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Episode 89 - Replacing Munsters

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 32m·analyzed·Jun 3, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Deep Root announces fall 2019-summer 2020 timeline; Coast to Coast Pinball ends; Tony acquires two System 80 games.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers hosts Tony and Dennis discuss recent pinball acquisitions (Super Orbit and Jaxx), the closure of Nate Shivers' Coast to Coast Pinball podcast, production updates on Cosmic Carnival by Suncoast Pinball, and significant timeline announcements from Deep Root regarding Zidware claimants and the Five Days of Deep Root release window (Fall 2019 to Summer 2020). The hosts debate Deep Root's competitive timing rationale and express mixed expectations about the long-delayed company's delivery.

Key Claims

  • Nate Shivers has ended Coast to Coast Pinball podcast after moving to Europe and experiencing declining frequency

    high confidence · Dennis directly states Nate 'has finally called it quits' and notes frequency declined after move to Europe, with warning signs like excessive statements about loving the show

  • Deep Root announced Five Days of Deep Root will release between Fall 2019 and Summer 2020

    high confidence · Direct quote: 'sometime between fall 2019 and summer 2020, the five days of Deep Root will happen and Raza will be for sale'

  • June 28th, 2019 is the deadline for Zidware claimants to choose monetary benefits or extended delivery date

    high confidence · Dennis states: 'by June 28th, 2019, so later this month, Zidware claimants will be able to take monetary benefits or they will have the option to extend the delivery date'

  • Raza prototypes will be available for play at Houston Arcade Expo on November 15-16, 2019

    high confidence · Dennis: 'November 15th and 16th of 2019 at the Houston Arcade Expo, they have indicated that there will be several...Raza...prototypes available for play'

  • Cosmic Carnival production is underway with playfields being cut and cabinets in various assembly states

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Production is underway. Suncoast Pinball, the manufacturer, has shared some of the photos of the cabinets. They were in various states of assembly...playfields were also being cut'

  • Tony acquired two System 80A games in one week: Super Orbit and Jaxx to Open

    high confidence · Tony describes purchasing Super Orbit after Pinnapalooza and Jaxx to Open the following week, both System 80 games

  • Dennis believes most Zidware claimants will choose to wait for machines rather than take cash compensation

    medium confidence · Dennis states: 'I don't think most will, if I were to guess' when asked about cash-outs, though he acknowledges uncertainty

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm not surprised that he reached this conclusion. I'm just surprised it took as long as it did.”

    Dennis @ ~20:00 — Dennis's measured assessment of Nate Shivers' departure from Coast to Coast Pinball, noting warning signs had been visible

  • “It needs a home, man. This pin needs a home. Every pinball needs a family.”

    Tony @ ~12:00 — Tony's justification for adopting Jaxx to Open despite already full game room, showing emotional attachment to rescuing machines

  • “Fall 2019 through summer 2020 is a huge range...that's over a year if you go all the way to the end of true definition of seasonal summer.”

    Dennis @ ~38:00 — Dennis expressing skepticism about Deep Root's vague release timeline and what it suggests about their actual production status

  • “I went there just for that. I skipped my wife's birthday.”

    Tony @ ~42:00 — Tony revealing the significance of Deep Root's missed TPF deadline—he specifically traveled expecting to see the games

  • “Because this is basically watching me play around with a design of a ship and then go, nah, let's wait another month to see if I get any new tech research”

    Dennis @ ~9:00 — Dennis humorously describing the spreadsheet-heavy gameplay of Rule the Waves 2, contrasting it with pinball's visual appeal

Entities

Nate ShiverspersonDeep RootcompanyJohn PapadukepersonSuncoast PinballcompanyTonypersonDennispersonCoast to Coast PinballorganizationCosmic Carnivalgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Coast to Coast Pinball podcast ended after declining frequency post-European relocation

    high · Dennis notes Nate's move to Europe caused frequency decline and warning signs ('talk about how much you love doing it') preceded closure

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Dennis highly regards Coast to Coast Pinball as best single-host pinball show despite closure; community will miss it

    medium · Dennis: 'I enjoyed listening to the show. It's actually my favorite single host pinball show. I don't think anyone else has pulled it off to the degree that Nate has been able to'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Deep Root citing 'competitive reasons' for vague release timeline; questioned whether pinball industry actually operates on first-week sales pressure like video games

    medium · Dennis notes Deep Root stated 'this was because of competitive reasons with other companies' but expresses skepticism about relevance in pinball market

  • ?

    event_signal: Raza prototypes scheduled for Houston Arcade Expo November 15-16, 2019; Deep Root selecting Texas venue near home base

    high · Dennis: 'Houston makes sense to me for Deep Root, because for those that don't know, Deep Root is a Texas-based company'

  • $

    market_signal: Collectors in Kansas City area purchasing new releases frequently and turning inventory rapidly; suggests active secondary market

    medium · Dennis notes Kansas City collectors 'get every...new' game and 'must be selling off that stuff' due to storage constraints

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.278

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 2nd. This is episode 89. I am Tony. And I am Dennis. We're back, Tony. We're back. It feels like it's only been... Back in black. Sorry. So you almost sounded just like Angus, except not. Except not. But it's the thought that counts. I'm prettier. Well, yes. Yes, you are. Yes.
0:42
So, okay. Well, it has been two weeks. It's not just a feeling. It's more than a feeling. What? You're not chiming in? Okay. No, that's okay. Maybe you would like to chime in with your introduction. We'll let that one float. I You've been so busy You missed the 403 Club tournament again I did miss the 403 Club tournament again I felt kind of bad about that one but with The art house is a complete and utter disaster And with The game night coming up Next week I concentrated on getting it Cleaned up You had it ready for bottle Right I have my Nice little reading finally put together Because of the with the lazy boy I got from you and I bought an end table at a garage sale a month ago that is an almost identical match to my nice big table that folds out and it's got the leather top. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's almost identical match to it. So, I picked up an end table to match it. So, I've got that set over there by the chair now.
1:54
I'm figuring out where I'm going to put my pinball wizard thing up. We're in debate. Tell about that. We had a pinnapalooza last weekend. We had a pinnapalooza last weekend which we attended and they had a raffle. They were raffling off a pinball machine. An EM Superstar. Thank you. I didn't remember.
2:18
I bought raffle tickets for it because the money that was going past the cost of the machine and stuff was going to be donated to animal shelter type stuff. Yeah, I wasn't aware at the time what they had chosen as a charity. Right. Otherwise, I would have probably been more generous than zero. Yeah. But maybe not. I don't know. I do. Where would I fit another pinball machine? We'll get to that later. Continue, though. So, I didn't win the pinball machine, but I did win a giant pinball wizard sign thing. So I've been trying to figure out where to put it in the house. I've got three options right now and I think I'm going to I think I've decided which one I'm going to go with. But it's heavy enough that I'm going to have to go get better mounting brackets than command hooks. Oh really? I think so. Yeah. Actually remind me when we're done recording I have some spare hooks that I use to hang play fields. Okay. I bought a whole kit. That's like way overkill but that'll be fine. Well you can have one. Right. I still have one that can hold a 25-pounder or a 50-pounder or something. So, yeah, it came as a whole kit. So I was like, what do I do with all these? I had one play field, and I used two 15-pounders for it or something like that. I overkilled it, too, and I was like, oh, well, I just had so much of that hardware, and I still do. Yeah, I see that. I'll give you that. It's in the drawer over by where you're sitting, actually, so that'll be easy enough.
Raza (Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland)game
Five Days of Deep Rootevent/product
Super Orbitgame
Jaxx to Opengame
Zidwarecompany
Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
Houston Arcade Expoevent
Pinball Expo (Chicago)event
Rule the Waves 2game
Gottliebcompany
Black Knight: Sword of Ragegame
Matt Robertsperson
  • $

    market_signal: Tony acquired two System 80A games with second machine having boot/connector issues; concerns about game room space saturation

    medium · Tony notes game room was 'already full with seven' and acquiring additional machines creates logistics challenges

  • ?

    announcement: Cosmic Carnival by Suncoast Pinball moving to production with targeted June 2019 release

    high · Dennis: 'Production is underway...there are evidence that the line...playfields were also being cut...they're trying to make their plan to have some actually released this month'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Deep Root pushed Five Days release window to Fall 2019-Summer 2020, well beyond original March 2019 TPF target

    high · Dennis: 'We were supposed to see the games back in March, originally, at TPF. So the thought was they were going to actually be able to get these games to people by then. That isn't happening.'

