We're at the super awesome. Keep on forgetting. Okay, you have to put this at the end. Oh, my God. Get off the stage, you fucking moron. The following is an ad-hoc radio production. TV. It's the super awesome pinball show. show. That's right, it's time for your favorite pinball show. With your favorite hosts, pinball artist Christopher Franchi and Dr. Pin and Cell Christian Lyne. Don't you know Ain't no stuff like that satisfying Don't you know Also a rotating gallery of bonus co-hosts to spice things up. Satisfying Sponsored by Chicago gaming company, home of your favorite top quality pinball remakes like Monster Batch, Medieval Badness, and more. Visit Chicago-Gaming.com. And by Cointaker.com, distributors of new in-box pinball machines, mods, accessories, LEDs, and much more. That's Cointaker.com. Also by Back Alley Creations.com, makers of the most amazing pinball mods, black pearl pinballs, and the easiest fly playfield support system. That's BackAlleyCreations.com. Hello, all you pinball rock stars out there. It's the Super Awesome Pinball Show Season 1, Episode 17. My name is Christopher Franchi, and today on the show, we welcome very special secret co-hosts. Also, an interview with the owners of the biggest pinball distributors, Cointaker, Chris and Melissa Marquette. We cover all the details from the first annual Super Awesome Pinball Show tailgate bash, the Guns N' Roses reveal, latest news and rumors, plus our last few weeks in pinball. And all of this with my stunning co-host, Christian Lyne. Thank you, Chris. Plus, on the show, we have the answer to and winner of our Guns N' Roses trivia contest from our last episode. And we give you the details on our special trip out to Pennsylvania for a cookout with our friends from Cointaker. We've got one hell of a show for you today, so let's get into it. Let's start off by introducing our co-host for the episode, the two wild and crazy guys from what is basically a mix between a pinball podcast, comedy show, and that one frat party from college you barely remember because you blacked out after drinking too much jungle juice. Drew and Ian from the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. Welcome to the show, guys. Hey, guys. That was quite an introduction. I tried to summarize kind of how you guys are. Jungle Juice. You guys remember that? Did you guys do Jungle Juice back in the day? Is that like right? Yeah, we call it Punch. Yeah, I'm sure that's... It's called by various names. That is what we used to call it in my fraternity, but it's basically a big trash can full of horribleness that will mess you up. I'm a wapatooy in his age. Good old wapatooy. Yes, sir. We are well versed. I think different languages of wapatooy. All of these are ridiculous. Yes. Well, thanks for having us. Bye, guys. We appreciate it. Yeah, we've been waiting to get you on for a while now. We just wanted to find a good time to do it. We figured out the best time to do it was when there was nobody better. Listen, why did you have to throw that there, Christopher Franchi? I know. You fucker. We did a much show prep today as we usually do for our show, So we're ready to go. Yeah. I suggested this afternoon and said, hey, do you want to do this today? We're like, yep. Sure. Show prep. Get it. Here's the poor man's checklist. Beers, 24. Notes, zero. You guys definitely have the craziest show and crazy stories, I think, of any podcast that I've listened to, hands down. You have no filter, and I love it. and you told a Mardi Gras story and a story about how you guys first met that blew my hair back in the car while I was listening to that. Wow, Ian just lost it on that. Look, I've been telling people since we started this thing that we are just who we are. We're not putting on a persona. We're just two guys having fun. You're all over my computer. We don't have too many critics, I don't think. I think we have a lot of people that turn us off. but you know we turn them off we just like what we do we appreciate you guys having us on and for all the people that listen to us uh we we really do appreciate that so we've been doing this for so long as friends that it comes through on the podcast so we don't really have to rehearse at all it all just comes out naturally and we never know what the hell our next show is going to be about and how it's going to go down and that's what keeps it exciting keeps it fun and we just hope that everyone gets entertained and the hard part is living up to those entertainment expectations. We want to make sure everyone has a good time and laughs. We try to be the anti-pinball podcast in the sense of we don't want to take it too seriously. We think pinball should be fun and enjoyable and there shouldn't be any drama in the pinball world and there always is. We're trying to go the opposite direction. So whatever everyone else is doing, we want to go the opposite direction just to stay fun. Because pinball is supposed to be fun, right guys? That's right. Goddamn good fun. But, you know, my first question for you guys is you both have some pretty decent collections of pinball games. So what's with this horseshit with the poor man's pinball podcast? I knew that was coming up. Here's the thing, Franchi. I am a poor man. Ian and I truly are middle class blue collar guys. We both work blue collar jobs. We work shit tons of hours. You know, we live in middle class America. And that's part of it because I work so much. And, you know, I just work, save my money. and then I buy some fun toys for myself. And quite honestly, the collection started with me selling comics and collectibles from my youth. So I kind of got a good jump start that way, which kind of is fun. I hear you can get a good chunk of change for selling butt skin, too. I got to look into that. What's the market look like on that franchise? I don't know, but I could probably make a million. What do you sell that can get you enough money for a pinball machine? You must have had good comics. Well, so I still have a bunch because I'm still a comic collector at heart. So the comics I really didn't touch a lot of. But when I bought my first new in box Iron Maiden, I unloaded a serious collection of Star Wars stuff from the 70s and 80s. Like, you know, every original figure I had, you know, Darth Vader, you know, original on the card and all kinds of cool stuff like that. And just, you know, I just went on eBay and just sold a bunch of it. And, you know, then plunked down. The wife gave me the okay. She said, yeah, it's your stuff. Sell it and then get whatever you want. I've never had more than two machines down here. I think at one point I had three machines, but one was given to me for free because it was just get it out of my garage now kind of situation where I found somebody that wanted to get rid of one. But no, I mean, my collection literally is just it stems from kind of my roots to this hobby and it's arcade related. So, you know, buying a hundred dollar arcade machine, fixing it up and selling it for five hundred dollars and repeating that until I had enough to buy my first black rose. So it definitely took a while to get to that point. And when I got a Black Rose, it was kind of a shot in the dark because I remember loving pinball so much in the arcades back in the early 90s. I was like, I never played Black Rose, never even heard of it, but it was for sale and I love pirate shit. So I was like, let's do it. And I went and I sold, I think the last bit of my collection was an Outrun and a Popeye Nintendo caps. And that put me over the hump to buy a $2,000 Rose. So then, you know, luck have it. I was able to sell that because it got hot for a while, and everybody wanted a Black Rose, and I made a little bit of money on Black Rose, and that allowed me to get a Monster Bash SE with some more cash, obviously. It wasn't a straight trade. Yeah, and basically it's just kind of been that flotation of game and play it and get sick of it and sell it. That's like the pinball version of the guy who started off with the paper clip and bought a car. That's right. By trading up and trading up and trading up. I'm always really curious to know what guys who are just getting into the hobby go and buy from a pinball machine standpoint. Because we're all hardcore into it now, right? So we know what generally is a good game and what's not. But people out there who don't know any of that and just want a pinball machine in their house, they tend to just go with their gut. What's out there? What's for sale? And what turns me on? And you getting a Black Rose was a good choice, man. But just seeing what other people get. Are they getting a Bugs Bunny birthday bash? Or are they going to get a T2 or something that ranks high on pin side? Well, right. I think a lot of that has to do with theme, and we talk about that a lot on our show and exactly what you said. I know Bally Williams makes fantastic games, and the price was right, and it was just kind of lucky that it was close to my house. But, yeah, I lucked out on that one as a first game. No, it's a solid pin. I love that game. I do miss it from time to time, but Drew got a, what was that, a little last action hero was my first pin. Yeah, it's going to. You know, it was like, at the time, I think it was just a little over two grand. Yeah, price point. And you're like, okay, yep. And that was true poor man style. I was like, you know, what can I get? This was kind of the lowest tier at the time, and it was fully working and functional, a guy who fixed them up. I was like, that's how everyone starts. Nobody's crazy about that theme in terms of being a diehard Last Action Hero fan, but from a pinball standpoint, that's a really packed game, right? Are you? Are you hardcore into Last Action Hero? Is that like your grill game? Oh, but you're right. There's a lot in that game for what it is. That's awesome. And, well, now the prices have creeped up. I mean, now those things are going for almost three grand or more. Mm-hmm. Yep. Well, you guys are kind of like the drunk history of Pinball Podcasts because you're generally getting completely hammered on every episode, which is, you know, part of the reason why I tune in because it's so freaking funny watching you guys, you know, go from relatively sober at the beginning of the show to not at the end. What are your trade secrets here, Christian? That's right. The poor man's formula is secret. what are your drinks of choice and what are you guys drinking tonight well for me for me it's whiskey it's uh it's always been whiskey ever since ian's known me i mean you know i was a big beer guy back in the day i don't drink too much beer now but you know kessler and ginger ale kessler and coke you know a little nice nicer whiskey on the rocks you know just give me a good whiskey and i'm i'm i'm satisfied very satisfied yes it is i guess i lean towards just craft cocktails and making fun stuff and I like all boozes and you know I'm not too particular. It's as long as I can get it to taste good. That's how the high brow drinkers talk. I like all boozes. I raise my pinky when I say boozes. That's right. Gee, speaking of getting drunk and stuff let me take you back for a moment here. It's Chicago Pinball Expo 2019. I gotta go. It's after hours. I told him not to go there. No, that's fine. We're at the Spears Bar and Grill in the bathroom. Take it from there. This is the stuff legends are made of. You know, sometimes I get really excited. Ian knows this. I get overstimulated, overexcited. I was really getting into pinball hardcore at that time. We blame John Bore. This was before we met anyone in the industry. I mean, we were, we were nobodies and, uh, we still are nobody, but, but we, we hadn't met yet. John Bore. We hadn't met Francie. We hadn't met any of the podcasters, you know, anybody. And we go to the show and we're meeting everybody. And, uh, you know, this is one of the first times I get to meet Zach and I'm like, Oh, this is great. You know, Zach's here, but I'm super drunk and I'm in the bathroom and I'm throwing up. And then I see Zach and I turn around and I try to shake his hand and he was like, Oh no, he goes, I love you, man, but no. Are you actively throwing up while you're trying to shake his hand? Well, here's the funniest part. I wish Zach was here because he loves to tell this story. So I'm sitting there. I'm holding my junk. I'm peeing. I'm just there because I've got to pee. You know, I've been drinking. That day I was drinking just Crown Royal, just on the rocks. All day? Yeah, and I just kept ordering more. They were like $8 a piece or whatever the hell they were. And I'm sitting there and I'm pissing and I got a yak. So I have three choices. Well, actually I have four choices. But, you know, the easiest choice is right in front of me, right? Because I'm like, shit, there's a urinal right in front of me. So it goes through. Walking in the urinal. And anyway, so Zach's behind me and he's witnessing this whole thing. And then I turn around and I go, oh, hey, Zach. I had met him earlier in the night. And actually we met him at MGC once briefly. But anyways, I reached out to shake his hand and he goes, no. But then Zach being the nice guy that he is, he goes over to Ian and, you know, we have food on the table and he's like, Ian, you got to go help your boy. You know, so Ian came and took care of me. You know, like he has so many friends. Oh, yeah. I got to say, man, part of the funniest part of these stories is obviously what happens. but it's Ian laughing his ass off next to you the whole time. Can you tell the story? Yes, I can do that because, you know, there's been times where it's been vice versa, and I definitely have been in a bad position. Yeah. Where Drew's had to take care of me. Sure. I think maybe a podcast will tell the story the first time I went to Lambeau Field. No. And actually, that involved the riot punch that we were talking about, so we'll get into that at a different time. I think there's a sweet spot when I drink. I think I play a little bit better. at pinball than when I'm sober, in my own mind anyway. So it's a super narrow gray zone because if I go past that line, like a drink or two maybe, it's all over and I'm total shit at pinball. So do you guys play better buzz? I do. You know, when I was younger, going to the bars all the time, you know, when I would play pool and darts, I always thought exactly what you said. It was that sweet spot where if you had a couple good drinks, you're feeling good, you're out with your buddies, and then now you're playing pool. Can't miss, baby. Can't miss. Playing pool like Black Widow and you're playing darts like nobody knows. Nobody knows darts. Sport and the mullets. You're a professional dart player. Can anyone? I just pissed off. You know, the smallest niche hobby in the world. Smallest? That's fine. They still miss darts? Yeah. But to your point, yeah, I think so. I think there is that point where you're kind of like focused almost, you know, in a weird way where you're a little buzzed and you're just like, I'm going to do this. That's right. What is that, three drinks for you? For me, yes. Yeah, I would say two or three drinks and I'm there. Yep, feel good. And you're like, I can beat Keith Elwin. Yeah, I can see through walls. I can beat Keith. And I can't feel my face. Perfect. Drew, hold my hair while I throw up. Yes. Where'd my buddy go? Oh, he's in the bathroom trying to shake his ass. I'm just sitting at the same time. So you guys, I mean, your podcast has some seriously diehard fans. You call them your tribe members. Franchi's one of them. I know he's on your secret email chain or your Facebook group. So what's the wildest thing that a tribe member has ever done for you guys? Like I'm talking sending you epic swag or getting a tattoo of your logo or something. Oh, come on. If we get into prizes again, because like Christian gets all those gifts and shit from people, and you guys, I've seen you open up shit like people are sending you crap all day long. Todd Tucky's like, look, we got 18 pounds of coffee. You know what? I get dick. I get fucking shit. Nobody sends me anything. Some people like dick, okay? So it's fine. I can't believe that no one sends you anything. Yeah, they don't. But don't let me interrupt your glory. So what do you guys get? Because I know you've got to get some good stuff. Yeah. All shit. Yeah, we get about a package a month. It's all shit. And sometimes two. But, you know, we recently, yeah, on our last show, you know, we did, Jessie J gave us a care package from Australia. Very cool. That's so cool. Yeah. She's super cool. She's awesome. And then our boy down south, Chris Chandler, gave us, what, the beaver nuggets. Beaver nuggets. Yeah, it was Chris Chandler. And then Steve Johnson gave us the moon pies, which was a disaster. So we're trying to, you know, have more and more fun, so we try to do, like, these taste tests and stuff. And we ate all these moon pies. We ate every flavor there was. What do you think? That's kind of like a central Pennsylvania thing, the moon pie. Yeah. Were you fans or were you not? We don't really have them up here. No, we've never had them. And like I said, if you have one, it's like, it's okay. But after one, you're just like, yeah. I think our parents are aware of moon pies. Apparently it was a thing, but you can't really get them around here anymore. And they didn't know there was more than just chocolate. I'm like, oh, yeah, dude, we tasted every flavor of the rainbow that night. So, no, to answer your question, nothing too crazy. Super insane. It's been. The dick weights. We did get some dick weights. Yeah. Weights you can put on your penis. Which was really cool. And my wife loves them. other than that, yeah, I mean it's just all funny stuff they're just all characters, we love them all they're very cool guys and gals to give people a better idea of what goes on in the secret fraternity known as the poor man's pinball tribe on average, how many Batman dick pics do you get? oh no it's a Facebook page so there are what 34 tribe members now so there's 36 of us in there and you have Frenchies in there and there's these people that on their Facebook page and even with their pinball friends, you don't see any of this stuff. Yeah, it's just normal. They're normal people. It's like, oh, hey, this Guns N' Roses is awesome, kicks ass, and then all of a sudden we get into the page, and it's, yep, here's Batman's dick. Here's a picture of a pumpkin that looks like... A vagina. Yep, yeah. We never know. Half the tribe members will text us and say, Yeah, I get nervous when I see the notifications now, and I'm like, oh, yeah, me too. I don't even try to look. It's terrible. We have one guy in particular. His name is Josh Mudd, and he lives outside of St. Louis, Missouri, with his girlfriend. And he has this house. They have no kids, and they just have this house, a middle-class house. But his garage, he turned into the pop culture. It looked like pop culture threw up everywhere. Yes. Yeah. He collects, like, the full-time. And the drama. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Chuck E. Cheese, Beetlejuice, you name it. Horror stuff, funny stuff. Austin Powers has got Mini-Me. He bought a 15-foot metal dinosaur sculpture. Yeah, he has the whole Simpsons family. Yes. In giant form. So needless to say, this guy is out there, and yeah, we love him to death, and he was a no-brainer for the tribe, obviously. Yeah, he was number five or six. Yeah, we've even had him on our show because he's so cool. But, yeah, he loves to share the kind of crazy shit on the tribe page, and we love it for it. So, yeah. Well, that is an exclusive club on there. I guess you guys are seeing some pretty interesting stuff, it sounds like. I'm not sure that most people can hang in that group. But, yeah. Well, we recently did three females as well, and we warned them ahead of time, and they're fitting in really well. Ladies are pretty much holding their own and kicking some ass. So it's been very cool. And the tribe was just kind of an invention of Drew's, actually, which was a really good idea, Drew, by the way, again. Thank you. Just to kind of give it up for some of the great fans out there that don't pick up a mic, but do just love all podcasts. And they're everything that is great about our little hobby and even the hobby within the hobby, which is the media side of things. because I see tribe members always commenting on not just our stuff, but our tribe members are commenting on Zach's stuff, you know, your guys' pages. So it's cool because they help us. It's more of a celebration of some of the hardcore listeners. They're the ones that listen to all of us and all of our bullshit. So we've got to celebrate those guys. Yeah, I know. So that's cool. So you guys are self-proclaimed Franchi fanboys. And, Drew, I know you said that you have a straight-up man crush on the guy. I love Franchi, but the man crush with Ali, yeah. That's me. I have a picture. Oh, that's you, Ian. Okay, my bad. All right, so. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You have a picture what? Nothing. I didn't say anything. Sorry, I cut off the best part of that statement. So what do you guys think Chris's best work is, and what is one theme you wish he would do the art for? Well, that's an easy one for me, so, Drew, do you want to take that? My personal favorite, I think, so far, is Batman 66, fix but that's just because i'm such a comic fanboy right oh you know what what he does and the thing is i'm i'm more of a marvel guy but the stuff i've i've seen of his for from all the dc stuff that he's into you know wonder woman and batman and superman all that good stuff it's just awesome so uh hats off to franchi for that one that's that's probably my favorite art package if i could get him to do one that's a good question uh well i always default to futurama just because that's my dream-themed pen. That's cool. Oh, I can't draw that. That's like... You just saw it. Yeah. That's why, like I said, I just... I think Evil Dead would be awesome, Army of Darkness. I can see that. That's cool. Yeah, definitely, because Army of Darkness was one of my favorite movies growing up, so... I'd be down. I see that. Yeah, my favorite art package of his is by far The Beatles, so I just think he just... Oh, cool. ...is the most gorgeous pen I've ever seen in person, and I don't even think it has as much to do with the pen as it does his artwork. Really kissing your ass today, by the way. Feels good. He's loving it. He's taking it all in. Yeah, but by far the best. When we stood in front of the Beatles game, I didn't think it was going to take my breath away like it did because we were really, really excited to see it. And when I stood in front of that thing, I was like, holy shit, he did a great job because I've said this a million times. I mean, seeing the high-res photos, seeing the video, seeing people's cell phone videos it never really does the artwork justice even even zombie yeti and stern they're doing such a good job at and releasing some of the high res you know up close images but even then unless you stand in front of these machines and take them all in as one solid piece of art it's it's pretty impressive and that's kind of what beatles kind of taught me because i was like i saw all the videos i saw them i never thought for a second that that artwork was going to blow me away like it did and then of course uh franchi knows what i would want him to do. I want him to do a, I wanted him to reskin a creature. Creature from the Black Lagoon. I want him to do that in the worst way possible, but that's Well, something might be coming down the road soon. We got a nugget. So I won't even, I want to change my answer. Turtles. This is my favorite art package. Oh, shut up. Drew has said that same dumb joke about at least 16 times to me. He's so proud of that joke. Recently you guys have sort of taken to Facebook live to recording your podcast. So you kind of like, you do it live on like, is it like Monday night or Tuesday night? Monday at 830 Central. Wait, wait, wait. You don't know. You've been in chat. Yeah, I know, but days run together. I'm on so many drugs, I don't know what day it is. So I was curious, ever since you guys have started doing that, have your numbers on your podcast taken a hit? Because we all kind of watch and see how people are listening and all that. Have your numbers kind of gone down in the audio podcast arena as opposed to with the addition, I should say, of the video? I have no idea. I am the numbers guy, and I do look at that quite a bit because I enjoy that kind of stuff. But, yeah, it's taken about maybe 10%. Not substantial, but yeah, there was a bit of a dip, and I think that's because people do come and join in the chat, and then obviously they're not going to download the podcast and listen to it again. And I don't think that the audio is as nicely presented as if we sat down and edited the audio we used to do. No, that wasn't the greatest editing job, but it was sufficient and it was consistent. No, it was fine. Ian does the editing, by the way. We talk all the time about, you know, this live show and if this is something we want to continue. But we both say we have so much fun doing it now. And it takes a lot off my plate because I don't have to edit anymore. And we actually have, you know, audience, live audience participation with the chat. So, I mean, that's absolutely fantastic. And it's just been a blast. And I really haven't checked the numbers since we've been doing the live show, only because I just know that I'm having way too much fun with the live stuff that I don't even really care too much about the audio. Yeah, I have a lot more fun with it. And, yeah, the only issue with the audio is some stuff obviously doesn't come across then. Absolutely. Because we're here having fun, maybe making weird faces, doing things. We're giggling, and no one knows why we're giggling. I mean, I know we giggle all the time, but sometimes it's just completely out of context in the audio, and it's hard to do that when you're live. For you guys, I think it's more about having fun anyway, right? I mean, you're not trying to get, you know, obviously everybody wants huge numbers, but you want to just have fun and have a good time, and that comes through on your show. You know, when we first started this, you know, I think the first week, you know, we got something like, I don't know, 50 listens or whatever it was. And Ian and I were like, oh, that's awesome, you know, because 50 idiots want it. My wife calls this the idiot convention. Nice. And, you know, I'm like, 50 people wanted to listen to us. That's cool. And then, you know, it started growing and just got organic from there. And it was really humbling to actually see that as we were doing it. And you're right, though. It wasn't about the numbers. It was just like, wow, people actually care about what we have to say and that we're having fun. Right. And now that you guys are up to 60 listeners, how does that feel? It's going up. Like one a week. Turn it up, brother. Turn it up. The numbers have been good. They've been consistently growing. But we don't care as much because, you know, if you really, really do care, you can get really easily discouraged when you hear someone like Kaneda boast about his 2,500 listeners every episode. You're like, you know what, though? Whatever. It's fine. We might not ever hit that number, but we're just glad to be able to hang out as friends and talk about a hobby we love. There's such a difference between the two, though. I mean, like, he might have 2,500 listeners, and I don't know what your guys' numbers are, but, you know, just for the sake of saying what I have to say, let's say, you know, you only got 1,500 listeners. You've got 1,500 listeners that absolutely love you, and Kenita does not. He's got people who just listen to find out what he has to say, and most of them want to punch him in the face. It's true, but I guess my message is to anyone else that wanted to actually get into the podcasting arena, to don't not so much think about the numbers, but just do what you enjoy doing. You know, absolutely. Numbers will come if you're having fun, you know, and that's that if you do this because you love to genuinely do this and want to talk about the hobby, then go for it. But don't get butthurt if, you know, you don't get a lot of lessons right away. You know, it takes time to build an audience. No, I agree with you, man. I say it all the time. I think, you know, if you're not doing it for the right reasons, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's all about having fun. And I personally am in it to shoot the shit with Franchi and have a great time talking to these, you know, these pinball people that have a passion for the same stuff that I do. So, you know, and you guys, you do that and, you know, you have a party every night. So you can't really say that there's anything wrong with any of that stuff. Right. No, we've said this all along. You know, we're building this community of misfits that we love. I mean, it is. You're right. It's just fun and it's a party. Yep, absolutely. Cool, man. All right, that's enough of these boneheads. Now it's time for our weeks in pinball. Okay, so, you know, I think the two coolest things that happened to me over the last two weeks was first being involved in the Guns N' Roses reveal. That was amazing. It's so damn cool to just be involved in Eric's game, and he's a great guy, such a talented designer. We had the game info in late August, and we recorded our deep dive in September, I think on the 10th, so it was crazy to have to wait that long to talk about it. I have a ton of respect for pinball designers and everyone in the industry who can talk about their projects. Because, I mean, Guns N' Roses is such a cool game. You want to talk to your buddies. And a lot of Eric's buddies were pinball guys. So that has to be tough. But they crushed the reveal. So cool to be part of it. Congrats to Eric, Ken, Jack, and everyone else who was involved in that game. You know, they did a really phenomenal job. Ian and Drew, what did you think of the reveal? Like compared to what you've seen before, obviously you've been in the hobby for a while. Was there anything you would change, or do you think this was pretty much executed as well as you'd like? Yeah, see, we were at the Wonka reveal, so at MGC, and what they did this time around, I don't know if Drew feels the same way, but I thought it was really fucking good. I thought they did a great job with the lead-up, and we kind of knew what was happening, what date it was going to be released, and then just how they went about releasing the game. Drew, do you have any comments on that? Well, yeah, I think it was the best release that I've ever seen and, you know, probably ever because, you know, obviously they weren't doing stuff like this five years ago. To have 100 LEs made already? Who does that? Yeah, so there's that. But, well, that's right. Yeah, I was trying to think in my head. I was like, Stern obviously has this down, right? I mean, they have games in boxes. They're shipped overseas. They do this, like, clockwork. But we haven't really seen another company step up to that level before. And Jersey Jack kind of, you know, did it. It was incredibly impressive. And I think it was the time that they had in between their last reveal and this now with COVID and everything else, like just giving them more buffer. But when they went out with the game, they came correct, right? I mean, I think Ken Cromwell, his marketing hire was a good call by them. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Ken was made for this. You know, he's a good marketing face for that company. He's a detailed man. Yeah. He's got the details down. I just hope that this kind of shows what's going to happen in the future, meaning maybe they can make two games in a year. The fact that they got 100 in boxes is probably going to crank out, I don't know, like 1,000 of these by Christmas or whatever. Because we probably won't see another game from them until maybe next summer. But hopefully next year they can release one, and then maybe at the end of the year release another one. That's what I've been saying all along. If they can get to two games a year, I think they'll do really well. But, you know, one game a year with these, you know, new in box LE buyers, I think they need to do a little more than that. And that's their goal, right? I mean, they've always said they want to get to that two game a year milestone and hopefully they can do it. Like with CERN, like, you know, as awesome as they are and they are awesome and they are a machine. Instead of having four cornerstones, I'd rather have three cornerstones. cornerstones, but have a lot more in these games versus like J.J.P., two games a year is perfect because they put a lot into these games. And these games are phenomenal when you play them. They just feel different. They're solid. They're heavy. They have so much going for them. And all you really want is the kind of root for J.J.P. to be successful and to stick around so we can see the next game and the next game and the next game. So two a year would be amazing. Here's another thing to think about, though. We all know what trouble Jack got into when he came out with Wizard of Oz, and I think he was making five bucks apiece per game in profit. As these guys sort of get in sync and they've got a new building now, a much larger building in Chicago, if things pick up and everything starts going well and they start cranking out more games, are they going to fall in line with the same problems that Stern has that forces them to stay in a certain bomb where they can't add all of that stuff because they have so many employees and so much overhead and et cetera, et cetera. You know, do you want them to stay at the little boutique that tries a lot harder? Well, I think that that goes down to the two games versus having six games a year, you know, four cornerstones and then you have your usual couple of, what are those, contract games? Climacy games. Yeah, if you keep the bomb at a respectable rate, now I'm not saying they have to go as low as CERN's bomb, but as there's some money to be made in this hobby and if they have to charge a little bit more I think pinball people will pay a little bit more to get more in their games and the show is with Guns and Roses because it's everyone's super perspective about this game and it's not even like it was funny before this game was released I don't know about you guys but we had a lot of people contact our show about how the theme does nothing for them and they're not excited about this well that went 180 as soon as it was released and you're like okay maybe not a big fan of this The game looks amazing. Dude, I am that guy. And I went to the, when I played it, I wasn't expecting, I mean, I was expecting it to be freaking awesome because I had seen videos and I, you know, we had done the interview with Eric. But the theme didn't call to me like other themes had. But when I played it and I got the whole experience and I had, you know, yeah, I didn't know who Dizzy was, you know, two, you know, two months ago. But seeing all the band members up there and having their call outs and seeing how they're integrated into the game, I was in, man. I was all in. And I like Guns N' Roses, but I'm not like a hardcore fan. fan. I don't think there are too many that are crazy hardcore, but I think what Guns N' Roses is is I think they appeal to mass amounts of people. Besides Kaneda, I don't know if anyone thinks this is the greatest band of all time. It's cool. Everyone knows all the songs. Everyone knows GNR when they're on the radio. Everyone can relate to this band because there's always some song that comes on and you're like, oh shit. On our show, I gave the example of my mom is like a traditional June Cleaver type, born in the 50s. I've seen her. Yeah, great lady, but that's who she is. And she probably knows who Slash is. You know what I mean? Because he's just so iconic, and he's been around for 35 years, that she could pick him out of the lineup and say, oh, that's Slash, the guy from Guns N' Roses. She doesn't know any of their songs, but she would if they played them, I bet. Probably, yeah. So that just goes to show kind of what Ewan was saying. It's a good theme that transcends other themes, But, you know, at the time, I don't think anyone was super pumped. And then all of a sudden they see the game and long story longer. Yeah, they loved it. So, yeah, no, I hear you. And we interviewed a couple of people at this coin taker event we were at last weekend. So we're going to have those kind of spliced into the episode at some point. But cool. That leads me to the next point, which was last weekend. Christopher Franchi made the eight hour drive out to Pennsylvania to hang out with us at the coin taker tailgate party. And I know that some podcasts have sponsors and some are fake, like fun around. But I have to take a moment to brag that I think we have the best sponsors, hands down. We've gotten donations like Pinball Playfields. We have a foosball coffee table from CGC. Shout out to Laura Fraley for winning that one. We got a $100 gift card and some pretty epic swag from Back Alley Creations. But this last weekend, we had Cointaker do probably the biggest thing we've ever had, which was a full-on catered tailgate. All of the recently released pinball machines in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. It was a pretty epic event. And Chris, I was so happy to have you come out for that, man. What did you think of that? It was unbelievable. It was funny how it happened because you guys have been talking about having me out, you know, drive out there. Because you and Cointaker are relatively close, about an hour away. But, you know, I'm eight hours away. So I decided, you know, I need to get out of the house enough of this COVID crap. You know, I wanted to see you guys and all that. So, you know, there's been no expos, so I haven't seen you. So I'm like, I'll head out there. And then when Chris and Melissa started talking about like, you know, oh, well, you know, we'll have like sort of an open house and, you know, we'll make some food or something like that. I figured, well, if we're going to go out there and we're going to, you know, record people's thoughts on Guns N' Roses and all that stuff, you know, my marketing noggin, you know, just kicked right in. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to call this the Super Awesome Pinball Tailgate Bash. And I'll make a logo about it, and we'll put it up. And it was really just to give it a name. It wasn't really an official bash. It was just like, if I'm going out there and it's kind of an event, you know, I'll make it look like a bigger event than it actually is. It's not to actually be worthy of the flyer, though. Yeah, because then Chris and Melissa went, well, you know, all right, they're giving it a name. Like, let's do this up. And, you know, they had so much food that this guy, Zach, was out front with this big-ass grill that he has that he has to hitch onto his truck. And he's cooking steaks and burgers and turkey and all of this shit. And there's all kinds of food and free drinks and free pinball. They had Guns N' Roses. They had the Avengers. They had the Turtles. You know, everything new. And also everything from the past probably five years or so as well, all on replay. There was tons of stuff to do. We had about over 250 people come out. And this was all last minute. Like, we literally decided to do this like a week before we did it. I knew I was going to have to put it out there. But it was only, you know, nicknamed the tailgate bash for like a week prior. And they just managed to get all this stuff thrown together. It was amazing. Yeah. I mean, over the course of eight hours, I think that 250 people were there. So it never really felt crowded. And we held it outdoors in their huge open to the outside warehouse. And there were games spread out. So, you know, safety was definitely well considered. Yeah, they had one of the Guns N' Roses under a gazebo tent right out by their sign by the road. So people were all lined up playing pinball like people driving by honking. That was cool. You have big baskets of hand sanitizer everywhere. So kudos for them for doing it right, you know, during COVID. But it was cool, man. It was cool to get out there and see people, make some new friends, and see some old ones that we haven't seen in a while because the shows have been down. But we got to play a ton of new games. GNR was obviously the star of the show because it was just officially revealed on Monday. but it wasn't the only game there. I mean, there was a ton of other ones. Avengers Pro, we had P3, Hot Wheels. I had never played any of those before, and, of course, Guns N' Roses. So I don't know, Drew and Ian, if you guys have played any of those games, but I kind of wanted to go through them and see what our first impressions of them were. Like I said, I own a Turtles. I have not got on Avengers or Guns N' Roses yet. But real quick, I just wanted to do a quick shout-out for... So Christopher Franchi, you met fellow tribe member Tim Lee in person? Yes, he was there. Yes, I did. So, yeah, Tim Lee was there, and, yeah, I got some awkward pictures of Franchi. There was a picture put up on Facebook, and both of them just looked so awkward for a while. His daughter was there, and she was really cool, too. He said she kind of travels with him to all the different shows. Yeah, she plays a lot of pinball. It was very cool, but to your point. So how was Avengers? Was it everything that everyone said it was? Yeah, man, I was so stoked to play it. I mean, the game shoots really well. It has, obviously, a beautiful art package from Zombie Yeti. I think Keith has got another hit on his hands with this one. It's classic Keith. He's got shots that are really fun to hit without anything really being clunky. There's a good mix of kind of a classic layout and some new unique shots. And I don't know. I'm going to put it out there that I think it's probably the most fun I've ever had with an upper flipper because you can repeat that ramp shot over and over and over again, which was extremely satisfying. It was very satisfying. You know, I got the fuckers. I got the gist of the rules. and definitely have the feeling that you would need this game in your house for a few weeks before you got a handle on how everything worked. But it's a very easy-to-approach game, even though it's so deep. The unpopular opinion was Guns N' Roses. Was that an easy shooter? Because that was one of the quotes. Some people think it's a negative. Some people obviously think it's a positive. Is the easy shooter easy to hit everything? Yeah, everything's kind of wide open. It's not brutal. There's just all the shots are fairly laid out. You could say that that is true. the shots are fairly accessible, but what's cool about that is that there's so many shots. There's a fair number of shots throughout the game, and even though it is easy to hit all of them, there's no Houdini catapult shots in there. It's definitely not, I would say, an easy game, because you've got the open play field, and you also have the multi-balls, which is one other negative that I've heard people talk about, how you have a fair number of those. But Eric had mentioned that it was a three-minute player, and I would say