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Episode 266 - G.D. Donut!

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 13m·analyzed·Mar 1, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Pinball podcast discusses Dungeon Crawler Kyle rumors, Pokémon's commercial success, and NDA ethics.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss recent gaming experiences, Patreon supporters, and pinball news including the rumored Dungeon Crawler Kyle pinball machine. They debate which manufacturer might acquire the license, analyze the success of Pokémon Pinball, and have an extended discussion about NDAs in the pinball industry and their ethical concerns around access and disclosure agreements.

Key Claims

  • Dungeon Crawler Kyle is getting a pinball machine from a major manufacturer (not homebrew)

    medium confidence · Reports indicated that Dungeon Crawler Kyle is getting a pinball machine. The hosts note they haven't heard rumors about this until Loser Kids reached out, suggesting this is relatively new information.

  • The Dungeon Crawler Kyle audiobook narrator is confirmed to be doing voices for the pinball machine

    medium confidence · Tony states: 'The audiobook narrator is confirmed as doing the voices according to all this report.'

  • Pokémon Pinball was well-received commercially and exceeded expectations

    high confidence · Lewis's email asks about lessons from Pokémon's commercial success, and hosts confirm it exceeded expectations.

  • Pokémon is the largest IP franchise by revenue, surpassing Star Wars and all others

    high confidence · Tony: 'Pokemon is quite literally probably one of the largest IPs in the world... franchise wise it has made more than all others star wars all all of them... Pokemon is the mcdonald's of the video game ips'

  • Multimorphic has maintained exclusively family-friendly licensing across all titles

    high confidence · Dennis: 'every license has been family friendly. That's valid.' regarding Multimorphic's pattern.

  • Spooky Pinball has no qualms about including language and edgy content in games

    high confidence · Tony: 'Spooky Pinball has no qualms about language in their games. Oh, no, not at all.'

  • Dungeon Crawler Kyle is profane like a Scorsese film but not X-rated

    high confidence · Dennis: 'It's not like X-rated, like, oh my God, this stuff, like a Scorsese film. Like, it's not that.' Describing the profanity level.

Notable Quotes

  • “I wouldn't describe it that way, but what some used to call it was four o'clock Dennis. Four o'clock Dennis is blunt. Four o'clock Dennis does not like to put up the illusion that your idea is good.”

    Dennis @ early in episode — Self-deprecating humor about Dennis's work personality and how he deteriorates later in the day.

  • “You want me to work for free and let you have legal authority over what I say afterwards? This is not how I work.”

    Dennis @ NDA discussion section — Core principle about not signing NDAs without compensation; reflects his stance on independence from manufacturer influence.

  • “Pokemon is the mcdonald's of the video game ips... everyone everyone's played it everyone everyone knows it”

    Tony @ Pokemon discussion — Emphasizes Pokémon's unparalleled market penetration and cultural ubiquity as explanation for pinball success.

  • “I think it was a mistake for John Borg to design Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles layout to be as hard as it was with a theme that was designed to appeal to kids and adults.”

    Dennis @ Pokemon comparison section — Critique of design philosophy: kid-friendly IPs should have accessible layouts to match audience expectations.

  • “If you want to give me money and buy me for advice, that's a different story. Then I'm a consultant. It has nothing to do with the show.”

    Dennis @ NDA discussion — Clarifies his position: financial compensation changes the ethical calculus of disclosure agreements.

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonDungeon Crawler KylegamePokémon PinballgameLoser KidsmediaStern PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanySpooky PinballcompanyBarrels of Funcompany

Signals

  • ?

    machine_intel: Dungeon Crawler Kyle pinball machine in development; manufacturer unknown; reports indicate audiobook narrator confirmed for voice work.

    medium · Loser Kids reached out after news broke about Dungeon Crawler Kyle getting a pinball machine from a major (non-homebrew) manufacturer. Hosts speculate manufacturer is Multimorphic, Spooky Pinball, Barrels of Fun, American Pinball, or Jersey Jack (but lean toward Spooky).

  • ?

    product_launch: Pokémon Pinball recently released and exceeded commercial expectations; hosts analyze its success factors.

    high · Lewis's email references recent purchase and surprising commercial reception. Hosts confirm strong sales and discuss design lessons.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive reception for kid-friendly, approachable pinball layouts when combined with major IP.

    high · Lewis asks if manufacturers will increase production of 'baby games'; hosts see validation for accessibility-focused design with Pokémon's success.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Emerging design principle: match layout difficulty to target audience demographic; kid-friendly IPs should have approachable layouts.

    high · Dennis criticizes TMNT for being too hard; praises Pokémon/Danger/Gomez for matching approachable layout to franchise appeal to families.

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Dungeon Crawler Kyle book series experiencing massive commercial growth; graphic novel Kickstarter successful; tabletop game Kickstarter coming March; audiobook narration critical to brand value.

    high · Hosts describe the series as 'juggernaut', mention successful graphic novel Kickstarter, upcoming tabletop Kickstarter in March, and note audiobook narrator's confirmed involvement in pinball.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.219

0:00
Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, March 1st. This is episode 266. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. And hopefully the microphones are so tuned down that they don't hear the dishwasher that I started this morning. Hopefully not. Because I was like, I need to wash these cups. Ronka, Ronka, Ronka. Yeah. So if you hear it in the background, I apologize. But, you know, this is a low-rent podcast. We do what we do in order to entertain you. What's going on, Tony? What are you buying? Sorry, that was a Resident Evil 6 reference. But what are you playing? What am I playing? That's what I should have asked. Last episode, we had that conversation where you look back at the notes from our first episode and stuff. And one of the games that you had mentioned was Star Realms. Yes. Which is a tabletop card builder that also has a mobile app and is also available on Steam.
1:13
So I was like, I know I own. I've got a login. I own it on Steam. I had the mobile app back then. I used to play all the time. I haven't played forever. So I downloaded it back again, and I've been playing pretty hardcore since last episode, playing that as a go-to mobile game.
1:32
And I've also been playing the demo for Battlestar Galactica Scattered Hope, which is the roguelike. basically the way it's set up is that you're a single ship from the colonial fleet that is leading a group of colonial refugee ships trying to catch up to Galactica, to join with Galactica. Right.
2:08
It's a bunch of resource management and interspersed with dealing with crises of different types and trying to balance everything and fighting combat and trying not to have the civilian ships or your ship destroyed as you try and get as many survivors to Galactica as possible.
American Pinball
company
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Steve Richieperson
Jack Dangerperson
George Gomezperson
John Borgperson
Matthew V.person
Kevin S.person
Michael K.person
Buttsperson
Lewisperson
  • ?

    industry_signal: Manufacturers using NDAs and access as leverage; content creators face legal pressure despite not being employees.

    high · Dennis describes companies threatening content creators over leaks even without NDAs; explains how NDAs create 'chilling effect' for independent reviewers.

  • ?

    community_signal: Some content creators prioritize access to industry figures over editorial independence; susceptible to FOMO and special treatment.

    medium · Dennis: 'There are people who got into podcasting because they want to get close to the creators... being on the end is super—and I get it. It's exciting.'

