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We Are Pinball #13!! "All about Expo!

We Are Pinball (WAP)·podcast_episode·1h 13m·analyzed·Oct 26, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Pinball Expo coverage: European games disappoint, X-Men dominates sales, marketing lessons discussed.

Summary

We Are Pinball hosts discuss their experiences at Pinball Expo, covering reactions to new games from European and US manufacturers. Key takeaways: European games (Space Hunt, ABBA, Alice in Amsterdam) received mixed reviews with gameplay concerns; X-Men generated strong sales interest; Metallica was well-received. The hosts criticized Alice's marketing rollout strategy and questioned the game's location viability despite impressive build quality.

Key Claims

  • X-Men outsold Metallica, Alice, and Avatar at Expo according to Zach Minney

    high confidence · According to Zach Minney from the Pinball Show, X-Men was game of the show for him because sales-wise, more than Metallica, more than Alice, more than Avatar, X-Men is what's selling

  • Alice in Amsterdam had a poor marketing launch with months of NDA-locked hype followed by low-quality premiere video

    high confidence · DPX contacted YouTuber for 6-8 months with NDA restrictions; Canada's Pinball Podcast did world premiere with poor video quality and color representation

  • Space Hunt's upper playfield ramp is problematically tight, causing balls to roll back down

    high confidence · The ramp to get up there is, like, a long, elevated orbit ramp, and it's, like, Houdini tight to get in there...most shots that go up there, they roll up slowly, and then they roll back down

  • ABBA has weak flippers compared to Stern and JJP machines

    high confidence · The first thing you're going to notice coming from a Stern or like a New Jersey Jack is these are weak sauce flippers, man

  • Pinball Brothers discounted ABBA by $1,000 from show floor MSRP

    high confidence · They had $1,000 knocked off the games from the show floor, which was a huge discount for a brand new game

  • Alice in Amsterdam gameplay is comparable to Funhouse remake, not as compelling as Circus Voltaire or Tales from Arabian Nights

    medium confidence · It plays about as fun as the Funhaus remake too...not blowing my mind

  • American Pinball had no new game to show; Cuphead not ready for show floor

    high confidence · Cuphead is in the wings. It's coming at some point, but it wasn't quite ready for the show floor, apparently

  • American Pinball offered deep discounts on Galactic Tank Force Signature Edition ($16k marked down to $12.5k)

    high confidence · That $16,000 machine marked down to like $12,500 or something

Notable Quotes

  • “Day three, my dogs were mooing, man. Let me tell you.”

    Genghis (WAP co-host) @ early in episode — Sets humorous tone for Expo exhaustion despite enthusiasm

  • “They undersold this game so much man...when i saw the game in person all that didn't matter the game looks great but you couldn't tell that from the launch and the hype”

    Genghis @ Alice discussion — Core criticism of Alice marketing strategy - gap between actual product and promotional materials

  • “Do it like JJP. Do it like Stern. Quiet. Don't share it with anyone. Don't confirm. Don't deny. Have your games ready. in boxes to ship”

    Don (WAP co-host) @ Alice marketing critique — Explicit best-practice recommendation for game launches based on successful competitor strategies

  • “This game is going to cost like $16,500. Any guy that has got a fish tail and a road show, they can sell those games and buy this.”

    Don @ Alice pricing discussion — Criticism of Alice pricing relative to value proposition and secondary market dynamics

  • “Who's the game for? I don't know who this game is for.”

    Don @ ABBA discussion — Fundamental market positioning question for licensed music games

  • “I mean, I'm so sad about this. Donnie. Really.”

    Genghis @ Alice wrap-up — Emotional investment in European manufacturer success; disappointment in execution

  • “Probably, according to Zach Minney from the Pinball Show, that was actually game of the show for him because sales-wise, more than Metallica, more than Alice, more than Avatar, X-Men is what's selling”

    Don @ X-Men discussion — Quantifies X-Men's commercial dominance at Expo relative to other major releases

  • “If it was $69.99, I'd have a better shot.”

    Genghis @ Space Hunt pricing — Sarcastic commentary on European game pricing relative to US market alternatives

Entities

We Are Pinball (WAP)organizationGenghispersonDonpersonPinball ExpoeventSpace HuntgameABBAgameAlice in AmsterdamgameX-MengameGalactic Tank Force Signature Edition

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2024 served as major product showcase with comparative sales data and manufacturer market testing

    high · 72-hour event with multiple games from 5+ manufacturers; Zach Minney comparative sales analysis; strong X-Men adoption signal

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Significant enthusiasm gap between anticipation and actual gameplay experience for Alice in Amsterdam

    high · Genghis: 'I wanted you to say that [coolest game], man. I'm so sorry I couldn't get one of those 500s. This makes me sad.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: X-Men demonstrated superior commercial performance against Metallica, Alice, and Avatar at Expo

    high · Zach Minney statement that X-Men outsold all three competitors; 2-3 deep player lines throughout show

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Space Hunt upper playfield ramp design flaw: elevated orbit ramp too tight, balls roll back down frequently

    high · Genghis: 'Houdini tight to get in there...they roll up slowly, and then they roll back down'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Debate over European boutique game positioning: whether gameplay depth or aesthetic premium justifies $12.5k+ pricing

    medium · Alice discussion weighs build quality/sculpts against gameplay; concern about location viability; comparison to Stern/JJP value proposition

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.221

0:00
This is true. Oh, man. By special request from Mr. Jengas, we got Millie and Vanillie on this intro of episode number 13 of We Are Pinball, the podcast for the masses with the fat asses what's going on man oh donnie i have been looking forward to this man episode 13 we're back again it's this is going to be a jam-packed episode it's been too long it's been too long and we've got so much like a metric time to talk about oh man i mean we have to put everything in one hour and we just need to just pump everything through so let's just start you have been out trying so many new games i have tried some of the new games so let's just go ahead and start with the expo okay abbas terrible alice terrible metallica awesome let's go the food was terrible no should we go through systematically here what do you want to start with you ask me anything i was there all three days of expo my voice left it's finally back now it was constant fun for 72 straight hours i can't believe it how about your feet? Did they hurt? Absolutely. Yeah, day three, my dogs were mooing, man. Let me tell you. But, like, it's because I was, like, constantly on the go, and, like, I could not force myself to slow down at all because it was just going from one awesome thing to another. So many games I got to play. So many things I've been looking forward to. I'm talking about Space Hunt, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Bitronix games, Super Hoop, ABBA was there, Galactic Tank Force Signature Edition. Oh, yes, baby. And you tried everything. Everything. Twice I did. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Yeah. It's so cool. So let's start with Galactic Tank Force Super Extreme Signature Edition. Did you drive it? Did you sit on that tub and drive it? No, no. They didn't have that one there. I've seen it at the factory. Nobody was driving it around. Not a ton of energy at American Pinball. They didn't have a new game to show off. Cuphead is in the wings. It's coming at some point, but it wasn't quite ready for the show floor, apparently. They did have some Galactic Tank Force Signature Editions. That $16,000 machine marked down to like $12,500 or something. I mean, there was deep discounts there. They were selling dented lunchboxes for $15, signed by Christopher Franchi. I bought myself one of those. Barbecue was on the floor. Everything was there. No walk-around characters this year. Last year was a launch for GTF. there was no barbecue mascot anywhere nobody in a pig suit um so how was the lines at the american pinball they weren't they didn't show up there no lines on their games what was the you know big line that did wait people wait to play their games there was somebody playing every machine every time i walked through there but there were no cues now they did bring a lot of machines too i mean there's about 25 machines total that were on the show floor for them so you know that was cool. And then I got to meet Mrs. David Fix. That was cool. Super nice lady. Yeah, yeah. They were selling... I bought a Oktoberfest t-shirt for five bucks. It was great. You didn't buy an Oktoberfest game? I did not. And apparently they're retiring that game. They're retiring a lot of their older games. So we'll see what's to come.
game
Super Hoopgame
Metallicagame
Hexa Pinballcompany
Pinball Brotherscompany
DPXcompany
American Pinballcompany
Zach Minneyperson
Canada's Pinball Podcastperson/organization
Stern Pinballcompany
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Dutch Pinballcompany

market_signal: European boutique manufacturers struggling with game design execution and marketing strategy compared to US benchmarks (Stern/JJP)

high · Multiple critiques of Space Hunt upper playfield, Alice gameplay depth, ABBA market viability; explicit comparisons to Stern/JJP best practices

