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Episode 3: Starting A Gameroom

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 9s·analyzed·Feb 7, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Loser Kid hosts debate theme viability and provide gameroom startup guidance.

Summary

Joshua Roop and Scott Larson discuss potential pinball themes (Monty Python, Evil Dead, James Bond, Angry Birds) and their viability as games, concluding most lack market relevance or translate poorly to pinball mechanics. They then pivot to practical advice for starting a home game room, emphasizing community connection, hands-on play testing, and avoiding themed purchases based solely on IP appeal without gameplay consideration.

Key Claims

  • Medieval Madness essentially already captures the Monty Python vibe, making a dedicated Monty Python pinball redundant

    high confidence · Scott and Joshua comparing Medieval Madness to hypothetical Monty Python game; Scott notes the castle and French character already deliver the Monty Python feel

  • Comedy from older films (Caddyshack, Fletch) doesn't age well because humor is era-dependent, making dated comedies poor pinball themes for younger audiences

    high confidence · Joshua discusses watching Caddyshack recently and finding it painful; notes comedy locks into when you experience it

  • Evil Dead TV series (Ash vs. Evil Dead) was canceled after 2-3 seasons, limiting franchise relevance for a pinball game

    medium confidence · Joshua states the series got canceled after just two or three seasons; general industry knowledge about the show's short run

  • James Bond theme would need to be era-specific (Sean Connery) to work, as modern James Bond (Daniel Craig films) feel dated and tone-deaf

    high confidence · Joshua and Scott discuss that Sean Connery would work like Batman 66, while Daniel Craig version wouldn't sell as well; Roger Moore could work

  • A Sean Connery James Bond pinball would sell to the same demographic as Batman 66, Superman, and Beatles-themed games (men in 60s-70s)

    medium confidence · Scott notes that nostalgia drives sales for retro-themed games among older audiences

  • Angry Birds was a major licensing property that pitched a pinball machine concept with planned Pro and Premium versions, where Premium would feature a P3-style full playfield screen

    medium confidence · Joshua discusses Highway Pinball's planned Angry Birds pitch; mentions premium version would have TV screen-like playfield

  • Video game IP (Street Fighter 2, Mario, Angry Birds, PUBG, Candy Crush) does not translate to traditional pinball, better suited for ticket redemption/gambling machines

    high confidence · Joshua and Scott agree pinball hasn't successfully adapted video game themes since the 1990s; Joshua states gaming themes work for redemption, not pinball

Notable Quotes

  • “Medieval Madness is Monty Python... I really see no benefit for making a Monty Python game when it feels like you almost already have one”

    Scott Larson @ early in episode — Core thesis for dismissing Monty Python as viable pinball theme due to thematic redundancy

  • “People need to realize that their dream theme is not necessarily a marketable theme... Spooky has made an entire business model of catering to niche themes that other companies wouldn't be interested in”

    Scott Larson @ mid-episode during Evil Dead discussion — Key insight about niche vs. mass-market themes and Spooky's differentiation strategy

  • “Daniel Craig blamed Mike Myers along with Austin Powers for ruining the James Bond franchise... No one could take James Bond seriously anymore”

    Joshua Roop @ James Bond segment — Industry fact about Bond franchise perception decline; explains theme dating problem

  • “I think pinball hasn't made a video game pinball machine since the 90s with Street Fighter 2 or the Mario games... Gaming themes do not translate to pinball”

    Joshua Roop @ Angry Birds discussion — Historical observation about failed video game IP adaptation in pinball

  • “Do not want your first game to be a project game. Don't buy a $5,000 game for $2,000 that just needs a little work... You're going to hate it”

    Joshua Roop @ gameroom advice section — Direct, actionable advice for new collectors based on experience

  • “Start with a focal piece and then work out from there... Figure out what vibe do you want people to have when they get into the room”

    Scott Larson @ gameroom setup discussion — Core design philosophy for themed arcade spaces

  • “The best way to buy games is really from other players... You can say, 'Here's my budget, what would you recommend?'”

    Joshua Roop @ buying advice section — Community-first purchasing strategy emphasized

Entities

Joshua RooppersonScott LarsonpersonBen HeckpersonMonty PythongameEvil DeadgameMedieval MadnessgameJames Bondgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Repurposing existing video game IPs for pinball consistently fails; historical pattern from 1980s-90s (Defender, Space Invaders, Baby Pac-Man, Monopoly) to modern era shows fundamental disconnect between game-first IP and pinball mechanics

    high · Joshua: 'all the games that they have tried to repurpose into a pinball machine and it always seems to not work... 80s arcade revolution, they tried Defender, Space Invaders, Baby Pac-Man, Monopoly... theme integration never works'

  • ?

    community_signal: Local pinball community connections are critical to successful game acquisition and gameroom development; peer recommendations and hands-on play testing essential before purchase to avoid costly buyer's remorse

    high · Joshua: 'best way to buy games is really from other players... find out kind of local areas that play pinball... you can avoid buying something purely on theme that really is a bad playing game... don't buy a project game as first purchase'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Spooky Pinball's business model explicitly built around niche/cult themes (Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie) that mass-market manufacturers like Stern avoid; differentiation strategy based on underserved collector demographics

    high · Scott: 'Spooky has made an entire business model of kind of catering to those niche themes that other companies probably wouldn't be interested in. You have Stern doing ACDC, Metallica... And Spooky does Alice Cooper and Spooky does Rob Zombie'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Video game IP fundamentally does not translate to traditional pinball; gaming mechanics and narrative structure incompatible with pinball design philosophy which works best with movie/story themes and chapter-based progression

    high · Joshua: 'pinball hasn't made a video game pinball machine since the 90s with Street Fighter 2 or Mario Games... Gaming themes do not translate to pinball. It translates more to movies... trying a theme a story, chapters end goals'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.171