that's about right. I mean, even with the multi-balls, relatively straightforward shots, it's not a long-playing game. You get maybe one song and you get to kind of experience the awesomeness of that, but you're not playing three or four songs. And all of us were kind of new to the game, so we didn't really know the shots very well, but it wasn't like a Lord of the Rings by any means. What game do you think is more approachable for casuals and which game do you think is better for diehard pinheads? I think that obviously the theme of Avengers is more approachable than Guns and Roses, but I think from a gameplay standpoint, I would give the edge to Guns because I think with Avengers, it's not always as obvious what you need to do. Whereas in Guns N' Roses, it's pretty easy to get the basic rule set. Like you need to collect the band members and then shoot the scoop. And that's really it. And the band members are all the different shots. Kind of like a typical franchise night, collect the band members and shoot the scoop, baby. Nice. But yeah, I mean, I don't use them until you'll start one song, you'll start probably one or two multi balls when you play it. So you get like the full the full experience. And it's the wow factor for Guns and roses is there like the light show the audio all of the integration of all the assets it really freaking cool and I think a lot of competitive players have said the guns and roses isn their their kind of game because because they don like the ruleset or whatever it is but I think the casual players are really going to appreciate this game because it has a ton of wow factor, and it's just so epic to see the light show, and every song is choreographed differently, and the shaker is worked into it, and the video assets that they have from the concerts are playing. So it's really an experience that I don't think I've ever had on a pinball machine, and it's by far the best music pin I've ever played. Would you say the same, Frenchy? Yeah, definitely. I was pretty much blown away by the whole thing. It was really impressive. That'll need to retread the tire that you just laid out. So I'm just going to say I agree. I heard John Borg was playing guns at, what was that, Great American Pinball in Chicago? Yeah. Yeah, he was having a real good time with it. Yeah, he texted me, like, a 400-word essay. I don't know what we were doing. And I was like, I was out there in Pennsylvania at the time. And I'm just like, I'll have to read this later. Wow. But I will say that we talked to the Marquess, the coin taker crew, and they said that they sold a boatload of Avengers, and they sold a ton of Guns N' Roses as well that weekend. So I think they're both selling really, really well. And they're both awesome games. I mean, you can't go wrong with either of those games. So if you bought one or the other, there's no FOMO, because you're going to get a great game either way. We'll get your money. So here's the story, man. I went out there and I was with my wife and she never drinks, right? And they have this slushy machine there that is phenomenal. It's like this blueberry vodka. Oh my God, it was so good. The time I was there before then, it was like an apple moonshine slushy. But no matter what they have in there, it's delicious and it's like, it'll kick your ass. So she had two of those and then we went and we played guns and she GC'd it. It had just been set up like a little while ago. So she got the grand champ. uh she beat three really good players including myself and uh fuck i'm not a good player i'm back that up i don't want to toot my own horn because i'm not good at pinball but yeah so she beat three other people two of which were great players one of which was myself and uh she walked away from the game and she's like wow that game was really awesome and i was like yeah babe you know we should buy one of these so like a true wolf spider christian slides in with uh you just grand championed it and that's really fun i mean you're why don't we buy one you totally approach me and she and i think the alcohol definitely helped but she was like yeah we should buy one and i immediately when she said that i ran over to melissa and i'm like okay put us down for an le and she got us on the list and i think it was maybe 30 seconds after that where my wife kind of the alcohol like evaporated and she's like wait a second did we just buy a new pinball machine but it was too late at that point so we're getting a guns and roses le oh that's awesome cool okay Thanks, dude. That is super cool. I don't have any room for nothing new, so I didn't get you. Oh, well, why don't you start working again, Franchi, okay? We missed your artwork out there. Where are you going to put your new game, Franchi? What was that game again? The new one that you're working on. My new? Oh, I'm doing the artwork on the new Fruit Pats. Fruit Pats, got it. It's not a band. It's just about Fruit Pats. and Christian before we kind of like sync up on our weeks as far as what we did together have you got any other individual stuff you want to polish off and then I'll get through mine and then we'll talk about you know our little sleepover and all that yeah man that's really it man the trip out to coin taker was by far the highlight you know speaking of being out there I finally got to play multi-morphic p3 play the heist game I've never played that system before and we always talk about it I'm always like god damn it I'm not you know I'm never gonna get to play this fucking thing and they had one at coin taker so i got to play it so my review is it's fun it's really neat but i don't like the fact that all the return lanes and the apron and whatnot are all made out of clear plastic because you can't get a ground for where you are like the ball comes down there you're not quite sure where it is did it roll in did it roll out like i don't know you have to kind of look and go okay now i can see the ball traveling towards my flipper because all the plastics are clear i think they need to make those black or put some artwork on them or something so it kind of defines that area better but i thought it was fun i thought you know for what it is i thought it was great you know i was really impressed that like you know the design these flippers that just kind of sit there and float and still work they're a little little softer than like you know uh you know a stern flipper they feel a little bit softer but they get the job done it was fun very creative so we're just thinking the playfield man with the video and kind of the touchscreen you know it was better than i thought because i was really worried that they were going to have all this crazy animation and i was going to get like seasick like, you know, hugging the playfields and moving like, oh, I'm going to pull a Drew and go throw up. I feel funny. Yeah. It's going to be a couple of spears here, you know? Yeah, but they were very tasteful with how they used it and all that, so I thought it worked out well. But that's not even the big news. The big news, I need a drumroll for this. Okay, well, don't do that. Sorry. We're poor, man. I finally blew up Captain Fantastic. Oh, snap. So before I set it on fire and kicked it out of the door wall, yeah, I got 116,000. So you rolled a game at 99,999. So it rolled and it had this little light indicator that said player one, 100,000. And then on top of that, I got 16,200. So I'm not as mad at that game anymore. I'm still mad, you know, and it's still a drain monster and a piece of shit. But let me let me ask you this. How much did Keith Elwin's tips help you get that score immensely? Well, what was his tip? Don't use, you know, the flipper and just keep it up top. That was it. Yeah, I already knew to keep it up top. I just didn't know to not use. And I use it sparingly. I still use it. But there's times that you kind of need to use it because if you don't, you know, the outcome could not, you know, you could put yourself into a situation. So it's kind of hard to explain. But there are times where you can use it where you're not in danger. But other than that, just using it in general like I used to, I don't anymore, and that significantly helped. But it is just a shit game, and me blowing it up, it's not like, you know, oh, I talked to Keith Owen, and I know all the tricks, and now I can rock again. No, I just got lucky it's the LaHunka shit, but I'm at least happy I did that. Well, here's the good news. When your next game comes out, you'll know which game to sell, because you've got some unlimited space in there, right? Yeah, and I think my daughter's taking the 89 Batman, too, so that'll be out of here. We'll have some space. I'm going to move in the Beatles and then then all the space for one more. So we'll see. And then plus I'm cleaning out another room that I will be able to. I might get my Batman collection room. So I might be pulling the 66 Batman into that room and that'll clear up another space. So we'll have some more stuff. So, Francis, over the last couple of weeks, though, I have seen some posts on Facebook that have been about some new art that you've done. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about that because you've done some really cool stuff. Like one thing that you just did on a whim that I don't even know if you're going to try and sell was the Baby Yoda artwork, which I know you're really into that show. I know you love Baby Yoda. You've got the Funko Pop, the giant Funko Pop. But this art is really awesome. And is he holding a pinball in that thing? You know what? Honestly, I have not seen the show yet. I don't have the Disney Channel. I just think that Baby Yoda's cute. So I just fell in love with him. So I've been buying all these toys and crap. I don't know what he sounds like when he does anything. I love like Baby Yoda. please tell me you do I bought him a rocket he's gonna be a space dog he's got a space dog costume and Christian I can answer the question as soon as he releases something from Disney he's gonna get 8 letters from 100 attorneys you are absolutely right man he's gonna get destroyed with Yoda one thing he's like I've just given it away as charity uh oh he's gonna get destroyed no yeah so yeah that's not gonna happen i just did that for myself and i posted it but i had no intention of making a print of that that was really cool man and then you did uh the voltar the pinball swami yeah which the morning that i saw that you had started like doing a just a rough sketch the line that was the line art yeah the line art and then you just throughout the day you had posted like new stuff that you had added to it and by the end of the day it was like this full-featured poster and I just I'm kind of not knowing much about art other than appreciating it I couldn't believe how quickly you threw that together well it wasn't quick it was like a full you know 12 14 hour day or whatever of just doing nothing but you know sitting and doing finishing up the artwork but you know that was a weird thing because I always like those little genies in the tank you know the Zoltar you know yeah you know I love that old arcade stuff and I started drawing it you know a while ago and you know I did the sketch you know the pencil sketch and then I started inking over top of that and got about halfway done with it and just kind of let it sit and then I came back and I'm like you know why why did I you know because I was looking through my files trying to find something else and I'm like why did I start this swami thing like what the fuck is this I mean I know I like it but I didn't you know I couldn't remember what my intention was for why I started it and then I started thinking I'm like well we could do a cool pinball print if I turned him into like the the pinball swami and like his crystal ball was a pinball and his outfit had like a pinball theme to it and all that so I just started over on it again and finished it up and you know added all those details to make it a pinball thing so it was you know just something for fun that uh you know i don't often get to do stuff you know which is funny to say because i just did that in yoda you know in the same two weeks but uh it's rare that i get that opportunity to do something for myself and that's really what that was so that's cool man they were both really really cool i wish just somehow disney got a hold of the yoda you know artwork that you had done and the pinball swami thing i can get behind that because the Pinball Wizard is such like a hugely overdone trope for pinball that the Pinball Swami is kind of a new take on it, and I like that. And I like that he's got the pinball, you know, crystal ball going. Right. Well, my favorite part is like whenever you do one of those, you get the little card. Like I have one somewhere in my house, you know, the Zoltar card that gives you your fortune. So I put on the bottom of there, there's like the little coin return and the button, the little slot for the card, and then there's a card sitting in there, and it says, Play Better. and then underneath that it says Richie Amusements Incorporated That's very cool That is very cool And then the last thing I wanted to ask you about was the Harry Potter puzzles and spells stuff that you had worked on because I know that when you were with Zynga you did a ton of work on that and then you just when the game was released you showed off everything you had been doing for the game and I don't know if people out there are into Candy Crush or Match 3 games but Zynga does these games right and they're really fun They're addictive if you're into that kind of throwaway video game experience. And this one was really cool because it's Harry Potter, and everyone's been clamoring for Harry Potter. And you did a ton of character art, and you did, like, the main logo screen for the game and a whole bunch of other stuff. So it just made me want a pinball machine more by looking at this video you had done. I got a lot of comments from people saying, like, you know, well, you know, I'm sold. If they ever make a Harry Potter, you know, game, I hope you do the artwork. I don't know that that'll ever happen. But, yeah, it's just like pinball. You know, I did that artwork a year ago, I think over a year ago, and it's just been sitting around. I mean, I don't work for Zynga anymore, and I saw it pop up on my Facebook, like, oh, new Harry Potter. I'm like, oh, shit, you know, I can share that artwork now. So I went and dug it all up, and I didn't even post everything I did. I just kind of threw a handful of characters and stuff out there just as an example. But, yeah, it's fun. I like my job. It's really cool, man. And if they ever do make a game or if they're ever like you hear that the game is coming from a company, like send those pictures to the company because your CV is already done. Basically, you can show off what you are capable of. Yeah, I think I'm the only one with a style that will make everybody happy. You know what I mean? And when I say everybody, I mean pinball fans. I mean, you know, the Harry Potter folks and, you know, Warner Brothers and all that sort of stuff. You know, I don't think, you know, not taking away from the abilities of, you know, like Zombie Yeti or any of these other guys. But I think my style, or at least my pinball style, is, you know, probably, you know, your best bet. So, you know, hopefully I'll be a shoe when anyone else will see. But let's get on to our little sleepover. Yes, let's talk about our sleepover because it was pretty epic. My girls had been so stoked to meet you. I guess they had met you before for a brief period at Pucca di Beppo and at TPF. But they had, my one daughter, Leah, had created a Batmobile out of Legos for you. And there were like signs down in the basement that say, welcome Franchi, that they had made. And we were hyped. Well, yeah, let's run down the arrival. So first I get there, get out of the parking lot. They come running out and shoot me in the ass with Nerf guns. So I get shot in the ass with Nerf guns. And then I get in and they give me the tour of the house and get up to, they show me where I'm going to be sleeping in the guest quarters. And on the bed, it's like under the Christmas tree minus the tree. Like, there's all this stuff all sprawled out. There's boxes of monster cereal and a Batmobile and Christmas ornaments of Baby Yoda and Batman's penguin and a Batman candy bucket full of candies. And then you open up this armoire, and there's a fridge in there with Dr. Pepper. And, like, I'm just like, shit, I'm moving in. Hell yeah, man. Anytime you want to come out, we will hook you up. We were so happy that you'd take an eight-hour drive to come join us and hang out with us and have some fun. We had a good time when you were out here. Obviously, the coin-taker thing was great, but we did Hershey proper. We took you to Chocolate World and took you on the chocolate ride, got you a Kit Kat pumpkin pie milkshake, which was delicious. We went out to see the Hershey Bears homebrew game at my buddy's house. Duck Donuts. And Duck Donuts. Yeah, we did it up. You saw the Hershey Highway. Don't say Hershey Highway around Drew and Jim. Watch it. That's our show. I wonder what's inside my butthole. You saw the Hershey streetlights that were shaped like Hershey kisses. What did you think of Hershey? I had a good time. Yeah, nice, beautiful little area. Quaint little downtown. You can say a little downtown. It's not like a metropolis with a bunch of huge skyscrapers, but it's a very built-out downtown area. So it was fun. I had a good time meeting everybody. We had the Marquettes over your house in the basement in the Dr. and Mrs. Penn Arcade where we did an interview with them that you'll hear later on. Sitting right there in the arcade. That was fun. Yeah, that was fun. So, yeah, it was a great time. I mean, it was really fast. I drove in on Friday afternoon and I left on Monday afternoon. But we had so much fun, oddly enough, that it didn't seem, you know, like some of those trips you take where, you know, it's only a couple days, you feel like you just got there and you're leaving. It felt like I spent a week there because we had just crammed so much, you know, fun into that time. So, yeah, I really had a good time and definitely look forward to making the trip again. Awesome, man. We'd love to have you anytime. And that goes for you too, too. Come on out. Come to Hershey. We'll show you a good time, man. If I come, are you going to have a fridge full of castellers for me? Oh, my God. Why would I ever you want, man? We love pinball people here. So anyone, like Joe Lemire came out. You guys can get whatever you want. I will have a fridge full of any requests. For Drew, just make sure you got a bunch of garbage cans around the side of the bed. That happens once every two years. It's an open invitation to the porn bands, guys. Come on out and hang out with us. You don't know it, though. You haven't had Dr. Pinn's chocolate martinis. Yes. They put some hair on your chest. You might want to hold off on the invitation. and you might want to ask your wife first. Oh, dude, she'd love to have you guys out. Have you heard her podcast? Yeah. She has. Yep. She's heard her podcast. Trust me, I've heard her podcast. I've listened. The poor men will appreciate this. I notice that things aren't all the same, you know, when you go from state to state. Around my part here where we have a speed bump, we have a little sign that will say speed bump. But in Pennsylvania, they're called speed humps, which I had to giggle at every time I saw a sign. I haven't done a speed hump since high school. Foot hump tips. I thought you guys would appreciate that. Well, how about you guys? What have you been up to in the last two weeks that's notable? Pinball related. I've been playing a lot more Turtles. I have a couple issues with my glider, Zach's working on me with, but nothing that makes the game unplayable. Turtle. Yep, Turtle. What are you thinking, man? Are you still in love with the game? Is it holding its, you know, interests? Yes. The more I play it, you know, kind of what Franchi was talking about with Captain Fantastic, that when you blow it up, it feels better, right? Have you gotten Borg yet? Do you know what Borg is? No. What's that? Oh, with the Borg-y bounce on the bottom? Yeah, on the wire, the wire came out, lane divider. I don't know if Danger coined that one. That Borg-y bounce has been driving me nuts. yes I'm very familiar with it and it does drive me crazy but yeah that game is so fast though I've been saying the theme is definitely you know kid friendly and family friendly but that game is not for beginners it is for kids but it is it's bizarre it's so fast it's for adults and it's for making kids cry so the pinhead in me and I'm a kind of good player so I really dig it for that. Way to wreck evil with cat candy port. Do you have kids, Drew? I do. I have one son. Okay. How old is he? Is he able to play with you? No. He's special needs. Okay. Mess with me and stuff, but not a lot of playing. It would be really cool, though, to play co-op so you can progress through the game. As long as you're playing as a team, that's kind of cool, right? I guess from that angle it's kind of a kid game i do it's a true story but uh uh yeah no to your point that the game is fun to progress through the episodes are fun you know it's not always about score with that game but like that just it's just fast but i like that so that's cool man it's a really really fun game i'm i played that at coin taker a few times and um i'm a huge fan of it and i think that the le is uh is awesome as well but the glider unfortunately is something that has had issues for a while. Have you been able to sort through that? Like I said, Zach's