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Welcome to our live show!

JBS Live·video·analyzed·Jun 11, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Roundtable leak discussion: Barrels G.I. Joe in limbo; Spooky announces Motörhead/Def Leppard/Slipknot; licensing costs skyrocketing.

Summary

JBS Live hosts a casual roundtable discussion covering pinball industry news, including leaked information about Barrels of Fun securing a G.I. Joe license (delayed to 2027-2028 due to Hasbro complications), Spooky Pinball upcoming Motörhead, Def Leppard, and Slipknot music-themed games, licensing cost inflation driven by Jersey Jack's reported $4M Harry Potter deal, and operator perspectives on manufacturer reliability and design philosophy differences between Stern, Jersey Jack, and boutique makers.

Key Claims

  • Barrels of Fun secured G.I. Joe license approximately one year ago but release delayed to 2027-2028 due to Hasbro division concerns about approval

    medium confidence · Cale Hernandez citing 'Midnight Plunger' anonymous Discord source; later confirmed by Jamie acknowledging Barrels has G.I. Joe and Hasbro complications

  • Spooky Pinball is developing Motörhead, Def Leppard, and Slipknot pinball games

    medium confidence · Midnight Plunger source via Kale; Jamie expresses uncertainty about Slipknot being an actual game vs. just music licensing for another title

  • Jersey Jack Pinball paid approximately $4 million for Harry Potter license, inflating IP licensing expectations across the industry

    low confidence · Kale mentions 'rumored to be like $4 million'; Jamie notes even $2M would be insane; described as hearsay from other companies complaining

  • Multiple boutique manufacturers are unhappy about big-pocketed billionaires (JJP, American Pinball) driving up license costs

    low confidence · Jamie heard from someone at a smaller boutique company; confirmed as industry gossip topic previously discussed on roundtable

  • Stern games cost approximately $5,000 to manufacture with labor; rest is profit split with distributors

    medium confidence · Kale describing Stern's business model and manufacturing constraints

  • Spooky Pinball is #2 revenue generator at Eureka Heights; Evil Dead 'prints money'; Jetsons and Rick and Morty are underperforming and leaving location

    medium confidence · Jamie clarifying earlier on-air mistake after receiving correction; operator location performance data

  • Jersey Jack designers work without BOM constraints; one designer completed an entire game design before accounting provided cost analysis

    medium confidence · Kale citing direct anecdote from Jersey Jack designer; illustrates JJP's 'unlimited budget' design philosophy vs. Stern's cost constraints

Notable Quotes

  • “G.I. Joe is a real thing. Like, Barrels does have G.I. Joe. They secured it about like a year ago... apparently there's a rumor that Hasbro division in the States got wind of this and was like, wait a second, we didn't approve of this. What's going on here? And there's talks of pulling it and having Stern do it.”

    Jamie (JBS Live host) @ mid-content — Core leak: Barrels G.I. Joe threatened by Hasbro/Stern scenario; reveals licensing approval gap and multi-manufacturer deal possibility

  • “I had lunch with David, and he brought up a topic that multiple companies can have the same license. And I found that to be a very strange thing.”

    Ralph (JBS Live co-host)@ 9:01 — Signals potential industry shift toward non-exclusive licensing; David (Barrels founder) discussing G.I. Joe complications

  • “The Midnight Plunger... I don't know if this is true, but this person seems to know what they're talking about... G.I. Joe is a real thing. Like, Barrels does have G.I. Joe.”

    Cale Hernandez@ 11:49 — Sources leaked information; establishes credibility pattern ('Midnight Plunger' anonymous insider in community Discord)

  • “Sam Stern did it [packed with more mechanisms]... It's just mechanical engineers matter, big time. And the skill level varies widely... I've seen some mechs on other machines where I'm like, what in the hell are you guys thinking?”

    Kale (operator)@ 21:34 — Operator expertise: reliability constraints driven by design skill, not just cost; validates Stern's engineering approach

  • “Jersey Jack... they just go to the owners and go, we think this would be really cool if we could put this in the game. And if they can make it work cost wise, more times than not, they go, hell yeah, let's do it. Where like Stern doesn't have that luxury.”

    Jamie@ 17:38 — Contrasts manufacturer design philosophies; illustrates JJP's family-owned autonomy vs. Stern's PE-firm cost discipline

Entities

Barrels of FuncompanySpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyCale HernandezpersonJamieperson

Signals

  • ?

    machine_intel: Barrels of Fun's G.I. Joe pinball delayed to 2027-2028; Hasbro US division unaware of approval; potential Stern competitive scenario

    medium · Multiple sources (Midnight Plunger via Kale, Jamie confirmation) indicating Barrels secured license ~1yr prior but Hasbro concerns emerging; licensing approval gap suggests multi-party negotiation complexity

  • ?

    machine_intel: Spooky Pinball developing Motörhead, Def Leppard, Slipknot games; Slipknot status ambiguous (music licensing vs. full game)

    low · Midnight Plunger source; Kale skepticism about Slipknot being actual game; suggests music might be for different title

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jersey Jack's Harry Potter deal ($4M rumored) has inflated IP licensing expectations; smaller boutiques report unhappiness about big-pocketed manufacturers driving prices up

    low · Jamie heard from boutique company sources; Kale confirms licensing previously discussed on roundtable; described as rumor but credible pattern

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern's manufacturing cost ~$5K per unit with profit split to distributors; constrained by PE firm profitability requirements vs. JJP's unlimited design budget model

    high · Kale direct statement on Stern BOM and business structure; corroborated by Kale anecdote about JJP designer completing game before accounting review

  • ?

    operational_signal: Spooky game performance variance: Beetlejuice #2 revenue, Evil Dead strong, Jetsons/Rick & Morty weak at Eureka Heights; Harry Potter maintenance burden at Electric Bat

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.269

0:00
I just cut him right on off, ladies and gentlemen. He was yapping away, Ralph, he was. And I went right to the intro, ladies and gentlemen. You are totally bullying me.
0:13
And we're only doing the intro because when I put this up later. But we are live, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. I'm going to check to make sure we're live here. How can we see the chat? On the right side? Oh, yeah. How do you see that? Yeah, I can see it. No one's chatting yet, but I can see it. Or if no one here. Wait a second, nobody's here? Yeah.
0:38
Where did he go? Alright, let me just make sure that we're live. Oh, Jason's here. What's up, Jason?
0:47
You can see the chat? Oh yeah, there it is. Slinger's here. I got my tech. I'm a tech client here over here, Jason. Okay, good. He knows what's up. Well, welcome to the Roundtable Live. I'm in Riverside. This is a very exciting thing here, ladies and gentlemen. We had to go live. My wife's out of town and I was a little bored. And we wanted to hang out, okay? And drop some serious info, ladies and gentlemen. Later. But we're going to tease that, okay? But right now we're here live. My wife's out of town, Ralph. And you took a lot of convincing. But thank you, sir. I appreciate you.

  • “Spooky is doing Motorhead... Def Leppard... Slipknot... I had the same look that Jamie has on his face right now. I was like, that doesn't make any sense.”

    Kale @ late content — Spooky music pin announcements; skepticism about Slipknot feasibility suggests music licensing vs. game creation uncertainty

  • “I questioned the Midnight Plunger. I was like... he's like, well, I know they licensed the music for those two bands. So, you know, are they making the game or not? I don't know.”

    Kale@ 31:31 — Reveals source credibility limits; Midnight Plunger knows licensing facts but game status ambiguous

  • “The only manufacturer that... Stern builds the most reliable machine there is. And they have a head start on everybody else.”

    Kale (operator)@ 18:53 — Operator endorsement of Stern reliability as differentiator; cites collective mechanical engineering expertise

  • “I've heard from someone at a smaller company, at a boutique, that the boutiques are not so happy with JJP and now American Pinball that they have these big pockets... they're catching wind that they could get those kind of prices.”

    Jamie@ 27:10 — Industry friction: wealth concentration in big manufacturers disrupting licensing market for smaller boutiques

  • “You know, why is Stern going for Dracula? Because they're not costing any fucking money.”

