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Pinball Ten Commandments, Free Game Moochers!

Bash Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·29m 17s·analyzed·Apr 16, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

Bash Pinball discusses arcade etiquette, free game ethics, and creates pinball commandments.

Summary

Bash Pinball Podcast episode 2 features hosts Matt and Don discussing pinball arcade etiquette, specifically the phenomenon of "free game moochers" who harvest free games without playing or paying. They establish the beginning of a "Bash Pinball 10 Commandments" framework, emphasizing community values like loving all pinball games, maintaining machines properly, and informing players of free games. The episode includes humorous conspiracy theory segments about cloning and pinball culture reflections.

Key Claims

  • Scooby-Doo by Spooky Pinball has a flashing start button that constantly indicates free games but requires payment

    medium confidence · Matt observes this behavior at Boxcar arcade and speculates it may be intentional design or a broken button

  • Free games in pinball keep players engaged longer and often result in additional spending

    medium confidence · Both hosts describe personal experiences where free games discouraged them from leaving and led to continued play

  • Pinball is unique among arcade games in offering free games through replay mechanics and match features

    high confidence · Matt and Don discuss how fighting games and other arcade titles don't typically have free game mechanics like pinball does

  • A five-minute waiting period before playing someone's free game is an appropriate community standard

    medium confidence · Matt and Don propose this as part of their developing pinball etiquette commandments

Notable Quotes

  • “Love pinball. Like all of it. Don't be a hater. All games are fun games. Pinball's like pizza. It's all good.”

    Matt @ ~22:45 — Establishes First Commandment of Bash Pinball philosophy; encapsulates inclusive community approach

  • “My ability to have fun with a game is directly related to if that game is playing well.”

    Don @ ~24:30 — Identifies machine maintenance as critical to community experience; becomes Second Commandment

  • “I like to feel like the pinball fairy. And say, hey, by the way, you heard that sound? You got a free game.”

    Matt @ ~27:50 — Illustrates community support philosophy of informing casual players about free games

  • “Five-minute rule, right? Somebody walks away from a game, wait five minutes before you mooch it.”

    Matt @ ~32:20 — Proposes formal etiquette standard for free game harvesting; becomes Commandment number 5

  • “It's a loud pop. Be careful, you know? So I think it's one of those things that make it different and weird that are, to me, kind of quintessential to the pinball experience.”

    Matt @ ~26:10 — Emphasizes free games as defining characteristic of pinball vs other arcade games

Entities

MattpersonDonpersonKeith ElwinpersonEscher LefkoffpersonBash Pinball PodcastorganizationBoxcarorganizationFirefly GamesorganizationSpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Emerging community framework for arcade etiquette through 'Bash Pinball 10 Commandments' as informal social standard-setting

    high · Hosts explicitly develop numbered commandments including: (1) Love pinball, (2) Maintain machines, (3-4) Inform players of free games, (5) Five-minute waiting rule before mooching

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive sentiment toward pinball community values; hosts emphasize inclusivity, education, and mutual support as core to pinball experience

    high · First Commandment 'Love pinball. Like all of it. Don't be a hater.' and consistent emphasis on informing casual players about free games; 'pinball fairy' concept

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Scooby-Doo Spooky machine's continuously flashing start button potentially violates pinball etiquette expectations; may be intentional design hack to draw players

    medium · Matt notes flashing button appears broken or intentional: 'it seems like it has to be...It's a little bit of a hack.' Only observed on this one machine at Boxcar

  • $

    market_signal: Free game mechanics effectively retain players and drive additional spending at arcade locations; psychological mechanism of replay hope engages casual players longer

    medium · Both hosts describe personal experiences where free games prevented departure and led to continued play: 'I got a free game and then I stayed for like another 10 games because I kept either doing better'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.088

