with some of the people highlighting some of just behind the scenes characters that we don't see very much. They did have Chris K on their last episode. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. uh but one thing that stuck out to me was is they were talking about back to the future pinball you know that's been rumored from uh from dutch pinball and they were saying that stern originally had the license but because of chris was saying because of uh marketing that stern had done they were told to drop the license because younger age kids weren't relating to the story and i i cannot talk to the marketing part of that but i can tell you from from inside they dropped the license because there was too many license restrictions right it didn't actually have anything to do with that and it was funny because when this originally broke last year we kind of talked about this last year it like went to dutch or like they they got the license or yeah so yeah as soon as stern dropped it dutch picked it up and what dutch has found out is the same licensing restrictions are there Franchi had mentioned this publicly On a podcast Flippin' Out With Friends With Joel If you're not subscribed to Flippin' Out Pinball Go check them out, they've got some great live streams And you can listen to Joel On the Triple Drain Pinball podcast Christopher Franchi Actually announced on that podcast In the comments That Dutch had secured the license To the DeLorean for the game But that was it Because the rumor was you couldn't get Marty You couldn't get Doc and you couldn't get the DeLorean. That's when Stern owned it. So Dutch has got the DeLorean. Yay, they got the DeLorean.
    12:07
    Here's the question, though. We've talked about extensive licensing questions, right, on the shows before. Now, there are things that are vital to a license. Yeah. And there are things that are vital. And there are – if you want to use the band analogy, there's usually like one or two people who drive a band. And there are some parts that you can like swap out, a keyboard player. And I'm not downplaying any of that, but there's usually one driving force. Imagine if you had a YouTube pinball machine, but you couldn't get Bono or The Edge. Yeah. yeah just why would you do it why would you do it right and and you could argue um we've talked about this before you know led zeppelin is known for one major sign obviously they are a legendary band and so they are able to do a pinball machine without the one song yeah but it it does it it is a head scratcher to say what you're doing led zeppelin and you can't get stairway to heaven or you it wasn't in the i don't know whatever limitation there was but it'd be like doing rush without tom sawyer yeah like it's the one song that everybody knows they play yeah and you know it's the same thing like hey you can do a okay let's let's throw out uh oh what's the sorry then Keanu Reeves okay you can do the Matrix you just can't have Keanu then why would you do it well it's like let's be honest Stern has had some interesting license choices of these last two three years John Wick without guns how much did they throw fit that there wasn't guns in the artwork versus it was in the game but overall there wasn't guns in the artwork how much of an outrage did that cause okay but I'll counter with that one I can understand at least them saying, okay, it's not like we're doing John Wick without guns. Yeah. We are doing John Wick without guns of the artwork. And so there are negotiations that you make with any licensor. And the licensor really dictates what you can and can't use. And even, do you remember way back in the day when Keith Ellewin was talking about, when he was talking about Infinity Quest? Yeah. And he's like, the only thing they gave us on the Hulk was the eye. Yeah. We could use like one pose and his eye. Yeah. It's like, what are we going to do with it? So if you ever noticed the Hulk, like in the, in the DMD, like just falls out of the top of the screen and spins like there's like, it's just a still image, but they just dropped them and spun them and they like zips off the screen. Yeah. Okay. So now my point with bringing that up is there are going to be negotiations with everything. You're not going to get everything you want unless you happen to be working with Metallica. And Metallica is like, hey, we're a big fan, whatever you want. Or Guns N' Roses, Slash. Hey, whatever you want. You want Live and Let Die? I'll call Paul McCartney. We'll get it set up. Well, can we talk about a funny one that people don't notice? Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. A funny one that people don notice The next time you playing a Star Wars check this out You ready for this So in Star Wars 1 and 2 so A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back You mean 4 and 5. Sorry, I apologize.
    15:42
    4 and 5. So all the clips are there, right? They have a lot of access. But whenever you're playing Return of the Jedi, they don't have access to a lot of those clips. Because that was right when, apparently, that's when the licensing turned. And so the artists had more of a say in their likeness. Correct. So next time you play – Bottom line is it's money. It's money, right? So next time you're playing Star Wars, keep an eye on that. So it does become a fine line, right? Like this licensing thing becomes a very fine line of when do we pull out? When do we take our chips and leave? And when do we push forward? And like Seth Davis said, we gamble and we bet the house essentially. I mean – Okay, but the DeLorean is a big line. The DeLorean's a big line. Marty McFly is a big line. It's a huge line. You can do it. You could argue, could you do it without the Marty and just the DeLorean? You can, but it feels like an incomplete game. Now, with Jurassic Park, you can also argue that, well, they only have Nedry, which always I read as nerdy every time. because it just – my mind just flips those around. You have Nedry, and that's pretty much – and you have some voice call-outs, but it's basically you're in the Jurassic Park world. Yeah. And it works, but I don't think you can do that with a movie. Yeah. Okay. Well, okay, Jurassic Park is a movie, but you see what I mean. Like something that is so iconic to the presentation.
