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Episode 235 - 2024 Year-End Review

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 58m·held·Dec 22, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

American Pinball faces likely 2025 collapse after staff layoffs, litigation, and Barry O's commercial failure.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers' 2024 year-end pinball review identifies American Pinball in severe financial and operational distress following layoffs of key staff (Jack Hager, Steve Bowen, David Fix), litigation from co-designer Paul Reno over payment, and a failed Barry O's Barbecue Challenge release. The hosts predict American Pinball collapse in 2025, citing dysfunctional corporate structure (employment contracts with parent company Ametron, disconnected leadership), poor game reception, and insufficient IP strength (Cuphead deemed too niche to rescue the company). Spooky Pinball showed resilience by scaling back production, consolidating model tiers, and releasing Evil Dead to positive reception.

Key Claims

  • Paul Reno initiated litigation against American Pinball over payment related to Galactic Tank Force co-design work

    high confidence · David Fix confirmed in Loser Kid Pinball Podcast interview; legal action verified via screenshot

  • Jack Hager, Steve Bowen, and David Fix have been laid off from American Pinball

    high confidence · David Fix directly confirmed layoffs in Loser Kid interview; Dennis also mentioned on Facebook and Pinside

  • American Pinball employment contracts are with parent company Ametron, not American Pinball Inc.

    high confidence · David Fix stated in Loser Kid interview that contracts are with Ametron, HR handled by parent company

  • Barry O's Barbecue Challenge was a commercial disaster with poor sales

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony's direct experience at TPF; no lines at playable machine; game reset after ball one

  • David Fix stated he does not know American Pinball's financial status until Ametron informs him end-of-year

    high confidence · Direct quote from Loser Kid interview; Fix indicated disconnection from monthly financial oversight

  • Spooky Pinball scaled down Evil Dead production and eliminated three-tier model approach

    high confidence · Dennis notes Spooky shifted to single-model approach for Evil Dead after Looney Tunes/Texas Chainsaw production scaling

Notable Quotes

  • “They're just – none of it's good. Let's put it that way. None of it's good.”

    Dennis @ ~28:00 — Summarizes American Pinball's dire operational and financial situation based on Loser Kid interview details

  • “That's a good question. [Long pause] I'm going to have to go listen to this interview.”

    Tony (paraphrasing David Fix's response about American Pinball's 2025 prospects) @ ~25:00 — David Fix's evasive answer to whether American Pinball will exist in 2025 signals lack of confidence

  • “I think they go out of business. I think this is the year. I know I've said it for like the last four years or three years, this is the year that they go under.”

    Tony @ ~50:00 — Tony's final prediction for American Pinball's 2025 prospects after years of declining confidence

  • “Cuphead's too little, too late is more my position.”

    Dennis @ ~55:00 — Assessment that even Cuphead licensing cannot save American Pinball given company's structural and market failures

  • “It seems like everyone was so busy wanting to celebrate the legacy of Barry Osler, no one sat there and said are we actually making a good game here?”

    Dennis @ ~58:00 — Core criticism of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge: insular design focused on legacy rather than market appeal

  • “Devoid of joy is maybe the best way [to describe Barry O's]. Even if you could argue that it's not a bad shooter per se.”

    Dennis @ ~56:00 — Encapsulates the perception that Barry O's lacked emotional resonance despite potential mechanical competence

Entities

American PinballcompanyAmetroncompanyDavid FixpersonSteve BowenpersonJack HagerpersonPaul RenopersonDennis Nordmanperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball parent company (Ametron) structure suggests financial propping and possible tax write-off strategy rather than genuine operational restructuring

    high · Employment contracts held by Ametron, not American Pinball Inc.; David Fix's disconnection from monthly financials; end-of-year financial reporting only

  • ?

    business_signal: Legal dispute with Paul Reno over Galactic Tank Force payment indicates contractor/employment relationship problems and potential financial mismanagement

    high · Confirmed litigation in Loser Kid interview; David Fix's acknowledgment of contract structure with Ametron; unverified screenshot of legal action

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift from cautious optimism (post-2023 Galactic Tank Force) to pessimism about American Pinball's future viability

    high · Dennis and Tony explicitly state predictions of 2025 closure after years of declining confidence; Barry O's reception confirms market rejection

  • ?

    community_signal: Steve Bowen perceived as 'national treasure' of pinball community but hamstrung by working at chronically struggling companies (Deep Root, American Pinball)

    high · Dennis: 'Steve is he's the national treasure when it comes to pinball. I don't know anyone who doesn't like Steve'; acknowledged pattern of Steve at failed companies

  • ?

    design_philosophy: American Pinball marketing and production decisions indicate loss of strategic direction: poor theme selection (Galactic Tank Force), misaligned IP choices (Cuphead), insular design process

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.357

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, December 22nd. This is episode 235. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. And it's 2024 year-end review. I like the year-end review because I basically always name the episode the same every year.
0:35
I mean, to be fair, I normally invest approximately eight seconds in coming up with the episode title, which is usually an amalgamation of something in the pinball and something in the video game segment that I just kind of blend together. But we will get into that. I know we kind of did a generalized thought recap on pinball last episode. However, we'll do a more in-depth thing this go-around. But it won't be too time-consuming, folks. Do not worry. Also, do not worry. There will be no rumor corner this episode. We're too end-review-y. We're not looking into our crystal balls. But for the time being, Tony, I've looked into my crystal ball, and I have seen, what is Brotato?
1:15
Because I see on Discord when you're playing a game, and all I see is Brotato. And when I see it, I just go, Brotato. Protato. Toilet matches. I bought two games on sale. I bought Jagged Alliance 3. Okay. Sequel to the joy that was Jagged Alliance 2. I'm not surprised you would get that. I've not played it because all I can play is Protato. What is it? Protato with all the DLC cost me like $5.
1:48
Okay. So it costs about the amount as a bag of potatoes. Yes. A sack, if you will, of potatoes. A sack of potatoes. Rotato is one of those, it's kind of like Vampire Survivors. It's an auto shooter. Okay.
2:02
Barry O's Barbecue Challenge
game
Galactic Tank Forcegame
Cupheadgame
Evil Deadgame
Spooky Pinballcompany
Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization
Texas Chainsawgame
Looney Tunesgame
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Deep Root Pinballcompany
Doug M.person

high · Analysis of Galactic Tank Force drip-feed campaign sour reception; Barry O's overfocus on Barry Osler legacy; Cuphead deemed 'super niche' and unlikely to appeal to mainstream market

  • $

    market_signal: Timing saturation problem: 2023 Galactic Tank Force release coincided with major competition (Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw, Pulp Fiction) limiting market share and visibility

    medium · Dennis notes GTF release timing in 'really saturated month and a half or two month period' of major manufacturer releases

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Layoffs of key staff: Jack Hager, Steve Bowen, David Fix from American Pinball; indication of cost-cutting and structural instability

    high · David Fix confirmed layoffs in Loser Kid interview; discussion of reconversations about rehiring Steve Bowen

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky Pinball demonstrated market responsiveness by scaling back Evil Dead production, consolidating to single-model approach, and improving overall execution quality

    medium · Dennis notes Spooky 'scaled down the number of units, got rid of having different three iterations, just gone to the one model approach'; positive reception of Evil Dead

  • ?

    product_concern: Barry O's Barbecue Challenge criticized as mechanically competent but emotionally empty; design philosophy prioritized legacy celebration over game quality

    high · TPF firsthand experience (no lines, immediate reset); Dennis quote: 'devoid of joy'; community consensus of commercial disaster

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community perception of American Pinball shifted from cautious optimism post-Houdini/Oktoberfest/Hot Wheels to severe pessimism post-David Fix era games

    high · Explicit discussion of 'pre-David Fix era' vs 'post-David Fix era'; GTF and Barry O's seen as indicative of deeper problems not just game design