0:00
Welcome one and all to the bash pinball podcast episode 2 I am Matt one of your hosts Don could not be here today to record the intro the other day we were playing jaws for the first time and when Don realized that the shark didn't eat the ball, his face completely melted off like Raiders of the Lost Ark style. It just fell into like a gross little puddle on the floor. It was pretty nasty. So he's still recovering from extensive reconstructive surgery. But we've got a fun episode and we really pulled out all the stops. No, I'm just kidding. We didn't. We pulled out some stops though. Some stops were definitely pulled.
0:52
So if you can just hang on a second, I'm going to go ahead and pop in the tape for episode two. Here we go.
1:00
welcome to the theater of magic welcome to the party zone welcome to the billionaires club welcome aboard welcome to the bash pinball topic if you're at an arcade donald you said you were at boxcar recently yep i tried i couldn't get in i tried well you were also at well beer state doesn't really count but So if you're at Boxcar and you walk in there and there's like half a dozen people playing pinball, probably best case scenario. Yeah, yeah.
1:39
And you see some free games flashing. What is your approach in that scenario? Well, the first thing I do is I count to five. Yeah. I look around, full 360. If I see a kid, I'll probably ask them, hey, are you playing this? Yeah. If I get... Usually I get just a weird stare like, who are you? Stranger? Danger? Uh-huh. Stranger, danger. Yeah, you look like a terrorist sometimes. They walk away. Then I play the game. Uh-huh. Okay. If I see someone within proximity, like... Yeah, so I noticed that Scooby-Doo, the spooky game, the start button just flashes all the time on that one. Hate it. Yeah. Drives me nuts. Because I'm like, ooh, free game. Free game. And then it's like, no, give me four tokens. Do you think that's intentional? It seems like it has to be. It gets you to go there. It seems like a little trick. And they're just breaking the pinball etiquette of the flashing button. I'm already here. I guess I'll just pop a couple in. Yeah. Except for it's probably broken. It's probably broken. Yeah. And maybe that's why it flashes in the first place. They're all broken. Maybe it's not supposed to do that. It's possible. But it seemed to me like a little bit of a hack. Like they were like, oh, we'll just make it Flash and then that'll draw people to the machine. I hope that's not the case. I mean, they know what they did.
Scooby-Doo (Spooky)
game
Jawsgame
Dungeons and Dragonsgame
Jurassic Park (Data East)game
3:07
They know what they did. You think so? Yeah. Because it's the only game that does that. Maybe other spooky games do, but when we're at Boxcar, that's the only game that does that.
3:22
Yeah. I noticed that. But what do you think about the people who just go into the arcade just like pinball moochers? And they're just like, they're not really into pinball. They're just like, I'll play a free game. And they just go around and get hit up all the free games. Is this predatory behavior? you know they kind of they kind of remind me of um like those people that go to golden corral yeah and they you know they take the all you can eat literally which i mean i guess if you're advertising that it's fine it just feels wrong yeah it kind of does there's like a limit you know i think it feels reminiscent of that however i don't think it's necessarily improper because I think that a lot of people don't know that they have free games and they will walk away. You got the people that also put in 20 quarters because they can't figure out the start is what you need to do to get the game to go. Then they just keep dumping money in and then they have like 6, 7, 8 credits. Can't figure it out. Walk away. Typically, honestly, I try to show them. If I see it happen, I'll be like hey, hold on. Look. Yeah. But I don't know, man. I feel like that would be for me the differentiating factor. If I saw someone like one of those moochers actively poaching a game or waiting for someone that's dumping money into a game to then play the free games when they can't, that's like a different thing for me. If you just go in and you take advantage of the free games and there's no one around, I think it's a fair game, man. Yeah, I was at an arcade in Columbia, South Carolina. and it was like a like a nerd haven place where they had like a huge open room with like people playing i don't know dnd and and like magic the gatherer games or something or whatever yeah and then like they had a separate room there was just the arcade and it's mostly pinball oh cool what What was the name?
5:41
I have to look it up. We'll put something in there later. You keep forgetting important things. It had a weird name. It wasn't the one that was downtown or anything. It was kind of off in a strip mall kind of place. But it had a gaming name. The name of the place was Firefly Games or something like that. So it wasn't really even clear that it was an arcade or anything. Gamers Incorporated. But yeah, I was the only one in the arcade part of it playing. And they had like all, every single game was like a comic book theme. They had Dungeons and Dragons pinball. Whoa. Which you don't see very often. I've never seen that. It's like a ballet, late 80s or early 90s ballet game. And then, you know, every Star Wars game, Star Trek game, it was just all those games, which was cool. It's cool. but yeah I played like a couple I think I got a free game on something I was in there by myself and then I went out like I didn't play my free game because I was by myself and I was like I just played that a bunch I got a free game I'll come back to it so I play something else I go out of the arcade still in the same building but go out and get a drink from the counter and then I go back in and some moocher had gone in while I walked out As soon as I walked out, the guy was like, let's go see which free games we can play. And he's playing my free game. Within 30 seconds of me walking out of there he went in and got my free game Here a question yeah did you watch him watch you uh no but the timing of it was such that he i mean he had to see me leave like he played he literally played like two free games that were bouncing around in there and then just walked right back out he didn't pay for a single game he just saw an opportunity pounced on it and got out Oh, man. Okay, so you're obviously bothered by that.
