Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast May 2023 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·2h 9m·held·Jun 2, 2023
View original

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

May 2023: Hexa Pinball launches Space Hunt, Pinball Brothers ships Queen 1.0 with Bohemian Rhapsody, new manufacturer and code milestones shake the market.

Summary

Pinball Magazine and Pinball News recap May 2023 industry developments, headlined by the reveal of Space Hunt from France—a new manufacturer entering the market with a vibrant space-themed game priced at €8,900–€11,000 with delivery expected Q4 2023. Additional coverage includes Pinball Brothers completing Queen 1.0 code with the Bohemian Rhapsody mini-wizard mode and announcing rapid 6–8 week delivery for new batch orders, Pinball Adventures factory tour showing Forsaken Ninja and Elements in pipeline, Pedretti's Whirlwind Chaos upgrade kit shipments, Fathom edition causing collector backlash, and Stern's brewery conference attendance and Insider Connected Foo Fighters tour achievements.

Key Claims

  • Space Hunt priced at €8,900 (standard) or €11,000 (elegance package) with 4Q 2023 delivery targeting pre-orders

    high confidence · Jonathan Bergeron and Martin Eyre, Pinball Magazine/Pinball News editors, citing official Hexa announcement

  • Space Hunt features 120+ RGB LEDs, pendulum mini-playfield with central hole, four ramp shots, and illuminated drop targets

    high confidence · Martin Eyre describing official video reveal from Hexa, June 1 launch date

  • Queen 1.0 code includes six-chapter Bohemian Rhapsody mini-wizard mode covering all distinct sections of the song

    high confidence · Jonathan Bergeron and Martin Eyre citing official Pinball Brothers announcement, released June 2, 2023

  • Pinball Brothers taking new orders for Queen units 501–750 with 6–8 week delivery after ordering

    high confidence · Martin Eyre discussing Pinball Brothers manufacturing update tied to Pedretti collaboration

  • Fathom edition now includes 2.0 code and features previously exclusive to Mermaid Edition, upsetting some Mermaid Edition buyers

    high confidence · Jonathan Bergeron and Martin Eyre discussing community reaction to tiered editions

  • Pinball Adventures' Puny Factory has 10 limited engraved black-cabinet editions in production, with games 7–20 (minus 8, already shipped) currently building

    high confidence · Martin Eyre citing factory tour YouTube video showing production status

  • Pedretti Gaming Whirlwind Chaos upgrade kit now shipping with new display, code, and cabinet artwork

    high confidence · Jonathan Bergeron and Martin Eyre reporting Whirlwind upgrade availability

  • Stern Pinball attended 2023 Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville with representatives including Eric Gilley, Tyler Carson, Evan Kirby, Roger Fuentes, and Patrick Powers

    high confidence · Martin Eyre citing brewery conference attendance

Notable Quotes

  • “We'd like to apologise in advance for the past five years.”

    Jonathan Bergeron @ Opening — Humorous acknowledgment of 62 consecutive months of monthly recap podcasts; establishes show longevity and consistency

  • “The newer versions of games do have illuminated drop targets, which work well, and this game has them as well.”

    Martin Eyre @ Space Hunt discussion — Confirms design innovation adoption; contrasts with earlier failed attempts (Captor's Canyon) on illuminated drop targets

  • “Everybody just says the games are available now, buy them. You know, otherwise, why launch the game now if you haven't got the games ready?”

    Martin Eyre @ Pre-order discussion — Expresses industry frustration with pre-order model; implies lack of production readiness damages credibility

  • “If you want to convince people that you're capable of building pinball machines, show your manufacturing capacity.”

    Jonathan Bergeron @ Manufacturing transparency discussion — Direct advice to new manufacturers on trust-building; references contrast between professional factories and office-space assembly

  • “A game like Queen, they're not going to have a problem selling it.”

    Jonathan Bergeron @ Pinball Brothers inventory discussion — Confidence in Queen's market strength; implies potential for distributor stock availability rather than pre-order-only model

  • “More pinball is good for everybody in the business.”

    Jonathan Bergeron @ Haggis Pinball tiered editions discussion — Reframes edition exclusivity tension as industry growth opportunity; acknowledges both collector and business perspectives

  • “There's no better combination than pinball and beer.”

    Martin Eyre @ Stern Craft Brewers Conference discussion — Lighthearted observation on Stern's brewery market focus; reflects broader beverage/arcade venue synergy

  • “Close to a six-minute experience covering a vast variety of gameplay and emotions await.”

Entities

Hexa PinballcompanySpace HuntgameJonathan BergeronpersonMartin EyrepersonPinball BrotherscompanyQueengame

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Hexa Pinball, French boutique manufacturer, officially reveals Space Hunt on June 1, 2023, marking first new European pinball manufacturer debut in significant time; design-by-order model with premium cosmetics (mirrored backglasses, powder-coated armor, PinSound)

    high · Space Hunt reveal video posted June 1, 2023; pre-orders live through three French distributors; Q4 2023 delivery window announced

  • ?

    code_update: Pinball Brothers Queen reaches 1.0 code status June 2, 2023, implementing long-anticipated Bohemian Rhapsody six-chapter mini-wizard mode; major update significantly improves game from October 2022 launch reception

    high · Official announcement June 2, 2023; Bohemian Rhapsody mode described as covering full song structure in six chapters with distinct gameplay/emotional arcs

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Pinball Brothers announces accelerated delivery timelines (6–8 weeks post-order) for Queen batch 501–750, enabled by Pedretti Gaming collaboration and new production facility; signals supply chain recovery from ~1-year backlog

    high · New order batch 501–750 with 6–8 week delivery commitment; factory photos shared showing multiple Queen/Alien units in assembly; partnership formalized with Euro Pinball Corp

  • $

    market_signal: Industry friction over pre-order business model surfaces; Hexa Pinball requires pre-orders with €2,000 deposits, triggering community skepticism based on historical delays; editors advocate for manufacturing transparency over blind pre-commitments

    high · Jonathan Houston explicitly advises Hexa to showcase manufacturing capacity; Martin Eyre criticizes pre-order culture as antithetical to games being 'available now'; community recalls 'bad history with pre-order games'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.388

0:00
Hexapinball reveals Space Hunt Queen gains Bohemian Rhapsody American Pinball interview Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined by Yes, hello, I'm Martin Eyre, but I'm the editor of Pinball News And we are here, I'm here with Jonathan And we are going to look back at all the exciting news that took place in the pinball world During the month of May, May 23 If you're listening to this, you probably know that we do this every month I hope so Well, we have been doing this for like 60, the past 62 months So we're counting actually now So we'd like to apologise in advance for the past five years. But anyway, we have a lot to talk about this month. Yeah. We quite often say it's been a quiet month, there have been no new games launched, but... I quite often say it's been a very exciting month, and that's also true. In this case, only one new game announced, but still a lot of news to cover. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, even though the major manufacturers have been releasing new titles, that we do have a new game from a new manufacturer, our first game from a new manufacturer in France, which was our main headline, our first headline this month. So, new manufacturer in Europe as well, so it doesn't get any better for Europe, I suppose, with a new game with a surprisingly cool artwork, I would say. Yeah, well, we talked about Hexapinball, who are based in France, and we've covered them before in these pincasts. We've talked about the upcoming game Space Hunt and the artwork which they've revealed for the back glass. But now, come the, I think the 1st of June, was their launch date to actually reveal the game. And, well, there's quite a lot to see.
2:17
Yeah, it's a video posted on their social media, Facebook and probably other social media, but I watch it on Facebook.
2:27
It's a packed game. It has a bit of a 90s feel to it. I would say, actually, late 80s, early 90s. As far as the playfield goes, I think that's true. The back box and display is very modern, sternish, really. It's got about a stern size LCD in the back box, and it's a very conventional shape, I'd say, to the game. You know, it's a standard-sized, standard-shaped cabinet, as you'd expect. No unusual features. It's got folds down the back box. It's got all the sort of normal body armour and rails and things on it. But it looks a very vibrant and colourful game, certainly from the outside. Binkish, I would say. Yeah, that's certainly the theme, pink, purple, that's the colour scheme, I would say, and it's obviously an original title, Space Hunt. There is a storyline behind it Where you are playing a role of a bull Where you need to try and free yourself Release yourself from the You are called Spheras And you try and free yourself and your people From the space hunters Who are trying to enslave you So, easily understandable theme You know, there are alien baddies, and you're the good guys, and you're trying to defeat them and escape from them. Right, okay. And I have to say, the art group looks very interesting.

Stern Insider Connected Foo Fighters city achievements tied to tour dates May 24–mid-July, collectible window 2pm day before to 7am day after each concert

high confidence · Jonathan Bergeron and Martin Eyre discussing Stern achievement rollout

  • Pre-orders remain a painful industry practice with history of delays; Hexa Pinball distributors requiring €2,000 deposits, community expressing skepticism

    high confidence · Jonathan Bergeron and Martin Eyre discussing pre-order culture and manufacturing transparency concerns

    • Martin Eyre @ Queen Bohemian Rhapsody mode discussion — Official advertising language for Bohemian Rhapsody mini-wizard; captures ambition of song-to-gameplay translation

  • “You can track how your game is being developed.”

    Martin Eyre @ Canadian Pinball Adventures transparency feature discussion — Highlights innovative production transparency tool (build progress tracking on website); differentiator for new manufacturer

  • “It's fair to say, quite a number of people who bought the Mermaid Edition a little unhappy with the fact that their previously exclusive features are now available for buyers of the standard game.”