    • Where you are just building your run up and trying to successfully complete a run. And you're like a little, you look like an egg or a potato little looking thing. I like how you tried to make it maybe not like a potato and then you said like a potato. I think it looks more like an egg, personally, but they call it bro-tato. It's like, okay, whatever. Well, bro-egg doesn't sound like anything. Well, true. It's nowhere near as funny. But that's literally basically all I've been playing and just slowly trying different, because there's all sorts of different characters, and all the characters have different stats and different bonuses and negatives and stuff. So I've been playing through it in different ways, attempting to get successful completions. So, but yeah, no, it is very much a, how do I want to, it's not like a mindless game, but it's very much a game that you can play without like pouring tons of energy into it or while you're doing other stuff with no big hassle. Okay.
    3:10
    So I've been concentrating on it lately and I'm having a great time. That's why I keep starting it up. It's like, I should start Jagged Alliance. Oh, I started Brotato. That's okay. You slipped. You slipped and clicked on Brotato.
    3:28
    Anything else? I'm 26 hours down in the 63 hours of wind and truth. So chugging right along on that, that audio book. it has been excellent. It's been so great.
    3:48
    We'll get there. You will. All of the Stormlight Archive books are far too long to be used for any of our road trips.
    4:02
    Yes, and you do carefully balance. If we go over, it can be very rough to end up finishing the book. Right. We had that happen with the guy, the thieves. Hail Mary. With Hail Mary. Well, Hail Mary was just a little sliver more that we needed. But what was the one that we listened to where they were going around and they had all the gold? Yes.
    4:27
    I just keep thinking of the second book, which is Red Sky, Red Sails. Gentleman Thieves. The first Gentleman Bastards book. Okay. that was like with Locke Lamora and all of that. Yeah, Locke Lamora. Right. It was a good book. And to be fair,
    4:46
    I had curated that book. It was going to be tight, but it was completely doable, except for we spent the first three and a half hours talking and joking That's true. on the way down. I don't think we actually started that book until we were like almost to Oklahoma City.
    5:03
    Yeah, that was probably my fault. Which meant that my, because it was one of those ones where it's like, I think this will work.
    5:15
    Maybe we'll hit heavy traffic. Yeah, it was like, this is going to be close, but it'll be okay. And then, yeah, we spent like three and a half hours talking and laughing before we actually started. It's like, no, this isn't going to be okay at all. Oh, well, mistakes are made. That was a good book, though. I did like that. Yeah, it is. It's a good series. and then Hail Mary that we had the submission of Hail Mary but with Hail Mary we had less than 30 minutes left when we got home yes so we finished it like going to a tournament I think a pinball tournament yeah that was good too but I like Weir's writing yeah no he's great that is that one is in filming yeah I was going to say they're making a movie with Matt Damon As funny as that would be It's not Matt Damon I think it is Ben Affleck No, it's the other pretty boy The guy who played Ken Ken? Oh, Ryan Gosling? I think it's Ryan Gosling I haven't seen that movie Okay, interesting I kind of saw that movie I didn't see it and I couldn't hear anything but two of the three people sitting ahead of me on the airplane on the way back from it were watching the movie but they had like a big tablet set up and they were watching it and they had earbuds that were split where each of them had one earbud in the ear old school style so I could kind of see it just because I could see it Between, every time I looked up, that's all I could see is that, because that was just all that I could see between the seat. But I was watching Godzilla.
    7:06
    Which one? Minus one? No, no. I watched the New Empire, because I hadn't seen it before. Oh, okay. So the newest one with him and Kong being best buds and the bionic commando Kong and all that. Yes, yes. He's the Winter Soldier now. Right.
    7:28
    Actually, it was decent, though. I enjoyed it. It was decent. For once, they embraced the whole, we don't need a lot of humans in a Godzilla movie. Yeah, yeah. And it worked out really well.
    7:41
    It worked out much better than the first Godzilla remake. Well, I was rough. because you didn't see Godzilla for a really long time. Yeah, for a very long time. And then he was, like, completely in shadow for a lot of when you did see him. Yeah, it is. Shadow's a test. Yeah, Ryan Gosling. Okay, Ryan Gosling. Is the one. That's who I thought. But, yeah, the other one was the new Superman trailer.
    8:10
    Yeah, I'm trying to know. Oh. That came out, and I'm just in here, and I'm like, I'll be honest, That felt like I just watched a trailer for like three totally different movies. Last night, for the first time, saw Justice League. Not the Snyder Cut. Just the regular one. I've only seen the Snyder Cut. Saw the regular one. I mean, compared to Batman v Superman, this was like Oscar worthy. It was. I mean, it was fine. It wasn't. It wasn't terrible. There were a lot of, you could tell some of the edits didn't feel like, like there was stuff where maybe it was supposed to go somewhere and then it didn't. Right. But again, knowing there was a Snyder Cut, I kind of was looking at it through that lens. But I've not seen the Snyder Cut, so. Yeah, I saw the Snyder Cut. That's the only version of that that I've seen. Okay.
    9:00
    Well, I have finally finished Callisto Protocol, so I really should start Alan Wake 2, but I just haven't yet. You went through Callisto Protocol pretty fast. Yeah, yeah, I did. Didn't you just start it last episode? No. Well, maybe. I mean, it's not that long of a game. Very Dead Space-like. It might have been two episodes ago. I don't remember. But I did finish it, not just like yesterday. I finished it not too long after the last episode. So, anyway, but it was fine. And I've been playing more Marvel Rivals. I'm still not very good at it. But I'm now kind of at the point where I know which characters I don't like. And some of them I'm still like, eh, I need to work like a little more on Thor and see if I can get him down. Here's an idea for you. I just can't figure it out. Why don't you try Brotato? You know what? I don't want to boil it, mash it, and stick it in the stew. I'm worried that I don't want to fall down the bro-tato rabbit hole. I still have Final Fantasy Pixel Meat Remaster for five and six that I could play. You've beaten five and six before. I have. That's why I wasn't too concerned about, well, I'll probably do Alan Wake before jumping into those. Plus, I think I kind of needed a break from the, oh, great, I need to add ten levels to fight the final boss scenario I kept running into with one, two, three, and four. It happened with all of them. I was like, nope, you've got to grind more. sorry, too quick, you're too efficient. So that's what that's been. But, all right, we got stuff. We got year in review. We've got people. Year in review. So I want to actually start with an email that we got from Doug M. So thank you, Doug. Doug emailed us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. And this was what Doug wrote. Hi, Dennis. I think he meant to say hi to you also. But he said hi. Hi, Dennis. We know who's who. Oh, actually, maybe not. Because this one was sort of oriented towards. We know why people are here. Do we? We do. They just don't have any other podcast listeners. They're desperate. They're down to their... Did you see what Raymond Davidson of Stern Pinball had mentioned on Discord? Like, he went back and, like, listened to one of our episodes five years ago. I actually responded to it, yeah. I don't remember that far back, so I hope it was a good episode. Yeah, it was, like, the big one for 2019. That was before we had our Patreon and we had this fancy equipment, because our audio is a lot better. It is way better now. Actually, I think I'd like to credit a lot of the equipment. I think moving the recording from my kitchen to down in the living room has cut down on the echo so significantly. My sound would bounce off of the glass door. Right, because I was sitting in front of that patio door, and it would just bounce back. So now it's much better. But anyway, Doug, let me continue. Hi, Dennis. Love the shows. Longtime listener of EGP, The Pinball Show, and viewer of Watches with Dennis. Which leads me to this simple question. Have you ever thought about doing an episode about the overlap of pinball and watch collecting? If so, count me in as a contributor. We'd love to be part of it. We'd love to hear from like-minded collectors that dabble in both. Doug. Well, thank you, Doug. Oh, and Doug notes, watch collector since 1986, pinball collector since 1995. So Doug has a lot of experience in both hobbies, more than I do in either of them. Yeah. No, I had not really considered it because, well, there is overlap. In fact, there is a thread that I like to follow on Pinside, which is about watch collecting. Right. There's one with cars and other things. Mechanical things are of interest to a lot. Once you're into mechanical stuff, you're probably into other mechanical stuff, and I think that's sort of a summary. I think it makes sense. That applies for a lot with watches. However, not everyone is, and so that's where I worry a little bit about blending stuff together. Well, let's take this podcast, for example. We know one of the issues is because it's a blend of gaming, there are those that only care about, let's say, video games, that would never want to listen to a podcast that spends its whole first half talking about pinball and vice versa. I've talked to plenty of people who turn off as soon as we segue to the video game section. And maybe it's not coincidence that our numbers improved when we dropped tabletop as a recurring segment. But we knew this going in because we talked about it, and we knew that because it's so easy to establish a podcast, like it doesn't take a lot of equipment, you just need a hosting site and a microphone, really, and ideally some basic editing software, but I know some people that don't even use that,
    13:19
    that you can be really, really niche. And so when you live in a world of entertainment where you can go into any niche you want, why would you take something generalist? It's sort of the scenario that people run into. So my thinking is that games are games, and pinball and video games are both games. Watches are not games, and so it's even a further stretch. Right. If I were to do it, I'd probably do it on the watches within this YouTube, because the video could just fail with a regular viewer, but other people could still find it, and it wouldn't be a thing. So I hadn't really considered it. Now, I bring up pinball a lot on my watch channel. You do? Because I've been. There's a lot of pinball people who watch the watch channel. There are a number of them that do, but it's because I've been in the collecting hobby longer in pinball. I use it a lot for my analogies, the way people make arguments in pinball to try and explain something that they don't like or do like about the pinball industry. I do the same thing using pinball as my example for watches to try and convey to watch people how I've seen this all before. Or, you know, this isn't surprising. Or this isn't going to work. Or this will be successful. You know, and I use that as my thing. But, no, I hadn't really considered doing, like, a joint episode. I'll have to think about how to structure such a thing. But I'd probably do it on the YouTube channel if I were to do it. But I didn't know where else to put this. So I just get it out of the way. No, no. I mean, it makes complete sense. But it is definitely a crossover that is completely understandable. as opposed to being like people who like collect animals and pinball machines are like different. Yes. That's a lot. Or plant people. Yes, plant people. Oh, that's claw people. Yeah. Well, I tried. I did the best I could. Before we go into kind of our review of the year in pinball, I do want to go ahead and note, and there will be a link to the show notes in this for those that would like to listen to it. Loser Kids Pinball Podcast, they did an interview with David Fix of American Pinball. Now, I don't normally go out and listen to interviews with – I already subscribe to Loser Kid, but I don't normally go and listen to interviews with David Fix because I've heard a number of them, and I don't generally care for how they go. Or maybe I should say I don't really care for – I don't find the responses very helpful would maybe be a more fair summary. However, full credit to Scott and Josh, they asked basically every pertinent question you could think of and would ask follow-ups when the answers were perhaps not direct answers to what were being queried. So they rolled the hard questions and kind of – I would say so. They were very friendly about it and such, but they don't know. But what I'm trying to get at is this is what, like, Dennis Nordman claimed about his contract, And this is what you said, quote, about it. These don't match up. So is Dennis wrong?
    16:12
    So, yes. Yeah. They play hardball. Yeah. So, anyway. Good podcast, bad podcast. They're the bad boys of pinball. Bad boys, bad boys. All right. So, anyway. So I recommend listening to it if you're curious about American pinball. And I do have the link in the show notes. a few highlights that I wanted to go ahead and just bring up here really really quick so here's what sort of triggered I think a lot of the discussion and my understanding is that so Paul Reno though I think he's done it via his company that he has formed it's not under his name itself who co-developed co-designed Galactic Tank Force the pinball machine for American Pinball, has initiated litigation against American Pinball related to payment.
    17:02
    Interesting. In the interview, David Fix points out that the contracts for the staff are not with American Pinball Incorporated. They're with Ametron.
    17:17
    He said, in addition, we already knew about Dennis Nordman because, well, David Fix had mentioned it in a prior interview, but Dennis Norman also went out on Facebook and on Pinside, I think both places I saw, his counterclaims in terms of how he was dismissed from employment with American Pinball. But Jack Hager and Steve Bowden, David Fix in this interview, confirms they've been laid off too. Wow.
    17:41
    And a few other little tidbits to throw in is David Fix mentioned that for their next game, which everyone is assuming to be Cuphead, they want to be sure that the code is ready to go before they actually do the release so that's really what they're waiting on there and towards the end of the interview the Loser Kids asked David Fix about well, is American Pinball going to be around in 2025 and David Fix responded, that's a good question Wow, I'm going to have to go listen to this your interview, this sounds impressive it's an interesting one to listen to And while I have the link to the audio form, you can go and watch it on YouTube, which is where I watched it. But anyway, based off of that, now, you and I have long prognosticated the death of an American pimple. Yes.
