What's up everybody? Influencers in Chicago day! Lock up your wives! Oh my god everybody I had just the greatest time yesterday And I want to share it all with the Patreon brethren Thank you for joining everybody Me and Kim Wild here We're starting to recover from yesterday I'm going to bring you through a whole trip of port Of exactly what happened yesterday How Don's day went And we're going to get right to it It started at Man, all great stories start with a whole night shift at work 12 hours, wide awake Still jet lagged From Australia. But that's okay. 7 a.m. We hit the road. Heading on into Chicago. I'm fielding calls from my homies. My fellow influencer posse. Mainly calling from Kineticist. And I was like, all right, looks like I'm going to be in Chicago around 1130. Why don't we all get lunch? Okay. Our time on Stern starts at 2 p.m. The distributors were there at 10 a.m. for their distro thing, which, again, looked amazing. I saw pictures of people in dinosaur costumes. For Christ's sakes. These guys are nuts. So we were going to be there, too. So we met over at Cafe Zupas over by Interium in the Woodfield Mall. Cool place to go get a salad, a soup. Perfect Carl Weathers for it, too. 20 degrees in Chicago. I'm joined by Colin from the Kineticist. Retro Ralph, Vic VP, was there. Kerry Hardy came in, too. And so the four of us deliciously devoured salads and soups and sandwiches. And then we were hit. This is crazy. All right. So as I'm heading in, I stopped to grab some gas and go to the bathroom real quick before I went to meet the guys. It's like right around 20 minutes before 1130. and I get a carry-hardy Patriot News update. David Fix is out at American Pinball. What the heck? Slamming like bricks, man. Holy crap, are you serious? I stopped for just a second and I'm about to show up at Stern and then you drop this atomic bomb news on me. I hadn't heard anything about this heading up. Though, I mean, come on, it had been rumored and stuff, but I've been there. I've talked to him. Everything seemed up until the Loser Kid interview that things were going according to somebody's plan. So that was nuts. I showed up, and that was the topic of the discussion. Dungeons & Dragons was going to be amazing. It was new pinball play day, man. And then here we are, like, American Pinball, what the heck. So we finish our food, and I hatch, oh, God, a plan. Hey, guys, we've got a half hour here, man. American Pinball is right up the street. Since this is in the news, we're all here. Let's go over and just grab a selfie by the sign or something just for some laughs. um you're not laughing at the company but just because it'd be funny like this just dropped and look at these assholes over there so we all pile in because everybody thinks that's a fantastic idea uh and we head over there and you know nobody wants to jump in the picture with me i was like okay guys come on uh but me and carrie both got selfies it was super fun uh so i showed that in the discord so thanks to you guys um and then i was like well do you guys want to go in um so uh the guy got looks like are you are you crazy um so i walked over to the end everybody followed me we all walked in the entrance of american pinball i want to show off the barbecue that's in the entrance so when you walk in the place there's a barbecue grill that's there and a bag of barbecue charcoal because they made a game called barbecue that doesn't really feature charcoal grilling um except for like a few of the the things on the uh screen oh man barbecue is legendary uh so we go in there and there's no receptionist because she'd been fired months ago um really quiet uh which generally it is in the office part of the front of the factory uh but yeah a couple uh one of their assistant i think he's an assistant engineer um in a nice glass cubicle man it's fantastic uh comes on over greets us hey i'm just okay man is dave around you know just want to say hi well what the heck is this real is this really what's happening like what's going on because it was reported by the pinball news like uh this you know not a slouch agency and so we're like we're just in town i was driving by sorry i didn't you know give a heads up or anything but like is he here can we just like is it can we just talk to him um they said yeah hang on one second um you know came back he's in a meeting sorry guys you came here right now and i'm like look don't be sorry at me we just showed up fresh from the sewer uh and walked right into your marble offices we're not expecting anything you know we've already had way more fun than we were planning on all good so we pile in to leave and then the guy comes running back out like wait he's here and i was like oh oh i should have just gotten my car and drove away uh but we walked back in there uh myself and uh and one other influencer um yeah the other guys were just like like it had too much cringe to go in there and that's probably the appropriate response so no shade on them at all um what proceeded was uh ron lindeman uh my uh sales contact homie with american pinball uh came out so we didn't see david fix um and that's fine i think he's in an exit interview somewhere um but uh ron uh true gem like he walked us around i got to show off the uh the hot dog toaster, which is like the highlight of my tour. I go to