Episode 751: "Can Spooky's Rookie Do It?"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·17m 9s·analyzed·Dec 15, 2022

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Kaneda warns Scooby-Doo buyers to wait for code quality proof; criticizes FOMO marketing and manufacturer transparency.

Summary

Kaneda analyzes Scooby-Doo's first-week sales performance (1,969 units produced) and raises critical concerns about first-time coder DJ's ability to deliver on 4,000 custom callouts and complex ruleset. He criticizes industry-wide FOMO marketing tactics, pre-release hype cycles, and manufacturer transparency issues—specifically calling out Haggis Pinball's delivery delays and Stern's James Bond launch fumble. He also questions the decision to have Jack Danger (Stern employee) stream Scooby-Doo first and advocates for better game reveal marketing strategies.

Key Claims

Scooby-Doo produced 1,969 units and sold more games in a single day than any other previous Spooky Pinball title
high confidence · Kaneda, directly citing production numbers and sales performance
This is the first time someone who has never coded a pinball machine before is coding a Spooky game (DJ on Scooby-Doo)
high confidence · Kaneda discussing the 'biggest mystery' of the game and DJ's inexperience
Scooby-Doo has 4,000 custom callouts, requiring extensive mapping of modes and ruleset
high confidence · Kaneda citing specific callout count and discussing production methodology
Over 1,500 Scooby-Doo units will be Collector's Edition games, making inventory abundant
medium confidence · Kaneda prediction based on pricing ($11,000+) and deposit walk-away rates
Haggis Pinball customers were promised 8-week delivery after paying in full but actually waited 8-10 months
medium confidence · Kaneda reporting direct feedback from Haggis Pinball owners who contacted him
Jack Danger (Stern Pinball employee) will be the first person to stream Scooby-Doo live for the world
high confidence · Kaneda stating Danger works at Stern and will do Deadflip stream
Spooky Pinball stated they will work on Scooby-Doo code updates over the next 12 months
high confidence · Kaneda citing official Spooky statement about post-launch code work
James Bond machine development feels stalled; George Gomez promised reveal in 'a week or two' a month ago with no follow-up
medium confidence · Kaneda observation of lack of communication and no date announced for showing
If James Bond is priced over $20,000, it will not sell out day one
low confidence · Kaneda prediction based on market analysis

Notable Quotes

“The real question is this. Can the rookie coder pull this off? Because this is the biggest mystery surrounding this entire game.”
Kaneda @ early segment — Central thesis of the episode—DJ's code quality is the key risk factor for Scooby-Doo's success
“None of you who are listening to this right now, none of you have seen enough of Scooby-Doo to know you're going to enjoy the pinball experience... And yet they sold more games in a single day than any other previous spooky pinball title. So what does that say about nostalgia, right?”
Kaneda @ mid-segment — Highlights the power of nostalgia and FOMO over actual gameplay knowledge in driving early sales
“What you intend to do doesn't matter. The most important thing is how well you execute a creative idea.”
Kaneda @ mid-segment — Philosophy underlying his critique of pre-release Q&As with designers before final product delivery
“You are not going to have a hard time getting Scooby-Doo at all ever in the history of pinball... they are going to be so easy to get. Mark my words.”
Kaneda @ mid-segment — Predicts inventory abundance and rejects FOMO-driven sales urgency
“This is like having an engineer over at Chevrolet give you a first drive impression of the new Ford Mustang.”
Kaneda @ closing segment — Critique of Jack Danger (Stern) streaming Scooby-Doo (Spooky), questioning competitive boundaries
“A lot of people were told if they paid in full, they would get their game in eight weeks. The actual time frame for a lot of those people has been eight to 10 months since they've paid in full.”
Kaneda @ mid-segment — Direct testimony about Haggis Pinball's delivery failures
“Eight weeks is the haggis pinball equivalent of highway pinball telling people two weeks, but nothing has changed.”
Kaneda @ mid-segment — Compares pattern of delivery delays across multiple manufacturers (Haggis, Highway)

