They not like us. They not like us. They not like us. They not like us. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Kaneda. Everybody in the pinball world is getting ready for Pinball Expo. We're going to go around the pinball horn and talk about what's happening with each of these companies. We had news from Spooky Pinball. We got a lot of news from George Gomez on my interview. And we're watching people stream Avatar and X-Men. Should you buy a game right now? Do you need to buy one of these games right now? And does it even make sense to buy one of these games right now? And I've been watching the streams. I've been sort of absorbing what these companies are putting in front of us. And I also, I don't know, like nothing is really, I mean, there's nothing really makes me feel like you have to order it this week. But we know how pinball people are. you want something new. You want to unbox something. So what's the big news in pinball right now? Lots going on. Lots going on. Lots of rumors. Let's start with Spooky Pinball's announcement that Christopher Franchi, the self-proclaimed most famous pinball artist in the history of pinball, is going to be an exclusive artist for Spooky Pinball moving forward. Now, look, I think this is good news. I mean, I love Franchi's artwork. You know I love Franchi's artwork. He's a bigger personality than Kaneda, which is seemingly impossible, but he is, and he loves the pinball fame. And so Spooky Pinball hitching up with him makes total sense. And Spooky Luke came into the thread last night and said, we have five years of exciting themes ready for the pinball world. And we know that Franchi is working on Beetlejuice. We know that he is most likely working on The Goonies. We also know some of the other titles he would love to make in pinball, like Superman, what is it, 78? He wants to make the original Wonder Woman. And so them bringing him on board is going to be a good move for spooky pinball. The only question mark I do have is that, does this mean that every spooky game moving forward is going to be Christopher Franchi on artwork. Now, does that work? I am in the camp that a pinball themes art package should be done using an artist that makes the most sense for that theme. Now, the good thing about Franchi is if you're doing like movie based properties, his art style is perfect for taking the iconic artwork from those films, the actors, whatever else is in it, like the props, whatever is in those movies, right? Those movie posters. He kind of can take that stuff and just make it look better. So he kind of makes the themes look better than you originally remember them. When you start illustrating stuff that wasn't always illustrated, you kind of can get into a dicey area on whether or not you're making the art package look better. So I think it's good for Spooky Pinball. And the rumor now is like, what is the next game from Spooky Pinball? They came out and said it is not Beetlejuice. The strong rumor, this was on Naps Arcade. You heard it from me a while ago. I'm not even sure like who started this sort of rumor, but we know that Deep Root Pinball had the Goonies and now we know someone else has the license. And the strong rumor is that the Goonies will be coming out from Spooky Pinball. The other title, it could be, If it's not the Goonies, it's going to be Gremlins. One of these companies has Gremlins. It's either going to be Spooky or it's going to be Barrels of Fun. Now, Spooky Luke did drop another bit of news. He said that we do not have the Sonic the Hedgehog license, but I know who has it is what he said. Who do you think has Sonic? Do you think it's the company that we won't talk about anymore and they've just been hoodwinking us and we are going to get it from the designer we won't mention anymore who made the homebrew version of Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't think so. I don't think so because if they had it, I think we would have seen that game a long time ago. I still think Stern Pinball has it. Stern's history with Sega Pinball, how did Stern Pinball not get it? If it's not spooky and it's not Stern, I think the guy that runs the company who we won't mention anymore said that it is not Stern Pinball that has the license. And so who could it be? Is it Barrels of Fun? Maybe. But that really could be the only other company that has it. It's not going to be Dutch Pinball. It's not going to be Pedretti. It's not going to be the Pinball Brothers. And so I don't know, right? I don't even know like how well Sonic would do now that I think about it. But I think Stern Pinball is the most likely company that would have Sonic due to their relationship with Sega back in the day. All right, so we got that. Franchi's over at Spooky. They put out this funny contract between them and Franchi and it says that he's moving to Benton, Wisconsin. Is he gonna have to deconstruct his apartment with all those figurines? I would hate to move if I were Christopher Franchi. Maybe just leave all that stuff behind. enter adulthood and don't have a ginormous collection of figurines. The greatest move I ever made was selling my Transformer collection for like $35,000. It's just silly. You just get to a point where it's just stuff on shelves. A few items is really cool, but having like an entire room filled with action figures. I mean, you're not going to get any action if that's the case. All right. So that's happening over at Spooky. With the interview with George Gomez, we learned a lot of awesome stuff. We learned that Spike 3 is going to be a cornerstone game. Metallica Remastered is not a cornerstone game. So now I'm thinking that the next game is going to be Metallica Remastered. It's going to come out by Expo. It is not going to be a cornerstone game. So that leads me to believe that the next game is going to be Brian Eddy's Dungeons and Dragons. and I think that the game that been delayed because it not working right and that why Jack Danger X had to fill that slot You know Brian