American just cause I'm weird. Um, we walked through the factory. Okay. A lot of the games that were in boxes near the shipping dock have gone. A lot of polycades are going out. Um, walk through the factory, completely dead skeleton crew, a bear, partial skeleton. I saw two people working on actually putting games together. It looked like there was hot wheels on the line. They said they were getting caught up with some orders that they had. Um, there was a, a barbecue classic edition that was ready to go. I got to touch the final inbox Limited edition Of barbecue which is already Have some interest so you know My last minute purchase finally of a Barbecue le the very last one was thwarted Because somebody already got their eyes on it but I got To give it a hug and that was fun walked around the Factory had a good time Oh wait it was myself and Kerry We on Patreon We can talk about this So I brought Kerry Hardy to American Pinball everybody Yay! So the whole thing was surreal, and I was just geeking the whole time. We walked by about, what's 17 times 4? Whatever that is, that's how many I'd like to thank for. Signature editions were still in the box there. So supplies are dwindling, but they are still available. And then, you know, we really had to go, man. It was like 2 o'clock at this point. We're supposed to already be at Stern. The guys had already left and Ubered on over there. Totally fine. Do not even blame them at all. That was probably the right decision to make. You know, so we walked through the streaming area, and I can see Kerry's having a great time. And so I don't want to rush this guy. I mean, this is his first time to the factory. You know, we don't even know if there's going to be a factory. Like, what's going on? I'm still waiting for a press release. So, yeah, we're going to play and hang out for a little bit. So I show them some of the props from GTF and stuff in the offices and whatever. But I'm really trying to like, the guys are waiting for us outside. We really got to go. And then we get a, you guys want to play the new game? And all bets are off at that point. Absolutely, we do. Yes, thank you, sir. So myself and Kerry, I'm still under my NDA, so I can't give any specifics. We all know that American Pinball has a new game in the shoot to release and sometime Q1, Q2, 2025. That's about what I can say. that and i am allowed to share my impressions i still think this game is fun believe it or not um and i for me personally absolutely their best game absolutely by a mile not even a question um yes and i want to play it again so carrie got to play it um and again not even a full game because like we really had to be at stern at this point um but uh yeah and i always get excited when i see new pinball even if it's bad pinball um you know and but for games when i play them and like I'm the only one publicly that's really played it, you know, myself and a handful of others. Like, I'm like, okay, I like the game. It's good. But is that just my own exuberance? You know, I want somebody else to play it too. And then they could tell me like, what did you think? Like, is it actually good? Was I right? Or was I just like inside my own head or whatever? But no, it seemed now he didn't even get to play a full game and didn't even get to walk through all the rules. But yeah, he left saying, yeah, the game was fun. You know, I'd want to play it again. So I like that validation of my own assessment of pinball. Like, okay, good. The game is good. I really want people to play this game. After that, like, we really had to go. We thanked Ron profusely, and he went, I guess he's in a new leadership position now, or he's head of sales or something at this point. I don't know. I reached out to him again this morning. Guy, thank you for letting us drop in on you completely unannounced. And that was kind of a dick move on our part, but you were so gracious. Thanks for showing us around. And he's like, yeah, not a problem, man, anytime. And so then I did say, like, hey, guys, look, guys, guy, there's uncertainty in the community I guess is an easy way to put this do you have a press release or anything about like what the new direction the company's going to be what the leadership is just so we can kind of reassure some people so I'm waiting to hear back yeah I'll check my phone right now and see if I got anything nothing's coming up just yet but as soon as I hear something back official you know we'll be ready to go yeah as of now still no word back yet but I'm sure he'll get at me. Never been a problem. He did like my post I sent back to him. So, alright, so that's American Pinball. I have no idea what's actually going to happen. God only knows. And I'm not sure what timeline we're even in at this point. But I think we may. There's a fair chance that we are in the timeline that their new game will get released and we're looking at probably April. You know, I would love for this to be a TPF. Kerry would love to be this TPF. Everybody at TPF would love this game to be a TPF. But that's not a certainty. But April, maybe? As of right now, the official word that I got is the plan is still for this game to release, and that's I'll let you know when I know some more. But WeWolf went screaming down the freeway back to Stern, just like giggling. We couldn't believe that we