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Episode 209 - 2023 Year-End Review

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 49m·analyzed·Dec 25, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers 2023 year-end review covers Twippies changes, Pinball Awards cancellation, and Planetary Pinball's new manufacturing deal.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers hosts their 2023 year-end review on Christmas Eve, discussing major industry news including Twippies award changes (new content creator category, no live ceremony), the cancellation of the Pinball Awards for 2023, and Planetary Pinball's arrangement with Pedretti Gaming to produce classic Williams remakes alongside their continued partnership with Chicago Gaming Company. The hosts express frustration with Chicago Gaming's production delays and discuss concerns about Pedretti's Italy-based manufacturing affecting U.S. market distribution.

Key Claims

  • 2023 saw a record number of new pinball games released

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'there were a lot of games this year. It's like a record. The entire time in the hobby, this was the most I've ever seen come out easily.'

  • Chicago Gaming Company has not met production targets despite excellent game quality

    high confidence · Tony confirms 'Chicago Gaming in particular has been getting called out a lot. They have been exceedingly slow when it comes to releasing and producing in particular at this point.' Monster Bash and Cactus Canyon cited as examples of severe delays.

  • Pedretti Gaming is now manufacturing Williams remakes for Planetary Pinball

    high confidence · Dennis announces 'Pedretti Gaming, they have been selected by Planetary Pinball. They have an arrangement in place now. They are now going to start remaking classic Williams games, WMS games, so Bally Williams games.'

  • Planetary Pinball's decision to add Pedretti is driven by desire for faster remake production

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'my understanding is that this is mostly driven by a desire by Planetary for remake games to start getting to market faster because... Chicago and Haggis, they ain't exactly lighting the world on fire when it comes to speed.'

  • Chicago Gaming Company has another remake in development based on rumors

    low confidence · Dennis mentions 'There'd been a long-running rumor that they had Twilight Zone. I don't know if that's true or not.'

  • Twippies ceremony will not be held in 2024; results will simply be published

    high confidence · Dennis states 'there will not be a Twippy ceremony, period. It's not going to be at Texas Pinball Festival. It's not going to be online. They're just going to drop the results.'

  • Pedretti Gaming builds machines in Italy, creating shipping disadvantages for U.S. market

    high confidence · Tony argues 'The only thing that didn't click well with me with Planetary's deal with Pedretti is Pedretti, I believe, builds out of Italy... that's one of the biggest things that works against Haggis.'

Notable Quotes

  • “2023 saw a lot of games this year. It's like a record. The entire time in the hobby, this was the most I've ever seen come out easily.”

    Dennis @ ~38:00 — Reflects record production year for pinball industry but also explains cancellation of Pinball Awards due to volume of releases

  • “Chicago Gaming in particular has been getting called out a lot. They have been exceedingly slow when it comes to releasing and producing in particular at this point.”

    Tony @ ~22:00 — Summarizes community frustration with Chicago Gaming's production delays

  • “It's just, it's been a bad look for CGC. And I think that flows well into the year in review. CGC's had a bad looking year. The game looks great, but overall, they've had a rough year.”

    Tony @ ~32:00 — Captures overall negative sentiment about Chicago Gaming despite quality products

  • “We're the big market and so we get what we want. Or else your company may fail.”

    Tony @ ~45:00 — Argues U.S.-based manufacturing should be prioritized for remake distribution due to market dominance

  • “If we could spread it across the year, it wouldn't be painful, but that it's two months.”

    Dennis @ ~16:00 — Explains workload pressures that led to cancellation of Pinball Awards

  • “Zach never wants to take a step backward and make something less than what it last was... anything short of a full-fledged ceremony would have been a step backwards.”

    Dennis @ ~18:00 — Explains perfectionist standards that prevented scaling back Pinball Awards

  • “There are new content creators that are constantly coming in to the game... there should be a lot of pretty good potential for it.”

    Dennis @ ~8:00 — Defends Twippies decision to bar previous winners from new content creator category

  • “It's just, it's been a bad look for CGC... it's like, well, these are pre-production models that are half, they're not quite production models, but they're not prototypes anymore.”

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonZach SharpepersonDavid DennispersonWill O'EddingpersonLucas PepkepersonEmotopersonJosh SharppersonTwippiesevent

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Severe workload and time pressure forcing cancellation of Pinball Awards for 2023

    high · Three organizers (Dennis, Zach, David Dennis) all report being too busy; Dennis working new full-time job with no work-from-home option; David Dennis taking over financial firm; compressed two-month timeline makes award unfeasible

  • ?

    business_signal: Planetary Pinball adding Pedretti Gaming as secondary manufacturer for Williams remakes, signaling dissatisfaction with Chicago Gaming's production capacity

    high · Dennis announces formal arrangement; explicitly states desire to get remakes to market faster; Planetary clarifies this is not end of Chicago Gaming relationship

  • ?

    community_signal: Twippies decision to exclude previous content creator award winners from new category generating mixed community response

    medium · Dennis notes 'some people have said that they wonder if it will... dumb it down' but defends decision, noting new creators constantly emerging across streams, podcasts, and websites

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive reception to Twippies content creator category among community despite some debate about eligibility restrictions

    medium · Dennis notes community feedback was 'very respectful and polite' even from those disagreeing; received emails and Discord conversations supporting the changes

  • ?

    event_signal: Twippies awards structure overhauled with content creator category added and live ceremony cancelled

    high · Will O'Edding announced changes; ceremony will not be held in-person or online; results will simply be published; new content creator category merged multiple content formats

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.329

0:00
Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, December 24th. It's Christmas Eve. It is. And we're recording anyway. Yes. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to our listeners. This is a gift that we've made this great exception and chosen to record on an almost holiday. On an almost holiday. That's right.
0:39
When you sent me the message last week and it's like, are you okay to record it? It's like, it's just Christmas Eve. Nobody cares. I say it like that because I'm like, sometimes people are like traveling.
0:52
That's true. I work with somebody who, between, like, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, they go to, like, seven places. Yeah. Their Christmas holiday basically starts at, like, 8 a.m. Christmas Eve morning as they just transition from home to home to home to home to home. And it sounds terrible. It does. And I've known a few others that have that family politic thing where it's like, yeah, well, I'm always going to be like, why are they rushing out? and it'd be like, oh, they've got to get to the, all right, they did the dad's side of the family, now they're doing the mom's side of the family, and then one of their extended family groups does something else. It's like all on Christmas Day they're just hopping around. It's like this doesn't sound like it's worth the appeasement. Right. But, hey, you do you, as they say. I know the one, it's like, well, we go to my mom's side of the family and then my spouse's mom's side of the family, then my spouse's dad's side of the family, then my dad's side. It's just like, I just, no. I mean, it sounds like, I don't know if you've ever been to one of those family Christmas gatherings where only one person is allowed to unwrap a present at a time so everybody can pay attention to the one person unwrapping a present to make it a big special thing. One time. We did that as a large family when I was younger. One time. And that was it because everyone was like, okay, we've all unwrapped two presents. And it's been an hour.

  • Cactus Canyon was rolled out as pre-production model at Chicago Expo in October 2021

    high confidence · Dennis confirms 'CGC rolled that out, literally rolled that out into the hall... and then there were all these delays.'

    • Tony @ ~31:00 — Criticizes Chicago Gaming's inability to transition from pre-production to full production

    Pinball Awardsevent
    Planetary Pinballcompany
    Pedretti Gamingcompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Haggis Pinballcompany
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Chicago Expo 2021event
    Cactus Canyongame
    Monster Bashgame
    Naps Arcadecompany
    Rick W.person
    Robert G.person
    Sid Fathomperson
    Canada's Pinball Podcastorganization
    Kerry Hardyperson
  • $

    market_signal: Record number of pinball games released in 2023 contributing to cancellation of industry awards

    high · Dennis states 'there were a lot of games this year. It's like a record. The entire time in the hobby, this was the most I've ever seen come out easily'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Zach Sharpe transitioning away from Pinball Awards organization due to workload at Flippin' Out Pinball

    high · Dennis states 'Zach hasn't been on the committee since the first year, but he does all the ceremony work... he's busy with flipping out pinball. He's not feeling it this year.'

  • $

    market_signal: International manufacturing by Pedretti Gaming in Italy creating shipping cost disadvantages for U.S. market dominance

    high · Tony expresses concern about shipping costs to U.S.; references Haggis shipping costs making games appear overpriced; argues 'we're the big market and so we get what we want'

  • ?

    product_concern: Chicago Gaming Company experiencing sustained production crisis despite maintaining game design quality

    high · Multiple references to severe delays; Tony states 'No one has supply chain issues anymore, except for some reason, CGC still can't build anything with any degree of speed'; characterized as 'well into the stage of ridiculous'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Chicago Gaming Company rumored to have Twilight Zone remake in development

    low · Dennis mentions 'There'd been a long-running rumor that they had Twilight Zone. I don't know if that's true or not.'