Eddy is a designer that has frequently had ambitions over at Stern that didn't necessarily work out and that led to those games being delayed. Remember, Stranger Things was really delayed. So if Brian Eddy is making Dungeons and Dragons, I think after Venom, and he probably heard that Venom feedback, I'm really hoping that Brian can do something that really works for once I mean it the guy that designed the medieval madness castle this guy has probably the most famous mech in all of pinball and what he's given us at Stern has always been underwhelming Stranger Things did not have an amazing mech Venom did not have an amazing mech Mandalorian did not have an amazing mech and so if he's making Dungeons and Dragons maybe he's trying something really unique and hopefully he gets it right but that's what was the reason I think why the game was delayed which is why X-Men in a 12 month design window went in front of Dungeons and Dragons now if you're a stern pinball the first game you're going to unveil spike 3 which we now know is going to have better lighting it is also going to have a bigger screen. This is the first time we've ever heard this. So I think the screen size is going to be like that modded Godzilla screen I showed you a while back. It's going to take up more room of the black area near the speaker grills right now, but it's not going to be like a 27 inch screen because George said the games will still look the same in a lineup. So that leads me to believe that the trans light size will not change. Just more of the speaker grill area will be taken over by a screen and the speakers will probably become thinner and better, right? I mean, you don't need those big cheap speakers. I mean, Stern uses really large, very cheap speakers to create the sound in their games. You can have a tiny little speaker that's just more expensive that puts out way better sound than what we're getting in these current Stern machines. So look for better LCD screen, better sound, better lighting, and I think it's going to be a real improvement over Spike 2. George Gomez also let everybody know the craziest bit of news of the year, that Stern Pinball passed on making Back to the Future. This makes absolutely no sense. Even when George said it, when I was interviewing him, if you go back and watch the interview, I was just talking about Beetlejuice. I had no idea that Stern Pinball would have passed on Back to the Future. How do you pass on Back to the Future and make Venom? How do you pass on Back to the Future and make freaking John Wick? How do you do that? And the part that I really don't get, how is there nobody over at Stern Pinball that had any passion to make Back to the Future? If I had a design team And I walked into the room and I said, who wants to make Back to the Future? And nobody raised their hands. I'd be like, you're all fired. You're all fired. How could nobody want to make this iconic movie franchise? And George even regrets it because I think when he sees the excitement for Back to the Future, I think he's going to regret not making that game. I mean, even Dungeons and Dragons, even Jaws. Heck, Back to the Future has as much, if not more, love within the pinball community than Jaws does. You know, I think it was a big mistake by Stern. And I think he realizes it now, after seeing how bad John Wick sold, that he should not have slept on that theme. And so Joe Camnacao took it to Dutch Pinball. It's going to be made over in the Netherlands. Okay, so we got that bit of information. And I just want to say, like, talking to Gomez was awesome. When you walk through Stern Pinball, ladies and gentlemen, they're just on a level that nobody else is even close. And it really is exciting to see how pinball went from almost being out of business 20 years ago to where Stern Pinball is today. Very, very impressive facility over there. So Gomez gave us those nuggets of information. I know that Alice in Wonderland is right around the corner. You are going to see this game before Expo, and then hopefully there will be about four to five games at Expo for everybody to play. It's all about getting the games through customs. But that's not what I've been thinking about a lot over the last week. The thing that's been keeping me up at night is just seeing everybody's response to both X-Men and Avatar. I just want to say this. I'm happy seeing everybody get new pinball. I'm happy seeing everybody watch streams of these games. And right now the focus is on Avatar. And I watched the Flip N Out Pinball stream. I've seen other people play the game. I've seen some of the content from the media people that went to the media day. And I've been thinking about my own experience with Avatar. And I've just been trying to put my finger on what I like about the game and what's truly concerning me about the direction of Jersey Jack Pinball with the way they're theme integrating these games moving forward. And I want to explain again what I mean by that. I'm watching this stream and I'm watching Joel. I'm watching the Flip N Out Pinball stream. I'm watching them play the game and I'm reading the comments, right? This most beautiful game of all time. I mean, people have been saying that. Is it the most beautiful game of all time? Hard to tell, right? Jersey games are all very beautiful. I would say Elton John's a little bit more instantly stunning when you walk up to it. Both games don't have a ton in it. I also want to throw my Guns N' Roses into the ring because I think when you walk up to GNR, there's more interesting stuff to look at in Guns N' Roses with the upper playfields, with the guitar neck, with Slash hat. There's just more going on in GNR when you stand over the machine. And also when you light these games up, I mean, all these modern JJP games have really nice light shows. Avatar obviously has the UV kit. They're trying to create that atmosphere of an eclipse occurring while you're playing the game. And I just want to say this. It's really cool. It's really cool. But