    Kale@ 27:39 — Stern forced into cheaper/obscure IP due to cost constraints; reveals licensing strategy difference vs. JJP

    • Ralph
    person
    Hasbrocompany
    Midnight Plungerperson
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Brian Savageperson
    Christopher Franchiperson
    Eureka Heightsvenue
    Electric Batvenue
    Craig Hughesperson
    Joe Chervinoperson
    Donperson
    Maynard James Keenanperson
    Godzillagame
    Harry Pottergame
    Beetlejuicegame
    Evil Deadgame
    Sonicgame

    high · Jamie (operator) direct performance data from personal venue; mentions Jetsons/Rick & Morty exiting location; Harry Potter cited as difficult to maintain

  • ?

    product_concern: Boutique games with high mechanical complexity show reliability issues vs. Stern; operator attributes to design skill variance, not just cost; Jersey Jack games require specialized maintenance

    medium · Kale (experienced operator) discusses mechanical engineering skill gaps at boutiques; cites high school-level design mistakes; Harry Potter rubber change takes 40 minutes

  • ?

    industry_signal: Multi-company licensing appears possible (Ralph learned from David Van Ness); suggests industry shift toward non-exclusive deals or overlapping IP rights

    low · Ralph anecdote about David's comment on multiple companies holding same license; Jamie confirms concept but specifics unclear

  • $

    market_signal: Stern pursuing lower-cost or non-A-list IP (e.g., Dracula) due to licensing cost constraints; forced into niche themes vs. blockbuster franchises

    medium · Kale statement: 'Why is Stern going for Dracula? Because they're not costing any fucking money'; reflects Stern's cost discipline vs. boutiques

  • ?

    community_signal: Anonymous 'Midnight Plunger' Discord source providing detailed leaks (G.I. Joe, Spooky music pins) with mixed credibility; suggests tight community with information flow

    medium · Kale receiving DMs from anonymous source via Electric Bat Discord; some verified (Barrels G.I. Joe), some uncertain (Slipknot); shows community intel channels

  • ?

    competitor_signal: Smaller boutique manufacturers expressing frustration about JJP and American Pinball's deep pockets inflating license costs; industry friction over consolidation

    low · Jamie heard from boutique company contacts; described as second-hand report; Kale acknowledges previous roundtable discussion confirming pattern

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack: design-first, unlimited BOM; Stern: cost-first, constrained BOM; reflects ownership structure (family vs. PE firm) and financial incentives

    high · Kale detailed anecdote about JJP designer completing game before accounting; direct contrast to Stern's $5K manufacturing constraint; Jamie confirms via designer interactions

  • ?

    leak_detection: G.I. Joe, Motörhead, Def Leppard, Slipknot details surfaced via anonymous Discord insider ('Midnight Plunger') before official announcements

    medium · Kale received DMs from anonymous source; content partially verified by subsequent conversation with Barrels founder; suggests supplier/insider leaking pipeline info