    • 2:35
    Now, when my niece was really small, we would still, we do all the presents together, but she was so slow at unwrapping. I don't, like, it was by design, like mentally, it had to be by design. She wasn't just like bad at tearing paper. She was just really, she'd want to immediately unbox whatever was opened and start playing with it. And then you'd have to kind of coax her into getting to the one time. I think it took over an hour for her to open all of her gifts. She was very young, so we probably went overboard on the gifts. Now I try and be like, okay, maybe I'll buy two things off her list because I don't want to overly spoil.
    3:15
    But it's just like, she got better. Because I was just like, oh, my gosh. No, no, no. We don't need to open the Play-Doh right now. You got 12 other things sitting right beside you. And it fascinated me because as a kid, I wanted to rip through all that stuff and see everything as quickly as possible. I never wanted to – even if I had the main thing I wanted already opened, I – You wanted to make sure there wasn't a secret better thing there. Well, I always just wanted to just – you get through that process and you pick – there's no – even as a kid, I just remember just being stuff all over the floor. It's like you can't walk, and we need to get some degree of order installed. Now, what I would try and do as a kid is I would try and guess which present was the best present, and I'd open those last. so I grabbed boxes and if they were rectangles and they were soft then I was like alright those are probably shirts let's open those first those are going to be from the extended family and then one time I still this one I threw away a box and apparently I left the $50 that was in it it was like close pinned to something and I didn't even like I took it off the pin and I threw the $50 away I just had to be extra careful moving forward with that stuff but But – and then whatever was heavy was usually – I usually went off of weight, not size. So whatever was heavy was usually what I opened. Now, sometimes it was maybe a big, like, video game thing or a toy, and other times it might be a mag light. You just – You never knew. You never knew with the weight thing. The weight thing wasn't always a good option, but – So what have you been doing over the last couple weeks? Anything interesting? Actually, I know. Yeah. Yeah, we had. You talked a little bit about the drainage situation last time, I believe. Yeah, I did. All that stuff had gotten fixed, and everything's been good there. And then been just real busy getting ready for the holidays and work. And we've got a lot of, not construction, but a lot of contractors doing work, trying to get finished before the end of the year. so there's been a lot of stuff going on there and uh but we had the the stomach virus like sweep through like the entirety of our employee things like last week including myself so that was just terrible but we didn't have to record last week so it worked out yeah luckily because i i wouldn't have been there yeah i've been a dennis fellow episode those are great if you I like episodes that are 20 minutes long.
    5:47
    But otherwise, it was definitely, it's just been all that end of the year. It doesn't feel like it's the end of the year. It doesn't feel like it's Christmas time, at least not to me. It's not. It feels like this year has flown by really fast. So we have been trying to get all my year-end paperwork done and everything. So it's just been hectic. Yeah, similar for me. except instead of it being kind of like year-end wrap-up stuff, there's a little bit of that. But, you know, this is my first time at this new job, and apparently we're doing like all the 2025 budget stuff is like due January 4th. So I'm doing this almost two-year-out thing, and I'm just like, I don't know what any of this means. So I'm learning how to write all those requests up and stuff. So it's been but overall, that's been I was going to say I'm actually less stressed at this job than I was at my last one. That's good. It is. I was surprised because I knew there'd be a learning curve and I'm still adapting to that. But there are people there actually like people here. So there's all sorts of stuff where people know how to do it or they do it like it's their job. And so I might oversee it, but I don't need to do it all by myself. And it's just it's dramatically different. So even though I have probably far more meetings than I ever did before, I don't feel the same stress level of being like, oh, yeah, because I can't, you know, at the old place, it would be like, make sure you go to this meeting and you have to print all of the checks and sign them all yourself and make sure every bill is paid and make sure payroll goes through. And everything was on me pretty much. And so I was always worried in the background about making a mistake. Right. And here, yeah, I still worry about making mistakes, but I feel like there are fewer chances to make them. So that's been good. Or not just that there's fewer chances to make them, but that there's more chances for somebody to notice it before it becomes a problem. Right. Yeah, there are processes in place that can catch a lot of stuff because it's very bureaucratic, which is, in that regard, a very good thing. Of course, it's also less flexible. So not like in terms of time and stuff for me, but I mean, like, if I want to do something, there are more steps I have to jump through. You can't just get a wild hair and go, I'm just going to do blank. Yeah, yeah. No, that was a – but I knew I'd be giving that up when you move from sort of an executive director position into staff. Right. But I don't really miss it. Only the flexibility when I want it. Let's just do it. Oh, no, no. There are rules here, Dennis. I'm like, aw. But my idea is great. Trust me.
    8:22
    Can I go to the board and say, trust me? Like Han? If I said, like, ha-ha, will they believe me? Like, no.
    8:29
    All right. Well, all we could have done is try. Speaking of trying, this is our year-end review episode for 20.3. So we have a ton of stuff. I love doing the year-end review because I think it's a good opportunity, as we move here into the pinball section in particular, just to kind of recap briefly, we have always done it around manufacturers. and then kind of quickly summarize what's been going on and then give our thoughts kind of about the future. We get out of our crystal ball. We look off into the distance and try and see what's going to happen and then constantly get it wrong. But it's the effort that matters. We try. But we do have a few pieces of news that we need to get into before that. However, I do want to go ahead up front and say we do have actually a couple of new Patreon members. Rick W., thank you. He joined at the high support level. And Robert G. actually moved up from the basic support level to the intermediate level. Thank you so much. We thank you, and we thank everyone who has been supporting the channel. And related to that, I also want to thank everyone who reached out regarding our last episode when we discussed the Twippies. Even the people that didn't agree with our take on the solution to the situation were very respectful and polite. Everything I heard was that. And we actually had quite a few emails that came in to our clickthegamerspodcast.gmail.com address. I also had a few people reach out to me on Facebook directly.
    9:55
    And we had some good conversations on Discord. Right, and express support. And we had some very interesting conversations on Discord. And, again, the Discord invite is in the description of this and all our episodes. So if you're not on the Discord, it's not tied to Patreon. You can join it whenever you want. Yeah, it's just an open Discord. Yep. So, anyway, everyone was very, very nice about it, even those that didn't think we were right on the issue were very nice. So I appreciate that. It's not a topic I want to continue discussing. However, there is some news related to the Twippies, so let's go ahead and get through that. First, after we did the episode, Will O'Edding, who is, I believe, the committee head of the Twippies, he basically owns the Twippies, he put out an announcement indicating a few changes. One was they went ahead and added in a content creator category, I believe, in response to the feedback, because there were a lot of people, including a number of content creators, who were really upset that there was nothing in the Twippies to recognize content creators. So there's one award, kind of like the Video Game Awards does. There's one content creator award. There's also a provision that anyone who's already won a content creator award, including the former content creator categories, they are not eligible to win the award moving forward. So that ruled out Canada's Pinball Podcast. It rules out, I think, like Pinside and Twip have won for website. it rolls out straight down the middle and Todd Tuckey they've both won for YouTube before Dead Flip for streaming so all of those entities are not eligible for the award moving forward because they've already won a content creator award and the logic that was grounded on was that they see there being more value in recognizing different entities moving forward and you know that's an interesting discussion online some people have said that they wonder if it will, this isn't the way they've said it, but I'll say it this way, dumb it down. Like, you start eliminating all the, like, all right, all the big ones win it, and then there'll just be these little guys left. In theory, that could happen. It's kind of like when the pinball awards were doing their Hall of Fame and you're doing the games from 2000 to 2009. It's like, you're going to stop that eventually, right? Because at some point you're down to, like, Striker Extreme and Austin Powers, and are they really Hall of Fame? Do they deserve that? Right, right, right. So that was a bridge we were going to have to probably cross at some stage if we were to keep doing that.
    12:21
    In this instance, though, I think it's important to note there are new content creators that are constantly coming in to the game. So I don't think it's the same. In theory, it could happen, definitely. But I don't think it's the same level of risk because there are all sorts of new streamers, especially since it's across. It's not just streamers or just podcasters. It's across all of it. So honestly, there should be a lot of pretty good potential for it. Now, whether people like the award as much under this or less, I don't know. It's still going to be actually – it's going to be even more competitive this way. Oh, I think so. Because they've merged all these fields. Right. So, like, Kerry Hardy might be – you know, if he was just up against YouTubers is one thing, but he's got to compete against, like, Dope Panic Flip on the streaming side, and he's got to compete with Slam Tilt on the podcast side, and so there's all of that. Incidentally, Twippy Voting is now open. The other big piece of news that we'll announce, and this is even bigger, I would say, is there will not be a Twippy ceremony, period. It's not going to be at Texas Pinball Festival. It's not going to be online. They're just going to drop the results. And so I do feel bad for Lucas Pepke, who is going to be the new host with Emoto, who's done it several times because they were getting it ready to – at first I thought maybe they were going to do this online, but it sounds like – Like everything was done during COVID years. Most of the Twippy ceremonies, as I think back on the six that they've done, like this would have been, I mean, it's been about 50-50 for online. Because the first couple of years were online only. And then they did a couple at Texas, I think. And then there was COVID. So two of those ended up being virtual. And then last year's was in person. Or the last two have been in person. Anyway, they've done a number online before. But they're just dropping the results without doing a ceremony. which given all of the – I think it's wise for two reasons. One, regardless of, I guess, who made the decision about it not being at Texas, given what's been going on, I could definitely imagine that there was a security concern. Definitely. I can see the very positive reasons to not do a live in-person event. And I don't even just mean, like, threat of violent security, but just sheer heckling, disruption, nonsense. It's rare. TPF is like an open bar event. Yeah, it's like, well, yeah, they do it. They've always had a cash bar in the past. Yeah, I had someone the last time I attended who came up. I won't say who they are because I'm not trying to embarrass anyone. But they came up and sat down beside me, and they just started very loudly. You probably remember that. Oh, yes. Why don't you like me? They're asking me why I don't like them. And I was like, we played games earlier. What are you talking about? Are you drunk? I didn't say any of this. I'm just staring for it the whole time. And they just, they were just really drunk. And they got, like, people started shushing them. They were so loud. I mean, the sound really carried because half the people at this point had walked out of the Twippies because it had gone so long. This was a really bad year. The ceremony was really bad. So anyway, I was just like, oh, gosh. I get it because it gets people in the room. But it was like, this is what, this is every pinball stereotype I've got going on right now. Oh, gosh. So, anyway, liquor plus high emotions, not a good mix. Right. In my experience. So, anyway, so there's a change on that. And then another award announcement, the pinball awards. Some people still call it the pinball industry awards. That's what we originally called it. I helped found those with Zach over three years ago. We've done three of them. This would have been the fourth. We are not doing it for 2023.
    16:06