Entities

Kanedaperson DJperson Jack DangerpersonSpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyHaggis Pinballcompany Multimorphiccompany

Signals

?
product_launch: Scooby-Doo sold more units on first day than any previous Spooky Pinball title despite 1,969 unit production run.
high · Kaneda: 'they sold more games in a single day than any other previous spooky pinball title'
?
product_concern: First-time coder (DJ) assigned to Scooby-Doo with 4,000+ custom callouts; Spooky committed to 12 months post-launch code updates, indicating incomplete product at ship.
high · Kaneda: 'Can the rookie coder pull this off? Because this is the biggest mystery surrounding this entire game.' and 'We are already hearing from Spooky Pinball that they will be working on this code over the next 12 months.'
~
sentiment_shift: Kaneda explicitly warns consumers against FOMO-driven early purchase; predicts easy secondary market availability and abundance of inventory.
high · Kaneda: 'You are not going to have a hard time getting Scooby-Doo at all ever in the history of pinball... they are going to be so easy to get. Mark my words.'
?
business_signal: Haggis Pinball customers report 8-10 month delays despite promised 8-week timelines after full payment; pattern mirrors Highway Pinball practices.
medium · Kaneda: 'A lot of people were told if they paid in full, they would get their game in eight weeks. The actual time frame for a lot of those people has been eight to 10 months since they've paid in full.'
?
machine_intel: James Bond machine development appears stalled; George Gomez promised reveal a month ago with no follow-up or announced date.
medium · Kaneda: 'George Gomez said like a month ago we're going to show you this game in a week or two and look it hasn't happened and there's not even like a date on the calendar'

Topics

Scooby-Doo production, sales performance, and code riskprimaryFOMO-driven marketing and consumer transparency in pinball industryprimaryManufacturer delivery delays and honesty (Haggis, Highway, Multimorphic)primaryJames Bond machine development status and marketing failuresprimaryFirst-person game reveal strategies and streaming vs. professional editingsecondaryCompetitive conflict: Stern employee (Jack Danger) streaming Spooky machinesecondarySecondary market saturation and inventory forecasting for limited editionssecondaryDesigner intent vs. execution in creative fields and pre-release hype Q&Asmentioned

Sentiment

negative(-0.65)— Kaneda expresses optimism about Scooby-Doo's theme and art but is deeply critical of industry practices: FOMO marketing exploitation, manufacturer transparency failures (Haggis, Highway), Stern's James Bond fumble, and problematic business models. He's skeptical of DJ's first-time coding experience and frustrated by pre-release hype cycles. Tone is advisory and protective of consumers rather than celebratory. Some humor in sections (Kim Mitchell troll praise) but overwhelmingly focused on systemic industry problems.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.051

