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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 40 – Going deep on VENOM!

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 57m·analyzed·Jul 26, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Venom deflated on reveal but redeemed post-stream with fast-lock mechanics offsetting theme fatigue and market oversaturation.

Summary

Triple Drain Podcast hosts discuss Stern's Venom pinball machine in detail, analyzing its reveal, pre-stream reception (negative due to theme oversaturation and plain layout imagery), and post-stream gameplay impressions (significantly more positive after witnessing fast locks and ball speed mechanics). The hosts explore market dynamics showing unusual slow sales despite 1,000 LE units, attributing decline to comic book fatigue, competitor availability, and high pricing without dynamic pricing model.

Key Claims

  • Venom LE sales were unusually slow with distributors still holding stock at normal pricing as of recording date (24th), which is atypical for recent Stern releases

    high confidence · Joel and Travis discussing distribution inventory; Travis works for a distributor and confirms observation

  • Stern has alternated between comic book and band themes in recent releases, with even band themes like Foo Fighters taking comic book-esque visual approaches

    high confidence · Joel analyzing release pattern: 'flip-flopping between some sort of comic book-related something, band theme'

  • Zombie Eddie (Yeti) has done approximately 6 of the last 10 Stern pins, including all recent comic book titles

    medium confidence · Tom and hosts counting: Venom, Foo Fighters, Godzilla, Avengers, Turtles, Ghostbusters, Deadpool, Iron Maiden

  • Comic book fatigue exists industry-wide in pinball, with general public experiencing superhero burnout in entertainment

    high confidence · Joel citing Disney CEO statements about comic book content dilution and LE sales resistance

  • Fast locks in Venom shoot balls instantaneously upon registration, creating faster ball return to flipper than traditional locks

    high confidence · Tom describing gameplay mechanic: 'the moment that ball is registered by a switch, it shoots out a ball from the fast lock'

  • Venom layout appears empty/barren in promotional images but plays significantly faster than images suggested

    high confidence · Tom pre-stream: 'wow, it just seems so barren and empty' vs post-stream: 'this game is so fast'

  • Dwight Sullivan's code design is 'very polarizing' with tournament players frustrated but story-focused players appreciating his approach

    medium confidence · Joel discussing Dwight as coder: 'can be very hit or miss for people' and 'tournament scene frustrated'

  • Pinball buyers are price-conscious and have been trained by market dynamics to compare prices across available games

Notable Quotes

  • “We're basically flip-flopping between some sort of comic book-related something, band theme, comic book-related something, band theme.”

    Joel @ early in discussion — Identifies industry release pattern and raises question about creative diversity

  • “There's comic book fatigue. You see people just dogging on the Disney Plus shows. Even the CEO of Disney came out and said something about that they need to get a little bit more focused.”

    Joel @ mid-discussion — Connects pinball fatigue to broader entertainment industry trends

  • “You're going to buy the thing that's unproven that you see that there's plenty of stock out there and you're just going to kind of wait and see, or are you going to buy the game that is basically an S-tier level game?”

    Joel @ pricing discussion — Explains consumer decision logic and problem with flat pricing model

  • “This game is so fast... The moment a ball lands in that saucer, a ball is being spit out of the fast lock in the right.”

    Tom @ post-stream gameplay analysis — Key mechanical revelation that changed perception of game from boring to exciting

  • “So when you can make a direct comparison to different games and they all carry the same monetary value in terms of how much a dealer is going to sell it for... that's going to make it lopsided.”

    Joel @ pricing model analysis — Identifies structural problem with Stern's non-dynamic pricing strategy

  • “The moment Venom Pro went on sale... there was no frenzy. And you really didn't see anything tick upwards.”

    Joel @ sales analysis — Contrasts with typical Stern release behavior

  • “Dwight Code is kind of a very polarizing, him as a coder, the way that he codes games, normally it can be very hit or miss for people.”

    Joel @ code discussion — Assesses designer reputation in community

  • “For me, no [excited about theme]. For me, yes. The mystery, who's who?”

Entities

VenomgameZombie Eddie/Zombie YetipersonDwight SullivanpersonJoelpersonTompersonTravisperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern's high production volume (1,000 LE units) and alternating theme strategy risk cannibalizing own game sales across product line

    high · Joel: 'That's the curse, too, of producing as many games as Stern does... Sometimes you can just cannibalize your own themes'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pre-release artwork communications failed to convey mechanical complexity (fast locks, ramp state changes) leading to negative first impressions

    high · Joel: 'The images that I will say on the Stern release trailer... didn't really communicate some of the biggest mechanical aspects of this game'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Venom's plain playfield layout imagery created unfavorable perception vs. visually distinctive layouts (Foo Fighters' S-curve, Godzilla's unique design)

    high · Joel: 'People are like, okay, we have this crazy fan layout... There's nothing going on in the middle of the playfield'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zombie Yeti uses vibrant, saturated color palettes on comic book machines (Venom dark blues/purples/reds) optimized for arcade visibility despite community preferences for darker aesthetics

    medium · Joel: 'Arcades want bright. Arcades want games that are bright and catch your eye and draw you in'

  • $

    market_signal: Industry-wide comic book fatigue extending from entertainment sector (Disney CEO comments) into pinball purchasing decisions

    high · Joel: 'Even the CEO of Disney came out and said something about that they need to get a little bit more focused and maybe that kind of it diluted their product'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.352

0:00
the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right here we go episode 40 guys episode 44 zero special guest for no we don't have one no guests what no no guests today just just the three of us uh episode 40 though holy cow um Yeah, well, I'm ready. Tom, are you ready?
0:34
Damn right I'm ready. Okay, good. Travis, were you taking a selfie? What were you doing back there while the little music was going? I was just trying to level.
0:44
You were leveling? You just thought this was the time to level the picture that you have hanging by? Okay. It looks good. Thank you. I did it. Monica didn't do anything. It's all me. Yeah, okay. So you're good? Okay.
0:58
All right. I'm hitting the button. We, we, we're three guys who like the Dunkin' Balls. So we came up with the fly-by-day. We're a joy drive down the Dunkin' Balls. And we call ourselves Triple Drain. It's Triple, Triple Drain. That sounds good every time. I love that song.
1:27
Well, hello. welcome everybody episode 40 um this is going to be we'll go over our show notes here so um venom okay done okay so those are our show notes uh we've got so much to talk about so much to talk about venom this game i'm i'm just i don't know i'm really excited for this conversation obviously there's three of us um and i will tell you the three people here one of them is all for it. One of them is kind of against it. And the other one's sitting on the fence. And you guys, the listener can just try to figure out who's who. But I'm, I'm pumped. I think this is going to be a fun, fun conversation. So yeah, Venom, Stern Venom, if you've been living under a rock, Stern Venom was announced, what was it, last week. Then they went on sale, or it was two weeks ago, they went on sale last Tuesday, I think. And then it was streamed last Wednesday. So the way we want to break down this conversation is we kind of want to do pre-stream and post-stream. So before the stream, the teaser comes out, first and foremost, Travis and Tom, was Venom a theme that you guys were excited about or are excited about? Theme-wise, does it get you going? For me, no. For me, yes.

high confidence · Joel: 'The pinball buyer has very much been trained to be very price conscious' with examples of LE sellers advertising 'no tax, free shipping'

Travis and Tom responding @ opening theme question — Establishes the three distinct positions on the machine

Foo Fighters
game
Godzillagame
James Bondgame
Jurassic Parkgame
Iron Maidengame
Avengersgame
Turtlesgame
Deadpoolgame
Rick and Mortygame
Stranger Thingsgame
Brian Eddyperson
Walt Disney Companycompany
Stern Pinballcompany
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
Pinsidecompany/community
Eddie Brockcharacter
Carnagecharacter
Doppelgängergame_mechanic
  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market price degradation with sellers aggressively discounting LEs ('no tax, free shipping') indicating oversupply and weak demand

    high · Joel: 'I've seen it on Pinside, Facebook, to where people are advertising, selling these games... they're even adding in... no tax, free shipping'

  • $

    market_signal: Unusually slow LE sales with distributor stock remaining at list price — unprecedented for modern Stern releases

    high · Joel: 'There are a lot of distributors that still have LEs completely available at normal pricing. And that's weird... That is not normal'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dwight Sullivan's code design philosophy prioritizes story/moments but creates polarized reception between narrative-focused players and tournament competitors

    medium · Joel: 'He really focuses well on story and moments... But I know like the tournament scene, a lot of people get frustrated by his code'

  • $

    market_signal: Non-dynamic pricing model creates consumer decision paralysis when comparing Venom to superior S-tier games at identical price points

    high · Joel: 'A consumer can look at this and say... a Venom premium is the exact same price as a Godzilla premium... which one are you going to buy?'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Dramatic reversal from negative pre-stream expectations to positive post-stream gameplay assessment

    high · Joel: 'Everything just seemed deflated before the stream... And then the stream happened. And I will say my view on this game changed very quickly'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Fast locks creating instantaneous ball return mechanic represents advancement in ball control similar to Rick and Morty Portal lock

    high · Tom: 'The moment a ball lands in that saucer, a ball is being spit out of the fast lock... That speed is unlike anything I seen in a modern game'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Marvel/Venom character selection represents shift to secondary/tertiary tier IP after Marvel A-list franchises exhausted

    medium · Joel: 'We are now getting into, like, not main-level comic book characters. We're now in, like, the second-tier, third-tier comic book characters'