    Jonathan Bergeron @ Haggis Pinball tiered edition backlash discussion — Documents collector sentiment shift on exclusivity; foreshadows recurring tension between premium/base edition tiers

    • Bohemian Rhapsody
    product
    Pedretti Gamingcompany
    Whirlwind Total Chaosgame
    Pinball Adventurescompany
    Punny Factorygame
    Elementsgame
    Forsaken Ninjagame
    Haggis Pinballcompany
    Fathomgame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Foo Fightersproduct
    Eric Gilleyperson
    Tyler Carsonperson
    Evan Kirbyperson
    Roger Fuentesperson
    Patrick Powersperson
    David Fixperson
    American Pinballcompany
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Salon de Pontenacevent
    ?

    product_strategy: Haggis Pinball Standard Plus edition strategy—offering 2.0 code and Mermaid Edition features to base-tier buyers—creates collector sentiment shift; Mermaid Edition buyers perceive exclusivity erosion, though editors contextualize as industry growth positive

    high · Jonathan Houston notes 'quite a number of people who bought the Mermaid Edition a little unhappy'; frames tension between collector FOMO and business necessity; some buyers indifferent, others upset

  • ?

    design_innovation: Space Hunt features novel pendulum mini-playfield with central hole design—ball orbits perimeter, impacts hanging pendulum to trigger main playfield drop; illuminated drop targets (modern reliability update from failed Captor's Canyon era attempts) standard

    high · Martin Eyre detailed playfield description: 'hole in the middle...pendulum hangs...orbit shots...eventually shoot at pendulum'; confirms illuminated drop targets working reliably, unlike 1990s resins

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Canadian Pinball Adventures implements live build-progress tracking on website; customers can monitor their specific machine's assembly status by name; positions transparency as competitive differentiator vs. industry black-box approach

    high · Martin Eyre: 'You can go to pinball inventor's website and...see the progress of the builds...some have names against them, others don't...you can track how your game is being developed'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Canadian Pinball Adventures Puny Factory 10-unit limited engraved black-cabinet editions generate collector interest; only 10 produced with laser-engraved cabinet logos, clear-coat finish; likely first of kind in modern pinball

    high · Factory tour shows black cabinets 'literally engraved Puny Factory logo...clear-coated...very shiny'; Martin Eyre: 'probably a first in pinball that we've seen something like that; limited to 10'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball attends 2023 Craft Brewers Conference with mid-level representatives (not senior leadership); signals strategic focus on brewery/barcade venue market as key distribution channel

    medium · Stern delegation: Eric Gilley, Tyler Carson, Evan Kirby, Roger Fuentes, Patrick Powers; no senior executives (Gary, Dave, John Buscaglia); conference targets breweries and on-premise operators

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern Insider Connected Foo Fighters city achievement campaign May 24–mid-July 2023 ties pinball gameplay to band tour dates; collectible mechanics (city-per-concert, tour-save achievement) designed for tournament/enthusiast engagement

    high · Jonathan Houston and Martin Eyre explain mechanics: play on concert dates, collect city achievements, optional tour-save achievement; window 2pm day before to 7am day after each show; server-side validation prevents date-spoofing

  • ?

    product_launch: Canadian Pinball Adventures Elements and Forsaken Ninja games in pipeline; Elements expected show reveal at Pinball Expo 2023; playfield/artwork complete, rules outcome cited as make-or-break factor

    high · Martin Eyre factory tour observations; Elements 'got a huge amount of promise...rules can make or break a game as we've seen'; Forsaken Ninja artwork in progress with distinct from other ninja-themed titles

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pedretti Gaming Whirlwind Total Chaos upgrade kit shipping post-production ramp-up; signals broader supply chain stabilization enabling manufacturers to ship premium restoration/upgrade kits alongside new production

    medium · Jonathan Houston: Whirlwind upgrade kit 'very nice' and 'pretty decent overall'; Pedretti shipping display panels, acrylic translights, new code; described as significant lifecycle extension strategy