0:00
Welcome to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. I am your host, Joshua Roop. I have got my co-host here with me.
0:08
Hello, Scott Larson. And this is episode three. How are you doing today, Scott? Well, we had about over a foot of snow, and so I've been barely...
0:19
We have a big, long driveway, so I spent about an hour just trying to carve a small road so I can get to and from my garage. But other than that, it's pretty good. I know what you mean. I've been shoveling my driveway. I shoveled it this morning, then for lunch, and then for dinner. So it's been pretty crazy with the snowfall that we've been having lately.
0:39
Yeah. Well, we're in the middle of a drought, so that's probably good. Yeah, that's probably good. Well, I was planning on being up there for the tournament on Saturday because they're doing the Munsters release party, and they're going to be giving away the stuff for the Stern Army, but with the weather the way it is, and them having avalanches on the highway up to there, I don't think I'll be making it. yeah it'd be kind of awkward i would love to go there but i have my work party so i can't make it it's kind of a terrible time to do a party i mean but how could they have guessed that we were going to have like the polar vortex in the east and then you know 10 inches 12 inches of snow in the west so yeah well someone will get a cool trans light and maybe i'll buy from them yeah hey so um i've been listening to a lot of podcasts lately and i've been listening to the ben heck stuff but i wanted to talk about the two titles he was talking about uh monty python which i grew up with i love monty python the holy grail and they also talked about an evil dead movie what are your thoughts so monday python came out in 1975 okay okay and in the 80s it became this big cult thing uh i i grew up in 74 i was born in 74 and so i've probably seen the holy grail over 100 times and that was the the movie to watch in the 80s and 90s the problem is i just don't see it being a viable theme for pinball it feels like it's been done i the way i look at it is medieval madness is monty python that's really the vibe that they're going for so i really see no benefit for making a a monty python game when it feels like you almost already have one i totally agree oh i totally agree i mean looking at medieval madness you got the french guy that's harassing you just like the French guy in the castle. You have, the nice part is they had the freedom with medieval madness. And so like, you've got the kookiness of the princesses. You've got some other stuff there. I know they had mentioned a black knight toy where as you hit him, his limbs fall off. But really, I think the castle is like the best thing they've done so far for the, they could have done, you know, I don't know. I just, I don't know how big of, I don't feel Monty Python is relevant enough today. to justify a pinball machine just for itself i think it feels a little bit like a been there done that yeah um it would be the same thing as if they if they released a caddyshack pinball machine there's a there's a huge following but guess what they already did the knockoff with no good gophers well and teed off as well and teed off and so it seems like oh okay great and now you're going to release the official one it it seems like a um it's missed its window yeah I agree. Well, and I'll put this to point too. I'm, I am 31 now and I watched Caddyshack for the first time a couple years ago. I didn't painful. Well, it is kind of painful. I'm, I didn't grow up in that era. I kind of was scratching my head at the end of it. Like, what did I just watch? And then I was talking to some friends and like, well, you didn't grow up in that era. So, yes. I think when you watch a comedy show it kind of locks into when you watch it because unlike drama, comedy doesn't age very well because either the jokes either get politically incorrect or it's just the humor of the time doesn't match what it was back then I grew up, again, the same era in the 80s and 90s And Fletch is so funny to me, but I wonder what someone would think if they watched Fletch now versus kind of the frame of reference. Because when I watch it, I'm still back in like 1983. You know, I'm a 10-year-old kid. But if someone else watches it, they may say, yeah, this is not funny. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

  • The best approach to starting a pinball game room is to connect with local pinball communities first, play extensively before buying, and avoid buying project games as first purchases

    high confidence · Joshua provides direct advice: get into local scene via Facebook groups, play many games before buying, never buy a flipped project as first machine

    • “Angry Birds... I could see if it was like a redemption machine maybe doing really well inside a nickel mania but other than that it just doesn't go anywhere”

    Joshua Roop @ Angry Birds design critique — Assessment that some themes work better for ticket/redemption games than traditional pinball

    Angry Birdsgame
    Highway Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Munstersgame
    Attack from Marsgame
    Monster Bashgame
    World Cup Soccergame
    P3 (Multimorphic P3)product
    Batman 66game
    Caddyshackgame
    Jeff Riveraperson
    Stern Armyevent
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Angry Birds pinball layout fundamentally mismatched to pinball mechanics; tower-shooting focus and bash toy-heavy design (5 bash toys) inappropriate for traditional pinball; better suited for ticket redemption/nickel arcade format

    high · Joshua detailed analysis: 'five bash toys doesn't work for a pinball machine... would work for a ticket redemption game... that's basically kitty gambling'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Comedy/humor-based IP ages poorly and becomes culturally dated; audience experience of comedic material is era-locked, making older comedies poor pinball themes for younger/newer audiences who weren't present during original cultural moment

    high · Joshua: 'comedy doesn't age very well because either the jokes either get politically incorrect or the humor of the time doesn't match... I grew up in 80s and 90s and Fletch is so funny to me, but I wonder what someone would think if they watched Fletch now'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: James Bond licensing may require exclusive era-specific actor representation; unclear if multi-Bond retrospective (like Doctor Who collecting model) is possible due to Bond IP structure treating character as singular ongoing entity

    medium · Joshua raises concern about GoldenEye Wii remake precedent where Pierce Brosnan was replaced with Daniel Craig; questions if retrospective multi-Bond game possible

  • $

    market_signal: Stern gravitating toward retro/nostalgia themes (James Bond, potential Monty Python era focus) targeting older demographic; pattern consistent with Munsters and Batman 66 success with 60s-70s age cohort

    medium · Scott: 'Stern doing ACDC, Metallica... Spooky does Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie... I think we're seeing a lot more of Stern gravitating towards those themes because they do sell'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Highway Pinball allegedly pitched Angry Birds pinball concept with Pro and Premium versions where Premium featured full P3-style digital playfield; timing and accuracy of information unclear; raises questions about leaked/speculative nature

    low · Joshua: 'Highway supposedly had planned that there would be a pro and a premium and on the premium the whole play field would be essentially like a p3 system where the whole play field's like the tv screen' [speculation about Highway's sourcing and timing]

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community perception of themed games shifting; hosts demonstrate that well-designed mechanics can overcome weak theme appeal (Munsters example), suggesting theme-first purchasing is outdated approach

    medium · Scott: 'Munsters as a theme doesn't speak to me, but after seeing the pinball machine, I wouldn't mind putting a couple plays on it... if you do it right, a theme doesn't become a hindrance'

