so that's it everyone's just gonna stand by and let jersey jack say don't buy your products and you're going to do nothing? You're going to sit on the sidelines and wait for everybody to see Harry Potter? Where are you at, barrels of fun? Wake up. Where are you at, pinball brothers? Wake up. Where is everybody at? Is this what pinball has become in the marketing world? You're going to sit by and try to launch your product on top of Harry Potter. You need to get your games out now. We are a post-Texas Pinball Festival, and it is going to be April next week. and these companies are about to make the biggest marketing mistake and they're going to do it for silly reasons. I'm four cups of coffee in. Let's talk about this. So Jersey Jack Pinball said that Harry Potter is confirmed. We knew it was coming out. But here's the thing now. You know, Keith Elwin's King Kong is also around the corner. You know, you got Predator from Pinball Brothers. I heard a rumor it might not have Arnold in the game. If it doesn't have Arnold in the game, I'm not buying that game. But I just want to say right now, what is everybody waiting for? This is the window. If you've got a game that's developed enough to show and you can take orders on it, we don't care if it's going to take like a month or two to ship. Nobody cares. Look at the market data. When Spooky Pinball revealed Evil Dead in December, were there games in boxes in December? No. When did the first Evil Deads go out? About six to eight weeks after that. When freaking Melvin showcased Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, it was in October. I think it was even late September. And the first game just went out the door. Six months later, he sold every single one back in October. So I don't understand why people have this mentality. Well, we need games in boxes, and that's what I want my company to be known for. And I'm here to tell you, nobody cares. That is not an important thing. The moment your company has established itself as a company that will deliver product, we know that people are okay waiting a couple months to get the product. So if you're David David Van Es and you're sitting on a game and you're like, well, I want to make sure that every single labyrinth goes out the door before I announce my next game and I want games to be in boxes. Well, David, what happens when that moment coincides with King Kong? What happens when that moment coincides with freaking Harry Potter? The game, unless it's something like Goonies, and I hope it's Goonies, but if it's Dune and you launch on top of Harry Potter and King Kong and people only have so much money and room, you're going to be pretty DOA, brother. I mean it. Now's the window. And maybe you're saying, Canadian, you're just trying to get these companies to release. Yeah, you got to get out now. If you wait, think about it. If you wait and you allow thousands of people to commit to buying a $15,000 Harry Potter and you know they're going to have a superior product, you don't have a better product. Both Pinball Brothers and Barrels of Fun do not have a superior product to Jersey Jack or Stern. You gotta lock in your orders now. We don't care if the games are already on the line or made. It doesn't matter. You know you're not gonna have something better than King Kong or Harry Potter. So you better get orders now. You know, if I know that Brenda could go on a date with someone way more successful than me. I need to get on that date first. I need to show her why she should fall in love with me and get her to commit before she makes a better decision. She's listening to this right now. But that's where these companies are. They think they're gonna make some sort of statement. And so barrels of fun, I think you're making a huge marketing mistake by waiting. I think Pinball Brothers, if you've got Predator ready to go, don't tease us. We know it's Predator. What are you waiting for? We know you're going to make the games. You made Queen. You made ABBA. You made the Alien games. Once there is no longer hesitation on locking in money and orders because you've delivered, just time it right. See, this is the thing right now that I think everybody's playing all wrong. You let everybody else march into TPF. Not that you needed TPF, but you let everybody else take money that could have gone to your company. CGC just sold a thousand medieval madness games again. You just let go out the door towards your competitors And I don think anyone really ordered that many portals And we know they didn sell Merlin Arcade These aren the games people really want I mean Chris Turner man, we love you, but you really did just bring another Deep Root game to market. There's no other way around it. This was a Deep Root game and it wasn't the Deep Root game that had people's attention. It wasn't. And I don't even understand that market strategy. What market research did you do to think you could sell five to six hundred Merlin's arcade games? If Pinball Brothers has Predator, I mean this and Arnold is in it. I'm saying this right now. They will sell easily one thousand units of the game easily. But Arnold has to be in it. If they make Predator without Arnold, they will hardly sell any of these. It's that simple. When Jersey Jack takes orders on Harry Potter CE during a window of time, right? I didn't say they were going to make an unlimited amount. I said they are going to make as many Harry Potter CEs as people order during a period of time. I don't know if it's going to be one day, one week, or one month. If I was a guessing man, I would say it's going to be at least a week they're going to take orders. And they're going to get thousands of orders, people. From consumers, from dealers and distros, they're going to get so many orders that a Harry Potter CE won't even be a collector's edition item. It just won't. And so that's going to blow up the whole FOMO around the CE markets for Jersey Jack. Interested to see what happens there? If I were you now, see, I'm never going to be able to scalp this game. Even if I want this game, even if I don't want to scalp it, I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to buy this thing now. I don't care how long the window is open. I'm not going to buy this thing now on day one or when that window is even open because I know what's going to happen. The dealers and distros are going to overorder this thing the same way they overordered Guns N' Roses. And there will be so many of them that you will easily be able