Oh, oh, oh, they're totally crazy, forget them later, men's shirts, short skirts, oh, oh, oh, really go wild, yeah, and then that in style. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Welcome everybody, my name is Kaneda and this is a podcast about pinball. And we're going to fill the weekly void with what's happening in the pinball world. So, Friday will be the one-week anniversary of Scooby-Doo being on sale. Now, how well has it sold? I think the only people that know for sure are Spooky themselves, and as I predicted, the game would not sell out in day one. Now, look, that is not an indictment on this game at all. 1,969 games is a heck of a lot of games. And here's what I think is going to happen next. I think distributors are going to have these games for sale over the next few weeks, I think they probably will sell all of their units once people start to see more of the game sometime in January and February. But also here's what's going to happen. Consumers are going to start to get these machines sometime in January, February. And we will then see the most important question that is surrounding this game. It's not whether or not the theme is good for pinball. This theme is good for pinball. It's not whether or not the game is pretty and beautiful because it is a work of art. This is the nicest looking machine Spooky Pinball has ever made. The real question is this. Can the rookie coder pull this off? Because this is the biggest mystery surrounding this entire game. We are going to have someone who's never coded a pinball machine before coding Scooby-Doo. And a game that's got like a lot of callouts, 4,000 custom callouts. I was thinking about this in the shower the other day. Why do they have 4,000 custom call-outs? Doesn't that sound like too many? It made me think, like, how do you actually come up with a list of the call-outs? Don't you have to have, like, all of the modes and all of the ruleset and the entire consumer journey you want in the game? I think you have to map all of that out first. first and then you figure out what call outs do you need, right? To go along with all those different modes and different scenarios and moments you want to create in the pinball experience. Okay. So 4,000 though, just sounds like a crazy amount. It almost is like, how do you even manage that many call outs? Like imagine sitting down and you're trying to code this machine and you're like, all right, I just used like eight call-outs for this mode. I've got 3,992 more call-outs I can use in this game. I just, I don't even know how you organize it all. Like, it's going to be a Herculean effort by DJ to sort of plow through all of those call-outs. And then you also got to go through all the different footage from the show and figure out how to slice that and dice that and put it into the game in a way that is really effective, a way that's really meaningful and a way that's going to create, right, magical pinball moments. Now, look, I think when people see the Scooby-Doo show up on that LCD screen, it's going to put a smile on people's faces. And the reason why this theme is so good for pinball is simply that. It's fun. It's campy. Like, you know, when you watch an episode of Scooby-Doo, it also still kind of holds up after all these years. So I think a lot of people went in on this game early simply because of that fact. And I think, you know, we're learning now. Nostalgia is the most powerful thing you can tap into when it comes to making a theme decision, right? And we're seeing it in pinball once again. And I mean this when I say it. None of you who are listening to this right now, none of you have seen enough of Scooby-Doo to know you're going to enjoy the pinball experience. You haven't seen hardly anything. And yet they sold more games in a single day than any other previous spooky pinball title. So what does that say about nostalgia, right? You just add up nostalgia, theme, beautiful artwork, and enough to sort of bedazzle people and they don't even have to see much gameplay. But it's not just Spooky who does this. Remember, every time Stern launches a game and sells it on day one we don really see gameplay We hardly see anything in the game The only difference is is we know what Stern designers can deliver We know what Stern can deliver from a code standpoint So I think a lot more people have faith when it comes to those departments because it's Stern pinball. And that is why DJ's efforts on this game are going to be the biggest question mark. Because what happens if you start to see this game and the code is buggy or it's like really incomplete. We are already hearing from Spooky Pinball that they will be working on this code over the next 12 months. And that is why I've been telling everybody, if you simply wait and you don't fall for the sales hype FOMO that we're going to talk about next, if you don't fall for these distributor sales pitches right now, which are basically this, oh, we were able to snag a few more Scooby-Doos. So make sure you get them now. Let me tell you right now, you are not going to have a hard time getting Scooby-Doo at all ever in the history of pinball. With like over 1,500 of these are going to be collector's edition games. They are going to be so easy to get. Mark my words, because it's over $11,000, you're going to have people who commit to spots. And then when they get asked to pay for the remaining balance, you're going to have people who walk away from their deposits. You're just going to have a lot of inventory on this game. And so it is funny to see those sales pitches. And look, I understand it. Remember this, a distributor, they just want to sell you a game and