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The Pinball Show Ep 117: Danksgiving

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 43m·analyzed·Nov 21, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Pinball Show covers Stern production updates, facility expansion, and holiday shipping schedules.

Summary

The Pinball Show episode 117 covers Thanksgiving gratitude, Stern Pinball production updates, facility expansion news, and various industry announcements. Key topics include James Bond 007 shipping, home edition discontinuation, Cactus Canyon LE delays, and Stern's move to a larger facility in Elk Grove Village. The episode discusses production roadmaps through February and addresses pricing concerns around home editions.

Key Claims

  • Stern Pinball is moving to a new facility in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, expanding from 110,000 to 160,000+ square feet (nearly 50% larger)

    high confidence · Craig Bobby segment confirms real estate deal signed; facility expansion details provided

  • James Bond 007 Pro models are shipping this week with launch parties planned for end of November/beginning of December

    high confidence · Zach states 'James Bond Pros by Stern Pinball will be shipping, the majority of them, likely this week' and mentions launch parties

  • Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Star Wars comic home editions are being discontinued ('last call')

    high confidence · Zach explicitly states 'all three of these home editions, that is Jurassic Park, Star Wars original, Star Wars comic, all home editions are last call'

  • Cactus Canyon LE shipping is being bottlenecked by Planetary Pinball taking first crack at inventory

    medium confidence · Craig Bobby reports 'Planetary Pinball will be hoovering up most of those first run LEs as they typically get first crack at any new production items'

  • Cactus Canyon expansion code will include saloon doors as an accessory, originally designed for the prototype

    high confidence · Craig Bobby reports saloon doors 'will in fact 100% be sold as an accessory in conjunction with the upgraded code expansion kit that the late Lyman Sheets was working on'

  • Dutch Pinball has hired additional assembly line employees to increase Big Lebowski production speed in 2023

    high confidence · Craig Bobby reports Dutch Pinball 'recently stated that they have hired additional assembly line employees in an effort to increase production speed'

  • Home edition pricing has increased to near Pro pricing levels, making them uncompetitive as a distinct product tier

    high confidence · Zach states home editions 'jacked the home edition prices up to where most of us remember pros being under' and discusses price compression issues

  • Stern Pinball Pro pricing will be $6,999 starting January 1st (recently increased from $5,000)

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm thankful for a lot of things, including the friends I've made in pinball. I'm thankful to the creators, those designing, whether it's the play field or the engineers in the mechs or the coders, those manufacturers in pinball, those creating the thing I love the most.”

    Zach @ early episode — Core gratitude statement establishing show's respect for pinball creators despite industry criticisms

  • “I'm not thankful for gouging, but it's not just manufacturers either. It's secondhand market and its behavior.”

    Dennis @ mid-episode — Critical commentary on pricing practices across entire pinball ecosystem

  • “Planetary Pinball will be hoovering up most of those first run LEs as they typically get first crack at any new production items coming off the line, leaving the scraps to remaining CGC distributors.”

    Craig Bobby @ production segment — Reveals distributor favoritism affecting customer access to limited edition machines

  • “This game absolutely sucked. It felt like a poorly done game from the early 90s, like a bad Data East one... floaty with only a few shots, weak flippers, and the theme integration was bland.”

    Dan Rosenstein (via Craig Bobby) @ production segment — Critical review of Spinal Tap pinball at Hall of Fame establishes quality control concerns

  • “My blind guess is now that they jacked the home edition prices up to where most of us remember pros being under. And so now that it's a pro price... you just so close to the pro price at this stage I think a lot of people are like, it's just not worth it.”

    Dennis @ production discussion — Analysis of market failure in home edition positioning due to price compression

  • “I think to them, I think to Stern, it's just anathema to pinball. They can't go that far. Especially when they can't keep up with the production they have now.”

    Dennis @ home edition discussion — Commentary on Stern's constraints and inability to innovate on home pinball market

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyJames Bond 007gameCactus CanyongameDutch PinballcompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyPlanetary Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball expands facilities by nearly 50% (110k to 160k+ sq ft) in Elk Grove Village, signaling significant production capacity increase and confidence in market demand

    high · Craig Bobby confirms signed real estate deal; new facility includes retail store, expanded office and manufacturing space

  • ?

    content_signal: Raymond Davidson's 'Baby's First' tutorial format unexpectedly resonated with community; short-form educational content outperforming longer 12-hour tutorials; demand for more short-form content

    high · Dennis notes Baby's First tutorials receiving unexpectedly positive feedback; competitive players praising format; hosts discussing demand for more short tutorials

  • ?

    business_signal: Planetary Pinball (Bally Williams license holder) receives preferential inventory allocation from CGC, creating scarcity for other distributors and delaying customer access to Cactus Canyon LE

    medium · Craig Bobby reports Planetary 'will be hoovering up most of those first run LEs' and 'leaving the scraps to remaining CGC distributors'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Dutch Pinball Big Lebowski hiring additional assembly line staff to accelerate 2023 production; positive recovery narrative after near-closure concerns

    high · Craig Bobby reports Dutch 'recently stated that they have hired additional assembly line employees in an effort to increase production speed'

  • $

    market_signal: Home edition product tier failure; Stern unable to create price-point viable for mainstream/rec-room market without stripping core pinball features; market captured by Arcade 1-Up virtual alternatives

Topics

Stern Pinball facility expansion and production capacityprimaryJames Bond 007 production and shipping timelineprimaryHome edition discontinuation and pricing strategyprimaryPinball pricing trends and market accessibility concernsprimaryCactus Canyon LE distribution bottlenecks and expansion code featuresprimaryProduction timeline roadmap (December-February)primaryDutch Pinball Big Lebowski production recoverysecondaryCommunity gratitude and industry appreciationsecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.55)— Hosts express gratitude for pinball community and creators, but temper this with criticism of pricing practices, home edition failures, and market accessibility concerns. Spinal Tap review is negative. Production expansion news is positive, but home edition discontinuation and pricing increases signal market contraction concerns.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.310

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:12
The Pinball Network is online. Launching The Pinball Show. Welcome back to The Pinball Show, the industry-leading pinball podcast for news, entertainment, and trends. This week, Dennis and I are thankful. Craig Bobby swings open saloon doors. We give you some Stern Pinball production updates, and we discuss Stern Pinball's upcoming move. Zombie Yeti making a mistake or dropping holiday nugs. Franchi Bond. A Mando topper with Mando controversy. Stumping the masses with the moistest rumors. Cactus Canyon LE shipping. JJP Toy Story accessory info. Don't go breaking Steve Ritchie's heart. A turn of events in Pinball Awards events. Pinball market trends. and so much more. Like that upcoming turkey, we're about to stuff the shit out of episode 117.
1:06
Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality. It's a people-minded style. When things go wrong Hey everyone, how's it going? It's episode 117 and I hope you're having a swell day. I know that my co-host Dennis Creasel and I are here on the Pinball Show.
1:39
Gobble, gobble. That was such a stale opener, wasn't it? Sorry, Dennis. I know it was bad the moment you used the word swell. That's right. Oh, gee. Oh, gee whiz. golly gee whiz zach what a what an interesting exciting day we and we have a lot of content here today hopefully our audio is balanced yeah if not don't worry there's a whole pin's light thread where people will go into it and a whole discord that we have where people will be showing us videos step by step patronizing us uh figured out how's your week been fine i actually went and played pinball at a local tournament i hadn't done that in maybe three months three or four yeah i uh i i mean about as i usually did i thought maybe i'm coming in rested i'm gonna like really crush it i i think i uh ended in seventh tied with someone for seventh place and then we had to do a playoff because i was the cutoff to get cash and i lost my i lost my playoff no pizza money for jungle queen no i was i was in the lead up until the last ball but nope he you know double bonus those old got leaves double bonus and wacky jungle queen practically houseballed it. Tony went, though, and he got second, I saw. Damn. Tony's on fire. I know. I didn't stay for it. He must have played. They ended just before 10 p.m. So it was almost five hours of tournament for him. So you left. You were just like, peace out, Tony. Yeah. I said, it's dark. I'm not staying. And he goes, bye.

high confidence · Zach states 'entry-level pro edition at what will be January 1st, $6,999. They boosted those prices up to $5,000 now.'

Zach
person
Dennis Creaselperson
Craig Bobbyperson
Lyman Sheetsperson
George Gomezperson
Raymond Davidsonperson
Spinal Tapgame
Jurassic Park Home Editiongame
Star Wars Home Editiongame
Mandalorian topperproduct
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
Pinball Hall of Fameorganization
Josh Sharpperson
Dan Rosensteinperson

high · Hosts discuss home edition discontinuation; Dennis notes requirement to 'toyify' product at lower price would require unacceptable feature reductions; mentions Arcade 1-Up competition

  • $

    market_signal: Entry-level Stern Pro pricing increased to $6,999 starting January (up from ~$5,000); eliminates market tier for price-conscious buyers; hosts express concern about market accessibility

    high · Zach states 'entry-level pro edition at what will be January 1st, $6,999. They boosted those prices up to $5,000 now'; Dennis notes price-point challenges

  • ?

    product_strategy: Cactus Canyon expansion code kit will include saloon door accessory (originally prototyped feature); Lyman Sheets' final project with Josh Sharp

    high · Craig Bobby states doors 'will in fact 100% be sold as an accessory in conjunction with the upgraded code expansion kit that the late Lyman Sheets was working on'

  • ?

    product_concern: Spinal Tap machine at Pinball Hall of Fame negatively reviewed as poorly executed with weak flippers, floaty playfield, and bland theme integration

    high · Dan Rosenstein field report: 'This game absolutely sucked. It felt like a poorly done game from the early 90s... floaty with only a few shots, weak flippers'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern discontinuing all home editions (Star Wars original/comic, Jurassic Park) despite prior promotional success claims; pricing compression with Pros ($6,999) reduced differentiation

    high · Zach confirms 'last call' on all three home editions; hosts discuss price-point failure and inability to compete as distinct market segment

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Stern production schedule through February: Bond Pros shipping immediately, Bond LEs December, home editions last call, Star Wars/Jurassic Park home editions discontinued, Bond Premiums January, Elvira Premium tentatively February, Godzilla Premium February

    high · Zach provides detailed month-by-month production schedule with allotment uncertainties noted