    • 3:49
    Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, because that sign was massive. There was a guy who tried to buy it off you. He did. Tell about the guy and how you broke his dreams.
    3:57
    I said no. Yeah, but I like how you drew it out because you were like, well, I don't know. I have so many good places I could hang it. I'm not convinced you have any good places that you could hang it. You made me sound evil. No, we said it all sweet. I did say it all sweet. Like how you're talking right now. I am sweet. I am a wonderful person. Yeah, no, I kept it. Yeah.
    4:20
    It's mine. I want it. And we shared a photo of it on Eclectic Gamers Podcast's Facebook page. Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. And you can see Tony wrote. It even gave me, when I was administering the page later in the week, this, hey, why don't you share this? Look at this cool filter where it had you and the sign in color and the rest of it blackened out. And I was like, no, we don't need to build it up any more than it is.
    4:49
    It was cool looking. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So, yeah, I'm real happy with that. Other than that, like I said a couple weeks ago, Rule the Waves 2 came out. And that game has pretty much been the only game I've played for the last two weeks. And I'm still playing my first game of it. Oh. And sometimes I've been playing it for like three or four hours at a night. You could stream it.
    5:16
    I could. I don't know that anybody would want to watch it It's one of my Excel games basically Ah Well that would give them a good taste for it It's something to definitely consider People watch pinball how could they not watch Spreadsheets in space Or in seas It's valid There's a market for everyone There's way more interesting stuff going on in the pinball to watch I guess I don't know I did one screen this last week Firepower of all games which isn't a very deep game. Because this is basically watching me play around with a design of a ship and then go, nah, let's wait another month to see if I get any new tech research that will make this better. But just describe the whole process before you delete it, and that's the entertainment. Yeah, there's the, yeah. That's the entertainment. We'll see about it. We'll see. Okay. I played a little bit of Red Dead Redemption since our last podcast, so I'm trying to get back. Well, I was. And then now there's a new Overwatch event So I've been doing arcade mode Trying to get skins Yeah, I have two skins so far It's very sad I have one Maybe I only have one Maybe I dreamed that I had two Well, I think I have one like I didn't want Most of them are cool though I don't have any of the ones I wanted So, since I've got enough coins saved up to buy one Yeah, no I only had to buy one from the last event. I probably could buy two legendaries at this point. But there are three at least I want. First world Overwatch problems. I know.
    6:55
    Got a couple more days. Yeah, we still have a little bit of time. Let's see. The day after Penapalooza, I went and picked up a new pinball machine.
    7:05
    So this one was only about an hour away. It's a System ADA game I wasn't familiar with called Super Orbit. Apparently a solid state version of an EM called Orbit. I guess now it's Super. I was confused what made it Super. I guess it just gives you more points for everything is what's so super about it. I've never had an ADA before. But the person who was selling it, my dad saw this listing through Pennside. It was actually on Facebook. It was in a group I'm not a member or wasn't a member of. But you are now. I am now. So I could communicate with the seller. And they were in the process of moving. And so they wanted to sell the pen, which they noted had a few issues. And they also had a stand-up arcade game called Millipede. And I don't do arcade games. But it was a package deal sort of thing. So went out there, picked up the game. It was a 90-minute process. The seller had noted that when they moved into the house, they had already owned these two games. And the movers moved them intact. So we lowered the – these System ADA games are on hinged back boxes. So we lowered the back box, and the guy had a dolly. So we didn't bring my dolly, and he had a bigger dolly. But they have that type of stairwell that turns 180 degrees at a landing. Oh, yeah, those are terrible. And so even though the pinball machine wasn't difficult to move, it was difficult to turn, even on the dolly. And his walls did get scuffed up, and Telly was upset about it. Granted, he was helping, and it was unfortunate, so I apologized, of course. But hey, this is what happens when you put games downstairs in the basement and you want common folk like me to try and move them.
    9:00
    The millipede was awful. again, I don't know anything about arcade games. And in his listing, he had a price, and he's like, it was for both together. And he even asked a question, what is this stuff worth? And it's like, I checked the Pinside market average on Super Orbit, nothing. So I don't know.
    9:22
    And I didn't even know anything about Millipede. And so I just, I responded to him. I said, look, your price is good to me. I have absolutely no idea what your Millipede's worth. I was comfortable with the price for the pen because the pen from his description was mostly working so I thought I wouldn't take a bath I mean it is a Gottlieb so you have to bear in mind you're never going to get a lot of money out of it the millipede that must be 400 pounds or something we moved it assembled three of us just a step, a step, a step at one point the seller who has pretty severe arthritis he was trying to help and my dad's at the top on the dolly. He's the one pulling back and we're at the bottom. We had to stop on various stairs and just prop it against our legs and rest. I am sweating. I am panning so hard. Guy looks over at me. I think he thought I was asthmatic because I'm just like, I wasn't trying to hide. Normally I would try and hide that. You know, you gotta be strong in front of these people. You can't show weakness. I didn't care. I was just like, he's like, are you all right? I'm like, I'm just tired, man. I'm just tired. At this point, I'm just like, can we just drop this down your stairs? You keep the money I paid you. I keep the pinball machine. And you figure this out. I don't really care about Millipede. I really don't care about Millipede.
    10:44
    And I didn't want to drop it because it was already working. And so we got it up there. Got it loaded in the truck. They both fit. and so anyway, I hurt for three days afterwards. Well, because when we were resting on the stairwell, the pressure actually on the leg I was propping against I was pressing against my Achilles tendon. That was what I was using to hold up the pin. Or not the pin. The pin was easy. Hold up the arcade game. So did that. Got that. Actually I have some of my parts like the ring kit ordered and stuff. Now I probably I have to modify, though, because I went today down to southern Kansas and bought another System 80 project called Jaxx to Open. And I shared that link with you and a few other people yesterday. It was listed. And I thought that, again, it wasn't anger. It was more, what do I have to do here? It needs a home, man. This pin needs a home. Every pinball needs a family. Didn't we learn that from Deep Root? And so it's like, okay, fine. I'll adopt this pen. And now I'm running out of room because my game room was already full with seven. And so my dad's Black Knight is in the garage up against the wall. I used to, for those that don't know, back before I podcast, my pinball machines for about four years were in the garage. I had them lined up. And I had at one point four in there. So now I have three in there. I've made space beside the shelf. So they're not as far over as they used to be. They're actually up against the wall. But you'd need to move them out of the way to get into the game room with a game if you were to coffin carry them like I like to do. So not, I mean, it's just annoying.
    12:35
    So I don't know. Jack Stopen needs a little bit of work. He noted it was being squirrelly on boot. It booted for us there. It's not booting right now. Connector issue, he'd noted. There's something, the power board looks like it had maybe been worked on at some point. Someone had grounding modded this. the boards didn't have individual grounds when Gottlieb sold them. So it's recommended that you add ground grounds to each individual board. Because the problem would be if one board failed, your ground connection would fail. It would cascade. So I don't know why they did it that way. But mistakes were made. That's the point. That's part of the rap that people have with Gottlieb solid state games. So anyway, so two new pins in a week. it's very atypical they both happen to be system ADA games not even ADBs no no I've never had an ADB and I've never had a system one and now I'm stuck with a millipede so I don't know what's going on I'm actually in talks with someone to get rid of the millipede whether that births a new pen we will see but I'm not looking at my phone right now We were up until this point. We're not going to know that. But if someone wants a millipede, there you go. Take it. Huge old stand-up piece of millipede. It's way better than centipede. That's what everyone told me. It's way better than centipede. It's way better. So you know what's way better than centipede in addition to millipede? Talking about pinball news. Our first big thing. I know. It was kind of clunky. But there's not a lot of news to talk about this week. I know that's a shock to you. It's probably a shock to everyone in pinball. So let's start with Cosmic Carnival. We talked about that a little bit last time we were on the air. Production is underway. Suncoast Pinball, the manufacturer, has shared some of the photos of the cabinets. They were in various states of assembly. so there are evidence that the line I'm not air quoting I don't know if they really are doing a true line or what but they're building so they're trying to I guess make their plan to have some actually released this month because we're in June now and that was their plan was to get them out in June at least some out in June and okay so some of that physical assembly is going on and they noted in that play fields were also being cut. So they're moving along well. They're moving right along. What's not moving right along is Coast to Coast Pinball, where Nate Shivers, the host of Coast to Coast Pinball, has finally called it quits. I say finally not because I'm glad that Coast to Coast Pinball is gone, because I enjoyed listening to the show. It's actually my favorite single host pinball show. I don't think anyone else has pulled it off to the degree that Nate has been able to in the single host format. I noting to all people that I do have a bias towards multi host shows. I think they're better overall anyway. Yeah. Because of the interaction. Right. Because otherwise it's just a guy talking to a blank room. Right. But he does it really well. Right. I think other people kind of struggle, can struggle for content or they have to be very, very scared. It's like when I did my standalone episode, which last I looked at the stats, by the way, Don, formerly of the Pinball Podcast, now of Gaming on 10, aside, it's our least listened to episode. FYI and I don't blame anyone for it was like 20 minutes of blah it was 20 minutes of me going done put it in a can ready to roll so anyway but ever since he moved to Europe the frequency went way down and of course there were the warning signs to me are things like when you do it you talk about how much you love doing it you talk about how much you still It's like, who are you trying to convince sort of stuff. So I wasn't really surprised that he reached this conclusion. I'm just surprised it took as long as it did.