helping me with that now. We're actually working on something. I'll be talking about that in a future episode. I will say this. If I had to do it again, I'd probably just get a pro. Not because I'm having issues. If I didn't tell you about the issue, you probably wouldn't even notice. What the glider adds to the game, to me, it doesn't really justify the price. How do you use the glider? I know in the shadow, the diverters that you use that you switch, you know, are huge towards gameplay. But for Turtles, I never really understood, even after watching the game's own video. A couple things. A, you can't use it all the time, which is just stupid. Sorry, Dwight. Dwight, I love your games. I love most of your games, Dwight. I really do. But just make the glider so you can use it at all times. That's number one. Yeah. And number two, I mean, yeah, sometimes, you know, you're going to make, you're going to hit the left ramp, and then you want it to go to a certain flipper, and then it's beneficial, obviously, right? Right. But like I said, for 80% to 90% of gameplay, it just doesn't add anything to the gameplay. Is it just one mode that uses it? Well, there's not really even a mode. I mean, when you do your skill shot on the left ramp, you know, it'll catch it, and then it releases it. And like I said, it's really just to say, hey, if I want to hit this left ramp and go to the right flipper, I can do it. If I want to hit the left ramp and go to the left flipper, I can do it. I didn't understand that at all. It allows you to stage your shot a little bit, right? You can choose where you want it to go. All right. There are a couple shots. If I'm playing a longer game, there are a few shots I might use it for. It's practical, but that's it. If I play several games, I might use it a handful of times. All right. Because the game in and of itself is pretty much the same than otherwise. Fun game, good shooter, Borg knocked it out of the park. I loved playing co-op with that. That was my one experience that just made me a believer in that title just because it was so much fun to kind of progress through it and to, like, root each other on. That was something that I've never experienced. You know, I didn't really play the co-op mode in TNA, and with Turtles being so much of a deeper game, I would say, than TNA, it just added, you know, more fun to the experience with the episodes as you travel through them, the mini-wizard mode and everything else. So, yeah, big fan of that. And I would think a good party game when you have people over there to have a few drinks and play. No, like you said, the co-op mode is great, and, you know, Alice Cooper did it really well as well. Yeah. So I think, obviously, we're going to start seeing more of this, and we really should. It's kind of sad that this hasn't come out earlier. No, I totally agree. I think Guns N' Roses is going to be a good one for that, and they said they're going to try and implement it, because, you know, that's a question that every developer is going to get from this point forward is, are you going to implement co-op? Well, it's about Avengers. Like, you know, how can you use different Avengers and do this? I mean, you know, they kind of missed the mark now if they're not doing that, because if they want to encourage more people to play together, that's where it's at. And families, right? I mean, you want to play with your kids. You don't necessarily want to play competitive pinball against your kids because you don't want to discourage them from being into your hobby. So playing as a team is kind of, you know, it's a new thing. That's a really good player. You can play against the other people. That's cool. Yeah, so Turtles is highly recommended, and I think it's going to stick around for a while. I say that now until the next thing comes out. The new hotness comes out. The new shiny. I'm like Franchi. I'll sell G&R. He's still my favorite. He knows that. He won't come on our show, but Franchi, you should text him. He will not come on any show. We tried so hard to get him on. No, no. I tried to get him one night. The first night we talked about it, I seriously did text him and tell him to come on. And like three hours later, he's like, hey, what's up? Where do I need to go? I'm like, ah, you're too late now, dude. Yeah, we just wanted to come into chat and, you know, hang out with us for a little while. You guys were going, yeah, and I was there, and I tried to get him in, but by the time he responded to my text, you guys had shut it down. So just give out his number right now. Go ahead. No, don't do that. We're good. 1-9-9-0-9-9-7-2-4-6-4-3. Okay. All right, now enough. All right, so that's going to wrap up our few weeks in pinball, and now the pinball news. And now, pinball in the news with your super awesome eyewitness news crew. Don't fucking just read news off the internet, you fat piece of shit. That's right. It's time for your favorite part of our show, where we repeat news that we got from other pinball podcasts. Just kidding. First up, did you guys know that the date for Replay FX for next year has been released? Nope. Do you guys even know what Replay FX is? Well, that's, yeah, that's the... Pinberg. Pinberg is the biggest pinball tournament in the world, and then this is the, like, expo that goes along with it. Nice. Damn it, you guys knew it. I surprise people when I'm not drinking as much. August, you guys play competitively. No, I, you know, my schedule just doesn't allow for anything like that. I mean, I only get a couple weeks of vacation a year, and, you know, I work most other days, so it's just not in the cards for me right now. That would be funny, though, because you would be the kind of guy that would be like all hammered up there going, oh, fuck, I got Borg. I would. I'd be screaming about getting Borg. But, yeah, no, I think it's great. You know, our buddy Ryan Kuyper went for the first time last year, and he just had a blast. He finished top in like the bottom division. He was like E, but he was like up there in the top. So, you know, and he just said he wouldn't trade it for anything. It was just such a great experience just to, you know, play, get your ass kicked by a couple of good players. and, you know, you learn some stuff. Just very, very cool. It is. It's like going to the Oscars. It's like even if you're not nominated, it's the place to be. That's exactly right. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Yeah, so anyway, the date is August 12th through the 15th of 2021. So that's the new date for all you people who bought tickets last year and they roll over to this year. Start making your plans. Maybe. Yeah, as long as there's a vaccine out there, we will have a Pinberg 2021. Yeah. Real quickly, Christian, as a doctor, do you think that this thing's going to roll into next summer? I'm really hesitant to say that I think it will happen, man. I mean, unfortunately, I don't think we're near a vaccine at this point that is considered to be as effective as we need it to be before we roll it out to the community at large. To the poor people, you mean? No, I mean, to everybody. I mean, oh, yeah. I mean, if you're the president, you get you get top notch service. But yeah, to everybody at large. I mean, just today they had an article saying that the vaccine for one of the companies that are working on it didn't hold muster. There are some diseases that are some illnesses that occur through the vaccine that they were worried about. So I think it's going to be a while before the safety of the vaccine is confirmed and then creating it and then rolling it out to everybody and everybody to have access to it. If I personally get a vaccine that I that I feel is effective, then I would be comfortable going out. I might still wear a mask, but I would be comfortable going to a tournament, that kind of thing. But maybe a while before we get there, man, even though it's full court press, it may be through June 2021 or August. The pinball community should prepare that we might not be going to expos and TPF and stuff next year either. Yeah, I think TPF is a little bit of a pipe dream happening in March. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to be there. But it all depends on the state. Like Ed Van Der Veen had said that as long as the state is okay with people getting together, you know, above a certain amount, then he's okay with holding the event. But I don't know if people are going to be comfortable going. That's the issue. I can hear the commercial for the vaccine now. New COVID X. Side effects may include death. Oh. Oh. I'll take two. All right. I heard a commercial for, you know, some drug that, you know, I don't know, if you can't sleep at night, take this. side effects may include strokes that induce death or something like that. I'm like, you know, I would take the sleeplessness at night over death, I'm pretty sure. If you look at the drug insert for Tylenol or aspirin or any of the drugs that are used commonly, the list of side effects in there and the possible complications are just extensive and horribly scary. But that's because when they do these trials to determine the safety of the drugs, they have to write down literally everything that happens to every participant. So even if one out of 10,000 people had a stroke, you've got to write that down. How come your educated doctor shit has to shit on my jokes all the time? I'm just throwing it in there, man. I've got to educate. You're a rotten bastard. I don't want to scare people away from drugs that are working. That's all. So now insert the Price is Right loser song. Joke landed and crashed. Aw. Okay. Rumors are swirling about a music pin released from Stern. Coming in the next few weeks, they're thinking it's either Queen or Led Zeppelin. Does anybody think that's actually going to happen? Well, I'm excited for either, but I think so. I could see Stern jumping on getting the game up, getting it manufactured, and then they can actually steal at least some sales from JJP. I say December, end of December, like they usually do. They're going to go on schedule. They'll stay on schedule. Did you guys see the latest Stern troll? did anybody watch the heavy metal reveal oh it's Jack Danger no yeah did anybody happen to notice the hat that Jody Dankberg was wearing no what was that Jaws oh nice yeah I'm hearing I'll even one up Kaneda because he hasn't even said that but I'm hearing you might you might be seeing a Jaws game from somebody wow so technically have one more cornerstone this year wasn't wasn't it you Franchi was talking about how awful it would be to just draw sharks all over the place. Yeah, it's just a gray tube. That's what I call it. But things have come to light, though. I know that they are licensing Roy Scheider's likeness and Robert Shaw's likeness. They're just not licensing... Who played Hooper? I forget his name. Richard Dreyfuss, Richard Dreyfuss. But, you know, that could change, too. You know, I don't know. And I've, you know, I've done some artwork for a company called Fright Rags that had a license for Jaws, and what they did was they had, like, they did a T-shirt design where it was like you were looking from inside the shark's mouth so you saw the teeth around the outside like a frame and then the boat you know there there's the orca and the three guys on it and they're kind of looking over their shoulder you know like so you can't really see their face but you know who they are so there's ways around it and like i said the licensing has changed so maybe you just you know you show rory scheider and robert shaw and then hooper is looking over his shoulder so who knows i don't know it's just a rumor right now i'm not saying anything's very factual but uh do we think this would be just like jurassic park though that's that's the thing that i was going to say is that i mean jurassic park proved that you can do it with minimal assets and that was a huge game i had a conversation with somebody about this over the weekend that i forget who it was but it doesn't really matter we talked about you know what stern's been doing like with the jurassic park and stuff like that and see that's you know doing that cuts corners that saves money if you don't have a you know celebrity voice come in you save money if you don't have to use you know like the heavy metal pinball machine that they just released doesn't have the Sammy Hagar heavy metal theme, which blows my mind. They got some kind of karaoke version of it. Everything you do like that, we don't need any video assets. We'll create our own. Okay, that saves money. So it depends on how much money they need to save as to, you know, what they can and can't include. I'm sure, you know, paying John Williams for the shark theme, you know, is going to cost a fortune too. Unless they do it with a kazoo. That's right. There's certain things that you can't not have, right? I mean, you have to have that Jaws den. There's a shark in the damn theme. That shark can kill anybody. Well, they did it with Jurassic Park. You know, they had the music for Star Wars. I mean, it'd probably be like Jurassic Park. They would have the music, they'd have the score, and yeah, they just wouldn't have any movie clips, and they would kind of make an animated shark. Adventureland. Adventureland. The only guy alive to do voiceovers doesn't want anything to do with that shit Richard Richard Dreyfuss, so you can't even really have a voice from the movie. Do you guys think that Jersey Jack coming out with Guns N' Roses and having all of those assets to throw into this game is going to change the landscape of pinball in terms of what is expected in pins? Or do you think that people are just going to look at Jersey Jack and say, listen, they throw the kitchen sink into games. We don't expect that from Stern. Well, this isn't the first time they threw everything in a game, so I don't. It didn't really affect anything. I still say Stern is a well-oiled machine. They know what they're doing. They're making plenty of money. They have no reason to change. Correct. It all boils down to sales, meaning if Jersey Jack cuts into, like, say Avengers. Say a bunch of people wanted Avengers, and now they're backing out, and distributors are like, hey, Stern, you know, we had 1,000 orders for Avengers, and 500 of them said, you know, I'm out because I'm buying Guns N' Roses, right? You know, they may take notice, but I don't see that happening. Right. As long as people keep buying from Stern, Stern's going to keep doing it. Yeah, and that's like I've been saying all along, you know, and as long as, yeah, if they keep selling games, they have zero reason to do more, you know, and that's just business. That's how it works. So I'm sure they just want more. I'm sure Borg wants to put in more. I'm sure Keith wants to put in more. Steve Ritchie definitely wants to put in more, but you know you get what you get i mean that's why we ended up with star wars right do you think that at some point stern will ever say okay listen we don't we don't want to throw a million dollars into a license to get the assets but maybe this one time we'll do it and we'll just charge a ton more for the game and we'll see if it flies i could see that i mean like i was just thinking when we were talking about jaws if you know say say they did a jurassic park with like you know all the movie assets and it was all based on the first movie or something you know then they say yep we'll do this here's an le for you but it's you know it's ten thousand dollars i could see them doing that they seem to be testing the waters like right with toppers and with that sort of thing like to see what they can get away with and so far it's worked out yeah the alvira topper i mean yeah i'm a stern fan boy i've gone on record everyone knows that but when i saw that topper I was like, ooh, cool. That's how you feel, though. What are your thoughts? You know, well, it hit me when Dennis Creasel said, for six of those, you can buy a CERN Pro. And I was like, crap. When you say it like that, six cheap toppers, you can literally buy a brand-new pinball machine. You need a car. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, you could buy a nice used car. We only talk in pinball-related terms. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, I had to sell my car to buy my pins. That was the real story. But on the other side of that coin, I don't blame Stern for doing it because they're a business. People are buying them. And people are buying them. And like Zach was saying, they're sold out. They bought a bunch and they had a lot. He did say there were a handful of people that were on the list and then they sent their invoices out and people were like, no. No. Second thought. It was going to be $1,000. That could have an unlimited, infinite amount of toppers, but he'd tell you they were sold out. We have one left. Yep. So, a lot of these people are, you know, they're wealthy, and they buy LEs, and they buy this stuff, and that's fine. You know, I'm good with that. Back to the original question. Yep. They could charge more. They could charge more. Yeah, I could see that with a specific license. I could see them going after a Harry Potter. Like, he's going crazy with a Harry Potter. Jaws, Harry Potter, Goonies. I could see that, but it would be a one-off, and it would not be their normal business model. I get that. But honestly, if you get a game like Harry Potter, and you took it to anyone out there who's a pimp head, and you said, what company do you want to make this game? I think most people would say Jersey Jack, because they know that they would do it right. They would throw a ton of stuff into the game, and they'd get the assets they want, and they'd make it an event. But I think if Stern ever got Harry Potter, what an opportunity for them to maybe go that extra mile and throw a couple extra bucks at the license and really do it correct, even if they charge more money, because it's been shown now that people will step up and they will buy it if they feel like the value is there. Could you imagine the shit show if they don't do all that and it turns out it's another Star Wars? Or you got to... It could go either way. You never know what's starting. I agree with you. It would be amazing, but I don't know. What if they did get a bunch of assets and then, yeah, the play field's super bare and they're like, yep, we got all the assets. Here they are. It's all on the video screen. Yeah, it's all there. Wow. You know, I mean, there are different ways of doing it. No! Yeah, no, hopefully they would know that. And it's interesting to see how Stern or any pinball company will react to a game like GNR and just say, hey, look, this is what you could do if you have a higher bomb and whether they'll step up to that or, you know, just stay the course because there's no reason to change. as you guys had said. Like Franchi said earlier, the bomb is because of a lot of the overhead. I mean, it's a big-ass company, and they can't. Financially, I have a really hard time believing that they could offer something like a JJP game, just from the bomb statement alone. Like, there's so much overhead. There's so much. Stern's too big, you know? It would be almost impossible to release something like Guns N' Roses unless they did charge an arm and a leg. Yeah, but, I mean, at the same time, like, you've got economy of scale, right? And Stern is a huge company, and the more that you buy, the cheaper it's going to be, and they have the manufacturing piece down. So there is a significant savings that comes with size. And if they could hammer out the deal to get X number of parts for a discount, I think that they could do it better than any other company, actually. Well, even look at Elvira, the alley for Elvira was like $12,500 or something, and you got a chunk of their couch or whatever. So, you know, at least in the past, they have upped the price to offer something more. Now, minus the chunk of couch and just put more fun shit into the game, you can charge $12,500, and I'm sure they'd be equally as successful. So who knows? Now, a chunk of couch and some powder coat does not warrant $15,000. Well, was it $15,000? Yes, it was. I'm just glad Gene and I didn't have Axel's chunk of couch. I didn't want that shit going. I'm certainly not saying that the chunk of couch thing was worth it. I'm just saying that they did say, hey, we're going to offer more, and we're going to charge more. So it has happened. To be fair, that was only 50 units. I mean, that was highly exclusive, highly. All right. Stern, I was trying, but they keep shooting me down. So I don't know. Sorry, Stern. I'm done trying. I'm done trying. Well, like I said, I'm a huge Stern fanboy, but I also got to call it like I see it. and being the poor man that I am. I know it looks like I just can buy every game, but, you know, in reality... You should talk, motherfucker. In reality, you know, I'm price conscious, too. I'm a premium guy. You know, I like the premiums, but I like the full features. Still not cheap, right? Nope. They're $7,800, you know. Do you wear premium underwear that is full-featured? Franchi, you know I don't wear underwear. Trick question. that's for a feature nevermind complete with bald cage protection it happens sorry alright go ahead what else we got so next up one thing that we haven't talked about I know this has been talked about a lot but we haven't done a show in a while and we just got a call out Steven Bowden for his fun with bonus website thank you so much for everything you've done because he is now stopped and kind of weaned back a little bit. He had 3,000 daily posts and now there's more of a focus on that site with Deep Root. Sorry, excuse me. He's hopefully not going to be