    • 4:42
    And the other theme he talked about was Evil Dead. Personally, me, I'm not a huge Evil Dead fan. I was actually in a band for 10 years and I met with plenty of different types I was in a pop punk band and we had an authentic goth rock band come through and every stop they would watch Evil Dead and so when they stayed at my house we watched Evil Dead, it was my first time this was 10 plus years ago and so watching it, I didn't get it Like, it just was too, it had the campy vibe and everything to it, but there was just some of it that I just thought was a little much. I just, I don't see Evil Dead translating very well into a pinball. Like, it could be fun, but then again, how relevant is Evil Dead? I know that they had the new TV series with Ash versus the Evil Dead, and it kind of got canceled after just two or three seasons, if I remember correctly. So I don't know if it would be, it wouldn't be good location pinball. I don't know. What do you think? I don't know. Again, I think people need to realize that their dream theme is not necessarily a marketable theme.
    5:56
    And that I think there are a lot of people who are into that, but is it going to be worth making a game out of it? Now, that being said, Spooky has made an entire business model of kind of catering to those niche themes that other companies probably wouldn't be interested in. You have Stern doing ACDC, Metallica, all these bands that have sold over 100 million albums. And Spooky does Alice Cooper and Spooky does Rob Zombie. And so there is a little niche there. I can see it. However, it's one of those things that I have no interest in. Yeah, true. But I'm also not the only demographic out there. So maybe there is something, but I would really want to do some market research before I did a pinball machine with all that effort and then find out no one wants it. Yeah. Well, and there could be some really cool stuff. I mean, one of the biggest themes of Evil Dead was kind of the basement and the book. and so it'd be kind of cool to see them do like a basement theme with it but i don't know if spooky's in that place just yet to be i don't know doing levels that depth of a pinball machine and i could be entirely wrong maybe making a a lower play field isn't as that big of a deal so i think making a fun lower play field is that big of a deal or if you're gonna have a if you're gonna have congo where you just have amy like punching the you know the ball back and forth oh come on Button mashing is always fun, right? Hey, trust me. I grew up in the 80s. Button mashing is all the rage. But yes. Yeah. Yeah, so I just don't know if that's something that would really be marketable. However, I know that there's a huge cult following. And every time they do one of those fan conferences, he always comes and he has a big following. And so it could be just one of those things where I'm not the demographic, so I don't get it. there probably is a demographic out there that could get it. Well, I think Munsters is a good example because there's a lot of younger generation in pinball right now. Munsters as a theme doesn't speak to me, but after seeing the pinball machine, I wouldn't mind putting a couple plays on it. I don't know if I'd necessarily buy it out of the box, but I mean, it's definitely, you do it right, I think a theme doesn't become a hindrance. It becomes maybe just some side art for people that aren't necessarily into that theme. so it seems interesting basically there's a reason why certain games sell the way they do it and it's because they have the right theme with the game if you had lord of the rings the pinball machine but it was i don't know buffy the vampire slayer or hello kitty island adventure or something it probably wouldn't have that mesh of people being interested in buying it i mean i i said on my last episode. I bought my first pinball machine based on theme alone. It was Simpsons. Yep. And I saw it and I said, yeah, that sounds fun. So, well, that's why I bought my first pinball machine and it was a Gottlieb Spider-Man. I like Spider-Man. Yeah. So I, I, I would upgrade to the Stern one if I were you. I know. Yeah. I think it's just challenging and that that's the magic in trying to find what works. So, uh, Evil Dead and Medieval Madness, they really wouldn't be big sellers for me. I agree. Moving on, you've heard the new Stern stuff, right? The James Bond pin coming out.
    9:33
    Yeah. I'm sorry, it feels the same thing. From Doctor No all the way up. How long have we had this theme kicking around? It feels like Jaws 55 at this point.
    9:49
    They basically had to reinvent James Bond when the Bourne Identity movies came out because they made him look so unbelievably dated with the Roger Moore James Bond and even the Pierce Brosnan one. It just feels like that's something of a different era. I just don't know if there's a market for it. Maybe there is. Well, and here's the interesting part. Daniel Craig, the current James Bond, actually blamed Mike Myers along with Austin Powers for ruining the James Bond franchise for making fun of James Bond and making it too silly and that no one could take James Bond seriously anymore he's right the reason why Austin Powers is so funny is because it points out how ridiculous all these things are but also James Bond really was it's such a dated theme it's the you have this this playboy spy guy from the 60s which yeah in 60s america all those things he does may seem kind of cool but it seems really dated and very tone deaf in today's america true yeah well and the other the other concern that i had um i don't know if you played the n64 golden eye but they remade that a decade later for the Wii and then which subsequently went on to be ported to the Xbox and the PlayStation but when they updated it I mean Pierce Brosnan was the James Bond of Goldeneye well when they updated it I don't know what kind of agreement they have but Daniel Craig was put in place of Pierce Brosnan so I don't know if you made a James Bond pin today if it would then require that you have only Daniel Craig on there. I don't know if they'd be able to have the back catalog of all the other Bonds per se because Bond's technically one guy, and so the face of Bond is the current Bond. I don't know. Yeah, I think it would be hard to do a retrospective. I think it would have to be kind of an era, like the Daniel Craig, James Bond movies. I don't think you could do all of the James Bond movies because it just doesn't work oh come on it could be like Doctor Who and you can collect all the James Bonds that would be fantastic and if they had like a teleporter in there that goes back in time yeah because that's in the James Bonds movies there was a really interesting fan about James Bond that I really liked however they kind of undermined it with what was the one where M died this is the last news okay this is my this is my confession i've honestly never seen a james bond all movie all the way through i saw okay i i saw a little bit of golden eye and then i've seen okay i think all of casino royale and really the only thing i remember from concierge royale is where they strip him naked and they're beating him with like a ball and i'm like yeah that's what the crap is this yes yeah that's cringe worthy the casino royale was them trying to be uh the born identity movies yeah um with the um actually i think golden eye is a great james bond movie because it still captures that um i'm a spy but it's not too out of it um yeah the uh but uh there's the one where they uh they had uh james bond go up to his home and it was like no it's the bond manor where you know whatever and i thought the fan theory that i thought was really interesting where they said James Bond is an alias. It's not really the person. That's why it can be different people as it goes through time.
    13:36
