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Sunday Livestream 1 for 8/3/2025

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·1h 6m·analyzed·Aug 4, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Don reports on pinball toppers, upcoming Stern releases, and discusses upcoming game announcements through mid-2026.

Summary

Don discusses recent pinball developments including Electric Playground's licensed Alice's Adventures in Wonderland topper ($500-$679), his experience playing Alice and Dune at the European Pinball Championships, and shares an extensive roadmap of upcoming Stern games based on industry rumors: Star Wars (Original Trilogy by John Borg), Walking Dead remaster (comic book art style), Pokemon (January, with Jack Danger and possibly Keith Elwin), Transformers (March), Fallout, and AC/DC remaster. He emphasizes uncertainty about specifics while expressing enthusiasm for several titles.

Key Claims

  • Electric Playground's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland topper sells for $500 for first 50 units, then $679; first batch sold out

    high confidence · Don directly cites prices and confirms sold-out status of first run

  • Dutch Pinball's topper supplier went out of business; only ~25 toppers fulfilled for 500-unit Alice run

    medium confidence · Don states 'their supplier for their topper, like, just went out of business' but acknowledges uncertainty ('I don't think Dutch Pinball had anything to do with this')

  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland gameplay is not compelling enough to justify $12.50 price plus tariffs/shipping

    high confidence · Don's personal opinion: 'My enthusiasm for the game is a little bit less than that $12.50 price plus tariffs and shipping'

  • Star Wars pinball (Original Trilogy) is the most consistent rumor for next Stern release, likely by John Borg

    medium confidence · Don: 'Star Wars is the most consistent rumor I've been hearing the most often' and 'Some people have emphatically told me, like, original trilogy, it's coming, it's real'

  • Walking Dead remaster will use comic book art style to avoid actor licensing complications

    medium confidence · Don cites post-list confirmation: 'I've been hearing a lot more confirmation that Don it's going to be comic book art so there was no problem in going and licensing any actors'

  • Pokemon pinball rumored for January release with Jack Danger and possibly Keith Elwin involvement

    medium confidence · Don: 'I keep hearing Danger on Pokemon. And heading into Elwin to finish, okay, yeah, that would make sense'

  • Transformers pinball rumored for March 2026 release window

    low confidence · Don: 'That came out of nowhere. I don't know that anybody's clamoring for that' and 'I don't know anything about whether it's movie-based, whether it's comic-based'

  • Fallout pinball is rumored for Stern to reach modern/younger audience

    low confidence · Don: 'I heard Fallout for Stern. Makes sense. Want to reach a more modern, younger audience'

Notable Quotes

  • “My enthusiasm for the game is a little bit less than that $12.50 price plus tariffs and shipping”

    Don @ early segment on Alice — Directly expresses skepticism about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland's value proposition despite acknowledging aesthetic quality

  • “Star Wars is the most consistent rumor I've been hearing the most often that that's probably what's coming next. Some people have emphatically told me, like, original trilogy, it's coming, it's real.”

    Don @ Star Wars discussion — Establishes confidence level in Star Wars rumor based on multiple industry sources

  • “So if you ask for it and they can get it, you know, sometimes they go to a licensor and there's just no way to get in there and talk to them. So as long as it's a gettable license and it's something you want and you tell them, they'll make it.”

    Don @ Spooky Pinball discussion — Reveals how boutique manufacturers respond to community requests for theme licenses

  • “You gotta pay your artist like the artist fee regardless of how many machines you sell you gotta pay the programmer of five figures regardless of if you're making 10 games or 5,000 games.”

    Don @ Masters of the Universe discussion — Explains economic constraints on boutique pinball licensing decisions

  • “And I can't wait for every release to see what they actually are, but I want to see how they did Pokemon. And then I want to know what their approach to Transformers is.”

    Don @ closing segment on upcoming games — Expresses greatest anticipation for Pokemon and Transformers implementations

  • “I think Stern could actually have a separate, like, Pokemon portal just for Insider Connected because it would probably be so popular.”

    Don @ Pokemon discussion — Predicts Pokemon may require dedicated digital platform due to complexity/popularity

  • “Walking Dead, great game. Doesn't go for a whole lot of money, but I would like to see it remade.”

    Don @ Walking Dead remaster discussion — Acknowledges Walking Dead remaster lacks secondary market demand but supports remake

Entities

Electric Playground (TEP)companyAlice's Adventures in WonderlandgameDutch Pinball / DPXcompanyStumbler ModscompanyDonpersonElectric Playground / AlecpersonStar Wars (Original Trilogy)game

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Boutique manufacturers face fixed programming/artist costs regardless of production volume, making low-demand licenses economically unviable

    high · Don on Masters of the Universe: 'you gotta pay your artist... regardless of how many machines you sell... if only sells 150 or so, like you just can't do it'

  • ?

    community_signal: Electric Playground filling gap left by failed original topper supplier with licensed third-party accessory ($500-$679)

    high · Licensed topper sales and sold-out first batch of 50 units; community benefit from accessory availability

  • ?

    community_signal: European Pinball Championships providing extended playtest opportunities; Alice and Dune available on location for evaluation

    high · Don attended Vogelberg, Austria event and played full 3-ball games without location-queue constraints

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern leveraging remaster strategy to redesign aging game libraries; Walking Dead using comic art to avoid costly actor licensing recompliance

    medium · Don: 'comic book art so there was no problem in going and licensing any actors... they can license the comic book and do that'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Comprehensive Stern pinball game roadmap leaked through multiple industry sources spanning 6+ months (Star Wars, Walking Dead, Pokemon, Transformers, Fallout, AC/DC)

    medium · Don: 'amalgamation of all the rumors I've been hearing' consolidated on Patreon and Kerry Hardy livestream; multiple confirming sources but varying confidence levels

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.198

0:00
All right, let's go around and talk about some pin stuff. The first thing that I wanted to highlight is our friends over at The Electric Playground, TEPPinball.com, the Topper Kings, right? They're doing licensed toppers now, which is super cool. They dropped their topper for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as like a topper accessory add-on. And I had heard that they were doing this. I think it's a cool idea. I think the topper for Alice looked fine I think the rest of Oh Patrick you got your stuff from WAP Yeah use code WAP with Jeff at BadPinball.com And get yourself a shirt and some goodies For free if you order a game That's awesome I just want to put that out there Sponsor of the show this and WAP Bad Pinball Jeff in the house So I dig The art that's used At Alice for the most part I like the topper I think the eyes of the Cheshire Cat are cool, but it was just kind of a blank backdrop, and then the cat, and, like, that's all you get. There's no motion, even though the eyes look around because they're digital or whatnot. So they added some festooning, right, just like an Exoides tick carrying Lyme disease. They festooned. Look it up if you're an entomologist. They festooned the Alice Topper with some plastic trees, an archway with several different quotes I think you get, The whole thing lights up with the game. Stumbler was involved, so you know the lighting is going to be cool. Really, you're paying for some extra embellishments and some extra light shows, right? When you go with first party or licensed accessories, that's what you can get is the actual light show, right? So that's what you're paying for there.
1:43
When I saw this, I was like, okay, so it's just a little add-on. I saw the price of $500, and I was taking a bit of back there, like $500. It's quite a bit. And that was only for the first 50. Now, that doesn't matter because they've already sold out of that first 50. Now, if you want to add it on to your game, $679. And how about this? At least the owners, the purchasers that did receive their Alice's Adventures in the Wonderland can at least have a topper to put on there. It seems that, unfortunately, and I don't think Dutch Pinball had anything to do with this at all, but their supplier for their topper, like, just went out of business, couldn't fulfill it, so they got like 25 or so, and like that's it. Now they've got to find somebody else to make these toppers for the rest of the 500 games, I think they sold, or at least, you know, sold out there.