    • 4:14
    Yes, it's a nice-looking game, I'd say. The play field itself is relatively simple, although it's certainly not lacking in features. It's got three, well, actually four, I'd say. No, three ramp shots, I think.
    4:33
    No, four ramp shots. Yes, there's a left and right outer ramp. The left outer ramp feeds to a mini playfield, which has a mini flipper on it, and it's an unusual design of a mini playfield.
    4:52
    It's got an orbit to it, an orbit shot, but the centre of the mini playfield is actually cut out. There is a hole in the middle of it in which a pendulum hangs. So your aim is to shoot the ball around the perimeter of that hole and back to the flipper and do orbit shots. And then eventually you will shoot the ball at a pendulum which is hanging in the middle of the hole, in the middle of the upper playfield or the mini playfield, which will then drop the ball down into the main playfield level. There are inner left and right ramps Which both feed to the same wire form And there is a sort of 180 degree U-turn hot dog type ramp Which feeds back on a different wire form So there's no shortage of ramps and wire forms there There's drop targets all over the place Some locks and escape lane back into the shooter lane. Two flippers, two main flippers, and the one mini upper flipper on the mini playfield. So quite a lot to go for on that, I would say. And there's also a... have illuminated drop targets, which is a nice idea, which was previously, I think... well, it was something which was planned for Captor's Canyon a long time ago, but they couldn't get the resins to be reliable enough or to be solid enough to not break. But the newer versions of games do have illuminated drop targets, which work well, and this game has them as well. So that's looking good. Total Nuclear Annihilation, the second run, also uses illuminated drop targets. Well, remembered. Yeah, good point.
    6:41
    So are there, well, this is a new manufacturer, Does the game come in different models Or is it just one model and that's it No there are actually two models The price It's I think they talk about the pricing first of all Which is I'd say it's on the high side You know for a new manufacturer You'd imagine Coming out of the first game you try and pitch it a bit low But the price Being from a French manufacturer Is priced in Euros so it comes in at 8,900 euros including 20% value-added tax for VAT so you could probably work out what that would be minus the 20% which would actually make it a lot more feasible and it's probably something which non-EU buyers would get but that's 8,900 euros for a standard game but there is an enhanced version with the so-called elegance package, which costs another €2,100, which takes the total up to €11,000, but brings with it a mirrored back glass, what they call Radcowl's style cabinet art, so high-gloss, high-intensity artwork on the cabinet sides, a violet Bordeaux paint, as they call it, which the game is made in the Bordeaux region. There's a violet Bordeaux paint for the metalwork on the side rails and the hinges and things like that. Anti-reflective glass, art blades, pin sound speakers and a pin sound shaker motor. If you don't go for the enhanced one, you still get quite a lot with it. You get stereo sound, but not through pin sound speakers. So you get a three-channel amplifier. The game has 120-plus RGB LEDs in it, so it has a lot of lighting and effects options there for that.
    8:55
    Now, at the moment, delivery is estimated for the fourth quarter of 2023. so this year we're looking towards it's a dangerous estimate it is but you know it's the first games they have got at least one made so they know how to make the game but they should have an idea if you get orders for 500 games you can't make 500 games in three months true that's true yep so we should probably say delivery starting in the fourth quarter of 2023 now there's the horrible word which comes up every now and again, which begins with the letters P and O, and strike fear into the heart of many buyers, which are pre-orders.
    9:45
    So Hexapimble are taking pre-orders on the game, but not themselves through their distributors. And as far as I can see, they only have three distributors who are all French-based. Now one of them I saw today has Posted on Facebook saying that They will take a 2000 euro deposit On a game Other distributors may have Different rules But no one I don't suppose is asking For the full Game price up front But Pre-order is It's a difficult subject isn't it? Especially when you're talking about... Yeah, well, we got a bad history with pre-order games. Yeah, we... Put it like that, in the pinball... Everybody just says the games are available now, buy them. You know, otherwise, why launch the game now if you haven't got the games ready? Right, okay, I think what might help is, and this might be an advice to Hacks of Pinball,
    10:52
    we've seen multiple companies attempt building pinball machines, and everybody can design a game, which looks great. Taking it into production is a different beast, and it might help to convince people, if they're interested in the game, to show what manufacturing capacities they have.
    11:15
    I mean, well, we've seen factory tours, and we'll get to that later on, from various pinball companies where you can basically see that some are taking a very professional approach and others are basically assembling games in office spaces with playfields on top of drawers.
    11:45
    And it might still work, but if you want to convince people that you're capable of building, Pitbull machines show Your manufacturing capacity Yes indeed And the game will be Available to play If you are in France And are wondering about whether to Put a pre-order in I'll guess that the French market is their initial target But Either way you'll be able to go To the Salon de Pontac On the June 10th or 11th, where there is a pinball show, and you'll be able to play the game there, and even discover some of the exclusive features that haven't yet been revealed about how it plays. So that sounds interesting. I assume that as soon as we might see a live stream from that show, or people will video gameplay. I'm sure they will. Yeah. So anyway, If you want to find out more details about Space Hunt, then you can go to the hexer-pinball.com website, where you can see pictures of the game,
    13:01
    and find the distributors where you can pre-order it, if you decide to buy the game. Right. So, in the meantime, I'm trying to look up where this Solondo... Pontac is, whether it's worth the drive, but I suppose I'll look it up later on. Yeah, well, I guess it's going to be not this weekend coming up, but the weekend after. So if you're free then and able to get there, it would probably be a good show to go and visit. I'm sure it would be a good show anyway. They're always difficult for me. Oh, well. Yeah. So anyway, great news that we have a new manufacturer of pinball machines in Europe, France this time. and hopefully they will do as well as the other European pinball manufacturers, such as Pedretti Gaming slash Pinball Brothers and Dutch Pinball. Yeah, so congratulations to Hexapinball. We look forward to seeing more about the game, and we'll bring you more details just as soon as we get them in our next Pincast. Right, so now I just mentioned Pinball Brothers. You did? I noticed that. Yeah, and they have news as well. Actually, straight off the fresh of the press, I would say. Yes, something like that. Yeah, because that news was announced today.
    14:28
    What is that news? Well, the news is that they have completed the 1.0 game code for Queen, which includes the long-awaited song Bohemian Rhapsody.
    14:44
    And this update will become available tomorrow when we're recording this technically already on June 2nd. It's after midnight over here. So today. And it's quite an interesting mini-wizard mode, I would say.
    15:04
    Quite in-depth. It's a mini wizard mode in six chapters Covering all the distinct sections of the song Starting off with the slow intro Followed by the Mamma Mia and Too Late Leading up to the up-tempo part Oh, you're having the band right here playing, isn't it?
    15:30
    And then, of course, the Scaramouche and then get out and the ending is nothing really matters. Oh well. Close to a six-minute experience covering a vast variety of gameplay and emotions await, is how they advertise it.
    15:49
    Right, so once you start it you get to experience all six minutes of it. Right, right, right. But also independently selectable is the Bohemian Challenge gameplay mode, which we assume works like other challenge modes from other manufacturers. Yes, indeed. Yeah. So congratulations to Pinball Brothers for completing the 1.0 game code.
    16:17
    This is a game that greatly improved under code updates. I see. Yeah. when the game was launched last October, people were a bit like, is this it? They were expecting more, and actually rightfully so, and more came.
    16:41
    More was promised and more came, and now we're at 1.0. The last version I played was 0.94, I think, which already was a great improvement. So I'm very curious to see how this one plays. Yeah, and some news as well On the manufacturing And how soon You might be able to get hold of A Queen game if you decide to order one now As I understand it That They've been working hard, obviously they've been building up their Manufacturing facility In conjunction with Podretti As the Euro Pinball Corp And they've been working Through all the backholders that they've been taking since last July and dealing with all the hold-ups and supply chain issues that we've referred to many times in the past. So, they are saying that they're taking orders now for the next batch of 250 games, which they say will be from numbers 501 to 750, which I guess means they've sold 500 of them so far. Right. So, as of June, they're saying these will be delivered a lot more quickly than the previous games, which is good, because that's basically a year, as they do to having the new production facilities. So people ordering now, they reckon, will be able to play the game in about six to eight weeks' time after ordering it. That's something that not every manufacturer can say or predict or guarantee. I mean, I've been waiting for a game for eight years. Yeah, we'll get on to that a bit later, but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. However, it's interesting that I guess that once they get to that point, six to eight weeks' time, they might also be in the position to deliver unordered items, you know, build up stock with distributors. So people will actually be able to go into the stores and buy them off the shelf, as it were, Straight away Right So Which is a good position to be in It is Yeah I mean obviously that is That stock Which hasn't been bought yet So that's them Putting the money up front In order to produce these games But I reckon a game like Queen They're not going to have a problem Selling it No And distributors by now Should know How well the game is received And whether How many they Expect to sell more I mean They know their market I'd say But it does seem to be that we're almost In the situation now in the Bimbo buying market where you have to Pre-order a game And the Distributors don't really have stock Games come in and they go out to the Buyers Right, basically they're just moving boxes Yeah, well yeah There's distribution points really and that's it To actually have games In stock that a casual buyer could walk in and say, yes, I'd like to have one of those and then walk out the shop with it, is almost unheard of these days. So that would be a great situation if they could do that. Right. Now, very curious. I understand that there is also a third game from Pinball Brothers in the works, but it's not going to be revealed anytime soon. No, he thought it might have been this month, but it's probably going to be later now. Right. So in the meantime, well, if you're into Queen and who isn't, this might be a game for you and you could own it a lot quicker than other manufacturers might be able to deliver. Yes, and we mentioned just now about the collaboration with Pedretti Gaming for the Euro Pinball Corporation. Well, Pinball Brothers have been sharing some pictures on social media from that manufacturing facility showing multiple Alien and Queen games in the process of being built and about to be shipped out. So they're obviously very happy with the way that that collaboration is working and the way they've been to ramp up their production facility or the speed of production, which is good for them. And they've obviously had back orders for a long time. We said for the best part of a year on Queen games and I don't know how long alien games have been backordered for, but it's nice that they've now got the capacity to fulfil orders and hopefully when Game 3 is announced, they'll be able to deliver those in a much more timely manner. Right. Okay, well, so congratulations to Pimple Brothers for,
    21:33
    well, I have to say, a remarkable merger with Pedretti and both Pimple Brothers and Pedretti have been amazing to me with not only the quality of the build of their games, but also the number of games that they are able to build.
    21:49
    Yeah, and the support that they've given them as well in terms of updates and any technical issues as well, which they've addressed in a very timely manner. So, yeah, well done to everyone involved in those projects. So, move on. Yeah, so that brings us to American Pinball. And so we are supposed to talk to David Fix Who is the Vice President of American Pimple And basically David this is your cue to call in Anytime now David Yes Well maybe we shouldn't Wait too much longer for him to call in It sounds like David is pulling a Gary on us Oh no Well, there's no need for that kind of language. But, yes, we were expecting to talk to David at this point, but he is obviously busy at the factory at the moment. So we'll see if we get to talk to David a little bit later. Now, the main news from American Pinball this month is that there's been a rather extensive video released by the company explaining the rules in depth for Galactic Tank Force. Which is their latest game and currently in production. Quite right, yeah. Now, it's got a lot to it, and it's not necessarily immediately obvious all the depth of the rules. So this video, and I started watching it, and after about, I don't know, about 15 minutes or something, I thought, I'm kind of losing track here. And you kind of need to have a machine in front of you to understand it all, or be able to write it all down somewhere, because there's a lot of detail in there, and it's all explained in full in the video that you can get on the American Pinball video. Social media, yeah. Yep. So wherever you... YouTube channel. Then I'm sure you'll find the Galactic Tank Force explainer. And it features members of the design team There In their roles as tank captains And they will tell you Exactly how all the different features work And there's far too many of them to go through now So best that you look at it For yourself Watch it for yourself If David Picks calls in later During the recording of this episode Then we'll probably Find the time to talk to him And else we talk to him Some other time Yeah, I'm sure we'll get him on the next Pincast Covering June If not this one So, anyway Hope to hear from you David If not, let's move on Right, so That takes us to Canada Pinball Adventures They Published a Factory tour on their YouTube channel. They have a YouTube channel now. Yeah. Yeah, previously everything was done on Instagram. But this is YouTube. They don't seem to do anything on Facebook.