    • 3:08
    I mean, that's sort of how it is. We usually drive ourselves. Anything that you played this last weekend that you haven't had much time on or anything new at that location? Yeah, I got nothing that was new at the location. I did get more time on Toy Story 4. They still have it there. Oh, wow. And I drew it. And wow, I don't think I went to the tournament director and asked him to take it out of the tournament, but I know I ranted about how long the games were taking on it. Oh, okay. Because it was often dragging.
    3:40
    And I got more time on Avengers Infinity Quest, which I don't have a ton of time on, and that was fun. I don't know if I won those games, but I feel I learned more. Oh, and Raymond Davidson, I think he put out a baby's first tutorial on Avengers. He did. Just like his baby's first tutorial on Rush, which he did after I was critical of not having enough time to watch like 12-hour tutorials.
    4:05
    And I think – this is my read, Zach. Let me get your impression because you, with your training in psychology, are much more tuned to how people behave than I am. My read on it, especially when I saw the Baby's First tutorial, was he was sort of making a dig, probably at me, about wanting super short stuff. But the feedback has been so positive. He's now basically like, I'm sure the Baby's First tutorial has done way better than his other tutorials. And now there's just all this demand for Baby's First. Well, especially whenever really highly competitive players that don't have a lot of time on said games, whether it's Rush or Avengers, jump in there and they're like, Hey, Ray, thanks again. I just got this game, and actually this was a huge help to get going. And I was kicking myself that I had not watched Baby's First Avengers before going to the tournament. I forgot they had Avengers there. Otherwise, I would have. So I'd have been better prepared. I would say from a behavioral perspective, as I watched him explain the rules in that baby's first tutorial of Rush, just the title alone suggests that he is assuming that doing such a video will be helpful, but it's almost as if it's tough for him to do because to him, just naturally, these are, duh, hey, idiot, easy instructions to learn, just naturally learn, and he shouldn't have to explain them. His tone during the video also suggested that with the speed and production of his tone, almost as if like, let's get through this. I want people to know how to play the mode so that they can view my other tutorials of actually learning how to play the game. So to him, I don't think this was much learning. but in retrospect, I think that his eyes were very wide open. He was probably more shocked than anyone to receive the feedback he did, and that's the feedback I gave him in our Discord. I was like, probably one of the best tutorials possible because that's a nice start, and then if I like that after playing and learning those simple, you know, how to start multi-ball, how to start modes, here's a couple extra little walking dead, draw up target perks, then I'll dive into it a little bit more. I think subconsciously he wasn't trying to project that way. It's just it was oozing out of him. That was his restraint, I think. Interesting, interesting. And, of course, you know, but this is the manifestation. For those not familiar, Babies First is, in terms of pinball, I mean, there's lots of Babies First out there. But Babies First in terms of pinball has been like a meme series. And I've shared them within TPN for quite a while now. And people can access those through patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers, where I drop one a month. I'm a subscriber. I get them. So people can see what I mean. They're just sort of like stupid little things. But that duck is always a feature. And that duck is from some actual real baby's first book I took off of the internet. Baby's first book. I didn't invent the duck. So anyway, but now the baby's first aren't just memes. They're a force of good. Yes. and Ray has kind of pigeonholed himself into it, whether he likes it or not. It has become bigger than even he.
    7:21
    Nice job, Ray. You know what else is going on? It's Thanksgiving this week. Oh, Thanksgiving. I was trying to think of a Thanksgiving song to open up, but I don't know if there – I don't think Mariah sings any Thanksgiving. No, she's not like the deacon of dressing. The deacon of dressing. I can't say that don't you put that one in gotta cut that one geez a little ornery this morning okay we talked last episode about what we were doing for Thanksgiving I'm going to be out of town for Thanksgiving as we were last year so I'm looking forward to that pending passports and real IDs let's hope you've learned how travel works in the world, Zach. Oh, TBA, we'll see. We will see. But I did want to take some time to say thank you and maybe, Dennis, what you're thankful for in our niche little hobby of pinball. For me, I'm thankful for a lot of things, including the friends I've made in pinball. There's been a lot of those. I'm thankful, and I'm not afraid to say it, to the creators, those designing, whether it's the play field or the engineers in the mechs or the coders, those manufacturers in pinball, those creating the thing I love the most. As a shill, I'm thankful for the customers that continue to come back. Even the customers that are like, you know, pitchfork it out, you know, on other podcasts or other live streams like, let's stick it to Stern, let's stick it to JJP, they still buy from me. So I'm thankful for them. And I think probably mostly I'm thankful for my group of cohort, my team members in media and in distribution. So Nicole, my wife, I'm super thankful for. Couldn't do any of this without her because she does a lot of it. Greg Bone doing tech work. And the media side, besides Greg Bone, yourself, Dennis. What the hell would I be doing every other Sunday? Probably a more successful podcast. Well, if it was back on iTunes. Oh, well. oh don't you just love the tech troubles that uh podcasts have i swear podcasts like get the least amount of troubleshooting support versus everything else because every host every provider i know runs into these things it happens it happens geez but i honestly do not think that there's another person that i've ever met that i've ever met dennis that is a better match for a podcast than you. I really don't think that. And I've told you that before. You roll your eyes and you're like, oh, you're full of shit. But listener, honestly, I don't think there is. So whether it was pinball or whether we're covering movies or whatever we covered, you'd be the person that I'd want to do it with. And I couldn't do it alone. So thank you. I'm thankful for you. You could, but that's very kind of you. What are you thankful for?
    10:23
    Nothing. I'm thankful for all my Patreon subscribers you're really going heavy on Patreon we need to figure something out for the pinball show in terms of keeping it focused on pinball I would say for me pinball is an escape from my normal day to day stuff and so I like that it's weird I like that it's different, I like that I can do content creation stuff in this and try and be a little bit creative and not have to tie to anything I do professionally. And by and large, you know, the feedback that I get is it's interesting. And that's what I like. I like to have interesting conversations and interesting discussions. And pinball gives me a lot of that. And so that's what I'm really thankful for about it. You know, it's not about wanting to hear a bunch of people agree with my opinion. It's but I want to have a meaningful discussion in most things. And so that's what I look for in pinball, not to mention just how, you know, interesting is with all these different elements to it. You know, you got the, you got the hardcore weird collectors that have to fill up their lineups with LEs. And you've got the, the scruffy competitive people that are like trying to turn it into a sport and thinking they're track and field stars. And then you've, you've got the people that just are just like, I want to just go and drop some quarters and play. And you got people like, I just want to see how deep these rules can be. And the other people are like, oh gosh, I just, I wish they were all like EMs and they said the scores on the play field. There's so many. There's so much different personality in it. And so I just think it's interesting how it all mingles together, but it's all unified by one thing. I like that. See? I guess you're not thankful for increasing prices. I mean, in a way, it's. Toppers? You know, that stuff isn't for me. So, no, I'm not thankful for that. I'm not thankful for gouging, but it's not just manufacturers either. It's secondhand market and its behavior. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, figure it out. But, yeah, that's part and parcel with anything. We see that with all sorts of stuff. Yeah, I think in the next couple weeks, maybe you and I do, not a predictions, but looking forward to 2023 in which you and I will discuss what we think will be the landscape of pinball in the year 2023 coming up. I think there are some really big highlights that many of you don't know about yet, but will very shortly for 2023. And I think there are some things that will set us back as an industry in the upcoming year. So stay tuned for that. You know what else I'm thankful for? Craig Bobby? Fucking Craig Bobby.
    13:10
    Hello and welcome back to the Pinball Show's Top Stories. I'm Craig Bobby. Well, an eventful couple of weeks in the pinball world as the holiday season approaches and pinball manufacturers continue to ramp up production to get machines and related pinball accessories out as pinheads from around the world look to gift wrap something a little sparkly with flashing lights to a loved one, or let's face it, to themselves this year once again. Speaking of production, we have news out of the Chicago Gaming Company that the company's limited edition Cactus Canyon pinball machines have begun to ship. However, not so fast, Cactus Canyon LE buyers, as I slap your hand off that shooter knob. I'm hearing reports that the Bally Williams license holder Planetary Pinball will be hoovering up most of those first run LEs as they typically get first crack at any new production items coming off the CGC production line, leaving the scraps to remaining CGC distributors, meaning the wait for the average LE buyer could still be longer depending how many are coming off the line and how many Planetary Pinball takes. Say what? This could also be the reason why CGC hasn't informed their distributor network officially yet that these limited edition games have been ready for shipping. Say what? Now, of course, buyers of all the Cactus Canyon models are holding their breath, waiting for the game's expanded code to be released, not knowing how CGC will do this or how much they might in fact charge owners to download and unlock the expanded ruleset. Well, some news on that front this week, as Nap Arcade is reporting that back in the 90s, the original Cactus Canyon prototype machines contained saloon doors that were designed to guard the trough at the top of the game's playfield. The game was originally coded to cause the doors to open when hit, revealing this shot. However, this feature was ultimately dropped in the original production version of Cactus Canyon, either to cut costs or in the rush to finish the game. But I'm hearing now that in fact those rumored saloon doors will in fact 100% be sold as an accessory in conjunction with the upgraded code expansion kit that the late Lyman Sheets was working on with Josh Sharp prior to Lyman's sudden passing last year. Say what? Stay tuned for more news on this exciting development as we work to uncover the release date and the ultimate cost of this expansion kit to Cactus Canyon buyers. Now speaking of production, Stern Pinball's Star Wars Home Pin has taken over the Stern factory these days. The Home Pin line, which is always a bigger seller around the holidays, has become an even more popular alternative to the sky-high prices of the standard commercial pro, premium, or limited edition versions that pack more features but come at a price tag that has become out of reach or unpalatable for many buyers that are interested in the pinball hobby. There's also news this week that Stern, the world's largest pinball manufacturer, has signed a new real estate deal which would keep the company in their current district of Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Stern's new facility will be a couple of blocks away from its existing location of 110,000 square feet and expand them to just over 160,000 square feet of pinball awesomeness, which is just under 50% larger. The facility will boast a new Stern retail store for buyers and tourists, as well as give the company much-needed office and manufacturing space that their current facility cannot accommodate and allow Stern to continue pumping out their popular pinball machines and accessories to clamoring pinheads all over the world. And in even more production news, Dutch Pinball has been steadily cranking out its Big Lebowski pinball machine this past year, and the company recently stated that they have hired additional assembly line employees in an effort to increase production speed of the game in 2023, meaning that all of those early buyers going back almost five years will hopefully receive their game in 2023. The continued production of Big Lebowski has become one of the good news stories for 2022 as buyers continue to receive machines and gain confidence in the boutique pinball manufacturer's ability to deliver product to customers despite it looking very much like Dutch would go under only a couple of years ago. And lastly, a special thanks to our secret in the field news correspondent Dan Rosenstein, as he confirmed sighting of the infamous Spinal Tap pinball machine at the Pinball Hall of Fame, which is now located right on the main drag of Las Vegas. Unfortunately, Dan comments, I was really excited to play this game, and I'm a pretty positive, forgiving person. However, this game absolutely sucked. It felt like a poorly done game from the early 90s, like a bad Data East one, and I love Data East games, however this was floaty with only a few shots, weak flippers, and the theme integration was bland.