    16:47
    And he noted he's still going to do stuff in pinball. It's just, I don't know what. He's not announcing it yet. It sounded like it would be a few months away before we would know. So we'll see what his new endeavor is. Most of what he's applied himself to has been pretty entertaining, I think. Yeah, no, it's been great. I look forward to it. But I have unsubscribed from the RSS feed. I've got to free up that space. Yeah, because you're running out of RSS space. I don't like to, hey, it takes time for the phone to search through all those RSSs.
    17:17
    What, a second? Well, like five, maybe ten. Depends how many of these other people are out there using, which one is the crappy one? Podcast Garden? Quit using Podcast Garden. Holy crap, that thing's RSS thing is down every other week. And I just get all these little warning exclamation points. Couldn't connect, couldn't connect, couldn't connect. It's like half my pinball podcast. So I'm like, guys, I know they're like the only one that's under $100 a year, but go to archive.org or something if you need a free solution. Where I don't think you're allowed to re-upload is the issue, so if you screw up your episode, it's not out there. Yeah, you're just kind of. But I'm just, I mean, we did ours originally free through Google Drive. Yeah, back when they allowed that. Yeah, there was a way with how the links worked, and that's why we still actually do FeedBurner for our RSS feed, because all I do is point it to SoundCloud.
    18:08
    Well, you know, there are a number of podcasts over with SoundCloud. Our podcast follows them on SoundCloud, and I see their episodes come out, but I'm not pushing a particular one. I'm just pushing anything that doesn't always have their RSS feed down, please.
    18:21
    And Nate was with them, too. Oh, Nate, if you're going to ever do anything with RSS, don't use them anymore. You got to change. You got to move on up. Go to Lipson or something.
    18:31
    The last bit of pinball news is Deep Root. And I have a link in the show notes to their website. And the reason I have done that is because they have posted a fairly sizable update there. I'm not going to read it aloud because by now, if you're in pinball, you should know how to read. You would hope. I would hope. I hope for a lot of things that aren't true in pinball. But just the thought of you reading that aloud made me yawn like that. Yes. Yes, it made me as well in my soul. And what I'm going to do, though, is I'm going to summarize some of what I think are the highlights, and we can have a discussion about what's going on. Because this is the first really substantive update with timelines that we've had since their announcement in 2018 that they weren't going to be making TPF for the five days of Deep Root. Right. And it's not been radio silence since then, but it's been pretty quiet. So here are what we know. They have indicated that by June 28th, 2019, so later this month, Zidware claimants will be able to take monetary benefits or they will have the option to extend the delivery date for their machine compensation per the agreements that they signed. so they've also noted they being deep root that no new claims are going to be recognized after that date so June 28th is the deadline to become a claimant and wasn't the deadline coming up for that anyway the deadline is not new yeah it's a reminder so this is nothing new the language of the agreement and it's been a long time since I've read it when it first came out I did go through the whole thing I believe it indicated that June 28th 2019 was supposed to be the date for those games to go out and actually get in the hands of anyone. And for those that don't recall, Zidware was John Papaduke's company where he failed to deliver on a lot of pre-ordered games. And so what ended up happening is because Deep Root has hired John Papaduke, they chose to offer an option for people to basically send proof of purchase. and they would provide a compensation mechanism. And in exchange, those claimants would no longer have any legal recourse against John Papaduke or Zidware. Deep Root was buying them out of their complaint, essentially. Basically, yeah. And so, well, we were supposed to see the games back in March, originally, at TPF. So the thought was they were going to actually be able to get these games to people by then. That isn't happening. their terms said that if they failed there would be a cash option but also if you still wanted the game you could agree to wait longer so that's going to be the and I don't remember if the dollar deal it was probably better to wait for the machine value wise but I don't remember what the differential was so yeah nothing really new there just a reminder I don't know if it was ever specified initially probably was about what date you had to get your, how to become a claimant through Deep Root. But they need to draw a line at some point. Right. No, you can't just be a forever thing. So, the next point. This is new. November 15th and 16th of 2019 at the Houston Arcade Expo, they have indicated that there will be several. Raza, which is Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland. It was a Zidware planned game that John Papaduke had worked on,
    22:12
    there will be prototypes, several prototypes available for play. I believe the Houston Arcade Expo goes up against the Chicago Expo. I think they're at the same time. It's one of those scenarios. There's a show in California that no one goes to. I'm being inaccurate. I know people like Jeff Rivera go to it. But it's up against Replay FX where Pinberg is.
    22:36
    So no one good goes. Let's phrase it that way instead, because I'm sure I can't defend anyone by saying that.
    22:44
    So that was what I've heard. Houston makes sense to me for Deep Root, because for those that don't know, Deep Root is a Texas-based company, so it would be easier for them to get games there. So that's a new thing. That's a new deadline with a reveal for one game.
    23:00
    The third point, major point. They're not up against each other. Are they not? Okay. They're a month apart. Oh! Houston is in November Oh I glad you checked This is what I get for trusting Pennside Thanks Pennside They next to each other Next to each other next month What a bunch of crap Pinball Expo is October 16th to the 20th, 2019 and Houston is what did you say? November 15th and 16th. Well, okay. Then there'll be a good opportunity for a lot of people. I don't know how big the Houston show is. I don't know. I mean, I don't know that it's not against Expo, where I consistently said age small. Apparently not anymore.
    23:45
    The third major bullet point from Deep Root was that sometime between fall 2019 and summer 2020, the five days of Deep Root will happen and Raza will be for sale.
    24:00
    Those are the major points. So I thought Let's have a discussion About what does any of this mean What do we think any of this means As a reminder It may have been when I was guest hosting On This Week in Pinball But I have made a prediction That there would be some games sold Or I should say shipped To people who were bought Because they're planning to do it within two weeks By the end of the year I thought there would actually be games by the end of the year That's still possible with this time frame but fall fall capital f fall 2019 through summer 2020 is a huge range yeah that's a massive that's over a year if you go all the way to the end of the true definition of seasonal summer we're not even in true summer yet so it's over a year away from true summer and i mean obviously fall is a little over a quarter of a year away. So I don't know. I don't know what to think. I'm not interested in the claimant stuff. I think that was all boilerplate, had to happen. So that is what it is. That's just following through on those obligations. There will probably be a few people that will take the cash out. I don't think most will, if I were to guess. I would think not, but you never know. Yeah, there might be some that at this point, especially if they've been annoyed for some reason about how Deep Root is handling things. They might now have lost confidence and walk away, but I just don't think most people are in that boat.
    25:38
    The Houston Arcade Expo sounds fine for a prototype reveal. Regular real expo, Chicago Expo, would obviously be a bigger audience.
    25:47
    But if they're still planning to, I mean, if the prototypes are ready for Houston, and they can still bring those prototypes to Texas. And Texas is just Expo but better. Right. In every way, shape, and form. So I don't really see any harm in whatever show they choose to launch at because they'll still be able to do stuff at TPF in March. Right, which is going to be, I think, the better place for them to do it anyway. Which I did go this week and book our hotel room. Yeah, I got that. Back at the hotel that you all liked. I know. I prefer to go to a hotel. Okay, that's fair. That's fair enough, I suppose, even though my cell phone doesn't like to work in it. Maybe you need a new phone. Maybe they need a new hotel. Did you think that maybe it's on them to cater to the client? What's concierge if it isn't to cater to my GPS? It's actually my GPS that doesn't want to work on the phone. But it makes sense. The listeners agree with me. They agree with me. Maybe it was just because we were on the backside of the hotel and that parking garage was getting in the way. Maybe. I haven't noticed. well you know Dennis I don't know anything Houston's only 11 hours one way so much further holy crap I know right isn't that insane Texas is big wow it's just like for those that don't know it's an 8 hour drive for us to get to Dallas yeah so it's not oh god 11 hours I can barely fathom doing it in a day I mean I know mathematically it's possible because it's not even half a day but it sounds very painful it would be rough to go stand in line to play a prototype and turn around and come back. I'm afraid that once we pass the 10-hour mark, that might be where I insist that it has to be a flight.
    27:31