    • 2:47
    The mystery, who's who? We're crushing it. 40 episodes in, we're going down. The podcast done. Good job, guys. Yeah, I mean, I do know theme does matter to you guys, but at the same time, you guys are highly skilled tournament players. Most of the time, it really just comes down to the layout and the code is what draws you in. But I know, Travis, I mean, you definitely, like you've said before, like Avengers, that's like a dream team of yours. I know you're very into comic books. Turtles was similar.
    3:19
    And so Venom coming out, that doesn't surprise me that that's a theme. that you're excited about. But I will say it is a – the more that I've learned about Venom, I've realized how deep the character actually is. But it is clear that we are now getting into, like, not main-level comic book characters. We're now in, like, the second-tier, third-tier comic book characters. We are digging deep. Yeah. Well, that's why as soon as I figured out that Noel was in the game when I saw that, I lost my mind. Now, granted, that probably meant that about 95% of the pinball consumer base or people that play pinball had no idea who that was. But for me as a comic book fan, I loved it. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. And I will say I've done a few Flippin' Out with Friends streams, and Hottie, Frisco Pinball's been on it. And Venom is like his number one character by a landslide. So this lore that he's bringing in, I did not realize how much Venom. He's this symbiote where it's this goo that can transfer between characters, and every character that it basically covers, it heightens their abilities. And in my mind, the original Venom, which is, what is it, Brock? Eddie Brock. Eddie Brock is the original. Like, that's the one I know, and I knew it from the original, like, Spider-Man cartoon. I did not realize there are so many other Venoms. Venom has, like, so many other, and then you get the other symbiotes of what, like Carnage, and there's the whole, I don't know. There's so much here. and all that. Yes. Lots of nerd stuff. We don't have to bore the listener with that. I'm sure if you guys want to hear that after you hear this podcast, then you can go to like Comics Explained on YouTube or something like that. And there's so much there.
    5:02
    Yeah, call him straight up. But I mean, I would consider myself like I grew up on a lot of that, but this is surprising me that now we're in a character where it's like my comic book knowledge is not enough. Or like my, you know, growing up on Batman the Animated Series, X-Men the Animated Series, Spider-Man the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, like all these, now we're getting into deeper than that. And so, I don't know, props to Stern for, like, giving a shot to this, but it does make you wonder, and we've kind of talked about this before, like, what's the next character they're going to go with, you know? What's the next, just in the Marvel Universe of movies, now we're getting Doctor Strange movies and Black Panther movies and stuff. So it wouldn't surprise me if one of them would be a pin down the road. We had a little side conversation before this, and it's very clear. If you look at the last, I don't know how many releases, Stern is basically flip-flopping between some sort of comic book-related something, band theme, comic book-related something, band theme. And even their band themes, like Foo Fighters, have kind of taken a comic book-esque approach. And so is this something where it's just coincidental, where comic books or this type of animation just works well with pinball, or is there a chance we need to try something? I don't know. Like, Tom, you're not necessarily all in on comic books. Do you feel it's like, is it time to try something new? Is it time to branch out in a different direction? I like the superhero pins, but, yeah, it might be time to try a different avenue. But, yeah, the Venom theme just doesn't really hit home with me. So, but we'll talk more about that when we get into gameplay and all that. Sure. Well, so we knew it was Venom, and then some of the animations came out and some of the art, well, the images. So pre-stream, the images come out, and we saw a little bit of animation during the teaser trailer. And I will say once again, Zombie Eddie crushed it. We did talk about this on Triple Drain where we're like, how's he going to do Venom? Venom's kind of a black and white character. He leaned heavily into the dark blues, did some purples. He did bring in a decent bit of red with Carnage. But overall, I think this is a really good Zombie Eddie package. I know there's been some conversation about these two pins behind me with Foo and Godzilla. Foo Fighters and Godzilla having very similar. How is he already? How's the cannon already out? You know what? We're not even going to worry about it. We're just going to keep on going. With these two art packages being very similar with a color palette standpoint, it is cool to see Zambietti go in a whole other direction.
    7:50
    But what are your thoughts on, like, Zambietti at this point, he did the last two Stern pins. I don't know. Are we just spoiled at this point with this much Zambietti art, or do we feel that, like, should we stick with this? I heard some complaining about the art. I think the art's phenomenal. Yeah. I think his, some people have said, one of the complaints about the art, they've talked, they still think it's too bright, too saturated. They're like, this should be darker. This should be dimmer. And people said similar things about Godzilla. And if you remember, that was the number one complaint when Godzilla came out is the way it looked. And here we are, what, over a year plus later, nobody's complaining about the way it looks. Like, nobody cares anymore. Nobody cares at all about, everybody says how awesome this pen is, how beautiful this pen is. But with Venom, people are saying that. Why is it not darker or more brooding or kind of scary, desaturated kind of look? And all I can think of is, like, because arcades want bright. Arcades want games that are bright and catch your eye and draw you in. So I don't fault him at all, but I just think it's crazy hearing people complain about Zombie Eddie Art once again on Pinside because it's so good. Like, are we just spoiled at this point? I mean, I think part of it is, too, is that there's a lot of zombie Yeti art on Stern pinball machines. That could be part of it. I think legitimately he's probably done, what, five of the last ten, maybe six of the last ten pins that they've released.
    9:21
    I mean, I can't say. I mean, I'm just throwing out a number off the top of my head. I mean, it looks kind of work backwards here. So there's Venom. What was the last one he did? Foo Fighters. Godzilla. There's three. Avengers. Turtles. Four or five. Ghostbusters. And then you go further back, Ghostbusters. I feel like, did he do Deadpool? I can't remember. Deadpool, yep. So basically every comic book, well, yeah, every comic book pin he's done. Since Guardian. Yeah, you're right. But Guardians didn't do comic book. Guardians did movie. Movie, yeah. So, I mean, I think maybe that's part of it. I don't know. I personally love his artwork and I don't have any issues with it. I also made a C in art in high school, so I have no idea what I'm talking about when I look at it. But, you know, I feel I feel like it looks good. Do I wish that there was a black and white pen? Yeah, I think that that would have been pretty sweet. But at the same time, you could even done that for Ninja Turtles because the comics were originally black and white. You could do that for Walking Dead if you wanted to, if you vaulted it. So, yeah, I think that there's certain creative things that you can do, but then there's probably also things that you have to do because of what the licensor wants you to do also. So, I mean, I'm not going to fault it either way. I think it looks great, personally. Yeah, I think it looks incredible. Art. I think the art looks incredible. And, hey, if you disagree with us, send us an email at triplejrn.gmail.com or make a comment on our YouTube video. We're not going to give an email about it. No, but I think it's crazy. Like, I think that's crazy. It's so consistently great and it's so consistently good. But yet still people find, you know, thoughts on, well, I would have done this or I would have done that. And it's like, man, it could have been so much worse. Yeah. I mean, you just you just never know. And it's the same way that I think there is a lot of things with pinball nowadays that a lot of us are spoiled by, including design, including code, including animations, including artwork. And, yeah, if this was 20-plus years ago, it would look a lot different. And anything that comes out today would almost be S-tier quality compared to what came out a lot of times. I mean, 24 artwork, anybody remember that? CSI? Maybe not. MBA? So, yeah, I think it's just a sign of the times. And there's just a lot of pinball coming out, too. There's a lot of different options out. And people are comparing things to the other options that are available. So I don't fault people if they don't like what they see. It is what it is. That's their opinion. But at the same time, this is what Stern decided to put out. This is Zombie Yeti's best effort towards this project. And I personally think it looks great and perfect for other people to think that it doesn't look great. That's perfectly fine as well. And Zombie Yeti also did Iron Maiden. Forgot that one.
    12:13
    But, yeah, I think, well, if you look at the other pins that Zombie Yeti didn't do, Rush, people complained about the art. James Bond, people complained about the art.
    12:23
    Jurassic Park, they tried a new artist. People complained about the art. We're all like apes, Joel. We will complain about anything. We will all find something to complain about. I do the same thing all the time. So, yeah, it's just human nature. I think that's part of doing something that's creative. It's the same way that we get complaints, you know, whenever Tom doesn't look sexy enough on camera, we get complaints about it. I think I've ever had that. Yeah. Well, so to carry into complaints, though, the other thing that we saw when the images came out was people are like, this game is wide open. The images that I will say on the Stern release trailer and the Stern images that were posted online, in my opinion, didn't really communicate some of the biggest mechanical aspects of this game. Being one on the premium and LE, that middle ramp, how it changes states between characters, and then also the locks on the side. And we'll get into what we saw with those locks during the stream, but those just looked like, okay, great, something to slow the ball down when it returns. That's what people thought the locks were, and people didn't really realize how that middle ramp would actually affect the gameplay. So the images, people are like, okay, we have this crazy fan layout. All the games are way in the back. There's nothing going on in the middle of the play field at all. and so people are start dogging on that and they're like this game looks boring or this game the shots just nothing about these shots are we excited about or you know let's let's look back at like Foo Fighters Foo Fighters when you see some of the shots like this is a weird s curve thing like how is this gonna work you know there's shots that you're intrigue you to like I I can't wait to feel what that feels like but these images and the dealer chooser trailer come out and I I'm with the majority of people saw it and were like, I'm not seeing anything here that I'm excited about to shoot. So, unfortunately, on reveal day, I think the overall, like, steam behind this game, it just went, it got deflated really quickly. And I know, Travis, you work for a distributor, and I think we've seen this with sales. We've seen this with sales as well, and we can get into more detail there. But this was one of those games that it did not sell out immediately. Every other thing, it's like, how do I get one? And, you know, every distributor had their wish list. And good luck if you've been on it for a few years. But this game was one of those where I think people were on their list and people said, nope, I'm out. And as of right now, we're recording this on the 24th. There are a lot of distributors that still have LEs completely available at normal pricing. And that's weird. That is weird to me. That is not normal. Tom, you've been in this longer than Travis and myself. That is not normal. Or is this what it used to be? Is this the good old days?
    15:24
    I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of LEs now, though, too. I mean, it's not like there's 250 LEs. There's 1,000 of them. Okay. But, you know, I just think there's not enough going on on the play field. And that's one of the reasons. And I also think it's the theme. I think the theme doesn't resonate with a lot of people.
    15:55
    Just my opinion. No, I mean, that's legitimately what you just said there, Tom. It's, at least in my observation, that's one of the main drivers to this. I think that industry-wide with pinball, if you look at message boards, Facebook, just general conversations people have at expos, there's a lot of comic book fatigue with it. And we've talked about that with how many different comic themes have come out. And even entertainment-wise, there's a ton of comic book fatigue. You see people just dogging on the Disney Plus shows. Even the CEO of Disney came out and said something about that they need to get a little bit more focused and maybe that kind of it diluted their product a little bit. And it's just kind of even the movies, it doesn't feel like a tentpole event anymore when it comes out. And so I think that there's definitely a oversaturation going on right now with comics and with the themes. And I can say that as a comic book fan. I love reading the comics. I read them every single week and I've read them for 30 plus years, but I understand why the general public is kind of getting burned out by it. And it makes total sense that you see the pinball buyer kind of getting burned out by it, too. So when you dig into certain themes like this that are obviously not A-tier themes, well, something has to happen with it. It has to be an absolute banger of a design or something has to really pull people in with that hook. And so we kind of saw the combination of the theme not really resonating with people and the layout generally not resonating with people when they first saw it. Now, of course, some opinions have changed since they saw it actually be played. But then at the same time, this is kind of the big difference between this and Foo Fighters. When Foo Fighters got revealed in terms of the gameplay, we actually saw just an instant. Everybody's like, OK, I'm in. And that's when we saw even a bigger buying frenzy happen. It's kind of like after this was revealed at Comic-Con, nobody really went out. A frenzy never happened. And you really didn't see anything tick upwards. As a matter of fact, there's probably some situations in which you saw people that were sitting on the fence, they decided to go elsewhere and buy a different pen. And, you know, I don't know if Stern would necessarily care about that because it's still a Stern pinball machine that they're opting for because they have so many different options. So it's not like that they're all of a sudden going to another company or something like that. So, yeah, I think that a lot of it has to do with the theme. I think a lot of it has to do with that there's so many available to a thousand. These are a lot. And let's face facts for the price point that it's at. I think that people have finally reached that ceiling that they're expecting a lot for that price. And rightfully so, for $13,000 MSRP or $1299, whatever it is, you should expect a lot out of it. And I say that as somebody that not only works for a company that sells machines, as somebody that's bought LEs in the past for much lower than what it was back when it was like $9,000 MSRP back then. So, yeah, I think that that's kind of the variables that you see coming together all at once in this situation. Yeah, and we talked about this earlier where we're in a weird spot where now distributors actually have a lot of options, a lot of options in stock sitting on a shelf. So there are people that may have been holding on to premium money where they're like, all right, I'm going to buy premium. If I'm in, if Venom, this stream blows me away, I'm in on a premium. And then they're like, eh, well, they can turn. And what do distributors have in stock? They have Foo Fighters in stock and Godzilla and Jurassic Park and Iron Maiden. Like, all amazing games. Bond. Some people have Led Zeppelins. Rush. Like, not Rush. Rush Premium, I think most of those are gone. But it's like they have so many options. It's too good of a game to hang on to. Yeah. They have so many options just sitting there new in box. And that was not the issue. That's not been the case for multiple years now, where it's kind of just people are itching for whatever's available. now almost everything's available and everything that is available is really really good so you know do you go for the sure thing or are you going to roll the dice on something new and and if it's going to be a theme that people aren't super in love with not saying anything batty about against venom it's just this is a kind of a more niche theme and then the layout there isn't anything in there like that just blew people away when they saw it for the first time. And then, you know, as much as I love Dwight, I love Dwight.