    18:19
    Well thanks as always Dan for your honest and helpful comments, what a shame as that Spinal Tap theme could have been a classic. These go to 11. Well, that's all for this week, and an early Happy Thanksgiving to our friends and family living in the United States for the Pinball Show. I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side.
    18:41
    Thank you so much, Craig. That was a good submission this week. I liked it. Wow, he dropped a lot on us. Yeah, we'll talk about that here soon, but first we've got to jump into the king of pinball that is Stern Pinball. Do you think they have that patented, like Mariah wanted for Christmas? What's that? Being the king of pinball? Is that official? Are they like the registered trademark king of pinball? I don't know. If I was them, I'd go, we are pinball. Is Stern still pushing that they're a lifestyle brand, or have they dropped that? Still going with it. Lingo, okay. Still going with it. I still find that weird.
    19:16
    Like, you're not supreme. I find it less weird over time, oddly enough. Oddly enough. so much so that on a recent SDTM video of the Mandalorian topper, I had to drop a little cut sequence in there, a little high cinephile sequence there where I talked about this isn't an ordinary topper. It's a lifestyle. Interesting. Okay, I haven't seen that video because I don't normally watch topper videos. No, you've got to watch it. What? I watched your Halloween, the dankest and darkest of hoes. I recorded it in like a 40, 93, 21, 60. My monitors don't go that high. I'd have to watch it on my TV to see that. 60 frames a second. You're just playing with your new camera. I was, actually. That was the experiment. You'll have to watch it. Stay tuned. I'll think about it. We'll talk about hashtag progressive gate here in a second. But I think first, people want to hear about Stern Pinball production updates. They do. A little bit of change. It's the most popular segment. Why don't you get like a – guys, does anyone have a song for production updates? Oh, no. They can write into the pinballnetwork at gmail.com, and we carve it out as its own segment. Finally. Production updates. It can replace Market Twins. Yeah. Do you think Jason would do one for us? I don't know. I don't want to ask too much of Jason. He already gave us like a 15-minute explanation on how to balance audio. Baby's first podcast balancing. No, it was too long to be a baby's first. That's fair. I don't know if I have a healthy ego, and sometimes I feel like the quality of our content outweighs that of any jingle that could be produced. Don't set it to – look. I'm sorry. Look, this isn't Triple Drain, Zach. This isn't Triple Drain, and this isn't Eclectic Gamers Podcast either. This is the pinball show, the most successful pinball podcast in the world. I'm talking a Jablonski jingle. Oh, wow. Now you're reaching.
    21:22
    Wow. Okay. I would consider that. He has the email. He can reach out if he's interested. More Jablo here in a minute. But production update. I still don't think pinball market trends. It's too big. Too big for a jingle. Sorry. No, not for that. Just for production updates. Okay. You can keep your stupid screaming eagle, which everyone's like, it's too loud. Except for the one guy who's like, it's not loud enough. I want it to hurt. I had to recently talk the screaming goat off of the roof. He's felt neglected. All the screaming. He's like, now you've got the screaming eagle. Am I just top liver? What am I? And I said, no, you'd be nice braised with a barbecue glaze. Do you like to eat goat for Thanksgiving? You know, I don't know if I've ever eaten a goat Oh, okay Not ever eaten one Bond pros, I'm about to lick on one of those Have you eaten those? Yeah, I'm about to Nom, nom, nom Not that back left toy But I'm about to hopefully unbox one here soon As pros are leaving the factory this week So go to your favorite location And if they're smart enough to order through Flippin' Out Pinball They'll have it there ready for you So a lot of launch parties are being set up for end of the month, beginning of December. So those James Bond 007 Pros by Stern Pinball will be shipping, the majority of them, likely this week. Remember, last week, Stern Pinball and a lot of manufacturers in the coin-op industry were at IAPA, so I didn't get as many communication details over this last week as we typically do. But I do know that following the Bond Pro production, we're going to start seeing these home editions, tis the season come out again production-wise. Star Wars, the original and the comic version. How they still have the comic version, but they don't have it for the regular program. Yeah, that's been so weird. I don't get it. I don't either. But those will be shipping. We sell those online Friday. So we're going to have those trickle out between now and mid-December, as well as Jurassic Park home editions. And I can say that all three of these home editions, that is Jurassic Park, Star Wars original, Star Wars comic, all home editions are last call. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Cut the cord. Let me ask you a question. Okay. And the Star Wars ones have been around for a while, but wasn't Jurassic Park last year? Yes. Jurassic Park was October, September-ish? Sometime in the fall. But only had one run.
    23:51
    Yeah, I was going to ask you that. So it had the run. And I thought, I swear last year, I heard that it was like a good seller. So why is it getting dropped so quick? Sometimes what you're told is different than the reality. Oh, okay. well i think i'm like this doesn't okay this doesn't this doesn't align with uh given that it only had one bill you know i still don't know they've not given us feedback on the um the acceptability of the home editions whether they have been a hit whether they aren't as much work so it's just a cherry on top i don't know the success of these home editions what they have been. I can say that I think George Gomez was a big proponent supporter of the home editions and it makes me think with these three seeing a last call, George has kind of shifted over to Insider Connected. Maybe there is dwindling support for these. I don't know. Are there any other home editions besides these? No.
    24:51
    There was the previous iteration. I mean still in production. No. So once these are gone, there will be no home editions. Correct. Unless they're just cutting these so that next year they can release one. I don't know. Right, right. Unless they've got another one in the works that we don't know about. You know, I don't – this is a blind guess, but that's what we do here on podcasts a lot of times. My blind guess is now that they – because they jacked the home edition prices up to where most of us remember pros being under.
    25:23
    And so now that it's a pro price. here's my thing with the home editions and uh you know no no commentary about how they play or the depth of the rules or anything the problem i feel that the home editions have had is they are just not cheap enough to really distinguish themselves on a price perspective versus a pro i get that and i think that the struggle if you could get the price down to like three thousand or less maybe you got something there but if they have to keep the price this high in order to make it feel like quote real pinball then you just so close to the pro price at this stage I think a lot of people are like, it's just not worth it to take a game with early 90s depth and give up all of what you give up. And from a manufacturing sales standpoint, you don't want to compete against yourself either. Right, right. It's another skew also. I mean, it takes parts away from their other games. It's just – I think it makes – I don't think this is a bad move. I just think it's interesting given that they really talked up, especially when JP Home Edition dropped, how well it was doing. I'm like, you've built it twice now. Well, let's say – because they were using a lot of the parts that we see on commercial pinball machines for that very reason, probably because they were the same price as if they did custom parts that were less materials, less quality. So that made sense. But let's say they were able to manufacture something. I don't even know what it would look like, but something at $2,500 or $2,999. They've got to be careful not to draw too many dollars to that product and those not take advantage of their entry-level pro edition at what will be January 1st, $6,999. They boosted those prices up to $5,000 now. And from $5,000, that gap to $6,999, it's not that much. and I feel like there's a big separation between that $2,000 just in the feel of the game. That's just my personal preference and opinion. I think most people into pinball would agree. And I would say a $2,000 jump is a significant jump for a lot of people. Oh, yeah. But given that these home editions have always been oriented, like they've targeted a different market, right? They're not targeting people that are into pinball. They're supposed to be bought by people that kind of like pinball and would like one. Rec room buyers. Rec Room Pinball People. And my guess is at the price point that it is, it's just not really as successful as they've suggested. And I think it's probably a very smart move that they're dropping it. Anyway, sorry, I kind of digressed on the production. I just thought it was really interesting because, I mean, clearly Jurassic Park has only been around for about a year. And to go away on a second build, to me it says they're pulling the plug on this. Yeah, and I think if they go back to this idea, if they could find something just from if I'm in their shoes, maybe to find something that they could do in a bigger bulk and sell direct through like Amazon or Sam's Club or Walmart or something, maybe that makes sense. But still, I don't know. I think, you know, Arcade 1-Up, people that just want a pinball fall into the Arcade 1-Up virtual pinball, and it's good enough for them. Yeah, I agree.
    28:35
    You have to toyify it so much to get a price point that you would make attractive to a common – like everyday homeowner trying just to fill out their rec room. That it would be – I'm not going to say almost unrecognizable, but you have to – they'd have to really strip it, really strip it. More than their – more than their – like they need to start – Resist it. Yeah, they need to start considering like it can't be a full-size play field anymore. They've got to think about things like that, maybe even shrink the ball size. And I think to them, I think to Stern, it's just anathema to pinball. They can't go that far. Especially when they can't keep up with the production they have now.
    29:16
    Yes, yes. Speaking of production, December, you're going to see the Bond LEs roll out, probably all of them in December, I would guess. I'd guess early December, early to mid-December, we'll start seeing some Bond LEs. December, you're also going to see a little sprinkling of just the rest of their Turtle Pro and Premiums. I think they had some Led Zeppelin Premiums that they weren't completely finished with the order. So you're going to see those to finish out the year. So that means January is when we'll see the first run of James Bond Premiums, as well as that James Bond 60th Anniversary Edition that we know very little about. So little. So early January, you'll see James Bond premiums and or the Bond 60th. I don't know which one's going to come first there. And then likely late into January, late into that month, you'll see the second run of Bond Pros. Followed up in February with the Bond premium second run. I'm thinking now that they're expecting Elvira premium to also fall in February. You're going to see that Bond premium run probably toward the end of February. and they've thrown in, thank God, a Godzilla premium run in February. Before all of you email Zach at FlippinOutPinball.com to say, oh, am I going to get the one from, we don't know. We don't know the allotments yet. All we know is that they're planning tentatively on throwing a Godzilla premium run into February. So that's a crowded December, January, February. Now, have you heard anything about the Elvira premium pricing? Because I know that comes up a lot. Thank you. No, no, still upcoming information on what the new pricing will be on that. All right. And the allotments. I don't. Right. I don't know. It's too far out to know the allotments yet. Shouldn't be, but it is. No, because it's all tentative. They're not even super duper promising.
    31:08