    Just to, I mean, I don't know. But do you have any thoughts on this range for the five days of Deep Root? And there were more, again, go to their website to learn more. There was an indication there that this was because of competitive reasons with other companies so they don't have a good sense as to exactly when Deep Root will roll out the games. Right. And I get that. I don't know. How many companies do you think will be planning around Deep Root's release schedule? Like, I don't think Stern cares, but maybe that wasn't who was met. Maybe it was like J.J.P. or like if J.J.P. knew that Deep Root was going to unveil in November. I don't really think that anybody should care. Well, what should happen and what does happen, though. True. I mean, you know, I kind of get it. I mean, like let's think on the video game side. It's helpful to EA to know when Call of Duty is coming out so that Battlefield doesn't come out the same week. but I don't see but that's like from a self preservation standpoint each company thinks about that sort of stuff no one wants to release against a rockstar game because you're going to be decimated but there's no sabotage to it does pinball really have this thing like in video games where the first week sales are so important because they're so much higher than everything else it might here's the thing that's about pinball that and it's weird for me because i'm not that sort of buyer at least in pinball i'm not and that is the whole notion of a lot of collectors are driven by the shine the big shiny i gotta get whatever's shiny and new and then they just turn through game and we have collectors here in the kansas city area that are like that they get they like get every it feels like they get everything new they must be selling off that stuff i can't there's only so much storage space Just ask my garage.
    29:40
    And it's, I wonder. So I'm not saying there's not any validity to that, but wouldn't just saying like you're going to release in, let's say you said it was fall 2019. That's a three month range, roughly. Yeah, three month range. That's pretty broad. I mean, yeah. If that was as specific as you got, I would still assume you'd be relatively safe. because I mean we think about things like Black Knight Sword of Rage came out it had about a week to itself and then out came Wonka's reveal but the game's not out yet so it's like did Wonka sabotage Black Knight maybe initially but then if people are driven to own a new game you're stuck with Black Knight being your only choice for several months until Cosmic Carnival comes out because that's the next thing not Wonka Right. I mean, I don't know. But they are new. They may be wanting to play it safe. It used to be, I thought, a lot of companies released around the same time, but that was also back when you had three or four companies releasing four pins a year or whatever in the 90s. Yeah. I don't think it's something that's – I don't – Yeah, I think it's such a different situation. I don't think they launched in summer of 2020. Historically speaking, summer was the lowest sales months for pinball machines to operators. Now, maybe that's not quite the same with collectors, but we used to see in the used side a lot of people trying to acquire and unload games more around the wintertime for Christmas reasons. Get games for Christmas presents, sell games to have money to buy your family Christmas presents because you spent too much on pinball machines, things like that. But that's really the only news is Deep Root. Are you excited for Deep Root, Tony? Honestly, I am a little bit.
    31:38
    I'm mixed. I want to see because they've talked such a big game. Yeah, but once they missed the first five days at our TPF that we went special to. Right. I mean, I went there just for that. I skipped my wife's birthday. You did. to go to pinball. You did. And you still haven't heard the end of it. From yourself, mostly. But you still haven't heard the end of it. Mostly. And they didn't have a seminar there. They had a seminar at Expo, but they didn't have a seminar at TPF. I just love that. It just was strange to me. Yeah. And now they're having one in Houston, which is just... And they're based in San Antonio, isn't it? I think San Antonio. I just, I don't know. Not that I have any idea where that is. Well, that's really all I have for pinball news, though. So let's end our suffering and let's move on to, we have a couple of pinball discussion topics. We do. One that you had planned before, but we'll do that last because I want to tackle this more nebulous one first. This is the more nebulous one. Well, nebulous in that we already did some brainstorming on the next one because you brought it up. This one, all right, so this is from Matt Roberts, a listener of ours. He gave us our topic on mystery awards that we discussed and pop bumpers that we discussed. Right. Maybe I came up with the mystery award one. He gave us the pop bumpers one. Well, he's back, saving us yet again from a drought of news with topic discussion. So this time he wanted us to weigh in on jackpots. So I would like to quote from Mr. Roberts, if I may, so that we know yet again our parameters of discussion.
    33:30
    I don't know what he sounds like. I'm going to make him sound like this. What are your thoughts on unique rules regarding collecting jackpots? Sure, multiball is always fun, but sometimes it's even more fun. There are so many schemes, but here are a few of note that came to mind. Lord of the Rings, two towers, climbing value for combos to different shots, multiplied when three or four balls are in play. Scared Stiff Coffin Multiball, alternating jackpot shots. Transformers Megatron, shooting Megatron Scoop relights jackpot shots, but does not score a jackpot. Star Trek The Next Generation Borg Multiball, single, double, triple jackpots. Adam's Family collect a single or multiply jackpot then relight Ghostbusters light the super jackpot pretty much whenever Munsters zap jackpot combining and compounding supers other noteworthy jackpot rules exist for these machines Twilight Zone Whitewater Demolition Man Doctor Who ACDC Iron Maiden and Medieval Madness so Tony jackpots. Have you ever given much thought to jackpots? No. Nor have I. Not really. I didn't know there was like all this going through the notes I was like I just know occasionally the machine yells jackpot at me and it makes me happy. Yeah. I know that most of the time jackpots are with a multiball especially on older games where it usually was after you set up a certain number of shots. But I also am familiar with more than like I'm thinking Sharky's Shootout, for example.
    35:15
    Medieval Madness isn't a bad example either, which he did note where it seemed like every shot, major shot is lit for a jackpot. And like with Sharky's, you do say five of those and then there's one shot that's lit for super jackpot.
    35:29
    And also one thing that stood out to me was super jackpot. He mentioned Ghostbusters, but Trudeau had another game, Silver Slugger, where the jackpots aren't tied to multiball. They're actually available as a, it feels cheap to say common, but in Ghostbusters it does feel common, as a common way of just getting points, some allotment of points. Though the jackpots in Silver Slugger can be extremely lucrative. Because you can build it. Right. by using the spinner when it's lit to build jackpot.
    36:06
    I guess what... I like jackpots that make sense. So for me, I'm totally fine with jackpot not being in multiball.
    36:18
    But I... But I want it to always be worth a lot. I want it to be substantive. So that would be my stance. In my opinion, a jackpot, when you collect it, should be a significant percentage of score availability that's probably not available in any other means. So, for example, in Sharky's Shootout, while I'm not a huge fan of the every shot is a jackpot shot, at least the points it's giving make it worth your while. Well, what would you consider a lucrative part? I mean, would you... It just has to be, compared to what the average score is on a game, a jackpot should be more than 1% of that. Okay. How about that? Like, I don't want a jackpot. Like, with Ghostbusters, the jackpots are, like, teeny points. Right. I mean, unless you just build it up. But building it up, it takes so long. Sure. It's still not. Yeah. So, for example, he brought up the zap jackpot in Munsters. I was playing Munsters several times yesterday in tournament. Little buttons flashing. I'm hitting a little button. I'm getting a zap jackpot. And they're not, I don't think they were very many points. like 100,000 points. It's like, okay, well, maybe that's okay if your Munsters game is 10 million points, but when I ended with 30, it sure didn't feel like the Zap Jackpots won me my game.
    37:43
    See, that's the thing. Well, they're constant. I don't think Jackpots should be constant. And that's where, even though I like the scoring on Sharky Shootout, I don't actually like the Jackpots. Because when you're in multi-ball, every shot's a jackpot. and then after you hit five of any shot,
    38:00
    well, maybe some of them unlight after a little while, so that's good. Then you have to hit the right orbit, inner or outer, for the super. That's kind of hard, and I like that. I like that aspect. So I like jackpots that lead to super jackpots. And I'm okay with the jackpots being less valuable if you can build to a super that is.
    38:21
    So it's like if you're in the multiball play long enough and you're just like, you finally get to have a super jackpot. And it sounds awesome. It better be worth awesome points, though. Otherwise, why is it super jackpot? Super jackpot. 50,000. Right. I've got 120 million. What do I care about 50,000? Exactly. And so, but there's a balance there, too, because I also don't like games where the way to win is going to multiple.
    38:48
    I don't. And maybe that's part of it. Besides his bad layout, that's probably part of the problem I have with Hobbit is this is like a multiball game. And I prefer mode games, single ball mode games, where it's not always... If you want to bring in a multiball, I like that. That's fun. But I don't want it to be, oh, we're just trying the whole goal is to light and start multiball, and then you get all your points. And a lot of older games, that's how it was. Now that was sort of before jackpots, too. That was sort of like because there were playfield multipliers and stuff that only existed when you were in multiball. Now, here's an idea that is partially stolen because I know on specifically on Ghostbusters, there's a specific skill shot to just add 10% of your score to your score.
    39:41
    What if you had a game that had a jackpot that was built similarly, that as you build the jackpot it was literally building a percentage of your current score so that when you scored it, you earned a percentage of your current score. So if you were having a good game, you would get more than if you were having a bad game.
    40:00