    20:45
    Dwight Code is kind of a very polarizing, him as a coder, the way that he codes games, normally it can be very hit or miss for people. I really like the stuff he does because I think he really focuses well on story and moments and drawing a player in that way. But I know like the tournament scene, a lot of people get frustrated by his code. I don't know, Tom, you're making a face. Well, no, I was just going to allude to, I think the code could actually save this game. Yes. That's, that's the thing, you know? So now granted, we, none of us have played it and I'm just getting that. Like, when Stranger Things came out, same designer, Brian Eddy. Yep. It's just a fan layout. You know, you see that everywhere. What I'm thinking is, you know, what kind of hurt Williams Pinball was their older games. You know, their older games were doing better on route. Now we got another fan layout after we had, what, Foo Fighters, which was an extremely unique layout, and Godzilla, which was another extremely unique layout. So, you know, to me, this game, like when I looked at the pro, I'm like, wow, it just seems so barren and empty.
    22:18
    It's just the thought I had. Now, maybe I'm going to play this game and be like, wow, this is fantastic, super fast. I love it because I do like fast games.
    22:28
    But I just think the actual fan layout to flippers is what's disappointing to me. Sure. And it's very safe. That's the thing where I think when the images came out in the trailer, it's just like this is this has the potential to be a great game. But from what I'm seeing before the stream, like nothing is making me pull the trigger on this. The prices are high. There's a ton of games that are available. It's a theme that I'm not, you know, in love with. I'm not seeing anything that's drawing me in. It looks safe. And the code is still a big question mark. So nobody jumped on it. Nobody jumped on it before the stream. Well, consider this, too. And this is where the pinball industry as a whole will always struggle, okay? it's mainly because there's no, if you look at the Stern pricing model, there's nothing dynamic about it. So a consumer can look at this and say, and see that a Venom premium is the exact same price as a Godzilla premium. They can look at that and see it. And so it becomes a point, which one are you going to buy? Are you going to buy the thing that's unproven that you see that there's plenty of stock out there and you're just going to kind of wait and see, or are you going to buy the game that is basically an S-tier level game that's one of the greatest of all times, and it's available at the same price? So that's what's happening right now, and that's what makes it very tough to do. Foo Fighters was kind of the same way. That's why it sold like hotcakes at the beginning, because the prices were the same as James Bond. So when you can make a direct comparison to different games and they all carry the same monetary value in terms of how much a dealer is going to sell it for. And, yeah, that's going to make it to where just the whole ecosystem of what somebody is going to buy, it's going to make it lopsided. It's just a matter. That's just the way it's going to play out either way. So I think that dynamic is at play, too, that people can just look at it and just see what the pricing is. And the thing is, too, guys, let's face facts. The pinball buyer has very much been trained to be very price conscious of what they're going to get, what they're going to buy. You see a lot of people all the time, and we see it right now with the Venom LEs. I've seen it on Pennside, Facebook, to where people are advertising, selling these games, and they're even adding in on the headlines, no tax, free shipping. They're doing everything they can to push this product out, but yet we're doing it at the point to where we're making it to where that price is just crashing down. Lowest common denominator, and consumers see that, and that's what a lot of consumers have been trained to do. You know, and so when you see something like that, it's not a shocker that they start making these comparisons, and then they start passing up on games a lot easier when there's something else that's out there. And that's kind of, you know, that's the curse, too, of producing as many games as CERN does and having as many themes. Sometimes you can just cannibalize your own themes at times. But that's not such a bad place to be in as compared to somebody else that might put out one game every two years. Because then if you don't put out a banger, then you're kind of SOL. Yeah. And so, yeah. And I just, it was interesting seeing for the first time and for, since I can remember, like, it just seemed like the wind was gone. There was no wind behind the sails or whatever. I don't know what metaphor I'm going for here. But everything just seemed deflated before the stream. And even I had, like, lowered my expectations and everything. And then the stream happened. The stream happened. And I will say my view on this game changed very quickly watching the stream. So, Tom, when you turned the stream on, I mean, what was the first thing that you noticed when you watched this stream for like three minutes? I thought I was asleep. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't.
    26:31
    The first thing I noticed? Yeah. Like out of gameplay or like? I mean, you just watched the stream for five minutes. And what was your takeaway after the first five minutes of watching the game?
    26:45
    You know, it was very fast. That's what I was assuming the answer was. Yeah. I, it, yeah. I like the doppelganger mech. The front of him or the back of him? Definitely like the backside. Oh, yeah. You know, when that crack is going up to your neck, you've got something going on.
    27:13
    Yeah. The doppelganger mech is actually, yeah. Go ahead. keep going no but uh and then you know you got uh i mean i didn't notice this in the first five minutes but i i noticed you know there there's definitely a lot more to the premium yeah you know as we do see in a lot of games but it seems like it's more feature-packed than the pro which I guess we'll get into later. Yeah. But yeah. So speed, speed is the main thing that I, I was like, Holy cow, this game is so fast. And part of it, one of the main things is, I mean, a lot of these shots are coming right back at you. And then anything that feeds the, the habit trails that are coming back to the flippers, both of them are going through those locks and they're calling them fast locks. And what that means is the first time you hit a ball up the habit trail, it'll hold the ball in that fast lock. But the very next time you hit a shot that's going to get to that lock, as soon as it's registered, like if it's a 180 ramp, as soon as it hits the top of that ramp, or it's coming around another ramp that's going to feed that, or it goes to the buck in the back right, the moment that ball is registered by a switch, it shoots out a ball from the fast lock. So what was blowing me away was, you know, in the back right, there's a Vuck, and there's a few shots. There's, like, this hideout shot and whatnot. But, like, the moment a ball lands in that Vuck or the saucer, that would then be vertical up kick. That would be shot up to feed that. The moment it lands in that saucer, a ball is being spit out of the fast lock in the right. So, like, you have a chance to flip a ball on your right flipper before the first ball you shot is even on a wire form. Like, that... It's that instantaneous ball returning to flipper, just like the portal lock in Rick and Morty And I think there another game Somebody mentioned another game on another stream But like that is that speed is unlike anything I seen in a modern game And that alone, now all of a sudden we have, we actually have something mechanical that it's like, oh, I need to try that.
    29:35
    I don't know, Travis, what, I mean, when you saw that, is that exciting, alarming? I mean, so the pinball machine. Do you get excited over ball locks, Travis? Yeah, fast ones, real fast. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's fantastic.
    29:53
    The pin played exactly how I thought it was going to play, mainly because it's a fan layout, all fan layouts. It's generally designed to get the ball back to the flipper as quickly as possible, pretty much. and I think when we saw this and we kind of realized that, hey, that's where a ball lock is going to be at, it was just kind of deciding, okay, how is that going to interrupt flow? And we knew it was going to interrupt flow somehow, but how exactly? Was it going to slow it down or was it going to speed it up? So obviously the answer came, well, it's going to speed it up. So, I mean, it's interesting to see. If you really enjoy fast games, obviously that's, I mean, you're probably pretty excited, more excited than Tom was to see the doppelganger ass. But, yeah, it definitely plays quick.
    30:43
    I think the thing that I was most excited to see during it was just to see how the leveling system worked and to see how that all functioned because I just – whenever we watched the trailer, and I was talking to you guys that morning when it came out, and I even said, I didn't feel like that they talked about that hardly at all or enough. No. And then the promos. Yeah. And so, and I got a lot of questions from people that morning because they realized that I was obviously watching the dealer thing and all that. And I was just like, guys, I'll be honest. I can't answer the questions. I wish I could. I wish, I mean, I would just BS you and act like I know what I'm talking about, but I'm still not clear on exactly what it does. And it took me all day long to kind of just figure it out just by reading the play field, kind of getting the gist of everything. because I was even sending you guys screenshots of the LCD that had the speed run timer. I'm like, well, what's this? They didn't say anything about it, so that obviously has to do with something in the game. Something like that I wish they would have mentioned because I just feel like a lot of people, they didn't get what this game was at the beginning. And when I explained out the leveling system to it, you could see the light bulb go off. They were just like, oh, this is really cool. I didn't realize that it did this. I can actually just keep playing game to game and just keep going for as long as possible. And even when you watch or you listen to the Stern Insider podcast, you could tell that that was just a cornerstone of this game, of the conception of this game from Brian Eddy and from Dwight Sullivan. So I was just I was a little bit disappointed that that wasn't a main factor that they were pushing at the beginning, because it seemed like that Dwight's like really all in on this, rightfully so, because it's unique. So I wish that that would get showcased a little bit more for people to understand, because I think if that does get showcased a little bit more, that might help somewhat, just because people need to know that, hey, I can get to this mode or I can achieve this. Like, for instance, a lot of people don't even realize this. You could do co-op and you still get experience points even if you're not playing. As long as you're on the team, you can get partial experience points, and you can keep building up. So you can play like Joel can play with friends and family, and one of his friends and one of his family, he can drag their asses to the finish line to get to play one of the bosses. So that's pretty cool that you can access different parts of the game that you may not be good enough to get to. And I like that that's something that's accessible for people that are playing. But it's just if you don't have somebody telling you, hey, this is what's in the game. There's a lot of people that just don't even realize it. They have no idea. Yeah, and none of us really knew it until we saw that Stern had already uploaded the 31-page rule book, and that's when you actually started looking through the rules. We're like, oh, wow, there's a whole lot more here than anything, any picture or teaser trailer has actually mentioned. So the two key things, and we're going to dive deep into these, The two key things that Venom is doing that are completely unique, or maybe not completely, somebody will be offended. There will be some other game that does similar. But two things that are very unique to this game are the change state. Depending on the character that you pick, it physically changes the way the game shoots. And then the XP system, the fact that progression in the game is based off of experience. And if we look back on the last two Dwight games, if you look back at Mando and you look back at Turtles, Turtles had the ability to pick your character. And depending on the character you picked, it actually gave you perks. There was no physical change to the game, but it did give you either, like, Michelangelo, the outling ball save was lit automatically, or Donatello, one shot away from a ramp and you're in a multi-ball. As a fan of Turtles, I really liked that because it did force me to play the game differently, depending on who I had. And then as you level up your characters, which is something that is progressive with Insider Connect, if I, the moment, if I was logged in and I leveled up Raphael to level two, he would be level two every time I played the game, regardless of what machine I was on, home or arcade, if I logged in. And you can level up your turtles all the way to level four. And that was something that I actually have done, but that was something I had to work at over time, leveling up my turtles, which was one very specific aspect of the game training. It wasn't something you were doing as you play, like in Venom, it was one particular mode if you do it, and it gives you more perks and it gives you the ability to get way more points. And it wasn't easy to do. No. That's the main thing, too. It wasn't necessarily accessible to every single player to be able to level up a turtle all the way. No. But I did it, but you had to use Insider Connect to do it. But Turtles was one of the first. Never mind. I mean, Godzilla was the first with Insider Connect, but, like, there's a lot of Turtles games out there that people don't have an Insider Connect kit for. But adding that really added to it. And Turtles also had co-op. And co-op, that's something that when I've played Turtles with friends and family, it's like, okay, I've already got through three episodes. All you have to do is get through one more episode, and now collectively we can do a team-up, which is the mini-wizard run. So some of the ideas of Dwight's ideas were already there. And then you get to Mando, and Mando had this whole Beskar system of the more shots you hit, the more money you make. And then when you get enough money, which you're doing that as you're getting through the game, the more Beskar you're earning, now all of a sudden you can hit a scoop and you can buy perks or buy the ability to do things. So he already had that system kind of building in. So this is not new, and Mando also had co-op. Mando also had impossible play and monster mode, all these other modes. These are clearly Dwight things. so it doesn't surprise me that Dwight's going in this direction but this XP system the whole idea is the more the shots you hit the more things you do the more XP you get but what I think is crazy or you I don't know in a good or bad way is you can't fight the first guy the first tier of battle, you cannot fight the first symbiote unless you have 10 XP.