    They kind of shot that down, which I thought was kind of sad. It seems like a data theme. I just don't see... Maybe there's enough people out there, but I think that they would have to do a Sean Connery. If they did a Sean Connery James Bond, then I think it would sell to the same people that bought Batman 66, that are buying Superman, whatever version they're doing, and the Beatles. It's that era of the guys who are in their 60s and 70s. Oh yeah, well the guys that grew up with it. It's that nostalgia that speaks to them. And I think there is a market for James Bond but I think it also the same market as like you saying Munsters Batman 66 And they obviously going to sell decent numbers or they wouldn be doing a theme like this I think we're seeing a lot more of Stern gravitating towards those themes because they do sell for them. Yes, but it'd have to be the retro. I think it would have to be the retro. I think if they came out with the Daniel Craig one, I think that it wouldn't sell nearly as well as a Sean Connery one. Yeah, I totally agree. well even a roger moore would do well i think as well so yeah yeah there's a few of those titles that are cringe worthy yeah so i don't know i don't know which one it is but i clicked on uh it was just like a james bond marathon and there's one where he like you know waltzes into his hotel room and then someone like released a snake to kill him and he flips around with hairspray and lighter and and fries it to death and i'm like what the heck am i watching yeah it's actually i yeah the movie you're thinking of it's it's yeah it's actually a fun one it's one of my favorites but i don't even know if i'd say it on this podcast because it just seems like when you say that you're like really they named a movie that um so uh so moving on uh we're kind of telling you about different themes yeah so another thing that they mentioned that uh they were that they were thinking of doing was Angry Birds. And I kind of want to get your take on this one. You know, I've had a week to think about this because just with everyone talking about it, I went through the flyer very, very thoroughly. At first glance, I thought, you know, for a game of this, I wouldn't say caliber, the presentation of it, I thought, you know, the towers are really cool. I love how they spin. I actually thought it was really cool that they had the shooter that popped up through the middle of the flippers and it appeared that you would shoot a ceramic ball or an egg at the pigs or at the towers or whatever it may be but for shots wise there was like one ramp and that ramp had a diverter so it could divert back to the left or right flipper and i didn't know what they had planned there but really i don't think shooting towers is what a lot of people would enjoy um it might be a good nickel arcade style pinball machine because kids are all about like fruit ninja and angry birds and all those titles and so i could see if it was like a redemption machine maybe doing really well inside of a nickel mania but other than that it just i don't see it going anywhere so yeah and and i think you hit you hit the nail on the head is um having five bash toys doesn't work for a pinball machine um but it would work for a ticket redemption game and so i think if you had which is basically kitty gambling right yep because that's what the kids do um here's my thing when i hear something like angry birds think of all the games that they have tried to repurpose into a pinball machine and it always seems to not work right just off the top of my head they have even back in the day when they were when the uh in the 80s in the arcade revolution they tried like oh let's do defender oh you know even before that let's you know space invaders let's do baby pac-man let's do you know let's do monopoly so you're doing all these games that are games first and then they're trying to repurpose them into a pinball machine and the theme integration never works yeah it always feels like a knockoff and when i saw the angry birds layout it made me think of the kids game that i have downstairs which is a teenage mutant ninja troll game that i got for five bucks that is something you buy at toys r us or walmart for 40 bucks yeah and that's kind of the vibe i got from it i look at that and i say i just don't see me ever really wanting to do this well and the other interesting part too is is highway supposedly had planned that there would be a pro and a premium and on the premium the whole play field would be essentially like a p3 system where the whole play field's like the tv screen yeah i just i don't know maybe it was best see i think p3 if they did angry birds i can actually see that because they're kind of it's kind of blurring the line a little bit with a traditional pinball machine and different options i think p3 could really integrate it very well oh yeah but i think as a traditional pinball machine i think it's a non-starter yeah i just part of me was kind of, I would have liked to see it come to fruition and at least see a prototype out at a pinball show just to kind of see where it was going. But we'll never know. That was, what intrigues me is I want to know how Jeff gets this information because this has obviously been around for years now. When they pitched the idea, Angry Birds was big, what, five, ten years ago? Sure. So, I mean, Highway wasn't around that long, but even at five years ago, So it makes you wonder, A, how he gets this information, and B, why it got kept quiet so long.
    19:40
    Well, I don't know. I bet there's a lot of these brainstorming sessions and maybe some arrested development sessions that we probably never hear of.
    19:53
    Yeah, I don't know. It's the same type of thing. Also, when you're trying to capitalize on a gimmick, are they going to do a Flappy Bird's pinball machine next? Yeah. Or, you know, the Angry Birds movie came out basically like two years too late because people had already stopped playing Angry Birds. And so this is the challenge of having like video games from movies or something like that, where you're kind of trying to time that at the same time. But it just never really works because the movie's not done before the release. they have enough time to say, okay, here's the complete movie. Now take two years and make a pinball machine. Yeah. Well, and the other thing too is we haven't made a video game, or sorry, pinball hasn't made a video game pinball machine since the 90s with what's Street Fighter 2 or the Mario games. Yeah, and those were great. Yeah, they were fantastic. Again, just another thing that it's a gaming theme that does not translate to pinball. True. I think there are some gaming themes out there that would translate well, but I don't think mobile games are even in that realm whatsoever. I don't see us doing a PUBG or a Candy Crush pinball machine. I know there's some people out there who would love a Candy Crush, but I just don't see it. Okay. Those things would work well for Ticket Redemption and Slot Machine. Yep.
    21:21