  • AC/DC is rumored as a Stern remaster

    low confidence · Don: 'And then the last one, the remaster, ACDC is what I heard'

    • John Borg
    person
    Walking Dead (Remaster)game
    Pokemongame
    Jack Dangerperson
    Keith Elwin (Elwin)person
    Transformersgame
    Falloutgame
    AC/DC (Remaster)game
    Kerry Hardyperson
    European Pinball Championships (Vogelberg, Austria)event
    Next Level 2location
    Pinball Expo (October 2025)event
    Stern Pinballcompany
  • $

    market_signal: Stern pursuing younger/modern audience with Fallout and Pokemon RPG-style leveling systems; continued digital platform integration via Insider Connected

    medium · Don: 'Want to reach a more modern, younger audience... leveling system because it was an RPG' and 'Stern could have a separate Pokemon portal for Insider Connected'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jack Danger confirmed as Pokemon pinball designer; Keith Elwin possibly involved in fine-tuning/collaboration

    medium · Don: 'I keep hearing Danger on Pokemon. And heading into Elwin to finish, okay, yeah, that would make sense'

  • $

    market_signal: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland perceived as overpriced at ~$12,500+ relative to gameplay depth and content

    high · Don: 'My enthusiasm for the game is a little bit less than that $12.50 price plus tariffs and shipping... I probably still wouldn't get it' at $8,500

  • ?

    product_strategy: Dutch Pinball's topper supplier for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland failed mid-production, leaving ~475 units without original toppers

    high · Don: 'their supplier for their topper, like, just went out of business, couldn't fulfill it, so they got like 25 or so, and like that's it. Now they've got to find somebody else to make these toppers'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Star Wars (Original Trilogy, John Borg) → Walking Dead remaster (comic art) → Pokemon (Jan 2026, Jack Danger/Elwin) → Transformers (March 2026) → Fallout → AC/DC remaster

    medium · Don synthesized multiple industry sources; Star Wars highest confidence, later titles lower; expects 4-5 week lead to Star Wars official announcement