    37:02
    And so that – Or level 10. Level 10. You have to have level 10 XP. That is what really – I saw that in the rules, and it's like, okay. Level 10. So once you get enough XP, you get to level 10. There we go. Okay. So my question was, when we watched on stream – thank you, Trey. I was like, we're about to see Zach Sharp and we're about to see Jack Danger, both very good players, play this game.
    37:31
    How hard is it to get to level 10? And just to give you a heads up, that's to do the first level of boss. The second level of boss, you have to be at level 20. The third level of boss, you have to be at level 30. So it was really kind of a how hard is it to get to level 10 if you start at level one? So by 10s? Yes, yes. But what I will tell you is none of them got to level 10 in their first game. Maybe Jack did, but it's like over a three-ball game, they had just got enough experience to do the first line of battles. Which was? Level 10. No, no, no. What were the battles? Oh, that's Riot, Agony, I think Phage. Scream. And Lasher. There you go. Some of the symbiotes. Scream is the awesomely fast video mode. That's what you're thinking of. That's all I know.
    38:31
    Speed. Believe it or not, I was actually thinking of you guys. Because the thing is, if this is not a mode-based game, my thought was if they're going to play tournament mode, that means everybody's going to start at level one. So when you guys go to play a tournament, is it going to be like are you even going to have the ability to get into a battle oh yeah yeah don't worry about that we've already got all we've all we've got that figured out we already know the exact path to go with that but i want to i want to say this so i know obviously tom and i are the tournament players and joel you're the tournament player too you got 89th at cleveland you did awesome you did fantastic just just gets inspirational but i want to get this out here though. Most of the tournament players that are around, we don't necessarily just look at any game and just say, okay, I'm only going to like this if it's good in tournaments. I'm only going to like it if it has balanced scoring. I'm only going to like it if it does XYZ. There's a lot of times... You know what I mean, Tom.
    39:37
    We've talked about this before, Tom, because we've sat there and we've played that Paragon just screwing around in the past. Not every game has to be just the perfect balance for a tournament is what I'm getting at. And so when I look at Venom, I don't have that expectation that it's going to be something that we'll see in tournaments, nor do I want it to become something that tries to appease the tournament player. What I see in this, when I look at the leveling system, I see something that's unique to Venom, just like you were talking about, and I see something that's unique that has the potential to draw in new players, has the potential to make pinball a little bit more accessible to people that may be a little bit less skilled. And that's kind of what I'm excited about, about seeing it and excited for other people about it. And just because it may not be in tournaments, that's perfectly fine. I mean, if it ends up in tournaments, cool. If not, cool too. Just what matters the most is, are people going to have fun playing this? So what I would love to see, just everybody that has anything to do with the rules of Venom, is just to completely lean into this leveling system, to lean into the XP, to see what you can get out of it, because it's so much different than what anything else is out there. And kind of like Tom alluded to earlier in this podcast, that maybe code can really save this game and pull it through and get it to where it needs to be. That might be something right there that's worthwhile, that you might have a fan layout that's pretty commonplace for a lot of people to see. But if you have something just totally unique, that's totally different, that gives you a reason to keep playing the game over and over again, it gives you a reason to explore different parts of the game. that can be cool. I see a lot of ways Stern could go with this. All right. So if they use the Insider Connected and they start doing challenges in a month or in a week, what if they did something to where they say something to the extent that if you do this type of mode or you do this carnage thing in a certain amount of time, you get double the XP or this is double XP week, just like people do with Call of Duty games or something like that. Yeah, there's a lot of ways that they can do this to get people to want to keep playing that you can't do on any other game right now. So that's where the draw is going to come with this. I think they need to lean in heavily to that. They need to not worry about catering to Tom and I for tournaments or anything like that and really, really focus on catering to that consumer or to that person that might buy this game and want to just play it a ton in their basement, want to bring in their, you know, if their wife allows them to play it and she's not faking it, yeah, there you go. That would be perfect. She enjoyed the mode, okay.
    42:30
    It's, well, before, yeah, Tom, what, yes, I mean, you obviously look at this as a tournament, with a tournament-type view as well. So when you were watching these streams and you were watching what they were doing, I don't know, was that a thing to you as well? Like, okay, how would a tournament player, if we're all going to start at one, does that mean we're just – like, I feel like it's going to be a little bit of a grind to get to the first, not mode, but, like, battle. And so is it going to be pretty common at District 82, ball one and ball two on Venom every single time, let's see if they can get to 10, you know, let's see if they can get to level 10 before they can open things up? Or no, did you not have that type of – No, I just multi-ball all day. Just do the thing. It's very much a do the thing pin. Yeah, because you can either do carnage multi-ball at the very beginning, grind it out, grind out your levels, and just go from there. Or you could get very creative in terms of how you treat your locks. Because like we were talking about earlier on the text, any character you pick, you have both locks are lit, but you can take one of them unless you're Eddie Brock, in which you could take two of them. and you light another lock by just hitting a two-way combo, and then for each successive lock, it's an additional combo. So when you really break it down, it's really not that many shots that you've got to do in order to get into multi-ball. I think if you watch Brian Eddy play the very first stream, I think it's either on the premium. He has like two million. Yeah, on the premium or pro, well, he had like two locks almost instantly. Yeah. And you can start that mayhem multi-ball with three logs. So I don't think it's going to be difficult for people to get to level 10 because you need that to be accessible. So you kind of just dangle that carrot that most players won't get there on ball one, but you want to see a lot of players be able to get there before the end of the game. And you certainly want to have 100% of the players be able to get there within six balls. You want to try to get that close to it. So I don't see this being just impossible where somebody is going to play for five straight games and be locked out of playing those level 10 modes. Well, which you – I just realized, like, if somebody steps up to Venom for the first time and they're flipping around and then they drain all three balls and they look up and they're like, oh, I'm at seven. I'm at level seven. Like, I'm only three levels away from getting to this, you know. It's almost even more incentivizing to put money in, let's go again so I can get to ten. And what is cool about this, and to me, this is full disclosure, I'm really excited about this XP system because it fits me, my demographic. We know you are, Joel. Perfectly. I mean, as somebody, I am super grateful. Joel's not wearing any pants right now for those watching. I have the ability. I stream for Flippin' Out, and I'm super grateful that they let me borrow games. And to have a game, most of the time, it's like the first few times I stream it, I'm just trying to find shots. and it's just, you know, kind of a grind or, like, I just feel like I'm getting beat up. And, sure, I'm gaining experience. I'm finding points. But, like, this is a whole other level of this where it's just, like, I truly am gaining experience so that over the course of the few months that I have this game, this is one of those, like, I think I might actually be able to get to NOL. I hope I can get to NOL over the course of three months of playing this in the evenings or streaming. You'll get to NOL. Yes. Yeah, you'll get the gnoll in one night. You will. You play this game for two or three hours at a time. Okay. You will get there. I mean, it's not – so it's one of those things that – and maybe two or three hours is not a – maybe you need more time than that. But I think this game is just totally designed to get people over that hump. Okay. Because they want people to experience those things. And that's what makes this so unique, that before, a lot of people had never played a wizard mode. So they never got to experience it. And then you see the evolution of it that Stern started getting it towards the start button where it became a challenge. And that's cool. But the element that was missing was kind of that, I don't know how to describe it, I guess that sense of accomplishment for a player to feel like that they're achieving it in game as opposed to just hitting the start button and being immediately in it. So there could be something to that. You know, I know that one of the first times I ever achieved a wizard mode on my own during a game, it was exciting. It was fun. It was different. So the idea that everybody can kind of get that feeling and have the chance to get that feeling, I think that's pretty cool. I can't wait for that. No, I mean, I agree. Didn't you already beat Toy Story? Didn't we talk about this? Yes. And you beat Path to Canyon? Yes. You've done it. You're fine. There are wizard modes. Yeah, that's all. There you go. There are wizard modes that I've hit or even, I mean, I'm super grateful that a lot of modern games have even mini wizard modes or, like, that halfway point or something to shoot for, something to progress to. Like an in-game event. Yeah. But I've been trying to, like, I've almost been thinking of, like, okay, how would this XP system work in, let's say, Godzilla? Like, how crazy would it be? I mean, I've obviously played all of them. If you could get to, like, Planet X? Yes. Like, every time? But what I'm thinking is, like, I can get, obviously, you know, you only have to hit two ramps and you're doing a level one monster. Piece of cake. I've gotten to the point where I've gotten to level two monsters. But past that, like, I've never made it to Planet X. So if there was an XP type system with Godzilla, how weird would that be that the next game that you start, it's like, oh, I already have three level one defeated. I'm going straight to level two. And then you chip away at that and boom, now I'm in Planet. And it's like, would that add to the experience of Godzilla to have an option like that? Or would it take away from it because it's so easy to get to those first few levels? I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure on that. It depends on the player, I think. Yeah, it's an interesting concept that the thought of them, and I haven't even thought about this, Joel, so you bring up a good point of Stern implementing something like this across the board in the future. If they did something like that retroactively through IC, through updates that said, hey, you can earn experience points behind, that would be something that would be incredibly unique. But at the same time, I'm not sure if that would match up with people's creative choices that they made in making the rule set. Yeah. And trying to, you know, so I don't know exactly how that would work, but that is interesting. I don't think that this will be the last time that we see something like this. Sure. I think that it's, again, anything you can do that's accessible to the pinball people or to anybody or everybody in pinball, I think it's a good thing. Well, yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if creatively if people would want that in their game retroactively. Like, I don't know if Keith Elwin would want that. I don't know. Like George Gomez would want that. It's just or even Jack Danger. It's just it's hard to tell. It's definitely not something where you just flip a switch like you that it's very clear that the difficulty level that they put in Venom is because they are actually building the code based off of people grinding away at this game over time. But if you think about it, in a lot of these modern games, they are starting to add, you know, even Turtles had the ability that I can go straight to, what is it, the final showdown or whatever. Like, after you beat eight episodes, that's where you'd get to. But I have the ability to just skip right to it. Well, if instead of being able to skip right to it, what if they just start adding the ability that You can't skip right to it, but you can slowly grind away. Because the XP in Venom, the higher level you get, it makes everything easier. So every time you get into battles, you're more powerful. Your shots mean more. So if that was the thing where it's like, okay, turtles, you can't ever skip to it. But now, next time you start an episode, it's going to take one less shot.
    50:41
    So it's almost like a bookmarker in the game. Yeah, a bookmarker. Kind of like a checkpoint. Yeah, you have the checkpoint or even just the fact that you're more experienced here. It's like, okay, I know I beat this episode or this monster or this, that, or Foo Fighters. I've done this song before. So because you're now a more experienced player, it's less shots to do it again. That way it kind of helps you out to slowly progress through the game more and more. Well, it's funny. I have it in my head because you keep talking about Turtles, Joel. And have you guys ever seen that episode, Make Love, Not Warcraft, from South Park?
    51:17