  • ?

    licensing_signal: ABBA theme has limited appeal to target demographics; hosts question market viability for 70s music licenses

    medium · Don: 'I don't know who this game is for'; Genghis: 'not Metallica for me'; $1k discount suggests low demand

  • $

    market_signal: American Pinball reducing Galactic Tank Force inventory through heavy discounting; minimal show floor engagement

    high · GTF marked down $3.5k; signed lunchboxes sold at $15; no player queues; Cuphead still not production-ready

  • $

    market_signal: Alice in Amsterdam's extended NDA marketing campaign and poor-quality premiere video created negative hype decay

    high · 8-month NDA embargo followed by low-quality Canada's Pinball Podcast premiere; Genghis criticizes approach; Don suggests Stern/JJP silent strategy superior

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Genghis identifies as Danish distributor/reseller for multiple European manufacturers; expressed pride in European pinball expansion

    high · Genghis states 'I'm from Europe...when I see Hexa Pinball, I'm so proud'; mentions being distro for Pinball Brothers

  • $

    market_signal: European games pricing ($9-12.5k range) not competitive against US manufacturers' Pro models at equivalent cost

    high · Alice criticism of $12.5k price vs two Stern Pro games; Super Hoop appeal partly due to sub-$5k pricing; ABBA $1k discount suggests overpricing

  • ?

    product_concern: Alice in Amsterdam gameplay depth concerns; mechanics feel simplified compared to classic Papaduke designs (Circus Voltaire, Tales from Arabian Nights)

    high · Genghis: 'It plays about as fun as the Funhaus remake too...not blowing my mind'; missing magnetic elevation/cage mechanics