    That's it. It's the gambling side of things that I think those theme integrations would work really well for, even Angry Birds you could probably use something like that but I just don't see it Pinball it translates more to movies in you're trying a theme a story, chapters end goals it just doesn't seem to work with a lot of other games well and obviously Angry Birds was licensing everything left and right there was Angry Birds board games and obviously there's a movie these guys were probably pretty smart with their licensing so whatever they saw in the pinball machine probably was a good idea that they backed off so yeah well and uh and the um and the person running highway yeah well we don't know what point this was pitched at we don't know if that's true alien was a disaster yet at this point there's a lot of unanswered questions but i don't know It's cool to see these. There's the, oh, what's the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that they made, The Pinball Machine, that never came to fruition. Predator? You mean the guy that didn't have any licensing agreements? Well, not that. No, no. No, the Total Recall, the V-shaped cabinet. I mean, there's just stuff like that. It's cool to see. I mean, that's years ago, but it's cool to see this stuff come out. and yeah but uh actually a movie that that i still want to see is the the kroll pinball machine the kroll you're so you when i was like five to ten kroll was an awesome movie it was totally i'm sure today it would be horrible to watch but the pinball machine it looks like a mini playfield but actually underneath it's a entire playfield it's huge for a mini playfield but the way they have it shrunk down in the viewing screen i'm sure just that feature alone would have cost them way too much to mass produce oh yeah i have heard this that would have been interesting i think head-to-head talked about it a couple episodes it's been two or three months but yeah they talked about it was like a magnifying glass so that way you could see the whole play field yeah so no that would be cool i would like to see that one well i know that you and i have been talking for the last couple weeks about maybe theming our podcast. And so we want to talk about game rooms, where else to start, but a home game room when you're talking about pinball machines, right?
    23:51
    Absolutely. So, um, how did you, how did you start your game room? You know, my game room is still a work in progress. Um, I have started picking, um, I have the games, but right now I don't have a theme. I would love to get my friend on, though, and he has what looks like an amazing themed room downstairs. He painted his entire ceiling as a Pac-Man, and then on the walls he has Mario.
    24:28
    And so I look at that, and this is aspirational to me. Like, I don't even know what else I what I could possibly do. But what I think, though, is you need to start with what do you want your room to be? OK, because for me, a game room is kind of an escape in that, hey, there's so much stuff we're doing we're dealing with in real life. and this is kind of a way of escaping and getting to this is this has nothing to do with you know with politics religion with uh with anything else that's going on in life and this is just going back to being that 12 year old kid and hey we're having fun um so that's the main question i would ask is what do you what kind of vibe do you want your game room to have what what have you done for your game room? Honestly, my game room is my garage. And it's unpainted walls. It's band posters. There's not really much to it. I guess I really haven't thought much about having a game room. But again, we're trying to sell our home and buy a new home. And the new home, hopefully, the new home we're looking at, I can turn into a game room. I think I would want to theme it around my favorite pinball machines.
    25:45
    Because Attack from Mars, Monster Bash, Medieval Madness. I really love the ballet Williams stuff, which is funny for me to say because I didn't grow up in the 90s era with pinball machines. But that's kind of what I gravitate towards to mates because of my level of gameplay that I can play towards. But I feel a satisfaction of completing the wizard modes on those ballets. I feel like they're obtainable for my level. And so I would like to do something like that. when I first got into pinball, I was trying to do like a soccer theme because my first pinball machine, well, my second pinball machine was World Cup Soccer. I got kind of, it was World Cup Soccer of 2014, if I remember correctly. And so I bought the World Cup Soccer ball. I did some other stuff, but it didn't really mesh very well. And so I think the problem is, is how do you theme a game room when like stuff you were talking about like mario and pac-man don't necessarily mesh with pinball machines because i i don't strictly want just pinball machines but i don't sure see i'm one of those guys that would love to have an art a four-player arcade that had like a 60 a one or a thousand and one and then that way i didn't have to fill up the whole game room with just arcade machines um i don't know i i just think it'd be hard to theme unless if your themes were like superheroes i mean there's tons of superhero pinball machines that'd be a good one uh bands i mean there's plenty of band ones um i guess you could even go retro at this point you could kind of section them off if you want to um did you did you see on facebook i don't know this is going around a couple months ago but there was a gentleman that when you press a certain button on his Tron arcade machine in the downstairs living room, the whole wall would move. Oh, really? Yeah, when you walked in there, it had medieval madness. It had attack from the wall. Yeah, I have seen that, and I look at that and say that is a very motivated person to have a Disneyland-style themed arcade.
    27:49
    Yeah, I have seen stuff like that, and I think that to start a game room, To start off, manage expectations.
    28:00
    And so start off with a focus piece of, hey, this is a fun thing that it's not serious, but it has to do with gaming. So whether or not it's pinballs or arcade games or whatever your passion is, and have a way of just tying that in. some good ways. Like I bought a, I bought a Mario, a life, well, a life-size Mario. That's about three feet tall that I I bought from some guy who used to run a video game store and he had it for the Nintendo 64 release party and he kept it around all these years so i i bought it used and it just makes me smile every time i see it um that thing is pretty cool every time i go over there like all whenever you have uh tournament nights at your home we're like how do we still hit that without him seeing yeah no absolutely everybody says you know even even jeff rivera said that if i ever sell it that he wants to buy it so and jeff is the nintendo guy his basement is nintendo yeah i told him he gets first dibs um but the uh another way of doing it is find some sort of art that goes along with it so uh i think the tilt cycle um you know that is great stuff you know repurposing old old pinball uh parts and making them art somehow i have another friend who he put uh lights uh you know those programmable lights in his ceiling and so he can turn them on to whatever color and he put back uh he bought a whole bunch of you know trans lights or or uh back glasses and he framed them and he put them on the wall and so that he has a new way of integrating but my my suggestion is start with a focal piece and then kind of work out from there just kind of figure out what vibe do you want people to have when you get into the room yep well and the lighting you're talking about it's like the led stripping all the way around the crown molding of his room, isn't it? Well, there's a few ways of doing it, but even like the Phillips Hue system, which is, it's kind of an expensive system. And so like, again, this is baby steps here, but he has a small room that he put all his pinball machines in. It used to be an office. And he rethemed it. So he has five on one side and five on the other side. And he has the ultraviolet light and he has the carpet. He got a big carpet that reminds him of the 80s, and it's a really cool vibe. And you go in there, and it feels like you're in an arcade. Okay, yeah, cool. But for mine, mine is more of a, hey, this is a fun place to hang out. So I'm trying to, I'm still trying to integrate things. So I guess I'm looking for suggestions. You've got like, what, 10, 12 pinball machines in your basement? It's a fun place to hang out, trust me. Yeah, no, no, it's fun. And I got a popcorn maker, which is always good with the games down there. And so just something that's like, hey, people want to come in and hang out. Yep. Even if it's just you.
    31:05