    I probably have. I have it in my head, if listeners out there remember this. This is like mid-2000s, maybe like 2006, 2007 episode, when they needed to level up their characters to get to this main boss guy that was like just this huge dude that had glitched out the game and he had like this ultra-powerful character that was killing everybody. And so they all just started grinding away on killing these warthogs nonstop, and they had all the XP mapped out. Now I just have Joel pictured doing something like that. He's just going to go left orbit into the pops all day long. Ah, bathroom, bathroom. Yeah, exactly. Just grind out the XP. I mean, I think this is incredibly creative because this is just one aspect of something that's new to Venom. And, like, this is something I'm excited for. And I've already said it's not in the game yet. but they already have said that they're going to add an option where you can log into Insider Connect, but you can choose almost like continue or start over. They're going to give the player the ability to, do I want to play this game with my previously earned experience points, or do I want to play this game like it's a fresh start? And that's where the speed run comes into. The speed run timer is counting from the very first ball you plunge all the way until you beat Noel. I think that's cool. I think that's very clever because then it's going to be like I actually did it. Or even if it – it'll be interesting if somebody will be like, have you ever beat Noel in one game? That'll be really impressive to do. But if people are like, no, it took me 15 games, but I was able to beat Noel start to finish and it only took me 35 minutes or something. I wish pinball games would do that more. I know Iron Maiden had, I think, How I'd Be Thy Name had a time champion or something like that, how quickly you got through it. And I wish more games would have that. Yeah, like Lord of the Rings, like Destroy the Rings. Yeah, exactly. And that's something that's cool. And that's a nuance right there that it changes the game where it's not so much about how many points can I get or what multiplier can I do this. It's how quickly can I skillfully get through this mode. and a lot of that's built into games already anyway. Like you get a time bonus on Godzilla, you get a time bonus on Foo Fighters with the final shot. So all this stuff is in there already. What I would like to know is, okay, how fast did I get done with LA on Foo Fighters? Or how fast did I defeat Megalon on Godzilla? Stuff like that would be exciting and it would change things around to where it would give you reason to kind of explore different parts of the game to where you're playing it in such a way that it may not have anything to do with score in general. And something like that, speed running, it's something that some of us do, like, off stream and off everything, that we say, hey, we beat the game in this amount of time or we beat this mode in this amount of time. How quickly do you think you can do it? I mean, we were talking about that with Foo Fighters, Tom, when we were talking about using the tractor beam and seeing if we could speed run any of the modes because we had shots, you know, we had shots spotted already, then we spot more shots. Yeah, backslide your man. Yeah, and so stuff like that. It's silly stuff that we would not do in a tournament necessarily, but you know what? At home with friends, with family, with Joel watching, yeah, we can do it. Yeah, it makes pinball fun. I know TNA tracks that. TNA tracks there's a speed run for each reactor. Yeah, and that's awesome. Yeah, the moment you start a reactor to defeating it, so it's a whole other scoreboard. But, I mean, Tom, what do you think? Do you think adding this, do you think this adds longevity? Do you think I think? No. Do you think having this type of system adds longevity to having this game in your house or almost takes away longevity? No, I think it would definitely add longevity. But if the XP system is almost guaranteeing that if you put in enough time, you're going to be able to see the whole game,
    55:30
    because some people say, like, yeah, the moment I see the Final Wizard mode, like, that's when I'm turned off by the game and I don't want to play anymore. But if this game is almost a guarantee that almost anybody can get to that point, does that mean there's going to be a lot more like, hey, it took me five months, but I finally was able to see. Do it again, but faster, bitch. like i would say i am very excited because they have three characters locked behind beating noel right so to give you a reason to keep going yeah to me it's like okay if zach's gonna let me borrow this game for let's say three months that means i have three months to beat this game three times because i'm at this game i have to have all three characters unlocked before i leave my house like that's a goal in my mind and the thing is i think it's actually achievable compared to some other games where it's like, am I ever going to see the final wizard mode of this game? No. Even if I've played every single night for three months, by the time it's gone, I'm not going to see it. So, I don't know. This is what excites me. I think it's a good idea. I mean, it's probably one of the best features of the game, I think, is that whole level up system. Oh, it's a thousand percent the best feature of the game. I believe it is fully. That's why I've been absolutely floored that this hasn't been leaned into more in terms of how they're pushing the product out. What I wish Stern would do, I wish that they would put out. Get the Dan heads up and the Insider Connect. Yeah. Well, what I wish they would do is put out maybe like a three- to five-minute video fully explaining the leveling system. Go ahead and let Dwight go hog wild explaining it because you can edit it down anyways and get it concise. But, you know, I think something like that is just so unique that I wish people would kind of understand it a little bit more. I think that some people have heard that, oh, there's no true modes in it or no base modes because there's just many modes. So that's kind of confused some people in terms of the overall messaging. And I know I've heard reports back from people that played it at Comic-Con that they went into the game not knowing anything, and then they were still kind of confused exactly what they were seeing compared to a Godzilla or a Deadpool or something that it's very clear on what's going on. So this type of game, because you do get the progression, if you're not aware that there's a leveling system, and there probably is a lot of people that aren't aware that play it because that requires you to actually read the rule card or look at the LCD screen. Or log in. Yeah, exactly. If they don't realize that that's there, it's just, yeah, then it's an uphill battle from there. So I think the major fight that's up ahead for Stern or all of us Steelers or, you know, anything in the industry that wants to push this game, it's letting people know how that leveling system works and why that's beneficial to them as a player and where that they can get the value out of that.
    58:30
    Well I think it was cool because Jack Danger streamed it on Wednesday They streamed a premium And I think by the end of the stream he had gotten to not Noel but the dragon I don know Grindel. Grindel? Grindel. So he had gotten to him, which you have to have 20. You have to be at level 20. So I think he ended the stream high point or something. What?
    58:53
    When they got in the mode? Yeah. So that mode, which a lot of that, I know a lot of this can be, I don't know, the code I think is like .8 or something, .8 something right now. So they're going to continue to add, you know, I would say the choreography or just the, I would assume more call outs, more lighting. Oh, yeah, because that's what we were kind of talking about, too. Yeah, that is the one thing that I really hope to see. I want to see when you get into those boss battles that it's more of an event. More of a battle, yeah. Right, yeah. And that's what we talked about. These are – Ram the ramp. Yeah. These are essentially in-game events. Yes. So when I think of it in terms of when I'm playing Elden Ring, for instance, right, and I come across a boss, it's an event. You know, the way that they show it, the camera angles, everything, movements. And so that's what I want to see out of this. If I'm going to fight Null, I want it to be a massive event.
    60:00
    It's kind of like Scared Stiff when you get to the final Scared Stiff mode. I forget what it's called off the top of my head. Or you start Multiball on Adam's Family. Something like that to where the choreography just goes nuts. Flippers go nuts. It goes in and out. Plenty of things, animations on the screen, everything. And it doesn't just do that for five to six seconds. I'm talking 15, 20 seconds to where you stop, you've grinded all that way, you've earned it, and this is your moment to fight this battle. That's what I want to see. Luckily they have Dwight doing this, right? I mean, that's what Dwight's known for, right? Exactly. That's all Mike, it's got to be coming, right? Yeah, that's something that he is known for. And I definitely think there have been games that I've played, like I know there are moments in Stranger Things that just suck you in when you're battling, whether it's a Demogorg or Total Isolation mode or something. Everything changes, and, you know, you get more amped up for those moments. There's plenty of games, I mean, Godzilla has different monsters where it's like, okay, it's time to buckle up and fight this. So I definitely think that we'll get there and we'll grow and improve even more. But it was what I was saying with Jack is like he finishes the first night in high 20s. And I was like excited to see him the next day of like, well, I know he's at least 20 something. So it's like by the time he streamed that, I think he was in the high 30s. So it's like, OK, we're going to see Noel on the stream. But he didn't beat Noel. I mean, he fought him multiple times. And Jack's a really good player. So it's like, sure, you could get to him at 30, but good luck beating him at 30. It's probably going to take you more for that. And there's been people that have posted on Pinside that had chances to play it when they're at Comic-Con. And I think somebody posted a picture where his XP was at 92. Now, remember, XP resets when you defeat Noel. So I think that tells you something about this guy's skill level. But it's clear that this guy put a lot of time on the game. Kept playing. Yeah. But he's gotten to that point where now I would assume it's way easier for him or should be way easier for him to beat Noel than anybody else. And then Dwight did mention there is an actual final, final wizard mode where you have to beat all the symbiotes and do multiballs and Grendel and Noel. Does that for Bintar multiball? Yeah, it's like you have to do all of it. So there is still something for that seeker. But I don't know, overall code, like, I'm glad to hear you two, even as tournament players, still see the potential of this code or are excited about this code. And I know from a tournament strategy, like, you guys were looking at multipliers and the bell tower is a whole thing there where it's like you could get 10x play field or something. Like, there's clearly a thing. Seven. There's clearly a thing that you guys are going to lean into from a tournament strategy. There's a very specific roadmap to a lot of points. And we noticed it after watching the premium.
    63:12
    Well, that was something that did stand out to me on the first stream because I forget the guy's name, but it's one of the Stern employees. He ended up with like over 2 billion points. I'm actually watching her right now. Yeah.
    63:27
    He legitimately went from $45 million. And so this is what happens. It was actually like $29 million. Yeah. Well, I think he was at, was he at $29 or $45 when he started? It doesn't matter. Either way, when he started the six ball multiball, when he came out of it, he had $1.9 billion. Yeah. And then that's when they found out Jack accidentally forgot how to count and put in too many balls into the pen. Yeah, seven balls.
    63:54
    It's okay. He's been a busy man. But, yeah, that just goes to show you the game has a very specific way that you could go about, blow it up. And one of the things that we haven't touched base on yet, Joel, when we were talking about the minor villains or the minor bosses here, is that when you start your Mayhem multiball, depending on which side you're on, you're actually going to have one of the bosses available right there, and they're going to be playing in the background. And that's kind of what happened. And he had both – I think he had all of them, but he had defeated Riot and then Agony. And I think even the Agony final shot was $320 million or something just redonkulous. So, yeah, it's kind of – they even said – Because you can stack the two multiballs. So you had both multiballs stacked and he was doing two battles all at the same time. And I think he was only at 2x playfield during that time too. I don't remember him getting any higher than that. Maybe he did. I don't know. I can't think of it off the top of my head, but I know that the jackpots were coming quick. And just being able to play the bosses just in the background, I think that there's a lot of value there, too. But, yeah, that's where it makes it a very, if you are out for score, as of right now, it makes it a very multi-ball-centric game. And it has to be because you do the mini combos. And the whole purpose of doing the mini combos is to fill up your grid. Yep. And then once you start doing that and you do so many combos, that's what lights a lock. and nearly every single shot out there leads to a lock somewhat. They wouldn't have those many Pez dispensers on both sides without that being an important part of the game. And I think that they've kind of backed themselves into a corner with that in terms of design and what they can do with the code just because it's on the play field. So I don't see how you can deviate from that. And I say back themselves into a corner as if it's a bad thing. That's just the creative choice that they made. so I don't see it going any direction because you're not all of a sudden going to say, oh, we're putting in actual modes at the beginning to where you get points based off those modes. I think this game is very much going to stay on the path that it's going. So if you are out for points, it's multiball, multiball, multiball, which is different because, Joel, you just had a podcast with Mr. Elwin himself, and what did he say about multiball and scoring? Don't put your points in multiball. Make sure all your points are in single ball play. Yeah. Yep. So it's just different philosophies, you know, and that's perfectly fine. It doesn't mean that you can't score points in this game on single ball. It just means that the game is very multi-ball centric, and when you've got to grind through and get XP to get to the next boss, well, obviously having more balls to do that and filling up that grid to where you get additional XP and getting – I think it's on the – it's either the right side or left side. You get 2X XP also by starting that side. So, yeah, being able to pull 4X experience and keep grinding through the game, you're going to want to do that. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah. So I was very interested to see, it just seems like this code in general, because there have been other games like, you know, no offense, Raid A, but like Rush, that people, it's like Rush seems like that code is so focused on really high-end players or tournament players and giving all this complexity to different strategies and way that you can attack that code versus a novice steps up and they're like, what? You know, it's not there. It's very much risk-reward. I just wanted to say rush to get Tom to – no. Well, rush is very much risk-reward. I think they did make a mistake in rush. I think they made a mistake.