    I don't like it competitively. Yeah, it wouldn't be great competitively. Just for interesting reasons. Well, I mean, in single-player play, I probably have quite a bit of fun with it.
    40:14
    But, I mean, because I'm thinking of balance. While people don't like catch-up features, like mystery awards that give you 20 million points on a game which has an average score of 7 million.
    40:27
    I also think there's an issue with percentile awards or things that, and there are some good games that do this, but, well, Brom Stoker's Dracula is a good case in point. Bats and Rats, you better get them ball one, because if you didn't and someone else did, every bonus they get is millions and millions of points at the end of the ball. How do you come back on ball three from that? you can. And even games like, there are just a lot of games where your initial bonus carries over, and that's what that's like. So a jackpot shot that's percentile based, I probably,
    41:05
    overall, I wouldn't want it, I guess, even though I would enjoy it in the single player experience. No, I just, I don't. It's not worth it. I don't like where it makes the game, competitively, it's too I mean, I don't want to catch up feature but i also don't like it when people who have one great ball because it happened on ball one rather than ball three and this is almost with the percentage thing it's kind of like okay well you're already dominating so i guess screw the rest of you guys we're just going to grind you into dirt with one shot now whereas if you're doing terrible and you had a 10 jackpot what does that mean right it's like now the mode didn't wasn't even smart now if you had other things, and you would, maybe that gets interesting from a choice perspective. Like, if you're dominating your game, the 10% jackpot mode is your obvious thing to go do. And if someone else is like, that's not going to get me anywhere near enough points, I have to do something that just gives me raw points. It's raw. It's just raw points. But yeah, I'm not really keen on it. That just seems like a way to cheese your way onto the leaderboard if you're having a decent game. Now all of a sudden things just blow up even bigger. But it's all a balance. That's part of the challenge with playfield multipliers and stuff. Now there's one I'll ask you about. What if there was a jackpot shot? Could be tied to a multi-ball. Could not be tied to a multi-ball. And the jackpot reward isn't points, but it's like double playfield scoring for 30 seconds.
    42:40
    That's your jackpot. Jackpot that's not points, but it's a major scoring advantage, but it's timed. I actually kind of like that. So something like that. Because I do like things where you're playing the game and it lights. Playfield multiplying, playfield score. In fact, he referenced the Lord of the Rings Two Towers mode, but I believe there's a there's this Golem multiball in that game. And when you're in Golem multiball, every six seconds it switches between, is he Golem or is he Schmeagle. When it's Schmeagle, it's double scoring. When it's Golem, it's half.
    43:20
    So you could actually trap up and try and... Obviously, you're getting points either way, but if you want to hit those really lucrative shots, you want Schmeagle on your side.
    43:31
    That's kind of cool. Even though Schmeagle doesn't have any friends. Nobody likes you. So, interesting, yeah. I actually haven't thought that much as well as we noted at the start. I haven't actually really put a lot of thought into jackpots. I'm pretty tolerant of most of how they are. It seems like on a lot of modern games, when all the main shots are lit and they just get you jackpots, I like if they're moving you towards the super. I'm not really that enthused about the individual regular jackpots, though. They just don't seem lucrative enough to be a big deal. But they're not imbalanced either, which is nice. You don't want to be... I don't ever really shoot for jackpots unless it's one of those games where when you're in multiball, they're huge. Well, he mentioned Medieval Madness. When I'm playing Medieval Madness, I don't usually shoot for the ramps when I'm in multiball. I'm usually trying to chip away at another castle. That's typically what I do then, too. But in Attack from Mars, I will go for those shots because not for the jackpots. I want the roving super shot, which I fail. but when I get it lit I get it I'm like yes I'm going to get me a super jet pot and you're gonna give up and then you don't I don't get the super but I win anyway because I'm so good or I like to believe that as well or not or then I just go for saucers and all the good players stare at me like that's so dangerous I'm like I know but you all are too scared to do it so I'm gonna try and do it and then if I get some saucers you're gonna lose and you're gonna be sad your total annihilation won't save you from me and my saucers. Look at my collection of saucers you were too scared to go for. How's that working out for you? I usually lose.
    45:16
    But when I win, it stings even more when some saucer wins. Stings. So, let's go to the segment that you came up with, and you brought this up on our last episode, about I don't remember, was it actually on the last episode or did we just talk about it after we got done recording? It might have been that. You know, it all blends. For those that weren't listening closely enough to the last episode or after the last episode, Tony mentioned that Munsters is such a terrible theme that pretty much anything else that was out on TV during that time would have been better.
    45:58
    So he came up with this concept, and this was outside of that. What if we were to play a game with listeners about trying to pick a replacement theme for Munsters? Now, so this is not all drawn out like how we used to do the tournaments. And we're not going to do 20 questions today. This is today's game. What we going to do is Tony has constructed a list He has 30 TV shows that were out around when Munsters 60 shows Basically late 50s to early 70s So that was his range He's already ruled out games that have had pinball machines So those aren't going to be on here We're going to narrow these down To two Yes you're going to get stuck with some of our picks But then we'll put up a Facebook poll At facebook.com Slash The Collected Gamers Podcast and you all will pick which of the two that we've narrowed it down to was worthy of actually being what Munsters ended up being. Right. It's the replace Munsters game because Munsters is not good. No. As a theme. So, Tony, it's your game. How do you want to run through this? I think that the best way is probably just to run through the 30 games, or the 30 games, the 30 possible games. the 30 shows, we'll just run through the list real quick, and then we can hit highlights on, because some of these are going to be pretty easy to rule out because they're going to be like the monsters. Okay. So we can rule them out pretty easily. Okay. Do you want to start going through the list now? Yeah, we'll start going through, and then once we rule a few of them out, we can go look more seriously at some of the others. Okay.
    47:39
    This list is in no particular order other than the order I found them. Andy Griffith Show. The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Wild Wild West, Get Smart, Mission Impossible, Hogan's Heroes, Big Valley, Dragnet, the 1967 version as opposed to Dragnet, the 1954 version. Okay. Or Dragnet, the 1980s version with Dan Aykroyd. That was a movie, though, so we wouldn't count that. That was a movie, that's true. Car 54, Where Are You? Bewitched, The Green Hornet, which didn't run nearly as long as I thought it did. I thought that show was on, but that was like a one-season show. I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, McHale's Navy, Hawaii Five-O,
    48:26
    My Favorite Martian, F Troop, Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, My Three Sons, Gummer Pile USMC, Ironsides, The Brady Bunch Flipper, Bonanza The Untouchables, Perry Mason Leave it to Beaver and Lassie Okay, here is where I would like to start, and let's see if you disagree with any of this The Big Valley F Troop Gomer Pyle and Ironsides, I do not know. And thus I propose getting rid of them because I don't know what any of those are.
    49:14
    Big Valley, F Troop, were... Big Valley, basically, Bonanza's going to be the better one of that. So do you agree to drop that one? Yeah, we can definitely... Go ahead and mark up our list. We'll go ahead and mark that list up. I'm just going to put a minus Roll it again We'll get rid of Big Valley for sure F Troop is just a comedy version Of the westerns that were so popular at the time Okay It was just a comedy western and I'm perfectly fine with getting rid of that I did actually watch that one Some Ironsides, I don't see any way that could be Made into a good pinball machine I didn't know before the start Tony actually summarized what it So I do know only because he told me just before we started recording Because Ironsides Is about a wheelchair-bound detective going after bad guys played by Raymond Burr. I have no earthly idea how you could possibly make a good pinball machine out of that. I do not know. I've never actually seen the show, but, yeah, I have no idea. But it was on the list. I'm fine with dumping that one. That's not a problem. Now, Gummer Pile. Gomer Pyle was actually a pretty funny... I've heard references to Gomer Pyle, but I don't know the show. Gomer Pyle is a spinoff from the Andy Griffith Show, with Gomer Pyle from the Andy Griffith Show joining the Marines. Okay. And it was a pretty funny show.
    50:53
    I'm fine taking it off the list because I don't know that it necessarily had anything that could work as well as some of the others. but yeah, no, it was just a continuation. It was like maybe our RFD. Okay. Which was also just a continuation of the Andy Griffith show, but not as good because yeah. Okay. Well, how about, yeah, this is going very much like a beast cast style. Oh yeah. No, it's full on. So, well, we haven't had any conflict yet. No. Since I went ahead and named four that I'd like to remove, how about you name four that you would like dropped? Okay. Flipper because when it comes to that whole animal helpful this and that Flipper's always going to lose to Lassie in my mind I agree and go ahead and remove it but I do want to point out that Jason Knapp of Knapp Arcade on Facebook is a huge fan of underwater themes and you're going to decimate or at least half this list because I think there's only one other water theme on the list technically Okay.
    52:02
    So bye-bye Flipper. That's my Flipper impression. Not so good. Andy McDowell had a great dolphin impression in that, what was that vanity project that Bruce Willis did? Hudson Hawk. Oh. Do you remember? No, I don't. He was the perfect dolphin. Anyway, sorry. Memories. Terrible movie. I don't recommend it to anyone.
    52:27
    Dig Bandai. I see no reason for Dig Bandai. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was he the one who always tripped over the... Yes. Okay.