    18:34
    That was a very interesting answer regarding – and David Fricks goes in further. He uses an analogy about getting hit by a bus and how it could happen to anyone. Oh, of course. So, okay. I mean, but it doesn't instill confidence to go out and say, you know what? Yeah, that's I mean, it is a fair question. It is a good question.
    18:58
    But the response doesn't instill, you know, no, we have this great plan where we think we'll be able to navigate. Like, yeah, we're having a hard time right now. I mean, how can you not? You fired Jack. You fired Steve. Well, laid off, not fired, laid off. And in the interview, he mentions how he's already having conversations with Steve about when they maybe could bring him back. There's also a part in there about unpaid line shutdown for the holidays where people have to use their vacation time if they want to get paid. They're just – none of it's good. Let's put it that way. None of it's good. This is the TikTok guy who's running around with the giant red flag talking about stuff. this is what we're seeing here is the giant red flag. So, I mean, so given these highlights, as you noted, you haven't been able to listen to the interview yet, but given these highlights from it, I mean, I guess, what are your thoughts? I'm not surprised because the only game, and we'll get to it in the year in review. I feel bad for Steve. I think a lot of people do. Steve is, he's the national treasure when it comes to pinball. I don't know anyone who doesn't like Steve.
    20:05
    He's always been really nice with us when we've spoken with him. Every time. And I've always felt bad. Well, I always have to be honest, or I feel I need to be honest. And so I felt bad because he's been with Deep Root, and then he's been with American Pinball. And I just, as time has gone on, I mean, initially I didn't have any thought on Deep Root, but as time has gone on in both instances, I just haven't believed in the companies. And it has nothing to do with what Steve has done with those companies. It's just he keeps being at companies that struggle. I mean, Deep Root accomplished nothing. Nothing. and then American Pinball had been seen by a lot of hobbyists as a relatively successful startup.
    20:46
    In fact, we weren't concerned about our comments about the demise of American Pinball. We didn't have that initially with the Houdini and Oct... It was really after Hot Wheels. Right. I mean, we made fun of Oktoberfest. Don't get me wrong. Absolutely. That theme is terrible. And a lot of people of their... There's kind of like the pre-David Fix era and the post-David Fix era. And the pre-David Fix games are Houdini, Oktoberfest, and Hot Wheels. And generally, I know Oktoberfest does have its fans, but generally speaking, that one is seen as the worst of the three. Right. And then post-David Fix is Legends of Valhalla, Galactic Tank Force, and Barry O's Barbecue Challenge. Oh, they've had just... It's just like... I mean, there's a whole mix of it. We'll get into that. But anyway, so aside from feeling bad for Steve, any other sort of... takeaways? I think it's always a bad sign when there's litigation out against you from employees and former employees. I think it's a bad sign. The fact that everybody's contracts are with Ametron as opposed to American just proves that Ametron is just propping up American. And at this point, it's entirely possible that we're just looking at tax write-off the company. Well, there were other things. And again, I kept my summary on this exceedingly short because I didn't want to spend a ton of time on it. But there was a lot of buck passing in the interview, a lot of buck passing. And maybe it's true. I can't say that it was true or not true because I don't know. But I did see – I've not gone and looked it up in the court system myself, but I did see a presumably unaltered screenshot. The litigation is against American Pinball, not Aintron. Now, that might end up being the incorrect party. Right. And it might need to be changed. But, yeah, the employment contracts being with Aintron, there are other things in the interview. There are all sorts of juicy things to hear about. But there was another part of the interview where, so, David Fix is indicating, like, all the HR stuff is handled with Aintron. So it's not his fault. There's also, in discussing the financials he conveyed, or at least my interpretation from what he said in the interview was, he doesn't know how they're doing financially. He finds out after the end of the year when Amtron tells them how, like, did they make money or not. Like, tells them, here's where your expenses were, here's how much you accomplished in sales. How does that even work? I don't understand how maybe he isn't inherently in the financial loop, like seeing a monthly financial every month, but I don't understand why he doesn't or can't ask and get that information. I mean, I am in charge of a small group, and I always know exactly where our budget and funding is. I have access to that all the time, and I'm not running a company. I'm just running my little, tiny little bit of my group. Well, I know where the budgets are. I don't, for example. So in my group, if I want it, I get it. But I'm not like regularly given, here's where we stand, here's where we stand, here's where we stand. The individual teams that are running the individual stuff, they're kept informed. So it's sort of seen as a, that's not a dentist problem unless I want to make it my problem. and there have been instances where I've had... Don't make me make it. Well, no, I said it kind of salty, but I've had instances where I've had directors I supervise come and say, Dennis, I want you in on this next budget meeting because there's an issue coming up that we need to solve. I'm like, okay, I'll be there, and then they'll brief me on where we're standing, what the challenge is. And Dennis walks in and goes, it's time for bake sale.
    24:43
    I am waiting for the day where I can finally solve something with a bake sale. I haven't hit it yet, but I do remain hopeful. I'll just be like, you know what? Cupcakes and brownies for everyone. This problem is solved. We're getting a new roof. This is a church bake sale. Always to get the new roof. Maybe that's a Midwestern thing, but it's always like, we need a roof bake sale time. That's what we're doing. This is the real reason we keep Tammy around. Her coffee cake is amazing. That's right. When the time comes and we have to have the money, Tammy gets the money.
    25:17
    fun times. So, yeah, everything about this is like, it sounded like, the way he presented in the interview was that David Fix was both highly disconnected from a lot of the details of it, and also for someone who seems to be in charge, not in charge of a lot.
    25:37
    And again, is that really the structure? Do they have a dysfunctional structure, or is this more, you know, buck passing to not get blamed for what, I mean, per his own statements, sounds like a not very confident 2025.
    25:55
    The copy file failing at the sale? Wasn't me. Copy laying off employees? Wasn't me. Okay, so based off of that, let's go ahead and transition into our year-end review. I've tried to summarize the major game releases, the same list I did from the last episode. I'm going to jump around a little bit from our internal notes because let's go ahead and start with American Pinball. So this year, there was only one release. It was the Barry O's Barbecue Challenge, which by pretty much everyone's accounts was a complete disaster in terms of sales. It definitely was not a highlight of our TPF experience, other than the laughing amusement we had when we were able to go up to play our first game. There was no line. The game reset after ball one. Yeah. It was, that left a great first impression. Yeah. Or as the kids would say back in the 90s, not.
    26:53
    Sorry. So, thoughts on American Pinball in 2025, Tony? I think they go out of business. I think this is the year. I know I've said it for like the last four years or three years, this is the year that they go under. That's my prediction.
    27:08
    I think that you're very likely right. Let's assume it's Cuphead. Do you think Cuphead could save them? No. not at all. Cuphead is a fine game. I know they made a show out of it. It is, it is, I don't even know if I want to say it's popular. It is, it is, iconic. Super niche. That's right. Like, it is, it is nicher than niche. Its whole thing is, it's kind of aesthetic. And if they don't nail the aesthetic off of Cuphead exactly right, it's just going to be even worse than galactic tank force okay all right well i think um i think it's pretty clear american pinball had a really rough 2024 it's helped to me i think it feels like to a lot of hobbyists that 23 galactic tank force that was like the that was like the fixed era we're really trying and when it it didn't work and i don't want to do a whole 2023 review about GTF, but from the whole reveal campaign, which was drip feed and really, it just, it left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths. Not to mention they were really in trouble anyway, just because that was a really saturated, that was all before TPF. Right. And it was a really saturated, like, month and a half or two month period where everything was dropping from, like, Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw all the way through to... Pulp Fiction. Yeah, Pulp Fiction. and just a lot of stuff stole the show well before that game did. Yeah, I mean... But Barry O's didn't have any of that. It was just like dripping meats on the display. Yeah, it was rough. And an amalgamation of playfield elements that Barry Osler was known for, but it was just devoid of joy is maybe the best way. Even if you could argue, and you could argue this, that it's not a bad shooter per se. The ones we play sure didn't play great, But there was no love in that form, to borrow a line from Krull.
    29:11
    Yes, I brought up Krull. Another game that got a pinball machine as a prototype that probably never should have, but I still love that movie.
    29:21
    So I just don't think it's – I think Cuphead's too little, too late is more my position. And I agree with you. It's so niche that it's just – yeah, I don't know. Like, it isn't going to rescue them. The best it might do is convince them not to pull the plug for another year If I were to Grandma might come out of it
    29:48
    Highside is 2020. I would say their best bet would have been last year. Galactic Tank Force, themed as Forbidden Planet, and not dubstepped and not goofy, and straight up that game, there's enough there to it. being licensed, it might have moved. I know plenty of people who actually like how Galactic Tank Force shoots. I didn't love it, but I know other people that really do like it a lot. But it just was, they priced it too high. There was too much focus on the version that looked like a tank when it folded. It was just like stupid stuff like that. That's like, that's not what people want. No, not at all. You're losing the plot. And I felt the same way with Barbecue. It seemed like everyone was so busy wanting to celebrate the legacy of Barry Osler, no one sat there and said are we actually making a good game here?
    30:40
    And sometimes you get so, I think as people, sometimes we get so it's myopic, we get really insular and we start thinking, you and I might start telling a whole lot of inside jokes or something, and it's funny to us, but if we were to do it all on the show, people are just going to be lost and annoyed because they're lost. Right. And so this is too bad. We could have done Galactic Tank Force Lost in Space. There you go. Hey, everyone else was redoing other games that prior pinball companies did. Why not? And honestly, GTF is probably better than the Boo. I think you can argue the layout is already better than what Lost in Space had on Sega. Well, the thing is, if they tagged it with the original TV series, it would have still been that old campy kind of thing. Yeah, but it was bold. I'll fully give them credit. It was bold. So they took a risk with it. It was a very dangerous risk for a company that has not had a real big hit. Right. And I just think it's going in the position. You can take risks. They don't always work. And sometimes when they don't, there's a price to pay. There is. Well, let's jump to the most recent. Let's jump to Spooky. So year-end review, obviously, mostly this year had consisted of Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Production. However, they did very recently, and we did discuss it here, cover Evil Dead. Right. So they made some shifts. They've scaled down the number of units. They got rid of having the different, like, three different iterations. They've just gone to the one model approach.
    32:11
    Feedback, again, on Evil Dead has mostly been visual reaction because people haven't been playing the game. But very, very positive. You know, Bruce Campbell call-out, a crunchy art package, really cool additional topper, which is cheaper than some of the Stern toppers, even though it's pretty elaborate. it. What do you think on Spooky's year?
    32:33
    It's hard because most of it was, to us, fairly uninteresting because it was really just doing a lot of what was already shown really early in 23. Right. And I think their year's been fine overall. I do find this, I'd almost want to call it like a return to form, a return to the old Spooky. The cutting down to just one thing, a limited number, kicking out what they do kick out from the early days. I don't have a problem with it. I think it's probably a good choice in the current market we have. Yeah, I think Spooky, they've been, I would argue, they're probably the most nimble, and I think they're in a very good position moving forward.
    33:19
    I think they very smartly realize that the pinball market is not the hotness that it used to be. Right. So scaling down production, they've always relied on that scarcity, their chosen false scarcity to move units. They were getting way too high when they went up to what they did with Scooby-Doo, for example, and they've been paring back, and this additional pair back, I think it's just an acceptance of where they think the market is or will be in 2025, and I think it's the right move. So I think they've got a very good setup where they're very well established, And I think it's pretty reasonable to argue at this point they're probably the number two manufacturer. Maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it isn't that case in numbers. But it sure feels like they're the only ones that, broadly speaking, are adapting to the market in an appropriate way, aside from Stern, of course. So anyway, those are my thoughts on that. I can see that. I can see at least the bare minimum argument that they're fighting for that number two slot in a very realistic way. Yeah, it's because we just don't know the production numbers out of everyone. Right, and I think that's the big. But I do think that they are firmly in the top three, and it is a long distance between three and four.