    • 1:24
    Well, just because my wife is not out of town, she happens to not be working today. Sperry, Gordy, and Sperry. Technical difficulties.
    2:01
    It's pretty awesome, actually. I just can't write it off. Okay, here we go. Jamie, what are you doing? Here we go, the echo. Stay focused. It was the echo?
    2:14
    No, you just echoed. Did Ralph get released from the NDA? That's the first question from Stansy. What NDA? No. The NDA from American Pinball. Oh, I never had an NDA with pinball, but I don't know. I didn't hear anything from that, so I think I'm safe on that front. I think it's good. All right, Slinger, is he breaking up?
    2:41
    Let us know, and then we'll get live and get going, ladies and gentlemen, because we only have an hour. All right, I'll rejoin, because if it's...
    2:51
    Yes, I think it's just Ralf. If you're having problems with me, I'll rejoin. Okay, rejoin. All right, ladies and gentlemen, you know, when you go live, there's technical difficulties. This is not on me. That's the good news, Kale. This had nothing to do with me and you. So that's fantastic. The IT tech guy right there has issues. So Jamie is pixelated.
    3:18
    Yeah, you're super pixelated for some reason on my end, too. No shit. I look gorgeous here. All right, let's fix that.
    3:28
    Yeah, but if you look on YouTube, you look like shit. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Is it the new camera? That Texas power grid is like, oh. It's terrible. I think that's what's going on. It's like the heat.
    3:46
    Kale is the only one not glitching out. I paid my ISP bill, right? I think you guys are throttled. I pay a lot of money for this damn thing. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You got like a fiber connection? Yeah.
    4:06
    I do. So let's go to the video. Should I video settings? Mirror my video? Let's get through that. You guys picked on Jamie last episode.
    4:19
    Yeah, they did. Ralph just left. He's coming back. He's rejoining. Jamie might need to rejoin. You think? Oh, I mean, you look horrible. Like, what's going on? Try to get another, try to get a better connection. All right, I'll be back. I'll hang out with you. You hang out the show. Yeah.
    4:41
    I was a bit in the house. What is happening? Okay, now it's the kale. Now we can really talk about some stuff.
    4:49
    G.I. Joe. Ozzy, are you in the G.I. Joe? Do you want to see a G.I. Joe game? Thank you for watching. Yeah, maybe sometimes if you stay on Riverside, because I've been on this stream since 6 o'clock, so who the hell knows. For like an hour. All right. Maybe these cartoons are my jam also. So let's talk about, let me do a retraction, or I made a mistake while we're waiting for Ralph. Is that okay?
    5:50
    Mm-hmm. First of all, let me say this. Ralph and I and Kale and I, we love each other, and you don't need, at least 20 people reached out to me to make sure I was okay, and I swear to God I'm okay. We just, I took a little ribbon the other day, but I deserved a lot of it, especially with the CMO. But Spooky Row at Eureka Heights, I said, mistakenly doesn't make money, and I was very, very wrong. In fact, Beetlejuice is number two in the entire joint. Evil Dead prints money. What doesn't make money is Jetsons and Rick and Morty, and those are going to be leaving. But look, the guys like fancy machines, and they like nostalgia machines like Jetsons and now Domino's. So wish them luck. They're going to have a lot of fun with Domino's, and I mistakenly said that it doesn't make any money. So, Jamie, it sounds like you got a call, kind of like when Ralph gets a call.
    6:47
    Yeah. You know, Ralph says something, they're like, hey, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta cover your tracks. You got the call. I didn't really get a call as much as I got a text. You got a text message. That I had made a mistake. And I said, look, I'm, I make mistakes all the time. Okay. Let me go live. One of the reasons we went live. Let me remedy this. Let me remedy this. What's Ralph doing? Rebooting his whole router?
    7:15
    There he is. Ladies and gentlemen. All right. Is that better? Racket Sperry and Jocelyn from NGN.com. Let's talk about G.I. Joe. You broke yesterday live on Facebook. For anyone that didn't see this, go on to Electric Back's Facebook page. And Kale broke that Barrels of Fun has G.I. Joe, but it's not going to be released until 2027, 2028, you said. 2028. Okay. Damn, that's a long time. Yeah, Ralph, that's what I was thinking. So, like, what's in between?
    8:48
    I don't know. Wouldn't you think two more games at least, right? Yeah, right. I would think. Yeah. It's interesting that you... Please don't have it be a never-ending story, though. I mean, seriously. No, I really don't think it is. I don't think it is. I had lunch with David, and he brought up a topic that multiple companies can have the same license. And I found that to be a very strange thing. I said, how is that even possible, right? And he didn't really go into detail, but with what you just said, Kale.
    9:20
    That's interesting because he told you that before I had this information. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So apparently there's an issue with the jail license.
    9:31
    Thank you, Stringer Films. Oh, Stringer, thank you for the two bucks. We got two bucks. He also gave $2 for Ralph's camera looking great.
    9:42
    Cool. He helped me very, very early on. So Stringer does video production for his job. Yeah, Stringer's great. Great. Thanks, Stringer. Joe Chervino, he can't wait for 2028 for G.I. Joe. Why? He says there's a chance he could be dead by then. Oh, boy. Oh, geez. I guess that's for all of us, right? I mean, that's for all of us. Well, I hope Joe makes it. I like Joe. I really want Joe to make it. Come on, Joe. You got this. If your mortality rate is high, maybe work on it. I don't know. on discord I guess they uh you know they join the electric bat discord okay uh and you can join it too just go to electricbatarcade.com slash podcast and then you click that tab and um there's a there's a link to join our discord so he shot me a dm and uh started like telling me some things and yeah some of the stuff I knew about and and the way they were talking I was This is like an insider.
    11:15
    This is... Did he block his name? Did he come through as like Anonymous Llama or some weird shit like that? Well, his... When I was like, who are you? I didn't recognize the username. I think it was something made up. But I was like, who are you? Do you know who I am? And he said, you may, but just call me the Midnight Plunger.
    11:37
    Okay. Our fans are the greatest. Okay. The Midnight Plunger. All right. That's who told me about the G.I. Joe thing. Okay.
    11:49
    And apparently, you know, I don't know if this is true, but this person seems to know what they're talking about. Yeah. On some stuff. Some of the stuff I've heard from other channels, but not this thing. But G.I. Joe is a real thing. Like, Barrels does have G.I. Joe. They secured it about like a year ago. Sperry Pint, Jaws, Batman 66, Rick and Morty. That goes along with, well, for people who haven't heard the story, why Ralph's saying he may have messed up, apparently the Hasbro division in the States got wind of this and was like, wait a second, we didn't approve of this. What's going on here? And there's talks of pulling it and having Stern do it. Hmm. Hmm.
    13:10
    Look at these battles they have to go through, right? With what Jamie just mentioned, maybe they could both do it. Maybe there's some, you know, I don't know. I don't know how all that licensing works. You know what kind of suck is that, you know, I think we could probably all agree here that Beryl's would probably put on a better visual display of G.I. Joe than than Stern would, at least under the glass. Right. I think. But here's what's kind of crazy about that is like Stern could make it faster, though. So like that would kind of suck for barrels is if they had this really cool idea, you know, they could steal away because I don't know if they do. If they came out after, wouldn't that be tough? Because you might have the the people that just love G.I. Joe. So they wouldn't want to wait. So they just buy the Stern one and then they'd be pissed when the Barrels one came out. I don't know. Or they dump their Stern one, I guess, and go pick up the Barrels one if they do it better.
    14:07
    That's a really weird thing. And no matter, you know, if I was running one of these companies and found out another company, like if that was even a possibility and we were working on the same IP, I don't know if I would do it. I'd be a little deflated about it because of the time to get to market because Stern would just do it faster. That would kind of deflate me and that would be such a bummer because if you're Brian Savage and this dude has been in this universe for so long, there's probably no better super fan than that guy. That's kind of a dick move a little bit if they did it to spite him. That's kind of a dick move.
    14:45
    I guess competition is competition, but that is a dick move. If it was done intentionally, like, oh yeah? Oh my God. We have to have rights to sell in the U.S. if you want to survive, make any money. That's where your sales are, right? Someone made a really funny comment, dude, in the chat. He said, does this doc, I don't know, Think Poe 1984, does Cobra Commander transform into a snake in the G.I. Joe game? Oh, dude, that would be awesome.
    15:43
    Take his hood off, right? Yeah, that would be pretty badass, actually. Yeah, well, this talk has happened recently because apparently there's a rumor that Capcom wasn't even aware that the Resident Evil pinball machine was being made and it may only be able to be sold in Europe. Have you guys heard this? Oh, no. That thing's so out of reach for me price-wise, though, that I'm not even going to touch that anyway. But it's almost like a non-release for me because that's crazy price. Uh, C. C. Hughes brings up a good point. Didn't they do this with Godzilla? Wasn't that a deal where Stern took the Godzilla from Spooky? Isn't that the rumor? I've never heard the specifics of it. I've never heard of it, but I don't know the specifics. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. That's Craig, right? That's our boy, boy, Craig. Yeah. Yeah. What's up, Craig? Craig Hughes? Yeah. What's up, Craig? What's happening, Craig? Um, what else? What else do we have? Do we have some other stuff going on? G. I. Joe.
    16:46
    Uh, are, what, who do you guys want to see do, if, if, if it's an option, who do you want? If I could have any manufacturer do G.I. Joe? Any, yeah, let's say any manufacturer.
    16:58
    Well, the one that would make it the most beautiful, the one that would make it the most beautiful and not be afraid to just pack it up with all the G.I. Joe stuff would probably be J.J.P. Because they just don't, they just, I mean, they're, they're, I feel like I've worked with them enough now to realize that that thing that Jack says where he's like, we don't build the games for our, with like a price tag in mind. I mean, of course, every company has to have somewhat of a price tag in mind because you can't make no money. But I do think that from talking to people in there and been a little bit more intimately involved with that, they just go to the owners and go, we think this would be really cool if we could put this in the game. And if they can make it work cost wise, more times than not, they go, hell yeah, let's do it. Where like Stern doesn't have that luxury. They have to adhere to something. They either have to take something out to put that cool thing in and then balance the cost. So I think the most beautiful version of it would be them. But then I kind of lean towards barrels because Brian Savage has been so involved with that hobby for so long that I feel like he would know all the things that you'd need to do to appeal to like a hardcore G.I. Joe fan. So I'd beautiful, beautiful wise and J.J.P. But I think the right person to do it would probably be barrels just because they have a guy like Brian that's so passionate about those damn achievements, guys. Uh-oh.