    17:23
    It becomes like, like we said, it's a fine line because at least with Jurassic park, you are the person going through the park, right? Nedry is the one that's messing with you. I mean, and you have dinosaurs.
    17:35
    Okay. This is the thing. If you had back to the future and you only have the DeLorean, you give it to Elwin and you do like a Jurassic park thing where it's from your perspective, going from, from the past to the future, and all that stuff. And even then, I think you're just going to get... I think it'd be a hard sell. I think it would be. It'd be a really hard sell. Yeah, you get the DeLorean, and you get the Back to the Future logo. That's it. You know what I'm saying? You'd have to get the music, too. You'd have to. You'd have to, because on Jurassic Park, that is one thing that does pull you in, at least the music's there. True. That is very true. So, once again, and the other part about licensing, too, we actually had someone reach out, because two episodes ago, we talked about... Oh, yeah. uh american pinball sold through versus sold out and we actually had it wrong and so it's vice versa sold out is from from the manufacturer to the distributor and sold through is where you go all the way through the channel yeah so you sold all the way from the manufacturer to the consumer yeah so so okay the second thing too is is we were told that uh because we talked about american pinball's next game yeah which we have not said a title but we said that they are contact contractually obligated to release this game and we were told actually they are to a point so if they were to claim bankruptcy or if they were to sure close down okay there's ways around it right but for the most part like yeah like if american wanted to get out of it they could but we've seen the game and it's it's pretty much done like they're working on code which seems to be the problem with everything right yeah and so it's like you're just working on like why would you Why would you scrap a project? I don't know. Speaking of which, by the way, did you know Dave Fix was on Pinball News? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yes, I did know about that. Yeah. This is how crazy the interview was. Gary Stern was on the same episode that did an interview. No one talked about the Gary Stern episode. They're all talking about the Dave Fix interview. Oh, man. Okay. I have mixed feelings about Dave. And Dave has been very nice to us. And I totally understand that it is a complicated arrangement some people have with Dave, whether or not they feel that he was forthright with how American Pinball was or with the business plan or them being able to buy products or things like that. however it's an interesting situation that dave has been in for a while because it it feels like american pinball at least has been i've talked about this before spooky they have they figure out who they are you know cgc they figured out who they are jjp figured out who they are stern they know who they are yeah and american pinball never really felt like they knew who they were and didn't really find the audience, didn't find the theme choices that made you feel like, hey, this is American Pinball. And I don't know what limitations Dave had to work with. So we definitely don't know behind the scenes. I will say that Dave has been at least, whether or not you agree with the answers, he gave us answers to a lot of questions. And we didn't hold back. we ask the questions that people have been asking us and Dave, Dave answered every single question we, we gave him. So I will at least give Dave props for being open and transparent with the answers, whether or not you agree with the answers, that's, that may be a different situation, but you know, it's, I, I'm wondering where I'm hoping Dave has like a next phase in his pinball hobby thing. I, Dave is obviously passionate about pinball. Yeah, but pinball's in a place where it's trimming the fat right now. It is. Yeah, they're contracting it. If you can't prove that you can bring to the table, you're not. I'm not saying fix can't. I do have a couple things from this interview I want to bring up. Okay, go ahead. This is questionable. We are a family-friendly podcast. I've got to bring this up because no one else is talking about this. Okay. Skip 10, 10, 15 seconds.
    21:48
    So there's a part in the episode. It's two hours and 16 minutes. If you want to go straight to it, fix this. I know what he was trying to say, but the way he says it is terrible. He says he's in a three way between Mukesh and normal. And I was like, this sounds. Did he just say that? And he caught himself saying it and he kind of stumbled for a second and then he just tried to keep going. Just move on. Yeah. It's gay. I believe that. I'm not sure if it's a politically correct term, but it's like a Mexican standoff where there's, you know, you're kind of that. that Spider-Man thing where you're all pointing at each, you know, you're pointing at each other and it's, it's hard when you don't have one driving force in a company.