    The chance of it getting bumped, who knows? Who knows? Something tells me, though, that they're not going to cut this entirely at this point. If they've bumped it twice now, they still plan on it or else they would have just, you know. Right, right. But, you know, Godzilla is the priority. As it should be. Now, with a heavy December, January, February, I can only imagine that we will not see that cornerstone release, reveal of that next title by Stern in January or in February. Yeah. I think you'll see it in March. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess I could see them maybe doing it late February for doing the actual construction in March. So that might be a possibility. But I feel like they're pushing that winter cornerstone out entirely, which would make sense given the – I mean, this is an aggressive production schedule. Because you know there are a lot of Godzillas pending. And, of course, Bond is going to have a lot still with the premiums not coming out until January. Well, and the 60th anniversary. That's kind of like a release of itself. Yeah, this is just, it's a packed schedule. So we're going to have to, we'll have to wait, I would guess, on all of that. The bright news is that Mandalorian toppers were revealed, they were released, and the first run have shipped, or are shipping, have shipped. We received our first run allotment of them. Generally, positive feedback from the community. Some gripes about little quality, you know, decals not centered and stuff like that. But generally people are pretty amazed by it, especially in person. It's hard to film. No timeline for the second run, though. I've been told it's coming. They've accepted my order. That was much higher than that of my initial allotment. So they've accepted that order, but no timeline. Same with the other toppers, accessories. Rush topper, Godzilla topper, Rush freaking expression light kits, Rush accessories in general. No timeline, no update from Stern Pinball as to when we will see those. No clue.
    33:13
    They got a lot of moving parts over there. And speaking of moving, did you hear this last week? They announced a real estate deal that they're moving locations. Stern Pinball is moving from their current location.
    33:26
    Yes. They've been at the current one, what, five years? Yeah. I think so. Every bit of five, man. Yeah, about. I think it was about. Because it was a big deal. I mean, they got a lot more space when they moved in. They're going to get a lot, lot more space now. Wow, 160 plus thousand square foot of factory space. They're going to also have a Stern retail store in there, which I've been telling them is a good idea for a long time now. So that's awesome. That's where we can buy our lifestyle brand swag. Yeah. That's why I told them. I've always pitched to them. I'm like, let me open a store in Chicago, Stern retail store. I'll sell toppers, accessories, and stuff like that, T-shirts, and whatever. $26 million 10-year lease. Holy cannoli. That's a whole lot of binges. I mean, it is a lot of space. I get that. Just think if your rent was $2.6 a year.
    34:21
    Yeah, I mean, but if I were selling pinball machines, maybe it'd be okay. We wonder why there's price increases.
    34:28
    No, I don't wonder. I know. The renderings looked pretty cool of the building, the retail space and stuff. So I think they're going to be doing this in summer, fall? I forgot. I forgot when they're doing this move, but I don't know how it's going to affect everything. Yeah, I know Ray Tanzer is going to handle the move. He did the last one. Oh, okay. He used to be a designer with Gottlieb, of Hoops fame. Yeah. And so he's really focused on engineering, I think, in the latter portion of his career. And he oversaw the last move, which I believe was seen as having gone really smoothly. Do you think that there's going to be a big gap there? Like, what's going to happen? No, I don't. Not like when Jersey Jack moved, for example. I don't think it's going to be anything like that. Okay. I worry. I like my Stern stuff coming in. I worry. I mean, it's fair to worry. It's going to be disruptive in some capacity, of course. But given they've done a move not that long ago and it's being overseen by the same person who saw that move, probably has learned what didn't go as well on that one. I think it will be smoother than it was even last time. And I don't remember last time having a whole bunch of disruption. So a word on the street is that they're going to also have a separate shop area for cutting, printing, clearing play fields. Hmm. Interesting. I knew that they were kind of doing some of that in-house already because they have a new section in the back of the factory that I've seen a couple times. But I don't know. We will have to wait and see. I guess we could call one of the leads up there at Stern Pinball, Jody Dankberg. Maybe he would know. He might. And I bring that up because he and Rebecca Hensdale at Expo had their drinks with Rebecca and Jody, a segment where they bring in some of the people from Stern Pinball, do an interview, a casual kind of event. I watched that briefly this last week, some of the segments, and I caught the one with Zombie Yeti, Jeremy Packer. He said, and maybe this is nothing, maybe I'm reaching, but he said that he has worked with every design team so far, sir, in pinball. He just, you know, off the cuff, kind of just, yeah, I've worked with every team. We haven't seen, at least from the designer perspective, we haven't seen him have a game for every designer. Uh-huh. Which one's he missing? Brian Eddy. Yes. And I guess Jack Danger as well. Yeah. Right? He didn't do the J.P. Home art. Yeah, so I don't know if the comment was just an error on his part or what I think it could be. Again, just speculation. I think it is because he is in the process, if not completing, work with Brian Eddy on his next The Rumor is Venom. That makes total sense for Zombie Eddy to do a Marvel. Marvel loves what he's done with the Avengers property, with the Deadpool property. So if there is a Venom, why in the hell wouldn't it be Zombie Yeti? And I think he was just so far in on that project, Dennis, that he didn't think anything of it and said, yeah, I've worked with every design team. And the reason that Jack Danger was left out is because technically he hasn't released like a he's not a team yet. He's not not released that cornerstone. So that's probably just an afterthought, like, oh, well, until he starts, that's not really a team. So, yeah, the only one left out was Brian Eddy. That's an interesting theory, Cotton. We'll see if it pays off for you. Same goes with this next one I found interesting. I'm deep diving here. You're going all in on art. I get little trickles here and there. I sniff them out. What was that? And I press the rewind. Oh, very interesting. Christopher Franchi in the news, he made a statement on social media. He was in a live chat kind of thing. He made a statement that I found interesting. He said, regarding James Bond, they were talking about the artwork on James Bond. And damn, Franchi, we've talked about it. Franchi's artwork looks phenomenal for James Bond. What the hell happened?
    38:27
    Franchi actually said, quote, so here's the deal. My art was used to get the license, referring to James Bond. But once they got it, they were told they could only use movie poster assets, nothing more. So Stern did the best they could, end quote.
    38:45
    I found that interesting. It is. I mean, it would – seeing the posters, I mean, it would explain a lot. It would explain about why their best just wasn't very good. I'd have a hard time if I'm the rights holder to James Bond to see what Stern submitted with Franchi artwork and then see the renderings of the poster side of the cabinet and say, you know what? I think we go with the posters. Yeah, you know, I don't know. I often wonder, does it get to that point? I don't know. We have the deal, and they say use posters, and I wonder, and I suspect Stern doesn't ever even go back and say, well, you know it's going to look dumb, right? Or just maybe they don't want to pay for frames. You'd be like, hey, mock up something just so we can show them a cabinet art instead of just a translate kind of thing. Right, right. I mean, what Franchi says here makes a lot of sense because Stern does a lot of right things on art a lot. So when you see something that just kind of looks like a – let's just copy what someone else did and call it a day. This is the same thing we theorized with Star Wars. Like why is it always this shot in the Millennium Falcon in these positions? Oh, look, they hand drew it instead of Photoshopped it, but it's the same image. and that's why people got so excited about the comic edition because at least it put a little flair to it. Well, here's my question though. This is what's confusing to me. He said, quote, my art was used to get the license. If they were going to just do the posters, they know their own IP,
    40:24
    why would they need artwork submitted? That's what I don't understand. And maybe this, again, it's a, when Stern wants a license, they like to submit a mock-up. It might not have even been a requirement of the licensor to see art. It's just they turned it in as part of the package. Okay. So that would allow Franchi to say, you know, my art was used to get it because it was part of their example that they did with a mock-up. But they may not have been like a key contributor to the allocation. Okay. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. So it's nice if you guys pay close attention, connect the dots. Follow the paths down the deepest, darkest, dankest, moistest alleys. The pinball light will shine bright. Speaking of, you've got to check out that straight down the middle flipping out pinball video of the Mandalorian topper because it looked good. It looked really good. And I wanted to bring that up because it was like a facepalm moment where everybody on the forums that received these toppers were like, Oh, this topper's badass. The only problem is I'm progressively building this Beskar, and I'm supposed to have that progressive mode once I get to so many games and so much Beskar collected where I get everything, all the awards from the Foundry dumped on me. But every time I turn off the game and turn it back on, it resets to zero.
    41:49
    It's going to take a while to be progressive. So it's not really progressive. You need to do it in one day. Don't turn your game off.
    41:58
    So, yeah, progressive gate. They're going to have to fix that. No, play harder. Another code update, Dwight. How is that? How did they miss that? I'm sorry. How did they miss that? Who knows? Shit. The games are never off at Stern Pinball.
    42:21
    They're just, oh, they are running. I mean, at least it's a code update, right? It's not like going through four versions of Rush Airbags to protect that scoop. I mean, come on. We've seen bigger blunders than this. Okay. I mean, come on. That's true. Speaking of the moistest, most succulent rumors from the past, man, I really stumped you all on that last pinball show episode when I gave that titillating rumor of a possible upcoming Sam game that was being revamped. Everybody swinging a miss. Swinging a miss. Sorry, guys. I saw a lot of speculation. People were all over the place on it. No more hints. I mean, I gave the hints. And it was blatantly obvious. It's right in front of your faces and nobody paying attention. And speaking of perky rumors, I was listening to the Eclectic Gamers podcast. Why? Oh, because you're a Patreon member. I'm a Patreon member. Patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. Yeah, baby's first listen. And you had a pretty substantial rumor. I wonder if it's true about J.J.P. and Steve Ritchie's first game being a band pin or music pin and that of Elton John.
    43:41
    Yeah, it was a strange rumor when it came in. So, I mean, I felt it was out of left field. But the rumor corner reports the rumors that flow in and flowed in.
    43:52
    True or not true? I don't know. That's why it's called rumor corner, not truth corner. He'll sing us a song, but he's not the piano man.
    44:00
    No. Maybe American Pinball will do Billy Joel. No, wait. That would be a license. They would never.
    44:13
    I laughed out loud last episode when I was editing and listening back, and you said, hold me closer, tiny pinball. Oh, that. Yeah, I forgot about that. I don't know what I was editing. I was listening. Oh, made me laugh. elton john do you think it works um i mean he's a huge musical artist so if we're thinking about like big big productions famous you know millions of albums sold sorts of stuff he's an obvious one really of the list of those that have not yet had a pin and old enough at it that like you could see a company like obviously this is jjp but any company like jjp or stern going you know what the people with money know this license. He's still built into pinball lore nostalgia like an Elvira because he has been featured in games before. Right. And, of course, he had that cameo in the movie Pinball Wizard. So he's got a pinball tie. And he kind of was featured on the back with the Mr. Fantastic, right? Yeah. The old back glass. So he had that tie as well. And in terms of tiling us, I think he is on his final tour now. I think I heard something about that on the news. He's always on his final tour. Yeah, I wondered if he was like Kiss, where it's always like we're always doing a final tour. I don't know if that's the case with him or not, or if this is actually like, yeah, no, it's his first time. He said he's doing a final tour and he's going to. But anyway, he's doing a tour, I guess, or has finished one up or I don't know what the I don't follow him. So I don't I don't. I do love a lot of Elton John songs. But you, of course, are wondering, are these good songs to play pinball to? That's what everyone will wonder initially. I mean, I can feel the love tonight. But I don't know if I'm playing pinball with that song.