    18:21
    I know we love the achievements. I'm not going to deny that. And I got a G.I. Joe badge on my phone. That's new. Shit. Now you're throwing a wrench in it, Jamie. And then you could do like capture Cobra Commander things like you did with John Wick. I mean there could be some serious things that they could do with Insider Connected.
    18:41
    Gun to my head, it's no question. I would want Stern to make this thing. Really? Okay. Well, 100% because, you know, I'm an operator. I want to... Oh, that's true. Because you want something you know you can put on the floor and it'll stand the test of time too. To this day, listen, I'm an expert when it comes to this. The only manufacturer that, I mean, Stern builds the most reliable machine there is. And they have a head start on everybody else. You know, there's more knowledge collectively in that building than any other company. And they put it to good use and they make a reliable machine that that's that shoots consistent consistently across across all titles. That's what I wanted to be. Can you put something to rest for me for a minute? It's not a controversial thing. I just feel like you'd be the best person to answer this. We hear a lot like everywhere on Pinside, Reddit, everywhere. People talk about, man, I wish that they could bring back some of the magic. And when they say that, they mean like all of these like tons of mechanisms in a game. But don't you think that there's a twofold reason why we don't see, because think about it, Stern doesn't pack a bunch of stuff in there and you're saying Stern's the most reliable. And you can pretty much have proof that the games that do pack a bunch of stuff in from the boutiques, outside of maybe the more recent spooky stuff, has not held up on your location. So do you think sometimes the balance isn't we don't have the technical know-how to do that? It's that they think about, man, if I put all this shit in there and I'm getting and I sell a thousand of these or two thousand of these, I'm going to get all these frigging service calls for all this shit that doesn't work because I put too much stuff in. Like, don't you think they do think about that? It's less about they can they do it and more about does it make sense to do it? Are you talking specifically about Stern? I mean like all of them because you've yet to have like a boutique game that has a ton of stuff in it that you can really say, oh, that's as reliable as my, you know, my Stern games. And I don't mean this from a Stern, it sounds a little Stern shilly, but I'm just, I'm trying to get like facts from an operator. Like if they did all that and packed a bunch of shit in. If Stern did it? Yeah, like don't you think that would inherently make it less reliable if they put too many things in?
    21:01
    Not necessarily. Okay, so you think it's more of a, they can do it, they just can't for cost reasons. It's just mechanical engineers matter, big time. And the skill level varies widely. From an operator standpoint, you mean like a tech, like tech?
    21:24
    No, when you're built, when you're designing a pinball machine. Okay. Yeah, just like at the factory, you know, in the design room, whatever. Yeah. That is, you know, a huge thing that the skill level I've seen some. I mean, I've seen some mechs on other machines where I'm like, what in the hell are you guys thinking?
    21:48
    Like, like, like it'd be impossible to fix kind of thing. I'm not shitting you like high school science project level. Like, what the fuck is this?
    22:00
    You don't see that with Stern. Yeah. You see very professional execution. Same thing with Jersey Jack, you know.
    22:09
    But good luck changing anything behind Harry Potter. You know, I watched Taylor do 40 minutes to change a rubber. Yeah that a really weird thing because when I was at the Jersey Jack factory they really pressed that They always think about operators when they designing these machines
    22:32
    I think they think they're thinking about operators. But, I mean, I was an operator looking at the stuff that was going on. You know, I'm an operator. I mean, I do this every single day. You know, I'm the Waffle House of operating. Sperry Pinnacle, Gordy, and the Gordy Show. This is a hard game to keep running. They took it off the floor. And that was like the one of two games on the streets, Harry Potter games on the streets in Arizona.
    23:28
    You know, but if they do want to start thinking about operators, I'm more than willing to help them out. But like right now, it just it doesn't fit the operator model. And should it? I don't think so. They're probably selling. I mean, they're like 90, I think they're like 90% or higher, probably higher than that. It's probably like 95 or maybe even 99. It could be that much. Yeah. I'm sure their operators slim. I mean, I do see them from time to time because like I travel a lot for work. So I'll go into arcades and pop in every now and then if I can, if I have time. I will see, I'll just specifically talk about Harry Potter. I saw one at an arcade in Utah. That one knowingly, like they have a pretty good tech there. It was, it was in pretty, it played pretty good. Thank you for watching. Oh, yeah. Okay, thank you for doing that. But I can't get the specifics, but I will when I can.
    24:47
    JBS Pinball Machine. We can do that. We'll get with Dirty Pool and do that. Yeah, we can do all the call-outs. On the Stern side of things, like, you know, I know a lot of people say, oh, there's not much in these games, right? That's what you hear. I mean, it's really a totally different business model than the other guys. They have major overhead, and they have to structure things differently. Every Stern machine costs, with labor, it's like $5,000 to make.
    25:20
    That's pro-premium, even the Bond 60th. The rest is profits, and they split it with the distributor.
    25:33
    They're constrained to that. You know, and it's smart. They need to. And they're still, you know, they're doing that and putting out great games. But, you know, it's, you know, when you're talking about different manufacturers and, you know, why games look different, you know, to your point where there's no real BOM on Jersey Jack games. I mean, I've heard directly from a Jersey Jack designer that he designed an entire game, finished it, and was like, okay, here it is. And then the accounting department came to him and was like, okay, well, here's your bomb. And he's like, what do you mean? I already finished. You know, so it was an unlimited bomb. He just did whatever he wanted, and that's how they released the game. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, it's cool to have the deep pockets to be able to. 100%. See, Stern wouldn't be able to survive doing that. Yeah, and they only have to answer to like, it's really the Abbess family, right? If they say, okay, we'll do it, then okay, they'll do it. Where Stern, I mean, it's a whole PE firm. Right. And if they're going to go, yeah, we can't be profitable this way, sorry, and that's it. Like that's what they'll, you know what I mean, right? That's not that far off, right? They'd go, sorry, can't do it. It's too expensive. We're not going to make money. Figure it out. And then they're tearing things out to figure it out. I've heard secretly that some companies are not so happy with the billionaire, multi-multi-multi-millionaires that are buying these pinball companies. What's going on? Tell us what you mean. I don't know what you mean. I don't know if you shared this.
    27:10
    Because I've heard from someone at a smaller company, at a boutique, that the boutiques are not so happy with JJP and now American Pinball that they have these big pockets. Oh, do you mean like they'll go out and offer more for a license? Yes. Now they're catching wind that they could get those kind of prices. Well, we know that's happening, right? We know that's happening. Licensing is a major issue. We've talked about it before on the roundtable. Kale dropped a lot of knowledge on that. Yeah. You know, why is Stern going for Dracula? Because they're not costing any fucking money.
    27:45
    Yeah. And they're all fighting. Can you tell us June 23rd? That's correct. I mean, that date's been thrown around enough that I think, you know. I know. I got a call from the plunger guy. What's his name? Midnight Plunger? The Midnight Plunger, yeah. Yeah, Midnight Plunger told you. So, Kale, someone in the chat asked if, does this mean no Sonic at Electric Bat?
    28:13
    That depends. Okay. I don't know. And that all depends. I mean, you talked to Jack. You wanted to send a Harry Potter. I'd be more than happy to entertain a Sonic.
    28:27
    Well, I think at this point, wouldn't that make sense, though? Because it's going to be the latest release. So maybe that's the pitch back is, you know what you said about the Potter. Let's do the Sonic and see how it goes. If not, you have my you heard it here right now. Sperry, Gord, and Sperry. I really thought I thought we were going to be hanging out with like 15, 20 people. That's what I thought. That's why I was like, oh, I'll just show up and be cool. And I get there already. And you're like, yeah, dude, the lines take way back there. I'm like, what? That was cool. I think people love that. It's just that was just something that they can't play. And, you know, people, how many of them you think are in the US? I have probably one of maybe the I might have the only one in Arizona. So there's not many of them. Yeah. So, Jamie, I've heard the same thing about licensing. I've heard people at other companies were complaining about that. There's too much, especially after the large amount of money, which is rumored to be like $4 million. Holy shit, that's a lot of in pinball licensing for Harry Potter. That's nuts. If that's true, even if it's two million, that's insane.
    30:11
    I've heard people complaining that that kind of lifted the ceiling and people think there's more money in pinball when in reality there's not really. But yeah, so all these marketing agencies talk. Yeah, it's interesting, right? It's fascinating. And then when we get a little snippet, we're going to give it to you here at the roundtable. All right, what's next?
    30:37
    We can move. You know, the Midnight Plunger. He gave me some more info. Let's go. Plunge away. Spooky is doing Motorhead. I think we've already heard that. We had heard that, yeah.
    30:54
    How many do you think they'll make, Kale? That's got 500 written all over it. That doesn't seem like a 1,000 run. That seems like a 500 run to me. That feels right. That's what I was about to say.
    31:07