7:46
I don't know. I wasn't really bothered by it. I was just like, huh, okay. If we could get him on the show, would you fight him?
8:00
You know these guys who strut around saying, I ain't afraid to fight nobody. Oh, please. We're looking at a major shortage of brain cells here because anybody in their right mind is scared of fights. And it's okay to be scared, and it's okay to walk away. It's a good way to avoid winding up with a face that looks like a raw meatloaf.
8:21
Um, only... No, I don't think so. We need to ask, we need to find him. We need to ask if he did it on purpose. Is this what he, is this something he normally does? I think he does because he just went in, got the free game, and went out. Like he saw me leave. He's like, I'm going to go get the free games. And then he got it and he left. He didn't play. He didn't stay and play any other games, didn't put any money in any machines. Oh, man. But I don't know. I'm interested in getting a wider response here because this is an interesting topic. I've never thought about it that way. For me, it was more once I leave this, once my hands leave the machine, it's over. Right, right. my chances of playing this again are probably slim if I walk away. Usually I'll have somebody come and watch it for me or just physically hold the machine. Right, and as far as he knew, I was done, probably. Possibly. And he was just going to clean up. But yeah, I thought it was a little bit odd or interesting. But I can see in that kind of environment how you know you just like yeah go look in the arcade see if there's any free games to play and then go back to your d your magic the gathering game i think if i was that guy if it was me there i would have waited a little bit longer yeah maybe like five minutes i don't know what's i don't know what the appropriate you know is this person going to come back time is but that's about how long it takes me to use the bathroom so do you think that the free game thing with regard to pinball even makes sense why do we why does pinball of all things have free games like nothing else gets free games you know i think it's i've thought about that actually i think it's really cool and i think it yes i think it makes sense for one personally i think it's cool it's kind of original um my my guess slash opinion on that is that you know because you have the chance element yeah you should also have a chance to redeem yourself yeah and what's funny is in many cases i played horrible games and then i was ready to walk away and i got a free game and then i stayed for like another 10 games because i kept either doing better or just i was reanimated somehow as i was being discouraged from a run of bad games,
10:49
oh, shoot, it's a free game. And then I play it, and for whatever reason, it just starts changing. I don't know. It's happened to me a couple times where the free game has kind of kept me there a little bit longer, and I've actually put more money in afterward. So I think it does make sense. I think it does. Yeah, I guess I've had that happen too where if I go to a bar or one of those arcades that has three games for $2 or whatever,
11:22
you feel like you're, like I'll do that if I've never played the game. Because I'm like, I know the first game I'm going to suck. At least a couple games, yeah. And then you know you're not going to get a feel for the game in one game, or probably even two games. So three games always makes sense to me. Put it in. And then by the time that third game rolls around, I'm like, I might get a replay. And then I'm like, do I want to play my free game or do I want to move on at this point? You have to play it. Yeah, but sometimes that's what always throws off my plans in an arcade. Yeah, I get you. Because I'm like, all right, I got two hours. You're ready to move on, yeah. I'm going to play this game and this game and this game and this game. And then it's like you put three bucks or a couple bucks into a game, and you get a free game, and maybe you match on the next one, and then pretty soon you've got like five, six games and it's been an hour. It messes up your flow. And this is where those game poachers, right? This is why I think it's okay for them to come in and just play those games because that free game into Blinkin' could have been somebody's unplanned free game. Yeah. So it kind of checks itself out in a way. It does, but it also like, if you had an arcade, would it make more sense to because there's two ways to get free games you get a good score and you get a free game or just like randomly match you get a 10% chance or whatever depending on the game and you get a free game for that are there too many free games happening I don't think so you don't think so I don't have the data but maybe someone that actually owns an arcade could pull some hard data and see I don't know man And I'm inclined to believe that the free games somehow either balance themselves out or add value. Because they keep you there longer.
13:21
And or, you know, I don't know. That's just my experience, you know, personally. But it could be totally wrong.
13:28
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14:01