    22:34
    And, and this is what Apple actually ran into this. Apple ran into this where Steve Jobs was forced to leave Apple and Apple really stumbled without Steve Jobs. Now, Steve Jobs is not a nice guy, by the way. He was never a nice guy. He, he, the, the deification of Steve kind of baffles me. However, he was determined and he had a single minded focus on what he wanted to bring to the market. And he literally changed the world with the iPhone. Yep. I, everybody has some sort of computer device, which if you looked at my childhood and you watch Star Trek and you have them with, I don't even know what they're called. The, the, the little phaser things that they have all on all of them, They were basically like smartphones.
    23:24
    And so that's interesting. It never felt like American Pinball had the traction to have that single-minded focus to get something done.
    23:36
    So a couple other things that Fix brought up. He said that he has a non-compete clause that's 90 days. Does that still have any effect if you get let go?
    23:45
    I guess it depends on the contract. I would be curious on that. Because if your contract is not – so there are contractual differences between a contract that is not renewed and a contract that is terminated. Yeah. So a lot of these executive-level things, they have contracts. And actually, even my company, my company, that we are a collective anesthesia group and we have a contract with the hospital that lasts three years. Yeah. And when it lapses, then you could either say we will continue till a contract's done or you could say, no, the contract's terminated and you no longer have our our services. So it depends on how the contract is worded. Now, 90-day non-compete seems pretty short, really. It does for the most part, but I just assume if you're getting terminated that your non-compete doesn't really exist. You're essentially terminating the contract. Right, yeah. So it could be – there could be like a tail that he is compensated for that if he's not being renewed.
    25:01
    So I'm sure there are contractual teeth if there is a non-compete. Now, non-competes in themselves, though, can be kind of dubious as in you can't obviously take property that you developed when you were at a company and then take those ideas and those things that you developed under their under their umbrella and then immediately open another company. Yeah, true. That's pretty much there was a big lawsuit with Bratz. You remember Bratz? Yeah, the Bratz dolls. Yeah, the big-eyed dolls. Yeah. Because the person who started that actually worked for Mattel and Barbie. Oh. And there was definitely an – I think it was actually resolved, but I think money to exchange hands. So I wish things like that can happen. Now, if he started and is developing something completely different, it would be pretty hard to argue because you can't prevent someone from getting a job. if i get terminated as an anesthesiologist they can't say oh by the way we are terminating you we are not paying you and you can't work for three months i don't see how that would work yeah so the other thing that i don't know there was a lot of things because he talked about like pretty much everyone that had worked on the next project had been fired and so it was like a he'd liken it to like well fire okay i would say let off baby yeah whatever yeah um it pretty much like you've eliminated all the cooking staff in the kitchen but you you still have the ingredients and i agree to this point like you and i know that like when a new game comes out from either jersey jack or it comes out from stern those designers nine times out of ten are on the line with those workers to tell them what's going how to to make these because here's the thing we see the people are passionate about the game right we see the designers we see the coders we see the artists We see the people that are in love with these games. I've met the people on the line. They're there for a job. They're there for a paycheck. Nothing wrong with that. They're manufacturing. Correct. It's a manufacturing job. They're good at their job. And I'm sure you'll find various levels of commitment to like some people are really interested in pinball and other people are like I could be flipping burgers or I could be on the assembly line at Ford. You know, it's just another job. And I totally get that. So for me, it concerns me. If your next project, you're releasing it, the designer's not there, the people that worked on it aren't there producing this game. Let's be honest. We did the Fix interview, and it shocked me how many people openly said, I have bought American product. I've got it in my home. It is broken. They have promised if I call, they will answer. I can't get a response to my email. I can't get a response to my phone. and it's like so it's like you know american prove yourself this this is a black eye in my opinion because it's like if you came and do it you had the whole kitchen staff there no one that's in a manufacturing position that we just talked about is going to give a crap on the line and then you start producing these games and they fall apart in people's homes and then you've got two people that are over ametron who care more about arcade stuff because that's what they know and circuit boards, which there's nothing wrong with that. And then you have a gentleman that just start Ron, which Ron, you said you'd answer my calls. If I called dude, like I've called you several times and left away smells. You told me you listen to podcasts. This is how you're going to hear me now. Like if you can't answer my calls, I'm not being mean or anything about it, but I had questions about the fix interview. Cause it's like, but if you don't want to answer them, we can, we can speculate and project here. Here's the thing. Ron's not answering phones. He's been there since February. He's a salesman. He's not a gentleman that's worked in the pinball industry. He came from Polycade, which is an arcade. My faith in this company, I'm excited. I am super excited about the next project. But really, honestly, looking at where they're standing right now, I don't have any faith. And that's about where everyone else is at this point, too. You've got no one that has been in pinball working there. You've got a bunch of people manufacturing. I don't see it going over well. Like you – I don't want us to tell you. And I get like you laid people off because you weren't making the – the ends weren't meaning – the justifies or the ends weren't meaning whatever. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying, Scott?