did this. It was almost like a secret agent mission, like, alright, we're at the Cafe Zupas, right? We're gonna get in there to the Inner Sanctum. We're gonna get to the game. We're gonna get out. No casualties. Ten minutes. Let's make it happen. And that's basically how it happened. Now, there was no pre-planning on this part at all uh but that's what happened holy gee balicious all right okay so stern pinball uh we head over there it's two o'clock we go in we sign in um zach sharp's not there he's out at ces george gomez was in attendance Brian Eddy and dwight sullivan were both there elizabeth geiske who's like just a gem man talking to this lady um i uh put up a podcast right now of my sit-down interviews i was bold this time i brought my whole recording studio in a backpack with me into Stern. And with permission, I was able to set it up right in that game room. And then it was just like, come on, just jump on the mic. I got me and Brian Eddy talked for about 10 minutes. I got all the questions from the Discord answered, I believe, in there. So thank you for sending me the questions. And that was great. I got my own questions answered. I played the game. Go listen to that episode for the interviews and whatnot. I sat down with Retro Ralph and Carrie Ewells. No, Carrie Hardy as well. That was a good time. oh god so good so good so um yeah so uh we got to play the game for about three hours or so so we started off with a tour through the factory now their factory was as silent as american pinball's factory right now they're doing inventory um they're gearing up for the new year no games were on the line no no line was on the line like the carts for the the playfields and everything weren't even there like everything's getting inventoried right now all the soldering equipment was not there like everything you need to make a pinball machine was like not on the line or at the desk. It's all being counted right now. But the production sample for the Pro, I did see that. And I'm presuming, though, they had, I looked around the corner, I didn't see the LE or anything. But LE should be first. They should be coming up. Talking to George, they're getting all their parts in. And as long as everything comes in time, there shouldn't really be a problem with limited supplies for first runs hopefully So that great But they hedged their bets initially So if you a distributor and you ordered some premiums there a chance that there probably a good chance that there be more of an allotment released when it gets closer to the time of production. So that's good to hear. But yeah, none of that's confirmed, by the way, but that's just kind of the sense that I got. So we toured through the factory. Jack Danger was there, too. What a freaking cool guy. So it was just fun to go back home with my friends. The one thing I can say about these people is they're us, man. they like pinball as much as we do um now i'm still haven't met anybody from like the higher corporate level as far as like bean counters the sharp pencil boys as walt disney's to call them the people that set the prices the people that set the numbers and set the margins and all that you know those are the ones that like we truly like ah you jerks you're raising prices on us we don't like that but as far as like the dreamers the dream makers the dreamers of the dreams the builders of the dreams uh the chocolate factory guys the oompa loompas like these guys um they like pinball as much as we do they want to make good compelling games they did a dnd license because the people at the company like to play dnd as well and they're like there's a lot of people into this maybe we should explore it as a theme and i think they did good service to this theme um it's a theme that i like it's a game that i like and personally if i had five games in my game room i'd be purchasing a premium already um but the problem is i have 15 games in my game room i've got some for sale i'm trying to be financially responsible and so i have not ordered one yet and seeing the patterns of the market, I sure would like to have a $9,500 LE in four months than I would a $13,000 one right now. But everybody else is thinking the same thing. Okay, we're all late to Bitcoin at this point. And if the LE is not selling well, there's not going to be cheap used ones later to buy. So the main sense I came away with was if you buy one of these games, whichever version you think is best for you, I think you'll be happy with it. I don't think there'll be a lot of regret with this game because there seems to be a lot in it, a lot of gameplay in it. And I love that. And for at home, I think this is a game that you could really get into. You know, figure out the rules. The rules, while deep, are not confusing. So it wasn't that this is a game that you just can't wrap your head around. Like, how do I even do what I'm doing, right? John Wick doesn't have deep code. And even that, I have no idea what I'm doing a lot of the times. With Dungeons & Dragons, like, I had a pretty clear instance of what I should be doing. I mean, the colors are telling me what to do. The game is telling me what to do. there's just a lot to do and then so though so while it's deep it's approachable and absolutely seems learnable and absolutely a lot of fun if you just want to slap balls and