    How did you start buying your pinball machines, I guess? Where did you start looking for them? So mine was kind of haphazard. I really wasn't into pinball before I bought my first pinball machine. uh what i would recommend people do though is to get tied into your local scene yes um so usually there's like a facebook group or you know find out uh find out kind of local areas that play pinball and you can start getting you know getting a toehold in the community and the best way to buy games is really from other players any local players because you'll be able to say this is what I'm looking for and you'll get to know them well enough to say well if if you trust their advice and if you think they're they're upstanding and they'll say well okay here's my budget what would you recommend they're like well here are the games in your budget um here's some other games that you can look at and that way you can avoid buying something purely on theme that really is a bad playing game well and I think also you kind of hit it on the head is you need to go out not only with your local scene, but find where the best places are for pinball machines, um, and play the crap out of them. Don't be, it's easier to drop 50 bucks inside of, you know, four or five pinball machines and not have any heart or heartbreak over, well, that's not my favorite. Instead of buying a pinball machine, even, you know, kind of use for 4,500, one of the newer sterns and then being like, well, this wasn't what I thought it'd be. And then you have the headache of now I got to sell it and all that jazz too. So I would also point out, you do not want your first game to be a project game. Don't shoot for, don't buy a $5,000 game that you got for 2000 because it just needs a little bit of work. No, buy a game that works and that way, because you're going to hate it. If you buy a game that always needs maintenance, you're going to hate it. and it'll get you out of the hobby faster than you got. Well, I think a lot of it, too, has to do with budget.
    33:16
    So if you're looking for budget pins, this would be my recommendation to you. This is what I've done. Make friends with local arcade owners.
    33:25
    Nine times out of ten, hopefully this isn't your first pinball machine, mate. You're looking for your second or your third. But hit up an arcade owner. Say, hey, I'm looking for some pinball machines. Do you have anything? There was a gentleman, they'll either tell you one of two things. No, I'm not selling you my pinball machines. You can't buy them. Okay, cool. You back off. Or the second one is, I've got three set in the back. None of them work. They turn on or they do whatever quirk it is. And honestly, some of those arcade owners don't know what they're doing. And so it could be something as simple as, like, my World Cup soccer. I'm not going to say how much I bought it for, but I got it for a really good price. and really one of the only things that was wrong with it was it was missing a soundboard. Yeah, it's a $300 fix. Well, and there was other stuff too, missing rollovers, missing this and that. But it was little easy stuff that I could fix myself. It wasn't like gouges in the play field to the point of the ball would get stuck somewhere or look for stuff that you feel comfortable in fixing as well, especially if you're going with budget pinball. And there's nothing wrong with owning a budget pinball machine. I do feel weird now having my World Cup soccer that has one of the plastic rams was broken in a spot, and so there's a metal piece that's there, so it doesn't look fantastic, but it does the job, and it still plays smooth and flowy. It doesn't hang up there, but sitting next to Monster Bash, new out of the box, you kind of look at your other one, and you're like, oh, this doesn't look as great as what I have to the next of it. It just depends on your budget.
    35:06
    I agree. What I am saying, though, is that you should at least your first pin, you should get one that plays. Yes. Because you don't want to just have an expensive box of lights. Yep. I totally agree.
    35:20
    So, well, and I guess that brings us to the next thing we want to talk about. New versus slightly used versus location used. I guess, should we do pros and cons? What do you want to do? Yeah, let's do pros and cons. So, why don't you go first? Let's start with cheapest to expensive. Sounds great to me. I feel more comfortable in the location used bin. So the pro is nine times out of ten, it's going to be fairly cheaper.
    35:49
    You really got to keep an eye on them, though. In our area, there's a local arcade gentleman that thinks that his pins are worth a ridiculous amount of money. Sure. I went and looked at one of his Terminator 2s. It was missing inserts in the play field. The ball would get stuck in the hole where the insert was supposed to be, and he wanted three grand for the Terminator 2. Dang. Yeah. Wow. So there are going to be those people out there, but there are going to be people that will sell you a pinball machine for less than $1,000. So there is that pro. You got that price.
    36:24
    Location used, nine times out of ten, they're those pinball machines you grew up with. So they're themes that you want. They are the Terminator 2s. they're the well not adam's family because that's a little more desirable but uh there's going to be games that were highly produced like it's the volume it's the volume market exactly like the volume market yeah and so um you're gonna you're gonna find one of those pinball machines that you pumped quarters into and you wish you would have owned it when you were 12 and now you can own it now that you're 42 so yeah um cons they're going to be beaten up um i've come to figure out that the outside doesn't really matter as much just because once you slide that pinball machine into place, it usually goes next to another one or it goes next to a wall, so you're not going to be seeing the sides of it. So long as it's not splintering, so long as it's not warped, so long as it's not dry rot, but you got water on it, so you know, swelling of the plywood or whatever. Just make sure those things are affecting it. And then just kind of go over. this is what I do when I go to buy a location pinball machine. I actually watch like Bo and Karen's tutorials for the Papa videos and see how the game should play. Oh, you know, when I shoot this ball here, it should do this. And then that way, when you go to check out the pinball machine, you can kind of push buttons and say, Oh, this, this isn't working or that isn't working. And so, cause you don't want to get at home and then realize like there's parts of it that aren't working at all. And then you should have not bought it because it's going to cost you an extra $500 or $600 because of it. Yeah. Well, that's kind of the lipstick on the pig scenario too where it looks nice, but it's not working. Yep.
    38:16
    And there's a guide, actually a book guide, that I recommend everybody buying a copy of it and just having it as kind of a reference. It's Mr. Pinball. Yep. And there's a book guide that tells about, well, this is roughly how many were produced, and this is kind of what the going rate, and if they think it's going up or down. Now, you do need to take that with a grain of salt. my attitude is if if the market is sustaining 3500 for a machine if a machine is higher quality say like a third you know something that someone's asking 3800 and it's worth it not just someone who's delusional and i'm willing to pay the 3800 because i'd rather just have a game that is a higher quality game but if you can find a game that is well at least you need need to know the going rate and then kind of guesstimate how much work you'd have to put into it.
    39:17
    I think that lets you decide whether or not you want to buy the game. Yeah, I agree. Well, I think that pretty much covers it for location used. What are your thoughts on slightly used?
    39:30