    29:32
    This is American Pinball 4.0. Okay? Yeah. So this is the fourth version of a company that's called American Pinball. Yeah. Okay. How many companies have survived multiple reboots to turn out to be a successful company? Yeah. I can understand. Usually there's some stumbling, but there's usually like a core group that continues to fail and to work and to work out the bugs, and then they eventually succeed. My optimism for American Pitball is super low because I just don't see it. I don't see it. They've been lost for a while. And just looking at the revenue stream, if you are not making money by selling your product, then you are losing money for your parent company. And apparently – eventually your parent company is going to be tired of it. Yeah. And to say, what are we doing here? How long has American Pinball been around? Like seven years now. Something like that. and you know they started with houdini with papaduke and that was a train wreck then they got balser and that you know that ran its course and then they they moved on uh with fix and now we are doing whatever version of this um i i am definitely in the sit back and show me like you need to show me a product you need to show me something for me to have any faith in your company Yeah Because right now i i don and i i don see anybody really wanting to buy the next game even though it looks it looks interesting i'll say it looks like a step up from what they've been making we did talk to someone that's had hands-on with it that develops pinball machines i'll put it that way and they had experience with it lots of experience and they had had questions of like what makes this game fun right And the American couldn't answer that question. And so it concerns me. You've got a decent layout. You've got a good layout. I would say, we've talked about this before. I think it's on par with a Stern Pro. Yeah, a Stern Pro. Not a Venom or a Wick. And I'm not saying those are terrible layouts. I'm just saying, I think this game has potential to be, if it was made at Stern, it'd be a mid-tier game. Yeah, okay. But I would argue Wick is a mid-tier game. Like, it's fun. Like, the layout's fine. The layout is good. It's a little challenging. But you can definitely tell that this has is going to be a long player. You can do things. And I'm hoping when the code finally catches up to Elliot's layout, then it will be a great game. But until it gets to that point. we haven't heard a word from what's going on with wick or or tim sexton all that jazz it concerns me i i wish there were more things i my buddy down the street has an le and i play it regularly when i go over to his house yeah actually that's one of the games i play regularly at his house yeah because it's it's a beautiful game it really is and i'm i'm hoping that they're able to bring it to the the finish line but it really has been kind of radio silence for a while on that yeah all right so i've been tangential let me just wrap up the one okay go ahead there's a couple more things there's just one more thing i want to pull up and i just here's the problem when we have fix on we and we had a lot of people they loved the last interview because they felt it was very candid it was almost too candid right like there was there was things like fix you should be saying shared a lot i'll put it that way but it's fine but the problem with our previous interviews is they felt like fix is very much a salesman and and there was there was a lot of talk without substance essentially right here here's a statement that makes me think of this fix that he was so passionate about american that he hasn't taken a check since december 13th when i messaged you this it was on february 6th i did the math if he hadn't taken a check if he'd been let go uh in december shortly after our interview it'd been pretty much 60 days from his 90 day non-compete which meant he got fired around december 13th so again the difference between fired and let go like not renewed contract i'm just pointing out that that does matter it does matter okay if he got let go on december 13th and he was so passionate about american he wasn't taking a check from Americans since the 13th. So he's not claiming unemployment or was there a severance check that they tried to give him that he just wasn't taking? I don't know. There are, when you finish employment, there are always going to be terms. And I know people who have decided that, you know, they, it didn't end the way they wanted to with the company. And the company said we want to pay you x amount and there are always going to be conditions and there are people who look at that and say i do not like those conditions and therefore i will not take the money and so i'm not going to sign sign that severance package if that's that situation we are a hundred percent speculating here by the way but if he would if he'd taken the severance package or didn't take it that means he wouldn't have to do the non-compete there's just not a lot of passing the smell test with this interview i do apologize like i like seth fix i think it's nuance it's i i i would i'll take the contrarian view i i will say that it's always complicated it's always going to be a little more nuanced than we want to make it yeah um i'm hoping there's more to it but you know you know yeah all right we we've beat a dead horse with this one um let's talk twippies i don't know if we're