    Def Leppard. Is who? Spooky. Okay. And Slipknot. Oh. Slipknot? This is what's weird. I could maybe get down with a Slipknot game. Just like maybe a limited run. I wouldn't know if I'd buy it, but I'd definitely want to play it. This is what's really strange. I questioned this. I questioned the Midnight Plunder. I was like, I had the same look that Jamie has on his face right now. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. He's like, well, I know they licensed the music for those two bands. So, you know, are they making the game or not? I don't know. Maybe they need that music for some other title. I don't view Slipknot as being one that would have mass appeal, though. Like, I think there's fans of Slipknot, but I don't know if that would be like a big seller.
    32:08
    I kind of could get down with a Def Leppard, though, to be honest. I probably could. Ozzy, from what I understand, it is that homebrew. Yeah, I think they're taking, first of all, that homebrew is amazing. Did you guys get to play it? No, hell no, but I want to. I played the shit out of it at TPF. That was awesome. Wait, not the TPF we were just at the year before that. Yeah, because I was going to say, I was like basically with you the whole time. I was with you. I was aligned with your nap schedules. I was like, I would have known if we were playing. Yeah. Was it even there? I don't remember. No, it wasn't. We got C. Hughes. C. Hughes with the Super Chat. Is that what that is? Yes, sir. I'm not familiar with YouTube. Display it. Display it, Jamie. You're supposed to put the Super Chat up. It doesn't do it on Riverside. Oh.
    32:50
    It doesn't do it. Well, Craig, thanks for the $5 Super Chat, brother. He said, Def Leppard would be awesome. First LP I ever bought. Oh.
    33:00
    Do you... Did you just judge him? Was that a judging him? No, no, no. Oh, okay. A little. Def Leppard. Oh! Good job! I know you well enough to know. That was a... Oh. You were judging him. Good for you. Bless your heart as you stay in Texas. Craig, you and Jamie are supposed to be boys. That's my buddy.
    33:20
    Def Leppard, really? Pour some sugar on me? Who gives a rat? All right. What you got there, Kale? What is that? Oh, this is a stewed cherry and coffee beverage, sour cherries, cold brew coffee, garam masala, allspice, nutmeg, pink peppercorn, Murray River salt, and verzus.
    33:49
    Oh, shit. All that stuff is in there? Yeah, it's just some stuff I drank. Can you see it? Is it fermented or something? What is the... I don't know. Oh, it focuses on my face. No, no, I can see it. There you go. It's non-alcoholic. Yeah, no, I don't drink. Yeah, I know. I want to make sure. Stringer wants to know when the MC Hammer pin is dropped. I haven't heard anything about $20. Oh, what? What?
    34:19
    Christopher Franchi. He says, buy yourself a t-shirt. Buy yourself a t-shirt. Wait, did you not get it yet? You're supposed to get it. He said that on the podcast. No, he said that he was reordering and he needed my size. He didn't have an extra large. That's what he said. Yeah, Joe likes the drink. Joe, see if you can order that in Canada. It's called M-O-N. Made in Australia.
    34:43
    It's about $30 a bottle. It's good stuff. Slipknot. I don't know with those masks and shit. Okay, so. So, um, if you're going to go Slipknot, I think the better would be like, yeah, I reached out to Don. Okay. Because I was like, Don's a big juggalo man. And, and, and the kind of Slipknot and the juggalo, it kind of, it fits, you know, it's like they're, they're tribal and, and all this stuff. And I was like, have you ever been to Knotfest? That's their version of the like juggalo thing. Uh, he's like, he's like, no.
    35:17
    Oh. Hmm. But you know, maybe bug like Slipknot. I don't know. If you were going to go that way, Kale, let me ask you if you think this would be a better choice for mass appeal. Even though I think this band has fallen way out of favor. It seems like it'd be way too far along to do it. But wouldn't a Korn pin make more sense than Slipknot? That's right in that vein. You're exactly right. You're in the stratosphere of weird-ass 90s bands.
    35:48
    I kind of liked Korn back in the day a little bit, though. I didn't mind them. Kale Hernandez, Sspooky Pinball LLC, Bacardi, Sperry, and Sperry. You know, Korn, System of a Down, Ramstein. Oh, the System of a Down's good. You know, Slipknot's right in there, and it almost has like a horror aspect to the whole thing. And that makes sense for Bug. That makes sense for Spooky. Yeah, you're right. Or they needed this music for a title.
    36:41
    I feel like it'd be more likely that they need the music for a title than to do a pin based on Slipknot. But who knows? Maybe they could sell like... I'd love to see some of these companies, I don't know if it would make sense financially, doing like cool short runs of things. You know, like, hey, we're only going to do 250 of this kind of unique thing that might appeal to just certain people and have like almost a separate line for it. Here's the problem. I completely agree with you, but financially it doesn't make sense. That's why I figured it all comes down to that. Because you have to order like lots of parts. I mean, you would basically have to do just like reskins, like come up with a layout. Like an older game you already have the parts for. Yeah. Do you think it will you'd have to just be a company with deep ass pockets and just feel like, oh, I'm going to do this for the fun of it, not the financial part of it. Right. You have to be more of a passion project. Yeah. Oh, but nine inch nails. I'm sorry. But if they made a nine inch nails pin, dude, all freaking over that tool. What else did they bring up? Tool. Tool would be. Dude, tool a perfect circle. Dude, tool a perfect. If you want music pin for me that would be like my dream, you give me a tool or a tool perfect circle one, I am all over that shit. All over it. Did you go to Maynard's birthday party? It was in... No, was it up in the wine, where his wine place is up in Jerome? No, actually, I actually just, Rachel and I ate up there on the way back from Grand Canyon. We always stop there. It's a beautiful area. He's basically, him and his wife are taking over the entire town. That's cool. They have a huge winery, multiple restaurants and hangout areas. Yeah, go. If you live in Arizona, you need, especially right now in the pot of shit. Ozzy just gave us a hundred bucks, man. Dude. What? Oh my God. Ozzy's the man. He said bare naked ladies. Are you taking requests? Thanks, Ozzy. That's very generous of you. That's very generous. Not needed, but generous. And thank you, Stringer, for your $2 as well. Appreciate that. Thank you, guys. Yes. Wow. Very, very nice. So Stringer said Spooky should make corn with a fire feature. I think fire is one of those things you don't want to involve in pinball, but I think isn't that Jack Dangerous? Didn't he do a thing of like these are the things like fire, water, steam. You don't want to do any of those in pinball. Stay away from those elements.
    39:03
    What's up with Ozzy gives 99.99. Is that there's like a tax loophole for that? I don't know. Well, he's a smart businessman. He knows what's going on.
    39:15
    Ozzy, that's amazing, man. Thank you, brother. Yes, you are awesome. You are awesome. All right. So what else did the Magic Plunger? Yeah, come on, man. What does the Plunger say? It's the Midnight Plunger. Okay. Thank you. Midnight Plunger. What else did he say? Can we create a logo for the Midnight Plunger? Oh, yeah. And then we can have a segment. Like every time the Midnight Plunger gets in touch. Yeah, I can go share my screen and boom. I hope he stays anonymous because it'd just be cool every time to have that, like the Midnight Plunger's in the chat.
    39:51
    Man, this other news is pretty wild. Okay, let me lean back for it. Can I say something really quick? Because Stringer brought it up and I know now what... It takes me a while to get caught up with Stringer's humor. He said that Spooky has already mastered the fire feature. Sperry Pinnacle. Sperry Pint, Gordy, and I. Okay. Midnight Plunger. Do we want to go into the Midnight Plunger? Yeah, we got 19 minutes left. We got 19 minutes left. That's it. Okay. Well, we can go a little over because don't you have some other juice too, Kale? Like you're holding out on us because you wouldn't tell Jamie and I earlier.
    41:25
    This isn't a great story. Uh-oh. Transformers isn't doing very well. Eesh. Like how bad are we talking? Like this is one of the worst launches since Venom. And we remember how bad Venom was. Yeah. Venom hurt feelings. This caught me off guard. I actually heard before I heard this from the Midnight Plunger. I actually heard this from distributors. Okay.
    41:57
    And it surprised me. Like why would this thing not sell good? I don't know, man. Because here's the thing. And I know, let's just put Optimus aside. As I played it, and I grew up with the cartoons, they integrated so much of the cartoon stuff into the game that if you're a G1 fan, and I'm not just talking about just the LCD. The interaction between what you're doing on the play field and what the LCD is showing you and the sound and music, it's actually really good, dude. So it kind of bums me out. So I'm kind of hoping that when people play it, these fans that are holding out, they'll be like, oh, wow, like I love I love Transformers. So this speaks to me. But then again, it kind of makes me wonder, like, are we in a period at pinball where the stuff's get it? It's so super expensive. People don't have this amount of disposable income. Their their their collections are big and they're holding out to see what's on it. Like, is this being affected by the fact that people are really excited as to it's a Richie game? Sperry, Gord, and Sperry. Just because of what I'm hearing about the code, I think people are going to be like, man, this is really cool. But, you know, that doesn't help Stern right now with their initial deposits. You know, they need those. They need those up. They need these games on the street. But like one issue with that is they just received all the play fields from Transformers. OK, and they rejected all of them. I don't know what was wrong with them, but there was some type of, something was not right. There was some type of defect. Oh, crap. Okay. Maybe it was printed improperly. I don't know. But so that's going to push your ship date for even these operator pros that could help sell the game by at least a week. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, and dude, here's the thing. This didn't help either. I mean, you were hard-pressed to find anybody talking about anything other than Optimus Not Transforming. It was everywhere. Like, literally, you'd go into the Transformer group that's supposed to be, like, where everyone's, like, hyping it and acting happy about it. And it was being dominated, dominated by it, like, beating a dead horse, and it wouldn't stop. It was like a landslide. So I think that doesn help either when your press isn even about the cool stuff It all about the one thing it doesn have Like that not good when that what everyone talking about That a massive marketing disaster Yeah, it really is. Well, like from a marketing aspect, you know, only the hardcore pinheads are hearing that, which is bad, which is bad because, you know, your hardcore pinheads are your initial deposits, right? Yeah. But, you know, your home, the market that Stern is looking for, they're not hearing that news. You know, the home users, the people that are going to be first time buyers, the people they want to turn. Yeah, they don't they're not listening to podcasts and on. Right. I don't need that. Right. No, it's true. But but sounds like they're not buying either. If the sales are low. So, yeah. And I'm not sure what happened with these play fields. I don't know where who's making these play fields. What's going on? You know, I know, you know, Stern does have a wood shop now, but maybe they're only doing the cabinets, you know, the new Spike 3 cabinets. But, you know, all of the Transformers playfields were rejected and the latest shipment of Pokemon playfields.