    67:36
    Not making a Tom Graff edition? That's right. No, just the newer code, the way they handled the records, where... Oh yeah, when they killed off the boost, like boosting it. Yeah, that really, that was a drag for me because I really enjoyed that risk reward with that. Yeah, I think as a tournament setting that would have been fine, but as far as even... Travis is so mad he turned off his camera. No, why? Your camera has a code update right now? No, I'm saying my camera needs a code update. Oh, okay. But that was one of the best parts of the game, was trying to boost up. But then if you drain and now you already hit those shots. So now you can't hit those shots. Right. And then you lose all your boost as well. Yeah. So it's like a double kick. Yeah. It feels like you're waking up in the middle of the night and Monica's driving 90 miles an hour down the highway. Yeah.
    68:39
    I think that was Ray and Timmy's goal. They're like, how do we give the player this sensation? No, what I'm saying, though, is like you have some games like that. And I just think it's very clear that the whole design team got behind this mentality of let's really lean into. And you guys are asking for them to do it even more. Let's really lean into this being a game that that really opens up from a code standpoint. The more you play it and the more experience you get, you're going to be able to see more of the game and get further in the game. and, you know, it's going to make things easier for you the more you play it because of your experience points and your leveling system. This is brand new, and it's something I know I'm excited about, and nobody's done this before, so it's going to be very interesting to see if this actually brings more replayability into a game or if it's like owners after owning the game for X number of months are flipping them. They're like, yeah, I've seen it all because I've got the, you know, I've unlocked them. I don't know. This is a risk that they're taking, but I'm excited that they're taking it. That makes sense. And one of the cool parts about that they used to do this with Call of Duty, and they might still do it. I don't know. It used to be when the game came out, it was the race to prestige. So you wanted to be the first one. Everybody streamed on Twitch, and you wanted to be the first one to get through all your levels and then prestige up to show you the next game. Now I've got to get a game. Thanks. So I wish, in a way, I wish that there was the ability to have some type of prestige level instead of your level system just go all the way back to one just after you beat them. Like, I don't know what that would entail code-wise or anything, but I wish that there was just some way to be able to get to a certain level. Like, even after you beat Noel, you just keep going up, and then you prestige, and then you go to the next thing. The bragging thing is the fact that you've unlocked the characters. You know, that's the thing where it's like, oh, if you have all three characters unlocked, Hulk, Captain America, and Wolverine, like, they beat this game three times. You know, that's a – That'll impress all the ladies, too. I've unlocked three. But what I think is interesting is what if they make it harder? So after you unlock your first one, what if the rate at which you get XP is a little less, the second go-around. Because the game knows it, but the game knows you've already beaten the game once, so let's make unlocking that second character a little harder. And that's kind of what I was alluding to. I wish I don't know, maybe this is something that's in it, and somebody just crushed it by unlocking all three, but yeah, if they had some type of system in there that was similar to a prestige system, to where once you unlocked a character, because obviously unlocking one of those characters, I think you actually have access to two of the vertical grids. So the character is a little bit more powerful as well, their perks and everything, which rightfully so. They're awesome characters. So, yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing something like that. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, we just talked about code. We just talked about a game's code for the last, I don't know, it was like 30 or 40 minutes. And that's something that I have not seen a game, and this is only off of two streams that we've seen, right, and discussions. Luckily, you know, like with flipping out with friends that I've done, Dwight's been in chat. So he's answered a bunch of questions. Ray Day's been in chat. Like, this is just something so new. And I can't wait to try it. I can't wait to try it. And I'm very curious to see how this unfolds. The other thing that we're talking about that's unique to this game is the change state. And that, to me, so with the premium in LE, with the premium and le there are multiple shots in the game the main center ramp has this kind of 180 ramp that'll go up or it becomes a horseshoe and then there's a thing on the right side where another shot either then becomes a horseshoe or it feeds a buck or it goes around to the left orbit all depending on which of the four characters you pick and like if you pick the flash thompson character the way that that middle ramp moves it now becomes like a little kind of hole that it kind of stops the ball in. Is that what the post that comes up real quick? Yeah.
    72:59
    We were like, well, is that a ball lock? And Dwight in chat was like, no. If you hit that shot, that counts as a bell tower shot. So one of the perks is it's a wider bell tower. Well, yeah. So now that shot counts as a bell tower shot. And the whole reason the post pops up is to just slow the ball down for a second because there's very little in this game that slows the ball down. So then let's put your thinking cap on, Joel. Okay. When would you want to use that character then, knowing that that bell shot is bigger now? I would assume in a tournament because it's, yeah. Of course. But when would you want to use that character? Later on, right? Because if you've done X, Y, and Z, and then you know that's how you ramp up your, what is it, play field multiplier, because you can change characters. That's really another thing. Like turtles, you pick a turtle, you're locked in with that turtle the whole game. this is completely different you you have this grid at the bottom and you have three dots or kind of your path but it's like if i get my three dots knocked out with gwyn then you hit a shot and boom now i have an option to change character now i can start working on my path with this or that so this progression through the game and the way it attacks your grid and points is really unique um so i i was excited about this this another thing i know they say their whole change your character, change your host, change your game. That's their, like, motto. But it really didn't show, like, it is such a different game, depending on which character you pick, because the shot layouts actually change on a premium in LE. Unfortunately, they don't change on a pro. Staying on a pro, you change the host and you change the rules a little bit. Change your strategy. Yeah, you know, this sounds so lame and so, like, first world problems, but this is one of those games where I'm a tad disappointed that the Pro is the game that I'm going to be able to stream and borrow for a few months. It sounds so bad. By the way, if anybody wants to loan me a Venom Pro, I will stream the crap out of it. Do you hear that, Tom? That's the sound of about 3,000 people rolling their eyes right now. They just put it on a guest, right in a triple drain, tell them to suck it up. You have somebody on a jog right now just ripped out their AirPods, just threw it on the ground. I mean, okay, so when I saw the reveal for Godzilla and it was like, okay, I'm getting the Pro, it's like, man, I really want, like, that mech, though, that building mech, like, I was dying to experience that or the bridge. Like, there was stuff in there that I knew I was missing. But then there's been other games where it's like the Foo Pro. I was like, this game still feels like Foo Fighters. Like, this doesn't feel that big. Even James Bond Pro, it's like, okay, so I'm missing, you know, Bond on a wand, no big deal. But this game, it's not, like, Doppelganger, I think that mech is cool, and that hurry up will be a fun, unique hurry up. Sure, I'm missing that. But what I'm missing is, like, this game changing, physically changing between characters and how that affects your decision making or like that is so cool it's so very cool um so i don't know thoughts on like thoughts on that is that 100 i think premium's the way to go if you're gonna have it in your house yeah yeah and you you hit the nail on the head with that because there's there's a lot of reports coming out of comic-con again people that played the pro and they they're all saying that they felt very underwhelmed by it. And they're citing that very reason that it was just not, they couldn't really compare it to the premium because it was missing all those different shots. It wasn't just missing the mech. You're basically missing changing the game in four different ways, or maybe even eight different ways, if you want to call it two shots changing at the same time. So yeah, that's, that's a big difference. And gosh, I heard somebody, and it's not just one person. I've heard this at least three or four times, people legitimately comparing the Pro to one of the Stern pens, home pens. The home pens, yeah. Yeah. And I was like, man, that's just, I don't know. It's cold, man. That's cold. Yeah. Exactly. And so I was just kind of like, maybe that's a little too far, but I get it. I get the sentiment that they're wanting to see more in it for what the price that it's at. But at the same time, it's like, okay, if you're interested in being a consumer, well, then obviously the pro is not going to be for you. It's save up a little bit more if you can and eventually get a premium whenever it's financially feasible. But yeah, if I wanted to get one, it would definitely be premium. That to me is, I think this is actually a really good test though of the game and its code because I know I thought that way about Godzilla, but then I found I actually loved Godzilla, like playing the pro. So when, by the time Godzilla pro left, I was like, I had such a blast with that game and then having a chance going to an arcade or going to a show and playing the premium i was like this is a step up like i took a game that i already loved and it just got better so if this venom pro ends up leaving my house after a few months and i loved it then i have no doubt the stuff they've added in the premium will only take it that much further um so it's going to be a good test of how how how much i enjoy that code in the xp system and it's going to be so fast like It's going to be such an even faster game without some of the mechs in there. So I don't know. I'm excited, but I think this is super unique. Is Doppelganger the only thing besides the pathways? Well, the 180 ramp in the middle is not there. Right. I know that. And then the little up-down ramp on the right side, which also changes the state, that's not there. So basically, like Tom said, except for the pathways, And I think even the artwork's even different on the Pro because of that. So, yeah, that's a lot, to be honest with you. And it's funny that the crux of this that we were talking about before, that there's a lot of people, the reason why they're not getting the LE, they're deciding that they don't feel like the value's there for the money that's being charged. But then at the same time, it's like you hear the people talking about the Pro. Well, the Pro doesn't have anything in it compared to the Premium. So it's funny how you see this massive gulf in between thoughts of the game and everything. What about, so the Carnage mech? We haven't talked about that. The Carnage captive ball. What if instead of them having the Carnage, because I think the ball locks, the fast locks, I'm pretty confident those have to be in all the models based off of the way the game's designed or coded. I mean, I don't know how they, because of the way you have to lock balls to start a multiple. Like, I think taking those out would have been a drastic change to the way the game is structured. But, like, what if instead of the Carnage mech, what if they would have taken that out of the pro and put the Doppelganger mech in instead, you know? Like, in a perfect world, you'd take that out and you'd put the 180 ramp or some of the ball paths. What would you take out? The Carnage mech? If you took out the Carnage mech, And then that allowed you to either put in the doppelganger mech or maybe, I don't know, cost-wise, maybe then it would make sense to put in the game state. So then it's like, well, at least put the game state stuff in the game, but don't give me the toy, like the carnage toy or the doppelganger toy. That would be preferable on the pro, but we're not the ones adding it all up. I would have rather lost the ball locks and kept the carnage mech. smack and put in the doppelganger in there. I would have been fine with that. I would have been fine without the ball locks and just keep the physical mix of everything else. Interesting. Yeah. And that's something that we'll have to play. Cause I know like Dwight and Chad has said like the fast locks, every game just seems slow now. Like he loves the fast locks. Like he loves what that brings to the game. There's one concerning thing with the fast locks where because it kicks out a ball, the moment it senses, like, if you land in the scoop, so that scoop on the right side, that ball will never come back out at you. If you hit the scoop, that ball is going down into a subway, and it gets in the buck, and it goes up every time, 100% of the time. It will never launch back out at you. So if the ball goes into the scoop, it detects that, immediately shoots out another ball. That's not a big deal. But the left ramp, I've seen it twice now on stream, where the left 180 ramp, the moment that opto's triggered on that ramp, it's spitting out a ball. But I saw it twice where that ball barely got to that opto but didn't finish the ramp. So it triggered the opto, and now the ball's coming back down the ramp, but the fast lock has already spit out a ball. So now you have a two-ball multiball when it's supposed to only be one. Let's go. So me asking the tournament players, is that okay? or do you have to trap up because that's a problem? That's a problem. You have to trap up because that's a problem. But it would be cool if somehow they could just code it in and be like, oh, yep, that's the back doorway to get a two-ball, multi-ball going. But, yeah, you're supposed to trap up, let a ball go, or call over a TD. Is that something where if that becomes such a problem, would there be a chance you'd have to go to, like, virtual locks and you basically turn the fast lock system off?
    82:38
    Assuming it's possible in the software, yeah. I mean, most tournaments you see virtual locks be put in anyways. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, that'll be interesting.
    82:48
    Very interesting. That's why I basically said I could do without the locks. But put in the doppelganger.
    82:56