supposed to announce this but hey we got an email well we're going to be watching we'll be watching because we're one of the finalists we'll be we'll be involved now the finalist could be the top 20 but uh yeah they didn't say what what finalist meant like you made the top 10 but i will say i the twippies is complex right and i i feel that i I probably had an influence on part of the the meltdown of the last year's twippies that's why we did the episode that we did like because well I okay I felt that there were lines that were crossed yes and and I felt that there is a big difference between entertainment and once you start crossing the line to uh personal information being shared uh online then then that that's a That's a big line to cross. And now I am happy that whatever has happened with all parties involved, it seems to be have mended some on some level. And so they've been able to move forward. And there are people who, you know, this is still a huge deal. I am flattered that people have voted for us. I love that there is something to recognize achievement in pinball. and this is one way that it happens including content creators including uh building games including designing games all that kind of stuff so i appreciate that are going on so i i'm happy that things are going on and josh when are the twippies going to be announced slash shown this saturday starting at 6 p.m eastern time going till 8 i remember correctly uh and it's through wormhole pinball wormhole's been killing it lately they've done some amazing interviews if you're not checking out wormhole you need to check them out go check out their content because it is insane right now uh some really great stuff going on there uh but yeah that's that's what's going on there it just kind of it kind of floored me to get we got an uh an invite for a live zoom uh thing to to be involved with the the twippies because we're finalists so we'll be around helping out And we again, a big thanks to everybody who voted for us. I this isn't why Josh and I do it for awards, but it's nice. I'm not going to lie. It feels nice that people recognize and it's it feels nice when people respond to us, mostly positive and enjoy what we do. because this i'm josh has shown you the the money making we get we got from our youtube which was 45 cents that was hilarious it's up to a dollar 33 now so we are we are rolling in it rolling so okay but again this is something that we do for fun and i'm grateful that now there are a lot of intangible things that we have gotten over this time i josh and i have become great friends we We talk every week, multiple times a week, usually. And there are so many people that we've met through pinball that have become some of my best friends. Yeah. And so I really do want to thank you for what this interaction has been to me. And the insights that you have brought me into pinball have made me a better person, a more complete pinball player. So I really do appreciate that. I appreciate the people that come up to us and tell us that they enjoy our content and that there are people that thank us from our perspective because we have a good take on the industry. We are positive, yet we give good constructive criticism. We hold the industry accountable at most points, and we're not afraid to ask the hard questions, and they appreciate that. And where, I don't know, it's nice to have people come up and just say they enjoy what we do. You know, we're not, like Scott said, we don't do this for the awards. If we did, we would have called it quits in 2021 when we won the Pinball Industry Award for Podcasts and Excellence, right? And it did make me chuckle because we did get a congratulatory, like, thank you from our senator in Utah for winning. It was kind of, yeah. Okay, this is the first I've heard about that. Are you serious? You don't remember this? No. Mike Lee thanked – said congratulations on winning the pinball. Okay, that is hilarious. I love that.
    40:13
    Hey, anytime a senator, one of the 100 people in the United States, two from your state. So thanks, Mike. I hope you're a big fan. And, of course, it had to be the most controversial senator from our state. so well actually i i wouldn't that probably wasn't the most controversial mitt romney just retired so yeah good point good point so anyhow yeah there's trust me in politics there's always controversy yeah and that's as political as we're going to get on this episode yeah exactly i want to give a quick thank you uh we started up a patreon um and jason forbes and Colin, Colin A., Colin Alzheimer, you know, kinetesis, this week in pinball, have joined us at the Loser Kid level. So that was the basic level. That was the entry level. So you're official Loser Kid now with us, man. That is awesome. Thanks, appreciate it. And at the top tier, so we have the Loser Kids, we have the Cool Kids, which is the mid-tier, and then the top tier is the Winner Kids. And we got a Winner Kid. Mike H., I'm not going to pronounce your last name because it looks Swedish. I don't know. But Mike, thank you. That was 20 bucks a month. I'm 25% Swedish. And so Mike, from my Swedish side, which is probably my upper right side, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Welcome to the Winter Kid level. The reason they joined, so Winter Kids are going to have a chance at joining us at the media days. So these are ones that we keep being invited to.