they want to sell you a pinball machine before you play it. Think about how weird this hobby has been ever since I've been a part of it, right? Nobody gets to test drive the car before they are told they need to buy it or put a deposit that's non-refundable. And that's a weird dilemma for me, right? Because you know, you know that the sales forces that are out there, think about what they're doing. They want to entice you to buy without playing the game. And then you've got Canada on the other side of the spectrum saying, hey, I think on this title, like everyone should wait and see. People should wait and jump on it and make sure it's for them before they plop down money they can't get back. I don't think either side of the argument is wrong, right? They're doing their job as salespeople, but I'm also doing my job as trying to sort of guide people into a little bit more of a commonsensical place around all of these machines. Because the days are over, people, where it was just 500 LEs of a Stern machine. Like, Spooky is tapping into that FOMO, but there's nothing really truly limited with these machines. And yes, 1969 is technically limited, but it will never be a rare machine to own. So look, I can't wait to see what DJ does with this game, but I think all of us need to see what he's capable of before giving non-refundable deposits. I hope they knock it out of the park. I hope this game is super fun. I grew up watching Scooby-Doo and I would be a total Grinch and a Scrooge if I was rooting against Spooky Pinball. I'm not rooting against them. But the other part is this. I keep seeing like Bug do Q&As with other podcasters and I mean it when I say it. Think about it like this. When does a movie director do a Q&A on the movie they made? They do it after the movie is out. It's like show people what you've done and then do your press junket, you know, answering questions about it. But it's so weird to me to prematurely do these interviews with these guys because we haven't seen anything and I don't care what they intend to put in the game. And I'll tell you why. Because in life, I've learned this in marketing and in any creative field. It doesn't matter what the creative field is. What you intend to do doesn't matter. The most important thing is how well you execute a creative idea. And so for them to get up there and be like, oh, this is the best game we've ever done. Like, this is amazing. I can't wait for everybody to see it. I'm like, cool, great. I get it. You're hyping your machine. But I don't want to do a Q&A with anybody until I actually get to see the final product. You know, and the same Same thing with Stern with like James Bond. Like we saw Gomez do all these interviews and the game's not even out. Like I don't really care. This industry has done everything backwards. Remember it an industry that has been fueled by consumer FOMO for the last like 10 to 15 years And because of it these companies get to absolutely take advantage of consumers by getting them to buy stuff before John Youssi enough to make a wise decision. And that's the way they want it. And ultimately, it's not their fault. That's what they're trying to do. But we still have all of the power and the ultimate power you can display as a consumer is simply waiting. And that is not a message anybody wants you to think about when they're trying to sell you the product. So yeah, like I don't want to talk to George Gomez about James Bond. I want to see what Lonnie and him do on the game when the game is done. Now, unfortunately, when I go to play the game today at Jack Bar, I'm going to be playing a very, very incomplete game. And I can already tell you right now, I don't like playing pinball machines until they're code complete. All right, so let's talk about whether or not we think we're going to see the Keith Elwin James Bond game today. Doesn't it feel like Stearns just forgot about this title? George Gomez said like a month ago we're going to show you this game in a week or two and look it hasn't happened and there's not even like a date on the calendar and there's not even like a countdown to it and it's kind of weird because they've already kind of like revealed the game like that leaked image is what it's going to be they've already put it into the press release around the James Bond 60th anniversary junket stuff so we know this game is confirmed it's coming, but where is it? Is it even going to be on the line in January? But it almost feels like Stern doesn't even care about this anymore, and I wish they would do a little bit more, you know, and they continue to fumble this, like, James Bond launch. Like, this was the year. This was the 60th anniversary year, and Stern, you knew about this. Even though the license holder might have been complicated and difficult, this isn't your first rodeo, Stern. Like, you should have planned better than you did. So we'll see, because I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to see how overpriced it is. And I can't wait to see if it becomes a day one sellout. I'm telling you right now, if this machine is over $20,000, there is no way it's selling out day one. All right, speaking of over $20,000, our friend of the show, Mr. Kim Mitchell has listed his Haggis Pinball Mermaid Edition of Fathom for a very affordable price of $30,000, which has triggered the cargo shorts wearing babies over at Pinside who have downvoted him tremendously. Now, do I think a Fathom Mermaid Edition is worth $30,000? No. Do I think Kim Mitchell thinks it's worth that? No. Do I think he did that to get a rise out of people? Yes. Would I have done the same thing? Yes. Kaneda would have asked for $50,000 for a