    25:09
    No, which is a pity because that's still the medium that I check the most. But still, interesting video to watch.
    25:22
    It's all a bit smaller, I'd say, and more in a like storage unit type of or business unit environment with a few interesting tidbits to share.
    25:43
    Apparently the eighth Pony Factory game was ready to be shipped and should have shipped by now, I suppose. and it showed one of their upcoming titles, at least the cabinet and the back glass, which is called Forsaken Ninja, which is a different title than I'd seen before.
    26:08
    I've seen Sushi Mania and there was another ninja themed theme, I think, but it wasn't called Forsaken Ninja. Maybe you remember what the title was.
    26:23
    No, I'm now mixed up with the Turner Pinball Ninja Eclipse game as well, which is another Ninja game. Yeah, so, but it was interesting, the artwork was already done for the back glass and so on. So, apparently, machines, the Pony Factory machines, 7 to 20, or by now probably less, but because 8 already shipped, are currently in production, including the 10 engraved editions, which have a completely black cabinet with literally engraved Pony Factory logo, I would say, on the side of the cabinet.
    27:17
    And then it looked like that was clear-coated as well in this sort of black paint kind of thing. Very shiny. probably a first in pinball that we've seen something like that those are being built limited to 10 if I'm not mistaken that's right what's also interesting is that you can go to pinball inventor's website and you can look and see the progress of the builds of the machines as well, how up to date that is I don't know but some of those machines have names against them, others don't So, if you do order one, and have your name against it, you can track how your game is being developed. So, that's the progress of the build against it. So, that's quite interesting, and another innovative feature, I'd say. Yeah. So, one other interesting tidbit from that video, their next title is supposed to be Elements. And I got the impression That they will show that game At Pinball Expo That certainly makes sense I think that game's got a Huge amount of promise Having seen the play field for it And the artwork for it too I think it looks Very interesting And we'll wait to see How the rules turn out Because that can make or break a game As we've seen many times in the past But yeah I think it's got a lot of promise And I look forward to seeing that At Pinball Expo if not sooner Okay That's all the news for Pinball Adventures at the moment So I'd say we move on to Well let's move back actually Yeah we just talked about that I guess Yeah Pedretti Gaming in Italy Last month Announced their second 2.0 upgrade kit if you want to call it this time for Whirlwind called Whirlwind Total Chaos and well the news is rather brief this month they started shipping Whirlwind Total Chaos which comes with an acrylic translight and some other features, the display that you need to install in the game, the display panel and all that kind of stuff.
    29:54
    Completely new code, but no changes directly to the play field, other than the addition of some interior cabinet artwork, art blades, I suppose. Yeah, so now if you're wondering, like, okay, great, a new game to play on your World Wind pinball machine, if you have one, but how does it play? Well, they provided an in-depth gameplay video as well, in which very well is explained how to make or how to place specific modes and so on. So, well worth checking out if you own a Whirlwind or are interested in possibly buying one. Yeah, I think it's a very nice kit And adds a lot to the game And of course you've always got the option to flip back to the original game as well If you want to do that instead And you get all the new hardware for the game With the display panel and new artwork So yeah, I think it's a pretty decent kit overall Maybe not as groundbreaking as the Worldwind one Funhaus one with the extra display yeah well still it's a very interesting way to breathe new air into your pinball machine from what is it 1990 something like that before that I think in fact but for whirlwind yes and it's something as we have seen and we'll talk about shortly other companies are doing as well Under life mask So well done to Pedretti on getting that game Or getting that kit shipped out And into the hands of buyers So if you've got one on order I hope you enjoy it And get your kit Very very soon Right ok so Moving on all the way to Australia Haggis Pinball Who have been working On the Fathom Mermaid Edition and other editions that they announced well basically last month and there some news on that as well yeah they we mentioned it in what we reported in last month Pincast about the fact that they were going to offer a standard plus edition of the game which included the new 2 code and the extra display and some of the other features which were available, previously only available, in the Mermaid edition.
    32:37
    Which is the highest range. It's the top of the range model, well, the high of the two versions. Well, they added a standard plus, there's a middle edition, which includes quite a lot of the features that were on the Mermaid Edition, and there's available as an upgrade kit for people who bought the base version. And that has made, it's fair to say, quite a number of people who bought the Mermaid Edition a little unhappy with the fact that their previously exclusive features are now available for buyers of the standard game to buy and do it as an upgrade. Some people, it's fair to say, who have bought the Mermaid Edition couldn't care, one way or the other, because they've already got their Mermaid Edition order locked in,
    33:30
    and even the standard Plus Edition, with some of the features of the 2.0 code, is not going to be a Mermaid Edition, it's not going to have everything the Mermaid Edition has they've still got their top of the range model but others thought when they bought the Mermaid Edition that was the only way they could get the 2.0 code for instance and now the 2.0 code is available as an upgrade kit for the base edition so a bit of unhappiness there I think from some buyers but not everyone I get it on the one hand on the other hand more pinball is good for everybody in the business and if this helps Hacker's Pinball to become a more stable company so to speak financially and also with the production stuff and everything that they can continue working I applaud that ok well that's kind of the two sides of the coin I think isn't it I also get the other side you think you buy something exclusive and then it turns out to be less exclusive but that's not the first time we've seen that in pinball so I don't think there's anything more to say about Fathom Revisited so let's move on and for the first time in a long time Stern Pinball are way down our list of manufacturers. Although, that's not to say there isn't any. They're still the biggest. Yes. No, no, there's absolutely news. There's just no new game. And the news that is worthy to report, there's quite a lot of it. But none of it is exactly groundbreaking or earth-shattering. Well, it might be. It depends on how emotionally attached you are to certain people, I suppose.
    35:37
    So, apparently, Stern attended the 2023 Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, which was held on May 7th to 10th.
    35:51
    Apparently, there's no better combination than pinball and beer. Well, who am I to argue with that? Pinball and women, maybe? and I don't want to sound sexist but I appreciate the company of women and I appreciate pinball but it is an annual conference and it's the only industry event that serves both on-premise breweries and packaging brewers offering education and idea sharing to improve brewery quality and performance and of course well CERN they have a brewery of the month every month so yeah CERN is sort of focusing on the brewery market I'd say and breweries and barcades I think yes very much so and I suppose people at CERN do like their share of beer, I'd say. Quite right, too.
    37:02
    Yeah, so I wouldn't call them alcoholics, but we can probably... Anyway, Stern was represented by Eric Gilley, Tyler Carson, Evan Kirby, Roper Fuentes, recently hired, if I'm not mistaken, and Patrick Powers, who has been a long-time force within the company. So they had a nice field trip to a brewery convention, I'm sure I can guess what they had to drink while being over there. Quite interesting that none of us was more senior management were there, you know, Gary or Dave, or even John Buscaglia. Yeah, yeah. Oh, well. So, anyway, that was one of the interesting items to report on. But if you're a pinball player, then you're probably more interested in new Insider Connected achievements. Yeah. Tie in, for example, with Foo Fighters and their new live tour. Yes, I've been disappointed this month. Yeah. But the Foo Fighters started their tour this month, and to tie in with that,
    38:25
    the Stone Pimble were doing a new set of achievements, which allowed you to get an achievement for each of the cities on that tour. This is still ongoing, of course, because it only started on the 24th of May. Yeah, and they're touring until mid-July, if I'm not mistaken. Right, so for every day that they have a tour gig... A concert. Yeah. Then if you play your Foo or a Foo Fighters connected game on that day, you can get an achievement for that particular city. And if you are so intent on collecting all of them, then you can get a tour saved achievement to try and save the entire tour from the evil overlord.
    39:18
    Yeah. So if you're into collecting insider-connected achievements, then this is definitely something for you. And boy, does it suck if you order a Godzilla game and you don't have it yet. Foo Fighters. Yeah, sorry. Foo Fighters. Yes, indeed. Yes, yeah.
    39:37
    But you can still play on location, of course. So if you can find one near you, You can do that The actual timing of when these achievements can be collected Didn't seem to necessarily tie in With Being entirely on the day It's not like If they're playing a gig Then you can collect that particular city From midnight Before the gig to midnight After it seems to be Something like 2pm the day before Until 7am the day after So So, a wider window than just that 24 hours. Okay, now I'm not very keen on how the operating settings work on certain pinball machines, as I have none.
    40:26
    But would you be able to cheat with this, like changing the date on your pinball machine in order to collect a specific award? It's all done by a central server, isn't it? so it needs to be able to talk back to the server and collect the appropriate award that award's not being served up by the server at that time then you couldn't get it ok, just wondering I mean that's how I'd imagine it would work but I've no evidence for that ok, so anyway enjoy your Foo Fighters achievements in Insider Connected if you're able to play a game. I mentioned Godzilla, I misspoke, sorry about that. But that is because there is Godzilla news. There is. Actually, the CERN announced a number of Godzilla accessories, which are now available, which include a Godzilla Heat Ray Destruction Topper at $999 basically $1000 there's also the Matara Egg Shooter Knob which is basically a shooter knob in the shape of an egg for just $180 and there is a King Ghidorah Sight Armor which is costing you $290 if you're interested in that, which has these three dragons around the flipper buttons. Yeah. And there's Art Blades as well, coming in at $100. What a bargain. Yeah, exactly. Now, the interesting thing about the Heat Ray Destruction Topper is that it will enable the King of Monsters Time Attack Mode in the game, which otherwise can't be played. Ah, okay. That's interesting. And you probably get an insider achievement for that as well. I'm sure you do, yes. Okay, so that's something, an exclusive mode just for that, just for topper owners.
    42:52
    Okay, I've seen that before, of course, on earlier games, but helps justify the price, I guess. But, otherwise, I would say that the reaction to the topper has been mixed. Mixed? Yeah, mixed.
    43:13
    Yes. Some people have it anyway. Obviously, there's a certain amount of enjoyment in the fact that it's only $1,000.
    43:25
    Right. Which is still a ridiculous amount of money, I'd say, for just a topper. But when you compare that to $2,000 for the Mandalorian one, which was ridiculous anyway, but still... Okay. But, so only a thousand for this one. Yeah. But this doesn't have any actual moving parts to it, as far as we can see. No, it's just LED flame effects in the buildings, no physical animation.
    43:53
    Yeah, that's right. It's got the extra mode. Yeah, and the Godzilla seems to be held down by a tie-wrap. Not sure if that's just for shipping or if that's a permanent thing. I don't know either. But I did see people complain about it. Yeah, well it's just for shipping. It was featured in the video, which was a bit weird, you know, having that cable tie around the model. It seems to be the same model of a Godzilla on the topper that's also on the playfield.
    44:29
    Which obviously makes sense from an ordering point of view, but doesn't add much in the way of diversity to the appearance of Godzilla in the game.
    44:40
    Oh well, anyway, that's the news on Godzilla. Then two people got to celebrate as well. To be precise,
    44:50
    Tia Ied has been appointed as Director of Program Management at Stern, and Joe Astone took the position of Manager of Financial Planning and Analysis. I don't imagine we'll be directly interacting with any of or either of those. But apparently, okay, so Stern's staff basically expanded, although, if I'm not mistaken, a couple of months ago one of the financial Powerhouses in the company I'd say, retired So somebody had to step in That's right, yes Okay, so Well, obviously they're boosting their management team there So as they Head towards their new building In around about October time for this year I just hope they have enough offices in there I'm sure they will make sure they have So that's good I hear Gary is the first to give up his Is he? Oh, okay.
    45:56
    That's breaking news. Okay. No, it's pure speculation on my end. Oh, breaking speculation. Okay. I like the sound of that. Yeah. Okay, so, well, there's obviously new code,
    46:11