    34:39
    Let's go ahead and let's hit through some of what I would call, at least, smaller manufacturers. So, Multimorphic. So, again, Texas Pinball Festival, Princess Bride. We both liked it. It was great. we mentioned in the last episode, we haven't really been hearing a lot out of Multimorphic lately. I assume they're just chugging along, producing that.
    34:58
    One would hope so. So I think they had a decent year in review. Obviously, the game wasn't, and we talked about this on the last episode, Weird Al was a lot more, like, there was a lot more attention to Weird Al, even though I think Princess Bride personally is a better theme. I think so. Weird Al maybe, I don't know, I won't say maybe. Weird Al as a module felt more creative to me. Maybe that's because I found the modes a little more interesting and engaging. But I thought Princess Bride was a really good effort from them. It is a really good effort. I think the problem is what the problem is always going to be, is that Multimorphic kind of has this middle zone where they wanted to try and be this new thing. And the new thing didn't take off. And at this point, the new thing's never going to take off. and they still exist in that place and they put out enough to maintain, but they're never going to be the new hot mess.
    35:57
    Yeah, that's an interesting point. For me, it was always a they've ended up straddling a line, and that line is between the pinball collector and people that would want a pinball machine in their home. And I always, when I first became aware of Multimorphic, my assumption was always that they were targeting a different market segment. They wanted to get into that home where they could maybe only have one game or maybe only wanted one game.
    36:24
    And this idea of being able to swap to different games but still only having the one-game footprint could really latch on and take hold. And when that didn't go gangbusters, they pivoted to really targeting pinball enthusiasts, which upped their sales. Yes. But the problem is the typical pinball enthusiast, the typical pinball collector that we seem to see or hear from, they don't have a problem with rotating out that footprint. So, you know, they'll bring in a Foo Fighters and then they'll let it go and they'll bring in a Godfather and then they'll let that go and they'll bring in a Scooby Doo. So to them, you still have a situation where Multimorphic has tried to promote the idea of, hey, you buy the base thing, and then you get the modules, and the modules are – there's this great economy of scale. But people that bought the base thing for Weird Al have already sold the whole base thing. They can't just buy – they don't see the module savings because they're not actually dedicating P3 to live in the collection permanently. It's not bolted to the floor. Right. And that's the thing is, to be fair, it's a limited number of people. Of the pinball people and collectors that I talk to, I would say a solid maybe 20 to 25 percent of them have picked up a P3.
    37:50
    None of that group still has one. Yeah, and you mentioned that last time. And that's, yeah, and again, this fits with the behavior that we've seen with all sorts of games. I know a lot of people that don't bolt a lot to the floor. They might say they do, but then they, you know, opinions change, and I think that's fine. And they may be at the point, there may be, there are a certain, there is a segment of loyal, like, who have bolted the P3 down. And that may be enough to keep them chugging along. But I don't know, because I haven't, you know, I don't, I think they're fine. I like as a company, I don't like it's not like an American pinball situation or anything like that. It's just I don't know about what that weird. I was lightning in a bottle opportunity to really expand production.
    38:37
    And at this point, I don't know what the next lightning in a bottle is. And as as you noted, I do think the the challenge that that exists is the tech at this point is pretty old. So this, we're the most innovative. They used to really push that a lot. Maybe they are still pushing it. But I don't think a lot of people, a lot of enthusiasts, they've known about the system for a long time. Right. And I've often argued on the Pinball Show, which I co-host with Zach, many, that, you know, some of the stuff that he's brought up, I don't think makes sense for them, like, moving to a 4K display. It's like, why? You're not going to take advantage of 4K graphics, are you? I mean, like, not custom. Like, what would you do with, like, it doesn't. but at some point the hardware starts to look long in the tooth. Right. And I think compared to other pinball stuff, it's perfectly fine, but if your strategy was we're innovative, I mean, Princess Bride didn't feel particularly innovative. No. It looked cool. Like, they had good theme immersion. They did. The problem was, you know, side by side with Labyrinth, Labyrinth looked even more immersive because it didn't have to rely on the screen for so much. Right, and honestly, that might have been a little rough for Princess Bride being so close to Labyrinth because it's a similar aesthetic, a similar enough aesthetic. And a similar movie theme. Yeah, that it kind of hurts. Yeah, it could be. But ultimately, I think they're in a decent spot. I just don't think – Yeah, I don't see them going away. No, but I don't see where high growth comes in. And maybe that's not the goal at this point. I don't know. That's up to them. It's their business, not ours. Speaking of another smaller player, Pinball Brothers. so ABBA we haven't played it they had a little helicopter I don't again Pinball Brothers to me is kind of like multi-morphic I think they're probably fine I don't see a real growth strategy for Pinball Brothers though it's different in the sense like they had they launched with doing Highways Alien and that's still like the one game everyone likes from them and everything else they do is kind of some people will try it for a while I mean Queen we played Queen It was okay.
    40:50
    ABBA, I've heard some people say ABBA plays better than Queen, but I have not heard anyone say ABBA's game of the year.
    40:58
    And maybe that's fine. I'm kind of at the point, especially in the current market, I don't really understand. I think they could probably continue, but I don't understand why they want to. Does that make sense? I mean, if they're making money, If they are actually making money, I can see them continuing for that reason. But they've had some weird decisions. Like when they put up the Ripley edition of Alien and they made it cheaper than the prior Alien version, but it was like the better version. It was weird stuff. That is weird. That says that they weren't making as much as they were hoping, to me. It does. Well, and that's the other thing is, in all honesty, Queen should have been probably the best music pen ever made because it was Queen. Yes. You had what is probably one of the strongest music pen possibilities if you pair it up with the right play and everything. And it just wasn't that. No. Queen should have broken the world when it came to music pens, and it did not. No.
    42:13
    That's a good point. Yeah, I know. It's almost shocking how lacking in enthusiasm that Queen game got when I would have thought so many people would have been like, I got to own it anyway because it's Queen, but I just don't hear it. I'm sure there are some that were like that.
    42:31
    Pajaria Gaming, another small one. They did the Funhouse remake. I think that was in partnership with the Pinball Company. I mean, it's Funhaus. It's a remake. They had two versions. The one version with the modernized art I didn't like because I thought it was just too different, you know, me and Avant-Garde stuff. Some people love it.
    42:50
    I've heard decent things about it, but it's Funhaus. It's Funhaus. It's hard to get excited about. But I think what that allows for Pedretti in terms of doing, like, contract gigs and stuff, especially if those are holding up, that could be good news for them to have that route. Yeah. They can, I mean, they have things. They have choices they can make. They very much, for me, fall into the, oh, yeah, they make pinball machines. They do. They like to make pinball machines. You know who else likes to make pinball machines, Tony? DPX. Oh, my God. Yes, I know. Again, it's here in review because we just talked about it. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. And there's already, you know, I've seen some discussion about them possibly having, you know, other stuff. The plan, of course, will be there will be more games with the DPX label. I'm trying to remember what one of the rumors was. We're not rumor cornering, though. Predators. No, no. It was something else that a lot of people were like. Oh, Blade Runner.
    43:46
    There's the rumor that they're doing Blade Runner. I'm like, it's such a good theme. It's such a good theme. And Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I don't love that as a theme, but everyone knows the theme. Right. The way they did it, the way they embraced the J-pop design. Well, he didn't work on it with us. I'm like, yeah, but you took his white wood or his foam core, I should say, and you just changed it just enough to make it shootable. Right.
    44:11
    But supposedly they sold them all. Oh, that doesn't surprise me. I know it shouldn't surprise me, but it disappoints me. No, no, it should disappoint you. I find it deeply disappointing, but it doesn't surprise me. it's one of those things that it seems like they made good I mean Dutch made good on the whole Big Lebowski issue which neither of us expected and then they kind of rolled in this DPXXX yeah it's sort of different my understanding is they did that on purpose in case like I assume in case the DPX thing crashes and burns, it doesn't tarnish Dutch pinball, which is supposed to be working on Back to the Future. Right, but it's a fine choice. We've already got – we're sitting over here with the barkeeper's friend. We're trying to get the tarnish off. It's looking a little better, and I've got this idea, but it's real rough. So we're going to start a whole other company to run this real bad thing and try and get a little extra money while I'm sitting over here polishing. the silver. Yes.
    45:27
    But it's, I don't know. I'm, I think we've been very clear on our thoughts on this entire thing all year. And my thoughts have not changed. I mean, it seems like maybe it's like a passion company, passion project thing. So I imagine they can continue on because I don't even know if they have to really be all that successful. Yeah. I mean, we'll see. I mean, clearly gameplay isn't what's driving that.
    45:51
    so JJP, So they had Avatar was their release for this year because Elton John came out late last year. A lot of love for Elton John. A lot of people grew to it. We actually did get to play it earlier this year. It was fun. I really enjoyed it. I liked Elton John. So Avatar, the reaction has been more mixed. A lot of respect for the art. A lot of respect for the light show.
    46:14
    Some appreciation for the layout. I've also heard a number of people say they feel it's pretty barren and open and there's not really a lot to do in the game. and some of that comes down to land and some of that comes down to rules. I haven't heard that it's done great for JJP and that's been something that they've really been struggling with, it seems, since launching the $12,000 and $15,000 price points that they did for, was it Godfather that they first revealed those pricing? Godfather is the one I remember. Right. I remember last year playing Godfather and I was just like, this is not worth that money. I don't care that there are 26 different shot returns. Right. I see it, and there's some stuff about it I like, but they'd gone through that weird theme choice. A lot of people did not like Elton John as the theme choice. I don't think it was a great theme choice. Godfather was a terrible theme choice, but I think they did the best they could with it. Obviously, people are already super sensitive when they did Toy Story 4 and not Toy Story. And then Avatar. The movies make a lot of money, but how many people really care about the world of Avatar? I don't think anybody really cares about the world. And so it's just, I... And here's another thing that I don't think we've really discussed here, but I have discussed on the pinball show. So JJP has been doing a lot of couponing lately. Really? Yeah, they did a coupon thing for guns and roses. They're couponing them. And my understanding is the way it works is that couponing price, the distributor's honor, but it's not like they get a refund from the manufacturer. they, JJP has just lowered the pricing and just said, deal with it. Whatever that impacts in terms of what they bought the game from them for, irrelevant. You will honor the couponing. So that shows me, this is an instance where, and again, I've had conversations with Zach about this. I know he feels very strongly about the importance of companies maintaining value retention. And this is where a watchment can come in because this happens in watches too. Watches raise their prices with the same supply chain and inflation aspects that have come up with all sorts of other industries. But some of those brands now, people are like, now that things are cooled off and you're going in and you're like, I love a JLC Reverso, but I don't see why one of these things with the same old movement they've had for the last 15 years is now a $9,000 watch. And they're not buying them. They'll buy them used instead. Same thing's happening in pinball. Some people who don't care, who can afford it, or who love the theme or whatever, are buying these JJPs for $12,000 and $15,000 and then just like we talked about with Multimorphic, they're not bolted to the floor. They get sold at significant losses. So you're not just competing against new, you're competing against the used market. I remain convinced that JJP raised their prices way too much. They got greedy and they worry about looking bad and devaluing their product. So they refuse to formally drop the MSRP. but I do think that is the solution in their current. The only other option is to just hold up this pricing and eventually inflation will catch it up.
    49:21
    So yeah, the $12,000 doesn't feel as bad to me here at the end of 24 as it did at the start of 23, because there still has been a decent level of inflation. It still feels pretty bad. And part of that is, you know, again, they, they can't help it in a way, but with change AP, because it's such a newer company, even though it's been around for over a decade. Everyone compares everything to Wizard of Oz, and nothing feels as packed as Wizard of Oz. I'd say the closest came to the non-standard edition of Guns N' Roses. Yeah. But people look, and they're just like, it doesn't feel like you get... This is the Cadillac of pinball, but it doesn't feel like it's a Cadillac. It feels like it's a Ford.
    50:03