And now, back to the show. So if you think about other non-pinball arcade games, just in my experience, you don't get anything free except for fighting games, is the exception that I can think of, because you get to keep playing as long as you're winning. Keep going, yeah. And so if you have the skill to progress and keep winning, then you essentially can play all day on a quarter if you have a line of people that you just beating left and right Yeah I think the type of game also for example I love the arcade basketball games
14:50
I'm pretty decent at those, actually. I'm not as good at skeeball, but I think because you have that kind of competitive, challenging nature where you want to keep doing better, I think the free game model every once in a while if you were to sprinkle some free games in those I think that would be awesome I would probably play more I guess it's always just like can you get so good at it that you can basically play for free so I've been there too I think I see what you're saying yeah I think it depends man I think it depends how many amazing players you have come in everyday that are literally giving you a run for your money because they're never paying for anything and they just come in don't pay for anything, don't buy anything wear and tear on your machines and then leave, I don't know I feel like I always see less skilled people than people at that skill level so for me it still kind of makes sense And it feels also like a pinball standard. It's like a pinball quality, right? It's like a thing within pinball that even when I tell people for the first time that are playing that I'm showing machines, oh, look, if this extra ball here, or not extra ball, but if the shoot again at the bottom of the, you know, in between the flippers, if it's blinking, saves the ball. So don't walk away. Right. Oh, look, the match. If you get the two numbers, match your score, you get a free game. It's a loud pop. Be careful, you know? So I think it's one of those things that make it different and weird that are, to me, kind of quintessential to the pinball experience as a game as a whole. I think the free game element is cool for that. So if you are, just back to the etiquette of it all, if you are in an arcade, you're standing next to somebody and they get a free game. and then maybe they don't realize it. They start to walk away from the machine. Do you feel obligated, as someone who maybe knows a little more about pinball, to tell them, hey, you got a free game? Every single time. Yeah. Every single time. Yeah. Yeah, same.
17:10
But I can also see just like, you know, there's not anything wrong with not telling them and then just being like, oh, I got a free game beside me. You know, if it's like a sweaty dude with like an Affliction t-shirt and like some weird, you know, whatever, like maybe not. But if it's like a regular person, you know, I don't know, like a kid or like someone who's actually enjoying the game and I can tell they're into it, I like to feel like the pinball fairy. Yeah. And say, hey, by the way, you heard that sound? You got a free game. Look, it's blinking. And they're like, oh, really? Nice. Thanks. Honestly, I've gotten some genuine thankfulness in those moments. Yeah, I think it's part of the community mindset of it. It's like, you know, just tell people. Just say, hey, look. Just tell people. Yeah, just say it. You're not losing anything. Just tell people. Yeah, and maybe they're like, yeah, I know. I got to go. Whatever. You know, maybe they didn't know. Maybe they did. Then you play it. I'd say like 90, I'd say virtually every time that's ever happened, in my experience, the person seemed appreciative. Yeah. Of letting them know. 100%. Yeah. 100%. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, that's official. Official etiquette. Are we going to. Established today. Are we going to start like a pinball of 10 commandments?
18:39
Yes. Just tell them. That should be number like three or four. Just tell them. Yeah. I just, free games, just tell them. What about, so that could be number two. I don't know what number one should be. What's like the most important? I guess it should be number one.
18:53
So, love pinball. Balls. Love pinball. Like all of it. Don't be a hater. All games are fun games. Pinballs like pizza. It's all good. That's a good point, actually, because we can be snobby about it. But honestly, if you were to play any game long enough and kind of get the feel, they're all fun, right? Some are boring, some are whatever. We say that. But the reality is, if that's the only game you ever had forever, you could get fun out of it. Yeah, my only caveat to that is my ability to have fun with a game is directly related to if that game is playing well. Oh, 100%. Because games that are broken, not playing right. No question. Flippers, janky, whatever, not fun. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a violation of the first commandment of pinball. That should be number two. Because if you are abiding by the first commandment, you will not let your games fall into disarray. You will not let them fall into disrepair or disarray. Yeah. So, yeah, that all kind of works.
20:03
So, yeah, commandments. I like this. We should further elaborate on this. we should come up with our own bash pinball 10 commandments. Yeah, I think so. We got three so far. We can establish rules that we follow, and if anybody else feels like adopting them, then that's great. Or we could even add. We can make them 50 commandments, whatever. Yeah, we can make it extremely complicated.
20:32
Just for fun. Yeah, I'm looking forward to creating the next 50 commandments. Number five. Five-minute rule, right? Yeah. Somebody walks away from a game, wait five minutes before you mooch it. Before you mooch it, yeah. You can stand there, stand at the machine, hold the place, so somebody else doesn't come in and mooch it, but after five minutes, that's it. That's kind of like a standard, maybe.
20:57