    • 3:43
    I've talked to people that have played Cuphead and they said it's really fun. So I guess we'll see. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Nice. Good to hear. Good to hear that I'm not hearing that it's like a total dog of a game. Like, that's not what they need right now. I want them to have a banger. Damn it. Of course. We want everybody to have success. Let's jump over to Hexapinball Space Hunt. Yes. So your friends, the Pinsound folks, were there. And then Rob Burke, the host of the show, he has a space hunt, one of the few that have been imported to the U.S. And it was there, and I got to play this champagne-colored pink monster.
    4:16
    It was fun. And the only thing is that space hunt music wasn't there. So now maybe that's in a multi-ball, maybe that's in a mode, and the whole thing just starts blowing up and playing that space hunt. But, like, I wanted that from the jump. The music was okay. It was kind of, like, spacey, right? Almost all of the shots, very easy to hit, very satisfying, good orbit shot and all that. The upper play field was frustrating.
    4:40
    Why? The ramp to get up there is, like, a long, elevated orbit ramp, and it's, like, Houdini tight to get in there. Oh. So most shots that go up there, they roll up slowly, and then they roll back down. It's like, ah, come on. So I got to the upper play field twice, and they were like absolutely 100% precise shots, and they slung right up there, and they felt good. And then you're only up there for a second, and then it's like, oh, man, I've been trying for 10 minutes to get up there. I finally did. It's like I wasn't ready.
    5:10
    But for a first effort from what they can build, they can build a game. The cabinet's great. The play field looks good. There's no chipping. The shots that they have, except for that one, which is – it's just too tight. If they opened it up a little bit, it would work great. That's my only thing I would change. I know I already like the music. How do the flippers feel? Good, strong.
    5:31
    Not as strong as Stern, but not as weak as ABBA. Okay. That's fair. So if that game was in the U.S. for like $9,000, would you buy it?
    5:44
    No. If you get the music also? No. No, but I would think about it. If it was $69.99, I'd have a better shot. But there's a lot of competition right now for $9,000. There's so much pinball you can buy with licensed games and everything. But it's not for us in the U.S. This is built in France, so you can buy a machine and not pay 25% VAT, right?
    6:11
    No, no, we still need to pay that VAT. I thought that was just on imports. No, if I buy a game from France, it gets into Denmark, I will pay 25% on top of that. What if you're in France and buy one, though?
    6:29
    Oh, I know if you live in, I think, Germany, they only pay 19% of that. So if a German guy buys from a German distro, he pays 19%. But here in Denmark, Sweden, so on, we pay 25%. It's so crazy. What if the machine was made in Denmark from a Danish company? Would you still pay that VAT?
    6:50
    Everything we do, we have to pay VAT. One thing, the government is talking about vegetables. They will remove like 10%, so we only pay 15% VAT because we like to have a healthier lifestyle. But other than that, everything has to have 25% of it go to the government, And then we pay 50% tax to the government. The government here is so rich.
    7:17
    So in the United States, for example, we call vegetables McDonald's. So that's something that's different. What's going on with McDonald's in the U.S., man? Stay away from the quarter powders, man. Oh, my God. But let's continue this because, you know what, I'm from Europe. And when I see Hexa Pinball, I'm so proud. When I say, see you, Dutch Pinball making common missions, I'm so proud. And you have also played the, what's it called? That Hoop Loop, was it Hoop Loop? Super Hoop, yeah. I don't remember. We sell these games, but, you know, the factory had, it burned. A little bit of fire. Yeah, yeah, had some damage. But very, very cheap game. Here in Denmark, it's so cheap. It's cheap, much cheaper than a Stern Pro. What did you think about that European game? I think if it's priced cheaper than a Stern Pro, it was a lot of fun. It was fun. It's like under $5,000 or something. Really, really cheap game. That's perfect because, yeah, I don't think you can stand up to a Stern Pro right now. But what's there is fun. And so, yeah, if it's several thousand dollars cheaper, although you can probably get a Venom Pro too for the same price, to be honest.
    8:34
    You're saying that with a Venom T-shirt on there, Donnie. I got love for the guy, but let's be real. Let's be real. We should break down pros versus premiums, like which one are really worth the extra money. Maybe we'll do that a little bit later. But, yeah, it was fun. Like shooting, like most basketball pinball machines, there's been a ramp to try to get into the basket. This one you shoot into a vertical up kicker, hits it up to the backboard. The magnet grabs the ball, stopping it on the backboard, which is kind of cool, and then drops in the basket. Satisfying every time I did it. It was super fun. It is. Did you look at that play field? It has got that plexiglass protector on top of everything. Okay, that I didn't notice. I did notice the plastic sculpts they had on the side that almost worked like hot rails in Yogi Jack games. So that was kind of cool. It does have so many LED lights everywhere. I mean, for the money, not a bad game. The Tokyo Drift was right next to it. That was fun too, but it didn't have that cool moment of putting baskets in there. And then the call-outs in English were hilarious. Like to a native English speaker, it was just really funny like how they say the words.
    9:45
    So was the company there? Were they representing the game this time? So the factory is going on. They want to sell these games, build them again? Good question. There was one guy there, and then he had brochures for Bitronic. Now, is Bitronic the company that designed the game and Ketzel Pinballs the company that's building it? Or like I don't know how that all works. I know they have multiple. They also made another pirate pinball machine. I think they have made three or four pinball machines. Neo Pirates, something. I don't remember it right now. But they're all cheap. And for the money, you're getting a lot of pinball. Yeah, yeah. It didn't feel like a cheap game, like just plastic parts, whatever. It's going to break. It felt okay. It just didn't have robust, deep gameplay like we have with the top-of-the-line models. but the shots felt really good the lighting effects were cool, the callouts were funny and Super Hoop was fun to play for sure, unironically I liked it Nice Let's continue this European route and go up to Sweden our dear friend from Sweden, Pimple Brothers they made ABBA, what's up? The Pride of Svierge so when I hit the show floor my plan was to go straight to Alice in Wonderland and then off to my left I saw four ABBA machines and I'm like, we gotta do this we gotta do this, I've been waiting to play ABBA since it was announced. Not because I'm excited about the band, because honestly, I don't know, man. In the 80s, it felt dated, right? But I really wanted to see, like, okay, you made it out of a machine. Let me play it. What the hell is going on here? And so I did. So the first thing you're going to notice coming from a Stern or like a New Jersey Jack is these are weak sauce flippers, man. Now, they were strong enough to get all the shots of the game. They're perfectly appropriate for the game, but, like, didn't have that feel that, you know, You want to sternly just slam the ball up there. You know, I played this game all throughout the show. There was never more than a one-person wait to get on one. They weren't breaking down. No glass was shattered. No play fields had to be lifted. So the games were working just fine. The music's okay. The graphics are ABBA. So, you know, if you're into that, this is probably the game for you. It was fun. There's interesting things to do here, right? If Super Hoop was a very basic layout with one cool thing to do, ABBA had more cool things to do, right? It's got that left plastic ramp that's got a little hole in it so it can sometimes drain through there. It's got a magnet hidden in the back that can grab the ball, and that's kind of a cool thing when that happens.
    12:13
    The lock for the helicopter is the big thing. You shoot all the way straight to the back of the play field, knock down the drop target. That qualifies the lock, and then you put the ball in a vertical up kicker back there, and it'll shoot it up in the helicopter. Two balls in the copter will get you the three-ball multi-ball. So it was kind of cool for what it was. I have no connection or love for this theme at all. You know, when I'm in the department store with my grandma and they start playing ABBA music, I go wait in the car, right? This is not Metallica for me. So did you consider buying one? No, no. But I kept going back to it, starting Fernando and just playing ABBA just because it was silly. And so it was – I did have fun with it. They had $1,000 knocked off the games from the show floor, which was a huge discount for a brand new game. I mean, Spooky's over there selling their games for MSRP on the show floor, and like ABBA, like $1,000 off just right away. Whoa. So I don't know. Maybe – I'm sure if it was like close to selling out, they wouldn't be doing that.
    13:17
    I mean, ABBA is from Sweden. It's my neighbor here in Denmark and, you know, Swedish band back in the 70s, 80s, whatever. I remember when I was a little kid, we had this audio rack with the LP on top and my mom had these LPs and one of them was this band and I listened to Money, Money, Money, Must Be Funny. Money, Money, Money? Yeah, my mom listened to stuff like that and my mom is in her, what, 60s or something. So I think it's a bit too late to make this theme, but I was like, Swedish people love this music, Danish people love this music, and we are distros for this company, and we advertise who wants to buy this game, and not many people was interested here either. I can see, if you had a location that already had everything else, this would kind of be cool to put in there just to get, hey, we got an ABBA, this is the only place you can play it in the whole country. I could see it working there, but if I had it at home, I honestly wouldn't turn it on that much, I don't think. But, Donnie, location. Let me just go into two things. If you have a location, this game costs like $10,000, right? Right. And for $7,000 from the same company, you can get an alien white-body game. So why not just pay $1,000 less? Who's the game for? I don't know who this game is for. Now, it's not just because it's a 70s band. Okay, if this was Bee Gees, I probably would get it because, like, that's Soprano from Barry and Andy Gibb. Like, I got to have that. I'll be all over Bee Gees. But for ABBA, it's a miss. I don't even want to – I walk out of a store if they start playing this music because it's like, okay.