here's the thing I just keep wrestling with. There's two things. I just still don't see like a moment of wow happening in the game And I mean that I like where is the moment of wow If you were to ask like Joel and everyone who played the game tell me the moment right What the mode What the thing happening in the game When that happens, it's really, really like a wow moment. Some might say it's the UV lighting. It's the eclipse happening in the game. It's cool. Don't get me wrong. It's cool. But I'm also going to say this. It doesn't have the same wow as the UV moment in Stranger Things when you go to the upside down. I remember seeing that for the first time and I was playing Stranger Things and all of a sudden, like, boom, the entire game just turns into this glowing upside down UV world. When you play Avatar, it never has that sort of dramatic, like you're instantly turned over into some crazy new mode. And again, it's because it's an eclipse, right? It's meant to be a little bit more gradual. But still, I'm just going to say this. But still, I didn't get the sense when you're playing the game. And this is what I wish would have happened. Because I've been on a Royal Caribbean ship when a total eclipse happened. Like I was in the zone of totality. I think the team at Jersey Jack needs to go experience what an eclipse feels like. Because when the eclipse starts, it's still bright out. And then slowly, everything starts to get darker. And I just don't get that sense. And there's a moment of total eclipse where everything is dark. And I know that's what's hard about Pandora is that when everything goes dark, you're not in like pitch black, total eclipse sort of environment. You're in this bioluminescent world. But I still don't get that sense of like the gradualness of the lights slowly sweeping over the game. It might be happening. It might be happening. I just didn't feel it. Because to me, that's the wow in the game. I mean it. The wow in the game has to be that UV bioluminescent moment in the game. Because there's no wow mechanisms in this game. There's not a single wow mech in the game. And it's interesting watching the pinball community. And I mean this because I do think on some level we've been gaslit over the last like four years of pinball. And what I mean by gaslit, if you know the definition of gaslit, being gaslit means is that slowly, gradually over time, you lower the gas on the lamp in the house. So the light starts to get darker, slower and slower. But because it's gradual, you don't really notice it. And then before you know it, you're not getting nearly as much as you used to. And I think that's what's happened in pinball. I mean, think about it, people. Go look at Dialed In, look at Wizard of Oz, look at The Hobbit, and then tell me, when you look down at Avatar, where are the mechanisms? If you look at Godfather, empty. Toy Story 4 had a little bit more in it, but still empty. If you look at Elton John, it's completely empty. I mean, even Guns N' Roses doesn't really have that much in it. So slowly over time, all these pinball companies have been removing stuff from the games, especially Jersey Jack. So when they say the bomb in Avatar is as expensive as the bomb was in The Wizard of Oz, part of me is like, wait a minute. Maybe it is, right? But the difference is this, is that when Wizard of Oz had that bomb, the game was $6,500. so if they're telling me it's got the same bomb as Woz and Woz was $6,500 for a Wizard of Oz Emerald City LE this game is $8,500 more for the CE version of Avatar so I don't know if like they're adjusting for inflation or not but I'm just not seeing the physical wow in the game but that's not the part that I'm concerned about because a game can still shoot really well and be really fun without a ton of physical wow in the game. And I'll use Elton John as an example. That game is so much fun. There's not a ton of toys in it. There's not a ton of mechs in it, but it's a lot of fun. And the light show is amazing. And the music is amazing. And the experience of having it, you could justify it. I can't justify buying it for that price, but you could. But what's really concerning me about Avatar, and this is something that doesn't happen in Elton. It doesn't happen in GNR. It doesn't happen in Godfather, but it happened in Willy Wonka, but they overcame it in Wonka because of the code. But what's happening to me in Avatar is I'm seeing these two epic movies, right? There's like over six hours of this epic franchise and I'm watching the stream. I watched two hours of Joel play the game and I want you to go watch that and pay attention to something. Don't pay attention to Joel talking because they talk so much over the stream. I really don't understand. If you're going to do direct audio of gameplay, at least play it for like eight minutes and don't talk over it. It's like they're talking over it because I want you to hear the call outs. I want you to hear the music. I want you to hear what the game telegraphs at you when you're starting a multiball. And every time I watch it, I'm like, where's the buildup? Where's the energy? Where's the excitement of bringing those film moments to life through a pinball machine, right? I'm still hearing like very monotone call outs. The call outs happening during these epic battles have nothing to do with the battles themselves. You're not hearing from any of the actors on screen as they're doing all the fighting. You're just hearing instructional things as call outs about what to shoot next in the game. There's no feeling again when you hear the game. There's no feeling like you're progressing through those moments in the movie. And this has happened in Willy Wonka. It's happened in other games. There's no syncing up. And I mean this. Go look at the stream. There is no syncing up of the actors voices with the actors when they are in their moments in the movie. And I'm just going to say this. This to me is not the way you do it. When you do it this way, when you keep