    41:46
    If King Kong, I'm hoping it's Donkey Kong, but if King Kong is next from that one, And we get the invite from Stern. You could join us. We did talk to Jersey Jack, and Jersey Jack said, no, we want to just focus on media. That's really fun. That's their problem. I will say we respectfully reached out to both Zach, Zach Sharp, and Ken Prummel, and they both have great products and different approaches. And so Ken respectfully said, I think that we're going to focus probably on a more intimate group. And so it wasn't going to fit with what they were doing. thankfully stern said that sounds like a great idea we'd love we'd love for you to bring them along and so go ahead and tell them what the winter kid level let's do so the winter kid level pretty much gets you an opportunity we will probably do a pinberg pinberg style for the winter kids of you know you got to hit f5 to get in but you will have an opportunity to join us this we will not pay for your expense yeah yeah we can't we can't pay for it but This is not an all-inclusive resort thing. I want you to know this is an opportunity to join us. And FYI, we are paying our – this is actually the reason why we started the Patreon is mainly to help us fund travel expenses and podcast expenses because we're still funding this. Yes, exactly. and so this is like scott said this is one way to help us find get getting there because it sounds like most manufacturers you know after shenanigans that ensued last year yeah i i felt bad i i felt like the avatar one um it got a little hijacked which i i do feel bad um yeah because it took a little bit of the steam out of avatar which we dedicated a full episode too because i was like thank you for bringing us out and and this is this is what your uh what your funds got but yep uh but so anyway likely things in the future um will be an invite but they will not be funded for us to come so we'll have to pay our own way um i didn't go out to dungeons and dragons because it would have cost me uh a half a pro game really yeah and so i i i I couldn't justify the short time, but I do appreciate that Stern was able to work with us so we could interview Dwight and Brian. And that was a great compromise that I really do appreciate Stern for doing that. But again, if you want to be a plus one when we go and check out a new game, that is open for the Patreon. And all the other funds will be used to fund all the other stuff that we use. Yep. um speaking of dnd did you hear that the le node boards are having issues yeah it's not the no board so what's happening is the dragon so the line workers are putting zip ties a little too taunt on the wiring that goes to the dragon and the dragon moves a lot and it's tethered yeah it's it's it's stretching that cable causing you know it to expose and then causing to ground out and then causing the frys aboard cables on stretching never exactly they said the easiest way to fix this is to cut the zip ties that hold the wires into place but they have a different fix coming in for those that have are actually had issues with it but well okay this is now josh i'm going to ask you i understand from a marketing standpoint that people want if they're gonna pay for the le then you want it asap right i totally get that um the challenge that you're going to have though and this is what the x-men ran into as well if you do the um the le's first you are going to regardless of how finely tuned your design is going to be you are going to find flaws manufacture like flaws that one when you're going for a prototype to manufacture product, you're going to find issues.
    45:45
    So would you, when do you want to find those issues? Do you want to manufacture the LEs and send them out on the hope that you're not going to have major issues and you can fix them later? Or would you want to start with pros on location, get your team up to speed, you can troubleshoot things a little easier and then move to the LEs like they've done in the past? what hey there's no right answer on this what are your thoughts josh i still think the right answer is getting the le's out i know you're going to run into issues and stuff like that but those are your those are the people spending the most money they're the ones that should have the product in their house first i get wanting to get pros on the location and and they can be kind of getting pigs and stuff like that like i said these le buyers the warranty comes with it let the distribute take care of the people that are getting the LEs And like I that here the thing I assuming I don get to see numbers for sales from Stern. They're not that chummy with us, but they're chummy enough. They're chummy enough. Okay. But they, they don't release those to anybody. Just FYI. Yeah. So, but we have had confirmations from different distributors. The best day for sales is usually the first week. Day one. Yeah. Day one, um, first week or two. depending on on how much how much you can stretch out the marketing how much you can stay in front of people's eyes right and that creating that FOMO so I think the more you can sell the le's and get them all sold out that's you know we all joke about like well you shouldn't be doing kickstarter and stuff like that the le is essentially your kickstarter you can sell all 500 that's that's money in the bank it helps you yeah push the rest of the okay it works I bought the metallica le i i bought i could have bought the premium for a cheaper price but i like the bling that this one has in the and the premium has exactly the same play it it does and i and i just even bought the topper which is not cheap i put the topper on there too i think we're i think moving forward to we're going to see a lot of things change with way pinball can't keep going the way it is because the environment and the economic economics have changed right it's regressed to the mean. The fever pitch of