too infrequent with his posts because I know he is putting up a bunch of stuff now, Deep Root related and otherwise. But he had a long run there of posting every single day for a number of years. And thank you for all that content. And we're hoping that you stick around and you keep posting. But if not this frequent it's been a good run yeah so speaking of see about next up on our list you have written down deep thoughts on deep root i know there's a couple things you want to talk about but i will share my deep thought on deep root and that is i don't give a shit i don't want to hear anything until you have a game give me a game let me see a game let me see what you got back up what you've been saying for five years with something that equals what you've said not just a game for the sake of having a game but a game that matches up with your boasting and i'll give you the time of day and i'll give it a serious shot but until then i'm just i don't want to hear anything anymore i don't want to hear any more days of deep root coming and this and that and shit just post a game and show me what you got dude i think that's a perfect summary of what the pinball community in general thinks like hopefully they hunker down they're able to manufacture these things i understand that they have a lot of pressure most of which is self-imposed to show off what they're working on but i would hope that they hold off on any deadlines or future reveal dates until they have multiple games to show, they're ready to ship, all of their tech is working 100%, the final version's like no more prototype games, just to tone down the hyperbole because it just brings even more criticism to missed deadlines. Yeah, I don't give a shit about a pin pod. You know, you're designing a box for a game that doesn't exist. Drew and I on our show definitely have come to the conclusion that we're not talking about them until they have some on the line. And that's, at the end of the day, it's just what you said. It's just, they gotta start to manufacture them. We've said it for a long time now that, you know, I don't care if their first game doesn't sell well, if it's not that exciting, if Raza kind of falls on its face, it doesn't matter. It's your first game. You're a new company. I know with all the talk that Robert's been saying, I get it. But at the end of the day, let's just get a game out. I don't care. Let's get the game out. Maybe game two will be better. And maybe game three will be better. You know, I know he's probably thinking about all the crap he said, and that's probably why we're getting delays. Maybe if he wouldn't have said all that, maybe he would have released Raza earlier. but at this point now he's got to back it up with all this innovation and i don't care let's just get that game out and if it sucks it sucks let's go to game two and then game three i mean they listed what like freaking 12 games i want to see one on the line let's get one on the line and then one part one part of me says you've got goonies like lead with that like that is your ace in the hole uh but you know but on one hand like it's a dream thing for me uh on the other hand it might be good just to get Deep Root to release a few titles, Iron at the Kinks, or they throw the kitchen sink, you know, at that game. I'll say that their ideas are cool. Like, reading through the Twip article, I looked over some of the things that they were thinking about bringing out, and I was like, yeah, that really is cool. Like, that's an innovation that I would like to see in pinball, but I don't want to be that guy, but we can sit here. We're talking about what we think is cool They supposed to be making games I mean no I not trying to be a dick you know what I mean You know it funny you know when they showed that pin box pin pod thing I was like shit I got a few of those in my basement I think they're really putting, you know, the cart before the horse in terms of saying, hey, these are all the great ideas that we have. You know, wait until you see it. But we haven't seen it. Like, they haven't made it. So make what you are saying that you can do and back up all of the boasting that you've done. And then you'll be a player. But until then, don't keep coming out with deadlines and don't keep saying that you're going to show stuff off because it's a bad look. And speaking of bad looks, what a great segue. The backbox does look like a fish tank from the 80s. Sorry. I dig it, but I also dig fish tank stuff from the 80s. I'm a big fish tank guy. You got me. Imagine a Goonies fish tank. Come on. Oh, yeah. What do you guys think? moving on a little bit because that's obviously a contentious topic but heavy metal pinball was just streamed by jack danger and he shut off the game now obviously guns and roses is a tough act to follow uh but what do you guys think of the stream did you watch it no i didn't watch it but i did uh you know i checked out the game and stuff and uh you know i mean it's heavy metal it's uh it's it's cool it's got you know half naked chicks on it and you know it's it's that it's that niche So it's going to be half a Drew's wallet. Yeah. You're halfway there. No, it's a contract game. I mean, they're probably only going to make like 100 of them or something. So I just don't think, you know, no one's really been talking about it because, you know, most people are never going to see one in real life. It's a specific market. Just like a lot of contract games. And that's kind of how it goes. And no, I didn't watch the stream either. No, I agree with you. It's not really targeted to the hardcore pinheads out there. I think it's for fans of the brand. It's got enough going for it that I think a huge heavy metal fan would be happy with the pinball experience that it brings. But I know, you know, knowing the cost of normal pinball machines and knowing, you know, the assets that are normally included and the screens and all the, you know, the bells and whistles. I'm not sure that many pinball people are going to jump all over this, but I think they did a good job on the stream. 80, 8300 or something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's basically a GNR LE. The funniest thing about the heavy metal reveal, or at least when they announced it, I remember going on Facebook and one of the custom groups where they, you know, they customize these machines to, you know, a different theme or whatever. Some guy had been working for years on his heavy metal re-theme of, I forget what game it was originally. They spent all this money on there. And he said, wait, they're releasing a heavy metal game? I don't know. They spent five or six grand on this thing. he probably never thought it was going to come out and he's like wait a second no that looks way better than the first time oh man yeah yeah that was probably my the highlight of my heavy metal uh I was cracking up I was like oh this poor bastard because it showed photos from like last year that when he started the project and he'd been working religiously on the thing and he's like oh son of a bitch they did release but honestly with somebody who makes these games like you put so much blood sweat and tears into it that it's it's almost better that you have been involved in that game and it's like you know you can fall back on the the emotional value of owning that game like i know david peck in new zealand created a led zeppelin game that's pretty cool right but that's one of the rumored titles that's coming out right and if Steve Ritchie does it and they they throw a lot into that then it's going to be tough to compete with what stern can create but if you've made it yourself that's kind of cool in its own right i have a chunk of news that i just remembered that no pinball podcast has reported. No. Guess what's going back on the line for another 60 to 100 games. Batman 66. No. Jurassic Park. Well, Batman 66 is going back on the line, but that's not the one I'm talking about. Mmm. Oh. Medieval Madness. Nope. Lord of the Rings. Nope. Oh, Attack from Mars. Nope. Oh, come on, guys. It's simple. Doctor Dude. Doctor Dude. Hercules. Hercules. People have been really clamoring for... from Oktoberfest. Ah! Yes! That's my game, baby! That makes me happy because that means that they've sold enough to warrant another run. That's awesome. Good for you, American Pinball. Yeah, good for you. Hot Wheels, one of the two. Oh, yeah, I didn't think of that. I don't know, man, because American Pinball has a lot of capabilities now, right? They've got a bigger factory. They've got three lines. Just because they're bringing another one back doesn't mean that the other one's doing badly. That's true, but the only thing about Hot Wheels, you know, COVID really sucked that one because that was an operator's dream. Yeah. Right. You know, Hot Wheels would be good, you know, in most locations. On TurboGrafx-7's stream, I had a lot of fun with Hot Wheels. It was fun. I think definitely I agree with you, Drew. Location pinball at its finest, but home ownership has a tough sell because it did get pretty repetitive. But a location game, absolutely. And if you've got kids that love Hot Wheels, oh, come on. That's games designed to bring out the kid in all of us. And I thought they did a pretty damn good job. Now, I'm never getting rid of my Oktoberfest. Just want to throw that out there. So I love what American Pinball does, and they make good games. One of our listeners sent us a picture. He had a brand-new Hot Wheels. This is his only game. Put some pin stadiums in it, and his kid rubbed paint all over it. Oh, dude, no. Oh, dude. That's really good. The glass, the sides. Yeah, he painted his cad dance cabinet. Oh, my God. Oh, no. And it was brutal. Yeah, that's terrible. I've only had one game on Hot Wheels. I can say just from that one experience that I think it's the best AP game in terms of the fun factor. From a gameplay standpoint, it was fun. The flow, the video clips, the general feel of the game. If they could add the wow factor of Houdini and Oktoberfest in terms of the mechs and the pack playfield into their next game, I think they would have a really big win. They'd be at JJP levels at that point in terms of the build quality is great. They've shown before that they can do mechs. They can do an awesome, quote, world under glass and a pinball machine. So I hope it all comes together. And they can code because Oktoberfest is full of stuff. So they can code. It's just a matter of getting it all together, pulling it all together. It's taken JJP a while to get it all together. It happens, and I'm not giving up on them. I think they're going to pull out some. You said pull out. You guys are like Christopher Franchi's dream co-hosts right now. Reminds me. Sorry, Christian, but we're making new T-shirts. I'm like the guy who tries to reign Christopher Franchi in. I think if he was with you guys, it would be like a freaking, the gates would be wide open. We'd all get fired. It was a nightmare when he was on our show. I loved every second of it. Exactly. Exactly. All right, so I don't know if you guys have seen this, but there was a post on Facebook that I saw from a company called RB Flip from France, and they made this topper. And I know people are either, like, really pro-topper or, you know, they just don't care at all. But this is a really cool news piece because these guys had kind of done something new with the topper world that I had never seen before. They're trying to kind of innovate a little bit. They took a base that is essentially one topper base, and then they've created a bunch of plates that you can take from different games and put on top of the base so that you can have one topper that pretty much can be used for any game. It's sort of a real wide tombstone-shaped light box with interchangeable lenses. So, yeah, I mean, and then it's got a controllable light system in the box that you can use via an app, kind of like a pin stadium system where you can change the color of the LED strips. You can make them flash, whatever you want to do. So it's almost like a custom topper that is used for any game, and it's cool. I mean, it's unique. Well, here's the problem with this. I saw the commercial for it as well, and I saw my Batman artwork in there, and I'm like, hmm. So I contacted Stern, and they did not get a license from Stern to use all of that artwork. Therefore, they're getting shut down. No, really? They're closing the business? Well, I don't know if they're closing the business, but they're having all of those games that they've made lenses for, Batman and Jurassic Park and all that stuff. They can't do that. So that's all getting taken away. So they're going to have, like, these generic coppers like dinosaurs, which is going to be far less appealing. A dinosaur isn't as cool as the Jurassic Park logo. Exactly. Yeah, so they're in the process of getting all that shut down right now. It's a cool idea, though. Facebook page, I don't see a whole lot there. They must have taken some stuff down. No, they might have. Well, this might be old news, and this is totally shut down, but I have to give them kudos for trying. I've thought about selling games before to fit others in, and I'm like, I mean, my wife makes some pretty awesome toppers, and she's made a topper for every single game I own. And part of the pain of having to sell a game would be to lose the capability of having that topper used again, right? So if you have an interchangeable system, like, I don't know, there's some innovation there. I like that. Yeah, now those are some museum-quality toppers that Mrs. Penn makes there. That you could charge $9.99 for. Oh, snap. How about a topper where you can shoot Nerf guns at my butt? Yeah, that would be worth a lot. That's called the priceless. Well, that's going to do it for Pinball on the News for this week, and that's also going to do it for our co-hosts. Don't cry. Hey, Franchi, you can message me more often, man. You know, hey, I wanted to say you guys were complaining because I don't call you, but I've also asked you several times for your fucking phone numbers, and you've never provided them. So I can't text you. So maybe you might want to send that my way in a private message, and then we'll deal with it that way, because I don't really like communicating with people through Facebook. Yeah. We would love that, Franchi, of course. so yeah I can't wait to actually put a little you know photo on your name and your contact list here in Texas Drew and Ian from the Poor Man's Pinball podcast thanks so much for joining us it was as much fun if not more than I knew it was going to be thanks guys no I really appreciate coming on and appreciate listening to us gammer on for whatever yeah we always like to fuck up other people's shows thank you it was great having you guys one of the things that i really love about your show is that you guys are big fans of the dad joke and uh i couldn't let you guys come on and leave before dropping a solid dad joke with us so knowing that halloween's coming up do you guys have any solid halloween dad jokes for us uh this one isn't a dad joke but it goes along with our underwear humor so i thought it's appropriate i'm down i know a franchise i love this one you're Ready? William Shatner has discontinued his line of ladies lingerie. Apparently, Shatner Panties was a poor choice of name. All right. I guess it's your turn now. All right. Did you hear about the werewolf who dropped his pants? It was the full moon. I like that. Why didn't the coffee bean go to the Halloween party? He was grounded. Nice. Nice. My dad jokes. Oh, I love it. For more crappy dad jokes just like that, tune in to the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. And you can also record with them live if you join in on their Facebook when they record on Monday nights at 830 Central. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot, Christian. Thanks a lot, Christopher Franchi. I had a blast. Thank you. Thanks, guys. All right, boys. All right, gentlemen. Have a good night. All right. You too. See ya. So this weekend, after people played Guns N' Roses, we sidelined them and we asked them what they thought of the game. And then we compiled all of their first impressions so we could play them all for you right now. Let's check them out. All right, we're live at Cointaker, and we're going to get some opinions on Guns N' Roses. So my first guest here is Rodney Kamageese. Kamageese. Kamageese. I've known Rodney for a long time, and this is probably the 100th time I've messed up his name. But Rodney, why don't you give us a first impressions on Guns N' Roses. What an amazing game You know, you see the pictures online And the integration But the part you can't do until you get in person Is play it And the flow and the, you know The flow matches the theme It's fast and furious and fun What did you think of the light show And the audio quality of the game? The audio is loud In fact, we had to move outside Away from both machines Just to record this Can't tell, one of the machines is outside So the light show is a little dim So that was kind of iffy. Once you go inside, it's amazing. No pinball machine like it in terms of the lights. It's a concert in a box. This is Christopher Franchi. We're here at the super awesome pinball tailgate at lovely Cointaker in some fucking nowhere town in Pennsylvania. And who do we have? Jason Artis. And you've played Guns N' Roses pinball? I have. I've put a couple games on it now. And what's your favorite feature? I would say the overall, the light show is pretty awesome, as well as the sound. And what do you think overall of the game? I think Eric has done a great job, and JZP in general, of integrating a full concert experience into the game. The overall experience is fantastic. Excellent. Well, thanks for taking part. We have a lovely parting gift for you. Would you like this lovely log or a picnic bench? I'm going to go with the picnic bench. Excellent. Sorry about that, Chris. What did you think of the game, and tell us who you are. My name's Sean Goodwin, and yeah, the first impressions on Guns N' Roses, it blew me away. I've had many music pens. I've had two Iron Maiden LEs play my buddy Vacy DC and stuff like that, and it's an experience more than it is just playing a pen. And I can't describe it really with words. I guess I don't have the words to do it, but the light show in it puts you there. They did an amazing job with the choreography. I know that they said that that's not done, and that blows my mind because it already looks incredible. The shots were shooting really well. There doesn't seem to be too many really dangerous shots. There's maybe one or two, but outside of that, the flow is really good. The sounds sounded really crisp. I guess the master songs that they got are high quality. The sound system sounded great. If the term bolted to the floor means anything to a lot of people, and I know it does, this one's probably going to be bolted to your floor. So you're in on this game? I am in on this game. What version are you going to get? I called VJP Direct, and don't be mad at me, but I did get a collector's edition. Cheers. If you got a drink, I would toast you at this point. That's awesome. That's a good choice. I think you're going to be very happy with your game, man. Thank you very much. All right, we have another Guns N' Roses player here. Your name, sir? Bob Butch. And what's your favorite feature on the game? It's the overall package. It just integrates everything that you could want as a Guns N' Roses fan into the game. So that's your thoughts in general on the whole game? Yeah, I mean, it's such a package. It's like the light show is probably the biggest thing that stands out, But overall, it's like the music integration, the shots, there's nothing really to knock on the game. It's just an amazing overall experience. I wish I could bring one home today. Well, if I was to tell you that the Marquettes would like to give you one of these games for $10, would you buy it? Absolutely. Excellent. Sold. All right, so I just want to take a second of your time to ask you about the new Guns N' Roses game. Tell me what your name is and what you think of the game. My name is Andrew Harris. I think the game is amazing. Great integration with the mechs. Artwork is sweet. Typical Jersey Jack quality. Just an amazing game. Can't say enough about it. Cool, man. Do you think you'll ever have one in your game room at some point? Well, it would be my fourth Jersey Jack game. So it's inevitable is what you're saying? Pretty much. Probably. All right. Well, thanks for coming out today. It was great to meet you. Thanks. What up, Pinheads? It's Mrs. Pin. I'm here. I've absconded with the recording device, and I'm here with a new friend. Tell me your name. Justin Linderman. Justin Linderman, welcome to Cointaker. Did you play the brand new Guns N' Roses pinball today? I did. Did you keel over in excitement? It was fantastic. That's amazing. So my husband somehow talked me into letting him purchase one. How do you feel about that purchase? I think it was well worth the money, and I think he's going to get a return on his investment long term. You think so? So you don't think that I'm going to regret it, because I had been drinking marginally at the time. You won't regret it. That's fantastic. What was your favorite part about the game? The lighting is just out of this world. I mean, it just really makes the game pop. I feel the same way. I was a little bit distracted at one point when I had some, what was the song? Was it like a song thing that was on? Yeah. These are very technical details here, people. Some song was on, and I was in a mode of some kind, and the lights were so intense that I was marginally blinded, but then I