    15:03
    Yes, Fernando's fun, but I can only take so much, man. But I kept going back and playing the game, so I hope they keep bringing it to shows.
    15:12
    Okay, okay. All right, so the next game from Europe. Let's continue. I love this. I'm so proud that we're coming up with games. The next game is from DPX, Dodge Pinball Extravaganza something. I don't know. What's his name? Melvin?
    15:31
    Melvin, yeah. I don't know Melvin. I haven't had no conversations with him, but I love the guy because he has enriched our world with a new pinball machine. So Melvin, thumbs up, buddy. So cool. I know Barry from Dodge Pinball. I have talked with him. Cool guy. What a nice guy. What a guy. Yeah, cool guy. 10 out of 10. So before we talk about Alice in Chocolate Factory or whatever it's called, rename to, I don't know, I want to hear about your impression with the game launch and how long time it took. Let me hear that because I'm going to talk about that also. Yeah, terrible. I mean, I like the idea of kind of let's hype this thing up leading into the launch, But I almost think that maybe they wanted this game to come out earlier and they were preparing for that. And then they had to miss a date. So it was like, okay, just shut up about everything and just silence for months, you know. And then it was like, okay, here's a little bit more. Here's a leaked image and then nothing. And it's like my hype is being built up and then down and then built up and down. And every time it's built back up, it's not as high as that first time, you know. So, like, this should have just been like, you let everybody know this game is coming out in four days, man. Thursday is going to be the day. We're going to reveal everything and then, like, get the game out. with with a decent trailer man they undersold this game so much man um looking at the art that was released we were tearing it apart like who did this is this ai is that blood on her leg or strawberry jam i can't where's the areola at i what's happening here you know when i saw the game in person all that didn't matter the game looks great but you couldn't tell that from the launch and the hype right all right fair you feel like that fair also listen to your podcast show don's pinball podcast where he said that you had this fatigue just they had been talking about this for so long time just just come out already all right i i get you okay so i've been talking to my brother should we sell this game right should we sell this because it's european game and we're Proud about this, right? Absolutely. We have been talking left and right, getting some info. So give me three minutes. Let me talk right now. Okay. First of all, the way they launched this game. They had this one YouTuber they have reached out to that for like six or eight months, he kept on saying, by all means, I know everything. I cannot share anything. By all means, I know the game. I cannot say anything. I signed the NDA. by all means my patrons knows everything by all means by all means so that just got this fatigue feeling like they have been talking so long time about this game so another guy that DPS contacted was Canada pinball podcast and he has only 700 listeners so what he has been saying I don know So this game came out with a two trailer that really didn show that much A couple of days later, I see Canada's Pinball Podcast. He makes a YouTube video showing the launch. So I'm like, yes, we will get a world premiere launch. So I fast-forward, fast-forward, come on, come on. and Canada is just, Chris is just hyping this game up like crazy and I'm just, all right, come on, let's see this game. And they show this game and on this guy's YouTube channel, all the colors are off, people are writing, what's going on? Are the legs and armor, is it brown? And people are just confused and I'm like, no, this is world premiere and it looks so crappy. And if Chris re-watches that video, he's a marketing guy, He will see, okay, this is not the best way to show this game. No hate on him. But doing it this way, it was just the worst possible way to release a game you have used so much time, effort, money on. Okay. Do it like JJP. Do it like Stern. Quiet.
    19:43
    Don't share it with anyone. Don't confirm. Don't deny. Have your games ready. in boxes to ship we just got trailer of uh x-men you have got the x-men we just got trailer of jjp's avatar and you have been avatars on the location everywhere okay so this doing it this way i watched that canada's pinball podcast and i was like what's going on here and he was like yeah man only 500 yeah i want rare game i want a game no one else has this is a game that no else has. And I was like, what are you talking about? This game is not rare. 500 games, it's not rare. When it came out, it didn't sell out. It just cost $12,500. You can see I haven't got this Tales from the Arabian Nuts. I can sell it in an hour, and I can buy this game. It's for sale on Pinside. It's for sale on Facebook Marketplace. I mean, and it's not rare. And what's going to happen? Canada is going to sit there and say, I got this rare game dude this game will be at your place like an a year from today which means it will be just like pulp fiction le oh man yeah when you unbox this game all the hype all the i feel special now i have got this it's dead and gone by that time we have spiked three games from we have so much greatness from all we have new JJP game at that time right we have new Dutch pinballs game next year right so I think he will sell his game just wait and see but other than that so I watched Kerry Hardy and Canada's pinball podcast they made an interview with Melvin and they showed the first game play with this handheld phone camera and it was just catastrophic. And I was like, European country, I want this to be great! I want this to be... I want, when everybody sees it, it's gonna be, whoa, man! From DPX, and it was just such a letdown, and I'm so sad about it. That's my thing. No hate, no nothing. I'm just sad, because it's just 500 games. It's gonna sell out. It's only 500. It's nothing. But next time, DPX, please, please listen to me. Have your games in boxes. Have them ready to ship. Okay. Don't share all of this eight months before release. Because when we asked people here in Denmark who are like, is anyone interested? We have the biggest YouTube Facebook group here. We are the biggest distro here. We asked around, is anyone interested in this game? People were like, wasn't that game out like last year? Right, right. It's a new game. We were like, no, no, no, no, it's brand new. There was just, people were confused. They didn't know. So we didn't contact them. We didn't ask to be a distro. RS Pinball, huge distro here in Europe. We work with them. We could be sub-distro. People were just confused. I mean, I'm so sad about this. Donnie. Really. Imagine if they just showed up to Pinball Expo with three of these games and just announced, we're going to have something to show you guys. And then all of a sudden the doors open and here they are. The hype would have been through the roof, man. People would have been bending down your doors to come and buy them. Yeah. And have, you know, some of them, 20 of them in boxes directed to, you would buy it if they said, Donnie, here we go. You can take it home with you. Oh my God, do it like that. Not like this. But again, they're lucky it's only 500 games. They will sell out. Have you seen somebody – some people are trying to sell them now on Facebook. I've seen that, pre-order deposits. And I think in four to six months when 300 people are still waiting for their games, you're going to see a lot more of those.
    23:57
    Oh, yeah, baby. So all of that, oh, it's highly collectible. That just dies out. It just dies out. And I'm so sad. I hope they learn from this. I love Melvin. Don't get me wrong, but I'm just do what Stern does. The formula is right there. It's right there. I don't think they need to be going down to Papa Duke and taking failures of games and trying to make them work. Just get a killer license, sell 500 premium limited titles, and then just do that. I think that's great for the label.
    24:31
    The game, their build looks great. I mean, the cabinet feels solid. The art is It's better in person Everything that Lior did And everything that Stumbler did With the lights and the sculpts Are top notch, cannot be matched Amazing in pinball Like the best, the best The gameplay is like a Papaduke game It's not as good as Tales of the Arabian Nights It's not as good as Circus Voltaire But it's okay Oh, I'm so sorry Do you mean that? Oh no Oh, no. All the fun little things that Circus Voltaire has, all the fun things that Tales from the Arabian Nights has, that magnet that grabs the ball and holds it, the little cage that comes up and grabs. None of that is here. The shots all feel good. Like, no shots are bricking or anything. The upper play field, you can only get there through two of the modes. You can't just shoot up there and go play, right? So that's a little frustrating. You know, the jabber walk is back there. I didn't even get a ball back there to lock it the couple times that I played. I don't know it's very pretty with the light and the presentation and everything it looks much better in person the gameplay is okay I'd probably take it over ABBA, the flippers were stronger than ABBA's, the scoop eject is turned way down so the ball just dribbles out, it's like it's not a very exciting game to play I'm so sorry to hear that man I was like only 500 and this is DPX X. I was like, this game is going to cost like $16,500.
    26:04
    Any guy that has got a fish tail and a road show, they can sell those games and buy this. This is not extravaganza. This is not extreme. This is cheaper than a Sterner League.
    26:18
    I don't think they needed John Papaduke at all. They just come up with an interesting design and I think it would have been fantastic. It feels like I see this game, I play it, It plays about as fun as the Funhaus remake too. They're okay. They're fun to play, but they're not blowing my mind.
    26:36
    Oh, okay. So you didn't think, man, I need to buy this for $12,500? No, and wait six months, five months, who knows, to get it.
    26:48