    46:05
    That's not good because I feel like that kind of is their game, even despite. All right, let's just put code aside. Clearly, we all want the code updates. It's Jamie's like been talking about achievements and the Pokedex forever. But that game, at least the way Seth pitched it to us, you know, obviously he's a CEO. He's going to say whatever he's going to say. But in the meeting before we got to see Transformers, he's like, Pokemon continues to be like a big leader for us with continued sales. So like that's keeping them. I'm not saying keeping them afloat, but it's definitely like a source of revenue that's good. So you don't want to F that up, you know. Sperry, Bumper, Ion, and Pint. Suck it up, man. We can all chat. We can do a live. Actually, I need to tell us too. If you give me the exsunes, if we're not gimme, but if I, if you, if you, if I do that, I am giving you my goal is I'm going to have a room inside the house as a couch and a boom mic above it where we could hang out and talk so we could play pinball and then I could exsune us into the other room. I've never exsuned audio like that. I will exsune the shit out of it. We got this. You know how to do that? I'll figure it out. Sperry, Gordie, and I'll see you next time. The main problem is that, and this is good for JJP, dealers are going to have Sonic before Transformers.
    48:48
    People are going to be able to put their hands on Sonic before they can put their hands on him. Sonic's on the line right now. We saw that. You sent that to us yesterday, and thank you, Pinball News, for posting that. Who sent it? I didn't send anything. No, Kale sent Pinball News. I sent a story. All right, okay. Just making sure you're not being accused of anything. You didn't tell us anything. He won't tell us shit. I'm telling you shit.
    49:10
    He won't tell us shit. But Jack was on Pinball News and released the name that is Sonic, and he released it June 23rd, which is Sonic's birthday. I felt like I was listening to a phone call I shouldn't listen to or something. I was like, what am I even going to say? Wasn't that weird? That was cool. Yeah, it was kind of cool, but I felt like I was eavesdropping a little bit. But, um, I guess, you know, it's a training session at your gym. Jamie needs a lot. I heard there was going to be a Sonic Arcade edition. Do we, do we know that?
    49:42
    I heard they were still doing it. I think I can say that without getting into trouble. Yes, there were. Remember, you're live. Yeah, no, I think that's, yeah, I mean. I thought, I thought that was a known thing. Yeah, I think so. But there will be, so. Okay, good. All right, Kale. That's some good information about the unfortunate lack of sales of Transformers so far.
    50:09
    It's Transformgate. We went from Gungate to Transformgate. It's just crazy how this hobby does this crap. Ralph's got a story for us. You ready?
    50:23
    I want your advice. I know we're live. I got some more news. Okay, okay. We'll do that last. All right. We'll do that last. It just popped in. Midnight Plunger just hit me back up on Discord. Okay. Oh, shit. There he goes.
    50:36
    Somebody is doing South Park. Okay. I mean, okay. And somebody is doing Beavis and Butthead. But he knows they've been licensed for pinball machines. He just doesn't know which companies. I think South Park is Spooky.
    50:56
    That's what we're hearing, right? That's what I've heard. How do you do a South Park without, I mean, you gotta be fine with, like, I'm not saying, I'm cool with whatever, I like South Park because they make fun of everything and everybody, but how do you do that in a, like, can you do that? I think you can as Spooky, right? Yeah, they can do it. Like, Spooky can do it. You have to have all that stuff, like, making fun of different religions. Yeah, Stern would never touch that, so it can't be Stern. No, never. It can't be Stern. They would never. It would have to be Spooky. Never, never. And I don't think JJP would touch it either. You have to keep all the offensive shit in it. Yes. You have to. I want that Scientology episode. Yes. Surge in the house. Surge is in the chat. Is Surge in here? Yeah. Is Surge? I miss Surge. Surge is on vacation right now, and that's why you haven't seen us together. But as soon as he comes back, we're going to do a lot of good stuff. Yeah. And the Pinball Studio is in here. Hey, thank you so much again, Sterling. There is a new podcast on the Pinball Studio Network. Sperry, Gord, and Sperry. So somebody's doing Beavis and Butthead. You know, what if that is spooky and they're licensing these music rights? Ah, that makes a lot of sense now. You follow me? Yeah. You know, because they're sitting on the couch watching. That makes a lot of sense. But Slipknot is not in that vein. Yeah, I don't remember them listening to Slipknot ever. Well, I looked it up. They never listened to it. Okay. They did listen to Def Leppard. Thank you for watching. I guess it is Barrels of Fun.
    53:29
    The Midnight Plunger said someone, I know for a fact someone is doing Beavis and Butthead. I'm not sure. I think it's Barrels of Fun, but I'll find out more and get back in touch.
    53:41
    Okay. They could do Beavis and Butthead really well. Yeah, but definitely South Park. That screams spooky all over it for me. Because I think they don't mind doing the, you know, even like all the Bruce Campbell. He gets real racy on some of his call-outs, which is cool. I like that. He brings some fun stuff to pinball. Okay, that's all I got. Ralph, what's your story? Well, I need advice. Not advice. I need to know if I'm freaking out for no reason. I don't know if I can get through this. Okay, if you guys were invited to record a podcast and it was kind of positioned to you like you were the next person that was up. So we're recording and you'd be the next person up. And you do the show.
    54:29
    Everything seems cool. And they ask some follow-up questions about, you know, hey, I need some pictures and stuff like that. So everything's going well, right? A lot of buy signs. Was there a black leather couch in the room? No. No, but like you're getting further questions. Hey, you're great. Thanks for being on the show. Blah, blah, blah. Here's some other stuff.
    54:49
    What would be a reasonable time frame? All right. No, no. I'm going to change it. If a show dropped after your show and then you kind of stopped hearing from the person, would you be like, maybe it's never going to air it? Or I don't. So hold up. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. You did an episode of someone's show. Yeah. Okay. And this was a while ago. It's like two months. Jamie, was that two months ago? Yeah, I think it was two months ago. Two months ago. And they didn't release it. No. So far, it has not been released. And they kind of don't communicate with me anymore.
    55:26
    That's the beauty of it. That's good. That's my favorite part. That's my favorite part, Kale. We kind of ghosted the shit out of you. What did you say? Is this somebody in the pinball space or is it video games? No, it's someone in the pinball space. And I said the last message. I don't want to sound. I'm not. Look, if he doesn't like it for whatever reason, that's his prerogative and he doesn't have to post it. Right, right. But I asked kindly. I said, hey, really enjoyed being on the show. Thanks again. Are you planning on airing it anytime soon? That was it. Never going to air.
    56:00
    That's what I'm thinking right now. I'm like maybe. So I'll tell you a little bit more, but I probably shouldn't. And this is where Jamie would be. Jamie's going to love this. So after I recorded it, I had a conversation with Jamie. And I go, Jamie, there was a weird turning point in the episode. Now he listened to it because I recorded it on my board too, so he has listened to it. I go, there was a weird turning point in the episode where I felt, and I'm usually really good at picking up on stuff, I felt like he kind of turned on me during the episode, like he was turned off by something I said. And I could feel it. I knew, I could sense it. And Jamie's like, no, no, no, no, you're... No, no, here's what he did. He sent me the link. He said, I have a weird feeling about this. To give you credit, you didn't tell me what your weird feeling was. I didn't. I wanted to see if I was... Let me get this straight. So you've listened to it, Jamie? I've listened to it in its entirety.
    56:55
    In its entirety. And did you think it was a good podcast? Yeah, I thought it was a really good podcast. Did you notice the turning point? Yes. Oh, no. No, you told me you didn't. Now that I go back and I think about it, I think you're right. You have to be right. Well, shit, why were you lying to me the whole time? You were like, oh, no, I felt bad for you. I felt bad that the guy didn't post the video after two months. You're supposed to be my friend. You're supposed to tell me. What is this, Jamie? Kale would have been like, Ralf, that was a piece of shit. You were right. It flipped it. You would have told me. Why didn't you tell me?
    57:32
    I felt bad. Dude, this is new news. Gale, he did not say this. This is brand new news. He said to me. Jamie, we don't know if we can ever trust you.
    57:42
    I just felt bad for the dude. I mean, who the fuck does a podcast and then two months later doesn't go on? Joe Rogan gets them up in 10 minutes, okay? Yeah. So it's like, it's so bad. And then the more and more I think about it. Did you think it was a good podcast or did you lie about that too? No, no, no. I thought it was a really good podcast. I think that person's turn and sticking point makes no sense to me.
    58:10
    How about that? Okay, without giving away too much, can you say like, what did you say? Like, was it was it like a political stance? Was it something about genders? Like what? There were two things that I said. There were two things that I said, and I think Jamie probably wouldn't even have picked up on this one, but this was also an uncomfortable moment. We talked about AI, and I gave my opinion on AI, and I could tell he didn't like what I said about AI. It wasn't an AI positive. So it was Joe Cherovino.
    58:53
    I think AI should be used in pinball for anything other than maybe like error checking on code and stuff that like would just speed up the process. But nothing like not I said they shouldn't create code and they shouldn't create art and that should just be. But I did say like kind of the Franchi angle like you could use it as a tool like if it's a little shit in the art that doesn't matter. But like the bulk art package should not be AI. I don't think that was. No, but then I said I said something about how I was dogging on all the AI flyers that we're seeing. And this person had used AI to make flyers. And they didn't like that because I think they felt like I was dissing their stuff. But I didn't know that until I looked afterwards. That's one thing. That was like strike one. Why don't you just say who it is? No. Strike two was that... I don't think people in the chat are saying Jeff Dirtypool. No, no, no. He would release anything. No, Dirtypool and I are buddies. He would never do that. He wouldn't care. It's not Kaneda. No, it's not Kaneda. It's not Joe Chervino. The chat would never guess the name. They would never ever guess it, I don't think. Yes, they will. If they guess it, what are you going to do? We're going to tell them.