    46:01
    But that being said, you know, Guns N' Roses had that, what was that, super slow, long, soft? Yeah, November Rain. Yes. Or Patience. And people were like, but the light show, it's so rainy. I mean, I'll still stand here, but am I still standing for that song on a pinball machine? Maybe, if you have a jet with Benny.
    46:23
    But can they even license some of this stuff? Can you use the term Yellow Brick Road? Can you use the Lion King song? I don't know. It gets tricky. I mean, maybe if you have Slash Call, you can get Slash on the phone again and see if he can smooth out all over with Disney. I don't know. This guy seems to live his life like a candle in the wind. I don't know if it works, but we'll see. I'm telling you right now, it's not a theme that's just like, holy crap, take my money. You know, when I heard the rumor, I was also very, very surprised. You know, this is not the sort of music I would normally associate with going in and doing a pinball for. But that being said, we are, you know, sorry, talking about Jersey Jack pinball. And what's the other rumor that we've talked about or I've talked about before in the past is that they have Godfather, which also doesn't make any sense. So, I mean, the only thing that makes sense is J.J.P. knows, you know, ever since Dialed In, we have to do licenses. They understand that, but the licenses they pick, I'm just like, they pick popular things, but not necessarily the right popular things. Call me crazy, but give me an Elton John-themed pinball machine over Rush.
    47:48
    I like his music more than I do Rush. well that's the thing with all music pins uh that you can always rely on they're going to be some hardcore fans of the artist and also they're going to be some they're going to hate it because uh because music's always very polarizing i think more polarizing the movies and tv shows so yeah so i mean it's it's just it's one of those things it's interesting uh were you surprised that the rumor also named the designer that it was steve richie who's normally known for pretty kind of metal style. He's known for ACDC. Now granted though, and I pointed this out on the rumor corner, he did do Elvis for Stern. Which is, you know, softer rock than ACDC. I'm sorry, but there's a big gap between Elvis and Elton John. There is. And that's fair. But I'm just saying, Steve's done softer than hard rock. Maybe I'm wrong. But let's just say Hypothetically, this is true for joke's sake here for the podcast.
    48:48
    Steve Ritchie walks away from after completing Led Zeppelin and was going to do James Bond. And he comes strutting into JJP, you know, head held high. It's my last wind here. I'm the king of pinball, baby. He's doing like the runaway train coming in. That's right. Black shades, black outfit, spiked hair. He sits down at that board meeting and he says, all right, guys, what do you got for me? Top gun? what are we doing here? And they say, we got Elton John.
    49:19
    I can imagine Steve Richard being like, you're fucking joking me? You want me to do Tiny Dancer? That's right.
    49:28
    What? I just quit Stern and I'm doing Elton John? Do I not have an option? Give me fucking Avatar at this point. They're probably like, well yeah Steve, you could have Godfather. We need someone to design a conference table mech. Yeah, Eric's already on Godfather. Sorry. What? I don't want that either. The hell is this?
    49:54
    Do maybe they have the new Buzz Lightyear movie license? Pixar called. They're doing a Toy Story 5. Do you have any? Oh, fuck. Forget this.
    50:04
    And then you hear a ring. Is Dave fixed? Dave. Dave, can you? Dave. Can you save me? Well, absolutely. Would you be willing to do Galactic Guitar Hero review?
    50:22
    I want to do Top Gun. Well, we can do an original theme. We can do F-30 production. That's right. Let's do F-15. F-15 Strike Eagle. oh steve richie wow okay well we'll see if this turns out to be i kind of hope it's true now i really do i can almost you know i can get behind elton john just to see the face of steve richie what the fuck is this he's gonna be i just i don't know what what will the song i mean elton's got so many songs so many songs. So many songs. Will it be young Elton? Will it be late Elton? What will it be? I will give them credit though. If they're picking lighting experiences music based on that, Elton John is very colorful. You will probably get some cool, cool, trippy psychedelic. He had that psychedelic years. Very hippie. So that'll be cool.
    51:33
    I'm just thinking of Crocodile Rock right now. Maybe that be the toy He can bring back the nip it toy The croc can eat the ball He likes surfing safari I don know Okay That some JJP news Speaking of JJP, there are some more Toy Story 4 CEs that are going to be leaving the factory later this month into December. So we're going to see. I think they're going to complete, if I was to guess, I don't know if they have parts or not, but I think they'd like to complete that CE run of Toy Story 4. So those are coming. Remember, they jumped back to the LE. there for a little bit. Do you think they're actually going to build all of them? All the LEs? No, all the CEs. CEs? Yeah, I think they will. Just based on because we know that they sold through. That's one thing. Let's say the dealers go back and cancel some. That could be a possibility because the game's not a huge seller right now. I know. I live.
    52:34
    I love how you phrased it. So let me put my Dennis spin on it. You think, Zach? You think it's not maybe the hottest seller of the year? But what they did with Willy Wonka, because we know Guns N' Roses, CE's, bam, those sold out, those stayed sold out. But with Willy Wonka CE's, they did, I think they produced the rest of those. And they sat for a little bit, and dealers, you know, over time purchased all of them. And then us dealers were wiping our chins with drool and saying, do you have more? Got any more of them? Scratching our necks. So I think they make all the Cs. The bigger question is, do they make all of the Ellies? And that, from a business perspective, is not good for me to say. But honestly to you, I do not think they make all of the Toy Story 4 Ellies. I do not see that. Well, other than GNR, have they ever finished an Ellie run? Because the Ellie runs are always – I hate – this is a personal thing, of course. But I hate that they call them Ellies when they make 5,000 of them. In practically any industry, 5,000 of something is such a joke of calling something limited. Well, especially since they got rid of the standard model of this last title. Well, yeah, and maybe they thought that that would drive more LE sales, but the standards have always sold terribly by their own admission. Jack Guarneri used to often joke on podcasts about how the true LE is the SE because so few are ordered that they make so few of them. Yeah, and we didn't see a Toy Story standard, so I don't think they'll sell all the LEs. but what they will sell coming soon. It's a rumbling I'm hearing. We're going to get some officially licensed Toy Story topper and inner art blades for those LEs coming late this year, early next year. Oh, you know, actually that doesn't surprise me too much. I think I saw on Amazon as part of their Black Friday that there was a new cake topper set. I knew you'd do it. Let them eat cake. Let these listeners eat cake, Zach. I think it's cool because anything, I'm a Disney nerd, so anything officially licensed like that to me is a big deal. and the LE people, there are a lot of LEs that have sold. So people want the inner Art Blades. They don't want the knockoff, you know, overseas, woody-ish Art Blades. They don't want the interior Art Blades that feature Tom Hanks' brother. Boz Lightyear. They don't want that.
    54:51
    The Avengers. And when they do come out, they'll fuck you. When they do come out. Oh, my God. Mr. Tomato Head. Slonky Dog.
    55:05
    Slonky Dog. Mr. Tomato Head. Mr. Yam Head. When they did come out with the GNR, like the aftermarket topper, that was a good seller.
    55:19
    Spoonie. I refuse. Spoonie. I refuse. Oh, man. I bet the Bo Peep. I bet the Bo Peep loops will still be on.
    55:36
    Oh, man. Okay. This is how it changes. You're doing great. Keep going. But I think that if they do come out with these accessories, you're not going to see something over the top topper-wise. It'll be like the GNR one where it's actually very affordable. You know, what were the GNR toppers? Like $199, $250. It wasn't bad. I think we'll see something like that. So it'll be welcome. They also plan, I've heard that they're going to sell some Toy Story Translites around that same time with focus on getting those things being better backlit for display purposes. So that'll be cool. Hmm. Okay. Anything licensed Toy Story, I'm a nut for, so I'll be in on that stuff. This wasn't in the dankiest streets that I heard this one, but I did hear they have three games in development, which makes sense to me. The rumored Godfather. They've got three more designers, really. Yeah. You've got Steve Ritchie. The rumored Elton John. Hold Me Closer is bullshit. And then who's the – they have a newer designer, right? Yes. Like newer to the industry. Mark, yep. And so three games. Yeah, makes sense to me. I wouldn't be surprised if we seen the rumored Godfather release early 2023, January to March, and then them trying to squeeze out something November, December. That's my guess. I mean, they've been talking for years, Zach, about wanting to get two games out in a year. So it wouldn't – This is the first time I think it could happen. I know they – and I'm not disputing that. As long as there's not production issues that are going to stymie the effort, There's no reason from a design perspective I would assume that that would prohibit it. But there's a lot about JJP I've never understood. Like I was listening to Pinball Party on the Pinball Network and heard from the Buffalo gentleman that there's still no wizard mode in Pirates. And I'm like, really? I don't understand. Yeah, there's wizard mode. It's not the end all, it's the final.
    57:47
    We'll see. I'm just stating that. I think it could be to next year because of – I hate to be mean, but I'm keeping it real here. It's because of the rumored titles.
    57:57
    Well, I mean they've got that billionaire backing money, so maybe it doesn't matter. But these – like Top Gun, I've heard the rumor about Top Gun. I don't know the original Top Gun or the new Maverick. But either of those would be, I think, very, very successful licenses obviously. so so it's not that everyone i've heard is a is a poor choice i still though when i when i first heard godfather as a rumor i was like come on i mean where did that come from i know that it's a i love the movie the godfather and the godfather part two they're they're great films but it's not but it's not a pinball license you know what i watched last night for The first time, I'm embarrassed to say, it's been known and referred to as the greatest love film of all time.
    58:48
    Any guess as to what that is? Uh, gosh, I feel like there's more than one film that's been called that, so no, I don't have a guess. Not Casablanca, The Notebook.
    58:57
    No, I've never seen that. Nicole and I watched The Notebook. I've seen bits and pieces, but I watched the whole thing through. One of the greatest films ever. Really good. It was a total, just a shit fest at the end. I'm, you know, I was in pieces. I was throat clenched. I was Kleenexing it up. Just an utter wonderful, beautiful movie that stuck with me. I love that film. But no, not for pinball. No, I mean, to me, like choosing The Godfather, because I can't, I don't, I've not seen The Notebook. I can't compare it to it. To me, it would be like choosing Citizen Kane. Fried green tomatoes? No, I have seen that. But no, Citizen Kane. So legendary film. Definitely worth seeing. Definitely never worthy of being a pinball machine. No.
    59:47
    You know what theme I thought of the other day? And I could almost guarantee that it's available. Almost guarantee. And that is Rocky.
    60:07
    It's been made before. Sylvester Stallone will do anything. And there's no other big, I mean, you can get Mr. T. You know, you can get. You can get Dolph Lundgren. Yes. Carl Weathers. Get Carl Weathers. I think a Rocky pinball machine would slay. And I guarantee it's available. Well, I'm saying available for pinball. Maybe a company's purchased it. But manufacturers, if you've not gotten Rocky and you're considering things like Godfather and Rush, come on. Don't you think that would do well? Yeah, I do. I think Rocky would do well. I mean, I've often said, like, if you want to mine stuff from, like, the 70s, 80s, Predator. Yeah, Predator would be a good one. Obviously, I understood for a while maybe because of the association with Skit B that there wasn't a design. But he never had any licensing for it. He doesn't care. So, yeah, no reason not to go in and say you want to do that. I always have felt Die Hard would be great. The only problem is with Bruce Willis' health condition and Alan Rickman having died. That might be tough. You'll need to consider what you want to do for call-outs. They're not going to get either one of them anyway. No, most likely they wouldn't have. So you can find someone who is probably affiliated with the movie. What about Family Matters guy? I thought he passed away, too. Damn.
    61:31