  • $

    market_signal: IP strength critical to pinball commercial success; Pokémon's unprecedented cultural penetration and accessibility differentiate it from other franchises.

    high · Hosts agree IP is 'The King'; Tony: 'Pokemon is the mcdonald's of the video game ips... everyone everyone's played it'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Boutique manufacturers (Spooky, Barrels of Fun, Multimorphic) increasingly positioned for niche/edgy IP licenses; differentiation from Stern on thematic willingness.

    medium · Hosts debate which boutique manufacturer has Dungeon Crawler Kyle based on language/content tolerance and production scale.

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Strong community interest and speculation about Dungeon Crawler Kyle pinball machine; initial reactions online reported as 'highly positive'.

    medium · Dennis: 'initial reactions that I've seen online have been highly positive'; Tony finds concept 'exciting'.

    • 2:29
    So I've been playing the demo of that, which being a demo, it's very limited. But even at that point, I've not beaten what's even available in the demo yet. But I have not managed to beat the first boss yet. So normally by the time I get there, I am in such terrible shape that I can't survive it. Almost did this morning on a run. Almost. And then you had to come here. Yeah. Ruined the whole plan. No, no, no. I'd failed like an hour and a half before. I've been up since 3 a.m. Oh, wow. I had trouble sleeping, too, but I fell asleep by 3. Oh, no, that wasn't trouble sleeping. That's when I normally wake up at like 3 or 3.30 in the morning. That's right. I forget. I forget such things. That's my normal wake-up time. Yeah, this is normal. Everything's going good for Tony. This is normal. This is normal wake-up time. This is absolutely normal. Yep. I didn't even go to bed until like 11, 11.30. It doesn't matter. If I go to bed at 8, if I go to bed at 10, if I go to bed at midnight, I'm normally up between 3 and 4. Okay. Well, that kind of makes sense because once you get in that pattern, I often wake up before my alarm will go off I just turn it off and get up no you're supposed to turn the alarm you're supposed to hit the snooze and lay there and scream at it for like hours you have 12 alarms set up I have never in my life used snooze ever in fact I used to own an alarm clock that didn't have snooze I don't know if this one does I think it does I think that must be what the big button on it is probably but I always hit the little button and I'm like here's what will happen If I needed to snooze and I turned off my alarm and I fell back asleep and I woke up and I was going to be late for work, I would call in sick. Yes. Because something's wrong with me if that happened. You're not wrong. And I have to protect the children.
    4:18
    Everyone I work with is the children in this analogy. They're all the children. They're the children. And they must be protected from tired Dennis. Teep, teep, teep, teep, teep, teep. Hello. I'm not coming in today. I have the hit, hit black lung. I did have a co-worker came in. She was asking me some stuff on one of her work project things. And then afterwards, she mentioned something about she's getting ready to leave. And I think they were asking about if I could follow up on something. And I said I could. I would be available in the late afternoon sometime this week or something. And she goes, oh, okay, but I should try and do it before three, right? Because you're not good after three. and i'm like what do you mean i'm not good after three and it's she goes oh well i couldn't remember i said it's more four really after four and she goes well i couldn't remember but the she works with uh in terms of discussions on policy and stuff with someone who used to work for me at my last job who works for a different place now right and they talk and that person apparently told her, well, after four, Dennis just gets mean. You need to do all your meetings before four, because when Dennis is tired, he gets mean.
    5:36
    I wouldn't describe it that way, but what some used to call it was four o'clock Dennis. It was referred to as four o'clock Dennis. And four o'clock Dennis is blunt. That's the way I would describe it. Four o'clock Dennis does not like to put up the illusion that your idea is good. But 4 o'clock Dennis wants the meeting to be done. 4 o'clock Dennis is like, we're not supposed to be at work anymore. I was like, well, no, I stick around until 5, like, constantly. But I don't want to have to think after 4. Like, let me just answer emails or something. Right. I don't want to be processing things, especially your bad idea. Don't bring anything important to me after 4 o'clock. I'm just saying. It's going to go badly for you. I do deteriorate the further in the day it goes. So, yeah, by three, I'm usually not thinking so clearly. But after four, I'm like, okay, well, I don't want to sit here forever and pretend like maybe it is mean. I don't know. Yeah. No, it's just honest. I'm just telling it like it is.
    6:36
    That's right. That's what my mama used to say. I'm just telling it like it is. Tell it like it is. Well, speaking of telling it like it is, Tony, we actually have two new Patreon members. New achievement. Oh, we're going to get to that, guys. We're going to get to that. Yeah, we are. Matthew V. joined our Patreon and Kevin S. joined our Patreon. Thank you both very much. We appreciate you. And Michael K. upgraded his Patreon membership and included the following note to us. Hi, Dennis slash Tony. Pursuant to your suggestion, I have upgraded my membership and doubled my contribution in order to help prevent Skynet from taking over your podcast. I would not, however, be opposed to AI replacing Dennis's annoying co-host on the Pinball Show podcast. okay well setting that uh criticism aside we also appreciate your upgraded level and remind all that if you want to ensure that we do not just turn this entire podcast over to skynet to do the best way is to continue to ask for human beings and the best way to ask is with money at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers in terms of you very much yes tony has now expressed his appreciation as well i continue to play jedi survivor i continue to sometimes survive i'm let's just call it Jedi platformer. I just want to fight with lightsabers and stuff. Not double dash in the air. I'm not here to double dash. I'm here to hack and slash. So would you recommend Jedi Survivor as a good platformer? It's not co-op. Right. Yeah, as a single player, yeah, I would. I would, actually. I think if you enjoy platforming, you'll get a lot out of it. I guess I'm just surprised by the volume, probably. I shouldn't be after playing the first one, but And, you know, like in Tomb Raider, I go in expecting the platform. Like, that's what I expect. I just, I don't know. I just expect it to go. I still do that constantly as I make every successful jump. Is this the leap of the fates?
    8:30
    All right. So going into pinball, I did want to open with an email. We did get a few comments and such related to the last episode. Butts wrote in on our Patreon. Good old Butts. and he did ask if I do a thick Cajun accent. I'll say it at the end. He has requested a thick Cajun accent, so I can't do that. So I'll do it. I'll do it at the end. We'll do it like that. So this is what Butts wrote despite having what he's insisted upon.
    9:00
    I'll do it sort of Southern, which is without the Frenchness to it. Listening to Dennis try to think of recent video game pins made me think of sad multimorphic noises. Tony at least mentioned it later. Also, if you want to get technical about it, and what is pinball if not obsessing over semantics like fan layout, Iron Maiden Legacy of the Beast was the license of a mobile game. I do see a little bit of Jack in the Pokemon game. The captive balls is a call right back to Judge Dredd, one of his favorites, and he puts lightning bolt inserts in all his designs. But otherwise, yeah, pretty straightforward layout. Maybe an overcorrection to how fiddly Uncanny X-Men is to shoot as intended? but the approachable layout is perfect for the new players. I imagine it will be a slog in tournaments. You don't need to read any of this on the show, but if you do, I insist on a thick Cajun accent. I'm going to make a name for my shiv. He didn't say that, but that's my thick Cajun accent.
    9:56
    I tried to do more than my usual Southern, though, for butts. Thank you, butts, for raining. Yes, total whiff on my part. I completely forgot about Portal when I was talking about this, but to be fair, I forgot about all sorts of stuff. I forgot about Roller Coaster Tycoon. The Loser Kids, I think, reached out to us after. And we started talking a bit about other video game things. There's another one that they named Big Buck Hunter. Big Buck Hunter, yeah. I completely blanked on Big Buck Hunter. So, yeah, there have actually been plenty of, well, I guess you could argue it's plenty. I literally, even now, having seen the email, I don't recall Iron Maiden Legacy of the Beast as a mobile game.