got used to it, and I have to say it was pretty incredible. Seems like it pales all other light shows. Like, it just makes them all look bad. What the fudge monkeys, Franchi Alright, Justin Linnerman, thank you for being with us It was lovely talking to you It's nice meeting you as well, have a great day Aw, thanks Okay, we're here at the super awesome pinball tailgate And we have Jason Baylitz How many games have you played on Guns N' Roses? Two games And what's your favorite feature? I would say the light show The light show, and what's your overall impression of the game? I think there's a lot of features, there's a lot to do So it'll keep you interested for a long time That's all there is to do in the game. You think it solidifies Eric Meunier's place in the pinball designer world? Absolutely. Yeah, he did a great job on this game. Can I have $5? No. Thank you. All right, we are here at the super awesome pinball tailgate party at Coin Taker in lovely Pennsylvania, and we have... Zach Brown. The Zach Brown? Yeah, the Zach Brown meat cooker. Yes, Zach has been cooking all the fine meats at the Pinball Tailgate, which were delicious. And have you played Guns N' Roses? Yeah, I got a couple games in. What's your favorite feature? The light show when you get the concert going. Yeah, and what's your overall impression of the game? Man, I fucking love this game. Would you buy one for, say, $20? Hell yeah. All right, we're here at the super awesome Pinball Tailgate. What's your name, sir? Alan Ed Robertson with Pinball Mafia. And have you played Guns N' Roses? Boy, have I. Fantastic machine. How many games? I think I've probably got about 10 under my belt so far. Nice. And what's your favorite feature? Favorite feature of the game? Ooh, man, let's see here. Probably, I'd have to say the light show that you get whenever you get into a multiball and how it correlates with the song itself. It makes you feel like you're at the concert, you know? And so your overall impression of the game? It is pushing number one fan of all time, number one for me. and I've played a lot of pinball, been around. I think this is probably going to go down. This is one of the greatest games ever. Nice. So if you're in the pinball mafia, does that mean you're extorting cash from Chris and Melissa here at Cointaker? You know, if I answered that, I'd have to kill you as well. And by the way, you made the trip from where? Southeast Texas, down around near Houston. So did you fly or did you drive? Oh, I drove, about a 24-hour hike. 24-hour drive just for the super awesome pinball tailgate. You guys are a big deal. I had to make it a thing. Thank you. We're at the super awesome... Keep on forgetting that. Okay, you have to put this in at the end. Oh, my God. We are at the super awesome pinball tailgate bash at the lovely coin taker. Who do we have here? Jeff Keighley. And Jeff, have you played Guns N' Roses? I have. How many games? Probably about 12 games so far. And what's your favorite feature? Oh, that's a hard one. That's what she said. Oh, it would definitely be just the integration of the light show with the music and picking your own song. It's just all of it comes together as one great event. Yeah, and how do you feel about the game overall? It is definitely the best JJP. You know, I'm not sure I'm ready to put it up, you know, in the top ten of games of all time, but it's definitely a top title. Excellent. And do you wear your hair like that on purpose? Uh, yes. Thank you. All right. Well, that was a lot of fun. Let's cut to a commercial break. And when we come back, we're going to have an awesome interview with two of the greatest people in the pinball distributing world, Chris and Melissa Marquette from Cointaker Amusements. Stay tuned for that, and we'll see you in a second. We'll be right back. Guess what? I got a fever. And the only perspective Is the super awesome pinball show Super Interested in a new and boxed Jersey Jack, Guns N' Roses pin? Call the world's largest pinball distributors Coinsaker Or visit their massive showroom Great prices, great selections, and great service. Cointaker.com. Official Jersey Jack pinball distributors. Cointaker. This is Steve Ritchie with a mouthful of pumpkin pie. You're listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Podcast. Pinball show. I'm not doing that. Yeah, you are. Pinball show? That's what it's called. Okay, here we go. This is Steve Ritchie, and you are listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Crouch, I didn't think you'd ever get it right. Now, back to our program. Well, it's about frickin' time. I am the God of Hellfire, and I bring you... The Super Awesome Pinball Show. It's a cool show. Hey, guys, just a little editor's note for you. We recorded this live in Christian's basement, and it was myself and Christian with the Marquettes, Melissa and Chris, and each of us had a microphone clipped onto our shirt, and the recorder said that everything was recording just fine. However, when I got home, I discovered that for some reason, only Christian's microphone was really picking everything up, and everything else was sort of only half working. So while every attempt was made to get the audio to sound decent so you can understand everybody. It obviously doesn't sound the best. Not only was it recorded in a basement, but it's a little hissy. However, I tried to preserve it because I thought it was a very good interview and it was entertaining. I think you'll enjoy it, so bear with us. Thanks. We are live in the luxurious basement of Dr. and Mrs. Pin just 24 hours after our tailgate party, and we are joined by two of the finest people in pinball, Chris and Melissa Marquette, and they also just so happen to sponsor our show as one of, if not the biggest, of all distributors in the world. If you've never been to Cointaker in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, you are missing out because Cointaker has a huge warehouse, a showroom to showcase the latest and greatest. They have cookouts like the one we had yesterday pretty much on a regular basis for their customers. And they are a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with. We've had some chocolate martinis with them tonight and some fun at Hershey Park. So thank you guys so much for putting on an epic event yesterday. It was truly impressive. You guys stayed with all the food, the pinball machines. We had two Guns N' Roses LEs. We had the Avengers there, Hot Wheels, Turtles, every new latest and greatest. We really had a blast, so thank you again for putting it on. Thank you for showing up and coming. Thank you both of you guys for coming all the way to Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Yeah, man. It was great to have you there. Great to see everybody that stopped by. I think we had a great day. What beautiful Carl Weathers. Oh, perfect. I really enjoyed it. And then the newest pinball, Avengers, is rocking. Super fun to shoot. People got their first looks at Guns N' Roses. A hugely positive feedback on that. Seems like it's going to be a hit for them. Yeah, both of those games, really, have been doing fantastic. The rules, shoot's awesome. Keith's got his own rule. And now Eric, he seems to have his own rule going. So, lots of fun. Well, we're super excited you guys are willing to sit down and talk to us a little bit. where we want to pick your brains about the world of distributing pinball machines. And why don't we start by having you guys introduce yourselves. I'm Melissa Marquette. I'm Chris. We're CoinTaker. We've been distributing pinballs for 10 plus years now. We started off with LEDs. We used to hit the show circuit, showing everybody how beautiful, colorful LEDs can make their pinballs look. And we've been growing, and we started distributing games, and also do mods and toppers, side plates, all kinds of accessories. It's been a fun ride. Let's talk about your lives before you jumped into pinball as a career. What did you both do before Cointaker? I did communication sales. I worked with the PA State Police, Amtrak, NYPD doing some of their police communications and systems within the casinos in Pennsylvania. Pretty much what I did. So you did a lot of the security systems or the communication, like air comm systems? Yeah, the radio systems, the DPA systems, allowing so you could go into a casino and use your cell phone service. And then after 9-11, I worked with NYPD on some of their security system up there, putting in place that people had radio systems anywhere they went. Cool. That's very cool. And Chris, you worked in technology to a point as well, right? Yeah, I was in the Navy for six years. in an eco-engineering program as a reactor operator in electronics tech. So we take care of the instrumentation control for the reactor. And then I stayed in the electronics field for 25 years. I worked full-time, and then I also ran an amusement business route. Okay. Movie theaters, bowling alleys, you know, bars, you know, pool tables, jukeboxes, pinballs, video games. I'm still doing that. And then we started Cointaker back around 2008, I think it was. It was 2001. Well, most people don't know Cointaker. They've used it for business. So you guys had a distributorship before you went straight pinball. And you said you're still routing pool tables and that sort of thing. Right. Okay, that's cool. So the side business of exclusively pinball machines and parts and everything else that Cointaker is came a little bit later. Okay. So, like, were you both really into pinball, and that's what led you to eventually start Cointaker, or did one of you have to introduce the other to pinball? How did that work? Yeah, I would say I was the pinhead. I bought my first pinball machine 40 years ago. I was 13 years old. Saved up my paper route money, lawn mowing money, snow shoveling money. Had my grandfather drive me up to a local route operator that was selling games before Christmas time. So my grandfather didn't know what he was taking me or what for. so I come out and he asked me what I was doing in there and I said oh I bought a pinball machine and he's like a pinball machine your parents know and I said yes being a 13 year old but in reality they had no idea. So the next day a steak fighting truck shows up at the house drops off a Gottlieb out of sight pinball machine and the rest has been history. How did your parents react? I don't remember really. That's extreme though like you saved all of this money and then It was all towards the pinball machine. It was like $350, but I was back. It was a sizable amount of money. I had to deliver a lot of papers for that. Where did this pinball machine go? It was in your bedroom? We had a mudroom inside the garage. It was fairly small, but I could fit about four pins in there. I had one of those Atari footballs with a trackball. I remember you played. Atari video pinball was like a little upright video game. They could nudge a little bit. That was there. and had a bunch of games before I was out of high school that came and went through the house. It's cool of your parents that they kind of went with that. It was work and it was worse things. It's the same things today I tell people. It was worse hobbies to be involved in. Absolutely. So, Melissa, how did you get dragged into the dream? I met Chris. So you had told me, I guess the last time we met, that you eventually just gave up on your career and you went full into pinball sales. I did. I was traveling about 50,000 to 60,000 miles a year and it got old after doing it for 15 years and it was day in, day out. It kind of was like, well, I'm going to grow this business and take it from one step and he was still working and so I just decided to quit. The rest is history. That's awesome. Did Melissa think you were crazy that you wanted to take your whole business? She got it. She still does. Yeah, I know. But it is what it is. How hard is it to actually get a business like this up and running? I mean, how long did it take to just get off the ground? It happens slowly, kind of, but, you know, it happens fast at the same time. But we just work seven days a week and take calls night and day and try to provide the community with good service and great games. The days go by fast. You really lose a lot of your private life. It goes away. You live and breathe pinball. so you have to really be dedicated to what you're doing to make it a success in all honesty. And you're really on call, right, 24-7? Yes. I mean, you don't have office hours. People just call you and say, Hey, I've got this issue or I want this game. So I imagine that's got to be tough. And then you have people in different time zones that are calling you, you know, 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night and you don't always pick up but you do call them back and they understand that but there's still the weekends. We've taken phone calls on Christmas Day. Wow. Yeah, Thanksgiving. It's crazy, but we love what we do. I can't believe you answered. We were just calling to leave a message. I could see on Christmas Day someone saying, Honey, you can get a pinball machine, and then immediately picking up the phone and calling. Surely the Marquettes are working. So you guys decide you want to sell pinball machines, so you just call up companies like Stern and say, We want to sell your machines. Can we, or how does that process work? Well, we were selling LEDs. We were around the show. We saw Gary and company. They come around and look at the games, how nice they look in the pinballs. And we started working. I think Jim Belt was with them back at the time. And we started working with them, and we started selling games, and it just kept growing from there. So I know we've talked about this off the air, but you can answer this as politically correct as you want. But some companies only sell through you if you can promise a certain volume of sales. I don't think there's anything like that. We just deal with companies. I'm sure everybody would like you just to sell their product. We like to let customers decide what they like and let them choose. We have games set up so you can come in and play and actually put some quality time on something and say, yeah, this is what I really like. So I think that works out best for the customers to have choices and they can play, test everything that's available. And you guys have just about every involved company represented in your... All the major... Except for Spooky House. Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay. So are you guys able to just pick up whoever you want as far as distributing their games? Or, you know, are certain manufacturers, do they put any restrictions on you as far as picking up other companies or anything? No, they haven't. There's no distributor that has put restrictions on us as far as picking up any other company. What about Deep Root? Are you guys going to pick them up? Deep Root, they're a very interesting company they've made a lot of bold claims that's probably a whole other show, we can go into a bunch of information on the history of Zidware and how they've dealt with some of the customers and vendors yeah, that's a whole other show and then Deep Root, if you're following them, I'm sure you've heard a lot of their claims but what if they do get it together are you interested in selling your product? with our history, I would say no Not a chance. Help. So can you give us an overview of how you went from starting out to becoming pretty much the biggest distributor of pinball machines in the world? Were there major milestones or just a lot of hard work and time building up your customer base? I think it was a lot of hard work. We were fortunate to pick up Stern, the biggest and largest manufacturer in the world, and they do a great job. They put out quality games three, four times a year. They've got great staff over there, great factory, great leadership management. So we're just really fortunate. And then as that distributorship went, I think we've shown that we can support the product, represent the product well, and the other companies just kind of followed through and said, hey, you know, these people are doing a good job. They really care about the community. They support the product, the inventory of the product. We can call them and get a hold of them, so it's just kind of worked out for Norton. We do the shows. We travel. We do nice set-up sets of shows and represent the company as well. Let's talk inventory. All right. So between your building and you also have a warehouse storage facility in Chicago, between the two of them, at any given time, how many pinball games do you have available for someone to purchase? It varies depending on the time of season and the games available. It goes up and down. just like the stock market. Right. But chances are, if somebody wants something, you've got it available. We usually do. I mean, right now it's been kind of busy with COVID. I think a lot of people have canceled vacations and put those resources into a fantastic hobby of pinball. So COVID's been good for you guys? Well, it's been good for pinball sales. I don't think it's been good for anybody. I know what you're saying. But, yeah, for sales per se, yeah, it hasn't hurt sales. I think a lot of resources that were went for vacations or other things have gone to pinball. I think it's been good for pinball as an industry. And one of the things that I get from a lot of customers is that it really helps with a lot of family bonding time as well. They're creating different activities at home. Their neighbors are coming over, and the neighbors buy a game, and then they take family nights. and so we're getting a lot of that repeat customers coming back and saying, you know, hey, our neighbor's going to buy this pin. That's neat. I mean, when you're kind of, the silver lining of this whole thing is that you're spending more time as a family unit and there isn't a whole lot of traveling. So when you're stuck at home, it's cool to have something that you can all do together and pinball's a great thing. Even the mod industry as far as that, we have people buying mods and, you know, LED and the games out are buying mods and saying, oh, my, you know, eight-year-old and they're going to do this this week and, you know, they're so excited about doing it. And it's nice to see that there's more family coming back together instead of, you know, kids being out or on their iPhones or iPads all the time that they're actually having. And finally time to do these pinball projects that everybody puts off. So you guys have an epic showroom. We were just there yesterday. You have a ton of games in Sunbury. But where do you store? I know you had said you have more than just one facility, right? For storage of our games, we utilize a storage area out in Chicago that we use for the West Coast sales games and stuff like that. So we utilize the warehouse out. It doesn't make sense to ship games to the east and then ship them back west. We'll store some games centrally located. Right in the heart of the pinball. If you have to ship, if somebody in California buys a game and you want to ship it from Chicago, do you have to travel to that warehouse? No, we just electronically do the paperwork. and the trucking company comes and picks it up. Okay. That's the way it goes, yeah. So obviously the bread and butter of your job is selling pinball machines. Are you constantly buying and selling games, or do you mostly do your buying around the time that a game is released? We're constantly buying and selling. New and used? New and used. We do trade-ins as well. So we'll take trade-ins from existing customers, and if they want to trade in, we'll take the trade-in and bump them up into a new title. Is there a Kelly Blue Book of pinball machines? How do you guys do that? Well, of course there is. Yeah? Kind of trying to see what the going rate is. These games are definitely harder. Yeah. You know, conditions can vary so much. Right. The mileage may vary. Right, right. Chris goes out there and just kicks the side and goes, ah, I'll give you $50. The best I can do is $150. That's fantastic. Get this back in your truck right now. I love that game. We've actually even rented a couple games out here and there. That's cool. So, you know, we've done some rentals. though? That's something that I had talked about on the show as being a cool thing to do, especially in this time when you're stuck at home to be able to rent a game and not buy it at full price. So we just had a reveal for Jersey Jack's Guns and Roses and Avengers from Stern not too long before that. What percentage of individual game sales would you guys say come in the one to two weeks around a reveal versus the months after that? Melissa, would you say it's totally front loaded, 90% and then 10% or is it just kind of a a slow burn? I'd say the big peak, and then it kind of trails down exponentially. It kind of shoots up, and then the slope down and out, you know, within the next year or two. It's about there on the games, on three. Yeah. You know, like Metallica, that was off for sale forever. ACDC, they did a bunch of runs, so. I mean, we just had Guns N' Roses, so are music pins, you know, long-lasting? Yeah. Because you get fans, they hear about it, and then they come, and they, okay. I prefer the music pins. Yeah. I'm a rock and roll kind of guy. Nice, man. We know that there are plenty of people out there that pre-order a game while they are caught up in the hype and then might pull the plug on the order for a variety of reasons. Does that result in you guys getting stuck with extra inventory, or how do you deal with that? Yes, at times it does, and that's not a problem. We want the customer, and we want to do what's right by the customer. Certainly during