    52:36
    The bash toy is too obvious. We can't go there. It would be. Let's see. My Three Sons. Oh, yeah. And honestly, leave it to Beaver. No, I agree. I don't think it would be. As fun as the You Were Mighty Rough on the Beaver callout would be. No, because Jersey Jack would do it, and it would be so... That's even too wholesome for Jack. It's way too wholesome. No. Okay. So there.
    53:07
    Eight gone already. All right. How about, I'd like, because we have 30, let's each drop one. Let's just each quickly propose one more to get rid of. I'm going to suggest my favorite Martian.
    53:23
    Yeah, I'm fine with that. Okay. That works. I'm going to be a bit more controversial. I'm going to go with the Untouchables. I think it was based off the movie from the 80s I agree the TV show from the 60s I don't think so no that's fine here's the surprise to me Perry Mason's still on this list here's the thing with well do we want to let's discuss Perry Mason since you brought it up the thing with me is that Perry Mason in my mind would have the picture it's like if they were to do the movie Clue they could do something like how they did Whodunit are you familiar with Whodunit and so you could have it well Clue was more of a mystery solving thing and so was Whodunit Perry Mason in theory if you didn't focus so much on the obviously you'd have a trial set up but he was always never mind as I try to think about it he wasn't really solving mysteries let's get rid of it never mind I thought maybe I could no he always won I'll even accept that as my trial that was a mutual Yeah, I don't see. Now, you know what could be good that's not on this list because the time frame wasn't right that I could see? Columbo. Oh, yeah. I could see doing some fun mystery stuff. Just one more thing. That's the ball save. Oh, yeah. Just one more thing. Yeah. That would be awesome. Oh, well.
    54:49
    I guess. Let's flip into the dropping. Let's each pick one that is one that we think could do very well. Let's pick five each. Five each.
    55:01
    Okay. And we'll alternate them. Okay, that's fine. So go ahead and... We'll put all... Put pluses. I'll put pluses on this. Yes.
    55:10
    Do you want to go first? Sure, I'll go ahead and go first. Let me see. Monkeys. That's an equal sign. The audience here, I'm describing to you what he's doing to our One Notes. It's an abomination. I'm going to follow up with McHale's Navy Okay I will go ahead And say That Bonanza Oh yeah That would be a great We haven't had a good western theme In a long time That I can think of Am I forgetting something? Has there been anything more recent than Cactus? No Yeah You forget nothing The Beverly Hillbillies Okay Mission Impossible Oh that would be it I could see My only problem with that one would be Would it be better as the movie version I mean it could be But just in terms of thinking about a replacement theme for monsters Correct I think it would be better Hogan's Heroes Alright For my fourth go ahead and put Get Smart See I was debating that I like Get Smart I debated it too And I decided I'll save it for now.
    56:28
    I will. See, I know what my personal choice was here, but I don't know that it would be as good. Go ahead and throw it in to save it, to make sure it's safe. Just to make it safe, I'm going to go with I Dream of Jeannie. Okay. I watched a lot of that show as a kid.
    56:51
    And go ahead for me and let's save Lassie. He's going to be stuck in a well. Except he was never, ever, nobody was ever stuck in a well. In the game he could be. That leaves me with one more choice.
    57:16
    Honestly, probably the Brainy Bunch. I could see some serious game modes made from it, especially if you do it less seriously. Alright, so I guess now we should probably run through the ones that we have not ruled protect or eliminate and decide, see if we can get through those relatively quickly in terms of one way or the other before we start debating it more. So Andy Griffith's show was the first one that you got here.
    57:48
    I just don't feel strongly on it either way. I don't. I don't feel strongly. Let's get rid of it. I know it's super popular, but I have a hard time imagining how I would make it. Sorry. It's too wholesome. The only thing that's popping into my head would be you could do a thing with a one-bullet hurry-up. Right. That's all I've got. Yeah.
    58:07
    Wild Wild West. See, I never watched the show. I know the movie. The movie was terrible. The show was really good. I enjoyed the show. But, I mean, it gives you that nice comment. I mean, because it is a Wild West show with a kind of spy theme thing. And in the movie, they went like super steampunk. From a meth spider, save me, I'm so high. But I don't feel strongly either way. I'm fine with that. Get rid of it then. Okay. I think if we don't feel strongly, we need to get rid of it.
    58:42
    Now, Dragnet 67. Dragnet could be good. Police procedural. Let's save it for now. Car 54, where are you? I found it obnoxious. I don't care for it. It's just... Bewitched was, you know, another... It was just like I Dream of Jeannie. But worse. But worse, yeah. Yeah, get rid of it.
    59:07
    The Green Hornet. You know, I think I've only ever seen like one or two. Yeah. The only thing this show is known for is... Bruce Lee. Is Bruce Lee. Kill it.
    59:19
    Hawaii Five-0. That could be pretty... I mean, that gives a lot of options for a lot of stuff. Let's preserve it. I mean, if we want to go with like a Hawaii-themed thing, I would prefer Magnum P.I. personally, but that's outside the time frame. Right, right. So, yeah. I was surprised when I saw Hawaii Five-0 was in the time frame. Yeah. it's because they've remade it like four times but yeah it was 68 to 80 for me Green Acres is too wholesome Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea I never really watched it wasn't one of those sci-fi shows I ever watched sorry Jason it's done so that looks like that's it Yeah. So I'm going to copy our saved stuff a little farther down so we can just look at the saved. So we basically only added two to the list from the initial 10 we created because we have 12 saved. Okay. Well, that's good. That means less work. Yeah. so I guess what I think at this point might be helpful is start making cases to get rid of certain things and seeing how much resistance anyone wants to put up so what one do I want to pick off here I think that I worry that your I Dream of Jeannie is way too wholesome for pinball. You're right. I'm not going to argue with this one, because I was looking at this list. That's probably the one I'm having the hardest time putting together. I mean, isn't that part of Munsters' problem, is this wholesome thing with oh, well, they're different, but they're they make fun of the girl that's not ugly and that's funny, and then it's so wholesome, and it's just like, well, I Dream of Genie was a fun show, but it's so wholesome. Yeah. Nope. I'm fine. I'm not going to argue that one. Okay. That's not the one because the more I think about it, the harder time I have putting together a good game around it. I'm going to go ahead and I'm actually going to compare to the most of the rest of this list.
    61:48
    I'm going to throw this out there for discussion real quick. We have several of these that would kind of tickle the same itch. Yes. Specifically, Dragnet 67 and Hawaii Five-0 are both police procedurals. Mm-hmm. Right. Mission Impossible and Get Smart are both spies. Just one is way more serious than the other. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
    62:12
    Hogan's Heroes and McHale's Navy are both humorous World War II things. and the Beverly Hillbillies and the Brady Bunch are both, you know, big family in interesting situations things. Yes. So do we want to just kind of weed some of those down a little? Yeah, we can do it that way. That's fine. All right. So you want to start then with Dragnet versus Mission Impossible? Or was it? It was Dragnet and Hawaii Five-0. Thank you. Dragnet and Hawaii Five-0. I think Hawaii Five-0 is superior for that. I didn't really watch Dragnet or Hawaii Five-0, so I'm willing to say fine to Hawaii Five-0 because I don't feel strongly about Dragnet. Yeah, that's fine.
    62:58
    So we will remove Dragnet from the list. Okay. I'm fine with that. I'll put that on a double plus good.
    63:07
    So then Get Smart and Mission Impossible. I think Mission Impossible is the more classic spy show. I do too. Because Get Smart is slapsticky. I think they both could work, but I would think Mission Impossible would make for a better game from the theme.
    63:26
    Given all the movies, it's resonated longer. And it gives you the ability to do the special edition playoff movies. Yes. Well, it's just that while there has been redone Get Smart stuff, obviously the modern mission impossible movies have tied to this as a touchstone. Right. They've got huge popularity. The theme is still recognizable and things like that.
    63:54
    Here's what would probably be my hardest comparison to is Hogan's Heroes and McHale's Navy. I don't know if you ever watched either of those shows. I think I've seen Hogan's Heroes. I watched both of them near religiously when I was a kid. and I don't know. It's a hard pull for me. I think, well, let me see. I've got the IMDB stats. Let's see what, let's compare their popularity numbers just in straight IMDB.
    64:31
    McHale's Navy is a 7-4, and Hogan's Heroes is a 7-9. Hogan's Heroes ran a lot longer. Man, this is a tough one for me. I think Hogan's Heroes is going to have the bigger audience touchstone, and it's going to have more reference because it ran so much longer and it was definitely more popular. I mean, even now people still make jokes that refer to Hogan's Heroes. I've heard them from people who don't know what they're referring to because it's just memetic stuff that they've learned.
    65:05
    Personally, I prefer McHale's Navy, but that's just because I'm a big fan of Ernest Borgnine. And I saw it first. Okay. But I think Hogan's Heroes would make the better show. Or better pinball machine. Okay. That's fine. I don't feel strongly between the two. Since you don't feel strongly, I'll take the weight of that one. I'm not sure.
    65:31
    I personally prefer McHale's Navy, but Hogan's Heroes, I think, is the better chance. Beverly Hillbillies. Brady Bunch, Bonanza, and Lassie are all that's left. Let's go ahead, even though I pitched it, and get rid of Lassie. It's too wholesome unless I let her get rabies, which was where I was going with my ideas for it. So this is where we get our arguments.
    66:02