    Canada's Pinball Podcast, just wait eight months. 300 people are still waiting. There is just no, I have this special, unique game. I mean – The sculpts are awesome, right? They even come with extra little plastic protectors you can put on elevated hex posts to protect them if you want, if you're putting it on location. I think this is a game I'd put on location versus ABBA because I think this will be a draw even though – Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I need to disagree. Would you put this 12-5 game on a location? First of all, who's going to put money in this game? who's gonna say whoa alice what's what's it called chocolate factory something what's it called it's nobody knows the theme it's that's number one alice's adventures in amsterdam i think is what it is okay okay that's number one nobody's gonna say oh i want to put money in this instead of ghostbusters okay so no money earning number two it has got plastic rams it has got so much plastic that can break down number three it costs like a an le game and for the same money you can get two pro games number three the theme number four this company it's it's brand new it's not tested this game is the last game i would put on a location okay let me qualify it let me qualify it don't put this on a location at the mall okay that's not the location for this if you've got a bar that's making its money on cocktails and uh and and and craft brew drinks and you already have you're known for having le's um then maybe this is the game for that location people that already know about pinball and they want to go play this thing for you know throw some dollars in it and buy some ten dollar beers like that's that's the location for it not at the laundromat not at the shopping mall just trying to catch regular people walking by for sure yeah okay but would you dare put a game a first game from this company put that out on a location i mean we know they have dutch pinball's experience but you were i think dutch people came up with Big Lebowski like, was it 10 years ago or something? I don't remember. But when it came out, Donnie, when you bought those games, they had issues. I had a friend that bought the game. He needed to buy an extra hard disc and an extra hard disc because stuff burned down. I don't want to bash this company. I love this company, but I'm just telling what was happening. They needed to have this extra, extra, extra in case of something. I know the newest games, they're rock solid. But,
    29:26
    again, location, give me Godzilla Pro and X-Men Pro for the same money and they will make more money back. Yeah, okay. I see your point.
    29:37
    Yeah, I'm sorry. It's pretty. But I'm sad to hear about the gameplay that you feel, because I thought that, you know, this is John Papaduke. I thought John Papaduke has made great games. His games have so much magnetic elevation and magical stuff in them. And I was like this going, ooh.
    30:00
    Well, now this wasn't a John Papaduke game. This was a John Papaduke project that was abandoned. So maybe there were ideas to incorporate some cooler stuff and whatever happened, right? Same thing with Magic Girl. Maybe he switched over and was working on Magic Girl, got that halfway there, and then gave up there or whatever happened. And, you know, so there's just like games that just kind of got stopped in development probably for a reason. There's probably a ton of games that make it down the road and it's just not working. And they're like, okay, let's not, let's do something else, you know. You know, for every Circus Voltaire and every Tales from the Arabian Nights, there was probably an Alice and a Magic Girl.
    30:36
    Oh, man. Donnie, we haven't talked about this game. And I was actually looking forward to hearing you saying this was the coolest game in the show. I'm so sorry I couldn't get one of those 500s. This was so awesome. I wanted you to say that, man. This makes me sad. Well, you will hear that here in a little bit as we continue on.
    31:04
    Okay, okay. So do we have more European games? I don't want to disrespect no company. Do we have more European games? I think that's all of them. Okay, okay. let's let's jump to the u.s now right let's jump to the u.s the home of pinball yeah all right all right the next game we have to talk about is x-men i know you have the x-men and you have also played the pro x-men yes just the lines were people happy were people buying this game how was it tell me a bit about x-men yeah i mean i think there were about 12 or 15 X-Men at the show floor, a mix of premiums and pros. And they had people two or three deep in line the whole time. Yeah, people were very impressed with X-Men. Probably, according to Zach Minney from the Pinball Show, that was actually game of the show for him because sales-wise, more than Metallica, more than Alice, more than Avatar, X-Men is what's selling to people.
    32:04
    Nice. Yeah. I filmed this game like a week ago, and I will release a review in a couple of hours. 30-minute long video on my YouTube channel on Retro Jango.
    32:20
    Yeah, go on and watch it. I love the game. It's fine. I love the game. It's so different in the best ways. Yeah, give me your buzz. I mean, I have to start with the bad thing, and everything else is awesome. Okay, everything else is awesome. But the bad thing for me, personally, was that mini play field at the left side. You don't like the danger room? No, man. Oh, man. It felt like, as of my code understanding, it felt like if you're in there, if you make the shots, you will get a lot of more points. It builds up your points in there. So it's cool. But I felt like when I was in there, I just want to get out of there. Not be in there and build. Yeah, you say yeah also. I just want to get out of there because it's so high risk. It's punishment in there is what you see it as. Yeah. I didn't like it. For me, this game, shots on layout, if this was just a white wood with no code and it had those ram shots and figure eight shots, and diverter and levitating ball and that hit that goes up and bash and tickle the finger. This game, yeah, it's mind-blowing. It's so good. The game I played had so much air balls. Oh, my God. I don't know how it's with your limited edition, but air balls galore everywhere. Yeah, so other people were mentioning that too. My LE doesn't seem to do that, but then I played a pro fresh out of the box, fresh out of the factory last night, and yeah, air balls. What the hell? Air balls! Like, the balls were going so fast through the wire forms, they were just leaving. They were gaining flight, hitting the glass. And rammed entrances. It just jumped up, hit the glass.
    34:13
    Can you imagine? I can imagine. On the pro version, on the cheapest version, if they just remove that mini playfield from there, just remove it and put the spinner somewhere else where I can rip that spinner. Because I shoot the spinner. It's like, come on. I love Dead East games because they have spinners on their orbit shots. You hit that orbit and it's just, and it flies around into the other orbit, coming back and spinner number two. Oh, my God, I'm getting the goose. So when I hit this spinner, it's like, what the heck? So imagine a spinner on the entrance to that figure eight loop ramp because that thing screams around there. Yeah, that would be the shit.
    34:59
    Oh, that could be so cool, man. All right, I'm going to see if I can put one on mine. You hit that, yeah, hit that, and figure eight, and it just spins, and that figure eight comes safely back to your right flipper, and you can hit that figure eight, and you could hit it while it spins. It could be so cool. So the only negative thing I can say about this game is that danger zone area. Everything else, shots on layout is cool. code i understand the code you start a mode down there at you at the at the x seven nine months whatever and what you need to shoot they blink so easy not everything blinks like other games this well done all i know it's an early code it's well done the art on the play field i like it some people are angry it's too busy blah blah blah i like it it's comic book yeah music The original music was awesome. They got some content creator hate. Now they changed it. But the music they changed to is also awesome. So I think the audio package in all is very cool. Do you like the audio package? Yeah, and that original music is still in there too. They just moved it around so it's not like the first thing you hear. So, yeah, I think it works. It's fun. It's got its moments, right? You go to the future, you go to the past. when you successfully get back to the future. Or wait, no, when you successfully get back to the past. You're like, okay, I got my bonus. I didn't just drain. I will push back on the danger room because I love having that more than I love having just a left out lane, if that's all that was there.
    36:30
    But, yeah, you're right. I mean, it plays like an upper play field. Like an upper play field would have a shot through a spinner. It would have a ramp to get out of and a place to drain. It's just in this case, the drain is the drain. Like your ball is done.
    36:43
    Yeah. So there is a little bit of there more tension Yeah there more tension Yeah I just want the ball out of there Yeah Just get out of there Yeah but I like this game I like this game for the first time I played it when I was invited to the factory And, yeah, dude, it's great.
    37:01
    I mean, this is – when I saw the first trailer, I was like, this is the game of the year. Yeah. It's, I mean, Jack Danger, you can just feel that this guy has played a lot of pinball. You can just feel it. I know it's early. It got pushed, so he didn't have, he had like 12 months instead of 18 months to develop. You can see it in the code, but that will be fixed. We trust in Stern. They will fix it. We just got, so the games were on new code on the show floor, and they just released that code yesterday.
    37:36
    Nice. So, yeah, so it did add some quality of life improvements. And so if this is the direction the game is going to go, like, bring it, man, because there's even more fun stuff to come. Well, I filmed my video last week, so I haven't tried the news code you're talking about right now. But, wow, I am loving this game. Maybe I'm just not a good player. That's maybe my issue with that danger area. But other than that, oh, my God, just keep on doing this. It's so cool. Well, if you should recommend best bang for buck, what would you recommend? Yeah, X-Men Pro. I don't think you can go wrong with that. For the money, because all the gameplay is in there. It's just the premium has all the cooler things, you know, with the breaking ramp with the hand on the right, the sentinel head coming up and down. Like, that's a cool, like, visual trigger. You're entering that mode. Getting the ball to finger back is fun every time it happens. You get a physical sculpt. You get the kind of very target thing they devised, which is clever. But, you know, I think you're still getting a lot of gameplay in the pro for this game, for sure.
    38:42
    Well, for me, that wire form that cracks, I don't know how it plays on your LE, but when I experienced that most of the time, when it destroyed that wire ramp, the ball just went straight down the middle. Okay, so you either need to check. Have you tried that? Yes, you either need to check. Now, this is a game that's got to be leveled left to right because it really changes all the geometry if it's just like a degree off. So if it's set left to right perfectly and still doing that, you might need to just like bend one of the exit wire forms a little bit. It should be going to the right flipper. That shouldn't be going straight down the middle. So mine, it shoots to the right flipper. It's safe. I can catch it. You know, if you don't catch it, it'll bounce off that flipper and go right down the drain. But it shouldn't be a straight down the middle thing. So that might be a tweak. That was my experience. And I was like, I can live without this. And that tickle of the finger on the left side, cool, but still you make a shot, and it says, hey, stop, and gives the ball back. It was a bit, you know, yeah, you know what I mean. But I can still live without that. So the head, people are saying, let me just get the probe, because it doesn't matter if the head goes up and down. When the head is down, Donnie, on the alley, when the head is down, and you hit the top of his head, he has got this rubber crown on his head. It's so – it's such a feel-good shot. You hit it, bang, cool sound and that rubber hit feeling. I like hitting his head. And when the ball comes up, you can hit his mouth. I like that aspect of it.
    40:23
    When the head is down, it's fun to see what's going on behind him and what the wire forms are actually doing. So, like, that's kind of fun, too. So there's some benefit to having the head go up and down. I mean, you know, ultimately, is it worth the extra money for you? That's a personal decision. The destroying right wire form, if you're ready to start a mode and you hit that shot and it breaks, then you still have to hit another shot to start a mode because it doesn't go to the in lane. Now, that may be fixed with code. Like, if you're ready to start a mode, I don't think that break should happen. That will probably get fixed. But, yeah, overall, I dig the LE. I got some premiums coming. We're going to be making them over. They look fantastic I've got a topper built already It looks awesome So I always ask this Would you buy the Ellie of this game Or will you buy this game X-Men Ellie and Godzilla Ellie For the same money Oh sorry Godzilla Pro And X-Men Pro Well okay it depends If I didn't have any games and I want more games Then I would buy the two pros If I'm slowly building a collection Or I want to rotate a game through I like the premium Ellie fair point fair point i would buy both premium uh pros sorry i will buy both pros because man great great games for the money i love stern i'm making pros i want jersey jack to make standard versions again because it's just too expensive donnie prices went up like 40 percent transportation was expensive gas was expensive electricity was expensive the price of wood was like four times more expensive but all of that is normalized now why are the prices still so much more expensive what i was like by this time they will go down yeah to like 9 800 for an le again but what's going on donnie there's still 13 000 they're still getting away with it is what's going on people are still they're still selling games they're having to do more hustle to keep it going they're putting more games on the line we saw Metallica just jump right out right after X-Men and that's probably because they have another game ready to come out they just have a full schedule so until we really stop the market quits purchasing all these games and they're just sitting I don't think we're going to see anything they're starting to offer here's free play fields if you buy a game you get a bonus thing for your wall they're finding ways to add extra value over time with inflation it'll catch up if they don't keep raising prices and so I think that's why you've seen prices stay where they're at. They're trying to just climb and hold and wait for inflation to outpace it so it's more palatable.
    42:58
    I don't think we're going to see Stern LEs come down to $99.99. Why not, man? I don't know. I would love it. That'd be awesome. It ain't going to happen.
    43:10
    I remember when the price of wood, I wanted to buy, I wanted to build a MAME cabinet and the wood was so expensive back in the COVID times. Everything was just so... A 2x4 was $10. It's over. All of that is over now. I mean, come on, man. Come on. The gas prices have been cheaper. Everything has been cheaper. But come on. Get down from there. Get down. You know, we've seen other companies pivot, right? Like Spooky Pinball has kept their prices for their top editions under $10,000. And they're adding more and more to the games and keeping the prices there. So I think what it's going to do is allow people to start looking over and see, you know, well, what's Spooky got? Like that's great value. Everything's already powder-coated, looks phenomenal. Their themes that they've got coming out are all top-notch. No barbecues coming out of Spooky.
    44:02
    Look, Spooky have great themes, and Spooky's games are getting better and better. They're learning. I want Spooky to succeed just like any other company. And this December, when they release the game, I want them to have games in boxes ready to ship and also have great code from the get-go. They're learning and they're listening to what we're saying, and they're doing that. They're hearing like, man, this game's great, but where's the interaction with the ball? Where's the mechanisms? They're like, all right, hold my beer. Let's go with some mechs. And they don't make game themes like Elton John gone with the wind. what the what man all of this adventure what what the i mean steel magnolias come on when you i mean this is not cheap when you choose something at your background i can see freaking pulp fiction yeah do it like that that's awesomeness yeah yeah they they're listening and they're saying, yes, we're doing that, and it's coming. So get ready. Get ready. December is close. Close, yeah. So probably five weeks from now we'll probably have a good idea of what they're bringing, and it's going to have a trailer that was shot by the folks straight down the middle. So it's going to be a good launch. That's how you do it.
    45:35
    Donnie, don't get me wrong. That's how you do it. invite Zach over. Zach makes amazing audio quality, video quality, audio quality, editing, everything. Not this by all means, by all means, I know the thing I cannot share. No, just contact, I don't know how expensive Zach is, but just contact him. I mean, I watched this, Alice, and after that, I don't know why YouTube chose me to watch Guns N' Roses launch video and I was like look at what happened like five years ago it was just fire right I mean no even the home pin spinal tab video at least had something attractive to look at they videographied like a woman basically and hardly even showed the game and even that was better oh man oh man oh man okay okay next game on the line we agree we love X-Men nothing there next game on the line is we got X-Men everybody pockets are empty and then two days later JJP said yes everybody has used all their money let's release our game they released Avatar and those empty pockets got more emptier and then two days later DPX said yes Perfect timing. All the pockets are empty. All the money is gone. Let's release our game, Alice in Chocolate Factory. And then when all the pockets were empty, we got 500 limited edition Master of Puppets. God. Metallica. Some people are angry.
    47:28
    Some people are angry. They're like, why do you release this game on top of X-Men? You're cannibalizing your... Shut up. Just release games. I don't care. I had somebody tell me, I played both versions of this, man, and I made a comment that this is like a whole new game. And there's a couple of people out there, trolls, are saying, it's not a new game. I'm like, bullshit, this is a brand new game, man. I don't know what it is about it other than everything, except for strictly just the layout. This thing plays completely different. The music and the videos and the fact that they changed out Sparky to be an actual skeleton guy with UV paint and effects on him. The hammer works better. The magnets are functioning fantastic. This is a game that's freshly built. No dot matrix display. Get out of here with that. 20 new songs, 1,000 call-outs from James Head Phillips. Come on. Yeah. It's amazing. And only 500 made. They got sold out in a flash because this game, Metallica LE, the old versions, if you look at Pinsight, it says between $15,000 to $17,000. Yeah. And as soon as this game hit the market for $13,000, those old games were like sub $13,000, of course. Right. They just came out for sale like crazy. I made a video a year ago telling everybody this game would come out. Yeah. Yeah, why didn't you sell it a year ago? But now everybody wants to sell their old Metallica. And it's Spike 2. There's Insider Connected. You can log in, track your scores and everything. And there's songs to unlock on your account. So as you log in and play, then you can unlock even more songs and stuff. Yes, that's like everything that Metallica was missing from Spike 1. I'm so impressed in Stern because – no, no, Donnie. It's not Spike 1. I don't think so. I said that, and then I'm like, that's probably a System 11 or whatever the hell they were before that.
    49:26
    System 11 was the Billy Williams games. Okay. I'm just so impressed in Stern that I was also thinking about they will take Spike 1 games and upgrade them. That would be much, much easier than this. But this is an old Sam system. Sam's, that's it. Yeah, Sam system, man. And I was like, if they want to update Sam, because their boards were, you know, old school. You know, not white star old school, but really old school still. And under the play field, they had so much cable. It looked like Jersey Jack games, those old games. Okay, yeah. But these new, you know, with RJ45 net cables, everything is just much more or less. It needed to have a lot of engineering. Re-engineering this game. They probably had to just start over and code the whole thing from scratch. Yeah. This is not an easy fix. So they had a play field layout and, like, that's it, right? Yeah. So cool with the new art. Yeah, and, yeah, it represents Metallica from right now, too. It's the guys, like, redrawn how they are now, the lineup they have now. So it's very much like this is a new Metallica. It just has the new concert. Yeah, still has a snake, still has the gravestone marker, you know, still has the shots, but it's a new game, man. It's a new game. And people have been for years saying this is a wood chopping game, you know, same shot again, again, again, again, again. But it has updated the codes. There's like two new modes, right? Yeah, and honestly, just playing Master of Puppets with the expression lights, the back box lights, the LCD screen.
    51:09
    I'll chop wood there all day, man. I mean, the audio is 50%. So listening to, I mean, the LE speakers, Kenwood speakers, right, and concert on the back glass. Not a stinky one-colored orange display or red display they use. Yeah. Fully concert experience. Flashing lights on the sides. You got the skeleton hand on the armor on the LE just like fucking go. Oh, yeah, baby. All right, man.