    • 2:36
    So that sucks, right? But at least there's something you can get, and you have some interactivity for Alice, right?
    2:44
    You know, I dig that all the accessories came with Alice. You get the R-blades. I love what they did, what Stumbler did with the lights on the rails. Amazing. Gameplay wise, I don't know why they resurrected this old Papa Duke layout I think you probably could have created a much more compelling and interesting game Just on your own It's an open source license, so it's not like you had to really license anything But whatever I think the game looks okay My enthusiasm for the game is a little bit less than that $12.50 price plus tariffs and shipping So I was easily out of it I did go to the Vogelberg Austria European Pinball Championships how about that express people love the Harry Potter unboxing video that was super fun I don't know how I'm going to up it next time but I went to the European Championships they did have an Alice on site they had a Dune on site with the new code and so I got to spend some time on them with like nobody else around it wasn't like an expo where you had to wait 45 minutes for a two ball game I got to play full three ball games as much as I wanted And so, oh, dude, Perth. Australians are here. That's amazing.
    3:52
    Oh, yeah, the Munster's Topper. I got the voice-activated lights, and that's how I get into integrated lights with the stuff that I make is I just do sound-activated. So at least there's some changing lights. They work really good with music pins, you know, so that's cool.
    4:08
    But I got to play Alice. I got to play on the upper play field. The magnets actually work pretty good.
    4:15
    You know, when you hit the flipper buttons, that will activate that magnet momentarily and sling the ball. And if you time it right, you can sling the ball off of the slings, the little rubbers. They're not power actuated. They're just bouncing rubbers. And it's fun to bounce the ball around that upper play field. The code allows you to get up there a little bit more. So, like, I don't want to totally sandbag the game. My only problem with it is I don't think it's worth the price. And so it was easy for me to just, you know, back away from it. But, you know, if one would be available for $8,500, I probably still wouldn't get it. I still wouldn't get it. I don't think the gameplay is that compelling. It's pretty, though. The lighting, everything Stumbler did, everything Lior did, looks great. And now everything the TEP did looks awesome as well. So they're also doing a Kong topper, and thank God they are, because I thought we were making some headway with getting the official accessories from Stern closer to the original release. Um, WIC seemed to come a year later. Venom came like a year and a half later. Um, poor Kong's got nothing. D&D's got nothing. Uh, Jaws got its full complement of accessories. X-Men still hasn't gotten anything, and that's been just about a year. We should make a horror version abso-fricking-lutely. Dude, let Spooky Pinball know what you want, because when these guys pick themes, they're listening to what people are asking for. So if you ask for it and they can get it, you know, sometimes they go to a licensor and there's just no way to get in there and talk to them. So as long as it's a gettable license and it's something you want and you tell them, they'll make it. So if you want to see a horror version of Alice in Wonderland, which I think would be fantastic, let them know. So in lieu of accessories officially from Stern, TEP has got a Kong topper coming out soon. They like to put interactivity in there. And they use those little light sensors, which you have to hook up underneath the game. So it's kind of cool. Hey, RetroJingos here. How you doing, buddy? I listen to you on WAP all the time, man. Super cool. Shout out to that podcast you did with Spooky Pinball.
    6:27
    And then they also add some motion and things, too. Now, I don't know exactly what's going to be in their topper. They've teased it, but they haven't released it. But I think that'll be cool. I myself am working on my personal topper for Kong. It's exceeding my expectations. It's going to have this type of lighting where it's interactive with the sound, as well as some separate lighting actually interactive with the GI of the game itself. So it's going to have a ton of lights in a box. It's going to be literally bananas. There's ape hands involved. I'm looking at the prototype right now. Fantastic. Should have that done in about a week, and then we could show that off. I don't know that I'm going to make it a product. because there's a lot that goes into it. But I'm going to make at least two, one to bring to the Topper Contest at Expo in October that I'm running, and then another one that's going to go on Kong, which is just off the screen that way, which will be going to the 1UP Lounge in Bellingham, Washington. If you're in the Pacific Northwest and you can, go check this place out. Check out Next Level 2, which is the best arcade in the country. And I've been to a lot of the major ones now. Shout out to Electric Bat, Interium, District 82.
    7:40
    But Next Level, my God, it's in an inconvenient area of Oregon, I guess. Not too bad, but, you know, if you're in the Portland metro, you can get over there.
    7:51
    It is just phenomenal. I don't know that there's any public transit that goes out there, but get yourself an Uber and go out to Next Level. I'm thinking of flying back out across the country just to go to this, and that's nuts.
    8:03
    Where else is good? Pinball Lounge in Oviedo, Florida Near Orlando, the northern area of that Super cool place there I went to Arcade Monsters in Orlando On International Drive just recently Not a terrible place, kind of cool A lot of neat games Enzo's playing some Looney Tunes at the moment I was just playing the most Slept on title of 2024 Of course I'm going to Pinball at the Beach Rasputin Yeah, it's going to be fun, I'm going to talk about it a little later Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Maniacal game. Spooky Luke's listening. I just set a grand champion score last night. Like that game you play when you're on the way to work is always like when you have like 10 minutes and you're like, let me just get a quick game in. It ends up being like a 45-minute game and you set your best score. I don't know what it is about that. I need to go to a pinball tournament when I'm supposed to be at work, and then I'll probably score a lot better. But TCM, maniacal game, great layout. Solid B plus, A minus. You know, a little bit of ramp issues. But it flows very well. The code is incredible. And the fact that, like, there's this maniacal narrator calling stuff out, the family saying stuff, the narrator himself is pretty somber.
    9:21
    And then there's just, like, multi-ball after each of these modes that you can get. You can torture Pam. She's locked in a freezer. It's bedlam. When you hit the slings off in the distance, you hear a chainsaw noise. It's just pure chaos. It's chaotic code with a great layout. I love this game. It's going for low prices right now, which is great for consumers. So, yeah, dude, TCM, pick one up. It didn't sell out. They're on the market. You can get one below MSRP. Snatch it up, man. There's a lot of gameplay in that game. Frick, I love it. I know some people have problems with the horror theme. What is wrong with people? Should we just go to Spooky? I was going to talk about Stern first, but people are asking, am I enjoying my Ultraman?
    10:07
    I was involved in a trade deal for my virtual pinball machine for a butter cabinet Ultraman, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. And I'm not supposed to make it too well known, but you can play Halloween on Ultraman now, and I think vice versa. And that's two games in one, which is awesome. Robert, how are you doing? So like most people, I haven't played a ton of Ultraman, just like it shows. And occasionally, if you can find the rare one on location, there's not that many of them out there. The code is a carbon copy, like copy-paste of Halloween. So like the modes are exactly the same, the shots are the same, the inserts are the same, whereas Looney Tunes and TCM, completely different teams on everything. But you can drop that Halloween code in there and play Halloween. And now that I've gotten better at pinball and I'm coming back to Halloween, a game that I owned for like two years or so, and I can get farther in it now, I'm appreciating it for what it is. The thing that's keeping it from being a classic is it's missing an extra couple of ramps or like an orbit to a ramp or something. Just a couple of other features and mechs would have made that game stellar. but it's a fun ass game when you figure out the rules and start getting deeper into it and like triggering the multiballs and the fact that they licensed Don't Fear the Reaper the more cowbell song from SNL in Halloween that's what I go for every time you just need to play three modes and put it in the scoop and you get to play the multiball it's phenomenal I love that I love battling Michael up at the top you know the modes are cool and if you put an adult mode mode. The mode number two, if you get far enough in it, you get to see some boobs from the movie. So none of my other games can do that. Elvira didn't even show bare boobs, but they are in Halloween. You put it on adult mode. So not bad. Not bad.
    12:03
    I'd love a Saw from Spooky. I mean, I'm curious to see where that goes. I know that Saw was made by that consortium of enthusiasts, Glenn, my other buddy John, and a whole group of talented folks, as a proof of concept, like they would like to get that made. And people seem to really dig it. And you can't even tell it's a whirlwind. It's crazy.