COVID and people were stuck home and didn't spend any money on vacations. Well, now they're spending on money on vacations. I just took my kids to Disneyland for three days. That ain't cheap. That's a pro-level game right there. The other thing, too, is people are concerned because they feel like the market is crashing, which it's not. It went back. There's a market correction. yeah it's correcting and and the thing is i think stern this is just me this is this is josh who has very little i have some business under my belt whatnot i think you need to go to two core back to two cornerstones a year that's what they were doing during covid and your third do your remake yeah because here's the thing metallica proved that if a game has been tried and true there's It's going to sell out, and there's not going to be any issues with it. So the remake is your ace in the pocket, right? That's what boosts your sell. If it's a slow year, it boosts your sales. I get doing the three-quarter stones because if one doesn't do so good, the next one's right around the corner to make up for the sales that didn't do one before. I still think you do the two-corner stones with the remake. You're essentially still doing three-corner stones at that point, but you're still making more money, especially if you go the remake route of you want to do in premium le that's more cash in the bank than doing with the pros and whatnot you don't have people judging back and forth like what do i do go the pro do i go the premium you know if the pro shows better you lose more money from your consumer just that's my opinion to do two cornerstones a remake and then if you want to do these anniversary ones the anniversary premiums not the le is the anniversary premiums and then that fills the gaps as well i still think you're creating i think it puts less stress on your teams and and like i said if you're trying to thin the herd and and group give more here's the thing with dnd they needed more creative time right like that's why x-men suffered and it's not i'm not gonna say sorry suffered x-men was was half-baked when it came out like it was not ready to be released but because dnd needed more time to push dnd back jack danger volunteered said hey i think x-men's ready it's good enough it's good enough and really we played it two weeks ago it is good it is a good game i actually still want a pro yeah um okay um you're wrong and i'll tell you why uh okay um i'm gonna go back to the old wayne gretzky quote okay where he says you miss 100 of the shots you don't take so i do agree with you on that you need to do a remake um there are some great uh themes that are ripe for a re-theme and you can definitely or not re-thing a resurrection or remastered whatever you want i like the resurrection um and come on who who in their right mind would not want a lord of the rings uh remastered i agree who would not want a simpsons pinball party remastered apparently ghostbusters and walking dead's on the table too that's the rumor okay walking dead i i cringe a little bit about the lcd on the walking dead because it will be vivid um you gotta admit though like literally the only thing on walking dead yeah that is walking dead is the amc and the title oh yeah no 100 but okay but that gets back to but zombies they have zombies but that gets back to it's back to the future so long as you got the delorean you're good to go man and it's it's good enough right um but having three themes and uh a remastered is the way to go um you still have three teams okay they still have roughly a year and a half to two years to develop now if you're not if the achilles heel on most of these games has always been the code so if you are going to sell more games on day one then you need to have more of a focus on the code you do because it yes you sell but if the code is not because things sell on theme and art and layout right those are the things that sell the code is not what sells the lcd is not what sells but when you actually have enough code there then you're going to have retention so think about how x-men jumped out and people are like whoa this is amazing and the layout i think is fun yeah the challenge is the code is so basic that elite players quickly tired of it so if you actually prioritize it and say okay we will do three cornerstone games and then if you have one that doesn't hit then you can move on quickly yeah so that's i mean it's no secret the venom was not a big seller it's no secret that john wick um was a it it landed flat and then it then it had a little bit more and i wouldn't be surprised if it ends up in a year or two being like a stranger things phenomenon but if you only rely on that and then you had maybe in a year you have a venom and a john wick that is that could be curtains yeah so you need to have a margin of error in there so that would be the remake okay but the remake is still... You may or may not get the same thing, same sales that Metallica did, but I don't think you will for everything. Metallica is a legendary game with a legendary rule set, and it's well-beloved. Do you really have that many Metallica level games that you can remastered? eventually you're going to run out of those. Yeah, true. And there's also going to be licensing issues. Metallica didn't have licensing issues. Can you hear the vacuuming above me? No. Okay. Are you saying it sucks right now? No, no, not at all.
    54:32
    All right. I agree to disagree. I still think. Okay. I think the thing is there's not enough software coders there, and so I think they need more time. Legit. If you're going to be high, if you need to have the games in a better code situation when they're released, the days of releasing the code at 0.42 are over. Like you need to have, especially when you have something like an Elwynn that consistently releases games that the code is far enough along that it is enjoyable and playable.