    10:35
    I mean, I don't pay attention to mobile games, so that's not a surprise. but yeah i don't know maybe that's where some of the animation came from i i don't know i never thought that that was a first to me but no one argues with butts that's why butts is butts um speaking of loser kids so i also want to call them out again shout them out i should say not call them out uh because they uh messaged us when the news broke that reports have indicated i guess in a discussion with the author or something that Dungeon Crawler Carl is getting a pinball machine. And we ain't talking no homebrew. No, we're talking make-name-for-himself manufactured game.
    11:15
    Tony. I think it's awesome. What are your thoughts? I think it's great. I think it has... You have no space. But if there is a theme that Tony possibly would be very inclined to want to like so that he had a reason to get it. Would it not be Dungeon Corner? It would. You're 100% right. The audiobook narrator is confirmed as doing the voices according to all this report. I literally follow him on Instagram just to see the fun stuff he does on Instagram, the narrator. I also follow Matt Deniman, so that's not a surprise either. But yeah, no, it is. I find the concept exciting. it is amazing how that book series has blown up to the point where and I think the audio narration is a huge part of it because it is so well done of why it has blown up like it has but it has become like one of those giant things in the whole book talk world from what I've seen where people are like, no, no, I know I don't normally recommend stuff like this, but you really need to listen to this. So it has become this surprising giant juggernaut out of nowhere. So initial reactions that I've seen online have been highly positive. However, I think a lot of people, myself included, still view this in the grand scheme, the pantheon of potential themes still does feel relatively niche and the reason i bring it up like that is so let's advance this a little bit who do you think has it because i don't think it's stern i i like the smallest thing i can think of that stern did from a fan base perspective was walking dead right which had millions of viewers yeah i don't think it's stern I think Stern would do good by it. I don't think it's Stern. Do you want me to throw out some? Some people have suggested multimorphic. That was my first thought, was multimorphic, because it feels like a multimorphic kind of thing. My second thought, for the similar reasons, is spooky. It feels like kind of a niche, out-of-left-field thing that would fall into their interests. So here's my thought. from a so multimorphic given the screen uh the ability to basically advance through game levels would be easiest for them for obvious reasons um it also feels like it would be up their alley given their interest given they've done portal given like the weird al thing all of that here is the but i don't think it's them the reason i don't think it's them is the one thing that has been i i feel and correct me if you can think of an exception truly consistent about multimorphic is every license has been family friendly that's valid i had not thought about that and so given that i mean how it's executed will will you know come down to the designers but i'm really struggling to manage to imagine that when you drain you will not hear gd donut and i can't imagine multimorphic allowing it that's a very good point and so i think the language so guys if you haven't heard the books or read them but you know i've i've only heard the first one it's profane like like not like x-rated like oh my god this stuff like a scorsese film like it's not that it's not that But, I mean, there's profanity in it, and it's a part of the humor of it. So, given that, I hesitate on them. Spooky has no qualms about language in their games. Oh, no, not at all. I've seen a lot of people think it's not spooky, and I'm assuming that they think it's not spooky because the books are not scary. However, Spooky makes plenty of exceptions to that. And I think the run size of Spooky makes sense for something as niche as Dungeon Crawler Carl. I really think that they might get it. Another one I want to throw out is Barrels of Fun.
    15:38
    So they've done Labyrinth. They've done Dune. They've done Winchester. Don't know about their, you know, again, they've not done anything as edgy as what this would be. But very few brands have aside from Spooky. Right. Well, I think they actually could. And their run sizes, though, would accommodate this. Yeah, they would be. Because they typically do under $1,000. They would not be a bad choice at all.
    16:02
    I think that could work out pretty well, actually. The better than, like the OSPheres of American. I mean, American's got its new owner. It does. I don't know. And Melvin from DPX is now working as the creative director. But again, as I've noted, all I've ever seen from Melvin is wanting to regurgitate J-Pop. Maybe he does have another trick up his sleeve, and he's a big fan of Dungeon Crawler Carl. I don't know. And just like Stern, I'm the same way. I don't see J.J.P. taking on something like this. Who do you want to do it? Like even saying this, so you mentioned you thought Stern would do right by the license. Yeah. Yeah, but I don't think they have it. No, but I'm not asking that. I'm asking who, like, I guess if you got to have your pick, who do you want to, I guess, who do you think would build the best game for it, and who do you think maybe would honor the license the best?
    17:07
    You know it better than me. I would say, like, from a build perspective, I would want it to be Stern. Right. I'd probably be okay with it being JJP, but I'd want it to be Stern. In terms of who I think would honestly respect the license the most, I would guess Spooky. That's what I was thinking. But I don't like Spooky. They've gotten better, but I always have this nervousness with their layouts, and I'm not sure. They've been playing it safer lately, so I should probably say I want to try Beetlejuice, but I really liked how Evil Dead played. And I thought Texas Chainsaw and Looney Tunes shot pretty well, too. So they may be at the point where they might have an interesting layout. But I do think, like, if they were to have it, like, they've got to be – they're all – they would be all in on, like, they've read the books. They're going to have, like, your favorite character that I've not even encountered yet is going to be in there. Like, they're going to know all of that. I don't know.
    18:03
    They're going to know all of that. considering this book too is the last book that is short enough to listen to on a run to and from Texas I don know I don know you probably going to have to start listening on your own Maybe Maybe But the I mean Book eight comes in May So the like spooky would have you kill goblin children Like, that will be in there.
    18:28
    In fact, the call out will probably be in there about all the murder that you've done. Like, it would be in there.
    18:35
    So, I have no idea how far along in the process this might be. I've not heard any rumors until Loser Kids reached out to us about this So I don't think this is a 2026 game No But anyway We will have to in the words of the great Craig Bobby Wait and see And the interesting thing is Because A book 8 is coming in May They just had an Extremely successful Kickstarter for a graphic novel that follows another crawler from just before the events of Book One start and up until they meet Carl and Donut. And then they have another Kickstarter coming in March for a tabletop game and a one- to four-player card game. It's designed to be able to play solo, so that's coming out in March. It is just everywhere. The special edition hardback books are screaming off the shelves. So, yeah, it has taken off. Okay. Well, I just thought it would be a fun item for us to talk about because it's the only real news that I had. That said, Tony, we did have emails. So Michael M. wrote in. And actually, Michael wrote in. I was supposed to put this in on the last episode. I do not know what happened. I ended up moving the email out of the inbox before I had done so. And normally I put things in and then I get them out of the inbox immediately so that I know that I did it. So I screwed up. And so so Michael reached out and he was like, hey, did you forget about me? And I was like, yes, I did. So anyway, you're going to hear a reference here that won't it won't make sense because it's actually from the episode prior. But what Micah wrote in and said on the last show, you mentioned your dislike of NDAs. I am not in that world, and I don't know what is so bad about an NDA. Could you explain why they are bad?
    20:46
    Obviously, I'll take this one since this is a me hang up. NDAs aren't inherently bad. They have their reasons. They have good purposes when it comes to certain things. I dislike them when you are directly talking about interactions between a company and media that does reviews because I feel like it puts a muzzle on the reviewer to be able to say their actual feelings or to speak about stuff they saw at all. In my opinion, if a company does not want to have something spoken about or seen, then they just shouldn't show you.