    12:29
    All right. Fawkes played Halloween. It's a good game, man. You know, it's not a pin-side top ten. But for me, that theme is so good. and the gameplay mechanics that are in it are my favorite things. For sure my favorite things. All right, we'll circle back to Spooky. I think when you do these live streams, you've got to start with – don't forget to yell at me. Luke, stop it.
    12:58
    If you're on Facebook, you can head over to YouTube. There's even more people there in the chat. The Facebook live here is just going to be temporary. The YouTube one will live in infamy, and I'm recording it for a podcast to release later anyway. How good was Franchi He-Man artwork? Oh, Enzo. Your mouth to God's ears, man.
    13:19
    Can we not get off of Spooky for a minute? Okay. So Masters of the Universe, somebody may have had it. And then, like, the rumors I heard were American Pinball had the license and then lost it because, I don't know, they ran out of time to make the game or something. But it was, like, still available. and other companies passed on it because they didn't think the demand was that high for that license. And they're probably right. Like by that high, I mean would it sell 1,000 games day one versus, you know, some other 80s movie license or something.
    13:54
    Oh, Shane listened to the WAP show with Jenga's son. That was cool. I've got to check it out. I haven't had time to sit down. so would Masters of the Universe be compelling enough to sell like a thousand games versus like an Evil Dead or a Scooby Doo or a TCM or a Looney Tunes or something I don't know you know the thing is when you make these games you have fixed costs you gotta pay your artist like the artist fee regardless of how many machines you sell you gotta pay the programmer of five figures regardless of if you're making 10 games or 5,000 games. You have to have a coding team that's going to service that game going forward. And so if you come up with a license that you're personally passionate about as a pinball company, but it only sees lackluster sales, like only sells 150 or so, like you just can't do it. And so I think that's where Masters of the Universe was running into some problems. If we could all commit to buying a wide-body, mech-laden, Beastman, Evil Lin, the Sorceress, Castle Grayskull, Snake Mountain machine, I think there's room that it can get done. But as of right now, I don't think that's in production by anybody.
    15:09
    I like to be wrong because I would love to have a Skeletor version. I want a Darth Vader Star Wars machine. I want a Skeletor He-Man Masters of the Universe machine. And I heard they're doing another movie too. But keep it OG. Keep it special. Keep it secret.
    15:26
    Keep it safe. Frodo. Stern Pinball. Speaking about Star Wars. So on the Patreon and on Kerry Hardy's livestream, I kind of took the amalgamation of all the rumors I've been hearing and tried to make some kind of forecasted schedule on what's coming from Stern over the next year and a half, who's making what, I think, and when we'll think to see him.
    15:51
    Yeah, Kevin. I think he, man, would be cool. I don't know that it will be a huge seller, which sucks, but I would like to see it. And so Star Wars is the most consistent rumor I've been hearing the most often that that's probably what's coming next. Some people have emphatically told me, like, original trilogy, it's coming, it's real.
    16:12
    And they seem really concrete about that. So it's probably what we're going to see, probably from John Borg, which I like, because John Borg did the Data East Star Wars, which is a hell of a machine as far as Are we getting a code update I just got a duck fart Who duck farted Star Wars getting a code update right now Almost knocked me on my donuts
    16:37
    So I would love to see, since we seem to be remastering all of John Borg's games, I think the reason we're seeing that is because he's been in the industry for so long and he's still at Stern. And so he's just made a lot of these older games that would be good to remaster. So I don't know what we're going to see as far as what's in the game. I've heard a Death Star mech, which, fantastic.
    17:03
    Are we going to see a remastering of the Data East Star Wars pinball machine by John Borg? I think I'd be on board with that. Like a completely new layout and new take on the original trilogy I think would also be cool. Like, as if this Star Wars was never made and they wanted to make a trilogy machine now with Borg. Borg did Metallica and Guardians of the Galaxy, which is essentially just a theme swap if you look at that layout. So would we see a Star Wars game that plays like Guardians and Metallica with a mechanistic, what do you call it?
    17:43
    Genghis, what did you do to get banned by the AI moderator? Stop spamming caps. Oh, Jengis, I don't know what I did, but I tried to get this Nightbot app running on the live stream so I could award prizes and giveaways, and it's like a little AI tyrant. So you were too enthusiastic, I guess, and it's giving you warnings now. What the heck? I've got to disable that somehow. I didn't even know it was still running. I used it one time, and now whatever. It still lives in here. It's infected it.
    18:19
    Good old Bug. What did Bug say? Jenga, you're still trying. Did you guys like that WAP episode with Spooky Pinball? I think we should just invite them to be on the podcast every single time, and I'll just sit back and let them go because that was hilarious.
    18:35
    So, Star Wars. I don't know anything about the layout, but I know every John Borg machine seems to have a lot of characteristics from his prior games. So, that's what I'm thinking. And if it's... D&D is sounding off. I have WrestleMania off because the fan's pretty loud still. I put quiet fans and everything else, but he would be loud, so I want to stop that.
    18:59
    Yeah, dude, what a censor bot. Freaking night bot piece of whatever. And I couldn't even get the giveaway to work right. What a pain in the butt. How many people are on Facebook? Good, only four. I think everybody's migrating over to YouTube. That's good. Braddy, listen, how you doing? Jump over to YouTube, man. It's more fun over there. Franchi for president, I'd vote for him. Hell yeah.
    19:21
    So I'm excited to see what this game is now at this point. I don't need to know anything about the layout. I think we're about four weeks, four to five weeks away from this game being officially unveiled. Hopefully I'm still invited to Stern because I want to go down there and play it. Let's try it out. Stop it.
    19:40
    But at this point, I don't want to see a blurry picture of the play field. I don't need somebody giving me like a shot-by-shot breakdown. That happened with Wick. That didn't happen with D&D at all. And I just want to wait and see the trailer and then go from there. Probably end up getting it, I guess.
    19:59
    As long as the 1UP guys are interested in it, I'll go ahead and get one. Otherwise, I still have plenty of games for right now. I don't know that I need one day one. Can't wait to see what the controversy will be about the build. It seems like every game that comes out lately has had some kind of problem. Remember the Dragon connection with D&D? Remember the ongoing rattle shots in X-Men?
    20:23
    Hopefully these games have time to bake. They should do a Dutch pinball buildup. Who should do a Dutch pinball buildup? Oh, God, no. Wait.
    20:33
    No, that was terrible. I hate these, like, long teases where they edge you forever. Pinball Brothers, who we're going to talk about, did that way too much with Predator to the point that I didn't care anymore. All right, so the rest of the games that I had heard, Walking Dead is the rumor for the remaster.
    20:49
    I'm guessing that would be October again for Expo. Walking Dead is a game with a really cool layout. It doesn't have the demand that Metallica had. It doesn't have the demand that, what other remaster did they do? Or was Metallica the first of the remasters?
    21:05
    I can't even keep up anymore. I mean, Metallica had a hell of a demand. Games were still going for big money, so that made sense to remake that. The other big ones, Tron, Lord of the Rings, and Ghostbusters, of course.
    21:19
    Don't confuse them. They're both European. But, you know, one's Scandi, and one actually does the build and design in-house.
    21:29
    The company's completely different. Anyway, Walking Dead, great game. Doesn't go for a whole lot of money, but I would like to see it remade. since I released my list I've been hearing a lot more confirmation that Don it's going to be comic book art so there was no problem in going and licensing any actors, re-signing people clearing things with the studio getting 90% of the way down and then having to go back and make art changes, none of that because they can license the comic book and do that the comic book will have an art style already there, you don't have to come up with that de novo and they can kind of animate some clips or something hopefully it's more like Metallica remastered and less like Avengers Infinity Quest with like the kind of static images and even X-Men to an extent too.
    22:14
    But the layout is really fun. So we'll have to wait and see. Not one I'm going to jump into unless somebody orders a build or something.
    22:23