to get one for much less than $15,000. And I think that is exactly what is going to happen. Stern's going to march in with only, I know it's crazy to say this, but they're going to march in with only 1,000 King Kongs. In a world in which Jersey Jack is now gonna go as many as you want, all of a sudden, now 1,000 feels like it's limited because of that. But man, I don't know. Like, is King Kong gonna be as good as Godzilla? I heard Stern is in big trouble. The number I am now hearing, and I can't confirm or deny this, but the number I am hearing is that Stern has somewhere around 10,000 new in-box Stern games are sitting in inventory unsold. Does that mean Stern has those games? I don't know. But even if like half of that is true, even if half of that is accurate, that there are 5,000 games in a box without any demand for them, without any homes, what's going to happen when all of that inventory has to find a place to go? See, I think we always think about this hobby like the manufacturers are going to go out of business, but that's not what's going to happen first. The first thing we're going to witness are dealers and distros going out of business because these dealers or distros are the ones who have to buy these games. And are you telling me that these dealers and distros, that they pay for these games cash or are they buying these games on credit? Are they using credit cards? So every month they've got an interest payment on the money they use to acquire that inventory. Back in the old days, that wasn't a problem because that inventory was coming in and going out within a month. So when you had a new title, you were moving all of your LEs, premiums and pros. they're not used to having. I mean, these dealers still have Venoms, John Wicks, Foo Fighters, Godzillas. Like the stuff is just piling up. Every time I see the stern line each Friday, more Godzillas in the world. Really? Is there a demand for that? Like nobody has Godzilla premiums sitting in a box. So I think it's going to be the dealers and the distros that we see fall first. And when that starts to happen, we know who's next, the manufacturers. Because once the dealers and distros start to fall, then you lose your customers. Because remember, those are the predominant customers for all of these companies. That's the sales force for all of these companies. Now, the only thing that's going to save pinball in this crazy high-priced world where nothing is collectible anymore, where there's no FOMO, the only thing that's going to save it are magical games. And look where we are. It's almost April. Portal. Merlin's Arcade. Another run of Medieval Madness. A game we've had for 35 years. And nothing else. D&D is a great game. Don't get me wrong. It's a great game. I would never buy an LE for $13. I wouldn even buy a premium for Because all of it All of it Nothing is immune to what the market is now doing It is basically chipping 30 of the game value off of the MSRP in just two to three months So why wouldn't you just wait? And that's where I'm at. I'm going to wait on the sidelines now. I'm no longer going to chase Harry Potter when it goes up for sale because I know if I want one and the game is magical. And look, I hope it's magical. Three levels of play, does that mean two upper playfields and a regular play field? Does it mean a lower play field than an upper play field? I don't know, we're gonna see it soon enough, but I'm gonna wait because I know if I really wanna see, I'm not gonna have to spend anywhere near 15,000 as all of these dealers over-order it. You know, Steve Ritchie's game is delayed. I've got some news on Steve Ritchie's game. I will deliver at a later date. I think it's going to be another one of these titles where is the demand there for it? We're going to find out more on that. Jersey Jack loves making it hard on itself. I'll just say that. And then think about it. In just like two months, Kong, Potter, those are the big ones, Predator, and then Barrels of Fun. And so I'm looking at the calendar right now, and I'm just wondering what's going on inside the head of David David Van Es. David, I know you listen to the show. I'm here to tell you right now. You're making a marketing mistake thinking you need to wait to this game is in a box before you reveal it. Nobody cares. All of the market data shows us you don't need to do that. What you need to do is make sure you get out in front of King Kong and Harry Potter quickly. And it doesn't seem like that's your priority. It's more about showing people what barrels can do. We know what you can do. You don't have to prove it anymore. Don't make that mistake, brother. Get your game out sooner than later. Pinball Brothers, same thing. If you've got this big theme, what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? We now know Harry Potter is coming within the next couple of months. And Jersey Jack just told everybody in this hobby not to buy your product. Are you going to take that? Are you going to take that when you've got the Sambini gun and you've got Arnold and you know how to take down a monster, a juggernaut, an invincible force like a better company like JJP? You're going to take that on the chin and say, hey, maybe grown men are into Predator and not Harry Potter. Maybe start to punch back a little bit, but with some real marketing, not just a picture of a box. Hey, something might be inside here. Wake up. All of you guys, I'm going to go in a little bit of a rant. This market and this industry does nothing interesting, nothing creative whatsoever. Spending $100,000 on a polished video is stupid. That doesn't leave a memorable moment for people. That's not creative. That is not creative at all. That video production company is laughing all the way to the bank. When was the last time you saw someone do anything creative whatsoever to launch their game? Crappy teasers, leaving behind stickers in bathrooms, and then they want to sell you millions of dollars of this product. And when it comes to marketing and it comes to how to get people excited, they don't know what to do. Here's a box. Here's underneath the play field. Here's a bunch of crossword puzzles at Texas Pinball Festival. Here's a close-up of a ramp. They need to take those ramps and shove them where the sun don't shine. And actually, everybody wake up. Marketing matters. It's going to matter now more than ever. As all these companies are dropping games on top of each other, I've seen nobody, nobody do a marketing move that's been