    It's like BMW. You have everything, but you have to pay extra to get it turned on. Well, some of that's like a stern accessory. But, yeah, no, I just think they shot too high on their pricing, and they just don't have enough there there to justify it. So, because that's like Elton John again. I'm just like, I really like that game. I like Elton John's music. Yeah. It's not like I don't have any currently in my playlist or anything, but, like, you know, I know his songs, and I like it, and he has the Richie flow and all of that. The game is cool. but it's like being value conscious and not every pinball collector is but a lot are, a lot more than some people recognize and it's like okay well is it different enough from Star Trek I already own a Star Trek and you can buy a used Star Trek way less than you can buy a used Elton John don't like Star Trek, what about Game of Thrones maybe get yourself a Game of Thrones Pro if you hate upper playfields You see where the issue, you want something Cadillac-y? Get yourself a Star Trek Next Gen from Williams. You've got firing cannon shot style things and all that. You know, that's the issue. So, because it feels, I've heard a number of people mention that Elton John feels like a Steve Ritchie greatest hits collection, which a lot of people love, but they don't feel it's $12,000. Right. And I just, I think they just, I understand and I don't even, And I won't even say I disagree with them getting rid of the standard edition. We had the standard edition model on location of Guns N' Roses. And it was like, this doesn't... No. The song integration was great, but it didn't look like a concert. The game was supposed to look like a concert, and the standard did not look like a concert. It didn't have any of that feel to it. But 12 and 15, oh my God, guys. Right. But the thing is, I fully don't see them bringing it down. No, I... And it's going to continue to hurt them going forward. And, frankly, I have not, like you've been saying, even with as good as stuff is, they've not been great.
    52:19
    Their choices haven't been great. The games haven't been nearly worth what they want for them. I agree with you completely that it is one of those things where they are in a rough place where I don't think they're going away or anything like that, but I think they really need to sit down and possibly reinvent themselves. My thoughts, and I think maybe I even mentioned this at the last year in review, I think with their pricing, they're just trying to buy time for Harry Potter. And the thought is at Harry Potter, they'll move all the units. In fact, I still think they'll raise prices with Harry Potter. I think they're going to be that confident that the theme will be a, we don't care if the game sucks, we're going to buy. I don't know if the market's actually like that. There are people that are. There always are. So there are people that I know will buy Harry Potter no matter how awful it might be. I don't think JGP is going to make it a total unplayable turd. I can't think of the last Hobbit, I suppose, that just felt like it was not a good design as a layout.
    53:26
    And even then, it was, I mean, it was shootable. It was a super slog. I don't want to whine about it. But the, you know, I don't know what else, because so many of the themes I've heard, reported, and rumored, and what the new owners want are terrible themes. Terrible. What if it's not Harry Potter and it's Fantastic Beasts? You know, I've mentioned, I actually, let's say I had someone over, listener to the pinball show, express their annoyance with me and constantly calling it Hogwarts Legacy.
    53:57
    Because I know it's not going to be Hogwarts Legacy. Dennis, quit saying that. Quit saying it's going to be Hogwarts Legacy. So I'm trying not to say that as much.
    54:04
    Because I mean, full credit to JJP, they have been doing a really good job getting the rights to everything when they do stuff. It's like ever since Pirates, where you couldn't see anything about Jack Sparrow or anything, and you're looking at footprints in the sand. They have really been trying. So while they got stuck with, per them, with Toy Story 4, it did have all the stuff from Toy Story 4. The Godfather had the stuff from Godfather. They had Marlon Brando. So there, and of course, Guns N' Roses is like the greatest full access to everything of all time anyone's ever had, ever. So I think that it would seem like they would probably be able to get the stuff on Harry Potter based off of their track record.
    54:56
    But, yeah, there's something about it. It seems like such a no-brainer to do as a license that they got the license makes me wonder if there were issues with it. That Stern didn't get the license seems weird to me. Right. It's one of those things that the stuff that came along with it, the requirements might have missed her. But here's the other thing. We've been hearing about Harry Potter for so long, I also kind of felt like it would have been out by now.
    55:23
    I don't see why it needs to take more than a year to develop. I don't. Unless it's one of those things where it was partway through the development cycle, and then they're just like, oh, God, this is so bad. We've got to start over.
    55:38
    Who knows? Of course, it could also be the rules on it are so tight, the rules on the license are so tight that they have to keep tweaking and adjusting. That'd be interesting. That's kind of like what Stern ran into with James Bond. They had a lot of the stuff, but the way it had to be integrated was very particular. So it could very much be something like that. Good point. I hadn't thought of that. All right, the last one is Stern. So, all right, Stern's the big, you know, they're the big ones. They're the only ones that, to my knowledge, released more than one game in the year.
    56:12
    Pretty good year for Stern overall. Really, there was only one blemish, and that was John Wick. Correct. Starting with Gun Gate, where people just lost their minds over the playfield art. But having played John Wick, John Wick had problems that weren't related to that. Yeah, no, no. John Wick has issues, and those issues are not the fact that there's no guns in the art. Right. There's plenty of guns in that game, but that game was just across the board full of issues. I can't remember the last time I airballed so much. Yeah. I mean, it got to the point where I stopped even. You know, normally if you airball something and you're, like, out in public when it happens, you're like, oh, and it got to the point where John Wick is just like, whatever. Yeah. I touched the ball. Of course it did. Who cares? Smack. Let it break the glass. That's fine. That's what it is. It's not like a – Pretend it's Die Hard. Yeah. It just happened. Yeah.
    57:06
    So, yeah, that one was really rough. January, of course, was Jaws. Having played that on location a bit and stuff, I was like, really good. Yeah. That's an L-win, so who's surprised? I might actually say Jaws has moved ahead of Jurassic Park for me. I just thought it was a lot of fun. When we went and played it at Nubz, I was just like, you know what? I really like both. They're very different layouts, but – They are. Yeah, it's just great theme integration. I think I like Jaws more. Great designer. I think Jaws is better. Great rule set. I mean, Elwynn doesn't really miss, I'd say. Iron Maiden and Avengers are my least favorites. And Avengers I had zero interest in owning. I actually had zero interest in owning either of those.
    57:48
    Yeah, so that, of course, did really good. Jack Danger's second Cornerstone game, Uncanny X-Men, it did really, really well when it came out. A lot of people really liked that it was a different design, very different, like in a Gottlieb sort of sense. In fact, there were a lot of comparisons to, I think it was Gold Wings, for the layout. Yes.
    58:09
    So I have heard that game had sold very, very well. However, so sales-wise, not a blemish. Issue-wise, yes, though. A lot of complaints about the plunge. Like, they're releasing modification kits. It's like, so I hadn't heard of a thing like this since Stranger Things. So that getting through QC and not getting caught, the number of issues that people are having with the plunge working right, shockingly bad for a company of their size. Right. Another big complaint, more understandable because my understanding is there was, like, John Borg, I think, was supposed to have a design come out, and it had to. Something happened with the license, and so this got moved up. but the rules aren't very well baked and it's pissing people off like very shallow yeah and they've got a number of updates but if it was like you said if it was a move up that makes sense because the code's always it is but they chose to sell a game where like people go to the future and then it's like you know back and then it's like it's not clear what to do there's nothing to do it's just the same thing to do it not the depth that people were expecting having especially as far out as it is now Right And then of course Metallica remastered which was not a cornerstone However, that did very, very well. How would it not? I heard from one distributor that, in part, Stern here kind of pulled a spooky. And finally, they did it a little bit with X-Men, but they finally realized the 1,000 LE count is not working in this current environment. Like, that's not very limited. Like, they're not selling out. Right. You can still get yourself a John Wick LE, by the way, if you'd like one. No, I'm good. But Metallica's LE at 500, that went really, really quick. And I heard from one distro that they've sold more Metallica's than Uncanny X-Men's. That doesn't surprise me. Metallica is a proven game. Yes, exactly. But it's very, very interesting. I've also heard a number of people are starting to get rid of the X-Men games, I remember another distributor had corresponded with me. Maya corresponded with you as well and said, let's see how long it lasts in a collection. There's a reason why unconventional layouts are not commonly done. Right. And that's a fair point. I do remember that comment. But again, Stern just needs the initial sale. So if it does good for Stern, it's probably honestly a good idea, I would say, to have Jack Danger do something weird every year or every other year and make money. because that's what they're around for. What happens to it after they've sold it to you, they don't care.
    60:48
    Exactly. So that's it for the year-end review on the pinball stuff. I do. I feel like compared to some of the years in the past, we've kind of gotten back to like a couple of the rough years where when you're looking at the year-end review and you're like, who are the top three games? and you're like, how is it Stern is pretty much the entirety of the top? Yeah, it's basically Jaws, X-Men, and Metallica remastered. Yeah. I think it has to be. It's been several years since we've seen where Stern's dominated the top like that. Yeah. I mean, last year there were so many games. Everyone was still acting like it was going to be pandemic sales year. Right. But it is, I mean. And there's stuff we didn't discuss, like Ninja Eclipse with Turner. Right. But none of those guys are playing for the top seat. That's not happening. Yeah, space hunt. I definitely think it's kind of a – overall, it was definitely the roughest year we've had in a while. Now, sales-wise, it might not – I don't think it was as depressed as some people seem to think it is. Right, right, right. No, I just mean for, like, quality games and for a lot of really good games. It's like we've had a couple years where it's like, man, it's like a battle for the top three games this year because there were a lot of good games out this year. This year was not bad. Yeah. I mean, had Evil Dead been able to get out into people's homes this year, that might have been able to vie for taking one of those three spots. Maybe, yeah. I don't know. It's hard to say.
    62:22
    Well, I have one last thing in the pinball segment. Ray Dude, this is not Ray Day. Ray Dude on our Discord. Totally different. Yes, he is. Totally different person. Ray Dude on our Discord. I'm not going to read the entire message, but I want to summarize it. People can join the Discord. It's free if they want to see it. But I noted in a message post there to us that a feeling, this kind of touches on what you mentioned about the roughness, feeling that there's like a lull. He described it as a lull in the joy of pinball lately. And that lull was something that he felt he was feeling and he felt he was hearing in our voices. And the way he described it was not so much that we were being like, like that. It was more like the way he conveyed it was we sound more excited and like we're having more fun when we're talking about the video game segment.
    63:18
    Which, interesting. Interesting. I can see, again, like I just said, this year felt like not a great year as a pinball fan for the stuff that really came out. We haven't been able to experience all of the new stuff, so it's hard for us to get excited about a game when we haven't got hands-on on it. And some of that is on us. I've not been doing tournament play like I used to, and I've not necessarily gone out and hunted down some of these games like I have in the past. So, anyway, based off of this, though, and he had mentioned for he himself, he was having a similar existential crisis? I don't know. He didn't say that. I'm upgrading it, Ray, dude. I'm upgrading it. Upgrade. But he said he's been finding lately for pinball play, He's been finding spoilers, not in the new stuff, but the old stuff, like going back and playing Twilight Zone. So here's what I want to do, Tony. I mentioned in the Discord, you know what? That's a fair point. Maybe what we need to do is we need to play a game. Tony and I need to play a game. Not like literally go downstairs in my game room and play a game of pinball, but we used to play games on the podcast from time to time. In fact, we used to play a lot of games on the podcast. So let's play a game, Tony. And this one, you're not going to be familiar with it. I've stolen it straight up from Slam Tilt Podcast. Did you? You're full on. Sorry, Ron and Bruce, but I'm giving you full credit for my thievery. I think a listener of theirs gave them this idea. You came out of the alley with the dagger and scraped the kidney? One of their favorite lines that they like to say on their show is related to Patrick Stewart's performance as Jean-Luc Picard in his Make It So. Make It So, number one. Make It So. So they say that a lot. So the game that they play is called Make It Pro.
    64:59
    So people, like, they get sent in games, and they have to pro-ify them. What would it be like for Stern to sell it at $7,000 as a Stern Pro? So we're going to take the solace game of Ray Dude, Twilight Zone. Tony, I want you to make it Pro. What would you change in it? Because there's no way Twilight Zone would be a Stern Pro as it stands. And in our internal notes, I have the notable features clipped from the Internet Pinball database, and I have a picture of the play field. How do you take that layout and those features, and what are you stripping away to turn it into a pro-level game instead of the premium LE that it is? Like 80% of the game? Make it pro. I mean, I seriously, this is one of those times I kind of wish we recorded this on video so that the people could have seen my eyes as they're telling me this s**t. Pardon my language. It's good.