    although not as much as we see sometimes other months from Sturron. Actually, only for three games this month. Yeah. Foo Fighters is up to 0.94 mostly bug fixes and it added a DJ mixture feature as we've seen on other Stern Piml machines as well James Bond 007 is up to 0.91 and James Bond 60th Anniversary is up to version 1.06 and Well, nobody had that game So why bother Some people Might have it, you never know Yeah, okay, so, anyway In a bit of Unexpected news, I would say Stern pinball designer And Foo Fighters Pinball designer, Jack Danger Announced His semi-retirement Well, one of the sort of cornerstone features of pinball in the Chicagoland area is expecting to be able to wander into some random pinball location and find Jack there doing a stream, a live stream. Yeah, well, I was going to say he's not retiring from pinball design, he's retiring, or semi-retiring, from streaming on his Deadflip channel, indeed. it's not goodbye forever there will still be occasional streams but it's just not every day anymore and understandably so I think Jack has a family and he wants to spend more time seeing his children grow up well I think he deserves a huge round of applause and pat on the back for the sheer amount of streaming he has done over the past he's been groundbreaking and Setting the tone I would say For a lot of Other people streamers That since then picked up streaming And have basically Well Jack can be seen as the godfather Of people streaming I suppose Yeah I think so Not to tie in with another company But in this case Yes quite right And you know it's Easy as a full time job That's done now So thank you Jack for all those years of Pinball streaming has always been a delight Watching your stream Which There were quite a few remarkable ones Especially the ones where he was The first To stream New titles with design teams Presence and well You probably watched many of them yourself As well I suspect a lot of that will still be going on Nightly Location streams that will be Cut back on but we'll see so yeah other news Phil Stern Pinball The Economist published an article on Pinball or the growth of Pinball in which Stern Pinball's Zach Sharp son of Roger Sharp indeed was quoted basically saying that the sales of a new machine have risen by 15 to 20% every year since 2008. Now, I'm not one to say that might not be correct, but if I'm not mistaken, 2008, that was like the beginning of the Lehman crisis in America. I think 2010 or 2011 would have been probably more accurate, because I think 2008 and 2009 were very dark years for Stern Pinball. Well, that's a good time to say since 2008, because things have only been on the up since then. Yeah, okay, okay. Well, if you're close to zero, it's not so difficult to... Yeah, okay, and they weren't close to zero, but still not the best games coming out, and they didn't sell that many units. at least that's what we expect based on how the industry was at that time so anyway but okay 15 to 20% increase every year that's a good indication for a company and it allows indeed to hire more staff I moved to the ultra-premises yeah exactly so which basically means the new premises are twice the size of the current ones so So, yeah, good for Stern, and I hope they can keep it up. Yeah, that article on The Economist, it's on the Economist website, but you do have to be a subscriber to The Economist in order to read it, or find an alternative way of accessing it, which we won't condone or suggest. But, yeah, it's not a groundbreaking article. Anybody who's listening to this podcast will know everything that's in there, I would say. But still, it's nice to see it making the mainstream media, as it's called.
    51:37
    Yeah, so, anyway, that sort of rounds it up for some pinball, but not exactly. Sort of related is news from The Electric Playground, which is a new company that recently started producing toppers for Twilight Zone. and they released a video which was called the first episode of The Coin Drop.
    52:06
    And in that video, not only did they say that their first batch of Twilight Zone toppers is finished and shipped by now as well, they also announced a second batch of Twilight Zone toppers on which they will start on June 6th. For those who joined the waitlist, they can order that. And they will produce some extra units as well for people interested to buy them on their website and get them delivered immediately once the waiting list has been served, of course. Of course, but that's not the only topper that they're producing, is it? No, they announced a second topper for which sales will open in August and production will begin, or delivery will begin in September. And that's for And here's the tie in with Stern Pinball That is actually for Godzilla For which Stern just announced their topper And the electric playground beat them By a day announcing theirs Right So you mentioned that the reaction to Oh sorry the online reaction I should say to Stern's Godzilla topper has been mixed Then now there is an alternative From the electric playground Yeah, I'm not sure how the response to that has been yet, because I haven't followed the social forum post, I would say. But this tipper-topper is indeed different, mostly because it's not so much static, but it's mostly flat plastics spaced out together across the depth of the back. So, multi-layered then, okay. Yeah, exactly. Pardon my English, it's not my native language. And so, it looks static, although it does have the, well, it comes in two editions. Oh. A player's edition and a challenger edition.
    54:13
    The player edition is static. The challenger edition has two moving parts, a spinning, something spinning, and something that's moving up and down. Yeah, sort of a flying saucer that moves up and down, I think. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I wasn't quite sure what the spinning part of it was, but it doesn't really matter. It's got some animation to it. And I forgot to write down the pricing of it, but I think the Players Edition comes at $800,
    54:48
    and the Challenger Edition a few hundred dollars more. Okay, so on a par with Stern's pricing then for theirs. Although I guess you don't get the extra mode.
    55:00
    No, no, you don't. Unless they find a hack to do that. But the topper is still being developed at the moment, so who knows what they might add or improve. So Okay Just so you know So you have a choice If you own a Godzilla And you're interested in a topper for that game So Or you just go to a toy store Buy a Godzilla toy for like 20 bucks And put that on top of your game Right Okay So I think that pretty much wraps up our Stern Pinball news But now I have some breaking news Because I understand that David Fix is now available to talk to us To give us the latest update from American Pinball Well, how are you, David? I'm doing good, Jonathan. Good to hear from you, Jonathan, and see you both, you and Martin. It's good to see you. Good to hear from you, David. And tell us what's going on at American Pinball then. What's the latest news? Well, we've been working very hard. It's been a crazy time since the launch. As you guys have heard, probably, we've had a couple of issues. One is we've been working on the targets straight up the middle. We're talking about the launch of Galactic Tank Force for those who just tuned in. Yeah, Galactic Tank Force, a.k.a. Ice Cream. That was the code name for that game. Right.
    56:19
    So we had a small issue, which we didn't see, but we kind of started seeing a little bit at Texas. Surprisingly, we have had tested locations and tested games with over thousands of plays and never had that problem with the bent target, which was a shocker to me. And I'm like, when we first found it, we were like, okay. So the team immediately sprung into action. Zofia, Mitesh, Dennis, he came back from Texas immediately, and they started working on it. We have a nice replacement in the works. We signed off on it a little over a week ago, 500 units of all three pieces. Very simple to put in. We'll correct all the problems on that. And as soon as they are received at American from the manufacturer that made the brackets, we'll be sending them out to all the customers who've registered their games. Okay. I've noticed that you also had a problem with some magnetized balls as well. Yeah. Weird. Okay. So we usually use carbon balls. That's the standard for American. And we use STR. I've known Leo from STR for a long time, going back to started pinball about 20 years ago. So as soon as we started getting magnetized balls, and it wasn't like we saw it right away. As crazy as it is, we've always ordered them from STR, which is great. To find out that when I was at the factory, somebody, a guy who's been rotating the socks, So he's been taking the balls from SDR, and then he's been taking them off from another shelf, which were not SDR's balls. And they were not in the games for Texas. They were not in the games for Vegas. They were in one game in Milwaukee, which we were like, what's going on with that?
    58:18
    And we replaced them immediately when we started finding them, going, this is kind of strange. And they were in the games that were boxed up from Milwaukee on. So it took us a little time before we found him. A quick call with STR, Leo put me on to the lot numbers. So I immediately started pulling all the lot numbers, went in the back with the team, and just started digging through. And I came across a box that didn't have a lot number on it. And I asked him where he got it from, and then he walked me over to this section that had been, you know, areas that we'd been putting extra balls or something. And sure enough, these were non-carbon balls, and we were putting them in the game. So immediately we reversed. We pulled them all off the shelf. We pulled everything out of production. I put them all up in an upper section, immediately changed everything over to SDR, immediately started contacting all customers and put them out. In fact, the game that was on Jack Danger's stream, we pulled them out, and that was the game we had up in the lab. Trust me, that poor game went through hell because we pulled it apart trying to figure out what was going on with it. Put the carbon balls right in, and guess what? The locking mechanism worked just fine.
    59:34
    So it's just, you know, a comedy of errors kind of thing. We're a small company, you know. That's the trucks of American is that, you know, you've got, you know, guys trying to, you know, rotate inventory, try to keep things moving, you know, just grabbing a case from a different area, and the next thing you know, we have the wrong balls going in the game.
    59:55
    Needless to say, we've gotten rid of all those balls. All the balls now in the house are all from STR, and that's the only person we're buying them from. So they're all 100% chrome. Not chrome. Carbon. Carbon balls. Yeah. Because carbon balls do not retain the magnetic power. It immediately loses it. Now, apart from doing all that, you guys have been really busy, because we talked about it a little bit earlier on in this pincast, about the lengthy and in-depth video which you produced about all the rules for Galactic Tank Force. Now, I imagine besides being a slog, that was also, it looked like it was a lot of fun for people to do. It was a lot of fun. You know what, it was something that we had been working on a little bit. But, you know, it came out from Texas. Some people asked us, you know, what are some of the rules? And then it kind of morphed. We kind of started looking at some different ways of explaining it. You know, are we going to put little trailers up? And then the next thing you know, we said, why don't we just do a whole video shoot? We did the video shoot.
    61:11
    We did the whole thing together. And we were going to break it apart in small little segments. and then release it slowly, but we thought, you know what, we have it all together, it's all done, let's do that, and put it out to the world. And it's been a tremendous hit. A lot of people are looking at it now, understanding the rule sets, understanding the game concept, and we've seen an increase again in sales. So it's a good thing for us. Congrats on that. I was going to ask, but you already said it. So it's nice to, on one hand, explain how deep the game is and how much fun, of course, and see that translate into additional sales. Absolutely. Well, the idea of that was to give, and this just gives you a little bit of the feel, guys, just gives you a little bit, there's a lot of depth to this game, and we asked Steve and the rest of the team to jump in and let's just start, you know, there's some stuff into this. And you know what? The sad thing was is we kind of said this, is that, you know, you look at games that are licensed game, and you kind of understand the thought of that license, right? You know that you have to do something because you're following that movie or something. But this is being us. We really don't have anything that kind of tells you which way this storyline is going. So for us to sit down and say, hey, this is the storyline. These are the shots. This is what you've got to do. kind of basically tells the player really how to get through the game and to start building some bigger points. I have to admit, having watched it, I was surprised and pleased by the level of depth in the rules. I thought it was a lot simpler than it actually was. And there's also some nice touches in there for scoring opportunities as well, which I hadn't hand-crafted the first time around. I always wonder whether it is available in a printed format, because obviously there's a lot of detail there to explain, and you sit down and watch it, and I don't know how long it was, it was 20, 25 minutes, that long, and at the end of it you think, what was it you said about that back there? It would be nice just to be able to refer to a printed version of that, or at least a summary sheet. That's got to be a manual the size of a phone book.
    63:45
    And that only takes you through the first, you know, quite a few battles. I mean, there's still a lot of other stuff in there that we haven't even talked about, like the other wizard modes. We didn't touch anything on the wizard modes. So this game is not, you know, you walk up to you and, oh, this is a simple game.
    64:02
    It looks to be deceiving. It's got a lot going on. There's a lot of scoring points. There's a lot of chances.
    64:10
    I know some people who have put in $1 billion, $2 billion easily on this game. Some people who have gone even higher than that.
    64:20
    And there are some very interesting strategies that were not alluded to in the field guide. But if you play some things a certain way you can start seeing your points grow really faster It going to be it has been well received by a lot of people in the public a lot of people who have put their hands on it I will tell you right now and I don usually talk about this but let's talk about the cash box for a minute. Do you want to hear about the cash box? I always want to hear about the cash box. So right now it's earning on par or a little bit better than Foo Fighters in quite a few different locations. I have them, the locations in California. are doing very well. The location in Chicago, all these games are on dollar play. The location in Chicago was out earning Foo Fighters by, you know, $10, $20 at most for the entire month, but it was up there. You know, Chicago, you know, it's a dollar a game swipe, so they had 938 swipes on the game. So, you know, if you're taking that for cash value, you can get enough.
    65:37
    And, you know, on Coinplay in New York here at Pocketeer, it did very well over the four weeks. Corey, you know, you think about it, it's 80 games we had. It's the Next to Foo Fighters, Godfather, and Scooby-Doo. All of them are right there. So, and actually it out-earned Scooby by a little bit, definitely out-earned Foo, and Godfather was neck and neck right in the mix of that trio. So, on location it's good. Now, granted, this is the first, second month. You know, I always tell people you've got to let it go for six months, eight months. Let's see the longevity for coin op guys. So, we'll just wait and see. You know, it's out there. It's earning.
    66:27
    The games are flying off the assembly line. We just finished two weeks ago. Actually, it's going on three weeks ago. We finished the line of Oktoberfest. They are done. So both assembly lines right now are just totally dedicated to Galactic Tank Force. When you touch on this subject, I just wanted to bring in. I kind of know what you're thinking Jonathan I've known this for a long time you and I and Martin are all friends we always talk about this stuff so my question to you and I'm asking this because we touched on this earlier on in the in this Pincas recording let's say somebody orders a Galactic Tank Force today, how long would they have to wait before they get their game?