    Carl. Jesse passed away too. Damn. There's nobody. Maybe whoever played Holly Gennaro, maybe she's available. There are plenty of things. You can always pull stuff from clips and stuff anyway. I've heard that license sound like that. Yeah. But I mean, there's just so many sort of like legendary like going and doing like a Gone in 60 Seconds or something would make more sense. Just something exciting. I mean, they'll do Fast and Furious at some point. I mean, here's part of the thing. I don't know. I'm assuming you haven't watched Godfather director's commentary, but I have. I have not, no. Okay. So I remember listening to Francis Ford Coppola walking through that movie and explaining, like, there is a scene. Have you seen The Godfather? Yes, yes. Okay. There is a scene where Michael's sister, after she's getting in fights with her husband all the time, you know, he's slapping her around and stuff. and she has this scene where she just takes a bat and destroys the kitchen. They were worried about the studio pulling the plug when they sent advisors or monitors in one day, and so they had her wreck stuff because they were like, we don't have any action in this movie. You need to do this so there's actually some sense of action because there's so little that's in the film. The film is a film about talking. Yeah. So it's like why Jackie Brown wouldn't be a good pinball machine. because hardly anything action-wise happens in it. I could see a funky Jack the Ripper. And this is a kinetic game. It's a kinetic game. It's not meant to tell dramas. And Godfather is not an action. It's a drama. What about Event Horizon?
    63:12
    I mean, I like Event Horizon. Didn't Jablonski do that score? No, he did not. He did Ender's Game. Ender's Game would be one of the instances where everyone would be like, let's do the book, not the movie.
    63:25
    Score aside, the movie had some. But I haven't read the book, so. Speaking of. Hearing from book fans, they didn't like the movie. Jabber emailed us back. Oh, did he? Reached back out. Steve Jablonski, our friend. Friend of the show, Steve Jablonski. Yeah. I'm going to call this a Jablonski-Responski.
    63:43
    Wow. You think that's really clever. I was sitting on that for a minute, too. He said, he came back, he said, look, this is tough because you threw in the hole. We're drowning. Who are you going to save thing? Yeah, I don't know why we didn't learn how to swim. He said, I think I would start swimming towards Dennis first because he gave out those full-size candy bars for Halloween. Oh, he said first. That's a big deal in his book, he said. But then I think about all of Zach's kids and about my rumored Jaws LE, and I may turn around to save Zach instead. But fortunately, I am a Michael Phelps-level swimmer, so I could easily save you both. Problem solved. Seriously, though, thank you guys for all the kind words. It means a lot. And I talked about his mentor, Mr. Hans Zimmer. Worked with him many years. He attached a photo of us to see the wonderful group of stellar composers he gets to hang out with. Oh, and he said stay away from the deep river so that he doesn't have to save either one of our asses. Wow. Thanks, Steve. I think it's Team Zach.
    64:49
    Yeah, I got that. I think he just wanted to let me down gently. But instead, he just let me down the river.
    64:59
    It's cold enough your candy bars won't melt. Though, having to access more of our listener base. Michael Phelps, if you're listening, email him at thepinballnetwork at gmail.com and say whether or not Mr. Doblonsky is actually your caliber level swimmer. Oh, my gosh. I'm not sure that's exactly accurate, but I'll let Michael decide. I'm going to win over Phelpsy. No, you won't. Yeah, I will, dude. I'll get stoned with Phelps. Are you? No. You're not going to get stoned with Phelps. You know that guy just stoning eats pizza all day long. I can get down with that.
    65:30
    Chicago Gaming Company, everybody wants to hear about this because that's what all the media has been talking about this week. CGC announcing that the start of shipment of Cactus Canyon remake LEs, finally. When I was playing tournament pinball yesterday, one of the folks there had a CCR LE on order. I was a little confused, It was probably because going up and having to play kept interrupting the conversation. But he was excited to hear that it was coming out, but I think he may have backed out of his order already. Yeah, we've had a couple people that got tired of the wait. And shifted – oh, no. Wait. I won't name them. This is someone actually I mentioned that they were. I wore my black flipping out pinball shirt to pinball. Thank you. It was total coincidence. It was what was on top in the shirt drawer. So someone – actually, I had one person say they really liked my shirt because it was so different from everything else they see. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't know. They had been drinking, though, so they may have meant something. It may have meant nothing. And then someone else had said, yes, they had ordered – they had had the CCRLE on order with Flippin' Out, but they begged, and you allowed them to – you can cut this part if you don't want others to know that you are so kind to do this. They shifted their deposit to another potential game also with CGC because it's just been delayed so much. They were like – and there was no confidence about when they would actually come out. And I remember I think on Eclectic Gamers I talked about NAP Arcade had heard reports that the LEs might have gotten pushed into 2023 because there was a problem. Not getting the parts, but there was a problem with the topper. Well, they didn't say the topper. They said there was some problem. And now this is very good news. And we've had a couple people, so that individual was correct. Yeah, and then this person was like, oh, if I had known, maybe I just stuck with it. But I've already changed my mind, and I don't want to change it again. Well, impossible to change again. Exactly. Because the reason that I allow people is somebody who's like, hey. Speak of your mercy, Zach. I've got this game that I've reserved with you that was grossly underpriced to begin with and that everybody wants. Is there any way I could shift it over to something less desirable? Sure.
    67:44
    Absolutely. Hell yeah. Anybody that's paid in full on their Godzilla premium want to buy a Mando instead? Sure.
    67:55
    Yeah. True. Absolutely. Now, there are some things that we have to stay firm on. But, yeah, look, some people take coins. Some people give. I'm a giver. I'll give that transfer over. Yeah. Why not? Yeah, so now dealers, Craig, Bobby, you heard it. dealers haven't been notified of how many we're getting in the first little run here, when we're getting, I don't know. Typically, Rick over at PPS, the manager of the Bally Williams license or whatever, he gets the first handful generally, and I think he waits until the end of them as well. So they're probably all going to PPS customers.
    68:39
    But I don't know how many they're making. If they make $500, sure, everybody would get some. If they make $20, then probably not. Something else interesting that Craig Bobby is putting out there, and it's pretty bold of Bobby, man. I like it. I like his boldness here. The saloon doors. Now, Rick on the forums, Rick at PPS, showed a picture. It looked like a mechanical picture of an old, not a blueprint, but an old something of what looked like doors. Craig Bobby did some digging and said not only was it the saloon doors, but he is hearing that you're going to get as part of that code enhancement, it's going to be a kit, it's going to be a code and physical, a kit all in one, and the physical part of it is going to be upgrading to the saloon doors that were on the original prototype of that game that they cut last minute. That's awesome. Yeah, we had been hearing for a while now that the code was going to have a physical element, And I know a lot of people, at least people like me, had thought that was probably like some sort of security chip or something for the software. But an actual physical device, I had not thought about. That's pretty badass. So hopefully Craig Bobby's, he didn't even call a rumor. No. He's claiming it here. Stuck his flag in there. Nice job, CB. And sticking your flag and stuff, let's stick our flag into the pinball awards season. We did get an update. Did you listen to Loser Kid Pinball podcast this last week? Yes, I did. They had interviewed Will Oetting, the producer of the upcoming Twippy Awards. For those of you not familiar, the Twippy Awards have been going on for like six or so years. People's Choice Awards for pinball. Jeff Patterson stepped down this year. Will Oetting is taking over. but some interesting highlights that I found such as his main goal for doing the podcast with Loser Kids he said was kind of temper expectations. Out of the gate he wanted to say that which kind of surprised me. Usually when you're hyping up an event and you're producing an event and trying to get it going you want to build some interest in it but he was actually just saying hey, chill.
    70:50
    It's going to be what it's going to be. I just want to get on here and temper everyone's expectations It's usually not seen in a positive way, right, Dennis? I was very surprised at the strategy. This is a weird strategy. He went on to say that it talked about production values, not really an emphasis. They don't have any intention on being the Golden Globes.
    71:12
    News alert. Come on. It's weird to compare yourself to the Golden Globes. But to strive for it, I think. I guess someone must have said it before or something because he brought it up several times. And I mean, like logistically, it's not set up like the Golden Globes. No. The award process is entirely like the Golden Globes is not people's choice award. You know, it goes through the what? Hollywood Foreign Press. Yeah. So anyway, but but I'm assuming he meant more like on the prestige level because, you know, people have really looked forward to the Twippies. But he was like, don't treat it like it's that. Yeah, he says it's just going to be like a casual event and, you know, just celebrating pinball, but not really putting into it what they have in years past is what I took away from it. So much so that he said there's no plan for a live stream of the event. So anyone that's not at TPF that's not in that room will not see it live. That's kind of the big draw, I would think, for an award show. You would want to maximize consumption. He said there's going to be a VOD that's going to be released later. the damn show's in the end of March already.
    72:18
    Yeah, and I don't, like, I didn't get a sense, and I don't want to presume too much, but, like, so Avad, I'm assuming, so there'll be a camera in the room with what, like, it's built in little mic, and that's just going to be tossed up, because that was how I felt it was. I guess they're going to take those production transitions, because that's all it is, really. It's just a couple of transition pieces. I don't know. I don't know how many people watch Avad, though, honestly, once the results are able to be read. I mean, like the whole thing with – and this, again, this gets to my theory. And having worked on the Pinball Industry Awards, so everyone just bear in mind I've been involved with a different award thing. And so some of this is discussions like what I've had to do within the hobby of pinball as well. But the value of a live – whether it's a live stream or it's like released as a premiere event where you've prerecorded but you're actually doing it as a release like watching a TV show over the air is the idea is you get all the people in the chat together. A regular VOD like up on YouTube doesn't do that. It's just you can go and consume it whenever you want, but it's not an event. Especially if it's a viewer's choice. Right, right. So it seemed like, okay, yeah, they're still going to go ahead and record it in some capacity and put it out in some capacity. But the focus seems to be very much that this is the thing for TPF attendees, which is a big change from how – like ending up at TPF was just a part of a way to involve a live audience, if I remember right. I was never involved in the Twippy planning. But it's always about trying to maximize the pinball hobby, being able to witness it, and this is not in that spirit. No, because what is your maximum consumption is going to be, 150 people? Maybe. As if you have a full room?
    74:10
    I mean, last year they had half a full room. I mean, last year, well, I don't want to talk about last year. It was really bad. Some changes going on over at the Twippies. They did go over some validity to the voting methods. essentially what they do to validate these votes are they check for duplicate email accounts, they check for IP addresses.
    74:32
    No additional changes that he noted in specific to improving upon that. No longer having a clause. This was a surprise to me. Last year it was any content creator that was eligible for an award, they couldn't have their content behind a paywall, all their content. It had to be open to the public, consumable by anyone. That's gone. There's no longer that clause. So it doesn't matter if all of your stuff is behind a paywall or not. So that was interesting. And then kind of the candle in the cake, man, for me was, and I'm hashtag bi, so keep that in mind, everybody. Hashtag my baby still. When asked about what he is looking forward to the most for this year's Twivies Willow Edding, the one running the whole show said to get through it.
    75:21