    And we delayed on announcing this because the Twitter stuff started to blow up. And we're like, we don't want this tied to that because it's not related. And people are going to want to relate it. Yeah. We had already been talking, particularly in November, because three people in particular do a large volume of the work in the lead up to analyzing the ballots. And that's me, David Dennis, who you know because you've been on my watch channel with him several times, and Zach. And Zach hasn't been on the committee since the first year, but he does all the ceremony work. So he's putting on the show, and he's just like he's busy with flipping out pinball. He's not feeling it this year. I'm busy with my new job. I don't work from home at all anymore. I'm not feeling it this year. David Dennis is in the process of fully taking over, I think, his financial firm. So he's really busy. It doesn't seem to really be feeling, you know, we, and it was, but the reason why it was so hard in particular, separate from the twippy stuff, because then there's like this pressure. We started to see people online going, well, at least there'll be this. And we're like, uh, maybe we need to talk about it. We're going to do it. And it's like, well, but all of our challenges are still that all of the pressure, the frustrations, you know, we could do it on the cheap, you know, scale it way back or something. But I know, for example, with Zach, if you, you know, Zach. Oh, yeah. The way his personality is, he never wants to take a step backward and, like, make something less than what it last was. It should always be improving, but never backwards. Maybe maintain, but never backwards. And this would have – anything short of a full-fledged ceremony would have been a step backwards. And so that wasn't going to work for him. We didn't have a good backup plan otherwise from that anyway. And as I noted, David and I were like, you know, when are we going to build the ballot out and stuff? Normally we would already have the judges and everything. and we hadn't done any of that. So the problem, of course, separate from the Twippy thing is there were a lot of games this year. It's like a record. The entire time in the hobby, this was the most I've ever seen come out easily. And that we're not recognizing anything is unfortunate. But, hey, anyone else can spin up an award thing. We're not saying that we won't do the pinball awards in the future. And we could see about doing a two-year combination or something. We've not discussed it, though. But anyway, FYI, it's not happening. But it's not because of the Twippies. It just fell at a bad time that everything came out. Yeah, it's just, it's just, it's a lot. It's kind of funny because you could say, well, is it a lot of work? I expect some people online say it's not a lot of work to put together an awards thing.
    18:40
    I don't know how they think that. Well, it depends on what you want to do. Like, if you want to go ahead and throw up some Facebook polls or some Pennside polls or something, yeah, it's a joke. And you can do it really, really easily. but if you want to put on a ceremony you want to make sure one of the big things with the pinball awards was we were really focused on transparency so while people loved to meme and joke about how it was like, oh Zach's doing this to give himself an award Zach didn't even vote in those things, much less as I noted after the first year he wasn't even on the governance committee overseeing everything, but we have multiple people going in to our SurveyMonkey thing to check the ballots We do an invite system so we know who the judges are. They're all tied to an email address. There's no rogue votes that come in, and we still have reviews. Like, all of that's work just to maintain, for people that want to seriously look at it, just to maintain the credibility of it, to say, no, this is how it's controlled. Here's every step. We announce every judge. All of that's work. Building the skip logic of the ballot is work. I built that skip logic. We started to piggyback off of it for the subsequent years, so it got easier, except when all of a sudden you have twice as many awards, I can't just, like, take the old one and just clone it because there's new skips that have to happen. So it's just a whole, you know, I don't remember how much Zach spent, thousands on the trophies because flipping out sponsored bows. So, I mean, it's a big money sink, too, quite frankly. Well, and I've been on the outside of it because I've only done, you know, some of the – You've been a voter because you've qualified as a judge. Right. I've qualified as a judge, but I've not been on a committee. I've been on the outside, but I've seen it from the amount of stuff you do and just how much time that you pour into it every year.
    20:28
    I can definitely see how with everybody having stuff going on, it's just hard. You've got to find a balance between what amounts to a hobby and your actual life. If we could spread it across the year, it wouldn't be painful, but that it's two months. Right. Because one of my and this is a dentist problem because I was the one who really insisted on this was I wanted the award out before February because one of the things I didn't like about the Twippies when they moved to doing it at TPF was why are we recognizing 2023 stuff at the end of the first quarter? Now, that's around Oscars time, so it's really not shockingly late, but I just thought it was only there because that's when Texas is. But I get it's a great stage for them, so I understood it, but I thought if we're not doing that, we should be getting the award out in January. But we couldn't start the ballot until December, and that's using a December prior year through November curve. And it just it made the cycle really tight because the other issue was a lot of people thought we picked the judges. We don't. We had criteria for people to become judges. But the problem is not everyone. In fact, most people who are eligible to be judges don't know about it. So you end up trying to reach out to just like like the first year I was just emailing podcasts I had never heard before. I was researching pinball podcasts online, finding out if they had had the number of like the five episodes that they needed in the year. And I would email them. I'd be like, hey, you're eligible for this if you want to. Here's a link to you. You have to ask to be a judge. We won't. We don't make anyone be a judge. We don't because we're, again, to control the ballots, to make sure that nothing's getting stuffed or manipulated. We have people fill out an application because then we would do custom links for everyone to control. Yeah. To make sure that they weren't sharing a ballot with anyone else and getting multiple votes.
    22:20
    All the things that I had a problem with with people's choice. which I had heard that someone had done some sort of I don't know. People have tried some other little things around this currently and there have been vote stuffs and stuff that have happened which again, that stuff happens but it's really not relevant. I want to move on because I feel like we're spending too much time on the reward topic. Let's get through some real quick pinball news before we move into our year-end review which is the part I want to get into, but there has been news in pinball. Pedretti Gaming, they have been selected by Planetary Pinball. They have an arrangement in place now. They are now going to start remaking classic Williams games, WMS games, so Bally Williams games.
    23:11
    This is not the first time that Planetary has done this. Most people know that Planetary for years has had an arrangement with the Chicago Gaming Company to do remakes. They've done four of them, Monster Bash, Cactus Canyons, which are still being built, and then back in the day, Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars. They also have an arrangement with Haggis out of Australia, which Sid Fathom and his gang are ready to do Centaur. Those are arrangements with Planetary to do, in those cases, old Valley games. Right. So my understanding is that this is mostly driven by a desire by Planetary for remake games to start getting to market faster. because I don't know if you've noticed, Tony, because I don't think you've been in the market to buy any of them, but Chicago and Haggis, they ain't exactly lighting the world on fire when it comes to speed. No, no, they're not. And I'd say Chicago Gaming in particular has been getting called out a lot. They have been exceedingly slow when it comes to releasing and producing in particular at this point. Monster Bash was incredibly slow to get launched. It was. Cactus Canyon has been incredibly slow to build, but they're still building that game. Because that was the whole big thing when we went to Chicago in 21?
    24:31
    October of 21. Because that was our first show after. Our first and last expo. Yeah. I was going to say that was the first show after the COVID lockdown. Yeah, we ended up doing that because Texas had gotten canceled again in early 2021. So we went and we did Chicago, and then we did the Texas right after that, and then we got back to just doing it. Because Tony and I normally do one show a year. Right. So that's what we did. And, yeah, CGC rolled that out, literally rolled that out into the hall. We weren't in the seminar, but they rolled them out, and they had them, and then there were all these delays. and initially it was like, okay, they're probably delayed because of all that. I mean, Stern was slow on certain titles. You know, there were the supply chain issues. Like Stern was pointing out, well, the Ford F-150 uses one of the same microprocessor chips that Stern's spike board set relies on. So, you know, it was like, okay, so everyone's having supply chain issues. No one has supply chain issues anymore, except for some reason, CGC still can't build anything with any degree of speed. So, there is a link in the show notes to an article at Nap Arcade that I encourage you to go read if you want to explore more to learn about this. But what are your thoughts about them turning to Pedretti? So, Pedretti is who I believe is like Pinball Brothers and Pedretti are conjoined at this stage. Right. I think, I mean, if they get more games out, more remakes out, good, as long as the quality stays decent. because that's one thing you can say for CGC is no matter how slow they've been, the game qualities and how they've looked has always been amazing.
    26:15
    So as long as the qualities stay halfway decent, I think it'll work out. We'll just have to see what actually ends up happening. Yeah, I think this is a good move on Planetary's part. I definitely don't blame them for wanting to make this move. They also did issue some sort of clarifying language, Planetary did, that this is not the end of their CGC relationship.
    26:39
    Yeah. That they plan to continue forward with CGC. The way it was phrased made it, when I read it more closely, it did, because I wondered if they were phrasing it in a way like, well, CGC will still make the four remakes they've done. The way it was actually written made it sound like there may be more remakes in the future. I've heard rumblings in my rumors, you know, from the dankest corners of my rumor cornering. I have been hearing that, yes, CGC does have another remake in the works, some phase or range of it. There'd been a long-running rumor that they had Twilight Zone. I don't know if that's true or not. Man, that would be a rough one. Yeah, I mean, come on. They didn't even, I mean, where's Pulp Fiction?
    27:21
    Yeah. Yeah I mean exactly It just like it doesn matter how good your build quality is if you if you can get anything out In fact it getting to the point where I feel like we might need to be a little harsher on CGC than maybe we have been because this is I think this is well into the stage of ridiculous at this point And it's just that's whatever. I would love to know what their justification is, because I'm sure it's terrible. Oh, it has to be, but I mean, because they rolled it out at TPF, obviously, because they had to for probably licensing reasons. I think Josh Sharp had confirmed that somewhere, but I don't recall for sure. Right. And then they were talking about fall, and it is December. And they built one, which, like, they built one to make a, like, quote, unquote, and it still wasn't third quarter. It was Q4. Right. But no one's getting them is the problem. It's like this slow ramp up. but it's like, well, these are the pre-production models that are half, they're not quite production models, but they're not prototypes anymore. They're in between, but they count as production. And it's just, it's been a bad look for CGC. And I think that flows well into the year in review. CGC's had a bad looking year. The game looks great, but overall, they've had a rough year. Yeah, the only thing that didn't click well with me with Planetary's deal with Pedretti is Pedretti, I believe, builds out of Italy.
    28:56
    Most of your remake sales are going to be in the U.S. market. You should be turning to a U.S. manufacturing, like, someplace that has a factor. I don't care if the Italians own it. I'm just saying, like, shipping-wise and stuff, that's one of the biggest things that works against Haggis. haggis is great if all you want to do is sell to australia but when you start showing people those shipping prices to get their stuff over to the u.s it starts making things that might look fair maybe to look overpriced so when you start looking at almost a grand in shipping costs and i mean and i can understand like maybe australians for example saying well you know that's how we feel with the u.s stuff and i'm like i totally get it but uh we're the big market and so we get what we want. Or else your company may fail. I mean, this is how it is.
    29:45
    If China was a big market to buy pinball machines, then building in China would make a lot of sense. But they aren't. Right. It is what it is. But anyway. I don't want to spend $10,000 on a machine and then $1,200 to have it shipped to my house. It's a lot. The biggest problem with pinball is the weight of those things. It's a big pain. Okay. Year-end review. So I have organized our internal notes, Tony, in a way you're very familiar with. I've basically gone through and listed every notable company I could think of. Am I missing any? I probably am. If I'm missing any that you care about, you can write into. Don't write in. I don't care.
    30:23