    But I would like to play it and I would like to see more Walking Dead's out there, especially with Insider Connected and all the new stuff. So excited for that. That's number two. number three was Pokemon which we've heard for like two years comic book was still black and white I did not, I have no idea about the Walking Dead comic book so I will trust bug there well you know Metallica came out largely black and white and was phenomenal with their remaster so I think if they use that as the goal for scope and scale of how they're going to build I like it, I like it, I'm excited about that and hopefully we'll see it at Expo and dear God, please have more than two machines so there's not two hours long waits to play it. I don't know that the fervor for Walking Dead Remastered will be as high as Metallica. In fact, there's no way it will be but I'm glad it'll be out there and heck, Jaws 50th dropped and Jaws Premium is still available and it's essentially the same game and it's selling really well from distributors that I talked to. So the market's out there, man. The market's out there. All right, so here's where it got dicey. Moving out of Pokemon, which is supposed to be January, I think the rumor that Jack Danger was on the game, probably true. The rumor that Elwin got put on it, I don't know. Maybe he got brought in to do some fine-tuning, some collaboration or something. Who knows? But I keep hearing Danger on Pokemon.
    23:49
    And heading into Elwin to finish, okay, yeah, that would make sense. Man, I've never purchased a Stern game as a personal must-have, but Pokemon might be it. I mean, imagine this. This won't happen. But can you imagine a Pokemon machine where there's only one trim level? It's only premium.
    24:07
    And in there, like let's say they look to make 2,000 of these Pokemon games. Let's say interspersed in there, there's 200 foil edition Charizard mirror back glass games, and they're just hidden randomly in the boxes, just like the Pokemon cards. And so you have to purchase your new in-box price Pokemon Premium, unbox it, and see if you're one of the lucky people that got the Foil Charizard mirrored back glass, only $200 of that edition made. And then, like, the other games can be a mixture of, like, your Squirtles and your Pikachus and whatever. Probably like a pro for the arcades. And then the premiums will just have, like, essentially LEs, but sprinkled in there randomly so you don't know until you unbox it. So some people could get an LE for the price of a premium. Wouldn't that be amazing? And, like, in line with the whole Pokemon, like, ripping open packages and seeing if you got that high dollar card or something.
    25:10
    And we've seen iterations of the leveling system that Stern's been doing, rudimentary with Venom, taking it to definitely the next level with Dungeons & Dragons, a game that I'm totally appreciating now. I'm swinging back to it. Clean your camera. Which one? The YouTube camera? I can do that.
    25:29
    Do I have a rag? I live in a pinball palace. I should have rags everywhere. Let me get my shirt. Is it better? Is that better? He's just greasy. I am greasy.
    25:46
    Yeah, I think age is a barrier in that game. It's all those cards and all that money. Yeah, for sure. But, like, can you imagine? you have to buy your game and see if you won the LE secretly man this Facebook one sucks what is this? oh it's the edge of my computer screen whatever Jason Ruffer how you doing? again to the Facebook people jump over to YouTube it's better I don't think Pokemon is something you get as an adult you have to play it as a kid yeah I was around I played it it's a leveling character battle system heavily Japanese which has it's own niche some people will never jive with that and be too kiddy of a game I just want to log in pick my Pokemon, level them up evolve them keep gaining all the things, get to the end game where I'm just like a badass and I can clear out why is the picture quality so much worse on YouTube Don? oh, I don't know, probably because of the stupid camera let me see if I can fix it here
    26:43
    do do do alright, let's try some things here real quick, real quick sometimes the focus goes out because it's like on auto is that better let me stick it right there tell me if that sharpness is better that looks worse to me but who knows I wear glasses so looks like low resolution oh that sucks It could be my computer connection too I'm out in the woods That looks to be too blurry to me That looks better Let's go with that Worse, yeah Alright, let me know if that's better again looks worse 800 by 600 now oh my god gang and i bet i bet my facebook live stream is probably great because that's a camera so what i could do work in progress what i could do is i can use my cell phone's camera as the main camera on this next time, and then maybe it'll work better than these other USB cameras I'm using. Because who knows? Maybe it's the laptop. It's probably not the camera, because these cameras are good. It's probably the laptop and or my bandwidth, but the Facebook seems to be going good. Let me know. We'll try all this. We'll get better next week. Gang, be strident now. No strident. No strident. Sounds like chewing gum. I don't like it. Still don't know what that word means, other than something's going to be cringe said when you say Strident.
    28:40
    All right, so that's Pokemon. After Pokemon, this one surprised me. We need a 3D Don. I agree. Transformers, right? Do you hear this? That came out of nowhere. I don't know that anybody's clamoring for that. Maybe Transformers, right, is just the code name for something better. I don't know. But that's supposed to be the, I guess, the Kong for next year, like in that March window, Cornerstone. We'll see, whatever. I haven't heard anything about whether it's movie-based, whether it's comic-based, whether it's Generation 1, which would be totally awesome. The YouTube is behind the Facebook feed too. You mean like time-wise? Yeah, processing, whatever. The issue with Pokemon is what game or era of games is it based on?
    29:27
    It's going to be classic Pokemon. Pikachu, Squirtle, Mewtwo, probably everything up to like the first Pokemon movie because that's what everybody knows.
    29:37
    You know, these Vorperions or whatever. I don't know if people know what those are. Transformers G1. Absolutely would slap. All right, so Transformers. And then I heard about Fallout, which I had heard like two years ago that like Fallout and Call of Duty and Halo were being tossed around as pinball games. I don't know from who. and then I heard Fallout for Stern. Makes sense. Want to reach a more modern, younger audience. Kids are playing these games.
    30:10
    But you don't want to go too young. You don't want to skew like Fortnite. Hugely popular game. But people that are playing Fortnite are in middle school and they don't have money for pinball machines. People who played Fallout now in their 30s and 40s, nostalgic for that. I could see why that would work. Again, leveling system because it was an RPG. I dig it. Speaking of slapping, I'm playing Alice Cuber Dawn. Hell yes.
    30:41
    Fallout. Man, I'm going to scan my OG Pokemon cards. That would be fun. Yeah, I think there's a lot that they could do with it. I think Stern could actually have a separate, like, Pokemon portal just for Insider Connected because it would probably be so popular. So that's the one I'm really looking forward to see, like, what it is. I can't wait to see what Star Wars looks like. I mean, I can't wait for every release to see what they actually are, but I want to see how they did Pokemon.
    31:05
    And then I want to know what their approach to Transformers is. Fallout, I'm cautiously optimistic. We'll see what that is. And then the last one, the remaster, ACDC is what I heard. Everyone better keep their dirty paws off my Call of Duty zombies. What about Plants vs. Zombies? What a terrible game that would be. I heard that's next from Multimorphic is Plants vs. Zombies as their follow-up to Game of the Year Portal. I don't even have it written down to talk about them.
    31:32
    No way you're embodying a Pokemon over a trainer unless they go the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon route. Now, I think you're going to be the trainer, and you're choosing which Pokemon you're going to be leveling up, kind of like with D&D where you can pick the different ones. It'd be nice if you can start with, like, three options, and then as you play, you unlock more and more. And then you can level those characters up and evolve them.
    31:56
    Why is Star Wars getting a code update? Does this seem weird to anybody? Like, Star Wars already had the code update for the new Topper integration.
    32:06
    Oh, maybe it's getting its code update for the menu system. All right. So, ACDC, really good game from that era. I like the bell mechanism. I like the shooter mech that they took from Star Trek Next Generation. Man, I would love to see Star Trek The Next Generation remastered Oh man, yeah, that would be a buy That would definitely be a buy But I'd like to see that ACDC's coming back Kind of the same reason as Walking Dead I've always kind of liked it when I've seen it And I'm always a little bummed that it came out in that era of DMD Or LCD, Red Dot Matrix, whatever And we didn't get the full modern pin for that So I think that'll be cool it's a trailer for next Star Wars pin how cool would that be if that's what we were seeing here oh do you have phantom tilts here what up Australia representing what time is it over there It probably the evening Good Maybe this time works out then
    33:08