    65:50
    But Twilight Zone, make it pro. Okay, so let's delete, like, half of the game. Well, yeah, I'm curious.
    66:02
    Or if you want, I can start. I mean, no, this is fine. This is fine. We didn't discuss this the other time. This is a surprise for me. This is fine. Make it through.
    66:20
    Wow. Okay. So, and I, yeah, this one. Wow, that's tough, man. It's so packed that I'm just, I'm very curious, Tony, how you would do it. You've got, like, this version. I'm not even sure you could get this, honestly, as a premium LE, but we're going to assume that somehow there's a discount on gum. I don't know. Like, all that stuff that, it was so packed, even for its era. of that.
    66:55
    To begin with, the whole mini play field gumball machine, that whole upper left quadrant of that game goes away.
    67:07
    I mean, we go we get rid of all of that stuff, which takes away, I know, a huge portion of that game. But I don't see a way we can pro it without taking it away or making at least extremely major changes to it. But I would probably just gut it all, put in an orbit and a couple and maybe one or two ramps in that area. But I just don't see a way to get around it. You're going to have to gut like half of the mechanical stuff on this machine, really.
    67:43
    I'll be honest, I don't know that you can gut enough of this and make this game worth playing. I just don't see... It would be really tough.
    67:55
    I mean, why didn't you give us an easy mode for trying this? Well, I wanted to give you something where you'd have enough, like a lot of things to think about that maybe alter. So your step was getting rid of the mini playfield. Let me ask you to help shape it, I guess, I'll ask you some things. Do you make any changes to the number of flippers? So it's got four flippers that are all in the main playfield, because the mini flipper the mini playfield uses the magnets So do you change any of that? Of course, some of the shots are only makeable. With the other flippers. Well, if you make enough changes to that upper left quadrant, you can delete at least one flipper.
    68:37
    You might be able to delete two flippers with enough changes to the whole upper side of everything. But if you make enough changes, not just the mini play field, but a couple of those shots up there, you might be able to get rid of that, one of the playfield flippers.
    68:56
    Okay. What about the gumball machine? Oh, gone. Gone? Yeah. But it dispenses the pinball, so what are you going to do instead?
    69:08
    Just do a normal type setup. You just have to get rid of it. I mean, that's just a bill of materials right there that is just not worth it.
    69:16
    The Powerball. We still having the Powerball or not? That's the ceramic ball. That is. I would keep that because it is one of the pure joy points of this game. Okay. I always like it when that ball comes out. All right. So now the Powerball is not affected by magnets. So there are magnets still in the main play field. Are you keeping those? I would because if you remove them, it reduces a chunk of the joy from the Powerball. If you were going to reduce or remove those other magnets, you might as well get rid of the Powerbolt. Okay. What about the clock?
    69:54
    So the game has an analog clock over on the right. In attract mode, it actually tells the time with the hands, but it's what times most of the modes during gameplay. Yeah, I think I would keep it just because you're starting to get to a point where you're removing so much that it doesn't even. Okay. I think I've already decimated this game bad enough. I would keep that. Okay. So you're thinking maybe change a flipper, get rid of the mini play field, get rid of the gumball machine. Yeah. And otherwise. There's some adjustments on that upper left side for the routing. I'm not going to ask you to figure out exactly how you change the layout.
    70:32
    Let me get CAD. Let me get CAD fired up on my tablet. Yeah. You do some ramps or some orbiting or something. Yeah. Get around it. Okay.
    70:39
    Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the spirit of it. Yeah. I'd say you've made it pro. Good job. Maybe. Yeah. I think you would lose a lot of what makes this game what it is. I mean, Twilight Zone is not my comfort game, but I feel like I could have done a good job of murdering this game. Okay. So how would you pro-ify this game, Dennis? Okay. So for me, based off of the Stern philosophy, there always has to be some element. There's always some key toy or key element that is on the pro, and then they get rid of the rest. So in your instance, I would say what you did is you kept the clock. Kept the clock.
    71:33
    You also did keep the power ball. Yeah. I'm keeping the mini upper play field. Okay. I hate the play field, but I think that it's too iconic, and I don't want to solve the geometry. So I am getting rid of the clock. That will be a flat plastic that just looks like a clock. And then time telling will be done on the display. I'm getting rid of the gumball machine, like you did. So they'll just have to be like a Vuck or whatever. I don't remember how exactly that's set back up on the upper plate. I think that's how, you know, instead of dispensing. I'm getting rid of the Powerball. There will be no Powerball. There will be a virtual Powerball that will be designated on the display saying, You're in Powerball mode, but there will not be a physical ceramic Powerball. The magnets will just be turned off when the virtual Powerball is activated. Now, question on that, though.
    72:20
    Part of the joy of the Powerball is the Powerball is so much lighter. It's not just that it's not magnetic. It's lighter. So it's faster and it bounces different. Yes. So how would you handle the change? Or would it just be suck it up? Yeah. Only rich people get Powerball. Okay. Nope. In fact, I could see getting rid of Powerball as a mode, but I think it's a little too. I think that's somewhat the rules the same between the games. No, I would say a Powerball is like a $50 ball. No, you're not getting that because I kept the mini playfield and I'm keeping the magnets and that's going to cost so much of the bill of materials. I don't have any money left to give you a Powerball, I don't think. Okay. Because the mini playfield just adds a lot to the cost. Well, yeah. But I think you need it, even though it's like the worst part of that game. So that's what I would do. So no gumball machine, no clock tower, keeping all the magnets in the mini playfield and no Powerball. so it could just be a virtual mode and we're going to do it so basically the big difference is I kept the clock as the little showy thing and you kept the playfield and if I'm not, if I need to for more money I could get rid of the rocket kicker I suppose and maybe that could give me the Powerball back another thing I would consider is maybe getting rid of some of the pop bumpers for money if I need to but no I think, you know what, no I mean, it's only got the three. I mean, but the thing is, the game, yeah, because the game has to know when the Powerball is displayed. So I just thought it was easier if we didn't have to deal with that at all anymore. And then another thing I don't like about the games, this is where, make it personal, I'm making the game better, but is, you know, you have to, you don't know, like, it's not fair to people about when they get the Powerball. So I kind of rather just do it, though, where it's a mode, like, it gets activated. Like, on ball three, you're getting the Powerball. or something like that. And just that way, it's a little more fun. But that's really outside the scope of it. I think you probably made it pro better than me, but that's how I do it. Anyway, that's Make It Pro. Write in to EclecticGamersPodcast.gmail.com if you want us to continue stealing this segment from Slime Chill. I don't know. Or we could go back and do another. Like, we used to do 20 questions, and we used to do the. Oh, yeah, we had a lot of different games. We did. Well, a lot of them required polling the listeners and stuff. Yeah, and polling got harder. It did, because Facebook took away some of the functionality. But what they haven't taken away is our video game segment. So we will jump into that now. So to start us off, we have a message that came in actually through our Patreon. And this is from Jason F. So I'm going to go ahead and read this off.
    74:54
    Hey, Eclectics. I've spent a portion of today. I'm going to try that again. Restart. But I'm not editing this part out. People get to enjoy me suffering. We'll do it live. Yeah, we'll do it live. Hey, Eclectics. I've spent a portion of today reviewing the insanity of free games from Epic and Amazon Prime. The collection I've acquired on Epic has spanned years while Amazon started earlier this year. Currently, I'm viewing account totals of 51 free on Epic, 27 free on Amazon Gaming, and 54 free on GOG. What's GOG, Tony? Good Old Games. They're another service that provides a lot of their stuff as more classic gaming games, but they do modern stuff, too. These accounts are not populated with $1 or $5 games. This would easily exceed $1,000, perhaps above $2,000. It's likely that my perspective is from an older generation, and $1,000 simply isn't what it used to be. Today, it simply feels like that something's out of whack here, that I've cheated the system. What is going on with all these free and valuable games? Well, Tony, what is going on with all these free and valuable games?
    76:00
    Thank you, Jason, by the way. Yeah, Jason, you're not wrong. I mean, especially Epic, that's been their whole thing is giving away free games. They're not just free nothing games, but free middle tier and even the occasional high-end game that's been out for a little bit. And the big driver is it forces people to use their ecosystem.
    76:26
    Epic started it originally as a way to pull people off of Steam. That was their original, their entire purpose of free games on Epic was to pull people away from Steam. I've got several free games on Epic that I started doing that exact same way and grabbing on Epic. And it just got to the point where it's like, I just hated the Epic store. So I pretty much just stopped. But, I mean, I've gotten several games from them that way. The Amazon, I've used the Amazon free stuff. Just like their free giveaways they do through Twitch and everything, I've made use of those before as well, and that's the big thing. Most of these, it's just a way to draw people to utilize your platform because none of them are to the same level as Steam and users.
    77:17
    So you've got to spend money to make money. Yeah, that's what it amounts to. Okay. Would you like to read Brian's email? He has asked for it to be done in a southern accent, a diverse person who sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. So I thought it would be right up your alley.
    77:38
    These requests are starting to get, we're going to lose all of this. Because they're going to be like, hey, can you try and do something so that it sounds like Tom Cruise, but German, but in his form, entropic thunder. I don't know if these things are possible how do you do a southern Austrian I don't know that's why I figured he wanted you to do it he wants the quality oh man can you do the voice like Jack Black from Detective Pikachu yes please bleep that out okay you can laugh that was funny it was funny no there's gonna be a lot of edits yeah it's rough that's rough okay alright that's what you said no no now I can stay in that's fine alright Southern Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'll be honest. The answer to your question is no, I can't. But let's see what I... Let's try it. I will. Okay.
    79:06
    I'm going to go with the quote that gets me through all this good stuff. Honor's dead, but I'll see what I can do.
    79:20
    I'm really having a problem crossing Austrian and Southern. I don't think it's possible. I don't know. They hit the wrong thing.
    79:38
    I don't even know where to start with this. Okay. We'll just try. We'll see. We'll see what happens.
    79:50
    It's been like five minutes. Any day now, you can stop. Any day. Any day, you can actually read it instead of spiking yourself up.
    80:11
    This is the longest episode of the year already. Because you're staying here. You can't even read it. It's only three paragraphs worth of the problem. It's very good.
    80:25
    The problem is now I have the mental image of Rue from Golden Girls trying to be an Arnold Schwarzenegger action.
    80:38
    Okay. No, I can't. Sorry. We'll do the best we can. Okay. That's the joke. Hide this. You got one word and you break it. You got one word.
    81:09
    I don't know why he wanted you to do this. I don't know why either. I'm not the master that you are, but, I mean, I've got my, like, super terribly stereotypical German and Scottish and Russian accents. That's about all I got.
    81:28
    You don't even have Southern? Not really. That's cool. Yeah. Not really. Well, then, bye. Just some good old boys. I'm doing no harm.
    81:42
    You're also doing no reading. I'm doing no reading. Hi, Dennis and Tony. A subject-accented person who sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger here, because I can't do it. I just can't. I ain't good enough. Sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Brian.
    82:00
    Longtime listener, and have finally decided to send an email. I'm a pinball person first and foremost, but have a video game question and request for opinion.
    82:13
    I've been playing video games for decades, but wouldn't call myself a hardcore gamer. Since the PS1 days, and through PS4, I've always enjoyed the Tomb Raider series, as well as the Uncharted franchise.
    82:29
    I'm currently playing the now nine-year-old Rise of Tomb Raider. While I'm not sure of how many hours I've put into it yet, it feels like quite a few. But I know I'm about 46% finished. I try to do some side quests and like to thoroughly explore an area for upgrades and treasures, etc.
    82:53
    My question to y'all. Assuming you've played these Is how long does it typically take to finish them?
    83:01
    How do you like to play? Just get through it? Do side quests, etc? Curious as to how folks approach And play these games And if I'm really slow Or wasting time taking things so slowly I know it's up to the player As to how to approach these But would love your opinions Thanks And get to the chopper Brian Well thank you Brian for writing in Thank you Tony for doing this Yeah poorly Because there was no Arnold Schwarzenegger there So I just couldn't make it work So apparently Tony's version of the south Is different than mine Because you just read it just really slow Yeah exactly Very easy Maybe a little inspired by a Channing Tatum A little I was feeling a bit more Mark Twain. Yeah, Mark Twain debate. A little Lower Decks inspiration there. I'll be 100% on it. 100. When it comes to especially these open world games, I have a problem. Here's my problem. What is the problem? I will use Fallout 4 as an example. One of the very first things they'd tell you in Fallout 4 Sticker to Diamond City I went to Diamond City You did 210 hours into the game I have a side quest problem And it's Oh, squirrel Did you see the squirrel? That's my problem Anytime I get a shiny or see something interesting I just randomly go off in a direction And there's nothing wrong with that I think that is the great thing About open world games while also probably being the worst thing about open world games is you can play them however you want to.