impressive or even smart. Bring out Merlin's Arcade when it's unfinished. Why? That's stupid. Announce you're going to make 500. Why? That's stupid. Announce the price is going to go up because of cheap sculpts. That's stupid. None of it's smart. None of it's smart and none of it's working. And we know it's not working. And even the big companies with multiple millions of dollars and billions of dollars, they don't do things any smarter. How do you make Avatar? It's not smart. It is absolutely not smart. If Jersey Jack Pinball made Rick and Morty, they would have sold four times as many as Avatar. And yet a tiny little company in Benton, Wisconsin, lands a theme that has way more demand than a major, major company. What's happening, people? What's happening? Ganead on fire. A lot of coffee in me today. And I'm just trying to get a fun show for you guys today. But this is how I feel. This is how I feel. This is the easiest product in the world to market. It really is. And the marketing journey around pinball starts with what theme are we going to make? Are 40 to 60-year-old grown men going to want to play Merlin's Arcade? No, not at all. So that game dies on that level. I don't care how nice you are. I don't care how nice Jon Norris is. I don't care. Robert Mueller made horrible decisions. So you want to bring Robert Mueller's ideas to life. That is called bad decision making, bad marketing, bad leadership. Why? Why did the work that happened at Robert Mueller's crook factory, did we forget all this? That all these games were developed originally by stealing money from old ladies who now have no pensions? How quickly we forget, right people? Okay, that game never should have been made. portal I don have a problem with I think portal works good for p3 multi morphic the platform itself doesn really excite people that never gonna change It doesn matter what Jerry puts on this platform The fact that they can make games quick enough. The fact that the platform is not a loss leader item. It needs to be. Jerry needs to sell this thing for $6,000 for the total package and then make money on the module things and then make money with licensed downloadable content. That's how you make money with video game consoles. That's what he's trying to do on this. But then he's trying to charge you $13,000. So it's not a loss leader thing. It's just a thing that's not enticing or attractive to the majority of people who buy these things. And I've been saying this for 12 years, right? 12 years. This guy has not sold as many games as I have of subscribers. And I say it and I mean it when I say it. If you can't sell a thousand units of your pinball machine to a global market that buys pinball that's in the five or 10,000 potential buyers, then what you've made isn't working. If Jerry made a normal pinball machine and one was Prince's Bride and one was Portal, he would sell two to three times as many in a normal pinball wooden playfield platform. You know what I'm saying? I don't even know what else to say about it. He'll never test the market, even though the market is showing him what the market wants. But man, I keep coming back. I keep coming back to one thing. I think Stern Pinball is in big trouble. I do. I think Stern Pinball is in a lot more trouble than people realize. And I don't want Stern Pinball to go away, but I think they've sort of bit off more than they can chew. And I was talking to my friend Bill Brandes about this, and he sort of pinpoints one moment, and I agree with him. He says the moment Stern Pinball lost the narrative is when they declared themselves a lifestyle brand. That is not what a pinball company is. And the moment they declared themselves that, they went down a road where they forgot. They forgot what this is all about, what these games need to cost, what people expect from you, how many you should make, how much should you charge. The reason now they are a lifestyle brand, it's not in a good way, is that if you buy one, it severely adjusts your lifestyle. I can no longer go on vacation. I can no longer get the other things I want. I can no longer send my kids to college because I bought three pinball machines. Yeah, that's where it's at. There's a lot of people out there that love supporting all of these companies all of these years when the price was right. So no, you're not a lifestyle brand. You're not. Nobody aspires to be associated with you. That's not a lifestyle brand. Just because you sell a t-shirt doesn't make you a lifestyle brand. So yeah, I'm worried about them because the rumors I'm hearing aren't good. They need a hit, but even a hit game is not going to make those games in inventory go away. That's the white walkers man i mean this you know when you watch game of thrones and you're like yeah the lannisters and the other families like all the humans are fighting each other but the real enemy are the white walkers and when i think about pinball yeah all these companies are competing with new in box games but the real enemy that could take down this entire hobby and new in box and all these companies are those unsold games. Those are the white walkers. When they pop up and they rear their ugly heads and we see the image from like the warehouse where they're all there, you know what that means when there's five to 10,000 unsold games? It means the entire pinball market will quasi collapse when it comes to value when all of those things go somewhere because it means that everything we have, it's going to oversupply and just destroy the demand. You know, it's crazy. I just wish we had a little bit more transparency. So we knew, right? We knew. Here's how many games Stern made this last year. I wish we could all step into earnings calls with all of these companies, right? I would love to see it. How many multi-morphics did they sell? We know how many spooky games are sold. Congratulations, guys. You just sold all of your evil deads. That's a great thing. So we know Spooky sold 888 games. Stern might be making that a week. A week. Who's buying all these games? Who's giving Kaneda all this coffee? Who's unsubscribing to this show? This is the most entertaining pinball podcast. You can't replace this with anything else. David David Van Es, stop thinking we care about your game being in a box. It's time to reveal or you're gonna get slaughtered. I mean it i'm trying to help you I'm, not trying to hurt you. You're waiting too long Now or never bro kaneda out I'm coming to get you i'm coming to get you Outro Music