    I'll probably do that and use my iPhone's camera next time because I think we'll get some better clarity. Because I can tell on the Facebook stream, I think it does look a little bit clearer than the YouTube. We're learning. We're learning. We're growing. We're dominating Sundays with the Dontaculars. and then there'll be an audio version of this if you want to listen on the podcast and we'll see how hopefully the audio is coming out good there 10 30 p.m. perfect perfect all right so that's Stern's lineup would there be any other like little spot releases or you know earlier who knows who knows but I'm excited I think four weeks from now we're going to know a whole lot more about the Star Wars game I don't want it spoiled now at this point I'm a month away I'm gonna go work for a couple weeks I'll take a trip and then we'll see what this game is and then we'll be playing it at Expo for sure. And hopefully they still like me and they'll invite me down to come play at the factory. I think that'd be rad. I think we can make that happen. Shane, how you doing? Australia. Super awesome. Love you guys.
    34:11
    Your resume and LE just got doubled up in value with a signature. I mean I don't know. I'm glad I got the LE not considering selling it because I do like having it. What a game. Legend of Zelda would roll. RJ, Russell, my buddy, absolutely. Did you get your play field yet? So we did the Patreon giveaway for this month, and Patreon members won a Evil Dead Translite, and then Russell there got himself a play field heading to you. They're not cheap to ship, by the way, but at least if FedEx cuts it off the pallet, it's not going to shatter when it hits the ground, okay?
    34:51
    I agree. Legend of Zelda would be fantastic. I'm working on my own homebrew for that title right now. It's in development hell right now. I try to level up my wiring skills so I can get a playable game. I think we'll see it at some point, but I may need to enlist some help now. I built the cabinet. I got the armor on there. I've got mods made for it. It's just wiring everything up. We'll have to see. All right, Star Wars just got finished.
    35:17
    I think we may hear another duck fart here pretty soon. So I just turned that game on. So this may have been a code update from a couple days ago, but it just went out.
    35:27
    Who is doing the J and Silent Bob? I don't know. There's the duck fart. Let's just say Barrels of Fun. Oh, I didn't have them on the list to talk about.
    35:38
    Let's see. I already talked about Spooky. I want to circle back to them. But JJP, the Big Don Loop. You'll be able to play the Big Don Loop. you're going to have such a fun time when you come out here, Ryan Expo is just going to be like just one part of it I got some fun stuff planned for us I hope it's spooky I mean, with themes like that look what we've seen with Spooky $10,000 games absolutely loaded fun layouts that are not getting overly complex but the mechanisms are where they put the complexity go with that, man I think they're underpricing their games, but I'm not going to say that too loudly because I like paying what they're offering.
    36:26
    And I like what they're doing with toppers now too. I love the fact that they sold 888 Evil Deads and like 847 toppers or something stupid like that. Like just about everybody bought one of those toppers.
    36:40
    Soldering skills. Use solder with lead in it. 6040 lead-free solder is a lot harder to work with. alright but isn't that like super toxic Donald up here acting like he doesn't know our games listen if that gets out I'm going to be bombarded constantly with what's your next titles I've been allowed to say that I can give my impressions and so I did play the soon to be released spooky title and I already have my money earmarked for it I can't wait to get it pre-ordered or ordered day one as soon as it drops I want it in my house with that topper.
    37:19
    And I think, predictively, nobody knows for certain. Nobody knows the market for certain. It can always surprise you. But I think it has all the makings of a very quick sellout. I think we may see the return of a day one sellout for Spooky Pinball. And probably it's going to be a one-to-one game and topper, I think. Yeah. Although, the included topper, the one that I saw, kind of badass too. Like, I would just take that and put it on my wall.
    37:51
    Ah, I can't wait to talk about it. Fun stuff coming from Benton. I need to hang out down there more. I need to get, like, a summer home or something in Benton so I can just, like, go out and hang out there, play pinball games. It's super fun. Also, shout out to Nick's Cafe while we're down there. So, I guess that's all I can really talk about with Spooky right now.
    38:13
    Y'all know Evil Dead production is approaching its halfway point. It's accelerating now. Hopefully we'll see that game here in the late fall, right?
    38:26
    Should they adjust their launch window to have games ready for Expo? Do they even need to have games at Expo? I mean, games sold out before. Evil Dead sold out in three months. this next one is probably going to sell out so quick that I don't even know if they need to go to Expo other than just to sell a couple of the straggling Ultraman that are around which Ultraman is having a moment you can play Halloween in it too that's awesome JJP, I don't think we're going to hear much out of them I think they're going to be making Harry Potter great selling game, super fun action packed, I think they're going to be making it for like 18 months and if I was them personally, I wouldn't even cut off sales of the CEs yet until there's like no more people buying it than say, okay, last call, and then sell another 200 and then cut it off.
    39:21
    And so, I've been asking for Batman the Animated Series. Other people involved in pinball companies know that it needs to be made. So I don't know what the holdup is. I heard there is a company working on a Batman game and I don't think it's a Wisconsin based company if I can say that Pinball at the Beach is where you'll see the new game the first it's going to be sold out by then you got all the spooky fanboys like me who are going to buy at least half of these games day one and then because of how Evil Dead's been doing and selling for thousands and thousands and thousands above MSRP, I think you're going to see a ton of speculators in there buying up the rest of them. And then all of the pin curious, think about this. Like, I kind of want to take a chance on Spooky, but, you know, I don't know. I'm used to Sterns. Well, now you can see, oh, shoot, if I get the game and I don't like it, I can at least break even on it. Yeah, that's going to make it a lot easier for somebody that's kind of on the fence with a spooky game to jump in there. So the diehard spooky fans, the normal pinball people that are going to be feeling like less risk going with one of their games, and the speculators, I think that's lined up to be day one.
    40:53
    Yes, absolutely. Franchi is the master of Batman. Yes, pinball scalping. look you can't be mad right people didn't rush in and just like buy up 10 evil deads just to hoard them and sell them later game was available for months and months and months i ran out and played it early and then told everybody like it plays good and seems to be built really well the only thing we didn't know was how i was going to do on location because it hadn't been made yet um but then once people played it like they all agreed so you had time to get one so i wouldn't call it scalping. I would say that's the market price for it.
    41:32
    Franchi, have you done any Batman the Animated Series art for fun? I hope so, man. Because, oh gosh, I'm just imagining like a binder full of Harley Quinn art that would like drool marks on it that Franchi's been working on.
    41:52
    I wonder if Franchi would draw me a tattoo. Can't pre-order an unknown game, that's insane Right, well they never did any You pre-ordered once it was revealed You didn't pre-order before it was revealed What dealers are doing now Is taking interested lists So you get on a list And then when the game is officially revealed And on the market They'll go through that list and contact people And say hey you were on the interested list Just to let you know Game's released now, here's a link to the trailer I can tell you about the game the dealers probably went out to Spooky and played it already so they can give some first-hand feedback. Just so, you know, in case you're like most people and busy during the week with your life and you miss the launch date for some reason, your dealer can reach out and say, hey, by the way, just to let you know, game's out and available if you'd want one.
    42:45
    Franchi, I am an idiot. But I don't want to, like, you know, presume things on you. So I was just tossing it out there in the ether. but dude I would totally get a Franchi tattoo how awesome would that be I mean I could probably just say drop whatever you want and I'll get it but it would probably be a little bit better if we could collaborate on at least a concept with my tattoos I let the artist come up with the design I just kind of like give them prompts on kind of what I'm thinking but I don't go in with like it's got to be this detailed it's got to be super tiny and it's got to have all these 12 elements on it because I don't know what works well in art, number one, or what works in tattoo either. The tattoo artist does, and the artist knows what works spatially, color complementation, color palette, whether I'm a fall or winter or whatever.
    43:40
    So I'll come up with some idea of something I would get. A portrait of Franchi. Oh, you mean like a Godfather pinball machine tattoo?
    43:51
    Get a tad of my head avatar next to my comments. Yeah, I mean, it looks like, who is that guy? Alfred Hitchcock, kind of. I get mine off Google Images. Smart, smart.
    44:11