    21:36
    If they want to take you into somewhere and show you something, oh, so here, I'm giving you a treat. I'm flying you. I'll fly you out here so we can come see this thing. I don't want you to talk about it. To me, that's bribery. You are farming goodwill because, hey, I just paid for you to fly somewhere, and I just give you a special tour and a special event. Now, I don't want you to talk about it. Not right now, but I'm just getting you all the stuff in. But, oh, yeah, we'll go to dinner, and we'll have a nice discussion. In my mind and from where I work from, that is the same as you might as well just cut me a check. This is how you work for me now. You say the things I want you to say. Just like when a lot of places will have NDAs and review releases that require you to turn your stuff in for it to be vetted before you can release it. and I wholeheartedly disagree with all of that. So this is 100% a thing where I just dislike it and I don't want to get into that realm because at that point I feel like I have to flat out claim that I can't possibly be neutral or honest in my opinion after something like that.
    23:01
    Yes. So my view of NDAs is a little bit different, though I still in this context don't favor them. And the main thing is NDAs and for those that don't know, NDAs is a nondisclosure agreement. So in other stuff that I do, like it's not unusual if they want to send information ahead of time for their coverage purposes to give you embargoed stuff and say, like, I'm OK with embargoes. I'm OK with saying, hey, we don't want the review to come out before X time in exchange. Exchange will get you all the photos or video or the details, like the feature matrix. I'd love to have the feature matrix to be able to put in the OneNote ahead of time and read it before the game drops and talk about it. My problem with NDAs is I don't work for them. I'm not an employee, so why are you trying to treat me like one? That's what I don't like about NDAs. The problem I have with an NDA is if I go and see stuff and it's under the NDA, when exactly is it lifting? You see, it gets a little murky. And now they have a legal document to come after you with if they don't like what you did. Now, did what you do violate the NDA? I don't know. I guess that's what lawyers are for. But you see, there's the chilling effect. Let me tell you something about pinball that has happened. There are instances with people, content creators in this industry who have put out things, information about leaks and stuff. The companies have come and threatened them, but they weren't under NDAs. I feel, noting that I'm not a lawyer and nothing I say on this podcast is to be taken as legal advice, that they could have kept all of that information up and available if they wanted to and had a perfectly reasonable defense. I'm saying all our Pentagon papers like that. This stuff got leaked out by someone. They may have broken the rules. Me sharing it is not a break of the rules. But these companies will put pressure on content creators who don't want to lose their access with an NDA. the legal eggs are in the company's basket because they'll be able to like if we went and got to play pokemon early and we did something at some point or said something that we thought was still okay they might not think so and they have our signature on something that they can argue said we broke our word i don't like that because i'm not even i didn't even get paid for it so why would i give all of my ability to talk away without money. I had a brand once in pinball reach out to me to want to talk about potential themes for their company. They mandated an NDA for us to have a discussion. They did not offer me money.
    25:40
    And so I said, no. You want me to work for free and let you have legal authority over what I say afterwards? This is not how I work. Right. I cost money.
    25:51
    So that's my problem. Don't you treat me like an employee and refuse to pay me. I'm not – I have – we've been doing this for 10 years, Tony, 10 years. I am not impressed by knowing people in the pinball industry. There are people who got into podcasting because they want to get close to the creators. That's what they want. They're fanboying. They're fanboying and they want to get close and they're just – being on the end is super – and I get it. It's exciting. It is?
    26:19
    For some. I can understand for some that it's like – these are their heroes. like meeting your favorite designer like i still remember the i don't remember what year it was but i remember at tpf steve richie just came up to me not because i was a content creator he just came up to me and asked me like what games i liked and i said and i knew who he was and i said you know i had his star wars or star trek and i really liked star trek and he was like he's like which version do you have and i said i have the pro and he goes the pro is all you need it's like i got all the stuff i wanted going in the pro and i was like you know that's cool some people want to like Think about being a part of the – how many people get like a code, like a flipper code to have their – like that's exciting to people. Like I understand all that. I guess.
    27:03
    But so there's this desire by some to – anyway, there's just – people got into it because they love the hobby, not because they want to be journalists or anything like that. And they're very susceptible. Like access is power, and they're very – and access makes you feel special. and so anyway but the price for me it's too high like i'm not letting you have an nda like if you wanted to arrange something for embargo or whatever i'm i'm amenable like right like you want to give me some stuff give me some details give me some i mean i'm not a print site but if i was a print site i love to have proper high-res photos sent to me ahead of time um and all of that and you know just like here's the date where you can start using them no problem like i I would be okay with an embargo and something like that. That makes sense. I note that because I get that on my watch side. I don't even ask for it. I have companies that are just like, here's this. It's embargoed. And they just treat you like a news site. And it's just like, okay, cool. I don't have to cover it. I promise nothing. I got nothing except I have the stuff so I could build my show ahead of time. Right.
    28:08
    But this stuff, like to be able to flip the game early and just – I just – if something happens and there's a delay, If I'm at TPF and I have one too many mojitos and I say the wrong thing and they come out, I'm just not comfortable with it. Not without a paycheck. If you want to give me money and buy me for advice, that's a different story. Then I'm a consultant. It has nothing to do with the show. Right. There's no reason for this show to sign NDAs, in my view. But I come at it a little bit differently than Tony does. Yeah. All right. So hopefully that answers your question. Lewis wrote in. Not at all about NDAs. Lewis wrote. Hi, guys. I got caught up in the nostalgia and picked up a Pokemon. Thanks, Flippin' Out. I think it works much better if you go, Thanks, Flippin' Out. How did you know my shirt size? I'm sorry. You didn't say that.
    29:02
    But I was surprised. How did you know I was a triple extra small? Nobody's that size in pinball. Sorry, all triple extra smalls out there. It's just a joke. but I but was surprised how well it was received commercially what lesson learned do you think manufacturers can take perhaps the obvious is IP is king but what about a lesson that kid friendly themes with super basic or approachable layouts have a bigger audience than anticipated when you combine operator interest and collectors hoping to entice their kids or grandkids into the hobby do you think manufacturers may start sprinkling in the easier baby games more often could you see Stern dropping one a year or every other year thanks again lewis and houston thanks lewis and hughes i don't know that it's fair calling it a baby game i've not put it in quotes i didn't i didn't emphasize the quote but i would call the layout it's a fan layout and i do have a tendency back when i did my babies first for the patreon members fan layouts are babies first layout they are babies first they are but people like them they're like not just babies people what i mean attack for mars is a fan layout correct and and i mean i do think the big thing here is ip is king pokemon is quite literally probably one of the largest ips in the world i think franchise wise it has made more than all others star wars all of them yes it is it is a completely next level different creature uh and i think that's the big thing because people always have always talked oh harry potter it's so huge and it was and that's all true and that is all very very very true but none of them touch pokemon as an overall item in in in size right uh pokemon is the mcdonald's of the video game ips they're they're everyone everyone's played it everyone everyone knows it if they've not played it they've seen the show they've seen the stuff they've seen references it is everywhere and it is everything i think that's a uh an incredibly huge uh part of it uh i also think that if they don't make triple extra smalls flipping out should make uh uh onesies little baby onesies that are the the that just say born to flip.