    67:19
    well I'll tell you I'm going to say it's going to be a bit. When is it going to be? Maybe two months, three months. That's the goal of the location. We want to have this thing done before summer is over with. So that leads me to the question that I have had a lot of people asking about the signatures. Signatures have not started production yet. The signatures will start production. Signature editions, that is, of course, for those that are not understanding what you mean by signatures. But signature editions, yes. Correct. The signature editions. The 200 signature editions will start. And I didn't want to start it until I had all the metal parts in, right? I didn't want to have all the, you know, the key pieces to finish. So once I have everything in, then we can start the signatures. I don't want the people who bought the signature edition having to add an extra metal part to the game. So we're going to have all those. Now, interesting enough, is it one metal part? I know that I've seen it on pin side. Yes, I read pin side. I do. For you. Huh? For you. Yeah, well, hey, you know, people who live in glass houses, you know, I've got to be ready to throw a stone or take a stone. So, you know, it's okay. I have a strong, I don't know, constitution, as you would say. And everybody has their opinion, and they're entitled to it. So there you go.
    68:53
    But the bracket that we're making, there's three brackets, right? It's three unique brackets that are going to happen. I could have made one and been done with it. I could have made two and said it's overkill. Three, I know I'm not going to have a problem ever. So that's what we went with. We went with three brackets. Okay. Interesting, just touching on that bracket for a second.
    69:19
    Martin, I don't know if you've seen the pin side or any of the pictures of that bracket that's holding that unique target bank. That's 13-gauge Colt Rolls steel, and that is pretty thick when you look at it. And it was surprising to us that it was bending so easily. that led to a new standard that we have instituted at American now that when we order any metal parts we're asking for the certification of the metal from the manufacturer so that means that whatever that piece of steel is that they're using comes with a piece of certificate that says this is what the steel is and if I took it to a lab I could test it and get the same information that has to come in on all metal parts coming into American because the first set of brackets that we got from the manufacturer, over almost 1,000 plays no bend. This one, you can almost bend it with your hand. I can't, but I know some people who have taken devices and bent it with their hand.
    70:26
    And this is from the same manufacturer? Same supplier and same manufacturer, which is, like I said, caught us off the guard. You know, you think that, you know, guys, this is not our first rodeo. We test and test and test things, you know, a little bit too much sometimes. I know American has been known for its quality.
    70:49
    Games are built like a tank. Absolutely. Tanks for the info. But, you know, it's one of those things. We build them tough, but we also make sure that if there is a problem, I'm standing behind my product. You know, so, you know, when you guys are buying American, you're buying American pride. You're buying this little company's line of stuff. I mean, I'm kind of lost there. I don't know where it's at right now. It's just kind of weird. When you launched the game, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you said that there were going to be up to four different editions. Correct. of the game, but you weren't necessarily going to make all four. Right away. One of them was only going to be dependent upon demand, shall we say. Correct. Well, I wouldn't say it's dependent on demand. So the idea of this, Martin, is we launched the deluxe model and the limited and the signature. The deluxe is the street, kind of street one that we all know. The tank version is the LE and the signature, right? the signature being the high end with all the extra little bells and whistles, which when we put it into production, we will definitely show off all the extra stuff that you get in the game.
    72:14
    For the deluxe model, that's basically the same play field as the LE, just in the standard cabinet. There was going to be a classic version, and there still is. So the idea is once limited and signatures are done, and we will continue to build Deluxes, and we'll continue to build the Classic. And we'll probably bring out the Classic version, which would be kind of like Stern's Pro version, you know, cut down, but not with gameplay. That's the one thing I keep telling people is that I don't like to change gameplay. You know, somebody said to me, he said, well, for a Street version, you could take out the swinging target and just have standing targets. What kind of garbage is that? It's got to have a swinging target. That's what, you know, it's part of the gameplay. So, you know, it makes my job a little harder to be able to bring the cost of the bomb down, but that's what we're going to do, you know. Right. Okay.
    73:10
    So, any other news from American? Well, you saw the video, so I'm happy about that. We have some other cool stuff. We're continuing, like I said, we're building as fast as we can and trying to keep up with demand, shipping games out. we will be doing a launch party shortly. So we'll be doing that. I'm happy to say that England has really stepped into the picture for the first time since Houdini and has actually bought a good selection of Galactic Tank Force. So, you know, the theme is resonating with a lot of people, right? So not just the U.S., but all over. So it's pretty cool. And what's your show schedule then for the rest of the year?
    74:00
    The show schedule? Yes. So we'll be at Fantastic for sure. There will be a couple more shows that we're going to be popping in at. There will be some distributors who will definitely be at the show, showing off the game.
    74:16
    We will have a very big presence, of course, at the Northwest show in Seattle this coming week. I know Nitro, Tommy from Nitro, has, I want to say, six Galactics, four Deluxes, and two Limiteds. I don't know if they're all going to be there, but I did ship all those out to him for the show, so he will definitely be making a big presence there.
    74:43
    Of course, we will be at Expo, even though that's right there. We're going to try to actually have the entire cast of Galactic Tank Force on site for Expo this year. That's one of our goals, to bring in, of course, Kyan and Anoya and Plotnik and the rest of the team, including Duke. So we've got a lot of fun stuff coming up, a lot of shows. We're going to be at IEPA this time. First time ever, we're going to be at IEPA Europe in September. We're going to go over there and support our distributors over there, right? So we have a bunch of distributors over in Europe that are moving a lot of American product, which I'm happy about. And, you know, for the first time ever, one of the good little points is that American is, you know, catching up on a lot of our back orders. So, you know, we have, believe it or not, we have some Hot Wheels in stock. We have some Legends of Valhalla in stock. We have some Octoberfest in stock.
    75:53
    A little bit later on this year, probably after signatures are done, we'll be running Houdini again. And everybody's like, why would you run Houdini? It's a game from 2017. Why would you be doing that? I'm sitting at over 200 orders of Houdini right now. So those customers definitely want the game. Houdini's got a lot of long legs still. I did see some people saying to us on Pinnaside, I'm just going to touch on this, that, you know, American Elite builds games to, you know, their license, and they have open orders and so forth. But we do have a nice arrangement with Mattel. We've actually already got an extension on Hot Wheels, so that's why we're continuing to build Hot Wheels, and people are still buying that game. Operators and locations are, you know, there's a lot of people out there who say, you know, we trade on Pinside, we trade on, you know, the forums, we're doing this on Facebook Marketbook, you can get this. Yeah, but operators aren't going on there, right? So there's a lot of operators still buying these machines and putting them out in locations. So there's still a lot of markets. a lot of ground for us to cover. Okay. So, this might be a bold question, but production-wise, is it besides the games that you just mentioned, mainly Galactic Tank Force, or might we see a new title from American Pinball later on this year? So, we have this beautiful game called Galactic Tank Force, which was released.
    77:27
    The standard reply, what's your favorite game, Dave? Galactic Tank Force. It's on the line right now. You'll love it.
    77:34
    You know, Jonathan, we're working hard, right? The team is always working on the next game. We have games in the queue, which is good, and we're just going to continue working. But right now, Galactic Tank Force, she's the flagship right now. She's doing very well. People are enjoying it, and stay tuned. There's always new stuff coming from American, but right now, Galactic Tank Force is on the line, so you got that. And is the company right-sized at the moment, or are you still looking for particular additional staff? We're still looking for some additional staff. We went through a little bit of a shake-up, I'll say that, in March. We lost some people, but we've gained some people back. We have a new purchasing guy, which I'm very happy to bring on board. he's been in the not in the industry but he's been working in purchasing for a long time so he's already got himself situated in that it's another David and then I did lose a good friend Max unfortunately Max took a job he got an offer and his girlfriend wanted to move back to Milwaukee so he's like, David, I've got to take this. I said, okay, hey, listen, I understand. Good friend, will always be part of American pinball family, as it were, and alumni, and he's always there. I'm sure if you wanted to order a game, I'll still give him an employee's discount because Max was always there with us in the trenches.
    79:15
    But we have two new people into sales. we have Megan and also Steve so we'll be making announcements very shortly of these two new people there who will be helping out with distributors and making sure that everything gets moving out so there you go if I had one max it takes two people to replace one max just to tell you how good of a worker he was a great guy so are you still looking for particular roles? we are, we're still looking for of course, mechanical engineers, whereas, you know, Zofia is, you know, the head. We have a couple other juniors, mechanical engineers, but it doesn't mean that I'm not looking for more mechanical engineers. Same thing with software. You know, it's a small company, Martin, and I think you've touched on that a little bit for me. You know, when you think about an art department, I have Jack Hager as my art director, and then I have Jessica and Bobby, who are my animators. that's it. I got two. You know, I mean, you think about Stern or JJP and some of those other companies, they have you know, 20, 30 people. It's kind of funny. Software.
    80:30
    Go ahead. Not in the art department, but still, I get it. Yeah, yeah, but it's just a lot of people. Same thing with software. I mean, I have Casey and Steve and Joe. That's it. Joe is part-time.
    80:46
    Um, so that, that's, that's a small team there. Um, I have Dennis as a designer and I got Ryan. I have two guys and Zofia as that, and that's it. And then I got Mattesh. Uh, he's my, uh, go all the way around kind of guy who helps build the Whitewoods, uh, does all the cable harnessing, understanding how to, you know, gets all that through and, uh, make sure that we get through for testing and all that other stuff. And then we have Benjamin who assists everybody in there. So, like I said, it's not a big office. You know, you're talking about a very small ragtag team, a good team that will go into battle with everybody. And you know what? I'm proud of all of them. I wouldn't, you know, wouldn't change any of them. They're hardened people. They want to be there. And it's the passion, right? You know, they have a passion that is great, and they want to be there. And then the team in the back in production, I got a great little team of people in production right now. So they all want to be there as well. So last year, October, American Pinball at Pinball Expo did the American Pinball Dream Challenge, if I'm not mistaken, that it was called. is there any news regarding the outcome of that contest and will there be another edition at the upcoming Pinball Expo are you looking for more homebrew games we're always looking for homebrew games I'm always looking for people and there was a winner that winner was notified because they did a let's say a title that requires us to make sure that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot. We wanted to make sure that we have that all anchored in before we make the announcement of that game. We kind of put the horse before the cart before and we're not doing it this time, but the winner is there. They did a great job. I'm excited about the game.
    83:01
    Of course, it needs to be refined, but overall it's very very impressive right um there are many other there's a lot of guys i mean i was just at mgc and there's a lot of cool homebrews that were there that i got to play um and you know what that's the future right you know look um the homebrew game um archer came out and that was taken by somebody. A game from Scott Denise, you know, Total Nuclear Annihilation. These games were homebrews. And there's a reason that they were put together pretty good. So, you know, there's a lot of new future ahead of us. Even Ryan McQuaid's Sonic Spinball, that was a fun game too. You know, it shows that there's a passion for these people. So.
    84:00
    I applaud the passion. I applaud the hobby. Great. Well, thank you very much indeed for joining us tonight, David. Oh, yeah. Well, thanks for having me on, guys. Always a pleasure. We always enjoy having you as a guest on the Pincast and always enjoy seeing you in person at pinball shows. And hopefully it won't be too much longer before we get to meet again in person. I hope so. And trust me, Martin, I still owe you a swift pint and I owe Jonathan a Swift kick. I mean a Swift microphone.
    84:34
    I'll drink to both of them. No, I kid you not. No, I do owe you guys some adult beverages. So, you know, we have to definitely do that. And I hope everybody's been well and good over on that side of the pond. Yep, and we will see you before too much longer. I can guarantee that. Sounds great, guys. And it's time to move on to another Greater Chicago land area company And we were just talking before we talked to David Talking about what's been going on with Stern So let's now talk about their neighbours at Jersey Jackpin Ball And well, not a huge amount of news to be honest Coming from them this month, is there, Jonathan? No, well, they're obviously busy building the Godfather Limited Edition which is currently in stock and ready for immediate shipping.
    85:28
    As we just heard from David, that game is earning also very well on location. So congratulations for that to Jersey Jack Pinball.
    85:40
    But they're not neglecting their older titles as there is a new code update for Toy Story 4 Pinball.
    85:48