    84:55
    Like the open world games that have like a really strong direction where they like lock you behind gates, so it's pseudo open world, actually kind of annoy me because it's like I should be able to tell that I can't go to this area because the second I step into it, there's something out there that one shots me from a half mile away. That makes me know, okay, I can't go that way. As opposed to just going into, oh, it's an invisible wall or I'm gated behind something. And I'm okay with that. But I think the big thing is that for these games, the best way to play them is the way that makes you happy. Because the whole point of playing games is to have fun, to relax, and to be happy. And if none of those things are happening, you shouldn't be playing that game.
    85:44
    No, that makes sense. Have you played Rise of Tomb Raider? I did play Rise of Tomb Raider I haven't played any of the others I've played several of the Uncharted's as well I enjoy All of the ones that I've played I was never a huge Tomb Raider person Not even like in the original Back in the first Tomb Raider games It wasn't really my kind of I've never been the whole Let's explore and solve puzzle type player. That's not the kind of things that I really go after. I never like Myst and I never like that kind of stuff just doesn't really do it for me. So I've always played different things. But I have played several games like that and I do like open world games for the reason of just wandering around.
    86:34
    Yeah. Thank you Brian for the question. It is pretty interesting. It varies on the type of game for me in terms of how in depth I end up going on sort of the side quest journey. So I can fall out, for example. I don't do it the same way Tony does, though I do usually end up going and trying to do all of the side quests at some point. I'll do little sets of side quests, and then I'll go back to the main story for a little bit, and then I'll bounce. And I did that with where I'm at in Starfield, for example. I'd be like, I'm going to do a few main story things. Now I'm going to do this chain of side quests, do some more main story, chain of side quests, et cetera. With Tomb Raider, I have played all three of the what I want to call new ones. I didn't realize it's been out that long now, but I guess. That makes you feel old. Yeah.
    87:20
    So in those, I did more than the main quests, but I don't do all the collectibles. I hate collectibles. Yes, I do agree with that. Collectibles drive me nuts. Unless there's just like a few, like, again, Fallout. Going around, like, collecting nine bobbleheads, sure. Going in Assassin's Creed and collecting 100 feathers, no. Absolutely not. Can't stand it. Well, and I really hate the ones where it's like, oh, there's stuff in this level that you can't actually collect until you've beaten the game and gotten certain power-ups, and then you go back and replay level one to get some collectibles and all that. That drives me even more nuts. So in the case of the Tomb Raider games, I imagine if you just wanted to do the main quest, they probably are doable, it's been so long, 8 to 12 hours. I probably spent around 20 hours on the Tomb Raider games because I did do all the optional dungeons. So I liked those because then it would be that little, that puzzly part going through and trying to figure out and get that extra treasure. I would go and do those, but I didn't worry about anything really side quest wise aside from that. I mean, if I saw like side quests in a town or whatever, I would, I tend to do those, but collectibles, I avoid collectibles. So there were sometimes I think challenges and stuff for like hunting certain animals and stuff. I wouldn't necessarily see all of those through. So, yeah, it does depend on the style of game. And I just have a range where usually if there are side quests, I will do side quests.
    88:47
    Collectibles, I usually will not. That's probably the best way I could summarize it. Yeah, and I think it's safe to say, I mean, I'm the same way, except for when I say I will do side quests, I do all the side quests sometimes before the main quest. And then you get to the main quest and it like oh I not supposed to be in power armor with a massively OP weapon when I start this quest I was supposed to be like level four when I got here Oops
    89:13
    Very oopsies. Speaking of oopsies, Steam replaying. What's going on? I got the Steam replay for my game for this year, and I thought being the end of the year would be a good one to talk about. Yeah, year-end review. Year-end review. Because we know I talked about my Steam replay last year, and it was real bad. I had a Battletech problem last year. You did. Because Battletech last year was an embarrassingly large percent of my play time for the entire year. And I thought I did much better this year. Yes. You didn't play Battletech at all this year. I didn't say that. Oh.
    89:48
    Oh. It was still better. I did better. It wasn't, I didn't play more Battletech than every other game combined this year, which is what last year was. But this year, it still was 25% of my game play for the entire year. In my personal defense. Yes. Defend yourself.
    90:12
    That was almost all in January. Okay. That's a good defense. Because as last year was ending and it came out and I realized how much I had played, I was in the middle of a campaign and I wanted to finish that campaign, and I finished that campaign at the end of January. I've played it a little bit since then when there was a major update to a mod I like and I did the new mod but it wasn't nearly as much game time as I'd done before ok but tied with that because that was a 25% of my total game time tied with that was Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts I played multiple full campaigns through of Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts is that the one where the British wouldn't have peace with you? Yes, because the British would never... It didn't seem to matter that I sank all of their ships. They had no admirals. It didn't matter. They were like, there will be no peace. Yes, exactly.
    91:12
    That was also 25% of my gameplay for the year. I remember you were paying a lot of time for that. I did. I put a whole lot of time. I did my Italian playthrough of that. I did an American playthrough. I actually almost started a whole other playthrough of that where I was going to do a French playthrough just the other day I was thinking about it and then you saw the stats no, that I played Brotato instead oh, you got Brotato and then in the number 3 slot at 16% satisfactory not a surprise to me I've been playing that hardcore since 1.0 went live I've actually played it a lot less like the last two weeks Just because it's been a matter of I've been doing other things Brotato has been eating most of my playtime But I haven't actually been playing that much the last couple weeks I've been working on a bunch of other stuff Other highlights this year though I played a fair amount of Nova Drift And Deep Rock Galactic Survivor Nova Drift is a Kind of Asteroids-ish type roguelike.
    92:23
    Deep Rock Galactic Survivor is like a fancy version of Brotato that takes place it's like Deep Rock is another game but Galactic Survivor is like an auto shooter with all sorts of stuff. It's a lot of fun but I prefer Brotato. I also played a lot of Boletro which is a card game that came out. It won three awards at the Game Awards this year. Yeah, what type of, is it just his own rules or is it like Yeah, it's kind of, it is a roguelike card game Where you are building card hands like you were playing poker And you earn points for them, but it's roguelike Like you get cards that give you bonuses and special points and this and that And you normally have targets to go to and stuff And it's fun Helldivers 2 Very popular game I played a chunk of it at the beginning part of the year. I'm just not a multiplayer person anymore. I just, I spend, there's too many times where I pause a game and I get up and walk away. It causes me to have problems playing the multiplayer. Right.
    93:28
    Time Wasters, which is an auto shooter type game. Space Marine 2, I played a lot of that, beating it. I even played a little bit of the multiplayer of it. But again, multiplayer games are just not really my thing. So MechWarrior 5 plans. I have not. I actually need to go back through and finish that, the campaign. I have not finished the campaign yet. I was playing it a whole bunch, and then Satisfactory 1.0 dropped. Right. And Dredge. I beat Dredge, and I need to go through and beat Dredge again with hopefully not the bad ending. Yes. But overall, this year I played 39 different games, and I received 284 achievements in those games. Nice. So, yeah, you did some gaming. I did some gaming.
    94:18
    And it was less Battletech this time. And they're nice enough to tell you how many hours you wasted this year playing video games. That's nice of them. That's very nice of them. But while we're talking about Steam, the Steam Winter Sale is going on. Oh, yes. And it is huge. Huge. And if you like 4X strategy games, Paradox has their sale tied in with it. And some of their things are as much as 90% off. Oh, wow. So you can get a lot of good games really cheap. The big ones that jumped out to me is Star Wars Jedi Survivor is 75% off.
    94:55
    And because it's my favorite game, I just want to let everybody know that BattleTech is 75% off, and all of the DLCs are 50% off, and you can get all of it real cheap. Yes. So you, too, can learn the joys of playing BattleTech from Harebrained Schemes. That's right. Yes. Push it. Join me No So you mentioned the Game Awards So I did mention the Game Awards Did you watch? I did not It's so long It's four hours plus It's why I stopped watching But well, Pamir But you know what? It's my E3 now. I can watch the world, Pamir. Yeah, me too. The next day, just the ones I want with all the stuff. I'm just going to say, there was one aspect, because of course you're there, and you're not there live. So you're just kind of like, they're doing things like they have the music interludes and stuff. And you're like, can we just, this is mostly just trailers at this point. People aren't really here for the awards. Can we just, at least online. I will say they had the two, and I'm going to blank on their names, the two old guy Muppets that make fun and heckle. So they had them this year. Like, they've done Muppet things before. They had them this year. Those parts were actually pretty funny. Because all they – They didn't do those parts. They pretty much – all they did was make fun of Jeff. That should be done. So, like, I'll give you an example one.
    96:27
    Oh, did you hear that Jeff is really good friends with Kojima? Oh, yeah. No, I heard about that. The question is, has Kojima –
    96:38
    I don't know. It's like, yes. Nice. Because we're tired. We're so, so tired of it being the Kojima worship. Whatever, yeah. Yeah, the Kojima worship episode. Yeah, no. After last year, I just don't. I don't. I mean, it's a lot. It's not worth watching live. I sacrificed my Thursday. Was it even last year? I think it might have been the year before that I stopped watching. One of those times, I just watched the clips.
    97:02
    The big one, Astro Bot, got Game of the Year, Best Game of the Year, Best Action Game, and Best Family Game. And it was up for like, it was nominated in seven, and then it took four. So it was huge. Mario Galaxy 3, a.k.a. Astro Bot. That's what I heard. That's all I know. It's super popular. Apparently. With certain groups. I don't know. I've not played it. You can't be playing Astro Bot. Does the bot fight? Then I don't care. Does it battle? No. How many LRMs for that Astro Bot card? Zero? I guess he's astronaut.
    97:43
    Oh, he works as an astronaut. Oh, I'm so funny. That is... I'll work on that. You're so funny. I have to praise myself sometimes. Okay.
    97:52
    Praise Zord. All right, so Astro Bot did really, really well. Metaphor ReFantasio did very well, pulling best narrative, best art direction, best role-playing game. and I've heard really good things about it as an RPG. It's one of those as I recall, that's from the same people who did the Persona games which have always been popular.
    98:15
    So yeah. Nothing special to add there. Heard really good things about it. It won big. And then Baltaro won Best Independent, Best Debut Indie, and Best Mobile Game rounding out the three to one three. Yeah, they were the Those were the big three ones. As you were saying, though, the big thing there are the announcements and the new trailers, because that's kind of taken E3's place. I don't have anywhere near all of them. I just put in the ones that stood out to me. Witcher 4? Yes. Who's not going to like a Witcher game? Well, there are a lot of people getting upset because it doesn't follow the original Witcher anymore.
    98:57
    Geralt. Yeah. But it looked like a neat idea. I didn't play the first Witcher, but I played Witcher 2 and 3, and I enjoyed both.
    99:08
    I'm looking forward to it. People will always cry about stuff, but if the gameplay is good enough, they'll play it. I think you're right.
    99:14
    Elden Ring Night Reign, as a co-op action survival game that is totally not Elden Ring 2, is completely not a sequel. No, it's not. It's a totally different set of things. We're done with Elden Ring, except for the new Elden Ring game. Except for we want to keep our people employed. So that's what we're doing. So that, I can see that. Elden Ring is huge. It's on Steam, huge. It's very popular. No, I've not played it because I would fall under the get good noob because those games are just, like the Dark Souls style games, are just too much for me at my advanced age. Let's go with that. Yes, yes. It's, I got, yeah, I got through Dark Souls. I hated it. And I got all the achievements just to prove I wasn't a wimp. And then I got Sekiro and I got nowhere. And I have zero interest in putting it back in. It's just that frustrating. Yeah, that's the thing is it's so frustrating that I don't have fun with it. But I have absolutely no qualm imagining a much younger, more free time version of me loving a game like that. but I know myself better than that Outer Worlds too I'm so looking forward to this was my favorite Outer Worlds was such a great game it is it's the real fallout in space Starfield wants to be when it grows up I wish it could grow up in Outer Worlds so I'm super looking forward to it I enjoyed Outer Worlds so much.
    101:02
    Steel Hunters. It caught my eye because it's from Wargaming who makes World of Tanks. I've not played a lot in several years now, but I've put my time in in World of Tanks over the years. And it is definitely one of those that I find is interesting because they seem to be taking what they know of how people play that style of game and are doing it in a new, interesting way where instead of tanks, it's mechs, so it's the same general thing.