    31:32
    That's pretty clever. That's a pretty clever idea. Yeah, no, I agree with Tony here. It's IP is really what the issue is. Do I think that it makes sense to occasionally put out games with a partial layout? Yes, I do.
    31:45
    Not necessarily so much for the operator market per se, but I do think certain themes it makes more sense for. I've said it before, so I'll say it again now. I think it was a mistake for Borg to design Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles layout to be as hard as it was with a theme that was designed to appeal to kids and adults. I think that Jack Danger and George Gomez did the right thing here with Pokemon. I think Approachable Fan Layout, it's Junkyard. They took Junkyard's layout. I think it was a good move. I think it's going to make it so people will actually get somewhere in the game with very little pinball experience. And that doesn't mean hardcore good pinball players won't enjoy it. And likewise, it's a pinball machine. You can set it up harder. Fan layouts can be very hard. Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness, I have played plenty of copies where the average ball time is 40 seconds or less. It is completely possible to do. So that can also be addressed as well. But I think Pokemon, there's been some stuff. I talked with Zach on the Pinball Show about this. I think he puts more stock into some of the more recent things versus just what Tony has mentioned, that Pokemon is just a well-known, it's a cultural touchstone. Even if you weren't of the generation. we're tony and i are a bit old for when pokemon came out but that doesn't mean we are not aware of it and uh so i think things like logan paul's pokemon card selling for x million dollars have nothing to do with how the pinball machine has performed i don't think that's relevant at all this was going to be a successful machine no matter what right uh could stern have done more yes uh that they did not theme the le's around the numbers of pokemon and people are just now arbitrarily creating it in their mind is explaining why some of the games some of these games are going for close to thirty thousand dollars and i think it's depending on the number like if you had number 25 yep that's the pikachu number yeah they didn't put a now had stern stern could have made that be a thing for sure if they'd like put an etch of which pokemon it was on the number plaque. Yeah, you totally could have. Or, let's face it, in addition to their LE, they could have done an ultimate super catch-em-all edition,
    33:57
    and there would just be 151 available, and each one is unique because each one's back glass is one of the first 151 Pokemon. And I think that got addressed on the Loser Kid podcast where they interviewed the design team, that there was some talk, I guess, with the Pokemon company about that idea. And I think the company had discouraged this. Yeah, I'll tell you right now. I think there are certain Pokemon in the original 151 that I swear they could have listed that single totally unique machine for a million dollars and it would have been sold in 20 minutes. so anyway uh poke but anyway so this whole thing like do i think now like does this mean the next stern le sells out no depends what the next stern le it's all ip ip is yeah that's the only thing going here and that the game doesn't look like a dumpster fire helps right oh but that is a thing that has been proven time and time again in pinball sure ip is king theme is what matters and people can cry that we don't have new original themes and everybody wants original themes, but it's been proven in the last decade that we've been doing this show time and time again, original themes will not sell like licensed themes. They just won't. It doesn't matter how good they are. they don't have the inherent buy-in of minor or non-penball people who want them mm-hmm yeah yep all right uh next email this one is from joe e joel e which joel e well it'll be very obvious in a moment hey dennis and tony joel here with my first official email into the show Dennis, you are wrong. Wrong.
    35:57
    Wrong. Thank you. TMNT is still part of my collection. Kind of. I don't know why he used wrong so strongly when he says kind of after that. But anyway, this is still. Technically correct. Technically. Which is the best type of correct, as we all know. Yes. It is currently at my parents' house, which is roughly 10 minutes away. So yes, you are correct in that it has been bumped from my current lineup of four, but it is not out of the collection. Godzilla is about to get the same bump when Dune arrives and I think my dad is actually excited about it because TMNT can be a brutal pin which we just talked about It very much is In terms of buying a game entirely based on loving a theme I only done that with TMNT I bought TMNT day one with the only decision I was waiting to make was pro or premium. Pro is the right answer. In all truth, spending $5,600 at the time because it was a new pinball machine that was branded TMNT is pretty dumb. That's a lot of money. But love is love, Dennis, and TMNT is my childhood. love is love maybe open your heart dennis and let your love of alien in what's my alien his he didn't know that i just i just went oh no what did he eat oh sorry i spaceballed a little bit in other news tmnt magic the gathering cards are coming in march unlike my brother i've never cared about magic the gathering but it's turtles so i'd be ripping some packs and I think Jared, his brother, is pumped. Do you guys follow MTG at all anymore? Any thoughts on MTG going with popular licenses like Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, Team NT and apparently Star Trek in the future?
    37:36
    100%. I have thoughts. Finish the letter. Maybe they should try and get Pokemon license as well. Winky face. Great show, guys. And keep up the great work. Joel. Well, thank you, Joel. They're not going to do Pokemon because Pokemon has their own cards. So that's not going to happen very true okay go on what are your thoughts so magic uh the magic the gathering at the darkness i cast it at the darkness there are any girls called me tim yes the uh uh the magic the gathering um going with licenses is in all honesty the greatest thing Magic the Gathering has done probably since it first started because the popularity and the sales are off the charts. They are breaking their own sales records every time. I've not played Magic the Gathering other than like a pickup game type thing at a convention or something since early 2000s. I bought Final Fantasy Magic cards. I have a whole bunch of them. I also bought non-Final Fantasy cards, or non-Magic the Gathering cards, but I have bought cards for my mobile waifu game. Right, because you got it. Because I had to. It's just what it is. But, no, it is huge. And while I bought Final Fantasy cards and I've not really bought any of the others, that doesn't mean that there aren't other ones that I want or have considered buying, just because they do such a beautiful job with the artwork. And frankly, of that type of game, I still enjoy Magic the most out of all of those game types.
    39:34
    Yeah. Okay. I hadn't bought any of these, so that was interesting to hear. Thank you. Our last pinball section email is from Brian J. Brian writes in, Tony, and says, Gentlemen, with Pokemon by Stern Pinball coming and Jersey Jack Pinball rumored to be doing Sonic the Hedgehog, what themes would you like to see and which manufacturers would you like to see make them? I would like to see Grand Theft Auto, Vice City, Machine by Jersey Jack, because I think they would do it justice with neon lighting, great, great ni-ha, and an 80s-styled art package. I would also like a Super Mario World machine by Stern. Stern would do well with theme integration, gameplay, and code depth. Thanks, and I really enjoy the show. I wasn't sure what great ni-ha meant. That's why I struggled. But thanks, Brian, for writing in. I appreciate it. All right. What would you like to... All right. We're thinking video game themes, I guess. what would we like to see? Oh, video game. I mean, the rumor of Fallout, I got to admit, supposedly Fallout's this year by Stern. That's the rumor. I think that's an obvious one. Do you think it's the show? It'll be the show. I mean, the show's fun. The show's fun. My assumption is that it would be the show. So I want to put that one aside since that one's already wanted to be happening.
    40:56