    Some general gameplay improvements And it adds an audio equalizer Yes, oh well there you go So as I say, not a massive update But some nice of their skills supporting Toy Story 4 It's getting new love And I wonder whether that's the one that takes out the score bit Or whether that was in an earlier update I haven't checked yet but oh well if you are into pinball factory tours then be sure to check out Jersey Jack's Facebook page as they did a factory tour with Godfather on the line so if you wanted to take a quick look how that game is being put together then check out that video on Facebook page.
    86:50
    And then the most interesting news that I suppose that came out from Jersey Jack Pinball actually didn't come out from Jersey Jack Pinball, but from a source that you probably would not expect to reveal any Jersey Jack news. As we're talking about Joe Kamenkow of Aristocrat and also Kapow Pinball, who has been long time, actually he's a co-founder of Stern Pinball and since then been associated with Stern Pinball as well and basically he announced that Jersey Jack Pinball secured the Harry Potter license and that went accompanied with a mock-up of a Stern Harry Potter Pinball cabinet That uses artwork Which has been confirmed Is by Christopher Frenchy But is from some years ago Yes So this was presumably A mocked up game which they used Which Stern used And Joe I guess used To pitch to Either Warner Brothers and or J.K. Rowling To how a Harry Potter pinball machine Produced by them would look the kind of job that they could do with it. Obviously, it's a fairly reasonably recent one because it's got the current size LCD display on it, so it hasn't got a dot matrix or anything like that, so it can't be that old.
    88:27
    But it was really sort of an example of the artwork that they put on the cabinet and on the back box because it didn't show anything of a play field. Right. So now let me look up, I got a screenshot of the post by Joe Kamikow, as there was something interesting, at least I found interesting in that post. Well, you already mentioned that it was unusual that Joe would be posting about what Jesse Jack Pinball was doing, But I took from that to be that Stern and Joe had been expecting to get the Harry Potter licence, and at the last minute it looked like Jersey Jack Pinball had taken it from them, or won out in the war, the bidding war, to take the licence for a pinball game, and a certain amount of sour grapes from that. Yeah, well, either Jack did a brilliant move on his end, or someone dropped the ball and stern Pimple, and Sarah Graves, indeed, would not be, well, I can imagine, yes. So, what I found interesting, because I have the screenshot of the original post by Joe Winkler, which since has been deleted, but it literally says, hey, Pimple fans, here's the scoop, Jersey Jack have secured the license for Harry Potter for Pinball. No waiting, no speculation, they locked it in. I find the no waiting very interesting, because Jersey Jack Pinball is a company that run a game for a year. If you look at Guns N' Roses and Godfather, they will probably run for a year as well.
    90:26
    So the no waiting bit, well, my guess is if they secured it and let's say they secured it recently, it might still take a couple of years before we get to see that game yeah, I mean I'm guessing here that, and we've spoken to Jack several times in the past about how the licensing process works or sometimes doesn't but it looks like in the past companies have thought they had a license locked in and secured only to go and then have another company come and take it out from under them. Well, that's one of the games that Stern used to play, for example, with Godzilla on Spooky Pinball. Yeah, and Jack's told us in the past about how some of the licenses that he thought he had, even the Wizard of Oz, he thought he'd lost it for a while, that license, managed to get it back. and the fact that Joe is saying it's locked in kind of suggests that that's the end of the process, the end of the licensing process, and Stern hasn't got it, Jersey Jack people has,
    91:43
    and now they move on from there. There's no more, who's going to have it? Are Stern going to be able to steal it away from Jersey Jack? It's like, okay, that's the end. It's signed, sealed, if not yet delivered. Right. Okay, so if true, because we still have no confirmation from Jersey Jack Pinball, and I can understand why, because their focus is on The Godfather, of course, and other games that are probably in development. But if true, congratulations to Josie Jack Pinball. Now, I did talk to Jack, I think a week or two ago, about this matter.
    92:26
    And, of course, he did not confirm anything. I didn't ask either, but I can understand why he wouldn't confirm anything. he was just I'd say well let's call it curious why Joe would actually speak out on that matter at all it's not very professional I'd say and did you get any response from them? No, no no, no but I can see why Jack would be wondering why Joe posted that in the first place It seemed an odd thing And if it wasn't for the fact That he, that Joe Admitted later After having removed that post He admitted that he did post it I would have thought it Would have been a Made up or a spoof post But, well, the man himself Said yes, he did say that Heck, no, not the case No There you go So we certainly look forward to seeing exactly what Jersey Jack and Ball got in that license. You know this is going to lead to years of speculation what to do with that game, because there's so many movies to pull from. But even if true, we don't know what the license is exactly for. Well, exactly. That's what I mean. I mean, you can speculate, yeah, yeah, it's Harry Potter. It could just be for the characters, it could be for one movie, it could be for all movies.
    94:01
    We don't know And there's It could be for Harry Potter 5 I don't know It could even be for a future movie Or it could be For the animated Cartoon series that's apparently coming Well That's a thought as well Yeah But let us not do the speculation On other people's behalf We'll just rejoice and the fact that it looks like there is going to be a Harry Potter pinball coming out before too much longer.
    94:36
    And I look forward to seeing what can be done with it because there's certainly a huge amount of assets to work with.
    94:47
    So the only thing I fear now is that you probably start with the game that you have to pick which class you're in or which house. Yeah, which house. And all the different possibilities. Yeah, of course. Keith Johnson probably can program a thousand modes for you to play in a million different ways to play a game.
    95:20
    Well, I've got all the spells that you can cast. I mean, but... Different ones. Should probably start with the sorting hat. But anyway, let's not get into all that.
    95:32
    Whatever they come out with, I'm sure it'll be absolutely marvellous, and we will wait to see what that is. So, I don't think we have any more Jersey Jet Pinball news. No, that's it. So let's move on to our next company, and Spooky Pinball have been... Well, they too have been doing a factory tour. It's factory tour time. Yeah, exactly.
    95:56
    They've been showing those on, was it on Facebook? I think it was on Facebook. Yeah, I think Facebook, yes. And might be on YouTube as well, around their expanded factory now. So you can see them making the Scooby-Doo games. And speaking of Scooby-Doo If you already have a Scooby-Doo game Then you will be receiving a free upgraded LED driver board Which apparently handles all sorts of new awesome light shows That the previous board couldn't And probably fixes a particular issue that was in that version of the board If you have the game already Then Spooky will be sending that board out to you and if you have it on order, then your game, as it comes off the production line, will already have this new board installed, so there's no further action needed. So nice to know that you been able to get some enhanced lighting effects in your Scooby game I can wait to see what they look like And For those who Haven played it yet I remember playing Scooby-Doo at the Texas Pimple For so surprisingly more fun Than I expected it to be Absolutely, I think it was a great game Yeah, I really enjoyed it But as we've seen The code tends to improve Over time and makes the game even more fun. Right. So, well, that's about the only news from Spooky Pinball for Disney. It is? Yeah. So, let's move on to Multimorphic, who came out with, well, it's not a monthly update, but, let's say, almost quarterly.
    97:43
    Yeah, it's occasional when they have news to bring us. And Jerry Stellenberg from Multimorphic sent out a message basically updating on the production status and the timeline for games which are in production or being ordered now. Right. And they've been forced to push back production on a number of things slightly by a few weeks. Jerry said Even though they've got An expanded assembly team Which has enabled them to Build and ship most of the back-ordered Playfield modules with the exception of Final Resistance which hasn't Actually gone into production yet They say that the Weird Owl Heist and the Cosmic Cart Racing playfield Cues will be clear in the next couple of weeks This was a couple of weeks ago So it might even be clear by now Cali Lagoon is Already in the first Yep They have all been delivered And the last few remaining Backordered Lexi Lightspeed playfields Will all ship In the next couple of weeks But despite that They haven't managed to scale up their Cabinet production The full machine build Fast enough to match the estimated shippings that they put out before, which meant that they are a little bit later in delivering those. We said before that it was probably about a 12 month delay on the timeline between ordering a P3 machine and actually getting it delivered. He said that's probably gone back a little bit, about another 15 weeks.
    99:37
    He said current build machines are originally estimated for mid-January. So that's quite a few, three and a half months behind estimates. Right.
    99:51
    But... Any positive news? Well, I'd say the positive news was in the almost elimination of the backordering of playfield modules. So those are coming on in leaps and bounds. The cabinets themselves are being put back. we mentioned about final resistance earlier they hadn't actually started production yet he said they've had to bump the start of production a couple of weeks as they're still waiting for production parts to arrive and for them to be tested and make sure they meet the specification so they're looking at starting those in late June or early July so the end of this month or the start of next with that with the larger production playfield facility in place, they'd be able to turn them out a lot faster than they thought they could originally. So they reckon it'll actually take less than six months to ship all the existing final resistance orders to people who already have a P3. If you're waiting for a P3 build, then the original delay still stands. But if you have a P3, then you should get your final resistance game if you order one within six months. Right, okay. Now there is another bit of interesting news regarding Final Resistance. As we know, an original theme designed by Scott Danisi and his team.
    101:21
    Surprisingly, or maybe not, depends on how you look at things, Final Resistance has already broken sales records set by the previous game, Weird Al Yankovic Natural Museum of Hilarity Which is quite unusual For an original team I would say Yeah, a testament to Scott and the team's reputation And also of course The increased number of P3 machines Out there now So there's a larger user base Which has been driven by Games like Heist And Weird Al Right, so yeah, the market is bigger and as long as they keep producing great games I suppose they'll keep breaking Tales records Yeah, well that's very likely indeed because obviously more P3s around means if you come up with a great game the chances are the previous record will be broken again because more people are in the position to add a new Playfield module to their already owned P3 game. That's amazing. Yeah. But still, congratulations to Scott and his team for breaking the weird L sales records. Yep. That's a new benchmark that the next game we'll have to try and aim for. Right. Okay. And that rounds it up for Multimorphic, I would say. I think it does. Now, we mentioned before in previous pincasts about a company called Cardona Pinball and the fact that at the Texas Pinball Festival back in March they were showing their Black Rose Skull and Bones. Which is an upgrade kit. Yeah, it's a 2.0 type kit for Black Rose. With a new trans-light artwork and, of course, rules and so on. Yes, indeed, yeah. Now that's still not actually available to purchase Through the CardonaPinball.com Webshop So not through them themselves Although Planetary Pinball Do have it for sale For a price of 2000 US dollars But only for the US market They say at the moment Because it seems to operate On 110 volts So it plugs into the service outlet On US Black Rose games whereas non-US games don't tend to have that same connection for power. But Planetary Pinball do say that they'll have an international version available soon.
    104:04
    So I don't know whether that will work on a different voltage or whether it will have CE approval, whereas maybe the US one doesn't have that. But as soon as that is available, we will let you know. But for now, if you're in the US, you can buy the Black Rose Skull and Bones through Planetary Pinball for US$2,000.
    104:28
    Right. Okay. And, of course, there's also the No Good Govers Battle for the Green kit available as well. Yeah, that's available now. Yeah. So, well, moving to, well, basically the Netherlands where I'm based, Dutch Pinball. as several other companies did the past month a live factory tour quite in depth I have to say they did that on Thursday May 11th and it's available to watch on their Facebook page it is so I've been there so I know what the factory looks like I found it a an interesting well explained factory tour although the audio wasn't well you couldn't always hear Barry talking as he turned away from the camera occasionally but there was a couple of interesting facts from the from that video that I would like to mention here that Spillmore is currently building about 10 games per week, still big Lebowski games in terms of there's still about 50 early achiever games left to be built, early achievers were those who lucked in a game I think in 2014 it was already when the game was announced at Pimple Expo and it's been a long road since then and still 50 of those games have to be built. The current early, or one of the current early achiever games on the line was 121, which is going to Charles Thomas in New York. So finally, Charles, your game is coming your way.
    106:36
    And right at the end of the video, I'm not sure whether we should be talking about, I did think I saw something that we hadn't seen before, but nobody picked up on it yet, so maybe I shouldn't touch on it because I'm not sure whether it was supposed to be shown.
    106:53
    Well, I think you've said that now. You've got to tell us what it is. I mean, you can't leave a hint like that. Okay, well, I'll just say, okay, look around the 24, 25-minute mark and see if you see anything that you haven't seen before that maybe might be a clue or maybe not.
    107:16
    You know, that's all I'm going to say. You can't get much more vague than that. Yeah, okay. 24, 25 minute mark is right at the end. And then you might spot something. Maybe you don't.
    107:30