    51:40
    It's so cool. But personally, we have the LE, and I played the Pro a lot. I like the Pro. For me personally, it's a very boring layout. It's Orbit, LeftRamp, RightRamp, and a Bash toy. Nothing else. No argument. So it's a very, very boring layout for a guy like me that has played for many, many years. But this is new gen, new generation, new people. We got new Donnies here. So when you experienced this, you were like, whoa. My brother, he was like, should we just order the LE? And I was like, dude, we have got an LE here. But, yeah, it's so cool, man. It's the way we have, you know. If my pocket wasn't empty from X-Men and wasn't empty from Avatar, like for sure, for sure. And so, you know, down the road, I told my distributor, I talked to Jeff at Mad Pinball, and I'm like, you know, on a later run premium, just mark my name down. Canada's Pinball Podcast tried to sell his for $18,000. Did you see that? What a great guy. What a blessing. He got bashed. I got sent screenshots. I know the guy needs money and everything and no shade in the hustle, but it's that luck, man.
    53:00
    To be honest, I like people that hustles. Yeah. I have nothing against he tries to sell it for $18,000, I know sometimes he bought multiple games to sell to. I mean, if he gets the money, then he wakes up earlier than you and I. It's cool. But people's reaction, Donnie, they got tape shit on him. So you can maybe contact him and buy his for 18G. We're on such good terms. Yeah, I think that'd be a great idea. He'll maybe give you a kiss also. I don't know, Donnie.
    53:33
    Why not? But, yeah, it's an awesome game. this cannibalizing BS that's out there. No way. I love Stern is doing this. Please keep on doing this. All right. Can you imagine a world, right, where they come out with 500 super limited edition, the only one you can get, remastered, Spike 2, Spike 3, Ghostbusters, and just sell them for $20,000. 500, we're not doing any premiums. It's just SLE with all the assets. Here you go. Can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine having that big screen with movie clips? Yeah. Real movie clips? That would be the game to own, man. Yeah, but the Ellie, it shouldn't get new artwork. Have you seen the green armor on the Ellie? Oh, yeah, for sure. It's so good. It's coming. But the rumors about this game being Spike 3, Donnie, seriously, It's just one thing that's holding me and thousands of others back is come out with that Spike 3. We don't want to use so much money on a game when we know a much better technology is just around the corner.
    54:48
    Come out with it, please. I don't think we're even going to see it next because the next game was supposed to come out when X-Men came out, but X-Men was supposed to be after, and they were still Spike 2. so unless this was Metallica that bumped maybe Metallica needed more time for code and it was going to come out first and X-Men took its spot so there still a chance that the next game could be the Spike 3 debut but it may be the one after still yeah I think you absolutely right I think it the one after Yeah yeah It is what it is Dungeons Dragons Let's get excited for a game that maybe we don't feel like we have to buy so our wallets can recover.
    55:28
    Do you think Dungeons & Dragons would be like cartoonish? No, they're not going to go for a cartoon. It will be based on probably the art from the books, right, from the old TSR tabletop Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books that we all had in high school. I like that art, man. Because we were nerds. We were looking at that instead of looking at girls, or at least I was. So it will probably have like that fantasy-style art. Who knows? I don't know who is even rumored to be on it. But if they use the Insider Connected system, experience, grinding, leveling, unlocking characters, unlocking attributes, I'm excited for that. They just need to have a map system. If you have played these games, you need to have a well-layered map system, and you can choose. Do you want this mode? Go to the right side. Go to the left side. I wonder if they'll have, like, imagine if they have a super nerdy narrator that's your dungeon master. Like, okay, you've got to roll a D6, hit the spinner, you know. Yeah.
    56:27
    I mean, it could be better than a theme like Barbecue or Elton John. We'll see. I'm just saying. We'll see. How long time have we recorded? We're at 56 minutes You want to do a rundown of everything else real quick? So we can keep it in an hour Real quick Like gotta talk about Ninja Eclipse Oh my god I gotta talk about Ninja Eclipse It was four Ninja Eclipses production machines on the floor That were already sold before the show even started So those went to customers And talking to Chris Turner Good personal friend of mine His games are selling like more and more It's like the game just debuted now People are coming around to it, finally getting to play it. This game debuted, was it last year at Expo where they had the small cabinet? It was $12,000. It was because he was saying, there's Labyrinth for $11,000. Here's mine. Why are people giving me such crap? And it's like, well, you only included half of a cabinet. People, what are you doing? Now here we are a year later. Game is in production, in boxes, going to customers. The code's developed and finalized. The layout's finalized. They're doing 100 of them. and he says he's getting closer to selling out. So, yeah, Ninja Eclipse. Who knew? Artist is Brad Duke. Did the art for Looney Tunes with Spooky. Cool guy. They were hanging out at the booth the whole time. There was a line on Ninja Eclipse the whole time I was there. I played Ninja Eclipse with Chris Turner. Of course, I claimed the title. I was playing well at the moment, so I beat him. And I was like, yes, dude. I got like 80 million points or something. And who's standing behind me but Mr. Roger Sharp himself, the man who saved pinball, the best mustache in pinball, and he goes and takes the game, and I'm standing back watching him playing it, and wouldn't you guess, his score was a little bit lower than mine just was. So for a brief moment, a brief moment, I had success. I beat Chris Turner. I beat Roger Sharp. I quit playing pinball that day. It's never going to get better. Oh, that's so cool, man. That's so cool. That was awesome.
    58:26
    Oh, Roger Sharp, man. You know what else was awesome? Yeah. All those pictures that got posted on our Facebook group, on We Are Pinball Facebook group, with people that walk around with WAP t-shirts. How cool was that, man? Shout out to Glenn Weck. Yeah, Glenn had one on. I'm like, I'm going to get a picture with you, buddy. We Are Pinball. I love it. Glenn, love you, buddy. How fun was that? Yeah, so it was fun. I was handing out WAP stuff all over the place. People are digging it, what we do. I love the community that rose up around it, which we are part of.
    58:59
    So this is just as much as a celebration of everybody, you know? Yeah, and we are pinball. It's not only this show. We have this Facebook group. It's for everybody. We are pinball. That's it. We're all pinball. People are just writing to me, WAP forever. I'm like, all right, cool. The first person to tag WAP in a restroom and get his band from Expo will win a prize.
    59:24
    I play Tony Hawk. Tony Hawk's pro skater, homebrew. Man, we didn't even talk about the homebrew section, man. People are making things that are incredible. Somebody grab this Tony Hawk license right now. This game, did you play Tony Hawk? Who should do that, American Pinball or who should do that? American Pinball needs a hit. They should do it. But really, anybody, pick it up. This game is based on like the first level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater where you're in the factory, right, and just all the jumps and the ramps and spinning and flips. There's a spinner that's a horizontal spinner like you see on Jaws, like you have on a Bond 60th or Guns N' Roses, and it has a skateboard on it that you can also hit like a traditional spinner. So the ball can hit this thing and get it spinning and flipping at the same time doing tricks. Like, the ingenuity that's here, the love for the game. Those rams, man. Yeah. Those rams, they're awesome on that game. There's an extra flipper that's used as a vertical diverter on a quarter pipe to send the ball one way or another. Like, there's some innovation in here. That's what we love, man. And I will say this, the homebrew area, everybody's game has like one cool weird thing they've done that you won't see in a commercial machine. And I saw people from CGC. I saw people from Stern over there checking out all the stuff, like the innovative little things that are happening. And, you know, homebrew allows you to make something that could never be commercially successful because there's way too much in it, you know. The Harry Potter machine has 81 coils in it, and they're all doing something different, right? But I want the industry to take cool ideas from there and then implement them in commercial games so we can keep driving innovation.
    61:00
    Or hire those designers, maybe. I think they're doing that too. I think that's happening too. And I saw the winner of Best Homebrew. I don't know. Is it a committee or who votes? How do they win? No, it's just us. It's just us. You log into the app and you go ahead and vote. We both voted. I was talking with a friend about this, and the winner of the best homebrew was a guy that took Pat Lawler's game and rethemed it. Jeffrey Jones. How can that be possible? So there's kind of like two versions, I think. I think there's the overall best in show, and then they do have categories for a homebrew that's completely made and then for rethemes. Because both Saw and Greatest Showman were the best-looking games for sure, like the most polished. Was that the whirlwind game? And both of them are Whirlwind re-themes, yeah. My friend was like, I want to do this also. I would just take a Godzilla Pro and put something else on it. That would win.
    61:59
    You know? I mean, he's right, right? Take Godzilla Pro and put, like, a Jurassic Park circle ramp in the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    62:10
    I mean, they take a great game like Whirlwind and just put something else on it. then of course, I mean. I mean, they both were like the best shooting homebrews because, of course, they are, right? At law, they're at home. Yeah, so, I mean, there's no bricking orbits or anything. But they both have like a level of polish that's, you know, accomplished by a team that doesn't have commercial backing. So that was impressive, you know, just like the polish. Especially like Saw came out of a team of like four guys. You know, someone's on art, someone's on layout, someone's on music. A Greatest Showman is like a husband and wife team. And so they did this. I've been in the basement. They built this thing in, man. So I gave an edge to them just because they had to do absolutely everything. They hire out the artist and put it in there. The wife did all the coding with MPF.