    You know, I'm trying to think if there's just... There's something that just jumps out at me. is something different. Zelda. Zelda makes sense. Not something that I would be a day one in. Well, excuse me, princess. You think it'd be the show? If it's Stern, it's going to be the show. It's going to be like R2 from the... Does J.J.P. doing Sonic the Hedgehog mean we get Chili Dog references? Chili Dog! I hope so. I want there to be a Chili Dog reference. or do we just get dancing Jim Carrey I mean I'm trying to think of something that's not the obvious thing I've spoke about Battletech time and time again we've spoken about Overwatch time and time again I would think it would be pretty cool to see Spooky take a stab at Resident Evil they are the ones who I would expect to do Resident Evil So, and I don't, which resonates, I think maybe you blend it, maybe not do it based off of one sole game. But I'm thinking, don't go any far forward than five. I think something with Wesker makes sense. Hear me out. Stain with the horror. Stain with spooky.
    42:17
    Dead Space. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that would be pretty good. That one's, yes. I was more I wasn't into either really I've only played the first Dead Space and I've only played more recent well no I have gone back into some of the remakes I've not played every Resident Evil either is what I'm saying but Dead Space would be very interesting do you because that's a sci-fi horror oh yeah I just don't know how well it will translate because there's a lot of psychological what am I hallucinating style stuff going on I don't know how well you get it in pinball. It would be an interesting thing to see if you could do it. Okay, I think that's a pretty good idea. All right, there, we went off the beaten path. Yeah, that's the thing. I wanted to come up with something that was different than our normal standard answers for stuff like that. That would be interesting.
    43:16
    I'm trying to think if anything else jumps out at me real quick. Just off the top of my noggin. no nothing does mm-hmm except Stern yes for the safety factor uh-huh XCOM hmm oh okay yeah I would think because of XCOM's probabilities being so god-awful horrible every single lane would need to have a pop-up that randomly pops up just to mess your shot up okay well we're going really just like how in the world is this going to properly work let's do jjp and civilization we need the bom of jjp for it so that's very true it's gonna have to be a wide body it's gonna have to be the first thing you got to do is land your shot to establish your settlement how are we gonna focus on science gotta take a shot for your science focus gotta take a shot for your military upgrades gotta build units how will it work i have no idea but there you go it's a fun game so let's see what happens let's get crazy let's get crazy okay no those are some ideas all right so video games uh we did actually have an email that is in that realm as well that came in so john r wrote he says howdy so i'm gonna use my southern howdy i've been enjoying your podcast for some time now keep up the great work don't tell zach from flipping out but i think you're i like your podcast better i think you're right i just picked up and i don't think zach listens so don't worry about him hearing that all right i just picked up I'm a Mondretto Game Boy Color, and I've been going down a rabbit hole of games. From Commander Keen. Wow, I have not said that in a long time. Wow, no kidding. And I've been going.
    45:24
    From Commander Keen that is supposed to be the first of the Wolfenstein Doom series to games like Harry Potter. What are some games that take you all back to the good old days? And what games do you think are underrated gems that won't cost an arm and a leg to buy? Thanks for y'all's time, John R. Well, thank you, John. uh a commander keens i grew up with a lot of commander i played that a bit um what there was something with a jet the jet rabbit jack rabbit do you remember that i can't remember i played a lot of those apogee yeah i did back back in the day i did too the big time nostalgia ones uh and we've talked about this one before but doom and doom 2 we have memories of of science lab uh doom doom experiments i also have a huge fondness for wolfenstein 3d yes i had to take dramamine to play it because i'd get so motion sick but you could design your own levels on that so i did a lot of like custom levels where you just fight like a bunch of bosses and stuff so i have a lot of nostalgia for for that the old wolfenstein game now uh now for the game boy uh Specifically for that kind of format of game, I'm always going to go back to, it was Choplifter 3, which they made like a Choplifter type game for the Game Boy.
    46:43
    I'm 99% certain I have an original one sitting in a drawer with my original Tetris and a couple other original Game Boy games that I still have sitting in a drawer at home. because those were the games that I played the most. It was Tetris, Choplifter 3, and one or two others. But those were the big ones. Yeah, I played a lot of Tetris. I think anyone who had an original Game Boy probably played a lot of Tetris. So, yeah, a lot of fondness for that. Final Fantasy, I think Adventures was what they were called. It played more like Zelda than an actual Final Fantasy game, but I played those on Game Boy and won them. I usually did not win games as a kid. I wasn't very good. So there's that. Never got anywhere in it, but I still have a fondness for the original Dragon Warrior. Yeah. Going out there and trying to deal with them slimes. I remember those. I said a lot of my early nostalgic playing was a mix of,
    47:48
    I said some Game Boy, more NES, Super Nintendo, and computer. I remember Wing Commander 1. All of the Wing Commanders. Oh, yes. The very thing. Chris Roberts' Wing Commander games. That's why I backed Star Citizen. Wing Commander was a lot of fun. I played a ton of Wing Commander. I played a lot of Civilization. Yeah, I did too. We had that on PC. I played that a lot. Also, one of my first PC games, and I loved it was Railroad Tycoon. Oh, I do remember Railroad Tycoon. I've gotten more modern ones since and I've never been able to get back into it. Not have the same kind of grab. No, it's too detailed almost. Like I'm managing way too much stuff instead of just, yeah, I really like Railroad Tycoon a lot. Super Mario 3, I think my mom somehow got that for my birthday. It came out like on my birthday. I couldn't believe that she actually got it. But I really liked that one just because it was still on the NES, but it was such a graphical upgrade.
    48:56
    The original Bionic Commando. I played that a bit. I can guarantee you I've talked about that because it didn't have a save, and it had a code system, but you could only get the code in two places in the entire game. And there were days where I was playing that game, and I would pause and we would flip the switch on the feed to the television so that mom and dad could watch the news because we only had one TV. So we'd flip the feed so that they could watch the news and we could eat dinner and everything. And then after the news, if it wasn't a day that had family shows on or stuff that Dad wanted to watch, I could flip back and try and finish and beat that game.
    49:45
    There were days that I can guarantee you I left that game paused overnight and into the next day so I could continue the game. I could very rarely play long in the living room because the TV had other priorities. We had an old TV downstairs that I could play on, so I usually left my stuff hooked up down there. Eventually I had a TV in my bedroom that I hooked up to, but it was black and white, And I played my games in black and white. My very first television in my bedroom, I bought myself at a garage sale, and it was like 12 inches. It was black and white. It had vacuum tubes, and it took it about five minutes to warm up. The sound would start immediately, but it would take five minutes or more to warm up enough to have the screen show where you could watch it. And so what I would normally do is I would go, oh, da-da-da, homework's done, dinner's done, chore's done, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I'm going to go take a shower and then, you know, chill in my room. So I would turn the TV on, and then while the vacuum tube's lighting up, warming up, I would go take my shower and get cleaned up and everything. and because it was vacuum tube you sit there and you know you turn the lights out in the room and the uh tv would be black and white showing everything and then the whole wall behind it would just be lit up like it was daylight from the glowing vacuum tubes glowing through the vents on the back so it's just like like the whole wall was like the you'd have the room all the lights off of the room and the room was lit up because the vacuum tubes yeah it was great They pumped out like so much heat. If it was running, it was always warm in that room. Yeah, my first console was actually an Atari 2600. So I also have some fondness. I was much younger with that. But I played a lot of Asteroids.