COVID times, some people lost their jobs. We do not keep their refunds under those circumstances. we do allow them either return the refund or flip them into a different title later on when they decide what they want or if they want another so they get another job but we don't get a lot of it so there's not much to deal with on that side but we do have people that change their mind what percentage of people would you say go in on a game and then bail? very few Most of our customers are repeat customers and they only get every title anyhow. So unless it's something that really comes out and has bad reviews and they just say, this is not for me, then they'll say, okay, we're not going to take it. But like I said, that very rarely happens. In the car world, you can go to one car dealer and they can say, oh, we don't have that blue X car, you know, but this distributor down the street might. Is there conversations between distributors in terms of trying to get people games that may not be so new, older titles that are hard to find? Yeah, we work with other distributors quite a bit. Melissa is always on the phone. She's got a lot of good friends, and they'll trade games at different times to make sure we can get what people want when they want it. It works really well to have friends in the industry. They can help you, and vice versa. It works well. So with being flexible like that, Have you ever gotten, like, as far as your orders go, do you ever get stuck with a bunch of games, or have you ever been, like, under-ordered and not been able to kind of fulfill everybody's needs? Inventory's always an issue. It's hard to predict the future. Sometimes inventory will stay around longer, but eventually it'll all go. And, you know, like, now we're waiting for inventory to come in for a lot of games. Jurassic Park, we've never had inventory. it's gone before it comes in so I think Avengers is going to do pretty well the same way. What would you guys have in inventory right now that people might be surprised that you have? Really not a lot there. Parts? Yeah, no parts of the Caribbean no uh Those things are hot now. As soon as they quit making them everybody wanted them. That's always the way this could be available for years The only Big Lebowski sitting there is an early Achievers that's getting shipped out Monday So, our team is... I mean, to that point, you guys are the exclusive North America Dutch pinball distributors, correct? Correct. So, you're seeing a lot of early achiever games come in, right? And Dutch is making a fair amount of pinball machines now, correct? That's great news. You just had six pivot, did you? Six came in three were early achiever games and three were the new games So and then you know next week we have more coming in And they moving into a larger facility so they hope to increase their monthly bills Great. If you're comfortable saying, what's their billed amount per month at this point? Do you know? 10 to 12 right now. Okay. And then hopefully more than that in the new facility. Yeah, they're hoping to almost double that. Wow, that's great. All right, so let's talk a little bit more about GNR because that was the big hit this weekend. It's the newest game. It's gotten pretty overwhelmingly positive feedback from people. How is the game doing sales-wise for you guys? Phenomenal. That's great. Lovers for you. People seem to like all the drumsticks, the top hats, the record, the light show, the hot rails. Hot rails, yeah. I think everybody loves them but Penn Stadium. That's right. Sticking a chunk out of that market. That's okay, they don't sponsor our show. Well, they make a nice product. They do. They do. That's why everybody likes their angels. Yeah, people have been clamoring for that. There's some drama over the people ordering CEs and the availability of that and how that happens. How are you guys dealing with that? And what would you say, in the most friendly way, Jersey Jack should do to avoid that problem next time? What did they do wrong this time? Well, first of all, we're new to them, so we only took names. We didn't anticipate, with being a new distributor, we didn't anticipate a large number of games. So we didn't make any commitments. We didn't take any money. We basically told customers, we're new. We're not sure how many we're getting. So if you definitely want to guarantee the game, you might want to check elsewhere. But we added names to our list, and we didn't have to make all those nasty phone calls saying, sorry, we took your money, but we're not getting your game. that being said i was shocked that we got any at all because i know some dealers didn't right you know i'm not sure how they figured out things were working and you know i'm just happy i got a few so you know i can't tell them how to run their business i know a lot of other dealers and that are extremely upset and i'm sure jack and them will figure out in the future and the next title how to do it and get it done right and whether there was a glitch in our website i mean we all have website glitches everyone's wrong who knows i'm not sure but well they've up until now they've not had a touch to a lot of cd so it may have been a problem that they weren't you know it might have got them off guard i mean the response was like holy moly right but like i said i mean for us we didn't have to make those nasty phone calls i mean we still had to tell people hey sorry we can't get you a game, but we can roll you into an LE. But we did let people know that we were new, that we weren't sure how many we were going to get, and we didn't fall into that trap of thinking we were going to get a ton of games. How does that work? So with other distributors that you have a long-standing relationship with, do you have a set number of CEs, a set number of LEs, or pro, premium, LE, whatever the business model is that you get for every game, or can you increase or lower that number? So basically, with Stern, at least, before a game announcement, they email us and they tell us, here's your number of LEs. So we know not to sell past that. Now, as far as pros and premiums, we can sell whatever we want. Whatever quantities we sell, great. There's no limit. And the same with the other dealers, like with Chicago Gaming. They tell you the number of LEs that you're getting. Or like the Royal Editions, they tell you what you're getting. and then you know not to go beyond that number. Is that related to the number of games you've sold to them in the past? Does every distributor get the same number of? I don't know how they work it out. We don't know their equation. I'm not sure how they work that out, quite honestly. They just call and let us know normally before a game announcement. So this was new, a little bit new for us with Jack and with JJP waiting until after the game was announced to find out our C. But honestly, I wasn't really anticipating getting too many, so that's why we just took names. With that being said, I mean, the game's phenomenal. I'm glad we got some of the games out there and got a couple of them and were able to fill some orders, and so we're happy with that. The real question is whether they're going to sell out of the LEs because 5,000 limited editions... It always sounds like a lot. It sounds like a lot, but maybe not in this scenario. Yes, it is. The LEs are selling well. I mean, so I wouldn't say it's out of the question that they're not going to sell out of them. Yeah, that's awesome for them. You needed a hit and you got it. I'm getting one. So the story is that we went out to your tailgate, and you have this slushie machine that is phenomenal, and we may have to look into getting one, but it is a dangerous drink machine because it's delicious, it goes down easy, and it's loaded with booze. So we had a couple of those. My wife had two of them, and then we played some Guns N' Roses. She happened to just GC the game right after that in the peak of her buzz, And it turned to me, and she was like, this game is awesome. And I'm like, we need one. And she's like, yeah, we do. And so I instantly ran to Melissa, and I said, we're buying a game. And I got it locked in before she had any second thoughts. So, yeah, we're really excited. We're going to have an LE coming our way in a couple of weeks, I hope so. It'll be good stuff. Beautiful game. Yeah. The artwork on the side, I really like it. Gorgeous. Nice. Yeah, gorgeous game. Yesterday was awesome. I had so much fun. And the amazing thing was we actually sold quite a few sterns yesterday as well. I know. Well, you have such a good spread of games, and everyone is well represented, and I think Avengers is going to be a huge hit as well. You've said that that's a great seller for you guys. It is. We had the Turtles set up, and Stranger Things also, and the most strong titles. Hot Wheels was there. I mean, you guys are the latest and greatest. P3, Multimorphic. I'd like to say we have a Jurassic Park there, but every time we get one in, I sell it. I know. They're so hard to come by. So it's like you've got to, you know, sometimes the customers just have to come before our own personal showroom. But just so you know, the slushie machine is in the showroom. Yes, that's the secret sauce. Is that here? That's genius. Are there any other distributors listening to your slushie machine? I'm going to share one of mine. Have another slushie. You want both. Both. It happens. Now we know how they became the biggest. Yeah, and the secret is the slushie. So there have been special circumstances on some games, like the Beatles, where you have to buy, like, I think it was like 12 platinum to get one diamond. No comment. There's also been, like, special circumstances with Batman Super L.E. where you had to send in a video to try and get one. No comment. Does this make life difficult for you guys? No comment. Moving on. Alright, so everyone wants to know what the next pinball games are going to be. How early before a game is released do distributors generally know what's coming? Years. Gary calls me up and gives me a list. What do you think is going to be hot? Pinsight knows before us. Yeah. Is that true? We're the last to know. Yeah. So usually, is it the day before the actual reveal that you guys get information on the game, or is it... I think last time was the day of. The day of. They gave us a call and then released it, like, pretty much the same time. And do most companies follow that model? It varies. I don't think there's any set rule. And things change with all the companies, how they do it. You know, how the game is set in stone. Right. It's fluid. I mean, we heard the same rumors that everybody else hears, until it actually comes out of the manufacturer's mouth. Right. Have you ever been caught by surprise with the title? No. Avengers kind of came out of nowhere. I didn't really expect that. Oh, yeah, I guess. Did you guys? No, I remember like two weeks beforehand we had talked about it and we were talking about the rumors we had heard online, but no one knew that it was going to definitely be The Avengers. It was outside of a few people. I was caught off guard more than usual, I think, on that one. Yeah, I guess you're right. I forgot. I didn't know about that. How do you guys deal with leaks? So one of the ways people say that games come out early or get out there into the pin-side world and Facebook early is through distributors. So I'm sure that the flashlight gets turned to the distributors often. How hard is it to control the information that you guys are getting, and how have companies gotten better about protecting their assets since you guys started the whole distributing thing? We don't get it. There's more rumors on Pinside. That's where I usually get it. So you just think a lack of information is how they do it. It's not that you guys are getting the inside scoop on most of these things. Yeah. And it's fine. I definitely understand that way. And then whatever rumors we do get, then they're just rumors, but we have no factual information on them. How do you deal with that as far as people ordering games? Because I'm sure people will hear, like, have you guys ever gotten a phone call that says, if Harry Potter ever comes out, I want one. Do you guys have lists like that? If they think the next turn or jersey, whatever game it is, is going to be X title, hey, put me on the list for X title, and then comes the day. Roughly speaking, how many lists do you have right now for games that you don't even know exist? Six or seven. Oh, wow. What are your most requested titles that have no factual basis? Well, Harry Potter is definitely one of them. I'm trying to think of the last one that came last week Back to the Future was the one last week and then of course all the other ones that are rumored are already floating out there so how do you deal with people on those lists so let's say that that game actually gets revealed and you have called three years ago saying if Harry Potter comes out I want it would that be the first person who would get a game so if you want to take a shot in the dark it might be worth calling your distributor and getting on a list I'm not sure if every distributor starts a list but we actually have a list for every rumored title so that's the fair way to do it right, makes sense has anybody ever called asking for some, you know off of a field request or something no, but I'd like to see Beavis and Butthead is that your dream team? I think it'd be funny I think it'd be funny put me on your self-doubt there's two of them All right, I'll play you a video. I know 20 other people that would be interested in it. Nice. How about you, Melissa? What's your dream? You know, I don't really... Rod Jeremy. Ooh. Pull the sugar out. He cut out his feet. Yes, I do. Oh, really? Never mind. You know. Have you seen him lately? You might want to cut out more than that. No, I haven't seen him lately. So how about your non-X-rated dream theme? Do you have one? I don't. You know what? I don't really think about it too much. I just kind of live in the day of what's out there because I'm so busy with taking orders for what is readily available that I don't go home and really sit and try to think about what my dream theme is. Right. She's a businesswoman. I get it. Her dream theme is the longest list on the wall. Let's look at it from a business standpoint then. What do you think would sell? What title would you say? If this game got made, we would sell a bazillion of these things. Oh, I agree. Beavis and Butthead would be definitely a great title. I think Harry Potter, likewise, would be a great title. Motley Crue. Motley Crue. Ozzy. Yeah? I'd love to see an Ozzy pin. I mean, I go back that you could put the TV show, you know, the Ozzy TV show in with the band stuff, so you could mix some stuff there. A combo. Yeah, and the music pins. I love the 80s music and the older music, so they always get me. I mean, ACDC is one of my favorite pinball machines. Aerosmith. Aerosmith. I love Aerosmith. Well, you guys have an interesting Aerosmith story, right? Didn't you deliver a pinball machine to them? To Joe Perry. Okay. Coming off his house. Well, then we got to go to Steven Tyler's Genius Fund Bash out in Hollywood. So we got to meet Steven Tyler. Didn't he sign your pinball machine? Didn't I see a Facebook thing about that? We got some stuff signed. They did a charity auction. Three Aerosmith games for $85,000 apiece for charity. Wow. I was happy to buy them. And that was a partner with Stern and Coin Taker. Wow. 84 partners each. Good for them. That all went to Janie's Fund? That all went to Janie's Fund. That's awesome. So, yeah, it was an amazing experience. I even got a kiss or two or three or four from Steven. But who's counting? I've never washed this cheek since. Well, I kind of said that, but it did get washed. Speaking to the celebrity thing, I have some questions in here about celebs. You guys sell to everyone, including some big-name celebrities. I know that Ed Ed Robertson of the Bare Naked Ladies is a friend of yours, and you sold to Jeffree Star, the makeup mogul and YouTube star. Do you have any favorite celebrity stories? We've sold to Ian McGregor. Oh, really? Ian McGregor of Spartacus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We sold to him. We actually got to deliver J. Wild's pinball machine from Stern. She didn't buy it from us, but we did do the delivery for Stern. Was it a stranger thing? Yes, it was. I think I saw it on Instagram post. That was a pretty cool experience, although we didn't get to meet her. Okay. But it was pretty cool just to see her house and her setup. it's a nice setup so when you guys get these calls from celebs do you make a point to personally deliver the machines just for the experience we do a lot of the time anyhow but we have to make sure that the people that work for you don't goof off and go there and keep your shit in order actually the people that work for us do an amazing job and they always represent our company well but it's just I think for some of the high end stuff it just needs to be represented by a company by one of us. It was fun. Last summer, Mr. Ed Ed Robertson was playing with Hootie and the Blowfish down at Hershey Stadium and we brought the game down and pulled back behind the stage and loaded it right in his tour bus. That's so cool. That was probably one of the most fun billiards we did. And you stayed for the concert. Yeah, yeah. That was a great show. I was there. I was there rocking out. It was very good. And the band always do a great job We've done it a couple times and always loved it. But then back to Aerosmith, we actually went to Vegas and we set up four games for the VIP on stage, on the VIP stages, two on each side. So we actually got to see Aerosmith from backstage in Vegas the one night. So we had VIP tickets in the backstage. And then two nights later, we actually had seats out front. So a couple of hours back, and it was really cool to see both angles of the show. I mean they are amazing they just put on such an amazing show and I would see them so if they ever tour again I highly recommend everybody buying tickets to see Aerosmith did they fly you guys out there VIP stops? no they did not that's pretty sweet we got to go to the show they treat us really well it was an amazing experience so like I said that was one of my favorite concerts of all time to see And you have probably seen some pretty epic collections as you drop these games off. I mean, have you seen some that have just been mind-blowing in terms of how many games you've got? As I look to my left, there's a pretty nice collection. It's no Jeffree Star collection. It's not Shaggy at all. Yeah, some of them we just drop ship. I mean, they buy and we drop ship, and they have their own people that bring things in. What's the most impressive collection you've ever seen? Probably, we were out at the Silver Ball Country Club a few weeks ago. Where's that? Normalville. Normalville. Okay. Normalville, Pennsylvania. All right. They have 150 pinball machines. They're in India as well. Yeah, 150 pinballs, but he has 187 machines in there in total. Wow. Just one guy? Ron Schuster, yeah. Oh, I know. I've heard of Ron. Yeah, yeah. He's an amazing man. And I've seen the walkthrough of his basement. It's just filled. It's like TGA Fridays with everything on the wall. Yes, yeah. He has all the knick knacks, memorabilia, like the Deadpool, he had a full sized Deadpool figure in him. It just doesn't end. Alien, or whatever, just goes on and on. All the wow facts that go with the games. It's really fun. So we talked earlier about how you guys basically figure who, you know, it's basically the first come first serve. Somebody calls in and orders a game, especially that's not out yet, and they're the first one to get it once it does come out. But, you know, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. or there's a game that's not out yet, then they're the first one to get it once it does come out. But how often do you guys want to jump off the roof from constant phone calls of people asking when they're getting their game? We don't. We love pinball. We love being distributors and providing these awesome games to people. If we didn't love it, we wouldn't do it. This is over here like shaking. She takes all the calls. You guys could have seen his face when he said that. No, in all seriousness, though, I mean, people are really excited about their games, and they really want them, so I imagine you're getting lots of check-ins. They are, and what they don't realize is that, you know, with, like, Jersey Jack, there's 50-some other dealers, and with Stern, there's 50-some other dealers, plus there's European dealers, and that, you know, they have to load up the cargo to go over there, So it's not like they build 100 games and we get all 100 machines. So it doesn't work that way. Each dealer gets a couple games out of the run. And so, you know, we have to take them, unfortunately, in the order that they come in, and that's how we do it. And it's not like one dealer gets 50 games and the other dealer, you know, just has to wait. That's not how it goes. So it's hard to explain that to people. And they'll be like, oh, I see so-and-so getting their game. Yeah, you know, unfortunately, it's, you know, we would like to see them all come out at one time as well, but, you know, the factory can only work so fast. And you had mentioned that there's sometimes two phases to a release. So if you want to have a limited edition, for instance, there's one push to manufacture it, and then it might come off the line and something else goes on, and then they eventually come back to the LE later. So if you're stuck in that second run, you might be waiting a lot longer than others. That's how I think Jersey