    I am a huge fan of the home use only market. people who have bought them and have had them for a while and they're just ready to move on my simpsons is i don't think you could find a nicer simpsons i think it was just a family who bought it and put it downstairs and probably had less than 50 plays on it and so they in my spider man is basically the same way where it's uh you know i bought it from a family who uh they had moved on and they hadn't played it in years and it still looks like it was new in box um able to get it for a decent price the nice thing about it is you're you're saving on shipping you're especially if you're buying it local you're saving on shipping you're saving on um you're saving on tax you're saying and you're probably getting maybe a thousand to fifteen hundred off depending on what the market's going for. But you get that, you know, kind of that, it doesn't have the new car smell, but it still looks like a new car. Yep. So I think that's a great place. Now, the caution is you need to make sure that they at least have kept it in a place that's not, you know, there's no warp in it or the batteries that they forgot to change 20 years ago. And so you have acid wear on it. But I'm a big fan of that market because that's where I buy most of my games. Well, the thing I like about this market is if you're looking for a new pinball machine, like, say, a Guardians of the Galaxy, it's been out for about a year now.
    41:06
    This is what I love about it is you got people that then see monsters that come out and go, hey, that's what I want. I got to unload one because a lot of us can't. It's more of a room situation or it could be money. But they say, I got to get rid of one. and they usually get rid of the one that they've played for the last six months now they're just sick of even looking at it and so you can find guardians of the galaxy for like 4500 now versus new in box is what 58 and so yeah 53 if you talk them down but yeah no absolutely but you're not paying for shipping yep you're you're you're getting it and yes it that's the thing that people forget about these limited markets so even in like le's if you want le fine and they're sold out fine i guarantee wait a year or wait six months and someone who bought it is going to say oh well the next le is coming out i need to sell this one yep exactly and there's there's there are some of us that hold on to them but there are going to be a handful of people that will say hey it's time to let this deadpool pro go and if you've been playing at your local barcade or your local arcade and you're loving it it's worth the the 4500 or the 5000 just to pick it up and take it home so that's what i think so that's what i like about slightly used so i i i think that's the sweet spot as long as you find the right seller and willing and willing to kind of wait to find the right thing and you also you have to figure out availability though is so if you want to go out and buy a Black Knight 2000 on use only, you're probably not going to find one, at least very readily available However you can find something that is readily available And if you flexible and you don have that one machine that you hunting after you can find something good yeah well i think also um slightly used does fall into a kind of a specific category like you said it's going to be hard to find like a black knight 2000 but i think those newer sterns anything in that last five years jersey jacks you know wizard rods stuff like that um and and a nice part too is with buying slightly used you get all that feedback of hey this is what typically breaks on this pinball machine so take a look and see if this is what's broken or this is a dog this thought you thought this was going to be a big seller and it turned out to be not so big of a seller so if you're a wrestling fan go and pick up that wrestling wrestlemania le or whatever it is exactly so well let's move on to new the only thing I can think of with new that it would be a con is price and you're buying the car off the lot so to speak and you're going to have depreciation the second you drive it off the lot there's no ifs, ands or buts about that but then again you get the new car smell right?
    43:58
    you do, the challenge too is that not all new in boxes are created equal and so they talked about it on slam tilt where they said the irony of dialed in is that when you buy it it's not dialed in yep so you have to figure out how to uh basically how to make a machine work for you just right out of the box because sometimes it doesn't and sometimes there's recalls i had to replace a ramp in my attack from mars le and i bought that new in box yeah and or not not a ramp but uh an orbit thing okay but it's uh so there are little things like that where you are getting the new car and you also don't know where the vulnerabilities are even if it's a brand new a new game or a new old game there's still going to be things that they're fine-tuning and that they are going to fix with time yep well i guess that's what you gotta outweigh is it worth it for me to buy brand new on box? And especially now that they've implemented the new tax code. So you can't buy over state lines without having to pay the tax. Right. Which always seems kind of a, kind of an end around to me. Yeah. Like I actually, I, I'm going to be, you can get out your pitchforks, but I'm going to be one of those guys to say, it's actually a good thing for them to say, no, you really have to pay taxes because just because you're crossing a state line, And it doesn't matter because I think what it does is it brings people back home because it was driving. We don't have a distributor in Utah anymore because it was driving the competition by saying, well, I can buy it from you, who's my local guy, or I can buy it from someone right outside the state lines and I'm getting a $300 credit. That always seemed like it didn't ring true for what was supposed to be going on. And so I'm hoping that with this, with closing that loophole, that it kind of drives people back to their home market. I think it might, but I think there's also a lot of loyalty there. I don't know. But then again, 500 bucks is 500 bucks. I mean, that's. No, it is. And I think that that kind of drives you back to the second because you're not going to be able to on the secondary market, even if it's 50. Let's just say 5500 for a pro. Yeah. If you buy that and you pay a sales tax on it, you're not going to be able to sell it for $5,600.
    46:36
    People don't do that. No, they don't. Well, and I can't remember which podcast it was, but someone had mentioned it could even become a bargaining chip.
    46:44
    Hey, you're not paying tax now on this when you're buying it used. You're saving yourself that extra money on top. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see how that works into everything. Yeah.
    46:56
    No, I agree. So now you've got your new pinball machine sitting in your basement, whether you bought location, whether you bought slightly used or your new. What are your three machines in your game room that you've gravitated towards based on toys? You want to do your one and I'll do one and then we'll just kind of move back and forth like that? Yeah. So I'll say the top three that kind of make me smile every time. So I'll go with my three. So I love the Cannon and Black Rose. Yes. And the cannon is such a cool feature that it goes down underneath the play field and it rotates and then you hit the button and it shoots out from underneath the play field. Every time it does that, I smile just because it's different. It's different than a lot of the games now have the same vibe where they have, you know, a bash toy here, a bash toy there. but it just doesn't have the same sort of ingenuity, I guess, the, the Canada. So I love that every time.
    48:00