fight a dragon like that's you're gonna play that in five minutes or less man um and for that i'm thankful i love hitting the shield and letting all of those like eight multi balls just kind of come down and rest against the flippers and it's not like the shield comes up for a second beeps and then goes back down like it stays up for a good 20 30 seconds or so so um and you've got the indication there with the flashing um you know breathing yellow light of like how much time you have left you know so you can safely let your balls sit there for a second crack your neck crack your knuckles and then monkey flimp your heart out it's like playing hungry hungry hippos just throw the balls everywhere they're gonna hit the dragon they're gonna hit the targets they're gonna hit the ramps they're gonna go on the dungeon thing it's gonna hit everything it's like the spread shot on Contra. So fun. So fun. I talked about this on the main show. So we hung out there and then there was food. I was there at 2pm and then it was about 5 o'clock before I'm like, I've been playing this game and interviewing people and just hanging out. Like, there's supposed to be food. So I went over and grabbed some pizza from Luminati's. They went with a thin crust this time so I got to try that one and it tastes just like somebody took a Luminati's pizza and just flattened it. Like the cheese tastes the same, the dough tastes the same, but like it was flat but it still felt thick. Like it was weird. delicious caesar salad was in effect so thank you for that um so i came away with having had a great time at stern pinball um i came away with the fact more than ever that these people like pinball as much as i do maybe even probably even more um and i like that i like that these people aren't just like what are the corporate masters want um you know what does the uh venture capitalist funding us want um okay what will go out and make margins okay take those things out of this game because we could still make the margins without them. Like they're not doing that whole budget engineering thing as much as I was afraid that they were going to do about a year and a half ago. So that's good. And I even got some insight info on the freaking topper for Dungeons & Dragons. It's a mimic and it moves. That's awesome. Please do that. Please do that. You know, when you have a static cut plastics with LED light shows and it's $1,500, it's kind of sucks. But at least when things move and they're interactive and it's like expanding the gameplay even outside of the machine, like that's what i want right you know none of us want to spend a thousand dollars for those things but we do and if we do we want them to be compelling and cool and it looks like that they're putting that effort into doing that now whether these are just hinged plastics moving around or a fully sculpted whatever it has you um i'm excited i'm excited for this and damn it there's no demand for venom there's no demand for venom there's no secondary market for venom these things are on clearance everywhere but damn it they're still going to bring out this damn Venom topper. By this time, the topper is going to cost half the price of an LE for the way the prices are dropping. But you know what? They're still doing it. Any company that was just looking at the bottom line, looking at the pleasing eventual capitalists, they'd be like, we're not going to, there's no point to release this thing. Quit spending one more diamond R&D on it. Forget it. It's dead. But they're still doing it. And I love that about them. I love that. So I don't think it's a zero-sum game between us. I think Stern can win and we can win as long as we still continue this collaborative relationship. And we keep lines of communication open, which I absolutely feel like if there's chatter from the community, it's going right to the right ears over there. So that was fun. So it was time. There was a tournament last night at Interium. Now this is a real big boy tournament This is like a pinball tournament This isn my local District 1 brewery fun times tournament this was like a pinball tournament um you know this isn my local district one brewery uh fun fun times tournament um this was like you know actual players are here right you know Raymond Davidson was there um you know people are playing in this tournament on games that they've designed okay that's the type of tournament this is right heart of chicago so whatever so i've never been competing in that environment ever you know um i know i've been getting better at pinball because I can get further and further in my own games. But that's me at home. That's not me against people that travel the world and have IFPA numbers in double digits, right? So whatever. I'm in there. I pay my five bucks. And let's go. It was player appreciation at an interium. They had a full buffet of food. So that was cool. And it was 105 people in this tournament. 