    It's odd, too. When it comes to physical locks, the only time that I've really cared about physical locks is on Godzilla. Seeing it on the building and seeing it just go up and down. That worked really well for you. I know Elwin owes me a beer because of that Colin owes me something too and Josh owes me something else too for allowing that to happen as well it's everybody else's fault but mine I still like the neck though I don't know there's just something about so this is an interesting topic when we talk about ball locks because we might as well just go this direction because we're actually still pretty early in our podcast guys like look at Groot for instance you know there's a lot of people that prefer it to be virtual there's a lot of people that like seeing it go in the mouth yeah right so what do you prefer Joel you like seeing Groot's mouth open in the mouth yeah that mech is so great but then again I'm not playing in a tournament and that is something I had a Guardians and that was something that my friends and family you know I'm just going to keep rolling I'm going to keep rolling with it but my friends and family That mech is so great. And then there's later on, I forget which mode it is, but then all of a sudden his mouth is like you have to shoot it when his mouth is open because it goes up and down. Cherry bomb. It's so great. It's such a good mech. I was finally so trying to be serious and engage Joel. You laid it out. You knew what was going to happen. You gave me way too much credit to think that far ahead. Sneakily walking out there with the tee, sets it down, and sneakily setting the ball up. And then he's so surprised that Tom swings and hits the dinger. Just waiting for the conversation of ball locks to come up. Yeah. You won't hear this on any other podcast. I'm all in on the group ball lock, and it is sad to me when I see it turned off.
    84:58
    But I get it. See, I like playing with it without it being on at home. For the very reason that you talk about with Cherry Bomb, because it is maddening when you get to the point where you have a super jackpot lit and then you just keep ricking it off the mouth over and over and over.
    85:16
    And then have you ever had Groot just clamp down on the ball and it doesn't move? No. I just think it eats every time. Yeah. I need to take the pinball lessons with Joel then to figure my shit out. Travis is complaining because it came too hard. So let me turn off the lock. Well, what about Godfather? Does Godfather have any physical locks on it?
    85:43
    I mean, no. A little bit. I mean, it's got a little bit. What does a little bit mean? It's that little horseshoe. No, yeah, yeah, the compound. The compound. Yeah, so something like that that's cool to see, right? I love physical ball locks. If they can make it do something cool, I like it. Tom doesn't like them. I could do without them.
    86:05
    They're problems sometimes. So what about TNA? What if TNA was a virtual lock? Yeah, but you can lock the ball and then, like, you know. Hear that, Mr. Denisi? You should have made virtual locks for TNA.
    86:21
    You heard it right here. Tom Graff wants you to have virtual locks on TNA. You're telling me to lock in. Not every game. Yeah. Not every game. Locking the ball up on the couch. Locking the ball on the couch in Simpsons is so great. That's okay. I think virtual. But it sucks when, like, the ball gets stuck up there. Oh, yeah. No doubt. It does. I just think that it's kind of a lost art to have a cool block for the ball. That's why I was excited to see the way Godzilla is. And I don't know. Maybe. A Brian Eddy game. That's great. Attack from Mars. Medieval Madness, they don't have physical ball locks.
    87:02
    But they do have Dirty Pool, which is kind of like a physical ball lock. Dirty Pool, for those who don't know, it's kind of like, it's kind of ish. When the target is, so in Attack from Mars, when the target comes down, it's supposed to stay down. The visor, is it called a visor? I know it's visor in like, what is it? Three bank. we'll just call it three banks stand up target why can I not think of the freaking robot where you lock the eyes it's an older game jackpot? I know what he's talking about I just want him to get around I'm like pin robot I know but that's the visor because it is an actual visor that looks cool too let me tell you something about jackpot fuck that game at district 82 screwed me more times but that damn lock you shoot it perfect and it doesn go in there Fuck that game I leaving Bye.
    88:00
    Again, a very awesome lock. Sorry for children. It's such a great lock. I don't know. I'm all for physical locks. What other games have physical locks? Let's go with this. I want to know. We just came up with some good ones. Well, unfortunately, this is not a good one to bring up, because Stranger Things has a physical ball lock. Okay, we're not counting that one. No, forget that. But most people, the magnetic lock in the premium and LE. No, the physical ball lock, my ass. It doesn't have one on the pro. I'm talking about premium and LE. It has the Magna lock or whatever in the back that most people turn off because it doesn't work. And look at Iron Maiden. How many people have problems with the mummy lock?
    88:42
    On the premium. I guess. Oh, are you talking about the sarcophagus? Yeah. I mean, like a ton of people have issues with that lock. I still as cool when it works. I mean, when it works, that's the thing. It has to work. The Bond one isn't as cool. Around the rocket? It just kind of goes and just stops. Yeah, I could deal with that. Maybe if it would have loaded into the rocket and then the rocket, like, shoots it back out at you or maybe if the balls just, like, came up top of the rocket and just kind of plopped down on the place. If I can save two grand.
    89:15
    I don't need the lock. That's crazy. To me, I love the physical ball lock. If that's the only thing in the game that you're giving me on a premium, I don't need it. Interesting. I don't need it. The only thing? Okay. It's so weird hearing this from a guy with a line of LEs behind you.
    89:34
    Just a line of LEs behind you. But the man does have a point because I can tell you right now, stranger things, what type of stranger things do you have, Tom? I have the pro. He has a pro. What Iron Maiden do you have? I have the pro.
    89:50
    He's a man of principle right there. There you go. Yeah, most of my, if I, Deadpool, I have the physical ball I turned off. In the katana? Yeah. Why? Why would, does that, does that, like, struggle? I don't know. It actually doesn't, but it keeps the game, it keeps the flow. going. I did the same thing with Avengers. I turned off the subway locks.
    90:18
    Here's a big surprise, Joel. I like flow. He likes speed. So if you like fast games, it sounds like Venom might be your game dump. It's not fast enough.
    90:31
    The ball locks are launching the ball at you. Who wants Venom to pop out of the glass and just punch him right in the face? Again, why not just have the ball return to your flipper? I mean, it's... Because it could launch at your flipper. Isn't it just not fast enough? I mean, it has to, like, go down into the lock and then shoot it.
    90:54
    I don't know. It looks crazy fast. I have to play it to see. I mean, the only thing that I worry about with that is casuals just getting absolutely destroyed by that. Not expecting that. Because it kind of reminds me of nearly a, just like Halloween was, where. With the elevators. Yeah, it would just come out of nowhere and you're like, what the heck just happened? Yeah. So, I don't know. Maybe it's something that just happens once. They adjust to it. I don't know. Maybe put some sort of ball save for the initial one. But you're right. If you're going to hit, if a novice hits that scoop in the back right, all the way back there, and they see the ball disappear, the last thing they're expecting is a ball down, by your flipper to launch out right to your flipper. They're going to be like, oh, yeah, no, the ball is up there. Where did it go? Like, I don't know. Oh, yeah, they're not going to track it. So here's a – okay, here's a thought or a statement that I think is very interesting. Here we go, everybody. Ooh, what are we going to talk about? Well – You're still on Venom? Yes. Okay, let's go. When the pictures came out, there were multiple – I heard from multiple people that said this game could have been a P3 module. And we've talked about P3 a lot. And there's a lot – Good or bad? Well, that's the thing. There's a lot of people. Or happy. There's a lot of people that are like, why would I own a P3 when only the back third of the game is what's changing, right? And that's what people are like, I don't want a game that all the max, all the everything is just in the back third. They just think it's a waste of space, right? So you look at this game, all the shots are in the back third, all of them. So my thought was I think this is a big win for P3 because here's a huge major manufacturer that just did a layout that so many people have hated on P3 for having this type of layout. So if there's a chance that people are like, that game's a blast, that game shot great, that game this, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, I just think there's going to be a lot of P3 people that are like, wait, did you like Venom? Yeah, then why wouldn't you like my P3? Oh!
    93:01
    Travis, go ahead. What is the one thing we've been talking about with Venom? The fast walks? No, no, no. Speed? In terms of how Venom's been, I don't know, sailing? Oh, poorly.
    93:18
    Okay. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. So I can say this. Obviously, we've talked about P3 in the past, And I think it's cool to have mechs that move. Yes. I think it's interesting. I'm definitely not of the mindset that, oh, that just means the game's going to break more or whatever. You know, it's pinball. Everything breaks. It doesn't matter if you have a pro or whatever. The thing that I'm just – that I'm most concerned about with it is just the fact that people look at it and they think of it just as being simple, the simplicity of it. And that's what a fan layout essentially is. So at least there's something going on with it that's a little bit different. But at the same time, there's a lot of people that aren't necessarily on board with what P3 does in terms of the modules and everything and the mechs that move. So naturally, I don't know if I expect those people to all of a sudden be like, oh, yeah, I love the fact that these mechs move everywhere back and forth. So a lot of it just depends on how you're going to implement it. You know, and one of the great things about P3 compared to what we're seeing right here is the fact that you do still have parts of the play field pop up as well. So that's something that's a little bit different. The wall of scoops and not to mention the entire screen. Yeah. You know, changing and displaying. I think if there's people that come out of playing Venom and they're like, I really like the way that game shoots. I think that actually makes P3 look really good. because I think there are people that have discredited a P3 because of the back third. So you think if people come through and they're like, oh, I like the design that Brian Eddy did, that I'm going to like a P3 all of a sudden? Well, I just, no, I think it's if you can have fun on that type of layout, I think it's a tough choice.
    95:17
    Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think if you can have fun, if people walk away and they're like, I had a great time with that, I just think there are a lot of people that have discredited a P3 before they've even played it because they think it's like, oh, it's wide open and all the shots are in the back.
    95:32
    I don't know. I mean, I know like Weird Al had a lot of diverters, had a lot of diverters. Godfather has a ton of diverters in it. I mean, having diverters in your layout is not new. What's new is the fact that it's changing based on your selection. But Godfather is also a very much dynamic layout too. Yes. There's a lot to do on the sides. It's not just line everything up in the same area and just shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. So, yeah. I don't know. It's just. You want to know something, Joel? I would love to, Tom. I am more excited to get Pulp Fiction.
    96:06
    Oh, yeah. Than Venom. But you're not getting Venom. I know. That's. Yeah. But. So you're more excited about a single level play field.
    96:18
    With no display. and that excites you more than Venom. That's what I'm hearing. Yes. Okay. Okay, yeah. I think that's fine. There's a lot of people that go that way. There's actually four or five displays. Yeah, but no, like, screen. You know what I'm saying. No, I know what you're saying. I don't blame you. Does Pulp Fiction have a video mode, like, screen? No. Does Pulp Fiction get easier the more you play it, Tom? Do you get experience every single time you play, or no? Just kicks you in the nuts and says, play it if you want. I did text Josh and say, you need to, like, totally change your whole rule set now, buddy. Get some experience in it. Well, here is my honesty. I think I'm genuinely more excited to play this pin than the last few, and it's nothing against the other ones. It's just this seems like such a new experience or a new thing. So more exciting than Godzilla?
    97:16
    No, I said the last few. Oh. The last few. That's more exciting than Foo. I would say this. More exciting than Godfather. More excited than Godfather. More excited than Foo. More excited than Bond.
    97:27
    That's not because of theme, though. This is entirely because of the real estate. Just the overall playing experience. I see the stream, and it's like, okay, is there something there? What's going to draw me in here? And I can tell you right now, I look forward to grinding away on this game because I feel like the way Dwight's dangling this carrot, I'm all in. Like, I want to play this game and earn my characters and earn, you know, like, this, that is, I'm finding that concept super appealing. Super appealing. I feel like you just like the idea of being able to just attempt flip all day long. You'll eventually get somewhere in the game. I don't know. Maybe that's what it is. It's because my skill level is about as good as you keeping your camera on.
    98:12
    It's, I, it's cameras off for the audio listeners. I don't know. Just to me, maybe that's what it is. It's like all of a sudden some of these games are super complex and super deep, but I'm realistic with myself and my abilities that I know I'm not going to see half of it. But this is a game where it's like I actually am. I actually am going to be able to see this entire game. What if you don't level up?
    98:37
    What if I suck that bad? I mean, it's possible. It is. It sure is possible. I don't know. What would this game do for you? Let's just pretend that it did not have the level up system. If it did not have the level up system, if I never logged in this game, I would not be excited. Yeah, you just had to go off the theme and off the layout and nothing else. Because I would not be super excited because I saw the stream and thought, okay, if I'm starting at level one every time I hit start, it's going to be a bear to get to level 10 by the end of ball three. So I feel like I'm never going to see a lot of this. And to me, that's the equivalent of, like, take Godzilla, but instead of hitting two ramps, now all of a sudden you're having to hit 15 ramps before I can battle my first guy. I don't think that the rules would be that way if there wasn't a level-up system. So let's just throw out a what if that the mini-modes weren't mini-modes anymore, that they were just axle-mode modes. Would that be something that I would look at the spin and be like, okay, I'm a little bit interested? Or is it that the XP system is just so intriguing that that's overriding a lot? The XP system is what is – because I'm getting a pro. The XP system is what I'm – He's not so negative about it. For the listeners out there, remember, he's just getting a pro. Just a pro. I feel bad. The Sarah McLachlan song is coming out very soon.
    100:02