    62:59
    But they're both incredible games. Friday the 13th is incredible. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is crazy. Borderlands, the whole play field is on hydraulics moving around.
    63:09
    Do Snoop Dogg and have that be his play field. and you can hit the four-wheel motion or three-wheel motion. Oh, my God. Harry Potter was crazy. Everything, everything. The guy that's doing Trashland is just completely on left field. He's on a separate planet with his designs. His machines aren't even – they don't even look like pinball machines. It's so crazy what these guys are doing. I can't wait to bring my own in there and hopefully get some floor space. What's the theme of your homebrew? So I found this old video game. It came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System called Legend of Zelda, and no one's ever heard of it. So I figure I will finally represent that in pinball form as a ground-up homebrew. It's not a re-theme. I built the cabinet. I'm doing it all myself. I'm hoping that I can actually accomplish a playable game. I'm getting there. Boards are in there. I'm wiring it up right now. It should be flipping soon. So I'll be super happy if I just have a white one that's flipping and a box that has Zelda on the side. That would be plenty. So Link is starting with a short sword, and then you upgrade to a long, broad sword. Yeah, and maybe that's your play field multiplier. Like your 2X is the white sword, and then the magic sword is the 4X, because that's the damage it does in the game. I'm not saying it's going to be the most code-balanced and scoring-balanced game, but it's going to be a representation in pinball of that 8-bit game, yeah. You know what that game needs? Donnie, you need to have hearts as level bars, And if you do the wrong stuff, those hearts will go down and you will lose the flip less flipper for 10 seconds or something like that. That could be awesome, man. All right. When this game gets picked up by Stern and gets put into spike three, we can do that kind of innovation. Okay. I still have to keep the scope down so it's something I can actually accomplish. But, like, yeah, those are all great ideas. And who knows? Maybe I'll do this one and then I'll get another iteration when I get more skills and get there. But, yeah. Good. So not to disrespect any company, have we talked about all the companies that was out there? Oh, I have a question before you answer. Just check out your notes. I have a question. Usually Spooky comes with a handful of games or 10 games, whatever, puts them up on sale for $500 lesser. Did they sell out there? I don't think they did. So they haven't been doing discounts at shows, which is kind of lame. I think they should. I guess they were getting pushback from their distributors. hey, man, people are just waiting for a show and buying a game at a discount. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's the whole point of the show is you go and get a game at a discount. So everything there was listed at MSRP. I think they probably would have did better if they were doing some deals. Hopefully they'll get back to that. I don't see how a distributor can be upset that you took a show game and sold it on the show floor for a discount because that's the whole point of a show. I mean, it's been played all weekend. You know, it's not brand new out of the box. It's unboxed games. It's not a new game. So, you know, and a lot of these games is probably not the only show they've been at. You know, an unsold one from one show will be taken to the next show. So, you know, yeah, I bought my Halloween as a show game. I got $500 off of it or whatever. It was awesome. And, you know, when I went to my first show to buy a game, I was looking to buy a discount Godzilla. Now, at the time, they were all sold out already, but I didn't know that. But, you know, I ended up with my Halloween, and that was awesome. So I think they could get back to that. And, you know, distros need to be like, look, you know, if you're buying from a distro, you're getting distro support, you're getting a brand new in box game no one's ever played that's the benefit right so if you want to play something that's been knocked around on the show floor for a weekend, it's still going to be a great game I was just so happy they had this boss with their what's that game called oh Scooby Doo yeah Scooby Doo, they had this boss and all these Scooby Doo games and when I look at the video So all the games said sold, sold, sold, and they sold out there on that show. My heart just got warmed. I was just so happy. No, they were selling games directly. They were selling new in-box games too, and talking to Bug, they did sell new in-box Scooby-Doo. They sold a new in-box Ultraman.
    67:15
    People were coming up to the booth, and they weren't buying the show games. They were ordering new from Spooky. The other thing is it's been about a year since they've had a new game come out, So I think they were sitting this out because there's so much other new stuff on the market, and they have plenty to build right now. But I think the next show coming up in February in Florida will be the debut of their 13th game for the public to play. And so I think then that TPF is going to be like, okay, we have a new game to show. It's going to drive a lot of excitement.
    67:43
    Did we talk about Avatar? A little bit. The collector's edition, the fluorescent, was it cool? It's cool, yeah, yeah. Especially with the red highlights That's really what the difference is That you should look for Because they both have the blue And the green is kind of there too But it's really that orange, that red orange that pops out Okay Whilst people hide with the game I talked to one guy that was like I'm at this show to find out which games for me And he ended up ordering Avatar CE Oh nice man Okay so we have all the games I have really really bad news Really bad news I'm going to share it with you here my friend So, you know I'm in Data East mode and I want some Data East games, and finally I got my last lethal weapon three, right? So I need to move a game, and do you know what I did? Know what you did? I put out my WrestleMania for sale.
    68:42
    WrestleMania, man. WrestleMania. I need room, so I sold my WrestleMania for a Data East game. You know what? Now you can be on the hunt for an LE because it's a better game. There's no LEs here, man. No LEs here. There's just none. But I got my lethal weaponry, and I'm so, so happy. But I don't have a WrestleMania anymore. But I have played it for a long time. I enjoyed it. There's nothing wrong with getting a game, enjoying it, and then getting it on to someone else so they can play it, and then you get something new. That's the best part of the hobby. It's like Pokemon, right? We get to trade them and collect them. Yeah. I had it for a long time. I made a lot of videos. I have, you know, I put a positive impression for a guy like you. And you watch my videos. You bought the game. And I have similar mails that I can show you from people that said, you know what? I was like, a lot of content creators just hated this game, so I didn't want it. But you are so excited about it, so I took the chance. I got it, and it's just bolted to the floor. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I saw your enthusiasm for it, and that caused me to take a second look at the game. particularly the LE and I didn't notice all the extra characters you get on there the extra shots, extra little mechanisms the gameplay elements and then the gold armor and the mirror back glass and Sergeant Slaughter on the side of the cabinet and Hulk Hogan's signature on the apron of every one of those and you can get it for like $6,000 and it was barely 50 plays on it I mean come on dude it was perfect, I put a wrestling bell in it come on So you're still enjoying your wrestling? I was playing it the other day. I put a GC on it, man. Yes, absolutely.
    70:23
    You know what? The guy that bought it for me, there were two friends that picked it up. So they called me later that night. They were like, Cengiz, just a quick question. So is it possible to reset your high score?
    70:38
    It's just impossible to come up there. Nice. and I said you know if you play 700 times the game will reset automatically so I didn't tell them that they could go to the menu and just reset I said play 700 games and it will reset just get better man what's better than that like having a girlfriend tell you you know you've ruined me for all other men now that's probably taken in the way that I don't want it to be but I lie to myself and tell me that's a good thing oh man Oh, Donnie, you know what, my friend? I want to say thank you to all the people that have been writing and saying, where is your show? Where is episode 13? Because when we go in and look at these statistics, I really love that show one is down at the bottom and it just goes up. Last time on episode 12, we had kale.
    71:34
    Thunder kale, man. We had kale in here. What a guy. What a great show it was. A lot of listens. But still, our episode with Haggis is at number one. I don't know what magic we did there. We cannot break those numbers, but I hope this one comes up. But thank you to everybody that hits us up, that says, come on, we need more. We are pinball episodes. We will do this once a month, guys. And last week I was like, Donnie is at a show. I'm waiting on him. And people were like, you need to make a brand new podcast. And I'm like, no. I'm going to do this with Donnie. So, yeah. Yeah, we can keep the content coming. It's been a crazy month, you know, traveling to all this stuff and then Expo and trying to recover and everything, get caught up on projects. But, yeah, big dump here. A lot of cool stuff coming. Levels of support will be coming as well, I'm hoping, in a week. And there will be a way that you can, you know, be an angel investor to the show and pop on yourself if you'd so like or just kick a couple of five bucks so we can pay these Zencaster bills. But, yeah, all that's coming and even more exciting, engaging content. I think we have been talking about that since like episode seven. We will make Patreon. We will someday. It's almost like we need to hire some staff. Jeez, man.
    72:52
    Yeah, man. All those t-shirts sending out. Why not? Yeah. But everybody, I hope you enjoyed episode 13. And all our patrons has already listened to episode 14.
    73:06
    No, no. I'll see you everybody on episode 14 have a great day out there let's go out with some Metallica alright guys whatever we are Pitbull the best podcast haters can suck it dude
    73:37
    on your desk expression.