    101:34
    But you seem to be working as duos. It's like seven pairs fighting against each other. So instead of two teams, it's seven teams, but each team is only two people fighting it out. So you're working as a more paired up duo than the giant teams, which I think could do interesting things for that style of game.
    101:58
    Borderlands 4? It's going to happen. It's huge. It's a huge game. It's in here because it's a huge game. I haven't played since 2, and I have no interest in going back. I played 3. It wasn't as good as 2.
    102:11
    I haven't played Tiny Tina's, which. I heard it was good. I've heard that I should have ignored 3 and played Tiny Tina. But Turok Origins. This surprised me. I thought Turok was dead. I mean, I've heard people clamoring online that they want a new Turok game. But really, there hasn't been a Turok game since, what, Nintendo 64? I guess. Here's the thing. Turok's not a touchstone for me, so I don't actually care. But I was surprised. That's the reason. He's not a huge guy for me. Because I was confused. And then it's like, but they're dinosaurs. Because I don't know. It's Turok and the dinosaurs. Right. So it's interesting. It was an interesting choice. And it'll make some people happy, probably. Yes. And the final one that I put in the notes here was the sequel to Okami. Which I think probably surprised a lot of people as well. Because Okami was one of those that, for a certain group of people, was this giant touchstone amazing game. I wasn't playing those style games at that point in time. But it was everywhere even then you knew about it. So I think the biggest surprise is it's just taken this long to get a follow-up to it. Yeah. Did I miss anything big that had jumped out at you? No, you got the ones that I thought were the most interesting. I mean, there were a lot of reveals. There were a lot of reveals that don't really reveal a whole lot. I skipped a lot of things that were, oh, look, it's a cinematic with no gameplay that's not due out until 26, so who cares? Yeah, I did see the, I guess the one would be, I think they had a thing about that new Pac-Man game, You Must Eat. Oh. I think they had a little bit. Did they? I think I missed that one. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I only recently heard about it, and then I know we're going to talk about secret levels. Yeah. There's a relevance to that. I think it would be bad to not talk about secret levels with them out now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just because they're, which we'll just segue straight to it. Secret Levels, for those who don't know, are on Amazon Prime. It's a series of vignettes from the same group that did Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix. But they're little vignette stories that take place in different video game worlds. Yeah, they were fun. I've seen them all. Yeah, I've seen them all. They were fun. There's 16 of them. I was only going to cover the ones that were my favorites I thought if you have anything to add if any of them jumped out at you different than me the very first one is the Dungeons and Dragons one I've enjoyed it I thought it was a fun little story that was well done and drove my interest in Dungeons and Dragons as if I need more interest that one might have been the best it was actually telling a fairly well contained story Yeah.
    105:10
    I agree. I think that was the best at telling a contained story, but there is another one that is probably surprising that I think was second best at telling a self-contained story.
    105:21
    Obviously, the Warhammer 40K one, the Space Marine 2 one, was awesome, but it's Warhammer 40K, so it's just over the top swampy. There was what, like, I don't know, maybe 15 words in the entire 20 some odd minutes of the thing. Most of it was just over-the-top awesomeness to be awesome. So it was probably your favorite overall.
    105:48
    Maybe. I would say, yeah, probably. close the Outer Worlds one was so much it might be the Outer Worlds one instead which is a completely different feel from the 40k one but the Outer Worlds one was super interesting as well and I felt fit really into the kind of feel you get from the Outer Worlds okay 5 out of 10 yeah that one I felt I didn't have the same reaction that you did to it. I felt it went too long to move its story along. I thought it was a little too repetitive and that it got pretty dark pretty quick for being a relatively light-hearted game. It did. I mean, I enjoyed it. It was a good self-contained story as well, but I just was like, eh. I mean, I get where they're going with it, but it took a while to get there.
    106:54
    Again, it's still short. Don't read too much into it. Yeah, it's still short. It's not like the Snyder Cut of it. No.
    107:02
    The Exodus Odyssey one, which was where the guy was looking for his daughter who'd run off into spaceships, and they were dealing with the FTL and the time dilation issues and everything. I really liked that one. That one was excellent as well. That was really good. the Spelunky Tally one is actually one of the lowest rated ones that was the one where she's redoing her she's going through a roguelike dungeon crawl and she can sign that one just made me laugh a lot and I also really like the Armored Core one yes, the one with Keanu that one was very good as well And for me, the big surprise, and I realized I didn't even write it down in here, though, was the actual story, like the self-contained story and playthrough of everything from Concord was really good and was really interesting and set up an interesting universe for a game that's already gone.
    108:13
    Yes. And that was what I knew about this thing before it aired was that it had one for Concord. And, of course, Concord crashed and burned so bad. We've discussed it quite a bit. So, yeah, and it's, I mean, I did not, it was, from what I have heard, it was better told than the game. And it did take some of the most interesting characters. That one did not really resonate very well with me. I just thought it was an interesting lore setup for something that died the Pac-Man one yeah Circle was dark that one was creepy I mean it was seriously creepy I did enjoy it I also thought the Mega Man one was less interesting than I had hoped for Mega Man One was I did not care for. It was super short. It was like the shortest of it. I was like, nothing happened. Yeah. I was like, this is not. This was like how a little robot boy learned to protect his hair was what it felt like. Yeah. I just was not. I was shockingly disappointed. What was your, do you know what you, which one, any others you didn't like or didn't work for you? some of the others they were just kind of forgettable they didn't do anything huge for me some of them were very much felt like that if you didn't know or care about the game you didn't really care about the episode yeah I so we're probably going to end up talking about most of these now so I really liked Honor of Kings the one with the prodigy the chess match. Oh, yeah. For the city. Yeah. It was more a go match, really. But I really liked that one. Yeah, that was good. It dealt a lot with the, it reminded me of Terminator in the whole, you know, do we control our own fate or is everything preordained? It dealt with some, I thought some pretty heavy topics in a really good way. A short hand. Much like how, what was it? How Exodus did with the time travel, time dilation. The time dilation, yeah. I felt honor of kings. Now I'm after it, so I was like, what is this game? Like, what is Honor of Kings? Is it actually like a fancy Go game where you play the board game Go? Or is it like about a city that AI controls or what? But I really like that one a lot.
    110:49
    I also thought that the storytelling was pretty good with Sifu. So that was another one where it was sort of, again, pretty simple, but can fade it relatively well. I was surprised you did not mention New World with the king who washes up on the shore and he's like, I am Schwarzenegger but southern and I would take over this land.
    111:17
    Again, that one maybe went a little longer than it needed to. Yeah, that one just kind of felt maybe that's what it was. It was one of those that I saw and it was like, that was fine but it wasn't something that really stuck with me. Yeah. What did you think of the Unreal Tournament one with the robots trying to liberate themselves?
    111:38
    I might have missed this one. Really? Okay. Did you? I didn't watch them in order. Oh, okay. I did. So, yeah, it's that one. I don't recognize that image. I might have missed that one. Or that might have been one that was, how long was it?
    111:58
    19 minutes? Yeah, it went a bit. I wonder if that's one that was playing as I got up. I wasn't clear because obviously when you see the title, I saw it was Unreal Tournament. I was a little confused at first because it doesn't open in an arena. It opens like on a mining area, and it was basically an AI takes damage, and Johnny Five is alive happens. And so anyway, it gets tired of being treated badly, and some humans get killed, And so the droids are to be punished in the arena. And the one that is independent starts to use its abilities to get the other robots to understand and fight against the oppressors. It was very much an oppressed against the oppressor sort of angle. Very simple, but I thought it was pretty entertaining as a short little vignette.
    112:49
    Yeah, I missed that one because I jumped straight in and watched the Warhammer one and then watched all of the rest of the ones that had come out in that first wave. So I watched Warhammer through Armored Corps that came out in the first wave of releases, and then I'd gone back and re-watched the others. So I'm guessing I missed that one somewhere when I jumped around. But I also thought, again, another good self-contained story was the Crossfire one with the mercenaries fighting in the hurricane. Yeah. That one was, that one maybe feels the most normal. Yeah, but overall, yeah, the Warhammer one was fun. I enjoyed New World a lot.
    113:34
    The Crossfire one, I'm looking at IMDB. It's one of the lowest rated ones. It's not the lowest. It's like a 6.3. Yeah, again, you don't really know which, because it's, you don't know, like, who, there's no clarity in terms of who's good or who's bad. Right. It just is. And so I could see it. A lot of it is just about this job being done. But the animation is good, and I thought the voice acting was good. The ones that I did not love, the Splunky one either. I thought it's not working for me. I just thought it was funny. The Sifu one, the concept of the guy, but none of it's explained, so it's a little frustrating. Sifu was one of the ones that felt like if you – If that's a gameplay mechanic, I'm curious. It felt like maybe it was something that if you knew the game, it would be bigger to you.
    114:31
    Pac-Man was, I knew the game as dark because I'd learned about the game just before seeing it. However, yeah, again, you're kind of confused. And they make it clear what the kind of motivation is, but nothing's really explained. So it can be a frustrating episode. Yeah. And here's the thing. Do we need Dark Pac-Man, period? Does the game need to be... Is there any need for anything like that? No, but, I mean, the aesthetic I get when I look at it reminds me very much of, like, Limbo. So it kind of reminds me of that. Yeah.
    115:05
    Yeah, and then the last one, the PlayStation one, Playtime. That's the lowest rated. It was fine. I got mad whenever I saw Sackboy because they just forced him in. They just forced stuff in. It was a Sony fanboy fan service thing. It's the lowest rated by far. It's below five. Yeah, because it's like there's this person just trying to race their bike and do a delivery.
    115:31
    Most of them, I mean, overall, I would say watch them all. None of them are less than that. None of them. And they're all short, so it's hard to get mad at them. Yeah, but if you love that little vignette story thing, and at the same time, if you like the little kind of vignette short story type thing, and you've not watched a lot of the Love, Death, and Robots, I highly recommend the Love, Death, and Robots.
    115:51
    Most of them are very good. And they're the same thing, but they're just sci-fi-related short little stories. But, hey, if you're curious about some game worlds, check this out and you might get a feel for something. It made me curious about some games. It made you curious about Exodus Odyssey. Yes, it made me curious about stuff. Do I get to be a king that's not a king anymore? Do I get to keep going? Give me your crown! I want to be the king!
    116:22
    I will build the robot hands! Yeah. Fun times. Or, you know, you can just do it for the emperor. Yes. I guess. I don't think they ever mentioned the emperor, did they? In the episode.
    116:37
    It was... I didn't... I was like, what's in the box? What's in the box? Or were they hauling this box around? They were hauling the box. You're right. And I won't say what was in the box, but it was awesome what was in the box. And there was this one guy, and they were just like, get back and get that box. And he was just like, you can tell, I don't want to be on box duty. I hate box duty.
    116:56
    So the box, yeah, nobody wants box duty. Yes, nobody wants box duty. But it was important and good. When the box opened, I was suitably impressed. Okay.
    117:13
    Well, I don't know. Was there anything else in video games? I didn't have anything else in video games. I was kind of touching on just a little of my year and video gaming stuff in general. Because, you know, it was a video game award season. Yes, it was. Well, I don't think we're not back until the next year. We're gone until next year. Yeah, I'm looking the other way. Yes, we are. It's almost done. It's almost over, guys.
    117:42
    Yeah, so that should be fun. So we will plan to be back at the start of next year talking about new things.
    117:50
    I don't believe we're very near another cornerstone from Stern. However, I don't think we're going to know about it until after, excuse me, right after that last episode, our next episode, I should say. Right. So we will, you know, that will probably be covered in a couple episodes, but we should have some stuff there in Pinball that we'll be able to talk about. And, of course, we will follow as these games that were revealed in the Game Awards start to get closer to development and publication and release for us to enjoy. But if you want to reach out to us in the meantime, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcasts at gmail.com. We're available at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We also have Patreon if you'd like to support us. It's patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We have three tiers with the lowest being just a dollar a month. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we will be back in 2025. Until then, my name is Dennis. Hi, I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. Eat.
    118:47
    Yes, must eat.