Jack is doing it. Now, Stern does the pros, and they get, you know, they've been very good at getting pros out to every dealer. And actually, they've been fantastic about that because they make sure every dealer has had a pro in their showroom. And they're required to keep it in their showroom, which is great because, you know, we have the latest and greatest now. And, you know, that game's guaranteed to be in there. We can show it. We can sell, you know, some more games. Of course, if you have a game to show and play, you can take orders for it. So Stern has been great with that. And then, of course, they always do the LEs next and then the premiums. So that's been their motto for a long time. And so I think everybody kind of knows that. But when they do their run of LEs, they do their entire run of LEs. Got it. With Jack, we're new to them. We're not quite sure how they do it. I think Chicago Game does a mixture. They do some of each, and then they go back and do some more. We talked about COVID earlier, and obviously there's been a lot of shows, cancellations. A lot. How about all? All is a lot. So obviously you guys have lost out on sales because of that, but because of COVID and people staying in and not going on vacation, like we talked about, there's been more sales there. So you guys have probably been running even this year. You haven't seen any loss from the shows, but, you know, it's made up for it in sales otherwise. I think the biggest loss is just the face-to-face interaction. And, you know, we love our customers and getting to see people and say hi and deal with everybody. And that's been the biggest loss. Yeah. How much and what percentage of your business do you think comes from shows versus just people cold calling you or repeat customers? I think it's so intertwined you can't really distinguish it because one helps the other and vice versa. You know, people know us, see us. They know we're there and they can get a hold of us. And, you know, maybe they're not buying a game with the show. but next month something comes out that they've got to have in their game room. It's hard to quantify. Yeah, I feel it is rethinkable. I agree, and what Chris said, one of the people, I mean, I miss so many people. And trust me, I am the first one that every time it comes ready for a show, I cringe. Because there's so much that we put into getting ready for a show that I just like, oh my gosh. It's like putting out the Christmas ornaments. You don't want to do it, but you're happy when it's done. It's a lot of work getting everything ready. It's so much work getting everything to go to the show, getting everything, when you come back, unloaded, unpacked, reordering stock and inventory. Having a year of not doing any shows, I've got to be honest, I really miss it. I do. I miss the people. I miss the actual show experience. Do you have some favorite shows that you're like, this is one we'll never miss? I do. I do. I love Texas, of course. I love Allentown. I love the York Show. Rich, I have to say that. Which I do love. I do love the York Show. White Rose is great. White Rose is awesome. And, you know, I love Chicago Expo. And I love that because I get to go visit people at Sturm Factory. And, you know, I love everybody out there. And so it's my once-a-year trip that we normally take and I get to see all the people. So I miss it. Yeah, I think that's a tough hit for everybody this year. Well, you guys have probably gotten a little relief from sponsoring the super awesome Pinball Tailgate party. We've seen some of your favorite pinball people there. It was nice. It was like a little expo. I was telling somebody at the show actually yesterday at the party that it was almost like a mini expo. Yeah. Because there's pinball everywhere. You know, there's chatter and buzz and pinball folk all around and everybody's nice and all that. So it was kind of like almost like going to an ex. You even had your own swag table. Yeah, yeah. We had our swag table. I like the game set up outside. It was weird. I don't play pinball outside all the time, so that was fun. Yeah, right up by the street, there's a little. There's a rainbow. There's Z-Bow Tents. Guns N' Roses right out there for everyone to play. Social distancing. It was. You guys did an awesome job with that, by the way. That was one thing I was a little nervous about. But you people did a great job wearing masks. You guys had everything outdoors, and the stuff that was inside had a large open door to the outside. It was a beautiful day. We were very fortunate. It was a great time. Well, I'm really curious because I've always wanted to ask you to distribute this, but you're kind of the middleman between the main company and your customers. So you have a lot of games that you're selling, and then if anyone has an issue with those games, they're going to come to either you or the manufacturer of the game initially. So how does that work? How much of your time is spent putting out fires as a distributor? Not a lot. Most of the games are pretty reliable, but they are built by hand, and occasionally stuff does arise. We try to be the first line of defense, handle any issue, and if it's something that needs more attention or something abnormal, we get the manufacturer involved to help the customer to get it resolved. What's the most common issue that you guys deal with? And what level of issue do you just say, all right, you've got to go to the manufacturer. this is something over my... Like I said, normally, if it's something simple, we'll take care of it, help them walk through, troubleshoot it, and get them the part. But sometimes, you know, I don't see everything because we're the factory techs. That's what they do all day, every day, that particular thing. So they're more likely to have seen that issue come through and are able to provide better support than us, unfortunately. I know, it makes sense, though. But you also have, I'm sure, a good percentage of newbies that don't deal with pinball machines. They call you. I mean, I'm sure you get the basic, you know, how do I turn on the game kind of calls. So how difficult is that? We're lucky with technology now. We have FaceTime, so we can go on there, and a lot of times we'll have the game in our inventory so we can show them or try to help them walk them through. And then I think a lot of people just utilize Pinside, you know, and most people have friends in the hobby, and with the support of other people, you can usually resolve anything. Plus I send Chris out on service calls. Nice, nice. This is all for you, Chris. Yes, dear. Are there some games that, and this is a tough question to answer, so you're probably going to have to go way back if you're answering this at all, but are there some games that just drove you insane with repairs that you just said, you know, this game is something I don't ever want to sell again? No. No, Stern has a great engineering team and they go through a lot of the time of testing. And, I mean, occasionally stuff happens, but it doesn't matter what it is. If it's a car, whatever, stuff happens. But they're quick to resolve it. How about the most bulletproof game you've ever sold where you've just never got a call on that? Well, what pinball game gets the good housekeeping? It doesn't even have to be a company in general, just like what game. Actually, they're all good. I mean, seriously, they're very good. There's very few issues. I mean, Chicago Gaming has very few issues. I mean, they're all really, really good. Nice. That's good. We've talked on our show about how expensive these toys can be and that dropping $6,000 to $13,000 on a pin in one shot can be a tough pill to swallow. I had wondered why most distributors don't offer, like, a payment plan or some sort of a financing model. We've gotten some feedback that some distributors do some sort of things like that, but, you know, why doesn't everyone do that? it seems similar to like buying a car. It's something that a lot of people can't afford to go and shop. Is it something that you guys would consider doing, or what do you think the industry as a whole really doesn't, or how does that work? Actually, we do do that for some of our customers that we know and have over the years have worked their way up to. Built a trust for it. And built a trust for it. Very nice. But we used to offer financing through a company, and the company kept getting stiffed by it. It's difficult to recall a game that's inside the house. So they eliminated that. So now a lot of the companies will not offer finance. So like a lot of other good things, we can blame deadbeat payers for ruining it for everyone. Although pinball is expensive up front, I think overall it's not expensive. If you look at it, like you can buy a game for $5,000 or $6,000 and you can turn around and sell it in a year or two for close to that amount of money, sometimes more, sometimes less. If you look at it in the big picture, it isn't the most expensive hobby by far. Well, what about like layaway? Because they're not getting the product. And we do offer that. We do offer that. So that's across the board. Anyone who might want that. Yes, but we do have some customers that have built that rapport with us over the years that we do 30, 60, 90. We've even gone up to six months with them. That's cool. That's a good middle ground, I think, of still having the option but not taking too many risks. So, Cointaker, we found just from exploring your huge, massive warehouse, is a lot more than just pinball machines. You have a topper company, you have parts business, pinball mods, LED lights, one of the biggest printers I think I've ever seen for printing banners and posters. Is there any area of pinball that would be exciting for you to get into? I'm waiting for him to tell me he's going to make his own beef with some butt head pinball. Have you homebrewed anything? Well, he took us over to your buddy's mom's house, and we saw that Hershey Bears pinball. It was phenomenal. I have things that bounce around my head. Don't do it. If you do, if I knew an artist, if I knew an artist, then I'd totally do it. But here's the thing, if you made your own Beavis and Bud, you would lose your passion to have it get made. And we'll never get one. You'll have yours, but will that really be as good as if somebody makes one? No, I don't think so. Yeah, so it takes a lot of fancy hats to make one. But you can still think, like, oh, well, what if, and I don't, I think it would be cool just to do a classic wedge head with some cool artwork and theme. that doesn't have to be too intricate. Like, we're playing Dr. Pinn's Stars game. I had a great time. It's so much butt kicking that makes me so mad, but I just got to hit the button one more time. One more game. I know I can beat it, but on that stage, you'll love to have to pick that game. I actually think we're happy where we're at. Yeah, we're doing good. I think that we've really gone beyond all of our dreams and, you know. I'm hoping we can do a tailgate party number two maybe next year. We're up for that. It won't be so last minute and we can expand upon it and include more people. Hopefully post-COVID everyone's got their immunizations and we can do it like we really want. We can all touch and hug. That's right. Staying six feet apart. That's on you, Francis. This tailgate party that we did this year was kind of a fluke. because I was just coming out to see you guys. Christian and the Marquettes live relatively close together, and I'm out in Michigan. So we've been begging you to come for weeks and months. And then just sort of almost as a goof, I just made a logo that said Super Awesome. You know, since you guys were kind of planning on doing an open house, you know, well, let's just invite people to come out. And it's in two weeks' time, a week and a half's time, it's gone out of control into like some sort of real event. at the last minute. I mean, a lot of people called and said that they would love to come, but they couldn't make it. But we still had 250 people out there. It was a good turnout. Yeah, there was, like, free food. There was, oh, my God, the, well, let's get through. Before we forget, let's thank some people here. Zach Brown. Zach is the meat man. The meat man. Nobody left the meat hungry. They did. It was their fault. Zach is cook supreme. He made steaks. He made pulled pork. He made turkey. And Christian, I didn't get one, but you had one on the steaks. He said it was the best steak you had ever had. It was up there. It was top three. I mean, I had to go and take a photo of the rub that he used on the steak because it was so freaking good. So, yes, kudos to him. He did that all for everyone who was there. Huge buffet of food, which was all good. And what does Zach rub his meat with? Now you're getting personal. But his stinks get rubbed with Greek pepper is what he uses, which I had to take a picture. I've never heard of it. But that's the secret. That's the secret. Yeah, that's the secret sauce. Yeah, and Zach came up there just to sort of offer his services. Now, a little background on Zach. Zach called me up one day and said he wanted to do something nice for the market and wanted to buy a Wonder Woman poster from me. And I said, well, if it's for them, I'm not charging. So I sent it out to him. I don't know if he told you that or not. He mentioned that you wouldn't take any money. Yeah, he was completely willing to pay, so it's not on him. But I said because it was for you guys, I wanted to donate to you. So I sent him out the post for free. He sent it to you guys. And as a thank you to me, he sent me probably four times the value of the print. And steaks and crap from one of those meat places. Omaha Steak. Omaha Steak. Yeah. So I have a freezer full of food at home from this guy. Like, what a sweetheart. Pinball people are awesome. So, speaking of, also, Cassie Clock, Scott Marquette, your son. My daughter. Oh, Cassie's your daughter, that's right. And Lisa Martina and Bob and Amy Butch, all for helping out with the food and the setting up and the cleanup and all that. It was, like I said, for something stupid that we weren't even planning on being a real event, it just turned into, because of you guys, really, you know some things you just get one thing leads to another leads to another and yeah we just had a great day the Carl Weathers was perfect pinball machines were dinged yeah it was a lot of fun and we can't thank you guys enough for doing that for us thank you guys we appreciate you guys coming off and it was awesome and thanks to everybody that came out and had a good time it was a lot of fun so to close things up yeah thank you guys so much for spending time with us tonight and answering some questions people wanted to know what the world of distributing is And I think you guys shed a little light on it, so thank you. What is the best part, do you think, of being a pinball distributor? What would you guys say? I'll let you each answer that. You know, a new game gets released, and we get a first. That is a huge perk. To be honest, you know, that's a good perk. Especially as a pinball fanatic. And then you can call your buddies up, Hey, come on over, I got some here, you know. So that is fun. You can take videos and send it to Kaneda. I mean, wait. actually I think I like getting the phone calls from the people thanking me that they think the game is totally awesome their kids love it or their husband loves it I just had a lady order an Avengers Pro for her husband for a birthday present that you know so it was a surprise and so it's nice when you see the excitement in people or you hear the excitement in their voices and they'll call you and thank you for such a you know, providing such an amazing game for them. The positive feedback, that's got to be huge. It is. He's working in a prison. That's right. So, you know, I think that's my biggest joy is hearing the excitement in people's voices about getting their game and how much they love it. You know, we've all done something prior in our lifetime to get us to where we are now. And me, for sure. I mean, I got into pinball much later on. 2016 was only four years ago. you know and I'm 54 so it took a child who's 50 years old to get into pinball but I realized like my motto in life is I hate people because as a general rule I know I talk to you about that occasionally but I have to say and I'm sure you guys would too that pinball people are some of the most nicest amazing people on the planet absolutely because I've not experienced that sort of thing with anything else that I've done it's the common glue that bonds people together We have diverse people sitting right here. Yeah. But the love of the silver ball. That's it. So, that wraps it up. Let's have sex. Thank you, guys. Hello. All right, that does it for episode number 17 of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. But before we go, let's reveal the winner of the Guns N' Roses mini play field. Chris, we need to have these competitions more often because we've never gotten more emails to our podcast than we did for this. People really wanted that. We have signed mini play field from Guns N' Roses. and a lot of guesses were ridiculously close. It was tricky because there were more than 600 lights, which was what was written on the flyer, but it was never really said exactly how many there were, and there were a wide range of guesses, anywhere from 600 exactly to, I think, like 680-something was the highest number, but one person came within two LEDs from the correct answer and is the winner. So why don't you announce who that is, Chris? And the winner, with a guess of 613, is Mr. Kevin Peterson. All right, Kevin. Yes, the correct number was 615. So Kevin is the closest to a 613. So congratulations, Kevin. You get the team signed mini play field from Guns N' Roses. Congratulations, buddy. That is a kick-ass prize, man. Congratulations. Oh, and by the way, Keith P. Johnson was on the final round podcast, and he said it was 621. Wrong. That was a very exact number for something that Eric said is not correct. So I know that threw a couple people off. We got like seven emails right away after that episode aired. It was all at 621. 621. So anyone that gets 621, I want you to email Keith P. Johnson right now and call him a boner. Yes. Eric said the right number is 615, so we have to go with that. And Kevin came awfully close to that. We'll get that out to you ASAP. Yep. And thanks to Jersey Jack for sponsoring this contest and providing the prize. That was awesome. Thanks to Eric for joining us for that episode. That was really good. If you guys haven't listened to that, go back and listen to episode 16. Also, we'd like to thank Drew and Ian for being our co-hosts. They did a fantastic job. And we'd like to also thank our favorite sponsors, Chris and Melissa Marquette from Cointaker, for sitting down with us for a chat. And one final huge thank you to Cointaker Pinball for throwing such a kick-ass tailgate party this weekend. We had such a great time. I know about 250 other people who had a really good time, too. So thank you guys again, and we are really psyched to do it again next year. Well, Christian, would you like to share the date we have scheduled for the super awesome pinball tailgate bash number two? I would love to. There's a few things we're trying to do to up the ante a little bit next year. Get some big name involvement, but I won't spoil anything. Musical entertainment. Saturday, October 25th of 2021 is the sequel to the awesome event that they held this year. So we'll hopefully see you guys there. That's right. And yes, we do love our sponsors, Chris and Melissa, very much. So thank you guys. Don't forget, you can get your super awesome pinball swag at silverballswag.com. You can send us any questions you want to, what's that email address, Christian? That would be superawesomepinball at gmail.com. That's right. And don't forget to tune in to our next episode, number 18, where we will have the ultra handsome Jack Danger, where you will discover what job he had for two days that he had to quit because it was, quote, too handsy, unquote. All right, everybody, we love you. We will see you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you later. See you later. If you'd like to drop us a line or ask a question, we can be reached at superawesomepinball at gmail.com. Questions or comments may be read on the air. The original content of this podcast is copyright 2020 ASFAT Radio Productions. The commentary and opinions shared by the cast and guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsors, Coin Taker, Chicago Gaming Company, and Back Alley Creations. Their sponsorships of this show only serve to add to their continuing support of the pinball community. I'm gonna take that attention What we're doing here ain't just gaming It's the problem we're dealing with Okay, okay, show's over, bye-bye Bye-bye Hey, that fucking chalupa sucks, bitch Now it's time for some funny bloopers Get a first impression from a number of the people who were there Hold on, let me restart that And we sidelined a bunch of people. Oh, fuck. And we sidelined a bunch of people. A bunch, duh. And we sidelined a lot of different people, and we asked them their opinion on the game, and we were going to... Dude, I feel like I'm drunk right now. Oh, jeez, fuck. All right. So we sidelined a bunch of people who were playing the game, and we asked them... Jesus H. Okay. So we sidelined a bunch of people who played the game And we asked them their opinion of what they thought And here That was horrible So this weekend we Alright That was a struggle Shut up Oh my god I don't care Are you not entertained Are you not entertained Is this not why you are here It was very satisfying.