    Yeah, no. I can't deliver that without having some type of what the fuck. I don't know what to think. I mean, my stance on this is nothing personal. I don't have hashtag bias in the sense like doing PIAs is different from the Twippies. My whole issue with the Twippies is I don't like the concept of People's Choice Awards. You've been like that from day one. Yeah, yeah. And back when you were involved with the Twippies, I was like that too. And it's just – and it's because – I mean I think it's very telling that in all other notable industries, there's a reason why that's not the most prestigious sort of award. And that's why I thought there was an appetite to try and do something with more qualified judging. But saying all that aside, I've always liked to watch the Twippies because it's still to celebrate pinball. So it's still – it's meant to be fun. And this – hearing the interview, honestly, I walked away from it and I was like, it sounds like they really don't want to do it, but they feel they have to. Yeah, well, they were talking about why they weren't doing the live ceremony. They said it was basically having production value with a live – it's just too difficult, too time-consuming to also stream it live. And it is difficult. Yes. And I don't want to – Yes, it is. It's – those are – his complaints were very valid. But when that's done in year two in a grand way, again, hashtag bias, I did it. But that was a year two issue, not a year six issue. It can be done. You can't say it can't be done. No. They don't want to do it. And he didn't say it couldn't. Yeah, they don't want to deal with it. And I think some of that's probably driven by – and I didn't want to bring it back up. So last year, all right, or this year, the one this year for last year's awards, there was a mix of stuff. I was there in person, and there were a lot of issues in the room that they struggled with. And then I had heard afterwards that the online individuals couldn't even hear what was being said. So they clearly struggled with both conveying the ceremony to those at TPF and also conveying it to online So I can see where if you kind of like stuck with this now and you are going to move forward with doing them and you like you know what We struggled with both of these We need to get back to basics. I need to drop one of them. TPF is like super enthused about having this occupy one of their huge chunk of seminar time. So we're going to focus on the live. We're going to focus on the live rather than on the online.
    77:56
    I mean that seems to be the route. And full kudos to Will going out and being this transparent about it. Absolutely. Loser kid. I do appreciate the honesty. So, I mean, I guess if I were him, this would not have been my – like if I was sort of like stuck, maybe he wasn't stuck with it. But that was – I mean, my goal is to get through it. It doesn't sound like it was like a passion project.
    78:20
    We've experienced it too, Dennis. What are we doing? It's so much work. Are we wanting to do this? It's so much work. You know, what's the return of investment? Is the industry embracing this? Are they appreciating this? All of those. And maybe that's probably a good opportunity to kind of do an update on the Pinball Industry Awards. Because even before this Loser Kid episode came out, we were having some fairly heated discussions amongst the committee. And you weren't on the committee for this last go, but you helped put together a ceremony. And so we have you in on the committee channel that we do on Discord. And it was just like, what are we doing? What do we want to do different? What do we – and this was before we knew about all these ships with the Twippies. And it was just kind of like, you know what? And I was the same this last – for year two. From year one, I was like, oh, my God, I'm so tired. Yes. It's so much work. And you don't want to ever slip and be worse than you were the prior year. That's the key, yes. And that's the pressure because you're like – I mean, it's not like it's making money. So you're trying to do all of this and manage criticism, sort out the criticism that's valid versus the criticism that's whiny versus the criticism that is maybe not coming from a place about the awards at all but is about sticking knives and things. It's truly a labor of love for everyone involved on the Twippies, on the Pimble Industry Awards, truly a labor of love. So I guess let's do a little bit of – I did feel like the PIAs went better year two than it did year one. I think a lot of that was year one was just people are like, why are you doing this? This is all – you're just trying to do something to the Twippies. Like having multiple awards doesn't harm other awards. The Oscars doesn't choke the life out of the Golden Globes. It objectively was better. And the first year was, in my opinion, really, really good. I went back this last week and watched just to kind of see, you know, where's my head at in this. And I was thoroughly impressed. It was just it brought back some great memories. The Lyman tribute, the Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement, Harry Williams. It was really well done. That's why I get worried because I'm like, shit, can we can we really top that? Yeah. So so anyway, I don't know. So I guess as an update, the committee had a meeting this last week to discuss whether we want to move forward and what changes we would be doing.
    80:48
    And then, of course, we learned at this point once we had the meeting about the Twippies. So we also talked about the changes that the Twippies were making. And we don't know yet exactly what we're planning to do other than we will have an announcement soon. And assuming we move forward, there will be adjustments.
    81:06
    I'm trying not to smile. Hey, everybody, guess what? I got Eagly right next to me. I've got a sad, depressed goat next to me. I guess goats always look... They kind of always look... And overhead, if you just listen close enough, it will come screaming by...
    81:28
    Steve... We were doing a helicopter. It's a chopper. It's Steve Ritchie in that 14 Tomcat. And he's flying in loops. What in the world? He's spelling something, and it spells... Hold me close, my tiny tomcat.
    81:45
    That's what it said. I left the stern to see cannolis. It reads, in smoke, there's no need for a jingle for the world's greatest pinball podcast ever. I mean, every pinball podcast.
    82:06
    That's it. he had a lot of swirls there to make that in smoke but he did it you had to refill fly better turning up this week is don't believe the agenda don't believe the narrative don't believe the toxicity out there sales in general are trending up why would a dealer lie to you even I don't believe this shit but it is true objectively. I can show you the numbers.
    82:41
    The numbers over the last two weeks have been substantially increased sales-wise in the pinball industry and in my business. We're selling more games as we are the last two weeks. I think it's a number of things, but we're selling more games than we are. It was stagnant there for a minute. I was getting worried. I was like, oh, shit. Shit's sitting. Shit's building. Well, I can say my warehouse is lightening up now. So are all my anxieties. How am I going to pay for Christmas? I think the thing is right now with the increased games moving around, people are buying pinball machines. And they're buying pretty heavily. I think that's because the holiday is coming up. People are splurging a little bit more. People have been waiting. You know, I'll get one closer to Christmas. Give me a little justification. They are buying them. And I think people are trying to beat that stern price increase that's coming January 1st. So you get both of those. So I think objectively that's why you're seeing an increase. I don't know what that's going to say for January, February. I do think in 2023 might have a little bit of a down year when it comes to sales. I'm with the whole doom and gloom gang out there that just want to shit on everything pinball. But some of the realists out there say, no, I think it's going to be a little bit, you know, it's going to be tougher with these increased prices, with the market coming down. I agree on that. But right now, games are moving very, very well. and games that typically have been sitting a little bit. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been selling probably better than anything over the last couple weeks. They had that last run. People still want to get that. It is a family-friendly theme for the holiday season. Mandalorians have been selling very well. We got a code update. We got a topper. Maybe that's justification as to why those are selling well. A really hot title as well, you know, theme-wise. Rush, selling a lot of Rush pros, premiums. Toy Story, selling a handful of those too. So right now, even the titles that weren't as popular are selling very well right now. And it is what it is. Numbers don't lie. Also trending up this week, shout out to Pinball Party, is Jurassic Park Premium.
    84:43
    10K by Christmas. It's for real. Poor Jason over there, so pissed off. These people are fucking crazy. Figure it out. $10,000 for Jurassic Park Premium. Guess what, bro? It is what it is. That's what they're going for. Right now, that's the little darling that everybody wants. Had that big run of Godzilla premiums to satiate some people. Still a hot title. But it's Jurassic Park premium that everybody's trying to dip their toes into. Deadpool? Everybody still wants Deadpool, but it's like, okay, we've had it for a couple years now. Jurassic Park premium. We don't know when they're building them again. Everybody wants that moving T-Rex. And they want it now. It's Jurassic Park premium right now. you're going to be paying a premium for a newer used one. Can't say the same, though, this week. As we trend down, Dialed In LE, man.
    85:36
    We should go back. I want to document all of the games that have trended up and down over the four-plus years that we've been doing this and see which one is the trendiest downest of trends. Dialed In has to be competing.
    85:51
    It always trends down. I'm sad. I wouldn't mind a CE myself. But Dialed In L.A. is probably the cheapest Jersey Jack L.A. you can buy. Toy Story might be coming down, but it's nowhere near Dialed In L.A. Yeah. You get these things that look like they're brand new, but in the low eights for an L.A. Mom Jeans. Mom Jeans did it, I guess. Donnie Pepperoni. I think you'd probably pick one up in the upper sevens. $7,800. I bet you, you give me a couple weeks, I can find a damn nice Dialed In L.A. for $7,800.
    86:25
    May have to take a swing in the C. C's, they just never show up. Also trending down this week, uh-oh, a little rant of mine.
    86:33
    Are some of you people out there, God bless you, some of you are sweethearts, some of you are just assbags, but when you make a deal on a pinball machine or trade deal, don't back out of the deal. Or if you do back out of the deal, at least have some decency, some courtesy, at least exhibit some remorse. Because you're fucking up everything. Is that too much to ask, Dennis Creasel?
    87:00
    Well, maybe. This last week. I don't know if they need to grovel. Three or four. I think they do. Once you have that gentleman's handshake over the phone, that virtual handshake, a deal is a deal. Have you ever made a deal on something that after you slept on it, you're like, really not a good deal? Or some other deal comes in that's better, and you're like, I still stick it through with the original deal.
    87:26
    I'm a man of principle. I make a deal, I make a deal. Right? Is that too much to ask? What is happening to our society? I'm going to blame it on what's the new gen thing? Gen Xers? Are they Zs? Ys? Where are we at now? That's probably Zs at this point. I think it's Gen Zers.
    87:44
    I don't know who it is, but you guys are picking up on some bad habits here that need to be rectified quick, or I'm going to keep turning your ass down. I made three deals this week. When do you feel most secure about when a deal is done? When cash is on the glass? I get it. But leading up to that, if you've established terms on the deal, if you've established the address of where the deal is going to be done, if you've established the date and time, and you put it into your iPhone calendar, it's a done deal!
    88:15
    Only to come back the next day or hours before you're supposed to show up and say, just willy-nilly too. hey man sorry just wanted to give you a heads up I have to back out of the deal peace figure it out some people have done it and they're like dude I'm so sorry I just totally was short sighted and I made a deal without thinking about it that's an idiot move but not the end of the world you're remorseful but the guys that come in are like almost like they're chewing gum loudly I almost hear it through text yeah something came up not feeling it Yeah, I'm out.
    88:54
    Maybe you need a blacklist. Maybe I have one. Okay. I just never want to really put that out there like that.
    89:03
    The file name is called Flippin' Out Pinball Shitlist. It's got it open right now. Do you save that next to Flippin' Out People Who Call Me After They Bought a Game From Someone Else and Want Me to Fix It for Them? I know those things, too. Okay.
    89:18
    That's my favorite. I know those, too. But no, the shit list is where you don't want to be at. It takes a lot to get off of that thing. Yeah, I'm just looking through it now.
    89:27
    Orders game. Asks, begs not to give the required deposit. And then cancels said order right before we ship. Thanks, asshole.
    89:38