And now for our brand-new segment, Conspiracy Theories with Matt and Don. In ball news, Keith Ellinwood has a clone. If you can just clone people, which I'm sure we're not that far off from that, then are our famous actors just going to be cloned? And then, you know, they're the same. We have the same actors forever for the rest of time. I've never met a clone. Yeah. But I'm inclined to think. Inclined to think.
21:46
I'm inclined to think that there's going to be a little bit of magic missing, man. Yeah. Like I going to look at them in the eyes and I going to say you know what You not really Danny DeVito You know what You not really Arnold I don know Maybe the switchover will be seamless though and you'll never really know.
22:07
You mean like Joe Biden? Yeah. He's a clown. Have you heard about this? Is he a clown? So there are theories when you look at them in different pictures. I mean, there's like a weird time thing happening where sometimes it looks younger, sometimes it looks older. Yeah. You know, sometimes his face looks a little more wrinkled. Sometimes it looks, you know, like his eyes look a little different.
22:30
Could he be a clone? Because could he be dead? And he just has placeholders. I mean... Well, it could just be like a couple of kids with a trench coat. Stacked up on top of each other. Yeah. I mean, he did. He does seem to fall. He does. That is... Every once in a while. That would increase your likelihood of a tripping hazard because the kid on the bottom can't really see what they're doing. Right.
22:55
Yeah, that... I'm not saying... I don't believe that. Yeah. But you're perpetuating the theory. I'm not. Hey, you know what? I kind of regret saying that because I don't want to perpetuate misinformation. I don't want to perpetuate these ideas that are so ridiculous, but you're right, man. There could be a clone from 20 years ago that was done in a lab clandestinely is that is that a word yeah sure clandestinely i don't know if the lee part is a word but certainly probably unsanctioned lab yeah not following global morality protocols could be in wuhan doesn't have to be in wuhan but it could be probably is yeah um clone someone 20 years ago now they're out in the world running around playing pinball yeah we don't know maybe uh maybe Escher Lefkoff, the number one player. He's only like 19 or something. He could be a clone. He could be a clone of someone who played pinball their whole lives. He could be Keith Elwin.
24:04
The clone of Keith Elwin, who's still alive, of course. But he's gearing up to replace him. DNA was extracted 20 years ago. Yeah, when Keith Owen was killing it, he was number one. At his peak. Yeah. Extract the DNA. Yep. Start the cloning process. Then at the end of his decline, the kid will be old enough to now be a man. And then that's when he takes over. And the other Keith Owen who's still alive, we just put him down.
24:39
You know, that's how it works. You can't have both. will his consciousness somehow still be there or does he just have to rely on this new being to keep it going yeah i don't know if they've perfected that part yet that part's a tricky part so i think we're still fine yeah if that's the case until we get the consciousness to somehow transfer over i think we're fine because it's basically just another new part it's a new person yeah i mean it's like you know it's like airdrop 2.0 they'll figure it out probably will Neuralink, man. I don't know. Somehow. They don't look anything alike, but that's part of the scam. I mean, it was probably just modified. Does Escher know that he's a clone? He doesn't. No. That's part of the whole thing. For your own sake, you can't know you're a clone. Everyone else around you knows, but the individual can't know. Because then it would change everything. right it would affect their their perception of the world in a way that would make them worse at pinball right he would be a lot worse he would not be a pinball champ because he would feel he was predestined to be a pinball champ yeah so when he wouldn't want to put the effort in yeah that an unmodified original version would have that drive right naturally and he would probably be like like ball uh you know he'd probably not play anything that has to do with balls He'd probably do Frisbee or race car driver. He'd probably be ball-averse. Ball-averse. He would probably be an air hockey champion or something without balls.
26:38
And now, Pinball Deep Thoughts with Matt and Don. A while back I was on Pinside reading up on Jurassic Park Data East. Someone posted that it was literally impossible to hit the upper loop more than three times in a row. It's a pretty clunky shot. Earlier today I was playing Jurassic Park and I hit the upper loop shot eight times in a row. By the time I was done, my heart was racing and I was sweating profusely. I thought, this must have been what it felt like when Barry Bonds set the home run record in 2007 Well anyway, I should probably get back to playing pinball before these steroids wear off
27:25
Alright folks, that was episode 2 We hope you enjoyed it We have a bunch of stuff in the works and hope you'll subscribe and like and follow and review and all those things and if you're the type of weirdo that writes into podcasts send us your questions and thoughts and any um interesting or crazy pinball stories you may have um and we may read them on a future episode we might even give your story the full treatment with sound design and music and all that stuff send your questions and stories love letters to don hate mail for me just whatever you want send them to pod at bash pinball.com oh and if you want to hear the um full intro song it's now available to stream in all of the places it's called venus and the artist is ren and oloon that's w-r-e-n and a-u space l-u-n-e until next time my pretties oh and i almost forgot
28:29
Leave this territory now. Return to your home. Evacuate all personnel.