    60:05
    Because they're going to guess it. Oh, did the chat get it right? No, because Ian would never use AI in his flyers. No, it wasn't Ian. Ian would never use AI. No, Ian wouldn't do it. Totally, totally. So the strike two was this.
    60:20
    It's no new. I've been making content on YouTube for a really long time. And I started, I always edited my own stuff until we started doing those big TV, almost like TV production things when I did. And Kale, this is I kind of think you watched, like you watched the Arcade Pickers thing when I did that with Corey. Dude, I loved that show. It was cool. And at that, when I, when we recorded the first episode, we didn't even know if it was going to be any good. So we were having like my partner's kid record it. It was trash. The content was all over the place. And I was looking at this going, it's going to take me a million years to edit this. And at the time, Mason only created my thumbnails. That's all he did. Everything else I would do. So that was the first time I asked Mason, hey, do you edit? Because I have this kind of, so he didn't know anything about the project. I said, this is a shit box, dude. I'm handing you a bowl of, like a box of shit. Can you make this somewhat coherent and somewhat, and then it kind of took off, which I was a little pissed at because I'm like, man, we recorded this thing like ass. And it actually got like, I want to say it was like 40,000 or 50,000 views. It was doing pretty good as far as like arcade content goes. So, um, in the podcast, he asks me about content creation. And I said, you know, over the years, I've kind of stopped doing a lot of the editing. So I kind of only focus on my on camera stuff, you know, whatever, you know, and that's all me. I do that all the top of my head. Most of it, I have light notes, but I don't, I don't teleprompter, I don't script, I literally just one take, and hopefully I get it. And if I don't, we'll do two and three takes. But I'm good like that, because I do presentations for work. So I'm good at like doing presentations.
    61:59
    So, so I, you know, that's the on-camera stuff comes natural to me. But when I started talking about having an editor, he turned on me and kept saying like, oh, so it made it almost like he erased any talent I have at all. And it became like a you have no talent because you have someone that edits your stuff. Suck it up. Don't even start. Don't even please guys. Do not bring up the other thing with the round around. We don't need any heat on that. Please. On what? The Punk Rock Pinball? You're good with that now. No, no, we're awesome. I love those guys. I'm talking about Don's partner, please. We're good with that. We're done with that topic.
    63:18
    Anyways, so I was bummed out. So you guys think if it's not up by now and I'm not getting email responses, he's probably not going to air, right? Well, I think it's definitely not getting aired now. Well, I could be wrong. It's just my feeling. And right. I think you're unfortunately right on. OK, and I'm fine with that. I just here's the thing. I just wish he would have told me that he could have been like, hey, you know what, man? I didn't really like the way this turned out. He could have lied to me. He could have lied to me and just said, hey, I don't like the way this turned out. He didn't have to say you pissed me off because of something you said. He could have just said that. And then I would have been fine with that. But it's weird to just go someone and never respond. What would you do? Would you email him? Would you text him? No. Well, I already emailed. I sent one email. I'm done. Yeah, I'm done now. It's over. What if you went to spam?
    64:11
    And he never got it. No. Oh, shit. That's a recruiter for you. Well, let me look at spam real quick just to make sure there's no... Oh, if he's in there, this is going to be great. Come on, baby. I'm looking real quick. You're such a jerk right now. It is not the Bash guys. They are not doing anything right now. No, they had a fire at their shed. And again, Don and Matt, we love you and we miss you.
    64:41
    It's not in spam. Okay. Should we at least look at how many days it's been since I sent the email and no response? Does that matter? Yeah, it matters a lot. Alright, hold on. How do you, isn't there a way on Gmail you can just look up like messages that you never got response back to? I'm having a hard time right now. I'm trying to find it quick and it's not working. Yeah, I don't know how that works. He spells it C-E-N-G-I-Z.
    65:09
    What? I was spelling out Genghis just to be wise. It is Genghis? It's Genghis. No, it's not Genghis. No, it's not. Ralph, you can, really, you can tell us. It's not the Loser Kids. No, it's not the Loser Kids. If we get... Ralph, how much money do you need to tell us who it is?
    65:27
    I almost want to text you guys on the side. 40 bucks. I almost want to text you guys on the side to see if this is going to get me into hot water. Yeah, text me.
    65:37
    I won't say anything. Wait, Kale, do you not know who it is right now? Seriously? No. I don't think he knows who it is. Oh, Kale. All right, hold on, because I want to be able to see your face when you... Hold on. I want to be able to see your face. I didn't read the text. Ladies and gentlemen, Don't go anywhere. There's 90 of you here. I'm very happy with that number. Here we go. Okay, I'm going to enter right now. Okay, it's going to pop up. Here we go. I think Spellcheck's screwing up his name, but just you'll know who it is. All right, so I'm about to get it. It screwed up his last name. It screwed up his last name, but you'll know. Oh, it's C.U.K.
    66:10
    Oh. Right. Oh, nobody's guessed that. No. No, they're not going to guess. No, that's really interesting. I would. OK, so I know this person.
    66:28
    I mean, I was I would say it really, really, though, is it going to get me in trouble? Like, I don't want to. We just spent 10 minutes on it. It's funny. Yeah. But like he could then come out and go, yeah, I didn't didn't like it. And that's totally fine. Oh, but. Oh, no, no, no, no.
    66:50
    I told you they'd get it. All right, Jamie, just put it up on the screen. I didn't say it. You just put it up. Okay, I'll just put it up.
    67:00
    We got $2. We gave it to him. What's up? Say it. I'm not saying it. It's up, though. Okay, it went away. It's like Harry Hardy. Everybody saw it. Did you guys see it? I want to hear this There must be a lag because they not responding like they saw it They saying other things They must not have Jamie put it back up They didn see it I don think Okay I put it back up Spergamy Thank you for watching. What's so funny is he made the 2025 list of fascinating people and he's getting stiffed. Yeah, and didn't the Arizona pinball scene one also? Yeah. That same episode. And he has yet to ask me to be on his podcast. I don't know. I've been checking my spam folder for Jeff Teolis. I haven't gotten any voicemails. Sperry, Gord, and Gord, the best of the best. Sperry Pint, Gordy, and Sperry. .
    70:12
    Sperry, Gord, and I'm here with Jamie. This is the bottom right-hand corner. Oh, I can't see it. All right, we'll just promote Riverside. Congratulations.
    70:50
    Proceeds brought to you by Riverside. How much are they paying you for that? Zero. Yeah, that's not smart. That's a bad move. Time to bust Jamie's balls. Maybe Ralph wasn't intriguing enough and didn't draw attention to the error.
    71:06
    I got some more news. Oh, okay. You know, there's been a question of this Ozzy Osbourne pin and are we going to see it at Expo and not see it at Expo? We're not seeing this at Expo. Okay. So who knows what we're going to see? Goldfinger, ACDC? I don't know. Do you think that knowing – here's an interesting question for both you guys. Knowing that if we're going to say that we believe that it's factual, that it's not selling well because we have enough data to kind of say that, that Transformers doesn't sell well. What do you pivot to? Do you pivot to a known title like Goldfinger because you know that's going to sell well because people love Bond and if you give them a new version of Bond, even though it's probably going to aggravate some collectors. Do you do that though because you know that's not going to fail probably. So do you pivot to that? Do you think they're trying to pivot to a known title right now, knowing this?
    72:04
    Oh, man, I don't know what they're thinking. There's a lot of stuff going on. What do you guys think? What would you do? If you know sales are kind of not great, and Pokemon did what it did, and they're struggling with that because of the code, do you drop in? Jamie, what do you think? Do you drop in a known entity game? I would start downsizing. Yes. I would start downsizing. And they're already doing it. They're firing people.
    72:37
    Breaks my heart. I got to let the dog out, guys. I'm sorry. Yeah. I would start downsizing and getting ready for, I mean, they know what's going on. The writing's on the wall. Well, I mean, you know, maybe, you know, maybe this isn't the kind of economy that can support people buying, you know, what, 12, how much is this Stern LE? I don't even know. I don't buy them. It's 13 grand. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe this isn't the economy to buy a $13,000 toy. Yeah. Ozzy put a comment that I'm like in full support of this. It says Stern's worst mistake would be to push an Elwin pin to 27. I think so too. Like, you know, you got your guy who there's fans of him that would buy his game because they're fans of him. So I've heard that, you know, that rumor just popped up recently. I've heard that that's not true. Fallout has not been pushed to next year. I mean, that makes the most sense to me. You wouldn't push if if if sales are really bad, you would focus on like Elwin just has fans of Elwin because he's he just his designs are so good. So to me, like that's going to be a seller no matter what. So I don't see why if the times are tough or rough or whatever, you would push an Elwin. That's why I don't – that rumor seems kind of BS to me because of that.
    74:01
    Yeah, I'm guessing you're going to see a like Fallout, ACDC, maybe Goldfinger at Expo, maybe something like that. Okay. I feel like that would be a strong lineup if you hit the next game with an Elwin and then you followed up with like a Goldfinger because that's another one that you know. You know a bond is probably going to do well because there's going to be people that will sell. They'll dump their old bonds for the new bond. Right. And bond's a badass game. That's a fun freaking game. Bond Spike 3? Come on. Yeah. And think about if you could get a couple more. The code is great. I know. Dude, it's a fun machine. Everything about it is super cool. But think about this.
    74:41
    Right now you have lackluster sales for Transformers. You need to drop Elwin. You know, the next one, you know, Elwin is going to move sales. Fallout is a cool title that's going to get you a lot of press. It's going to get you press in all kinds of outlets, you know, lots of crossover stuff.
    75:02
    Yeah, I think so, too. And we're pretty certain that it's show, not video game, right? It's the show. And from people I've talked to that have played it, it's been done for a long time. They're adding code and clips from the shows, stuff like that. I've heard it is an absolute banger. Great. It's a fun, fun layout. I don't know any details other than everybody I know has played it said it is a smoking game.