    That's shit list material right there. Talk me out of doing the non-refundable deposit because I'm a nice guy. And then you stiff me. Now, I'm just saying, everybody, button up your deals. If you're going to go through a deal and you've got the address and the date, follow through the damn deal, even if you're on the losing end of it. It is what it is. Yeah, I actually had an instance like this with watches, actually, a couple weeks ago. Yeah, maybe three weeks ago. Yeah, no, there was a watch that I was looking at, and I was going to trade in another one. And the trade offer wasn't as high as I wanted, but it turned out it was fair. It just wasn't what I was hoping for. and they're like well uh you know we can come down on the value of the one you want to trade for though so you don't have to make you know pay as much cash i was like all right uh i want you to come down more though this is the amount i want and the guy's like all right well i mean i can ask but uh i need to know if you'll if you'll commit and i said if you will get it to this amount i commit i will make the purchase we'll do the trade and i found out afterwards that i could have gotten one non-used for like 25 bucks more than what that price was up he came back it was 100 over and i said look man i told you that we had a deal at this amount you came in at 100 over and he made the number this is this is dennis this is dennis figure it out trend down okay made the number one salesperson mistake you can make with me which would say it's only a hundred Oh, yeah. Well, you know what? It's only $100 for you also. Exactly. It goes both ways. So this now discussion is terminated. We're not going to go further. You had the out. That's a clean out. It was. You gave yours. But I would have stuck with it. I know. I made a deal. It was fair. I had a slightly, you know, I found out something would have been a little bit better deal for me. Yeah, here lately. That's how it works. I guess it's just because I've been listing some used games. But I've had even a couple people that will message me on Pinsider, email me, Hey, I've got this game and this game, both in great condition. I'd trade both of these for your game if you're up for it. I come back and say, you know what? That sounds fair. Who's doing the driving or let's figure out the shipping. And then they come back and say, actually, no, I'm good. I changed my mind. I'm like, you're the one that pitched the deal.
    91:55
    I'm not emailing you. You emailed me. I accepted. And now you're saying you don't want to do it. Like, were you just testing? They're testers. They're water testers. I'll be waterboarded.
    92:08
    What the hell was that? It's like a UFO was coming down. That's what in the meme world we call baby's first missing muffler.
    92:16
    That was George Jetson coming in. Yeah, I hit the mute on the mic. I need to woosah right now. I need to chill out. You need to calm down. It's Christmas time. Break a deal. Spin the wheel. Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for the people even try to make sales even though they're going to screw me later. I'm happy. I'm going on vacation. I'm eager. It's good. I need to save some people some money. I ranted long enough. Let's save you a little bit of cash in this week's deal of the week. Buy, buy, buy! Deal of the week this week. Of course, sponsored by Flippin' Out Pinball. I'm going to save you some money. I've lowered the price on this Batman Forever Sega. I don't know how many times. It's down to $39.99 now.
    92:56
    Batman Forevers are expensive. This one's not in that bad of a condition. Sure, it's going to take some tinkering like every Sega will. But I put 10 straight games on it. It plays good. I'm going to lower that to $3,800. Buy, buy, buy! Go on, bring some cash. Get this big, heavy mammoth. And I want to pitch this to you, Dennis. $3,800, that's cheap as shit. I don't even know why it's still sitting there. It's ridiculous. I would buy, if I found a home use only Batman Forever, I think I'd buy it and bolt it.
    93:26
    I'm really liking that game a lot. Have you had a lot of time on Batman Forever? I've actually never played it. Oh, wow, okay. I was talking to who was that? It was Captain Neo the play field really prolific play field guy. Yeah, he's the guy who posts on Facebook every time anyone puts color LEDs in their games, right? Yeah, freaks out. So he's a stickler. Even he came in and was talking up this game and nice LED job he actually did on my for sale ad. And we got to talking and he thinks highly of this game and I put this out there. I think Batman Forever may be a top three shooting layout design, shooting widebody of all time. It is a real... I can't wait until you get some good time on one with good flippers. Yeah, I have read that that's the biggest issue, is a lot of people experience really bad copies where the flippers cannot make those ramps. Yeah, so one with... It's kind of like Demoman. You really want some good flippers on it, but it is a damn good design, damn good layout. I'm trying to think, who did, I don't even know offhand who designed Batman Forever. I guess Borg, but... I don't think it was. I think it was an odd one.
    94:43
    Yeah, Pinside said it was game designed by Joe Kamenkow and Paul Leslie. Oh. I'm not familiar with Paul Leslie. Paul Leslie, if you click on Paul Leslie's name, it just comes up Batman Forever. Okay, you're right. So, but wow, what a wonderful, wonderful, smooth, it doesn't feel like a wide body. I got past the feeling of a wide body because it does feel that good. Rules aren't the greatest on Batman Forever. It is very standard 90s Sega. But, damn, it shoots good. Pinball bounty, dolly's still up there, radical's still up there. I did pick up a dolly parton, but I'm still keeping it on the bounty list because it was an all-original. No playfield wear on an all-original. How nice is that? Just still not nice enough. So I'll restore it at some point and have somebody restore it for me. But in the meantime, if one does come in, there's a couple out there. You know who you are. They come out there, and they're ready to sell, sell, sell. I'm ready to buy, buy, buy. Buy, buy, buy! And as always, everybody, look, I'm here just to report the facts for you people because you may screw up deals, but numbers don't lie, and neither do I. I'm a man of my word. Man of principle. Honor. Integrity. Cue the fucking eagle. Pinball market trends.
    96:02
    All right, Dennis, where can people catch you? They can catch me with the Collected Gamers Podcast. And if they want to email me, collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com or you can go to facebook.com slash collectedgamerspodcast and use the messenger tool. And I check those fairly regularly. Oh, I like it. And in the meantime, go become a Patreon for EGP. Because we don't have one here. Jump in their Discord. Nobody likes us. A lot of fun. We need to do something. with discord you know me i i just want to do i want to do something big we're gonna do it we're gonna do it the best way possible straight down the middle watch the newest mandalorian video you can catch me at the pinball network at gmail.com follow like and subscribe to the pinball network just straight down the middle to flipping out pinball as a heads up i'm going on vacation this next week dennis so don't buy anything from him no please keep bye-bye buying um we still have Someone here that's going to be handling shipments and such. So maybe a little delay, but your boys are going to be hopefully on a beach. And as a reminder, we're going to be in Cincinnati, in Cincinnati, the Cool Pinball Show, December 2nd through the 4th. Make sure to come out, hang out. As a little tease, we'll have a big booth as always. But I'm going to bring something to Cincinnati that I've never brought before, would have never thought of bringing before. Something that's new to me, but very old to you. And something you do not see at pinball shows. So to find out what that is, you've got to be at Pinsonati December 2nd through 4th.
    97:29
    I'm sorry. This has gone on too long. Gosh. Flipping out Pinball Product Showcase this week is an Insider Connected Premium Alley. Kids, have you yet completed your Stern collection? Have you earned the designation of what I'm calling hashtag fully connected?
    97:51
    Have you? I don't know what it means. You technically are fully connected. I am. I only have one spike game. Well, you're fully connected. Maybe there should be a minimum. Minimum of three. It's like, what can we do so Dennis doesn't count? The only way you get fully connected is if you buy two more kits just as floaters for now. Floater kits. You have to have at least three. I saw the number you have on yourself. I see why you must do this.
    98:19
    Not too many. Why did you scoop them all up? About a whole pallet of those things. Those things go quick, man. They're like shaker motors. I'm like, should I just get 100 shaker motors in? And Nicole's like, hey, stock's getting low. I'm like, where in the hell are they going? Are their kids giving them away as presents for birthday parties? Damn. Yeah, so the Insider Connected Premium LE Kits are back in stock. Hashtag fully connected. messages to the pinballnetwork at gmail.com or even comment on the episode title here on your social media. Let us know if you're fully connected yet. James Bond 007 Pro and Premium pre-orders. Taking orders for that as well as a list for Elwynn's 60th Anniversary Edition. Check out the pinball vault. I've got to add some more stuff because over at the Flippin' Out Pinball Vault, stuff's going fast. Nearly gone. Sold another topper. People are sniffing on that Beatles topper. Mandalorian Pro pre-owned we have right now. We also have the new Pro and Premiums in stock, new in box. Free shipping. All new Sterns from Flippin' Out Pinball. We're so kind. And I'll even shave a little bit of money off if you want to pick it up at the terminal. How about that? Tis the season. Toy Story 4 LEs in stock. We also have spots available for the CE model. I've got an Ultraman new in the box. Got a Halloween new in the box. Got an Iron Maiden Pro pre-owned. I don't know how that's still sitting there. Cactus Canyon Remake SE in stock, taking orders for the SE Pluses. Turtles Pro and Premium, still got a couple of those. Those are going quick, though. Mandalorian Pro and Premium, still have a handful of those. Rush Pros no longer have any premiums, I don't think. Hot little title, and the pros are getting low on inventory. Star Wars Pro and Premium, Led Zeppelin Pro and Premium, GNR, LE, both pre-owned and new, out of the box, Batman Forever, Deal the Weak piece, Connected Kids, Star Wars Specialty Aprons, Alien pre-order, Queen pre-order, Thrall Thrills, oh, pre-order for your PGA, the brand new model of Golden Teeth PGA. edition coming in December. Get yours now. Banners, shakers, you name it, probably have most of it. TPN Last Week Pinball Party Podcast episodes 11 and 12 with Joel Engelberth and with Buffalo Pinball, respectively. It was good to hear Buffalo Pinball coming and hanging out on Pinball Party. That was a really entertaining podcast. Joel, yours was good, too. I like the Buffalo Pinball guys. Yeah, it was fun to hear from them. Dipping their wings into TPN territory. Love it. They're wings you get at Buffalo. Yes, I get it. Triple Drain Pinball Podcast, episode 26, where they got rid of Travis Murry's ass and replaced him with Carl D'Angelo. I haven't heard this one yet. I've downloaded it, but I haven't played it yet. It's just temporary or permanent. You'll have to tune in to find out. Drama. Final Round Pinball Podcast, episode 62, Expose. And if you can't find that special character E on the keyboard, it looks like expose.
    101:09
    Yes. Whichever way you want to see it. Free play pinball podcast episode 19 with Craig, Bobby, and Amanda. They made a good duo there. Nicely done. They went over the expo recap. Joel Ingeberg streamed some golden tea last week on TPN's streaming channel. He didn't think it was allowed, and then he messaged me. I'm like, dude, I'm the wrong person to ask because I fucking own Flippin' Out Pinball. Yes, absolutely do it. He's like, okay. And it was fun to watch. It was actually competitive. I liked it. It was pretty cool to go back and watch that bond. TPN this week, we have a Silver Ball Chronicles on deck, I think, don't we? I don't know if it's dropping this week or not. I believe the recording's done, but, you know, David and editing take a while. Oh, that is true. More pinball parties upcoming, as well as the pinballers. One of our favorite streamers in all of pinball. They're having their 12 Strikes at Christmas tournament coming up on December 10th at noon Eastern time. Be there or be a Grinch squared.
    102:03
    That works. Well, exponential Grinching. I love you guys. I'm thankful for you guys and for Dennis Creasel I'm Zach Payne and JJP look we joke we like to joke on this podcast right but listen to me you have Steve Ritchie okay Steve Ritchie don't use his talents on Elton John I mean it's Steve Ritchie the king of flow look I get it you may have already promised Top Gun to some other designer but at least like give him Cessna Adventures or something just something he's a peacock You've got to let him fly. We both are getting old. We have prostate issues.
    102:42
    And always practice safe, pinball, and sure, you may not want to identify as pinball's Golden Globes, but you can never prevent me from bringing you everything that is the Academy Awards and Oscars of pinball. Eat some turkey, y'all.
    103:06
    Something's looking better, baby. Golden Globe up? Oh, ouch. No sacrifice at all.