    Yeah. So, anyway. Well, thanks for that. Yes, I'm sure everybody will be scouring over that video. Well, it's certainly increased the number of downloads or streams. Right.
    107:42
    You're welcome, Barry. Get those numbers up. Yeah. Well, that's all the news from Dutch Pinball. Okay. Well, let's fly all the way around the other side of the world to Taiwan and what Mike Kalinowski at Homepin has been up to, because they're obviously building the This Is Spinal Tap game. and he's been sharing a few pictures on his Facebook feed, I think, and one of which was showing the, I think it was around about, I think I counted them, about two dozen pod assemblies, which is the bit where the ball gets trapped inside. Right. And this is for the, this is the final tap game. He says they're complicated mechs because they only need to be able to close and then open and release the ball from inside. Correct. So he was showing a big sort of drawer or rack of those that had been assembled and also shared a picture of the pinball production line where a number of staff are being trained to how to build the games, basically. Okay. So they're sort of, you know, wrapping up production and the expectation of selling good numbers of this final tap. So it's beyond time, I would say. It's beyond time, as many would say. Yeah. We're looking forward to getting our hands on the game and playing it. So we've seen lots of pictures and some videos, and there's been a lot of talk about it for a long time. But we haven't actually got to play it, have we? No, not yet. I'm actually curious when Mike is coming over to either Europe or America with the game, although the game is already available to play at the Pimble Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. It is, yeah. But I haven't seen it at other Pimble shows yet. No, it seems to be about the only one, but hopefully that will change before too much longer. Right. Okay, so moving on. Chicago Gaming, and in this case, Play Mechanics. well their combined effort resulted in Pulp Fiction which is scheduled to start production this fall but if you're in the Schaumburg or Chicago area the game is already available on location for public play at Antarium in Schaumburg Illinois where it seems to be very popular which is no surprise I suppose and I tend to think of this as putting a game on test like companies used to do in the 70s, 80s, 90s basically so that not only that they see how the parts hold up and how it plays and how it earns well mostly how it earns so they have a good story for distributors to say like hey this game is earning this much a month or a week and you know, so that's how I think you should see the placing of this game this early already in Antarium, especially considering that production is still a couple of months away at the earliest absolutely, yeah that's all I had from Chicago Gaming, no news on how Cactus Canyon remake is doing So, no news on that. No, in fact, we have no news from a bunch of other pinball companies. Right. So, we can just rattle through those. And you say that Bittronic in Spain, we have no news from them.
    111:39
    STR Pinball in Spain, we have. Not really a manufacturer, but still. Yeah, no news. Quetzal Pinball, also no news, although they are still apparently working with Bittronic, who we just mentioned. Then Turner Pinball No update on their plans for Ninja Eclipse Which we mentioned earlier Or any future titles either I didn't see any news from Circus Maximus either No, no indeed But we have had some other bits of news though Yes, okay, so let's look into those Yeah, well we both I believe received an email From a George Spelvin Yeah, which is a popular nickname in the theatrical world, in the world for an anonymous actor or actress. Yeah, who doesn't necessarily want to reveal their identity.
    112:37
    Yes, saying that there's a new mystery pinball company coming, but not giving any more details here, other than to say they're not Tilt-Bob Pinball, which we already mentioned before, and say that more clues are coming, which to me was one big yawn on his side. Well, you've got something to say, say it. If you haven't got anything to say, then wait until you have. Okay, so diving into it a little bit more, apparently what the email, which I received as well, it showed a bunch of pictures, And the first one was a sort of key fob type of plastic, which says, an amazing pinball machine is coming. and it had a logo of a pinball bat with a ball right at the tip not on it but in the on the same line as the axe or the center of the pinball bat I would say then at Allentown and at Pinfest a poster was apparently shown with the same tagline an amazing pinball machine is coming with that same logo and then there was another poster spotted saying see you at the ball again with that flipper ball and ball logo.
    114:24
    The mailing did suggest ongoing speculation, which I wasn't aware of, so it might as well have been sent to create such speculation.
    114:36
    It also said they are not Tilt or Bob, and that more clues will follow. I haven't seen any since then, but I haven't been to any shows. maybe at the upcoming Northwest Pinball show we could see something and the fact that the word amazing is in capital letters on the outings that I just mentioned not sure whether that's a reference to the potential theme of the first game of this mystery pinball company but for now Okay, I'm not holding my breath. We're just waiting and seeing.
    115:21
    No, I mean, I think there are a lot of people, companies out there already, or actually making games.
    115:28
    You've got to come up with something quite special who want to stand out from the crowd these days. And I guess they want to build up speculation and excitement, but, well, you build up excitement by producing an exciting game, not in teasers.
    115:46
    We get a bit fed up with teasers. Well, if you want to talk about hyping a game with teasers, I think Dutch Pinball at Pinball Expo 2013, I think it was, basically did that. That was a masterclass in how do you tease a game that doesn't exist yet. And then it took a full year and then the game was there. And then knew everybody of their feet. But these days If a company is producing A major company is producing a new game You don't just get the tease You get the tease of the tease Video And then you get the tease video And then you get some Then you might get the Reveal after that And then you get the full launch It's like you know Cut to the chase If you've got a new game I thought it was kind of interesting going back to Pimble Brothers who were announcing an announcement for tomorrow. Yeah. So they announced that they would do an announcement for tomorrow. That kind of stuff, yeah. I thought it was rather funny, but... Oh well. And a Pimble company is only a Pimble company, in my opinion, if they have manufacturing in place. And we've seen too many Pimble companies come up with a pinball design and then try to manufacture it and fail on that end yes, speaking of which let's move on to our next item of news which is related to deep root pinball in a roundabout kind of way and a little latest update on what's going on there on the case by the Security and Exchange Commission you tell me and there's several cases against Robert Mueller for the Deep Root fiasco. Apparently it's going to go to private mediation now. The judge has ordered that the two sides, the SEC and Robert's lawyers, have private meetings and try to work out an out-of-court settlement in relation to the SEC's charges against Robert.
    118:00
    Maybe that will just result in a fine, a ban from involvement in future investment products, maybe some kind of disbarring from legal practice, we don't know, it may end up without them coming to any kind of settlement it may result in it going to a court so it's like he's not going to jail I don't think he's ever going to go to jail it's a civil case at the moment but the big question out there is once this is settled whether there will be a Department of Justice criminal prosecution once the SEC's case is settled either in court or by mediation is the Department of Justice waiting in the wings to pounce once the SEC's case is done.
    118:44
    Anyway, the SEC can submit a proposed settlement by the 1st of June, which it is today, it was yesterday now, because we're into the 2nd, and if they do submit a proposal, then Roberts' defence lawyers can submit their proposal by the 8th, And the two sides have until the 13th to either agree or it will go to mediation. So we're in the sort of pre-mediation state where both sides make offers.
    119:16
    And if that's not agreed, it goes to mediation. And if that doesn't work, then it will end up in court.
    119:22
    So that won't be until probably October, I think. That's the current date set for a court hearing. But in the meantime, it may all get settled in private and with a slap on the wrist and some kind of restitution. But there's no money left. There's only a certain amount that can be achieved financially for those who lost out. Right. Okay. So I suppose there will be more news on the potential outcome of this pre-mediation next month. Yes, we should find out whether it's gone to mediation or whether it's all been settled. I mean, it may just be an announcement saying it's all done and dusted and here's the outcome. Right. Okay. So, I think that's it for DeepRoot. But you also found, well, we already discussed the Hexa pinball from France. But apparently there's another new pinball manufacturer from France. Yes. a company called Rebellion Pinball, based in Bertheson in France. Bertheson.
    120:36
    They had a game called Space Singularity at the Le Trepot show, which neither of us went to this year, but they were there. And they made it from scratch. There's a large LCD in the back box, but it's mostly a single-level blue-coloured playfield With red plastics and ramps Not sure if they plan on Developing it further or making Any other games but It's potential It's a name to watch out for, Rebellion Pinball And space singularity With their game And it Looked interesting Some oddities about The way the scores are displayed It has potential for Nine digits for the score but when you start the game, it shows it as like 0-0-0, 0-0-0, rather than just 0. Just like on an EM game. Yeah, exactly. Except it's on a big LCD. Right. But anyway, that's just one thing which struck me straight away about the game, but it looks like a nice effort from the first game, from Rebellion Pinball, so good luck with them and as I say, name to watch. Right, okay. So, what I understood, well, we mentioned Pinball Expo already a couple of times. One of the biggest pinball shows and the longest running annual pinball show, actually, in Schaumburg, Illinois, this year, which is hosted or organized by Rob Berg. and Rob Berg just opened his Past Times Arcade in Girard, Ohio, actually yesterday,
    122:26
    with Mike Hale as the project lead and director, which probably means that Rob's games will be there, but Rob himself not that much.
    122:38
    I assume daily operations will be run by Mike Hale. But the game Or the pastimes Arcade will Or has over 300 Pinballs and 150 arcade Games so that's not a small location That's it It's getting on the same size as the pinball hall of fame In Vegas Or the no longer Existent Museum of pinball In Banning Yeah Yeah, so if you're in the Ohio area near Cleveland or so on,
    123:17
    the Pastimes Arcade is located at the 419 North State Street in Girard, Ohio. So do pay them a visit and admire Rob Berg's collection of pinball and arcade games. Yes, I was hoping to get over there in October when we go over for Thimble Expo. But unfortunately I had a quick check and see how long it would take to drive from where we're staying to Girard. And it looks to be about seven hours each way.
    123:53
    You mean Robert's intending us a private plane to pick us up? Well, not at this stage. This is the opening bid. So, you know, just putting it out there. Seven hours. Long time by car. Alternative means of transport Are available Right, okay So what else have we got?
    124:13
    Well, there's some pinball shows And events going on At the end of this month I'll be at the Swayze Pinball Weekend In Cambridgeshire Where I'll be running the UK Pinball Cup That's a Nice, free, easy to enter Easy to win competition With lots of nice prizes and it's a big charity fundraiser really for three days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
    124:40
    Machines are all on free play. You can either make donations or buy tickets to the raffle and it's all in aid of charity. No one takes any money out of it and it's held in a pub in the countryside so there's plenty to eat, drink and play if you want to come along. And so I recommend it. That's a Swayze pinball weekend near Cambridge, in Cambridgeshire, in England. Meanwhile, over in Germany, it's competition time. It's tournament frenzy. Yeah, and quite some time. Actually, two weekends in a row. Last weekend, we had the European Pinball Championships, which were held in Fulda. Bulls and Balls was that location a very popular location heard lots of positive things about it and Fulda itself is a lovely town or city I haven't been there yet but I'd love to go there but the Pinball Sun didn't stop there as the IFBA 18th World Championship is also held in Germany and that actually started yesterday with the Epstein Cup that is held at Freddy's Spinball Paradise for the second time I had to add because I think 2013 or 2012, something like that it was also held over there we were both present at the time unfortunately I am too busy this weekend to actually attend because I would love to go there it's always fun to go to Freddy's Pinball Paradise. Another great location. And Freddy, in the meantime, has become one of the major distributors in Germany for pinball machines and parts, by the way. So, lots of tournaments going on in Germany and very well-respected tournaments, I would say. I mean, the IFBA World Championship is not like your next-door tournament or a next-door neighbor tournament. No, it's got many international players, including quite a lot from the U.S. have come over, and congratulations to the U.S. team who won this year's Epstein Cup, beating the European team. So congratulations to all the players in that. I won't name them all now, but they know who they are, and well done to the U.S. for, I think, reclaiming the... I think they won it last year as well, Well, it was on US soil, but retaining then the Epstein Cup in the IFPA 18. Right, okay. So I'm planning to cover the IFPA 18 World Championship a little bit on the pinball-magazine.com website.
    127:52
    I'm still working on the translation of an article that was published in Germany. I hope to publish that on the Pinball Magazine website if you're interested in that. Make sure to take a look. Thank you to Anita from Freddy's Pinball Paradise, actually Freddy's daughter, for
    128:17
    inviting me and she will also be providing me with this article that I will be hosting for international readers. Right. Okay, I look forward to reading that.
    128:31
    Right, so that's almost the end of this PIN cast, I think, looking back at the month of May. Okay, and with that, that's the end of this month's PIN cast for May 2023. We'll be back at the start of July with our next Pincast, looking back at all the events in the pinball world throughout the month of June. Right. But until then, from me, Martin Ayob of Pinball News, and me, Jonathan Newston of Pinball Magazine, we'll wish you a very enjoyable June, and we'll see you next month. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.