    Lassie is actually a more affordable license than getting Cujo from King. So we take Lassie and give her rabies. Well if we want to be the evil method Do we make a machine based off of Old Yeller Or where the red fern grows Oh Gosh Red fern is sadder But they're both pretty sad Yes But with Old Yeller The final wizard mode Ends with you killing him And it ends the game But with red fern grows The final mode could be like 45 seconds like systems shut down there are modes where you get multiball for a set period of time and you get to the wizard mode or whatnot with Redford spoilers by the way you haven't read Redford and Gareth Gareth's are seen all the other or watched Redford and Gareth's because it obviously was a show apparently it's a show as well as a movie well in it you so you have like 45 seconds until the other dog starves to death then it's over we are terrible people hey We didn't write those books and make those shows. People chose to do it.
    67:13
    So, lastly on wholesomeness, let's move Bonanza on. Let's give the Western some love. It was a huge show. It was. I enjoyed it. A lot of guest stars that showed up on Bonanza. When was the last time you watched Bonanza, Dennis? Probably October, I think. I watched it when I was in Arkansas. Wednesday.
    67:41
    And then you had put Beverly Hillbillies and Brady Bunch as the two weird. Yeah. I watch Beverly Hillbillies all the time. I know. I watch Brady Bunch sometimes. Brady Bunch, too wholesome.
    67:58
    Hillbillies, too funny. So Hillbillies wins. Texas Tea. I'm fine with that. Texas Tea. I think Hillbillies would make the better machine. I think. Just the characters were more unique.
    68:12
    What are you going to do with Brady Bunch? Marsha, Marsha, Marsha mode? Come on. You would probably have to build it more along the lines of the. Oh, we didn't talk about the monkeys, Dennis. Oh, it didn't get carried. Did it get carried? Oh, yeah. We haven't talked about it. I like carrying on monkeys because it's like the one thing that's surviving that could be argued as a music pin. true now here's the we'll keep monkeys in here's the question though with the monkeys in do you give it to Stern and just make an update of another Stern Electronics game a modernized version of another yeah that's fine as long as it's not priced like Beatles which it wouldn't be because it's monkeys right yeah Quicksilver yeah Stargazer The original Stern Electronics Iron Maiden That's one that could definitely use a play field rework So that would be an option Okay so let me Make sure I got this camera Yep Okay so we're down to six Okay we're making progress folks We're making solid progress here Okay We gotta pare it down to two Alright So out of these six This is starting to get hard Yeah we haven really brutalized each other picks though So we got that going for us True Of these six I still going to keep it nice I going to keep it light Okay. I'm going to propose that we drop Hawaii 5-0.
    69:51
    It feels weaker than some of these other choices. It does. I can see that. We'll drop Hawaii 5-0. Alright. I'm going to go for... I'm actually going to go for Bonanza.
    70:05
    I like it, but I think the only other thing that I think is lower on this list than Bonanza is the monkeys. I think the monkeys would probably make a better machine.
    70:17
    Yeah, I'm not. I'm a, yeah, I'm fine with it. Bonanza's lasted because of its western-ness, but I don't think there's a lot of stuff from the show that inherently lends itself well to pinball. It wasn't like a gunfighter thing Right Like Cactus Canyon Right Something more along the lines of If someone wanted to make Tombstone Into a pinball machine That would have probably been pretty smart Why did that not appear in my Oh because it was Before my list I was thinking have gunwell travel It ran into the 60s But it started in the mid 50s Okay So we did that. So we've got four left.
    71:05
    Interesting. I'll go ahead of these four and say Beverly Hillbillies can go. It still leans a little too wholesome without being the wholesomeness of a music pen, which I think could work. I think there's a lot of It's funny It's very funny But Hogan's Heroes is funny too Right So if I have to pick between the two Even though I wasn't a Hogan Heroes watcher I think It's more I don't know they're both so iconic I mean I know Hillbillies more But I think Monkeys would make a better pin Than Hillbillies is part of the reason So I don't want to sacrifice it yet And I think Mission Impossible is even more iconic. Do you think monkeys would make a better pin than Hogan's Heroes or Mission Impossible?
    72:02
    Maybe Mission Impossible. Okay. Because... Just because people like the songs. It's about the songs. Fine, get rid of the monkeys. No, my monkeys. Bye, monkeys. Go ahead and get rid of monkeys. And I'm fine with Beverly Hillbillies, so we're down to two. Okay.
    72:22
    I feel I made all the real sacrifices. So Mission Impossible versus Hogan's Heroes. You made all the real sacrifices. Yeah, I made all the real sacrifices. You got to keep your Hogan's Heroes. Do you want to know what I thought? Hogan's Heroes is going to lose this bad. I'm telling you, it's going to lose bad. And you're going to be like, whoa, we should have had Lassie. Cujo Lassie. So Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. We'll get a poll up. Probably run a couple weeks. Yeah. at least a week. I don't remember what Facebook list you pick. And you'll choose between Mission Impossible and Hogan's Heroes. Which would have been a better theme for Stern to have done? What better old man theme would have been?
    73:05
    We're obviously saying that either of these would have easily been better than Munsters. There is no debate on that. We're not going to have a debate. I'll say our final six, any of the final six would have been better than Munsters. Yes, they all would have been better than Munsters. That's easy. Arguably, the final twelve were probably all better as well.
    73:22
    I could see monkeys being better than Mission Impossible. Yeah, well. Well, you know, but Mission Impossible, it's serious. It allows you to do a spy game, which hasn't been done in a really long time. And obviously it's very iconic, both in title, theme music. There's a lot you can do in the way of modes. You can have things like, here, you've got to hit this shot before it self-destructs. There's a lot there. Hogan's Heroes, another often memefied, referenced show. Yeah. It's a silly take on a military theme, which we haven't really had a lot of that. No, not really. Not a lot of either, especially combined. But as I've clearly indicated, my projection is Mission Impossible wins. I think Mission Impossible has at least 70% of the vote. That's what I'm going to forecast.
    74:15
    We'll see. That's implying that you will now forecast something and be wrong and make me look good. we'll see no honestly I think Mission Impossible might be the bigger touchstone but I think Mission Impossible is the biggest touchstone after the Beverly Hillbillies that it survived to this final calling so well if the Beverly Hillbillies made it but you know we were kind of trying to stay away from the super happy friendly some of the frustrations with the Munsters pick I think was coming through with our choices yeah but But, and people, you can always wait. Feel free in the thread on the poll to comment in the comment section. And let us know just how terribly wrong we screwed up. No, no, don't let us know that. But you can say which show you would have rather seen. I'd be interested to see that. See, like, I'm voting Mission Impossible, but I really thought McHale's Navy should have been a choice. And you're a good person. And then you can be frosty because then we could say McHale's Navy might have actually won had you only had faith in it. I know.
    75:21
    Well, we're done with pinball. So let's go ahead and you have found a couple of... Just a couple quick news items. Yeah, we're in video games now. And I went light on video games for a very specific reason.
    75:36
    Our next episode is our E3 episode. Yep. So I figured there's no reason to go too crazy because all the big stuff's coming. Yes.
    75:46
    So just a couple of interesting things. One is a tidbit. In the last episode, we talked about the Epic Game Store was having their Big Epic sale. Well, apparently, if you really liked their Big Epic sale and you bought, like, you know, five games off of their Big Epic sale, you were banned. Whoa. For fraud.
    76:11
    Fraud. It was just how the fraud thing worked. It's a bug is my assumption. It's my assumption that that's how they have things set up It's because they don't have a cart So you can't just add stuff to the cart When you buy a game You have to buy each game individually You can't build a cart because they don't have a cart system Or they didn't at the time I haven't logged back in in a while It's like two steps forward One step back with them They're having a couple issues One thing that's not in these notes Because I literally saw it The news post of it while we were talking was the Minecraft story mode, which was a telltale Minecraft game, is being completely removed from all stores this week. So even if you already own it, you can't download it back. It's going to be gone. Because the last two places it was was GOG and Microsoft Store, and it's going away from both of those stores. so it's already been gone from like Steam and stuff and our other news item that I'm going to hit is a little surprising coming out ahead of E3 like this except for the fact that it is a PS4 exclusive and no Sony at E3 this year that was announced back in December quite a while ago Which is really going to be interesting because Sony's typically been one of the big tentpoles of E3. So it's going to be really interesting to see how E3 shakes out this year with just Microsoft and Ubisoft. Yeah, EA will do their thing again. Which isn't actually there, but they always base it nearby.
    78:06
    And I think normally Nintendo has their little showcase they put up. Their treehouse. Yeah, their treehouse and some other independent things. But we'll see how it goes. We'll have all that news as always. But Hideo Kojima has finally released a full trailer and a release date for Death Stranding. Yes. One of the worst titles I've ever heard. Oh, it's so bad. The people are so excited for it. I'm going to be... Hideo Kojima could relieve himself on bread and people would be excited for it. Okay.
    78:51
    That's just... He walks on water, apparently. Okay. So you're sounding like you maybe don't eat said bread.
    79:01
    You're right. Okay. Definitely not. I'm not saying... I don't have a problem. He makes good games. I just... It runs into a level of developer worship that kind of bothers me because it literally gets to the point where it's like, well, they can do no wrong. And based on this trailer, I would have to say that this could be one of those things. I mean, don't get me wrong. We'll have a link to the trailer. I've got a copy of it that we'll link to it. Okay. but it is full on like somebody went, Hey, so what is this going to be? It's going to be third person. It's going to be RPG. It's going to be, you know, whatever. And he just said yes. And every time they brought an idea, he just said yes, because it seems to be a little of everything.