    51:34
    Burger Time. Which was my first game. I did not have Burger Time for the 2600. We didn't have a 2600. We had an Intellivision 2, but Burger Time. And there was also Crystal Caverns. I played that a bit. That was my sister's game. Also, a great one, if you had someone else to play with, was Combat, where you'd roll the tanks around. Oh, yeah. Just a very simple. Intellivision had literally that game, but it was called something else. Yeah. Because they were all the exact same. The one I didn't own that I wanted in the 2600 that I played with other people was Pitfall. Oh, yeah. I really liked Pitfall. I had a lot of 2600 games. I just never had Pitfall.
    52:08
    So in terms of underrated, any of the ones you hadn't heard of, those are the underrated ones. I don't know how else to answer that. Right. I will say I still consider BurgerTime like one of the greatest games ever created. Yeah, actually, BurgerTime, we did have BurgerTime. It was one of those little pocket ones. Oh, yeah. So I also had some of the, I still have them in my garage. I have some of those little, they look like arcade cabinets, but they're little like lap-sized ones. I have Donkey Kong. I have the Q-Bert. Oh, Q-Bert. and a third one. Maybe it's not Burger Time, I don't think. I've got a third one as well that I don't remember what it is. Oh, there's a flat one. It's Tron. Oh. The light cycle races only. Yeah. It's just the light cycle races. That reminds me, talking about the little arcade cabinet things,
    52:59
    that's the other Game Boy game that I played a ton of is Missile Command. Oh, yes. Yes. Because they had a missile command Where The D-pad to move the targeting And then you only had two Launchers instead of the three that the arcade cabinet Has and it's either A or B to shoot Which one you shoot from Played a lot of that Alright so I think that's all of the emails We're now caught up so Tony what have we got in video game news because I know there's stuff happening There is stuff happening The whole saga that we first started talking about last time with high guard continues uh more reports have come out we reported uh last week that uh they've laid off a huge portion of their staff it is there are less than 20 staffers wow so they've laid off pretty much everybody i guess it's by guard basically uh ten cent uh pulled all funding from the studio two weeks after launch okay so they're done yep it is just failure Failure must be punished. They didn't hit their things. Bloomberg had put out an article where they'd done some interviews. Apparently, High Guard started its life as a survival shooter.
    54:13
    So it was more like Rust or something like that. It was a survival shooter game. And two years into development, they decided that the survival shooter genre had run its course and the popularity was waning. So they took what they had and they pivoted it to... Oh, I can't. It feels like a mistake. I can't say for sure. But the problem is like the hero shooter space is also saturated. It is. Well and that the thing is they pivoted from something that was super popular And as it was dropping off they pivoted it to something that was super popular when they pivoted to it but had started to drop off by the time they actually came out The other issue is they came out with that 3v3 system that team members that have been laid off were talking about it, and when asked about it, a lot of them have had similar responses, and what it basically amounts to is when we did all the when we did all of the internal testing we all knew each other we were all on voice comms we were all knew the basic conceit of the game when we brought outside testers in we brought them in as basically pre-made teams playing against pre-made teams they never trialed it as uh non-made three-man pop-ups what happens without voice comms with ad hoc where people like i don't talk with my teammates in overwatch yeah like i don't so and yeah and it's bad enough with five people with five players if one of you is just goofing off with three players you're done you're right you're cooked there there's no way to do it there's just no possibility and they didn't there was internal discussions about doing an open beta and they were shot down because management wanted to be like apex where it was quiet behind the scenes nobody knew the game existed it was just this minor little thing until they dropped it as a fait accompli except for apex was very much a very standard hero shooter type or a, not a hero shooter, but like PUBG type game. A MOBA. Yeah, not a MOBA. No, wait, the Battle Royale. I forgot what those were called. Where this is, oh, hey, we're making major changes to the hero shooter type.
    56:48
    And so they never had a feel for what those problems would be. And then they launched, and it's like, oh. and in this day and age if you do not have even if you have a successful launch if it's not successful enough you're being shut down right yeah it's just in the new environment yeah uh so the remaining the remaining sub 20 uh members of the team they are continuing to push new modes and changes they're trying to find something that resonates uh but the daily concurrent player accounts now under 700. It's been less than a month.
    57:26
    Dead game. They had 13,000 day one. Which ain't great. No, and now they're down to under 700 a day. That's too bad.
    57:39
    Xbox. There's been such a huge leadership change in Microsoft. Yes, drama city. Phil Spencer has retired. He's been with Microsoft since It's like the 80s. A long time. And he's run Xbox for quite a while now. Yeah, and he's been running Xbox for as long as I can remember.
    57:59
    He has retired. And the president of Xbox, Sarah Bond, long expected to be Phil's heir to step in and take over when he retired, left. She left as well. So Microsoft has moved Asha Sharma, the current president of the Core AI team, to the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, where he really used to be. Right.
    58:29
    From what I've heard, Core AI isn't just an AI group. They do more than just AI. Right. Reaction's been, I'll say, mixed. Mostly negative, but mixed. I've seen mostly negative. It's been interesting because a lot of people have been frustrated with what they view as Phil's direction of Xbox. And again, we don't know all the details, but Phil has been blamed for better or worse for the strategy, which some people might like, but some others might not, of let's get Xbox games on everything and give up on exclusives. And that's frustrated a lot of people who like the console. A lot of people who like to game on PC and stuff have probably been a lot more supportive of that strategy. It's a great strategy. And it seems like it's made them money, so that is what it is. The loss of Sarah, I guess that's the dramatic part. Like, wasn't she the heir? What's going on? Whereas Asha, a lot of people hear AI, and they've been like, oh, gosh, she's going to AI-ify everything. Like, she's going to turn it into Square or something.
    59:26
    And whether or not that's true, we'll have to see. I have read, internally, Asha is a lot more popular than Sarah Bond. The Xbox team did not like Sarah's vision. I don't know exactly what that vision was, but apparently it wasn't clicking with everyone on the team. So supposedly internally they actually like this shift. Yeah, and I know she put out like a vision statement about their target, and it was all your normal corporate. We want to bring the Xbox backs up to this, and we want to deliver good games, and we want to maintain the spreading our games to more than just our own system. And we're not going to have AI slop. There won't be AI slop. We won't allow the slop. Right. We'll see. It was all very much the very standard corporate boilerplate. We'll just have to see if this is actually a change. A lot of people are just assuming it's a change of direction because Phil leaving is a surprise. There have been rumors that he was forced to retire. Yeah. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know. I can see it with how sales have been and how everything has gone. It's so strange. They bought so many companies, and it took forever to put stuff out. But now it seems like most of those companies are producing things that are making money. So I don't know. And again, and we've talked about it in the past, but for the last couple of years, better than half of the top ten games on PlayStation are made by Xbox companies. Right. By Microsoft-owned companies. That is, I mean, that's solid. Well, they bought all the good players. Right. So we'll see what comes of it. Here's the thing. What's the thing? No matter what happens, Xbox isn't winning the next console war. Mm-mm. No.
    61:12
    If there even is a next console. Right. But I am hard-pressed to believe Xbox is ever going to win a big console war. Yeah. Well, the goal is that they do better than they did this round. I mean, okay, but they have to have a compelling reason why you want to buy the hardware if that's the case. If their goal is we want to continue to have hardware but just have the games available everywhere and we just make money because we make money, that might work. I just – I don't know. It's so different from how people are used to thinking of it. Like Nintendo and Sony don't think that way. Not at all. So we'll see.