    And then I have to hold to my ideal that tattoos personally have to have no significant meaning. look I know it sucks that you lost voices but all you have to do is reach out to Mark Hamill who voiced Joker and pull all the other audio from the cartoon series if you're even allowed to reach out to actors anymore but I think you could pull enough just from the audio from the film and then hire a voice actor to do Police Commissioner Gordon or something.
    44:50
    Dude, get some Denmark. Have a Kringle on me, Genghis. Thanks for joining. This was super fun. I'm not even halfway through the list. It's been 45 minutes. Let's run through everything else. Okay, the other folks.
    45:02
    American Pinball, where's their new game? I don't know. I did reach out in the last few weeks to my contact there, and they told me the plan is still to release this game, that they're working on, a game that I've played and I would like to be able to play more of.
    45:21
    I don't know that it's a pin-side top ten. Definitely their best game. And I would, like, unironically own it because it was fun. It was really fun. Games I would ironically own, ABBA for sure I would ironically own.
    45:40
    There's probably some others. I consider it like a Woe Nelly, Big Juicy Melon just because it's so, silly and weird.
    45:46
    Another rumored title, you were correct, Ryan, the rumor is it's based on the video game Cuphead. And that's been floated around. I've heard from people, especially people that have arcade bars with retro games and things, would love to have that title.
    46:04
    The best time for them to release it is a year ago. But the second best time to release it is right now. what I'm hearing, again, just floating, not anything official, is that the licensor wants this game to be 100% complete at launch, which seems a little unreasonable. I think if the game's 80% of the way there, get it out and get it into homes, get people playing it, and then get some feedback and use that to do that final 20% code update. That seems to be the optimal way to do it. I don't want any game to come out 100% code complete because you're going to get feedback, you're going to go back and fine-tune things, score balance, gameplay balance, and then when you craft those final wizard modes and things, that's when we see those fall in.
    46:50
    Ryan, get out another podcast? Absolutely. Man, me and Ryan, I hope he's ready to record because we're going to record out here. I'm too lazy. Dude, I feel that deep in my soul, man. I worked all night and came here and I'm like, why did I say I was going to live stream? We're having fun with it, though. So it's good. I need to go deliver another game today and grab a pizza, eat some food, rest up, and go back to work. All right, American Pinball. We talked about them. Dutch Pinball, Triple X Pinball, whatever they're called.
    47:22
    Alice's have made it stateside. People had to play high prices for the tariff. Now the tariff is like $1,000 cheaper, but still sucks that you have to consider that. You don't get the topper. No word in sight when the topper's coming. Lior makes toppers, but then did the alien toppers, the alien queen topper from Lior ever actually come out from Art of Pinball? I don't know. I would just turn and say, hey Lior, can you just make us Alice toppers? We need 500. Just make the molds. We'll injection mold them and get them out. Hopefully that's what they're doing.
    47:58
    When are we going to see the next game from Dutch Pinball? From what I'm hearing, their next rumored title, Back to the Future, hasn't even started development yet. So, not soon. I like what Gomez said about people complaining about codes. People who complain can't even play at the level they're complaining about! That is so savage.
    48:21
    Yeah, and you know, I don't think a game needs to be code complete. If it was 80% of the way there, fine. If all of the things that I can reach in 20 to 30 minutes of gameplay are there, fine. I rarely get to wizard modes, but I am doing it more often, but it's taking a lot of work to get there.
    48:44
    Star Wars, ACDC, and maybe Transformers, the other three do nothing for me. Thank you, Jason Corbin. That was a live Patreon Common Update. If you want to join the Patreon, patreon.com backslash Don's Pinball Podcast. We do robust things. Whenever I hear rumors, I drop them there. I record special podcasts that I don't want for general population and put them over on there, and you're entered into a contest to win Translites and now Playfields every single month. What else are you doing with five bucks? Show your appreciation today. Patreon.com backslash Don's Pinball Podcast. Join the army today. There's my shill post for myself. Run another Patreon over at WeArePinball. Patreon.com backslash WeArePinball. Me and Genghis, we split that money. We use it for gear and stuff and to goof off, and it's super fun, and we have a fun chat over there too and Genghis is always like posting weird crap there So there you go Oh also we do a bonus episode just about every time we record and throw it on Patreon So you get access to that twice the WAP. And if you want to hear the other hour of content with Spooky Pinball, it's over on the WAP Patreon. So five bucks and five bucks, that's ten bucks. You get access to two Patreons for ten bucks. Some people it's ten bucks just to walk in the door for one. We do two, and we post frequently. ACDC Jason, no one wants Pearl Jam so Juggalo Championship Wrestling I just watched a YouTube stream or video from an event they had in Milwaukee they have a guy, a wrestler who dresses up like Eddie Vedder and wrestles and his name is Steven Flo like the Pearl Jam song Even Flo, go check that out Juggalo Championship Wrestling from Milwaukee, it's on YouTube you can watch the match, the first match is Steven Flo and this wrestler named Cocaine who wears a mask and they're fighting two undead zombies. It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal wrestling action. I would love God, I would love a JCW pinball machine. It's nuts. Insane Clown Posse is the one that puts all of it together.
    50:49
    Eddie Vedder and a guy in a wrestling mask named Cocaine battling two undead zombies and that's the opening match. That's the opening match. Steven Flo. I laughed for 20 minutes. That's hilarious.
    51:03
    Eddie Vedder. That being said, I wouldn't mind a Pearl Jam pinball machine at some point. What else we got? Pinball Brothers. Do we need to talk about them?
    51:15
    They teased us for what seems like six years about Predator. Predator's released, and there's still no good. just, hey, we gave this game to a streamer and he's been putting hours of content out there and people can get a feel for the game. I think the game is still good. The game's probably really good, but nobody knows that. And you can order it, but where's the one gameplay stream that we had, which had all that cool Arnold stuff in it, got snatched. Disappeared. From existence. Which was frustrating. I got it to you by iPhone camera instead of this other one. The other thing is I'm looking at this on a postage stamp size on my laptop screen which is like a $100 special from Walmart. So who knows what the problem is here. But I'm liking what the iPhone camera is doing. So maybe we'll switch to that next time. We'll try that out. I love Pearl Jam. We couldn't get into it then. What else we got? Pinball Brothers. I don't know. Predator is probably a good game. we're going to have to play it hopefully, god, it's got to be at Expo Pinball Brothers is always at Expo they had four ABBAs last year I heard a rumor that they're asking people that pre-ordered Predator to now pay in full before their game will get made and that's got me worried because that sounds like what a company that ran out of money would do because that's what Haggis did and I don't like that and we haven't seen like one predator get unboxed anywhere and if they're asking people for full payment now and they're not showing at least a weekly live stream, YouTube short, something just like, here they are being produced, they're shipping out now, we're putting them in the truck, they're in the boxes, I'm worried.
    53:08
    And if I had pre-ordered one and they asked me for full payment now and I have not seen one get assembled, leave the factory, be streamed anywhere, not even being streamed anywhere there's no way I would do that oh gosh that would like I'd feel nauseous hopefully that's just some false rumors I've been fed but I mean where's the games where are they being unboxed where are they being shipped to like send one to Kale at the electric bat you know send one to district 82 send one to big streaming places the very next pinball show have one there right have a wherever it's at it should have been at Melbourne it should have been at Pintastic in New England at least like get five games to the US and two to Australia and one or two in Europe just get ten games and send them out around the world so people can get eyes on them give them to Jeff at Mad Pinball he'll take that thing to a different arcade every weekend and let people go and play it. Send him one, man.
    54:17
    And then he can sell it cheap then later. But yeah, I heard Kerry's going to unbox one. I hope so. I hope somebody does.
    54:25
    I mean, I would do it. Send me free stuff. I'll unbox your stuff. I'm not shady. All right, what else was I going to talk about? If you order a game from Jeff at MadPipa.com, you are an awesome dude. And use code WAP, W-A-P, and you will get a WAP t-shirt. I'm sending out two of them tomorrow, and then we'll be all caught up there. So there's room for that. You get an exclusive WAP shirt with a MAD logo as well. And I'm going to stuff that with a bunch of other crap that I got. Like, I have random stuff that I've been collecting over the three years I've been doing this. Do you want game flyers? Lookit, I've got Elton John's. They're probably even signed by Franchi, for Christ's sakes. Lookit, a Pulp Fiction flyer. What else we got?