Mermaid Edition. Because here's what's fun about all of this. I think people forget this. This hobby is supposed to be fun. And a fun troll like that is a brilliant move. My hat goes off to Mr. Kim Mitchell. I think you underpriced it, buddy. I think we can get $50,000 for this game by Christmas. All right. So here's the other thing, though. And I don't really mention Haggis that much. And I took down that slanderous comment on Facebook Live that I highlighted for Mr. Michael Huntsman because I thought it was funny. I thought it was funny to see someone just go off the rails about this game. The real conversation with Haggis Pinball that nobody seems to be able to have because Haggis Pinball won't have a conversation with anybody. Owners have been coming to me left and right asking if I could somehow help them on their process of getting a game. And here's the truth. The truth is this. A lot of people were told if they paid in full, they would get their game in eight weeks. The actual time frame for a lot of those people has been eight to 10 months since they've paid in full. Now, that is just the actual facts of what is happening. Other than that, I don't know like the financial situation over there. I don't know how many games a week they're making. I don't know how many games are going to be in this container coming to the US. But we also know this, the majority of games were sold to US buyers. They are very unhappy right now. And that is why I keep telling people, why would you pay in full if you know you're not going to get your game? If you know what they're telling you is not truthful, why are you handing over money? They're doing exactly what some of the other boutiques did who had real financial problems As long as a few games trickle out they using that and pointing at those games and saying see look see the games are real Pay in full now and you have your game in eight weeks. I mean, eight weeks is the haggis pinball equivalent of highway pinball telling people two weeks, but nothing has changed. They know they cannot deliver those games in eight weeks. And I don't understand why there's not more of an uproar that they are telling people this. Why don't they just be honest like Jerry is over at Multimorphic? Jerry tells people, if you order a game today, the ETA is a year from now. Thank you, Jerry, for being honest and up front. Do I think you need your head examined if you go in on a weird owl with a year wait? Maybe, because we're going to see more of them pop up for sale. And we just saw one pop up for sale. And the same is going to happen with Scooby-Doo. If you wait on every single game, you will be able to get one new in box or opened with no plays on it and cut the line for people who have been waiting for months. It's just the way it goes. And again, these companies don't want you to know that. These distributors don't want you to know that because those secondhand sales, they don't see a penny from those sales. You know, so that's where we're at in pinball right now. I think James Bond hype is completely dead. I think Scooby-Doo hype is real, but I don't think there's enough people to buy 1969 games before they see more from this company. And I think the pressure is going to be on this new young coder, DJ. You know, I think he's going to have to show something in January that really wows people. I want to end this podcast with what I think is a really interesting move. And I would debate whether or not this is strange. You're going to have the first person who streams live for the world Scooby-Doo Pinball be someone who works at Stern Pinball, a competitor of yours. Jack Danger over at Deadflip is supposedly going to be the guy that shows us Scooby-Doo for the first time. He works at Stern Pinball. That is like having an engineer over at Chevrolet give you a first drive impression of the new Ford Mustang. I love using carguments because you guys can relate. Now, like, it's weird. I just don't understand this. I don't understand, like, how are you even allowed to do this? Like, there needs to be some firewalls between these companies competing with each other. I don't know. I mean, maybe this community just doesn't care and everyone just gets along. But I thought it was interesting that they're going to use Jack to stream the game. He does great streams. But I also will say this, and I'm going to be completely honest. This is nothing against what Jack does. But I think these two hour streams to show you the game are not really the best way to show the game. I think the best way to show everybody the game for the first time is to make a five to ten minute video in which you go over the game and you edit it down so we can see everything. Watching for two to three hours as guys just bang on a machine and then you get some guys up there who are no good at pinball and they're draining and you just keep seeing the same stuff over and over again. I'm sorry, that's just not the best way to do it. Why can't pinball marketing elevate its game a little bit? And I'm going to say it like the best sort of reveal videos tend to be the videos that like Greg and Zach do at Straight Down the Middle because it's like a 20 minute video. Everything is packaged nicely and John Youssi everything you want to see. Now, look, I get it. Like he's a distributor. You're going to see stuff that's more salesy. You know, you're probably going to see only the good because they're trying to sell you the game. But I don't care. Like I'd rather have something like that than watch for two to three hours. Right. Three hours. is no who's got that much time i do because i'm on pto have a good day everybody Man, I feel like a woman