    Yeah, I don't want to hear it. So sorry if your company was left off and you're sad. Do, you know, get your company to be more.
    30:32
    I'm missing CGC. I am. Holy cow. Okay. I didn't even look through the list. That's because I talked about CGC earlier.
    30:43
    But I'm going to stick them in. I'm going to stick them in, but not at the very start. We need a CGC break. We need an aperitif to get – I can't believe I left CGC. Actually, I can because I didn't do anything this year. The way I tried to think of it was what companies that put out games. Well, and we'd also mentioned them immediately above in the notes. Yeah, I know, but I strongly avoided them. Okay. Anyway, let's start with Stern because, yeah, why wouldn't we? Why don't you start with the Big Daddy? Yeah, well, I mean. Okay, so Stern this year. The main things, let's see. They put out Foo Fighters, huge sales hit for them. They put out Venom, not huge sales hit for them. I've still not played it. I think there's one on location. There is. In fact, we might have two on location now. Yeah, but I've not gotten a chance. I almost went, I was planning on going last weekend to the tournament, but I wasn't feeling great, so I decided to stay home. And then that night I got hit with that stomach thing, so they may be glad I hadn't gone. Yes.
    31:46
    Yeah, I need to get to another tournament. I haven't done one since before I changed jobs. Let's see. They put out the Blood Red Kiss edition of Avira, which was very popular in terms of its artwork, but also raised a lot of questions regarding, well, there was already the 40th anniversary, and now to a lot of people there's this better looking, cheaper version. Right. They also did the Jurassic Park, what, 30th or 35th edition. They did basically a new LE run of Jurassic Parks with new art. They brought back Stranger Things, which had long been rumored given the final season and all of that. But a lot of people were excited because Stranger Things was one of those games that did not go over well when it came out, but it got to a place where people really wanted it.
    32:30
    And I'd say a couple other news things of note to them. They finally put out an app, a phone app, for Insider Connected to make it easier to access versus, you know, going through your browser and logging in. and they went ahead and greenlit what I refer to as fire sale, where distributors are basically now been getting permission to close out games that they have stuck in inventory that Stern doesn't make anymore. So the home edition pinball machines were allowed to be fire sale. Led Zeppelins, Rush, those sort of games were allowed to be fire sale. So just normally distributors with Stern and most of the other pinball manufacturers have these provisions where they're not allowed to sell below a certain price point. But, of course, when stuff starts to not move, it begs the question,
    33:20
    if they can't ever sell it, how are they supposed to free up more inventory space and, more importantly, cash to buy more games? Because they're buying the games. Like, CERN isn't getting paid when I buy a game. They're getting paid when the distributor buys the game. So that was a big shift up. So, I mean, what were your thoughts on this year? Or maybe sort of tied to that, what do you think this all means as we go into 2024. I think Stern had a good year. I think the fire sale thing to me is probably the biggest, and it makes the most sense. You don't have people stuck with, you know, WWE sitting on the shelf 15 years after the game came out that they can't get rid of, and it's just costing them space and money.
    34:01
    But overall, I feel like their game releases were the – it was weak. It was a weak year even for them. Foo Fighters was great, Venom, meh, and then everything else was just re-releases and repackages. Yeah, it seems like they did move into their new factory, and it seems like they're really, really trying to keep the line busy, which, hey, they have mouths to feed.
    34:29
    They got employees. They got to do what they got to do. Foo, I think, really benefited. I've said this a few times on the pinball show that I co-host with Zach. I feel it was the last gasp of the pandemic mentality where people were just sort of buying up everything. And a lot of them have hit the market now because it's not necessarily the hardest game in the world. But it went over very, very well. It was a good showing. One might say freshman showing for Jack Danger. Yes, he had designed a game before, but it was a home edition. This was his first cornerstone. So that resonated really well. Venom, as you noted, hasn't performed, I imagine, the way Stern had hoped it would. I thought Dwight Sullivan got very creative and experimental with the rules. The problem is, when you look at it, it is the fanniest fan layout to ever fan, especially the Pro, which doesn't have the game state changes. So even though it probably shoots quite nicely, if you want to fan, there are plenty out there. A lot of people already own them, so the layout doesn't feel creative. And I think that hurt it. As you noted, a lot of other new releases, a lot of people are really waiting for Jaws, which everyone thinks the announcement is imminent. I'm hearing early January at this point. Wouldn't surprise me. And so that should probably, we'll see how that goes. It's obviously a theme that a lot of people are really interested in. And with it being noted that that's going to be Keith Elwin's game, and he is seen as the greatest designer in the game, I think that it will probably do well for Stern. But the fire sale stuff, smart move as well, because they're realizing that this ain't 2020 through 2022 anymore. These games are going to depreciate, and they're going to sit in distros that have bought, have to be able to free stuff up. I also think Stern doesn't raise prices in January. I think you're right. I think you're right because I think that as rough as this year was, I think next year is going to be a really rough one on the hobby due to continuing economics. It's going to be a year that I think is going to be the worst year for just general sales we've seen in penball probably since before we started the podcast, in all honesty. I think next year is going to be when it really starts to hit, that the shift and change from the pure amazement of the COVID years and the buildup to the COVID years really starts to come apart. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about whether that was going to be like the crypto winter, pinball winter sort of landscape, but I do not expect sales to be better. I do agree with you. I think 2024 is going to be a softer year than 2023 because there remains market uncertainty. I don't know that it's going to be like a wasteland collapse terribleness. There's no way that it is better, and I think it will be worse than 2023. Right. No, I don't think there's a collapse, I think.
    37:45
    It comes down to whether or not we actually enter a recession. I've seen some people saying we're not in a recession, folks. But we're in a very weird state right now where unemployment remains really low. But market performance has been strong, even with all the interest rate increases that have happened. But the interest rates being high to combat inflation, even if everything held steady, because they're higher now here at the end of 2023 than they were at the beginning. The problem is credit is more expensive. It's more expensive to borrow. And so debt purchasing is an issue for folks. So even if they're not debt financing their pinball machines, which I do not advise you to debt finance fun. So I do not debt finance. Debt is for things you need. Debt should not be for fun. It's like homes and cars and stuff. Yeah, things that you need. But if you've got debt in those things and now it's costing more to service your credit card fees than everything else or to service your mortgage than anything else, there's less money to spend on pinball. Not to mention what we already saw this year, which I think will continue to manifest as people get more and more comfortable in a quote unquote post pandemic environment and doing things like travel and experiences.
    39:02
    And it was different when you felt like you had to stay at home. And so you bought stuff to entertain yourself at home. A lot of these pinball people, they might keep the pinball. They might stay and be a part of their lives forever, but they're not going to just scoop these things up like baseball cards. Right. We're seeing this everywhere. All right, let's go ahead and move on to the next company, JJP. Okay, so Jersey Jack Pinball.
    39:27
    They put out two games in a calendar year. That was good for them. Yep. They got Godfather out in the spring, and then much more recently at Pinball Expo here in the fall, they revealed Elton John. Mm-hmm. the other thing besides those two games that I think was really noteworthy with them is kind of and this happened before the Stern fire sale stuff so I think it's noteworthy to say that even though we're talking about it second and that is they had a scenario where their games and their games by and large are basically the most expensive on the market like $12,000 and $15,000 each year same rules as Stern they ended up with a distributor who broke the sales floor rules and just started selling, fire-sailing games that they could not move. And that distributor basically dared JJP to do something. JJP blinked and didn't enforce anything, but also didn't grant permission. And then last I heard, then other distributors just all started breaking those terms too. Right. Because JJP put themselves, awkwardly, they did not manage it like CERN did. They were just kind of like, well, this is what the terms say, and then everyone's all like, yeah, I got Toy Story 4 sitting here, and you're telling me that after all these years, I still can't sell it for less than $12,000. You've got to be kidding me. Especially when you see them on the used market for. Yeah, exactly. And that's the problem, is that's where the competition is. No, it makes sense. And again, I think this really did drive Stern's decisions to handle things how they handled it. I wondered it as well. I mean, it just makes sense. When you see this kind of thing blow up, you just go, yeah, no, no, that's right. It comes off much better PR for Stern than it did for J.J.P. So what do you think happens with J.J.P. in 2024?
    41:20
    One game. Maybe an announcement right at the end of the year. But I think they need a big win because, in all honesty, Godfather was not. And I've not heard anything great on Elton John. I know some people like the layout. The theme's better than Godfather. It is. Because music pins are usually, there's a market for basically any music pin. It's like the safe choice, generally.
    41:50
    I struggle to imagine that JJP will have a weaker year on themes. They would have to be really, really inept. And all the rumored themes I've heard that they've got are all better than what they've put. Right. But this is kind of like, you know how there's like the Man with No Name trilogy, the Sergio Leone films, or we've got the Matrix trilogy, and then they added the fourth one that I've never seen. And this felt like we've just gotten through J.J.P.'s Bad Theme trilogy, where they did Toy Story 4. Would have been a great theme, but you added a 4.
    42:24
    Godfather, the worst of the three. And then Revenge of the Elton John, which is maybe the best. I mean, I thought Toy Story plays well, the rules and whatever, but I thought it plays well. The Elton John layout looks great, but, you know, I like Steve Ritchie layout. But theme-wise, no, not something that's going to light the world on fire. And do you think Harry Potter, you know, the rumors they've got Harry Potter or they've got Hogwarts or something, you know, I hear different things about it. They truly have Harry Potter. But do you think that drops in 2024? for. If they have that. If that drops. That's the kind of theme because that's a game that's going to sell no matter how crap it is. I'm hoping their new designer, I think it's Mark Seiden, I'm hoping we finally see his, whatever he's working on. That would be nice. Because it seems weird to me that you brought in Steve well after Mark and Steve's game's out. Like, where's Mark's game? I'm watching Mark's game. Unless it's on such a big license, such a big title that it's Taking extra polishing. I think, like I thought with Stern, I do not think JJP raises price. I think JJP realizes they really screwed the pooch when they went to the $12,000, $15,000 price tier, and they have been stuck unwilling to lower it because of the humiliation that it was. Right. I mean, it's not just humiliation. It hurts them badly. I'm laying it on a little thick. But the problem is if they were to drop prices, it basically devalues their product. So they don't want to drop. We see this in the wristwatch hobby because one time before I was a collector, Richemont dropped prices like 5% on their brands. I mean, like collectors were furious because all of a sudden everything they bought was worthless.
    44:08
    You could argue if they kept 1215K pricing on the games that are 1215 and then dropped it on a future game, that would be a different story. And I would agree it would be. We saw AP, American Pinball, did that when Hot Wheels came out. They dropped the price. We've seen Pinball Brothers do this a few times. I don't know. But I think they've reached too high, and especially with what you noted with the cooling of the market. Yeah. It's just this is not the time to be the Cadillac of Pimla. Well, and that's the thing is why your choice, if there are two themes that you think are equally cool for whatever possible theme that is that works for you, and your choice is to get the top-of-the-line stern one at $10 or the top-of-the-one-line JJP at $15, with how the economy and stuff is going, that's going to be an extra leaning factor for people to go to the stern side because that's $5,000.
    45:15