105. What the heck? And I'm like, all right, look. I'm just here to try to have some fun. I usually don't play tournaments because I like to play pinball. and at tournaments I end up standing around waiting to play pinball because I play for two seconds and I'm done. And I thought I was playing in rare, poor form. I was getting consistently number two in each round. And I'm like, yeah, I haven't won an entire round. What the hell am I even doing here? I was third in my first round of the four. I was only four rounds. And then I came in second in all the other ones. So I was like, eh. I had the worst game of Pulp Fiction. Man, I own this game. This was embarrassing. Ball saves were turned off. Okay, in Pulp Fiction, if you do the skill shot and the ball save is still going and you miss the skill shot, you can let it drain, get your ball back, and then still try to go for the saucer to unlock a character. So I'm like, all right, I've rehearsed this at home. This is my tournament approach. Here we go. And, of course, like I drain, no ball save. I've got 4,000 freaking points, which is nothing. This is what you get for plunging the ball. And I'm like, great. Well, nice knowing you, everybody. That was fun. I ended up rallying my third ball and took second in the round. So that was awesome. uh got through a mode even uh in pulp fiction during tournament settings so that was cool with no ball save so anyway i say all this to say i came in number 38 out of 105 people in chicago at interium with freaking ray day and uh and mark seiden and and uh the the man who saved pinball himself was there playing roger sharp um and i came in 38 and roger sharp was 44 so holy shit I beat Roger Sharpe in a tournament. He must have been having a terrible day. But that happened, and so I guess there's some objective validation that a stopped clock, if they play pinball long enough, can come number 38 in a tournament. So huge, awesome. By this point, all right, I've been awake for greater than 24 hours. I started my day the day before at work. I drove into Chicago. I tore like a terrorist through American pinball. I had fun times with Kerry Hardy, man. me and him retro ralph vic vp uh colin allsheimer um and and joel the whole flipping out crew was or flipping out the whole uh triple drain crew was there um it was just fun hanging out meeting everybody uh darren this guy that listens to me what what a legend um he's the one that won the round with pulp fiction and so i was talking to him and i'm like man i'm doing terrible and like i have no excuse because like i own this game right and then we talked about uh you know tournament settings are and ball saves and all that and stuff and i was like oh yeah uh he's like you have any other games at home and i'm like well yeah i have 15 other ones um oh wow shoot i've got five i was like yeah i know i i need to get down and we both agreed that our wives would be happier with us with less pinball machines um and then i mentioned like yeah i make mods and stuff i get games i customize my powder coat and i do a little podcast and he's like oh what's your podcast and i was like oh it's don spinball podcast and like it finally had that moment where like the guy recognized who i was and like knew who i was already like he listens to the show darren what a cool guy um god i hope that's his freaking name i asked him twice and and i i hope that's his name uh he'll he'll recognize if he listens to this um but it was like that moment where finally someone's like oh hey i know you and like it happened and i i tried to be gracious in it and it's just it's such a cool moment i'm glad it happened um and and i'm happy to do this podcast that i do i'm having a lot of fun with pinball i and i'm gonna keep doing what i'm doing here i'm always open to any uh any input you guys have don's pinball podcast gmail.com is how to get at me or on discord or on facebook or you know through the ether webs or direct message me people figured out how to do that now somehow um but yeah we're having a good time in pinball yesterday was completely incredible i ended up just uh grabbing orbits getting the hyatt regency across the street from the woodfield mall great place 80 bucks man come to illinois in the wintertime then there's some deals um i'm gonna drag my sorry butt home and uh i've got a week off now that i'm gonna dive into projects if you've been waiting to get something from me i'm going to build it this week and get it to you whether it's a topper whether it's a mod uh whether it's whatever else it is i've got flyers for dungeons and dragons if you'd like to get some of those um basically anything i mail out over the next week or so while i have these things we'll get one so if you want to just order some stickers man five bucks and i'll send them out to you if you're a patreon member stickers are always free so you can just request them and you'll get a uh rolled up uh flyer for dungeons and dragons while supplies last i got pros premiums and LEs. Let me know which one you want. And if I got it, I'll send it to you. If not, I'll send you a different one. And if not, I'll send you stickers. Whatever else. Thanks so much for being members, guys. I'm going to get this stuff uploaded and drag my sorry butt home. It's time for some Potbelly subs, man. Where's Kim Wilde? Where'd she go? Whoa. That was such a great time, everybody. Thanks for being listeners. Really appreciate it. More info as I get it. Once I get some official word from American Pinball, we'll drop that as well and thanks again for being a patreon member dude you guys are absolute legends i'm dragging my sorry butt home getting some pot belly subs and it's gonna be delicious all right man later