    61:51
    Genshin Impact had apparently changed their privacy policy in January. and somebody was going through it, you know, like we all do. We all read that in depth and have our lawyers look at it before we sign anything.
    62:06
    And someone found that there was a clause in the January policy change. NDA? Not an NDA. Okay. They reserved the rights to use all of the information from the in-game voice chats to train AI. Of course. So if you used voice chat in Genshin Impact, your voice chat, your voice would be used to train an AI.
    62:38
    They have since pulled that clause out. Okay. That clause is gone. Or that section of that, because it's like a whole huge section, but that little portion of that section is gone.
    62:54
    They didn't announce that they changed it. That section vanished sometime between January and like two weeks ago.
    63:05
    But, yes, they had there for a while. They were using your AI if you used voice chat and Genshin to train AIs.
    63:16
    We talked last episode about Discord's giant age verification. They're going to look at my face, my old face. They want to look at your old face to make sure you're old and not some young kid trying to look at the porns.
    63:30
    They were apparently surprised by the backlash against it, and they have backed off of it quite rapidly.
    63:41
    And they are not scrapping it because it is a requirement that is actually, for some situations in some countries, they are required by law to do. like the UK has recently put in a requirement for it, but they have backed away from that current implementation and are delaying it while they look at options.
    64:05
    But they were apparently surprised, and they were really surprised by the sheer number of people that started shutting down their Discord accounts. On the other hand, some of Discord's competitors are like, what are we supposed to do now? because there's people using our services.
    64:24
    Oops. So, good for them, I guess. Maybe Discord should come out with a thing where they can help you find your lost dog. Right, that's what they need to do. By using everyone's Discord servers. We'll use everyone's Discord servers and everyone's webcams to help you. Yeah, just to find dogs. Well, just to see if your lost dog is in somebody's house. Maybe they've been docked.
    64:53
    I don't know. Oh, chimney Christmas. Okay. Pikachu? Because we haven't talked about enough Pokemon last episode, or a big chunk of the pinball section of this episode, we're going to talk about more Pokemon because I mean, we talked about the pressure. It is their big anniversary. It's their big 30-year anniversary.
    65:14
    They had a big showcase the other day with a whole bunch of announcements. I'm literally not even touching any of them. I'm just hitting the big ones. Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness, which was one of their GameCube games, is coming to the Switch 2 exclusively.
    65:33
    Fire Red and Leaf Green are being released on the Switch and the Switch 2. We already have two copies of that game purchased in the house. Even though we already have multiple copies of Fire Red and Leaf green for Game Boy in the house, but whatever.
    65:53
    Coming up on March 6th is Pokemon Pocopia, which is Pokemon Minecraft. Oh, okay. That is doing this weird thing where the player's character is a ditto pretending to be human and going around doing Minecraft-type things or Animal Crossing-type things where you're building and doing all that kind of stuff. Because you're playing a Ditto, which is a type of Pokemon,
    66:23
    the Pikachu does not look at you and say, Pikachu. It talks to you and you understand all of the Pokemon because you're a Pokemon. Right, and you can understand other Pokemon. So you can understand other Pokemon.
    66:37
    But they wanted to get everything right and things had been shown around. And they actually had an outside company come in and help, Omega Force, who was part of the original design team for Dragon Quest Builder 2, which is a hugely popular game with the Dragon Quest people. So they brought in some real muscle for that style of game to help them build that game. That game also has already been Pre-purchased and will be Coming to my house Because somebody doesn't listen to my Don't pre-order games Stuff So and their big Big announcement Is Pokemon wind and waves Well but this had leaked So we had known Of the wind and the waves Had it leaked Before hand? I thought it had I don't remember I remember hearing I remember the I guess That's the big news Gen 10 Yeah it's the Gen 10 It looks way better than Gen 9 It looks amazing Gen 9 looked like Like garbage tier Yeah it was like Oh You had like your Q team on this Just to put something I think it was like How do we do a big open world I don't know Right This looks a lot better Let's turn to the 90s But it's coming out Switch to exclusive releasing in 27 and for the first time in a long time has released a starter that has already set the world afire as the greatest starter in multiple generations. Magi Trout? No, Pom Bon. It's Fire Pomeranian. Oh yes. Okay.
    68:29
    Well, don't worry. Once it fully evolves, it'll be on two legs. It will be. And it'll probably be fighting type because now anymore they all have to be they all have to become anthropomorphic humanized things and ugly and its adorableness will be lost a loss to the ether no i will say uh another thing that they've announced and they are releasing that is firmly in the core of Nintendo stupidest hardware gimmicky things ever. Like the Nintendo alarm clock and everything else. I still think the alarm clock was a great idea.
    69:13
    They have released a music player that looks like an old school Game Boy. And you can purchase things that look like Game Boy cartridges. And you plug it in, and the cartridges are loaded with Pokemon game music that goes correctly to the Pokemon game that the cartridge looks like it is. So you plug it into your fake music player Game Boy, and it just plays Pokemon music. Yeah.
    69:51
    Yeah. Just. You now know the stocking stuffer for the kids. Well, I should ask how much is it before I say it's a stocking stuffer. I didn't see a price on it. No. The answer is too much. No, really, Joy is priceless, Tony. I've heard that. Joy is priceless. They have definitely gone all out with the 30th anniversary and all of their special stuff and special releases. they've created a version of the 30th anniversary logo utilizing every single Pokemon. Each Pokemon has its own unique logo.
    70:31
    So they are definitely going all out with this 30th anniversary thing. Which also makes sense why the Pokemon Pinball Machine is out. Yes. It's all connected. It's all a big squared circle. Welcome to the squared circle. Yes. Let's go. That's what we need, WWE 2. Yes. That's the new pinball machine. God, no.
    71:01
    God, no. You know, all they have to do is probably take the hundreds of thousands of them that are still sitting in warehouses unopened, pull them out, put different trans lights back in, and just list them back for sale. I mean, maybe. Maybe. I like to imagine there's a little room somewhere at Stern where they still got him. They're stripping him down to use the gold armor on Ellie. Right.
    71:29
    But it's been so long. Maybe not. Maybe they did finally find people to buy them all. Whoever decided that this was the thing we were going with, they didn't fire him, but he's still the janitor. Why can't you fire me? No I need you to go and clean the executive toilet Remember it was Taco Bell day Taco Bell at the board meeting Ha ha ha ha Well Okay So if people want to reach out about Taco Bell as a theme for Pinball or anything, really. I guess you could email us. Oh, jeez. What fast food restaurant? We'll think about it. Think about what fast food restaurant would be the best one.
    72:18
    Think about it. I don't know. I can't, sir. This is a Wendy's. You can reach out to us at CollectedGamersPodcast.gmail.com or go to Facebook.com slash CollectedGamersPodcast. Again, if you want to stop Skynet, the only way to stop Skynet is with money. Money at Patreon.com slash CollectedGamersPodcast. Do not fail us. Do not let Skynet win. Thank you. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Collective Underscore Gamers. Should be back in a couple weeks. That's before TPF, right? Yes, it's like the week before TPF. So we will be back. We will be back. And we don't have to record at TPF. Yeah. I might bring my portable recorder if we want to record quick thoughts. Yeah. But yeah, that makes life, because it's a long drive back and forth. It is. We don't like to do it the day of. So until two weeks from now, my name is Dennis. I am Tony. Goodbye. See you.