    I think the premiums at least are just under $10,000. But the LEs are just the premiums with a better art package, arguably. But another thing that we didn't really note with Stern, but it relates to that cooling market. So I think it was implied in your statement, like what we saw with Venom. LEs are readily available at distros. We're no longer in an environment where even all the LEs just sell out because they're seen as investments. That has to be petrifying to JJP. I would assume so. And that's why I think that they went with Elton John and formally ended the LE tier and renamed it the Platinum tier. Because it was always, quite frankly, ridiculous to have a 5,000-unit limited edition. What are they, Seiko? What is this? That number means nothing. It's too much. You're not selling 5,000 of the model. Right. The closest they probably ever got was Guns N' Roses, and I heard they barely broke 4,000. Which is great. I mean, that's a great amount of stuff. That's a good run. I don't want to downplay that. But that's still quite a stretch from five. Yes. So, anyway. And if from five, then that would only be one of the offered additions.
    46:25
    All right. So, the one I wanted to leave off, because we already talked about it, Chicago Gaming Company. So, they revealed Pulp Fiction, a collaboration game,
    46:33
    and their Turnout Cactus Canyon Remake Pluses that had been discussed years ago. So what do you think is going on with them?
    46:43
    I honestly don't know. I had supply line issues in mind when the Cactus Canyon problems first started. And I mean, there was the whole thing where, well, they were putting out the regular games, but not the ones with the toppers. So it was something with the toppers. I honestly, at this point, don't know. Because even at work, my supply line issues are pretty much cleared up at this point. Yeah, I, as again, I don't think it's a supply chain issue. I think this is a leadership issue. But I don't know what it is. I don't know, like, is someone, do they have someone who used to do a lot of stuff turn over? Are they just, like, does leadership just kind of like whatever and doesn't crack the whip? Or doesn't do their job and make the pieces move? I don't know what to blame. But at this stage, it feels to me like it has to be a leadership issue. Because I can't, they didn't just forget how to build, did they? It seems ridiculous. So that's where I'm like. Righty tighty. Let's see. Yeah. I mean, they're not out in Wisconsin. It's not their whole assembly team isn't just a bunch of people on meth. So I'm assuming that they're not. So it seems like something's going on organizationally, which means I blame leadership as a category. But I don't know. They need some more supervisors or what. But it seems like nothing's happening because no one's telling anyone to do certain things. And they need to get that figured out. And then the pieces should, in theory, move again. But I don't have good inside scoops on what's going on with CGC. Here's my thing. If I were the company partnering, bringing in Pulp Fiction to CGC, I would be super regretting my decision right now. I definitely would not explore working with CGC in the future. There's no way. I was surprised to see Planetary not say they were pulling all arrangements with CGC, or at least pulling anything other than allowing them to trickle out the four remakes they already have done. Because I have zero confidence in CGC's capabilities of output, which, as you noted, given their reputation of solid build quality, is really sad. because they're so good. They are. Oh, the remake Medieval Madness? Amazing. I would still love a CGC remake of Attack from Mars. Oh, for sure. But, I mean, when would I get it? 2037? I mean, at some point it becomes ridiculous. We've talked about this in the past with Dutch Pinball and The Big Lebowski. At some point after waiting eight years, you should have just gotten your pennies on the dollar back. You getting the game actually meant you lost worse. and I'm they're not to that point but it's bad it looks bad whether it's bad internally I don't know it looks bad it looks like a leadership issue to me speaking of leadership let's move to spooky pinball which Scooby-Doo was announced in 2022 at the end of the year but a lot of people finally got their hands on it in early 2023 we got our hands on it at TPF which was the first show second show it had been out Zoinks! Yep. And then they just recently have announced Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes, which we talked about in the last episode. Yep. So they scaled the pricing. A little weird. Like, the classic pricing went up over Scooby-Doo fairly significantly. The Bloodsucker edition, I think, went up a couple hundred. And the Collector's edition, the highest tier, actually went down in price versus Scooby. So it's a little weird scaling. It looks like to me that Spooky is trying to steer everyone into one model, the highest model. And so they're taking steps rather than just eliminating models like we've seen J.J.P. do for the standard edition. Spooky just seems to be trying to shoehorn everyone into like you'd have to be stupid to not pick the collector's edition approach. But still giving the other options for those that like every few hundred dollars matters. because the difference still between Classic and Collectors is our standard in Collectors is not insignificant. I mean, it is real money. It's not like $10. So they lowered their count, their build count for Texas and Looney versus what they've done with Scooby. What do you think is going on? Like, what do you think in terms of Spooky's decision-making? I mean, 2024, their outfit's been solid. So I fully expect them to keep their timelines and turn out the Texas and the Loonies. I 100% expect Spooky to continue in 24, just like they have the last couple years. I don't expect any major changes from them. I think they're just going to keep tending along like they have. They're in just a nice little niche section of the market. It seems to be working well for them. I feel like they're the second biggest manufacturer at this point. I mean, I feel like they're the second most reliable. Yeah, because I don't really have a good sense, guns and roses, about JJB output in terms of demand. I mean, I think they can output. I think they could outbuild Spooky. They definitely, I think, outquality Spooky. Oh, for sure. That's always remaining to be the biggest question. I think Spooky showed some, they seem willing to learn, but they're not the fastest learners as a company. So by that, I mean they've shown improvement, but it's so incremental as to be frustrating. Like, they're slower at it than everyone else. I mean, they're almost as slow at it as CGC is at building. Almost. I mean, look at how long we had to put up with hot glue before they finally – they did move past it.
    52:41
    The Texas Chainsaw and Looney Tunes layout looks like they finally were like, you know what, let's quit just getting cute and just throw in – It always, to me, felt like they came in with all their toys and then built the layout around their toys. And that's why their layouts are all so terrible. Right. And then here we finally seem to have a better layout. Two different rules teams, so I don't know if the rules will be great or not. I've never been enamored with any rule set on the Spooky Game. No. You could say TNA, even TNA, though. Scott did that all by himself. But it's an extremely linear game. Yeah. It's not a particularly complicated rule set. I don't know. I think they're doing fine. That's my take.
    53:24
    The wish I have is the wish I had for them four years ago, and that is I just wish they'd get this. Operators that I know are still like, you don't put spookies en route unless you're ready to constantly have the game down, not earning money. And they just need to get past that reputation. And I don't know if they can get past that reputation. I do think they're trying. But the problem is they're behind the eight. Kind of like how I talked about with Haggis and Pedretti and not being in the U.S., that Spooky is based in a place that doesn't have a large labor pool, puts them behind the eight ball, I think, on quality, because any time they lose people, you have to train up the person like they've never done pinball before. They don't have that workforce that CGC, Stern, and JJP can all poach. They bring in temps or whatever, and they've done pinball before, because that's where pinball is done. So anyway. So, barrels of fun. So, this was a new surprise. They were the mystery game company doing pretty lame teasers to us. You might not have seen the emails because I kept deleting them because they were obnoxious.
    54:31
    And then they revealed their name, which is silly. And then they revealed their game Labyrinth, which is not silly, which is really strong. And the art package was really strong. and the layout seems decent and the toys are extremely strong and the theme integration is incredible And that Labyrinth is the surprise hit of 2023 It is And I mean they had for all of the silliness about the mystery game company blah blah blah blah blah I feel like the launch of Labyrinth was extremely strong. It hits all the right buttons for the people looking for something like that. They had a very strong out the gate. they had that deep dive on Tested with Adam Savage, which put a game squarely in front of the type of people that the game is aimed at who are not pinball people. Something that I've thought for years is a route that a lot of these companies need to take is to get some of their machines out in front of non-pinball people.
    55:43
    And I think they had a very strong... What's coming from them in the future? I don't know. I have no earthly idea. But this has been a strong opening hand. Yes. My yeah. Moving forward, it will be very interesting to see. This is we've seen a lot since we've been podcasting. We've seen a lot of new companies come in. This is the strongest launch of a new for sure that we have ever seen. And I guess my one thing that I'm a little concerned about is they've made it clear that Barrels of Fun is not called Barrels of Fun Pinball. They want to do more than just pinball. So I worry that they're going to end up like a CGC. And they could as long as they successfully produce and get the games out. That's fine. Sure. That's where they would not be like a CGC. Right. I mean, and I think that's the thing is I don't think a company is required to be, if you're a pinball company, you're a pinball company. I mean, if they want to do other things, they can do other things.
    56:46
    I think if they drop one pinball machine that looks as good as this one does and then never touch pinball again, it'd be a real disappointment for the hobby, provided the game actually plays as well as it looks and is actually decently high quality.
    57:06
    Things that I can't tell until I actually get my hands on a machine. Right. Okay. Next company, Multimorphic. So I'm not going to talk about the third-party releases because Multimorphic doesn't really have direct control over that other than what their approval processes are, but that's not in-house to them. It's not first-party. So Final Resistance was the big reveal from them that it launched twice. They had it at Texas. We played it. And then because they weren't ready to build it at that time, they went ahead and kind of did another launch of the, they tried to get on the hype train again and relaunch the game when they were ready to build it. Unlike Pulp Fiction, which never relaunched because it never came out. But anyway, not to go back and complain about CGC. So that was the big game reveal from Multimorphic this year. the other thing that got a lot of attention in particular on the Pinside forum was what I'm now going to just call 3D Printgate where an open letter to Multimorphic kind of turned into not a particularly long thread but a thread where individuals started sharing images and there was a lot of call out on Multimorphic for using hobbyist 3D print configurations to do high wear parts along with inexpensive disposable servos that had a tendency to fail and ultimately resulted in Multimorphic announcing that while they had planned more than one first party release this year they were suspending all releases while they dealt with quality concern issues in a nutshell so what do you think like what's going to happen moving forward with Multimorphic I think this year was hard for Multimorphic because they came off remember last year their Weird Al announcement, all the Weird Al, and all that hype and the buildup and the Weird Al sales, they were way behind in their construction.
    59:01
    They've had all sorts of issues, and then they rolled into this year, and this year has just been hit after hit to them, just hurting what was already not great. I've talked to a large number of people who came in for Weird Al, and almost all of them have already gotten rid of their Multimorphics. They bought just for Weird Al. so I don't think that's a great look, and I think that it's a situation going forward that has them in a really bad place. I think that 2024 for them is going to be cleanup. They're going to be showing up the leaks in the boat and trying to set everything right, trying to get themselves back into a better marketplace.
    59:53
    Yeah, I mean, this year it was, I think it was just a series of things. Here's, I think, the issue, and this may come up a little bit here on our, actually our next company, but with Multimorphic. Weird Al alone, just whatever momentum that was going to give them, they already got. And I think they need more licensed games if they really want to get more people to adopt these units. The problem that manifested this year, which I think is why they've done their pause, and this is obviously speculation, and why they're trying to resolve this is, much like Spooky, now they've got this reputation out there that their quality isn't good. The difference is, everyone's always known Spooky's quality wasn't good, and I've corresponded with a few people who owned Multimorphics, and they feel, the way they described it is, it seemed more like they felt like they were tricked into thinking that this was a solid product, and then it turned out to be a very frustrating product with a lot of fail points. And when you talk to a lot of supporters of Multimorphic, and we've discussed this before, they, I don't want to say necessarily that they gloss over the issues, but I've known a lot of them who just act like this is the best made product in all of pinball. And then you see these reports from people who don't have a vested stake into promoting the brand and then you hear about all their trouble tickets and things like your printers you can find at Best Buy can print the flipper mechs that then fail because they're printed on plastic And it's just sort of like when your reputation is staked on your quality engineering and then it looks like, well, the designs and the innovation concepts were really good, but the execution seemed to be bottom dollar.