    55:10
    Yeah. Alrighty. We've talked about them a couple times already, but Dutch. Dutch is delayed. I guess Alice in Wonderland is being pushed back a little bit. You know, I... Is this shocker? Fine. Not at all. Not at all. And if you're going to buy this project game, like as bragging rights, the only reason why you're buying it is you're not buying it because it's an amazing player. It's not. yeah you're buying it as a bragging piece i actually prefer magic girl over alice in wonderland okay they were both terrible josh magic girl plays better in my opinion okay all right but that that's like saying that you go zero to 60 in 15 seconds and not 14 the magic girl that actually works yes there are plenty of magic girls in this world most of them do not work the resurrected one yeah the resurrected one yep yeah the but okay but come on i mean at this point if anybody is buying a dutch pinball product then you know what it is sorry if you're surprised at this level then i don't know what to tell you you obviously do not pay attention to any any of the media any of the history of them and you know they they've been riding strong on one successful game with a very complicated manufacturing history yeah true so they take forever and uh i mean they're still building dutch they're still building uh lebowski's which has been since i've started podcasting which by the way we've been doing this for six six years now sorry we finished our sixth year we're starting on our seventh we're starting our seventh yes yes so uh i want to hurry i i've got that in our notes really quick i just want to thank everyone who has been listening for this long yeah pretty nuts i i did the calculations ready for the scott i'm ready and in the six years we have been doing this we are at 900 000 listens uh that that's that's insane that is impressive and legit i'm just grateful that you find us entertaining enough to be the silent third chair in our podcast and i do appreciate it and for all of those who have taken the next step and have reached out and interacted with us again i i appreciate it and it makes us feel like what we're doing is worth it yep guess how many i guess how many listens we had the first year we did this right for us oh uh 50 000 no not even close okay 18 000 we got a whopping 18 all right okay okay so we've come a long way in six years so thank you for those that supported us okay are we over a thousand subscribers on YouTube yes yes we're now over a thousand subscribers which means we're a YouTube partner like you said we've monetized we've made a whopping $1.33 okay alright $1.33 so now Scott and I can both play Split Flipper on a Stern game yeah exactly it's great so So, yeah.
    58:32
    Just, you got anything else before we wrap this up? You know, we do have the Silver Ball swag. So check it out. Josh made a really cool 8-bit retro version of the logo. It looks really good. Like, I am a sucker for 8-bit because that is definitely the wheelhouse when I grew up from, like, 11 to 14. that was the NES, the you know, it's that was my life back then. It really takes me back to that sweet spot in my childhood and so check out the shirt. It's a really great one. It's a really great one. It really is and I need to get us some coming down too. That's the thing is I make these shirts and I'm like dang it, I need to own another one but my whole wardrobe is, is it lame that I have my own wardrobe of Loser Kid stuff? No, I don't know. Hey, I'm wearing a Loser Kid hat, and I wear it all the time. True. Actually, I think it's fun. I need to partition my wardrobe, though, because I have my pinball shirts, which are probably about 20 at this point. So I can't keep them in my active closet collection. I need to put them in a special box so I can pull them out if I'm wearing a pinball shirt.
    59:45
    It's awesome. I love it, and it makes me smile every time. all righty uh before we wrap this up content i got two content creators for the episode first one is minnesota retro gamer uh he is doing streaming right now it's called the lunch break pinball if you want to check it out just go to youtube lunch break pinball does live stream through your lunch break so give you something to do while you're eating your pizza or whatever yep uh really really awesome dude he wants to say he loves our show he found out about our guys during the seth davis podcast that we put out recently thank you for all the hard work uh let you know that i stream pinball every day on both on youtube and twitch so uh hoping to add a team fighter soon to the mix huh yeah that's hard like streaming pinball is hard because you're playing and talking at the same time and you have to be engaging enough for people to watch 100 and so uh that our second one is actually pastimes arcade do you know they're making content scott i i do now so tuesday mornings apparently they play pinball uh they stream live and the loser has to buy everyone coffees and so uh it's a fun little i know it's only like a tuesday morning but it'd become your tuesday morning routine so it's fun i okay this is this is something that's very similar to uh last time we went on uh to expo we played dollar games and you know it was the standard dollar game yeah it was fun to win but what took it to the next level is when we decided that the person who lost had to pose like the back glass and get their picture taken so they could be shamed forever so this is uh yeah it's hey i i love the uh the loser buys coffee, though, and that's pretty awesome. That's pretty awesome. If you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com. Get a hold of us on all the socials at LoserKidPinball, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, whatever tickles your fancy, we're probably on it. Hit us up on YouTube, hit the subscribe, yada yada. Scott, give us our last words. You know what? Go buy Metallica Topper. I know people were making fun of it, but it looks really good.