    I agree. Um, I wasn't a huge fan of, of black Rose until I came over to your house and actually got some playtime on it. And it is a fun pinball machine because of that. Now I will say I did find tweak it though. So the, when I first got the black Rose, I don't, I didn't really like it as much, but I did, I did a couple of things that really changed things. One, I put Invisiglass on it because that field is super dark anyway. And so finally I was able to see all the way up. And then I got the Penn Stadium lights in it, and it really changed the vibe of the game. So it felt like, oh, this is a modern game. It didn't feel like a game from the early 90s. Yeah. So my first one I'm going to talk about, my first toy, is Thing from Adam's Family. It's very satisfying once you get Greed lit up, and then you do the short plunge right into the scoop and Thing gets rang up by the telephone right next to his box and he comes out and grabs that ball. It puts a smile on my face every time because it's such a cool idea that I guess in the grand scheme of things doesn't really add to the gameplay. I mean, it's really just a magnet grabbing a ball that diverts it somewhere else. But it's just really cool that that was one of the ideas that they had. that it adds to the actual world under glass, so to speak. And it's just, it's awesome. Every time I have someone come over, I'm like, you've got to get it in that scoop so you can see a thing grab the ball. And so it's what people remember. And that's why it's one of my favorite toys. Yeah, I think it's part of the experience. It's part of something fun. Yeah.
    49:42
    So my second one would be the Stern Pirates of the Caribbean, the ship. Oh, yes. I mean, the ship, you hit it, the sails go down, you hit it again, it starts rocking back and forth, and you hit it again, it sinks. And it's the only toy that I can think of that really has three different iterations of how you actually look at it. And since I have a home market and I got an air ball diverter that I put down so I was able to take the sneeze guard off it, it looks even better. so I love that and everyone likes it I say hey hit that ship you'll see something really cool and I love how with that game they integrate also the safety on the first ship so that way the ball is caught and drifted back down towards you as safe as it can do yeah well my next toy that I was thinking of was I don't know if this counts as a toy or not but I'm going for it the goalie and the goal on World Cup soccer. Okay. I love how responsive that system is. You shoot in the goal. It yells goal just like you would in a World Cup game.
    50:59
    If the goalie ends up deflecting it, the announcer is like, oh, that was a great shot, but he blocked it. It gives you a lot of feedback that way, and it's just satisfying. I know people that will come over and play that game, and that's all they do is just shoot for the goal. And I'm like, it's not even lit, guys. Stop shooting for it. They're like, we love it, though. Just keep shooting. And it's more of a shot. But, I mean, with the integration of the goalie moving back and forth, it's one of those games that every time I go back to it, it puts a smile on my face just because that goalie getting it past him and just yelling goal. It's perfect. I love it. Yeah. It's a great feeling. uh my number one is i think everybody's toy number one is the medieval madness castle um i think it's genius uh my kids that's all they want to shoot for is they want to shoot for the castle and i i think that the ability they had to integrate that into a game is kind of mind mind-boggling and so I love having that.
    52:07
    That is always my go-to. If someone says, hey, I have limited space, but I have excess budget, what's one game I'd get? I'd get this one because it caters to easy players. It caters to beginning guys. It caters to experienced guys. The only people it wouldn't really cater to is probably the ultra tournament guys.
    52:31
    You can still make that really hard for that. But that's really such a small market of who's actually buying a game for the home market when you look at the grand scheme of things. So it's always my go-to for people who are new to the game. Well, that's one of my favorites, too. I mean, that's what drew me into pinball. I remember after my first time playing pinball, I asked Sean what the best pinball game out there is, and he said Medieval Madness. And then he described the castle to me, and I had to play it. That's when the pinball arcade had Medieval Madness still on there. so I downloaded it and played the crap out of it. It's one of those toys that is one of those defining traits. So my number one right now in my collection would have to be the Frankenstein Bash toy on Monster Bash. It's a good one. It's fantastic because when it starts up,
    53:26
    it starts with the whole, the scientist is flipping the switch, and Igor's there pumping Frankenstein up, It yells it's alive, and you just start wailing on him. And especially with Chicago Gaming, the integration of the shaker motor along with the new visuals, it's perfect. It's terrible to say, but it feels like you're honestly lighting him on fire. Just because you hit him, it shakes, he goes up in flames. And it's funny because when I originally used to play Monster Bash, it was more for the strategy of starting the modes and then hitting Frankenstein last. but if I don't start a single mode and I start Frankenstein multiball my third ball I'm happy because I I get to beat up Frankenstein so yeah that's honestly my favorite toy right now so yeah it's good and in the way that they have done their le's on their monster bashes it's uh they have taken it and upgraded a classic yes and so you know it's a perfect it's a perfect integration for someone who wants that old school feel. Yep. Well, and going back to, you know, us talking about new in box, I honestly haven't had any issues except for maybe adjusting coil strength on my pinball machine.
    54:43
    I got it out of the box and I was so excited to start playing it. I had it like nine degree pitch and it got really frustrating because that left ramp is not very forgiving. If you don't get it even halfway up that ramp, it screams back at you. So I finally adjusted and everything. But yeah, so that's our top three for our pinball machines. If anyone wants to reach out to us and tell us why they have a favorite toy, you can definitely hit us up at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. We also have a Facebook of Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. Or you can find us on Facebook. That's probably the best place to find you, right, Scott?
    55:22
    Probably. Well, and the cool part is, since we've started this up, just the people that have reached out, Dennis Creasel of Eclectic Gamers just shot the breeze with me a couple weeks ago after our last episode. He wanted to talk about, he was intrigued by the idea of the Stern swappable playfields for the old classics. And we just talked about how it wasn't really viable, but it was cool. It's cool to get a conversation like that going. Yeah. So we're just two dudes that like to BS about pinball. If you want to talk about it, we're available.
    55:58
    So, well, we're kind of getting close to our end mark. I didn't know if there's anything you want to talk about before we go or.
    56:08
    No, nothing so far. I need to think about the other themes that we're going to be talking about in upcoming shows. If people have suggestions, feel free to send in a suggestion to Josh. He reads all the emails. I need to get Scott set up so he can read those emails as well. But I wanted to do a couple shout-outs. Special one lit. Thank you for giving us a shout-out on not this last episode but the episode before. I really appreciate that you guys sat down and actually listened to us and gave us some feedback. I thought that was really cool.
    56:39
    And I wanted to give a shout-out to the pinball nerd, Albert. I cannot pronounce your last name, so I'm not going to do it. But it's a different approach to podcasting right now. It's kind of cool because it's just like a chill vibe. of listening to a dude and his pinball thoughts. So I thought that was pretty cool as well.
    56:55
    Yeah, man. Everything else has been pretty kosher. I'm liking how this is going. All right, we'll go out and shovel some snow. We'll do you too, sir.
    57:07
    All right, we'll see you. All right, later.