    Because it's a pro, it doesn't have those change state mechs. that would draw me in, the change state mechs, if I knew that. But because I don't have those, it's the code that's saving me in this. Like, that's what's drawing me in. That's what's getting me excited. That was something, you know, with Bond. I knew the code wasn't – the code has really gotten really good, but when I got the game, the code wasn't there. So it's like the code wasn't what was going to draw me into Bond. So it's like, okay, I hope this shoots really well. I hope that's what grabs my attention, you know, that kind of thing. But, no. Well, what about you, Tom? Well, I feel insulted because now I'm like, Joel's probably like, well, I didn't want to really, you know, do a podcast with Tom and Travis. I wanted to do a Keith Elwin. I mean, like the pro premium.
    100:54
    Are you saying we're the pros? You're saying we're the pros. We're the pros and Keith Elwin is the LE. What's that make Carl? Carl's like a premium. He's like a premium with expression lighting. He's a premium with all the accessories.
    101:13
    He's a premium with precision lightning flippers. Oh, God. Like really sexy powder coating. I don't know. But so what could Venom do, though, Tom? Can Venom do anything to get you on board? As somebody, because there's a lot of people that aren't on board right now. Probably need to play it personally. But if you do that. If you step up and play a premium, if you go to Expo or whenever, you have a chance to play a premium, what would the game have to do for you to call up somebody and buy an LE? Be like, all right, you got me. I mean, is there anything at this point? Or just the premium. Yeah, I mean, the code's got to be there. I mean, it's got to be fun to play.
    101:53
    And, you know, it's just one of those variables I don't know right now, and I'm not going to spend the money to take a wild guess as to why, you know, as to is this going to be a keeper pin for me. This is going to be a wait and see pin. So you just bought the Foo Fighters LE. I know you're a Foo Fighters fan. Maybe that's an unfair thing. But, like, what was it when you saw those streams, what was it that confirmed you were making a good choice? Was it your confidence in Ray Day or was it the shot layout? Maybe the better question is Godfather. Okay, sure. You weren't a Godfather fan, were you? No. Okay, so what about Godfather? How did that draw you in? I think it was more the gameplay aspect. When I got to touch it, feel it, play the actual game is when I liked it better. Shots felt good and just the overall kinetic satisfaction? Well, we knew Pulp Fiction was coming because we heard the rumors and we heard rumors that it was single level. When I heard that, I was like, I'm out.
    103:07
    You know, but when I physically played the game and was like, wow, this is really cool and unique for a single level play out. I was like, yeah, I want to play this. Never mind. I'm in. Yeah. Never mind. I'm in. So I did the same thing with there's a chance there is a chance. I did the same thing with Stranger Things. First time I played it, I did not like the game at all. Ha-pew!
    103:35
    Yeah. But as the code developed, it got a lot better. Yeah. So, you know, I guess, you know, looking at the layout, I'm just, I'm really bummed on the pro. because actually I was thinking, I'm like, maybe I'll get a Venom Pro. Sure. And when I saw the differences between the Premium and the Pro, I was like, no. It's too much. What they need to do is they need to put two Doppler gangers on there for Tom.
    104:10
    You got two asses on there, we're good to go. He's in. Well, imagine playing a Pro like you're talking about, Joel. Yeah. And you get used to that, and then you go play a premium. And now, like, everything's just freaking so different because, you know, as soon as you pick a character, the whole game changes. I'm with you. The whole path. That's why I need you to feel bad for me. I feel really bad for you now.
    104:39
    There's definitely a big difference in it, though, because remember the last time I can remember people being this up in arms with the differences from a pro to a premium was Led Zeppelin. Oh, yeah. That's the last one I remember. And what was the big difference there? It was that there was no side ramp. Yeah. And then what was it? The spinner. The magic something.
    105:03
    Electro. Yeah, that's what it was. Yeah. Which I know some people turn off. Right. Yeah. So when I look at this, though, compared to the pro, it's like huge. Yeah. You are missing a lot and it is noticeable. And, you know, I'm curious to see how that works out. But I don't know. I think that we've reached the point that people do have high expectations in what are going to be in these games. And I think we finally reached the point that, considering where the price points are for the LE, I would like to see a little bit more go into the LE. And I'm not talking about necessarily design or artwork or anything like that. Well, artwork for sure in terms of the translights. I think that the LE needs to have its own translight. I don't like the idea of a premium LE.
    105:53
    It's almost a $2,700 difference between a pro and a premium. It's a lot. Yeah, one of the things that I wish that they were able to do for LE buyers or LE adopters, because I don't think a lot of people really care about signatures from the CEO or certificate. I think that there are people that do care about the signatures from the designer. I think that a lot of people would be excited if, say, the full team signed a Translight, an LE Translight, and came along with it. I think if they gave people access to all the Translights, just send it all with LE, that would be cool. Did they do that with Star Wars? I could have swore that they did. that if you bought a Star Wars LE that you got all the translights. I might be totally tripping right now, but I could have swore that happened. But I've just always felt like with an LE that that's something right there. It's little things like that to where you can bring out more value. And I think having the full team sign a translight, I mean, I think that that's just a foregone conclusion. That's like a celebration of that pin in totality of everybody that's worked on it. And that's something that people that if they really dig their LE, they're going to frame that and put it up on the wall. Why not do something like that? And then what about putting a topper? Including a topper? Yeah, including it. What about like an airbrush motorcycle jacket and helmet?
    107:24
    What? How about a golf cart? What does a golf cart do? I'm just saying that's what they did in the Oblivion for. Oh, gosh. For Centaur. Yeah, we didn't even talk about Centaur. Hey, Venom's done one good thing. We totally forgot about Centaur.
    107:40
    Which really is nothing against Centaur, just a different, I don't know. I don't want to open that can of worms. We're running out of time. It's on a different continent. It's like out of sight, out of mind how it shows up. It's nothing against it. I'm with you. It's just not. Venom showed up. It got debuted. And then three days, four days later, it's on location for people to play. I mean, that's early bird gets the worm in terms of just eyeballs and everything. That's just how it goes. But, yeah, I don't know. Maybe adding a topper to an LE, that might be the margin, obviously would slim down really quick. I just wish that there would be – I think I want to see just more to these LEs overall.
    108:22
    Let's say they did that, though. If a stern topper is roughly $1,000, right now a stern LE is, what, $13,000? It's $12,500.
    108:31
    What is it? 13. 12.99. So if it's at 13, what if they went to 13.5, but now it's guaranteed you get the topper? Do you think that would? I think that would entice a lot more people if they could figure that out. To go between the premium and the low. Yeah. I don't think people necessarily, if they know a topper is coming with the game, that they have to have just an all-time great topper. It could be something very similar to what you're seeing in the background with Godzilla. It could be something that has a price point between $750 and $1,000. And if you could figure out how to work it into the bomb, cool. I mean, it's just figuring out if you're going to put out 1,000 LEs, you have to really – They probably figure the LE owner is going to buy the topper anyway, so why include it? Which is correct. Which is correct, but if you're not selling out of 1,000 LEs – True. But this is new. This is new, right? The not selling out of 1,000 LEs, this is a new problem. for the past few years but this is something we've been talking about privately that we knew was coming this was not unexpected at all it's not like that this is a giant surprise you know i don't know if i said this publicly on the podcast but i know the three of us have talked in private chats and i've been saying this for a few months now you could see this coming a mile away from everything slowing down from stern moving to a new facility the amount of dealers that there are that are out there. I mean, it's just, there's a lot of allocation out there and there's just a ton of supply and not as much demand. If it's going to happen at some point, just you find that ceiling. So with a thousand LEs, when you get a weaker theme on that, people aren't going to move as fast for it. They're just not. And the other thing that we don't know about, guys, we don't know how many people bought LE sight unseen, just saw pure speculation of the thought of not just flipping it, but knowing that they wouldn't lose any money whatsoever. So they felt completely comfortable buying it, playing it for a few months, and then sending it on its way. And now that you're in a situation in which the supply exceeds the demand, that variable is gone. That ship has sailed. It's just the way it is. I definitely knew people like that. I mean, they're streamers where it's like they know they're going to buy a game just to stream it for whatever, four or five months. and what, you know, for the last few years, what game made the most sense that you would make the most money, potentially, when you sold it. It always made sense to get the LE. And, yeah, so things are changing. But, I mean, at the end of the day, I'm glad we have, you know, we're continuing to make cool games. I think this is super unique and innovative. I can't wait to see how well this game plays or how it's received. Unfortunately, I think we have a decent bit of time before games. actually show up. So I think they said early August, which really is not, it's like a week away. Late. Late August is when? Late August. Because they have to move. Because Stern is moving to the new facility. So you're going to see these games still being at. It's going to be at least a month. Yeah, you're going to see them at different areas. I think they're going to be at Southern Fried Gaming Expo this upcoming weekend. And I imagine you'll see it at a couple other places leading up to it. But yeah, I don't expect to see these on location for a few more weeks until at the earliest mid-August, then that's being generous. You're probably a month out, yeah. So for the next few weeks, I would assume we're going to be light on news. It's just kind of a wait-and-see situation. But, yeah, wow, we devoted a full two hours to one topic.
    112:08
    And I think that says a lot. I think that says a lot about the game. Sorry, everybody. We can totally talk about Centaur now. We've got a couple of minutes. I don't know what there is to talk about, but we can. I think it looks beautiful. I can say that. And if you're a Centaur fan, I mean, this is going to be a ridiculously amazing version of the game. I know Sean with Pride Pinball, he had bought a Fathom and has just nothing but amazing things to say about the quality of the game. So that's really what it comes down to is if you are that type of fan, if you are that big of a fan of that game, yeah, go for it. It's super expensive, though. But it's going to be this amazingly awesome version of that game, if that's something you're into.
    112:53
    I don't know. That's my thoughts. But I don't know if I'll ever play one or have a chance to. If somebody wants to give Joel a Centaur Pro, please do. Yeah, and I'll struggle through it. No, it'll be great. That is probably the dumbest thing I've ever said on this podcast, but it's, yeah, to be complaining about getting a Pro to stream. Nah, you said way down. Apparently I say I don't know. Apparently I say I don't know a lot. People pointed that out. I've been saying like a lot lately. I mean, if Zach wants to bring it here instead and save you from streaming the pro, I'm happy to do it. Apparently the drinking game with this, it used to be, I used to say that's fair a lot. And I found, I didn't realize I was saying that. So I've caught that. But now apparently I say I don't know. You literally don't know anything. I don't know. I really wanted to make a soundboard of all your I don't knows when you were talking to Keith on your other podcast. I think that would have been hilarious. Yep. I didn't realize that. Apparently that's my thing. Okay. It's endearing. It's fine. I can't talk and my camera doesn't work half the time. There you go. We all got our thing. It's beautiful all the time. It just is what it is. It just speaks to my mind. Yeah. But when you speak, it's calculated and it's meaningful. Yeah. You don't blab like Joel and I. Yeah. It's like 91% of things we're saying. Nobody got the time for that. Yeah. I'm the one talking to those and I don't know anything.
    114:28
    You can reiterate that all the time too. At least I'm honest. All right. That needs to be the name of the podcast. I don't know. I really hope that I don't know is a great game. I really do. And I, you know, I could change my mind on it. Yeah. I hope you do, Tom, because my kids, they got to go to college, Tom. Instead of mine, that's part of the problem.
    114:56
    All right. Well, let's plug it up. Tom, go for it. Fox Cities Pinball. You can send all your hate mail to tripledrainpinballpodcast. Tripledrain.com.
    115:11
    Wonderful. Well, thank you, Tom. As always, for being here. Thanks. Travis, go for it. Yeah, you guys can find me on this podcast at Triple Drain, and I'm finally back to doing YouTube videos pretty soon. Oh. Yeah, over on TPC. So you can find me there talking about different, I don't know, pinball stuff. That's what I do. TPC is the pinball company. The pinball company. So check that out. On YouTube.
    115:37
    Travis and I are tinkering with some YouTube shorts with this podcast. So hopefully we don't know yet if that'll go on our YouTube, which is Triple Drain. Search that. We actually have a YouTube channel. I think we have a whopping six subscribers.
    115:51
    But we've just had it just in case we want to use it. Otherwise, we may be going through the pinball network. Obviously, that's where a lot of people see these videos. Don't know. We're trying to figure that out. But, yeah. And my name is Joel. I do the Flip Out stream every Wednesday night from 10 to midnight. So check that out. Flipping out with friends, fun conversations there. Hopefully having another interview lined up here soon-ish. I don't know. We haven't set a time, but that should be fun. And then – Who is it? Trying to get, you know, Brian Eddy. Trying to get him on again. But he's not nearly as talkative as some of the other designers. So we'll see if that happens. Yeah.
    116:33
    But I do know Dwight Sullivan has been on some of our chatting stream, and he's already mentioned that he'd like to be on stream or is happy to be a part of stream whenever I get the game. So that would be a good time.
    116:45
    Yeah, so definitely check all those out. We have a Patreon. Thank you to all of our Patreon supporters. Really appreciate you guys for supporting us. And then obviously check out Zazzle if you want a sweet lunchbox or Silver Ball Swag if you want any of that merch. But I think that's it. So like always, Tom, you get the last words.
    117:04
    Thanks.