    75:36
    And of course it is. Come on, say Elwood. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. That to me makes logical sense. Springer says it'll come out with season three.
    75:44
    We got a super chat in here. It says, Kale, is Batman 66 anniversary happening? $2 super chat. I haven't heard anything about that.
    75:54
    That would be so good, though. A little updated code. Get a TV letter when you get to Mystery. This is something I'm pushing.
    76:03
    What do you do on art, though? You got a problem because the main artist doesn't work for you anymore. Well, that's what I mean. What do you do? You just have to redo the art. A.I. Thank you for watching. What do you think? I have no idea, but I talked to somebody yesterday in person who apparently, who sounded like they had not, and this was not the Midnight Plunger, guys. Okay. This was somebody I talked to.
    77:32
    They know people involved, and they said it is Carl designing Dungeon Crawler Carl with Bails of Fun.
    77:50
    Good. I mean, he's a super fan. We like his first freshman debut of Winchester. Let's go. That's a great, give him a, you know, with this cat, I don't know the cat's name, but people love this show. Princess Donut. Okay. Have you listened? No, but I know about it. Hey, can we ask Franchi a question? Yes. Franchi, since you're in the chat. We have to send him money.
    78:17
    I'll send you something, Franchi. Do you, I don't know, Kale, this might be a dumb question, I don't know. But like do artists ever have, do artists ever own their art that they create at any of these companies? Like could Stern actually take Franchi's art and just release it the way it is? Because is it, is that, are those art assets owned by Stern or does Franchi own the art? I would think they would, they would have to be owned by Stern. That's what I would think, but I just want to know what Franchi says. I'm curious because he made it. So, all right, Franchi, we'll be looking out for you. Well, he just said, he said, Batman 66 will never happen because someone has a DC license right now and Warner Brothers will protect that license.
    79:02
    Okay. All right. This is Franchi's world, so. Yeah. All right, boys, we did it. We don't have anything else? I thought we were going to go to 10 more minutes. We can go 10 more minutes. It's up to you. But then after 10 minutes, I really do have to go. Yeah, I can cut it in 10 minutes, so I'm good. Okay. I have 10 more. Anything else from the Midnight Plunder?
    79:24
    I think that's it, man. That's pretty good information from this guy. You got yourself a little, you know, deep throat. It's pretty exciting. Are you going to meet in a... Like a parking garage? Parking garage. Smoking cigarettes. That's what it's like, right? X-Files. Do we think, Kale, that this is like Midnight... What is it, Marauder? What is his name? Plunger. Do we think that Midnight Plunger? Is this like an open line of communication? Like he's going to continue to dump these facts at you when he gets them? Man, it looks like that. Because we might need to up our production value and Jamie have some kind of graphic that comes on the thing. It's like Midnight Plunger.
    80:05
    I'll get Mason. Yeah, he'll do it. A $10 Canadian super chat. What's that mean for us? I don't know. Joe can tell us. I think it's 45 cents. Joe? Uh, Joe, uh, put that, uh, he put a deposit on Transformers Premium. The show integration looks amazing and Optimus. He said, I don't know about the Optimus thing, but I'm still getting cold feet. Thought you should know for some reason. Okay. Thank you for letting us know. I can say the integration is really good. I mean, if you're a fan of Transformers, it is, but maybe you just wait to play it. You know what I mean? Sperry, Bacchus, and C.R.I.T.S. The only equalizer in this, though, could be if money's tight, they might go the Sonic route. I do think it is interesting because, Kale, you brought up a good point. If there's a delay, that only helps JJP. Yep.
    81:31
    So that might even hurt them more, especially if they can't turn around this playfield issue fast. Jim and Nate Christmas. That's crazy. I hate that people are getting laid off, too. That hurts feelings. No, that's not good. That's not good. Michael, when you come on the podcast, we'll talk about that. And many, many other great things. Michael, the CMO. What's his last name? Oh, yeah. Geiger. Is he still coming? No, Cricket. Am I getting it right? Is it Geiger?
    82:02
    I don't know. We don't know? What do you mean? That sounds right. Matthew Geiger. Oh, Geiger. I've been watching a lot of this radiation stuff from the past where people were like drinking radon water. So I have a Geiger counter. Did you know that? Like back in the, was it the 30? I don't know what the era it was, but people were drinking radon water thinking it was healthy. Man, people were doing weird stuff. Do you know about the women that painted the like glow in the dark paint on the, on watch? Yeah, yeah. And that was the radon stuff. They were putting like radioactive material. They were licking their brush and then painting with this stuff and they all got cancer.
    82:44
    So bad, dude. How the hell did that pass? Like, hey, everyone drink radiation. It's going to be awesome. And you can still buy a hot dog. What's up with that? I don't know. It's crazy shit.
    82:57
    Crazy shit. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode, ladies and gentlemen. There's a lot in here. We had to go live.
    83:06
    Transformers or Sonic if you can only buy one. Gotta play him. Gotta play him. Thank you for watching. Whoever, 5, 6, 7 to 10, 20 people won't say anything about it. It wasn't 20. It was a very small number. Yeah. Are you going to tell that story one day?
    83:52
    Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think that'd be a good podcast for you. I don't see why I couldn't after the fact. Yeah. Although we did get in a lot of heat. We were sharing stuff about, I think the reason why we got on so much heat with the Harry Potter thing is I was sharing things that the licensor, I don't think they wanted that to be public information. So, yeah. So, they actually listened? Yeah, don't you remember that? Don't you remember we had the podcast? No, I totally remember, but I don't remember what entity saw something and was like, hey, you got to change things.
    84:32
    Yeah. What is that? Was that Don here? There's Donnie. All right, let's wrap this up. Is that all right? Can we go five minutes early? There is one thing that Genghis does that makes me laugh every time he does it. He does, when Don does that, he goes, I have no idea why. And he probably doesn't remember, Captain, or it was, who was the guy with the wood that used to go, ho, in the WWF? Oh, wait, wait. Don't tell me. Oh, I saw Jim Duggan. Yeah, so anytime Don does that, he goes, oh, but I don't think he knows Hacksaw. I'd be surprised if he knew who Hacksaw Jim Duggan is. Yeah, Hacksaw was really big in Belgium.
    85:20
    That's a lie. That's definitely a lie. That's funny as shit, though. It is Belgium, right? Because I screwed that up last time and said the Netherlands, and that's what got me in the hottest water. Shut up, Jamie. Shut up. You're making me in trouble, though. Oh!
    85:37
    Hacksaw was pretty badass back in the day, though. Yeah, he was pretty badass. The characters back then were so good. You were a wrestling guy, right? Kale, you grew up with all that, right? Yeah. Rock and Roll Express. They had such good characters back then. I saw Hulk Hogan. This is my claim to fame, right? I've been to Madison Square Garden and saw Hulk Hogan featuring the Macho Man Savage on a Saturday Night Main Event. That's badass. I've been to multiple Royal Rumbles. I've been to Survivor Series. I've been to closed captioned WrestleMania 2.
    86:13
    You went to WrestleMania 2? Well, no, I closed captioned it. You had to go to a, in order to see WrestleMania 2, you had to go to closed circuit TV. You had to go to certain places. So where did you go? I went to an arena and watched it. So the arena didn't have the, you were watching it on like a Teletron or a Jumbotron. Oh, that's cool, man. Yeah.
    86:38
    I was a Hulkster. I was a Hulkamaniac. And I'm watching the Hulkamania documentary on Netflix now. And it hurts fucking feelings. I know. I watched it too. Kale, if you didn't watch it, you got to watch it. It's an emotional rollercoaster. I don't have Netflix. All right. Maybe we can get that. Let's get that to him somehow. Because I think you need to watch it. It's kind of. Just put your username and password in the chat and I'll go. Yeah, we'll get it for you. Actually, Stringer said Ralph had a front row seat the last time he went to a wrestling match. This is the one. This is probably one of the coolest things about Southern Fried Gaming Expo. They have this amateur wrestling group that comes in and dude, they put on a show. They have paid hecklers that are in the audience that look like normal audience people and they get involved. It's really cool, dude. Honestly, like these guys aren't like, oh, we're just doing this dumb gaming show. They go all out. Like, Jamie, you dig it, dude. I know I would. The show is a new gig. I know. And I've gone to that show so many times. But Stringer lives down there and he lets me stay at his house. So it's kind of cool. Ozzy says he used to hang out with Hogan.
    87:44
    That's wild. In Clearwater, which is the spiritual worldwide headquarters of the Church of Scientology. Oh, wait, we got someone at Trash Can Ninja said, I can buy the electric bat hat, put it towards Netflix and RC car parts. There you go. There we go. Thank you. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. All right, ladies. Midget Wrestling. Oh, I feel bad. Can we still say that? What you just said? He wrote it there. I'm afraid. No, I'm afraid. Yeah, boy, you can't. That's when you have to go. I'm not going to read that. That's my bad. Let's cut it right there.
    88:22
    Sorry about the M word. My bad. That's the title. Jamie says the M word. Yeah, that is. That's the title, dude. That's awesome. See? Kale knows. You gotta hook him, man. Yeah, by the way, it's your turn to take an abuse on the next roundtable, okay? We're coming after you. He's too hard to come after sometimes. Just come after me. I'm so easy. There's like a million things you could make fun of me for. I'll be the boot-whipping boy on the next one. So if Teal has texted you, you're gonna tell us? Yeah, of course. But I'm going to feel bad if he's like, oh, actually, you were the June one. It's coming out tomorrow. Oh, you're going to feel terrible.
    89:01
    Oh, gosh. I don't think there's a chance. I think it's dead. It's on the cutting room floor. See ya.
    89:10
    All right. Jamie got in trouble. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry about that, Mort. See you guys. All hail the Midnight Plunger.
    89:18
    All right. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the roundtable. Glenn Wechter, next time you need to make an announcement for our Pinball Live roundtable. Thank you, Kale Hernandez. Thank you, Retro Ralph. I'm getting better at this exit shit. And I really appreciate everyone here joining. And thank you so much for the super chats. Not expected at all. And I'm going to take these guys out to dinner with all that money. So thank you guys so, so much. I really appreciate it.