    61:48
    It's tough. A lot of people might not realize it, but there is a major difference between hobbyist 3D printing and production 3D printing. they are very different animals the higher quality 3D printing that is utilized for big production runs, those machines are extremely expensive, it's not just a $300 I bought it at Best Buy machine they do very different things of very different qualities I'd say the good news for them is, because they're the platform, the P3 platform that Multimorphic bases all of this on, its adoption rate isn't all that high. There aren't actually all that many people that have had a bad experience. In the grand scheme of things, not very many people in pinball have owned Multimorphic before, whereas Spooky has had a lot more market penetration. A lot of people have... I had to work on my TNA. Lots of people have owned Spooky and have first-hand experience with the quality issues. So, Multimorphic has actually avoided quite a bit of that, though, as you've noted, a lot of people who ended up getting in on Weird Al, especially if they were people that weren't big into pinball in the first place, they ran into a lot of them, ran into a bit of a shock. We know some people that were very experienced with pinball who ran into some pretty challenging issues on the quality front. So, I do think they can recover from that because their reputation, they're just not as well-known anyway, so that actually makes it easier to recover. Separate from that, though, I think if the goal is mass adoption, it cannot be – it's not going to be on the backs of all this third-party content coming out and unlicensed games from Scott Denise. It's got to be licensed themes. It's got to be more than Weird Al. And so if they want to really grow it, they're going to have to really go into that licensed theme vault and do a really good job with it. And, yeah, it's a tall order, but that's where the market is. I mean, we've seen it repeatedly, and we're going to talk about that with American Pinball, which will be our next company. I'm going to pull up the idea right now because the big thing right now in pinball is like nostalgia and older stuff.
    64:09
    They need to aim for the after the news market. We need to see MASH, Golden Girls, Johnny Carson. That's what we're looking for. You know, it could be interesting with them to really lean into the more niche known licenses that might be relatively affordable and achievable. And, OK, maybe don't sell a thousand unit. Right. But, you know, they have other challenges, too, with just because of the approach, because it's such a screen driven thing. Do you get Golden Girls and what do you do with the layout? and are we showing clips of the movie on the main play field or are we getting phone game animations?
    64:52
    Because the problem is you can't just hire a Dirty Donnie to come in and slap – well, I guess they could. They could. Which is what Scott did with Final Resistance, which I heard so many people, more traditional pinhead people, who love Final Resistance in a large part. Well, one, the layout is like a fan layout. So, again, you know, those people know how to play those. And the other aspect, though, was he keeps the display relatively static, so it feels like traditional pinball. Which was funny to me because so much of what Multimorphic has marketed the P3 over the years has been how unlike traditional pinball it is. When I first heard about Multimorphic, I thought they wanted to get the market that doesn't go for traditional pinball. But now it seems like the whole strategy, maybe it's not the whole strategy, this is my impression, It seems like so much of their strategy now is we need to get traditional pinball people to buy our thing instead of trying to get to people like the whole swapping modules and everything all seem to be designed to the people that don't already collect. But now it seems all their efforts are getting targeting people who already collect pinball. So which I get because it's hard to build a market. So going to an existing market that's most related totally jives. I understand that. But, yeah, I don't know what – I don't expect them to get, like, the Harry Potters of the world or anything. But the Weird Al was so smart. He was. And I just think that they need to – it would – I would suggest, if they were asking for my advice, I would say it would behoove you for your first-party games to go after licenses only at this point. Allow the third-party developers to do your unlicensed stuff because they're not going to want to deal with licensing. So most of them are doing non-licensed things, which for obvious reasons. But there's plenty of that stuff coming out on the platform already. What people need is a reason to want it in the game room. And people buy these things for the side art and stuff, for the licenses and stuff.
    66:51
    So I said American Pinball, so let's jump to that. Speaking of a company that overly relies on unlicensed games, because everything they've done other than Hot Wheels has been unlicensed. And they've done a lot. So they did an unknown theme, but unlicensed. No, no, licensed people. Right. Houdini. Then they did Oktoberfest. Okay, it's a real holiday. Unlicensed. Hot Wheels. They're one. Licensed game. New Leadership comes into position. They do Legends of Valhalla, a game I believe Riot Penval developed. So it's not even – Well, I think Steve Bowden's had a – they've made some tweaks and they have some influence on the rules at this stage. It basically came in from another design team. and then most recently Galactic Tank Force, which might be the biggest flop of 2023. What do you think? I think yes, because can you consider Pulp Fiction a flop of 2023? It didn't come out. Because it didn't come out? Right. Yeah. I mean, let's not lose sight. It didn't come out. And when I played Galactic Tank Force at Texas, it wasn't my least favorite game. Scooby was. I didn't like Scooby, but Scooby's popular. Yes. So I can't press not. No. And their decision to, which I kind of get because, again, line must stay busy sort of things. But apparently at Expo, like, they went all in. They brought in the actors, like, at least, I think, four of them that starred in the display. And, like, it was just like a big push, kind of like how Multimorphic tried to relaunch Final Resistance when they started building it. The difference was when Multimorphic did their relaunch, they didn't drop a bunch of coin or anything on it. They were like, here, stream this. Here, get this out. Here, let's go on some podcast. They did it smart. Right. Galactic Tank was just going, well, let's just bring in the actors and YOLO it at Expo. I don't know. I was like, YOLO? I would cry that they weren't really risking anything at that point other than if they had to pay those individuals to be there, which they probably did. And I like Chicago Gaming. My speculation on this, I've kept, we've said this for years, I don't see how American Pinball keeps surviving. I have no idea how they've lasted this long. And like Chicago Gaming, I feel like this has to be a leadership issue at this point. I don't think it's production stuff. I'm not hearing that the line is struggling. Their decision-making is not great. and I'm concerned because I know they had a shake-up in terms of people who were involved. Like, we're past the Joe Balzer era and all that now, but it seems like it got worse. Yeah, I don't know. I feel, I don't even, I can't even say what to expect from them this upcoming year. Like, do we get another game from them? I think so, because they have to, right? I don't know, because I hear things like on a podcast, I think David Fix, who's at American People, I think he said something about planning to build, I don't know, 200 or 300 more GTFs and stuff. But then I hear from a distributor, it would be like, yeah, I got four Houdinis that I forgot I ordered three years ago because apparently I saw it at a pending order, and they're catching up on that stuff, but I can't even sell them. Right. I don't know. I would think they would have to. They would have to make an announcement. I just don't see how they can't try and get something new going.
    70:28
    But I just don't know. It just, American has always been this weird kind of black box that we never really know what's coming out of or what's going to happen, and everything that has come out of it has been odd. And I think that, you know what, that's my speculation. Whatever we do see out of them, it's going to be wrong and it's going to be odd. I agree. Okay, let's jump to, some of these next ones are going to go a lot faster. I believe so. Yeah, so Pinball Adventures. Okay, so we have, they got Pony Factory out. Right. And then they did reveal elements at Expo, which they promised that they would. However, the feedback I saw was that it was not ready for prime time. Like, they had a lot of issues keeping it running and stuff.
    71:21
    So, maybe questionable whether doing the reveal. I get the idea of wanting to keep one's word, but going ahead and actually doing it. Might hurt you more than. Maybe, maybe. But what do you think, like, moving forward?
    71:37
    I'll be honest. Most of the rest of these we're going to be talking about are all companies that fall under the we'll see if they survive. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I mean, because Pinball Adventures is very much leaning on the unlicensed original themes. If they can survive on small unit runs, I don't. They need to, in my opinion, they need to avoid doing reveals like Elements. Punny Factory, as a game, seemed to go over okay with some people. They're a Canadian-based manufacturer. or I guess if you're not going to do, I really think they need to go into licensed themes. I think that's true for anyone who wants to, especially if they want to grow. But if that's not an option, I think it might behoove them to try and exploit the Canadian market in the sense like try and build up more of like being a regional player where you're selling games. Now, their pricing hasn't been too bad. It's a little, for us in the U.S., it's above a Stern Pro, which is a problem for an unlicensed game. But if it can be under a Stern Pro, at least for the Canadian market, there might be some individuals that are just looking for different experiences and don't want to spend a lot of money on a game that might go that route. Right. But I would think they would need to close. They need to get significantly cheaper would be my suggestion. Yeah. Remember, he who would pun would pick a pocket.
    73:02
    Well, turn a pinball. So, we haven't talked too much about Turner Pinball. That is the company that acquired a lot of the Deep Root assets out of Texas. We did see at Texas Pinball Festival the Whitewood for their first game, Ninja Eclipse. We did not play it.
    73:17
    And my understanding is a much, much further along version appeared at Expo. I haven't really heard a lot one way or the other. It went across at Expo. People seemed more receptive to it than Elements was. but a lot of people are unsure about the whole, like, what Turner Pinball is doing here. I also think the pricing was notably higher than what Pinball Adventures was advertising.
    73:42
    I don't expect anything out of Turner Pinball. I don't know why he got the assets. I think, here's my theory, and he can easily prove me wrong if he wants to. I don't know if it would be easy, but he can prove me wrong if he wants to. I think he's really excited about pinball, But I think trying to do this the way he's doing it is going to burn him out really quick. And he's going to be like, this is not worth this. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, I think. Right. Expression. Again, when Deep Root went away, we were still in this sort of like height of demand with pinball. It's just not there anymore. It's cooled off. So there's not this. Oh, yeah. If you build a pinball machine, people are going to buy it because people hunger for pinball. It's not like that now. We have choices. and I just don't see how a company that is doing unlicensed stuff, so there's not going to be an instant captivate, like ninjas and the sun eclipsing is not going to attract, like that's not a theme a lot of people go out and spend thousands of dollars on. And anyone who knows anything about pinball, if they know that you're tied to Deep Root in any way, that adds a tarnish, and it might be unfair, but it adds a tarnish that you have to then try and shake off. So he's actually worse off than a lot of these other companies we're talking about because if you know it's associated with deep root, it already has a bad taste in your mouth.
    75:06
    So there's that. Hexa Pinball, the French company, I believe, that revealed Space Hunt. I have to emphasize that so people do not think I said something else. That's the one, you might remember, that looked like it was colored by Pepto-Bismol. Right.
    75:21
    We'll see what happens. Yeah, I think this is their only game. Probably. I have an edgier prediction, so that's fine. I think that's their one and done.
    75:30
    So anyway, fun times. Pebble Brothers. I don't know why I put them this far down the list, because they actually have been doing stuff. But they got Queen out technically in 2022. We first played it this year, though. Right. 2023. It was okay. I remember one of the noteworthy things about it, though, is one of their additions before they started producing it, They dropped the price on, which was an interesting thing that then came up later because not all that long ago, they announced the Ripley edition of Alien Pinball, which had a whole bunch of Ellen Ripley assets, new art, new clips. A lot of that stuff is allowed to be added on to the older games. However, the Ripley edition itself is cheaper than the version with less stuff. It's insane. So, my thoughts on this are, I don't think Pinball Brothers has a good strategy. I think they have something in mind. But I don't think whatever it was is working the way they wanted it to.
    76:35
    Alien was a deeply popular game when Highway collapsed. That Pinball Brothers was able to start making aliens made them money. Queen didn't have that same reception. and that's the bottom of the well for the stuff that was in highway development. So now it's all them having to come up with new stuff. Now, financially, maybe they're going to be successful because if they've merged with Pedretti and they've got the deal with Planetary, that might just be the route that they're going to rely on, and honestly, I would say it's probably the smart route is to go the remake route because they are struggling to come up with original concepts here, and I don't fault them for revisiting the well with Alien because there's demand there, but we talked a little bit about mentioning on the Watch Hobby when Resmont dropped their prices on all their brands years ago and it pissed off the collectors. It's a great way to piss off your collectors of pinball machines when you start making better versions and selling them for less than the old stuff. There are distributors that have the old ones at the old price. And then they're selling Ripley editions for less, which have all this other stuff in them. Well, again, Alien without Ripley makes no sense.
    77:50
    Yeah, I mean, we judged it back in the time when Highway did that. But I think I'm of mixed minds on this. I respect that Pinball Brothers seems to be of all these companies we've talked about. They seem to be the only one actually being willing to be rapidly flexible on pricing to adjust to the realities of the actual market. But that they're doing it this much makes me think that they're in financial trouble.
    78:20
    Because it seems desperate. It does. I can see that. Last one I had down was Home Pin. No new game this year. Spinal Tap technically was out last year. I mean, it depends on what you think. I mean, I guess none of the production versions purportedly were actually in 2022. Like the one at the Pinball Hall of Fame even I heard later was a prototype. Whatever. I don't care.
    78:45
    The only really noteworthy thing was that awesome Aussie Pinball podcast with Dr. John interview with Mike from Home Pin. That alone was why they're on the list. That's my favorite interview probably of all time in pinball. and just because Mike's stance on pinball is so 180 to anything that he should be doing. It's absolutely fascinating. But also, purportedly, another license. He has relied on license themes, and purportedly he's got another one.
    79:16
    We've discussed it before, but the rumor I hear is he's got Animal House. So what do you think happens with Home Pin? Home Pin continues to do Home Pin things. It's another one of those situations where it is so – everything that happens there is so against anything, I would think, that I can't even guess. It's so out of left field that I have no idea what's going on. To me, it's like how purportedly – whether it's true or not, the rumors are like Chicago Gaming Company stays afloat for the non-pinball stuff they sell, like the arcades and stuff that they build. That multi-morphics cash flow comes from their board sets, not from their P3s. And with HomePin, they make a lot of pinball parts. And so supposedly, they're supporting themselves on their parts because they sure ain't supporting themselves on Spinal Tap sales. So I guess as long as he wants to keep doing that, yeah, HomePin can keep on HomePinning. The one thing that doesn't make any sense to me is Mike at HomePin seems to absolutely hate everything about a pinball collector as it exists in today's world. So I don't know why he keeps doing it.
    80:23
    But do what he does. So whatever. It's his company. That's it for video games. That's our year-end review. All righty. So what's going on in video games? Well, in video games, my planned year-end review, I kind of got rid of just because of the sheer amount of news that ended up happening. There is a lot. But we got a couple. We actually have a question that came in, though. I wanted to know. I should have opened with this because I typed them in. I want to read this one because I want to ask it to you because it was really directed to you. So Robert G. wrote in to us, and he had a question. Y'all ain't – I don't know if he's a southerner, but sorry, Robert, you're going to be one. Y'all aren't into fighting games, huh? I've been out of any sort of video gaming for a long, long time, but a friend convinced me to get into Diablo 4 right around the time I did the game review for you guys. They're not your friend. Thanks again for that opportunity. It was fun. I had the same experience as you, Tony. It got lame too fast. I've since picked up Mortal Kombat 1, and it's got me feeling like I'm 12 years old kicking my cousin's ass on SNES again. It's such a wonderfully delicious, stupid fun. I just haven't heard either of you mention any fighting games. Well, thank you, Robert, for writing in. So the reason I wanted to read that one is because, oh, okay. Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony, please enlighten him regarding your fighting game background.
    81:58
    I kind of low-key love fighting games. I don't really talk about them much, and I don't play them much anymore. But I be 100 honest me and one of my roommates at one point for my birthday drove four hours from Kansas City to St Louis specifically to play Soul Calibur II and then go watch the Cowboy Bebop movie in a theater and then drove four hours back for my birthday
    82:31
    I used to spend a fair amount of time playing fighting games. There was a point in time where my Friday nights were typically playing one of the Soul Calibur games on Dreamcast until basically we couldn't stay awake anymore and then we'd go to bed. And I still play fighting games fairly often at group get-togethers and stuff. But since I have segued to PC gaming, I've just moved completely away from them. And it's not that I don't like them. It's not that I don't love them. I don't like watching people play them. So I don't like watching tournament play. It just doesn't do anything for me. And since I'm not actually playing them myself very often, I don't really talk about it that much. But I do love fighting games.
    83:28
    I am very much a Soul Calibur person. I've always been a Soul Calibur person. That's my, like, favorite fighting game. The Mortal Kombat games are great. I've heard great things about one. I've not actually played it myself. but no I do truly like fighting games yeah in terms of Tony's involvement that's why I wanted him to open with that I do play them from time to time it's just there are other genres that I invest a lot more time in and the issue with a fighting game is to become really good at it you have to pour a lot of time into any given game which is great if I wasn't busy playing other stuff and And so actually my first year in college when Antony was one of my roommates that year, we didn't initially have cable. And all we did was play Street Fighter II Turbo until finally we were like, we got to get cable. We can't keep doing this. I mean, to be fair, that took months. Yeah. We played that for months. So I had a lot of that. But I haven't played Street Fighter recently because up until this new one, what, six, like the last time, it skipped Xbox. It became a Sony exclusive for a year. And Street Fighter was my main line of fighting games. The most recent one I have played, though, is Dragon Ball FighterZ.
    84:53
    So I've played that. I need to finish the campaign, but I've been through a couple acts of it. So I do play them from time to time, but I just don't put in the time that I used to back when. And, I mean, fighting games were all the rage when the home consoles could do them, and they just got really, really hot. And then I started doing more RPGs and stuff, and they would take time without me. You know, that was time that couldn't be spent practicing. I feel like part of it is also that, to me, fighting games are very much an in-person multiplayer experience is where they're best. and since I don't do that nearly as often, that's part of the reason they're not the forefront of my mind anymore. And then Clint W. wrote in as well, and he gave us a link to an article about Valve notifying people to not huff the fumes of the exhaust from the steam deck. So just FYI, don't do that. Don't do that. It's one of those things, it kind of became a meme where people were just talking about how good the fumes from the Steam Deck smelled. It's kind of like the reason Nintendo coats the Nintendo game cartridges in a bittering agent so that kids don't swallow them or animals don't swallow them because they've got a bittering agent so they taste bad when you put them in your mouth. Okay. Now, your news. That's where the items I had thrown in. I mean, that's valid. There are some good comments in there.
    86:26
    I will say the news has just gotten weird. It was so weird. I was planning an end-of-the-year thing until all the news started dropping. So E3, it's gone. It's officially, permanently done. Finally. It was finally. Like a wounded beast. It's been bad since pre-COVID. Yeah. It was weak. it was hurt before COVID, and it's just, it got worse. Indeed.
    86:57
    This is for the best. It is for the best. This is fine. It's one of those, no great loss is what it amounts to. It was wonderful at its time, but its time is done. And then this has also been like the month of hacks. Ubisoft got a hack where somebody had access to their internal systems for 48 eight hours before access was revoked. Their SharePoint, their Teams notes, their calendars, everything. Everything in Ubisoft was open. So we can expect those to start appearing online before too long. But that's not the big one. Insomniac Games was hacked by a ransomware group that was demanding like $2 million, or else they were going to release everything. And Insomniac said, okay, release everything. And they did. And what was surprising was just the amount of stuff. It included a project roadmap for the next 10 years, including game budgets and their revenue-sharing plans for the Marvel licensing deal they have, which is apparently quite hefty. Wolverine. Yes, Wolverine was leaked, including, like, playable early build stuff being released into the wild of Wolverine. in addition to video notes, game ideas.
    88:22
    And what I felt was the most interesting of it all was it included some Sony documents, some slides laying out their concerns for the Microsoft Activision Blizzard buyout causing Xbox to leapfrog PlayStation in the coming years. And it includes Sony describing their own pillars as dated and behind the competition. so the fans might not have known it's hard to see over those walls of the walled garden right i i mean i think it's obvious how playstation how sony was fighting that deal that they had concerns about the deal but but this isn't surprising what surprised me was the year because they really noted like their concern is 2027 yeah because of uh their big fear seems to be Call of Duty getting on Game Pass. Right. Because they don't have their version of Game Pass. And in the slides and documents released, it included their own section where they talked about how they don't see how it's financially capable to do something like that. And their other big concern is the impacts this jump-starting of Microsoft's mobile division and everything else. Oh, with King. with King is going to have on them, especially their PlayStation Plus, because PlayStation Plus is a large amount of the recurring yearly income, and they're afraid that with Game Pass getting so much stronger that it's going to end up hurting PlayStation in the long run. So, all valid points that I think we've talked about, but to see their actual notes leaked out just kind of brings the point home. The Epic Game Store changed their rules to allow adult-themed games, provided the adult themes is that they're on the blockchain. Because the ESRB puts any game that is on the blockchain is automatically rated as mature. So they did that specifically to allow themselves to release blockchain games because apparently they think they're going to continue to be a thing. What about the Sony announcement regarding discovery licensing agreements? Yeah, this is one of those weird items that came up and vanished in the two weeks since our last episode. I don't know much of anything about this, but I see it in here. Basically, Sony let their licensing deal with Discovery. The channel or what? Yes. Because Discovery now owns HBO, and it's owned by Warner Brothers. Okay, yeah, it's huge. So their licensing agreement was going to lapse. And because of how it was written, everybody who had purchased any Discovery-based content, which now is Warner Brothers and all sorts of stuff, through the PlayStation Store, that was all going to be deleted at the end of December. And the outcry was huge. fans were obviously angry because they purchased this stuff. And they said, oh, well, we're going to delete it because we lost our licensing agreement.
    91:41
    It was a huge thing. And I'll be honest, that is a hit I don't know that Sony could take after this year with all their other concerns that we just talked about.
    91:52
    So they went ahead and they did get that license deal re-signed. So they announced that they updated it and that that content will be available and safe for the next 30 months.
    92:05
    So not quite. Not quite prominent, but yay. But yay. It's something. But I think that would have been a really bad blow for Sony because the outrage over that was huge, which surprised me mainly because I did not realize so many people bought stuff like that on PlayStation. Yeah, I never really thought about it. Interesting. I mean, it's not what I would have thought.
    92:33
    Steam has put out a wonderful update to the Steam client. Just came out on their latest beta. It will allow you to mark games as private, so they will not appear anywhere where they can be viewed by other people. So they won't appear. I am amazed it took this long. That was my shocking point. I'm like, how did it take Steam out this long before they decided that maybe people didn't necessarily want to have all of their games show up everywhere? Especially since Steam, unlike Epic Game Store, completely has no problem with just straight-up porno games.
    93:13
    I mean, they are out there. But, yeah. And they've even set it up so that you can hide it from the website. You can hide it from the Steam client. Or when you purchase the game, there is a checkbox you can click to instantly market private so it never appears for even a microsecond in your account. It won't even show up in your Discord? It won't show up in your Discord. I mean, I will admit I have seen some people who had their game showing on Discord playing that it's like, But good on you for being comfortable enough in who you are to share that game in.
    93:56
    Publicly. So that you're in it right now. Right now you're sitting on Discord and playing that game. Good for you.
    94:08
    I mean. I'm sure they're playing happy fat for the plot. Yeah, that's why. That's definitely what it is.
    94:16
    I will admit, one of the funniest things is there is a streamer I follow, and he has no qualms about talking about playing some of those games. But he does the reviews. And it is hilarious that he will review the game like on Steam, and his review will be, I really need a fourth hand for this game. Oh, Steve. Just don't huff the fumes while you do it. Just do not huff the fumes.
    94:53
    No surprise, because we knew it was coming, the 29th of December, so five days from now, is Bobby Kotick's last day at Activision Blizzard. Bye-bye, Bobby. Bye-bye. Bye-bye now. So I'm sure he's heartbroken As he walks away with his Incredibly huge I think it was like Forty some odd million I think is what his walk away is He'll be alright Yeah I think he'll be okay PS5 announced That there have been over 50 million Of those consoles sold So considering how hard it was to get PS5s I'm impressed That they've gotten those numbers out and then like our big bugaboo for the last two years really something we've talked about in video gaming there was a time yeah it felt like all of 2022 you had an update practically every episode yeah or every episode there was an update to the Activision Blizzard special discrimination lawsuit and it's over it was settled out of court for 56 million dollars okay Okay.
    96:06
    The comments, by agreeing to the settlement, the CCRD, that's the California Civil Rights Department, that brought the suit, case against Blizzard Activision, will be withdrawn with the former agreeing publicly that no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations of systematic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard. Furthermore, the settlement dismisses the claim that Activision Blizzard senior executives ignored, to condone or tolerate a culture of systematic harassment, retaliation, or discrimination. So basically, nothing to see here. They paid $56 million, and then they get a report that says you didn't do anything wrong. Yes. Wow. That's what it is. Wow. Welcome to settlements for major companies. The settlement is going to be shared between all of the claimants named in the suit after pulling $9.1 million out for the legal fees.
    97:05
    Okay. So I'm going to say, in all honesty, this is a huge win for Activision Blizzard. I mean, they settled for a reason. I suppose the claimants, I don't remember how many there were, but we'll get, I mean, they do get funding. Yeah. But yeah, Activision gets to ultimately say, yeah, no, we had nothing systemic. Right. Ignore that $56 million. Right. They paid $56 million to get to say. We didn't do anything wrong. We didn't do nothing wrong. Yeah.
    97:40
    Oops. We had an oopsie. Yeah. There was a, what did you call it? That was before we started recording. Oopsie whoopsie. We had a whoopsie whoopsie. An oopsie whoopsie. You know, it happens.
    97:51
    I have a update after that, but I'm not going to repeat it. Right. It was hilarious stuff. Yeah. So. So, it's not how I expected that to go. So, we'll see how things keep going.
    98:10
    Valve, in a bit of hilarity that was shared on the Discord with us, has decided to treat their users to a Christmas gift. and if you were a smurf or a cheater or somebody who caused systemic problems, when you opened your gift, it was a highly toxic lump of coal that told you that you were a bad person and then your account was permanently banned. And this was for their... For Dota 2. Dota game, okay. Yeah, for Dota 2 players. So I find that as a very humorous Way to go around That kind of thing I've read several times this year That they've been making a huge push to clean up That kind of behavior In the game this year Well, it very much Fits with Valve's approach back when They're a little cheeky when they actually Work on something As long as it's not a game, because they don't do that anymore Yeah, no, they don't do that The last thing I have is another one of those things that happened and ended between episodes.
    99:26
    Twitch made changes to their sexual content policy based upon the demands from artists. Like painters and stuff? Like painters and people who draw and such. Okay. to allow them to draw the stuff they draw and, you know, draw more skin and more suggestive items. And this change also found its way to other groups, including, like, the IRL chat, where it allowed them to remove the even hint that a streamer was wearing clothes, while they still couldn't show everything they could show a lot it also like allowed them to do like pole dancing and stuff like that yeah 24 hours of that all reverted and the actual insanity but the hot tub pole dancing oh that wasn't even the bad stuff when I first read that this had dropped and gone active, I think I sent you a message about it. Yes. And then I actually went and looked into the art section, and oh, boy.
    100:47
    Wow. That was a lot of penis. That was a lot. The art section is hentai now. That's basically what it was. And furry porn, and just straight up. I mean, the entire art section. I feel like Twitch is like four people trying to figure this all out, and they just keep stepping on rakes. Yeah, it was bad. I mean, it wasn't, oh, we just, oh, something suggestive. No, it was like straight-up porn being drawn. So they reverted all of that.
    101:22
    Yeah. Okay. So, it is definitely, I feel like this entire year for Twitch has been, oh my God, we're failing, and we're trying to keep it all together and doing anything we can before it all falls apart. Which falls apart first, Twitch or X?
    101:43
    It's tough. That is tough. It's real tough. Because they both had bad years. We don't talk about X much here because it's not gaming. Right, but that's a valid point, and the answer is I don't know. I mean, X is still in South Korea, so that's better than Twitch. Yeah, that's true. But it's also a much larger user base, so that makes things different as a whole. I don't know. I haven't heard about a big advertising pullout on Twitch.
    102:17
    True. So they, though, I mean, the fact that over the course of this year they left South Korea, they removed all of their rules against streaming on other platforms and just kept the rules like you can't stream at a lower quality on Twitch than you're streaming anywhere else. and every single thing Twitch has done this year has felt to me like it was an attempt to, you know, keep the ship afloat. And I don't see that getting any better next year. I think with the rise of so many other places doing similar stuff that it has hurt them. I know YouTube gaming has had a very good year. I know that a lot of people find that the biggest problems they have with Twitch is while there's some places that have amazing communities, a lot of the communities on Twitch are toxic as hell. I mean, they are just not places. There's a lot of places that I will go to watch somebody play a game, but I will not even. I just close chat. I don't even care about what's going on in the chat. And a lot of the streamers I watch don't overly interact with their chat, or they're very selective about the chat they interact with. Let's go with that. So I think it's going to be an interesting year for Twitch next year. I think, like we talked earlier, it's going to be an interesting couple years for Sony, because Sony's going to be filling out their new role. They're still in the number one. Oh, yeah. There's still the – Those scales you mentioned about the, what, 50 million units was seen as being like three to one on Xbox. Yeah. No, they are still the top dog, but they have been weakened. I feel like their base, their foundation is weaker than it was. The dog has mange. The top dog is mangy now. Right. And I don't know, in all honesty, as much as, like, their slide and they worry that their pillars and their big games are, you know, behind the times. I don't really think they are. That's a weird statement. I don't know what they meant by it. I mean, graphically, I don't think so. Do they think they're not pushing the edge or something? I'm assuming it's more about concerns about games that fall under, like, Call of Duty. Because they don't have a lot of internally built games that are that style. There's no way anybody would consider, like, the God of War games anything other than a high-end, top-level game. Sure. And Horizon and stuff like that. So they've got great titles. And Insomniac stuff's gone over well. The action-adventure. Yeah, maybe the thought is they haven't been playing in all the genres. Right. They've relied on third party. And it has been well before this current generation. I've heard people criticize that Sony has not first partied any decent first person shooters in Hawaii. Right. And that was something, I mean, that's going to be their target. My guess is they're going to snap up a studio that does solid FPS. Well, I mean, they have their deal with Bungie. I thought that was the logic.
    105:49
    Here's the problem. Bungie do Bungie things, so I don't know. Right, except for Bungie's not really been Bungie in the last, what, five plus years? The problem that Sony has, I feel, is they don't have the cash that Microsoft does. They can't just go around and pick up anything they want. Right. It's harder for them.
    106:12
    Oh, yeah, because the Activision Blizzard settlement is 100% Microsoft says, we're the boss now and we're done dealing with this. Here's the offer. That's what that was. That's not Activision Blizzard. That is Microsoft closing the problem. Microsoft doesn't want to have to carry that baggage. They want it to be under the Microsoft authority. That's probably the reason why it was always obvious Bobby couldn't stick around after they were in. They don't want that reputation with him.
    106:39
    That's the whole thing. That was Microsoft closed that problem because as far as Microsoft with the sale going through this year, as far as Microsoft is going to act, it's their baby going forward starting next year. They are closing the loose ends and tying the knots. I'm hoping we start seeing, because as longtime Blizzard fans, I'm really hoping Microsoft gets it back to a place where it's used to be a very reputable brand.
    107:10
    While I've seen their moderation teams and stuff do better than they were a few years ago, it's still the taint of being tied to Activision and all that. And so I'm hoping that we see not just the improvements in the communities, but also improvement in the games. Like, again, the notation of how disappointing to a lot of people Diablo 4 has been. Like, fix it. Fix it. No man's sky it. Look at what they're trying to do with Starfield. Exactly.
    107:36
    Once upon a time, Blizzard was the company that was known for, it'll be done when it's done. They wouldn't release a game until they were happy with it, no matter if it took an extra amount of time. Yeah, they had the reputation that Rockstar had. Yeah. They just did a different style of game. But now they don't. Right. It's bad.
    107:57
    Well, that was a lot. Holy cow. Yeah. Well, folks, happy new year, because we won't be back until after the new year, because that's how math works, on time. Correct. But if you want to reach out to us before the new year, you can email us at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com, Or you can go to Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. If you want to support the channel, we do have a Patreon, patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. You can support us for as low as a dollar a month, and we greatly appreciate that. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And so we will see you in 2024 with all the latest happenings in pinball and video games. Will there be a shark pinball announcement? My sources say yes.
    108:42
    It's not Jaws, though. So it's, what was the other one? Megalodon? Megalodon. Yes. That's the Jason Statham one? Yes. Yeah. The Meg. Did you see it? I never saw the Meg. Oh, it's so lame. Watch it if you get a chance. It's funny. I did re-watch recently, like last week, I re-watched The Core.
    109:03
    I love The Core. The Core, it's just the dumbest movie of all time. It is. I love it. I mean, it's so good because it's dumb. So go watch The Core this weekend if you haven't seen it yet, or during the week. During our next two weeks, you guys have an assignment. Watch the core. I want the core pinball. And there's a mode where all of the call-outs are just that guy recording into the tape recorder in that monotone. Oh, Stanley Tucci. Yes, Stanley Tucci. It's like, oh, the humanity of the ball bouncing through the spinner.
    109:36
    What does this mean for our future? The world wonders. All right. Well, we'll be back then. But until the next episode, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See you.