    55:08
    Ooh, Platinum Elton John. Are they signed? these aren't signed. I'll put a signature on there if you want it. What else do we got? I got so many Elton Johns.
    55:21
    Nobody wants an Insider Connected flyer. That's stupid. Oh, here's one. Here's one. You might secretly get this. Galactic Tank Force flyer. Signed by nobody. This is not the signature edition.
    55:34
    You might... I can't give these away. Freaking Venom flyers. Anyway, not just flyers, though. I've got t-shirts, I've got hats. Somebody got that hat from European Pinball Championships. I sent that out with one of them. You're welcome.
    55:51
    You're not just going to get a t-shirt for buying a game. You're going to get a bunch of keychains and stickers. I've got things that people sent me for weird reasons and I'm giving them away, man.
    56:04
    How is a Venom flyer going to get less valuable? Don sent me a GTF flyer. I probably did. I want to hunt down that Centaur. Yes. Predator are more close to homebrew than a real product.
    56:19
    I think it's better than homebrew, but not that we would know. You know, leg levelers. I sent you leg levelers?
    56:34
    Yeah. It would probably have a better build than homebrew, but it's coming off like that. EMPin is doing good. Somebody asked about my Jax Open. No, it's Lucky Hand, which is an iteration of Jax Open. It turns out Gottlieb did some crazy things. They did Jax Open, and then they redid that into Lucky Hand with an Adaball feature, and then like 10 years later they did Jax 2 Open and re-released the same EM game, but it was solid state, I think, with an alphanumeric display. So I've learned a lot about old-ass Gottliebs recently for whatever reason. GTF is a goat. Glad you like it, man. Nando, how you doing?
    57:15
    Okay, so anyway, game's working good. I'm going to replace that 1970s lamp power cord with an actual one.
    57:24
    I got replacement plastics, and I'm going to redo all the LEDs in the game. And then everything's working, so that's great. And then I need to find a buyer for it. So if you want an EM that's been made over, changed out the lights so they're all working, they won't melt the plastics, and brand new plastics, Mad Pinball and Jeff are the way to go. Harry Potter's coming tomorrow. Patrick, that's awesome. Which Harry Potter did you get? I saw that Wizards are available now, which is probably, if I get it again, the one that I would do.
    57:54
    Jeff has preferred Distro for sure. Man, yeah, he hooks it up. They need to sell more ABBA. they ain't selling more ABBA unless they're $4,500 even then god for whatever reason you go to the back corner of Texas Pinball Festival and there's a distributor there I don't know I don't want to drag them through the mud but the queen that's back there always plays like garbage the ABBA that was back there was playing like absolute garbage and they had every one of American Pinball's games terrible I met a distributor called Yellow River Pinball in northern Wisconsin, they are only a distributor for American pinball, which is wild, those poor people. I asked them when the new game was coming. They didn't know.
    58:40
    It's their best game. Like, people would be legitimately shocked and would unironically want to own it if they can just get it out of the gate.
    58:51
    Like, it's not going to sell 5,000 pins. You know, it's not going to move the needle on the pin side top 15. But it's a damn fine game. and I really, it's so sad that like they, they, they designed a game that's actually compelling and fun and where is it?
    59:14
    Daintron's credit CE, way to go. Daintron's credit, like they're sitting there churning out 10 million circuit boards a day. So that's probably, uh, everything they need. guys you haven't sent me any stars what the hell gang I haven't gotten a star at all ever I don't even think people can even give them or whatever GTS Slapstone yeah but it's a jukebox playing ABBA so like how much can you ask for it do you mean that's a fitting story for American Pinball though Fockus you are not wrong sir you are not wrong you may say online instead of inline but now it's fun I'll teach you about that but I'll tell you what I do like the term bodega for like a liquor store or party store or konbini or what the hell are they in Australia a vendo or something Australia people what do you call your convenience stores they have a word for it servo I think it's servo for reasons.
    60:24
    Makes me sick. All right, Ryan, help me out. What do you call like a gas station convenience store? Is it a servo?
    60:34
    You haven't told your family to shut up. Oh, that's true. Makes me sick. Chicago Gaming needs to be better.
    60:41
    Chicago Gaming, a deli? No, come on. Deli? Is that a Western Australia term? Is there like a Gold Coast? Servo is a petrol station.
    60:56
    I thought there was like another term for just like small convenience store, bodega, you'd hear them in the Northeast.
    61:06
    I was honorably mentioned on Canadian, I'm freaking, that's great. That's like getting your poster up in the post office. Yeah, servo, service station. That makes sense.
    61:16
    Australian language makes sense when they break it down. except for Arvo for the afternoon. I don't know where that came from.
    61:25
    American Pinball should assemble for Pinball Brothers. Skip the tariffs. Chase Rudd. Comment of the day. Pin that. Oh, Chicken Treat is so good, you guys.
    61:36
    So American Pinball has production capability. They build a lot of GTFs that nobody bought. They build a lot of Hot Wheels that go somewhere. Like, they can build games, and their build quality isn't bad. At least their build quality is better than what I've seen from Pinball Brothers. So why aren't they contract building... Frickin' Predator. I don't know. It makes so much sense to me to do that. Yeah, because Pinball Brothers is a design studio, right, in Sweden. They have some guys there that design pinball games, and then they have coders and artists and things. They don't build them in Sweden. They formed Euro Pinball Corp. with Pedretti in its fashion capital, Milan, Italy, which I drove through, and that's where their games are made. So the fun houses from Pedretti are made there. The Abbas were made there, unfortunately. but they have a production house that essentially they co-own that they're produced at but they're a design studio so why not have another production facility in the US to totally skip tariffs, I think they would do phenomenal business with Predator just on theme alone the game looks halfway decent, again not a pin-side top 10 but it looks like a good game it looks fun, a lot of wire forms There's mechanisms in there. There's a Gatling gun and stuff. It's got a Predator theme, which I think is a killer theme. So the layout doesn't have to be, you know, S tier because the theme will carry it.
    63:18
    But then, Jeremy, how are you doing? But then when have we seen things that make sense from some people?
    63:25
    And they got the backing from Ametron. So, like, why not be a build house, you know? Makes sense. gang it's 10 o'clock I'm hungry I gotta go get some food I gotta deliver a game so I'll wrap it up this was fun I'm gonna work and figure out sick pinball brother spurn I'm gonna work out the camera issue because I want some good quality so if you got some tips man I'm all open for it Facebook thanks for joining us over here thanks for heading over to YouTube the pinball early games always felt cheap and way too much you can email me at donspinballpodcast.gmail.com Join the Patreon and get giveaway stuff. You're entered for giveaways, which is awesome. And you get bonus content, which is always fun. Join the WAP one, too, because there's tons of bonus content to go over there because me and Genghis can't shut up about each other. They can build games for Chicago Gaming. Don't put that on them because Chicago Gaming has had such great build quality. They're just really slow.
    64:26
    Ryan, you're a real one, man. Bill Brandes, how you doing? Thanks for coming by, everybody. It's the Sunday Dontacular. I'm going to go and put this audio up on the Don's Pinball Podcast podcaster app. So if you missed part of it, you don't want to listen to YouTube, you can listen to this in the car, and we'll go with that.
    64:45
    I wish there was just like a switch I could hit, and it would just be like, whoop, thank you. Or you could do that like YouTuber thing where you're just like, whoo. Right, you just put your hand, whoo, and you make that sound. But like I can't. I have to click stop streaming. And then another pop-up comes up, and it's like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to stop streaming Don? And then I'm like yeah and I try to say something and click it and then it truncates out like the last five seconds so like the end of the video is always like and be sure to like and sub and then it's gone so alright we'll do it stop streaming, y'all be good and this is fun man, let me know email me, DonSpilboPodcast gmail.com, like and sub all that fun stuff, I'll see you later am I using pinball brother's camera? I play the outro music here real quick for the people that are listening on the recorded podcast and we will sign off on the Facebook thanks for listening everybody thanks for joining let me know if you enjoyed this format otherwise take care of yourself and each other talk to you later