looping over and over again, muted clips, everything is muted. Like go watch. There's the big battle with the whale. Like go watch what's happening. I'm watching on the big screen, this ginormous whale come out from underneath the ocean waves going everywhere He crashing down on a ship That what on the screen and listen to the audio while that happening on the screen You don hear anything There no sound of the whale coming up You don even hear the sound of the whale crashing down on the ship. And that's my point. It's like you've got these moments and you're just delivering them to us on a muted loop. How is that bringing the moments we love from these films to life through pinball? I don't get it. I just don't get it. And that is the reason why it's like as beautiful as these games are, as beautiful as this game is, how can you say this is nailing the theme? I was in the room with JJP and all the marketing people and they keep telling us we have access to everything. So wait a minute, if you have access to everything in this movie, don't you have access to the audio and the vocals from the actors in those scenes? Because if you don't, then you don't have access to everything. And I heard they do have the rights to use it, but this is how they want to code the game. And I just don't get why. It's like, you've got this beautiful platform, but then you put in monotone call-outs. There's no energy or excitement when these multi-balls are starting. And then you're just relying like solely on the lights. I mean this, like the lights are awesome. I love seeing the lights go crazy, but the lights are going crazy and nothing else is happening that's getting my energy going. There's no call outs. There's no sounds of the banshees. I mean, there's a scene where they're all on those banshees and they're flying towards the battle. And I see Jake Sully. You don't hear him talking. I mean, think about it in this game. You even see the moment when the Na'vi are bonding with the creatures. You want to hear them talk to those creatures. You want to hear that banshee, you know, snorting through nostrils, like hesitant, right? I mean, that's what it is when you bond with a banshee. It's like taming a wild Bronco and none of that, like none of that audio, none of those moments are coming through. And it's just like, does nobody else see this but me? Like James Cameron and Lightstorm, everything they did to make those scenes and those moments in those films emotional and arresting and grabbing your attention and making them memorable. How memorable would those moments be if you just hit mute on every one of those scenes. And so it's almost ending up where like Jersey Jack is like this beautiful woman with no personality. And I think it's 100% the way they're coding the games. I do. It's 100% the way they're coding the games. I don't want to date a beautiful woman with no personality. And they need to figure out a way to get more personality into these games, more energy, more excitement, more enthusiasm. And yeah, you gotta show synced up video with the voices. I'm sorry, you have to do this. It's just the way it's supposed to work. You need to feel like you're progressing through the mode and find a way to do that. I'm gonna play for you right now a game that came out 20 years ago, 20 years ago. And in just like a minute or so, you're gonna hear more energy, more urgency, more clips from the actors from the movie. and you're going to hear like the way they say jackpot. Everything, everything just done way better than what we're getting right now. And I mean this. I love modern pinball. But sometimes I think these modern pinball games are putting so much in when it comes to video clips and orchestration. All that doesn't matter. What a pinball machine should be is a physical world under glass where the software brings to life the movie moments or the moments from the theme in a way that's perfect. And again, if you love Avatar and you love those moments in the movie, how are you going to say they nailed it when everything coming at you is either muted clips and just like monotone call outs that are just telling you to shoot the ramp, shoot this jackpot, jackpot, all very monotone. All right, everybody. And what's crazy about the clip you're about to hear is all of this was done by Keith P. Johnson. We know he knows how to do it. Do you think I'm being like unfair? Do you think I'm being like too much? Like I'm reading into it? I don't. I think for this much money, people, $12,000, $15,000, you got a game where there's no major mech in it. You got a game where they say they have all the assets and I just want to see them. That's all I want to do is I want to see you put everything you say you have into the game. You know, the thing about like Willy Wonka, I mentioned it earlier. Think about how Joe Katz like coded Wonka's room, right? When you go into Wonka's room and half the lights turn on and half the lights are off, that's genius. That's a pinball moment. That's just one of many moments in Wonka. And I'm just asking right now, name me a moment in Avatar that's the wow moment that you can't wait to experience other than just the solar eclipse happening. Is there anything else, right? Is there anything else? And again, if you're sitting down to bring these themes to life, I think you gotta think about it all. We need at least two to three wow mechanisms in this game. We need to integrate the theme the right way. And we need to have the call-outs make it so like you can't wait to jump back on the game. All right, let's end with the kind of energy I think every pinball machine needs as we move forward with all of this technology. Oh, wow. Thank you. Great ball, Jack. Oh, we're snagging a lot of stuff now. Good thing we have Gollum going here to have everything. Super jackpot. Get to the L 10 Oh, it came back 7 6 5 4 I'm not listening Do Jack Do Jack Pod Are you my friend? Are we live again? They stamp this way, stamp that way. They stamp this way, stamp that way.