    79:56
    And the storyline both makes more and less sense. since now that this new trailer, and this has been, when it was shown, I mean, all we knew before this is that Mads Mikkelsen was in it, and Norman Reedus was in it, and there was a baby. Yes. And, like, a super creepy baby, and weird, invisible, killer death things. And the new trailer shows a bunch of gameplay, and some creepy babies and just makes things weirder. Hmm.
    80:37
    Like, a lot weirder. So, will this be a day one for you? No. Oh. No. Aw. I'm so far behind on games as is. I guess because, obviously, there's not... There's so little in the way of entities at E3 this year, more so than in other recent years. Do you have any predictions about what happens at E3?
    81:10
    I think it's going to be the worst E3 in years, if not ever. Well, that's interesting. Do you think that the nature of the announcements that happen at E3 will just be that bad?
    81:24
    No, I don't necessarily think that it's going to be that they're that bad. I think Microsoft wins already, before it ends. Well, I mean, it would be difficult. I can't remember the last time a third-party publisher was considered a winner of E3. Right. So given that that's all that's left, and Microsoft will be the only hardware provider there, that's a, though people will count Nintendo, if they do their house and they have something, their little, in their treehouse, though I don't know, I mean they've just recently had one of those Nintendo Direct I just don't, I don't know here's where I'll go on predictions I don't mean on the nature of E3 and its survival, which I think is probably in trouble unless they start making some serious changes, and that's up to them I think Microsoft will announce the next gen console I don't know that they'll announce a sale date but I think that they'll start revealing specs most of the specs have leaked same with the PS5 specs are highly similar from everything I last read which was a while ago but like same chipsets so I think Microsoft given that they have the stage they're investing a lot of effort into E3 and most of those software studios they acquired over the last year, they're not going to be ready with any games. No. So what else is there to show? Well, and all the, I mean, the reality is all those studios they've acquired are, their whole reason for happening is to have launch games. Yes. For Xbox, QRZ, Diablo 43, or whatever the crud they name it. Mm-hmm. Because their naming scheme is just the worst naming scheme of all time. Maybe it'll be the Xbox 2. Even though it'll be the fourth one. I don't know. So I think they'll top console.
    83:33
    It would be interesting. This was suggested. That's not my idea, but someone had suggested this. That Microsoft might not only reveal the specs, but reveal a release date. and that release date be February 2020.
    83:50
    That seems early. It does, but Nintendo did it with great success to do a spring release on the Switch.
    83:58
    Microsoft has always done Xbox releases in the fall, just before the holiday season, usually in early November, which is when Sony likes to release as well. The reason would be to get the next-gen, especially if the specs are the same, to get their next-gen console a half-year head start over Sony. To try and better position themselves against them.
    84:19
    But do you think it'll be ready with games ready? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. How many games do you have to launch with your... I mean, Switch launched with not very many games. Xbox One launched, I think, with 10 or 15. But, you know, most of those weren't great games. Right. Which, again... Now, here's another theory. When... And I do believe this. regardless of when the release date is. They're going to go Xbox, original Xbox style. When they drop the new Xbox, Halo drops with it.
    84:53
    Day one. It'll be a day one game. I think that would make sense. And they've never done it since the beginning, but I think it's time. It's been long enough for Halo to be ready. So I think that they're going to. In fact, they may have put back Halo a year because I think they were surprised at the reaction to Halo 5 where it wasn't very much Master Chief and now it's going to be very Master Chief centric again. So I think there will be that.
    85:26
    Let's see. I mean, everything's about pretty much just Microsoft stuff. I think it's plausible because there has been a decent amount of time that if the rumors are true in Playground, which is known for the Forza Horizon games, has their second development team, which has been working a while, on Fable. They may finally publicly unveil that there will be a new Fable. It will probably be for the new console. But I could see them maybe doing a teaser for it. Something better than Bethesda's Elder Scrolls teaser from last year.
    86:00
    Bethesda, I think, is still supposed to be there. I don't know what's going on. They've bombed so bad lately. They were, yeah, they, well, When they don't have a big, huge game, I think they struggle with what to do with as much time as they took. Other than that, though, I think Microsoft will spend some time on the Gears of War game because they teased that last year. They should actually have some gameplay, substantive stuff to show at this point.
    86:33
    Here's the list so we can see if there's anybody we missed. The big publisher shows It's going to start out again Bethesda Then Microsoft Both on Sunday the 9th It's going to be followed by The Upload VR show Okay I'll probably not watch that quite frankly Yeah Then the PC gaming show Which if I watch I'll watch it at 4x speed Okay Because The PC gaming show I don't have a lot of reveals. It doesn't have a lot of reveals. It'll have a couple interesting little snippets. There were snippets from last year's that I actually own some of now, but it's just never a big thing. And then on Monday, Ubisoft and Square. I don't know. Maybe Square will. Maybe they'll talk a little bit about Final Fantasy VII. Oh, now that's an interesting thing. Apparently a store made a boo-boo and put it in the shop showing that that's coming out on Xbox One. Really? And the ads have only shown PS4 The theory is that it's a timed exclusive Which would make sense Sure They've had true exclusivity Because of Square My guess is that the first thing Square is going to do when they walk up there Is they're going to close half the studios Working for them and lay all the people off And then they'll announce A couple Final Fantasy games that'll come out in 2030 or 2040.
    88:10
    And then, I don't know, they'll probably take a steaming dump on the stage. Hmm. Because that seems to be where Square is. I don't know. I really don't understand anything that Square does on development. And yet, somehow, they still seem to just... Yep, they do. Maybe it's on the mobile side. And then on Tuesday's Nintendo. Okay. Nintendo could win it if it got something. I just don't... If they have something... Metroid is about the only thing, I think, at this point that would really whip people up into a frenzy. True Nintendo fanboys have been longing for more on that Metroid game. Right. I mean, because EA will be there. They are doing their thing. It's just not going to be at... Well, half of that's FIFA and Madden, so whatever.
    88:52
    Yeah. EA is skipping the typical concerts and just hosting a bunch of streams the day before E3, or on the Saturday before E3 starts. So It looks like Madden and FIFA And Apex Legends And they're supposed to have a big look at the new Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order gameplay Okay, that's good So Yeah, I think some other games that we know about Will probably get more That cyberpunk game coming from the The Witcher team I bet we'll see a lot more on that Yeah, Project Red I think we'll see more on that Because that's highly anticipated I don't know, like I said, Bethesda I don't know Doom Eternal and I don't know what else they'll do Doom Eternal, that'll probably be their cornerstone I don't know what else, but they've done pretty good about having stuff that nobody knew was coming and announcing it sure but Doom Eternal is the only thing I can think of that's coming from them we might see stuff, I mean, Call of Duty is often on the Sony stage. They might make a deal with Microsoft to come out and show the reboot Modern Warfare stuff. Gears of War. They made that announcement, the Gears of War announcement last year at E3. Microsoft didn't. It hasn't come out yet, has it? I named that one earlier. That, I think, will see gameplay footage. They had announced Gears of War tactical game for PC. And the little cute thing. That everyone hated, Gears Pops. Gears Pop, yeah. I think Mainline Gears comes out this year I don't think they're holding that for the new console I think that's their big fall game Probably That would make sense I'm hoping to see gameplay footage Not for myself But out of Nintendo For something like Animal Crossing and the new Pokemon That would make sense I think especially Animal Crossing I think that would be their best avenue For a big win So So, otherwise, yeah.
    90:59
    Yeah. Well, we'll cover it, but I don't think it'll be as long as some of our other E3 episodes have been. I don't see how it's going to be, because most of our things have ended up being talking about Sony stuff. Yeah. Well, because they've been the lead. They are the lead. But when they're not there to talk about any games, and my understanding from what sourcing I've listened to is that it's not expected to be a really strong exclusive release year. They've got a lot of exclusives in the works, but we saw a lot of them last year, and they weren't remotely ready to come out. I mean, Death Stranding is like the big one. Right. As you mentioned, that's November 8th. So, oh well. Okay, here's a – I'm looking news up. Here are the confirmed games that are going to be talking about. People said they've confirmed they'll talk about. Okay. Cyberpunk 2077. Of course. Doom Eternal. Dying Light 2. Halo Infinite. Infinite and FF7. Okay.
    91:57
    Okay. We don't know what they're going to be, but they're... We didn't mention Dying Light 2. Because we didn't care. Exactly. Everything else is the stuff we figured would be. Okay.
    92:13
    So... Well, we've reached the end of the show then. Yeah. So we'll be back in two weeks to talk about E3. And whatever pinball stuff comes up. Yeah, which might not be a lot of news. So that's fine. Yeah. We'll have more room for video games. Reminder, we'll have our poll, and you can always reach out to us on Facebook.com. That's at slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. You can also email the show, EclecticGamersPodcast at gmail.com. We're available on Instagram and Twitter as Eclectic underscore Gamers. It's also the same on the Twitch. And we'll be back in the two weeks. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody.