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Ep 132: TPF 2024 News and Rumors

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 13m·analyzed·Mar 17, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

TPF 2024 brings game releases, ABBA/John Wick rumors, and impressive homebrews.

Summary

Josh Roop and Scott Larson discuss major pinball news from Texas Pinball Festival 2024, including the release of Barry Oursler's final design (Barbecue Challenge via American Pinball/Barrels of Fun), rumors of an ABBA-themed game by Pinball Brothers arriving April 6th, speculation about a John Wick pinball by Stern with designer John Borg, significant price/design overhaul of Ninja Eclipse ($9,777→$6,994), and enthusiastic coverage of new homebrew games (Motorhead and Saw Pinball) that have impressed the community.

Key Claims

  • Barry Oursler's Barbecue Challenge is his final design before he passed away

    high confidence · Hosts confirm this as established fact about the American Pinball/Barrels of Fun release

  • Pinball Brothers is releasing a new game April 6th with a helicopter mechanic, widely speculated to be ABBA-themed

    high confidence · Josh mentions the April 6th date at Clarion Hotel Sweden with helicopter lock mechanic visible in NAP Arcade video; Scott confirms ABBA's cultural relevance and the album 'Arrival' connection

  • John Borg is designing a John Wick pinball machine for Stern

    medium confidence · Josh states 'John Borg's in the pipeline. We know that for sure' but then speculates John Wick is rumored, not confirmed official

  • Ninja Eclipse was initially priced at $9,777 but was reduced to $6,994 with design/presentation overhaul after TPF feedback

    high confidence · Josh cites NAP Arcade article from 4 days prior showing price drop and visual improvements including new powder coat, coin door addition, and physical plunger

  • David Peck's Motorhead homebrew is a ground-up design (not a remake) with Gottlieb/Stern Centaur aesthetic, and Steve Ritchie called it 'the best homebrew he's ever played'

    medium confidence · Josh reports Steve Ritchie's quote and describes Motorhead as non-remake homebrew on Pinside; Brad Albright did artwork

  • Saw Pinball homebrew repurposes an old World Pinball playfield with custom mechs like spinning saw blades and hacksaw plunger

    high confidence · Josh describes the playfield transformation in detail, noting visual departure from original World Pinball despite base reuse

  • P3 modular games (Princess Bride, Final Resistance, Weird Al) can be purchased for approximately four games under $20,000 total

    medium confidence · Scott estimates pricing based on mental math; not a direct price quote but illustrative of market positioning

  • Playfield patent protection is 'near impossible' and designs need roughly 10-20% modification to avoid trademark issues

Notable Quotes

  • “Barry's final design before he passed away. And the team at American Pinball made a group effort to bring it into production.”

    Josh Roop @ Early in episode — Establishes context for Barbecue Challenge as posthumous release and community effort

  • “The theme is a throwaway theme. It's the equivalent of Hot Rod.”

    Josh Roop @ Barbecue Challenge discussion — Directly critiques Barbecue Challenge thematic originality as reminiscent of 1980s Bally era filler themes

  • “I think Borg and John Wick is a very brilliant match. I think he's brutal at his games, and so it's going to be—if you want a brutal game with a brutal theme, you got it.”

    Scott Larson @ John Wick discussion — Connects designer John Borg's reputation for difficult rulesets to thematic fit with John Wick IP

  • “It looks like they took all the feedback from Expo and said, this is what we're doing... I'm impressed because it looks like they've added more to the game and dropped the price a lot less.”

    Josh Roop @ Ninja Eclipse redesign discussion — Praises manufacturer responsiveness to community feedback and value proposition improvement

  • “It'd hate to say this, but it was laughable at ten K.”

    Scott Larson @ Ninja Eclipse reaction — Directly critiques the original $9,777 pricing as unreasonable for the product tier

  • “Steve Ritchie approves, man. I guess they got a picture and he said, 'That is amazing. That is the best homebrew he's ever played.'”

    Josh Roop @ Motorhead homebrew discussion — Legendary designer Steve Ritchie endorsement of David Peck's homebrew as exceptionally high quality

  • “I would not have taken a flyer on it at the other price and the other presentation. I agree. But I would consider it on this.”

    Scott Larson @ Ninja Eclipse final verdict — Demonstrates how price/presentation directly impacts purchasing consideration for emerging manufacturers

Entities

Barry OurslerpersonAmerican Pinball / Barrels of FuncompanyPinball BrotherscompanyJohn BorgpersonStern PinballcompanyNinja EclipsegameDavid Peckperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts emphasize community feedback loop as critical success factor: Ninja Eclipse manufacturer directly implemented criticism, improving design and price

    high · Josh praises company for 'taking feedback and implementing that feedback'; Scott confirms this as 'the whole secret to a successful company'

  • ?

    community_signal: Homebrew designer David Peck's Motorhead receives endorsement from legendary designer Steve Ritchie as 'best homebrew he's ever played'

    high · Josh reports Ritchie's direct quote praising Motorhead quality and design execution

  • ?

    competitive_signal: John Wick positioning as 'A-list property' with mature theme to compete with recent Stern successes and differentiate from PG-13 music licensing (Metallica, Rush)

    medium · Scott and Josh discuss John Wick as desirable IP match for John Borg; characterize as mature in contrast to Metallica/Rush; note four-film franchise strength

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Barbecue Challenge positioned as throwback to 1980s Bally Williams campy original themes (Hot Rod, Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars) rather than licensed IP

    high · Josh and Scott discuss thematic strategy as intentional callback to era of non-licensed games that weren't bestsellers initially but became classics through community discovery

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball Brothers absorbs European market appeal with ABBA licensing, leveraging band's renewed cultural relevance among younger audiences

    medium · Scott discusses ABBA's appeal to teenagers discovering '70s/'80s music; notes European company relevance to European artist; Elton John precedent cited as successful music licensing

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.221

0:00
thanks for tuning in to loser kid football podcast i'm josh roop with me my co-captain as always scott larson and did i say we're on episode 132 uh you did not yet but now you did now i did okay and there's been game reveals if you're looking for that barrios barbecue it's out now uh there's more rumored games coming up and stern stern might even have one coming out soon going to buy these games who you're going to hit up scott i'm going to call zach and nicole minia flipping out pinball they have always been great to us and you know what there's even some new packages if you want to upgrade your foo fighters you can get that topper you can get the r plates but you know what really if you want anything pinball they're always a good resource they've always been a good friend us yep and definitely and happy birthday to their youngest today uh fletcher i don't they just posted on Facebook, so I assume it's fine. It's public.
1:02
Hey, there has been a ton of news, weirdly enough. It kind of compounded over the last... We tried to record last Saturday, and it's kind of imploded, right? Yeah, well, it was a little bit of everything, because you and I were both like, okay, I need to stop traveling. I like traveling, but we went to a tennis tournament, and it was kind of crazy, just the travel logistics, and we just couldn't make it work. so where was it was the tennis thing here in utah where was it at no no the tennis thing was in california it's actually it's a really big tennis tournament it's a it's indian wells so it's in palm desert and you know you know how they all there's a lot of people to say you know the fifth major of stuff if there is a fifth major in tennis it would be this one so aside from the u.s open australian open uh wimbledon and um australian did i say australia or french australia anyway Let's say French. French, yes. So those are the four big ones. But this is considered a big one, and it was a lot of fun. We just went and saw tons of tennis.
2:06
And we actually had – there was a delay in game because of a bee swarm. A bee swarm. Not kidding. They swarmed in, and they actually got onto the drone. So go look it up. It's hilarious. because they delayed for about two hours while they called a beekeeper to come in and vacuum the bees. So you're telling me if you really want to mess with your competition, you slather the drone in like flower pollen? I don't know. It was legitimately crazy. They went and swarmed and like, you know, the spider drones that like go up and take cameras? Yeah, it was on that.

low confidence · Scott speculates on playfield design patent/trademark law without clear sourcing; used to explain why Barbecue Challenge layout resembles prior American Pinball design

“The whole secret to a successful company is taking feedback and implementing that feedback.”

Scott Larson @ Ninja Eclipse design philosophy conclusion — Industry insight on manufacturer competitiveness and community relationship management

Motorheadgame
Saw Pinballgame
Brad Albrightperson
Steve Ritchieperson
Texas Pinball Festival (TPF) 2024event
Donperson
Princess Bridegame
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
Josh Roopperson
Scott Larsonperson
Elwin (Keith Elwin)person
John Wickgame
Larry DeMarperson
NAP Arcadecompany
P3 (Multimorphic)company
Gottlieb / Stern Centaurgame
  • ?

    community_signal: David Peck establishes credibility as ground-up homebrew designer with Motorhead, potentially attracting commercial manufacturer interest

    medium · Josh speculates manufacturers may approach Peck at TPF 'asking him, hey, can we buy this from you?' based on design quality

  • $

    market_signal: Initial Ninja Eclipse $9,777 pricing perceived as excessive for boutique manufacturer in $7k-$15k market tier; price reduction improves value perception significantly

    high · Scott calls $9,777 price 'laughable' and 'no way'; Josh emphasizes 'almost three grand off' reduction ($6,994 final) as making game 'worth considering'

  • ?

    announcement: Barry Oursler's Barbecue Challenge officially released by American Pinball/Barrels of Fun as posthumous final design

    high · Josh and Scott confirm release and discuss playfield similarities to prior American Pinball games

  • ?

    product_strategy: Ninja Eclipse undergoes significant design overhaul and price reduction ($9,777→$6,994) post-TPF feedback

    high · Josh cites NAP Arcade article from 4 days prior showing new purple powder coat, added coin door, physical plunger, improved cabinet presentation

  • ?

    rumor_hype: John Wick pinball in development by Stern with designer John Borg

    medium · Josh states 'John Borg's in the pipeline. We know that for sure' but speculates John Wick is rumored not officially confirmed

  • ?

    rumor_hype: ABBA-themed pinball machine by Pinball Brothers announced for April 6th reveal with helicopter lock mechanic

    high · Josh cites April 6th date at Clarion Hotel Sweden; Scott confirms ABBA album 'Arrival' album artwork connection; helicopter mechanic visible in NAP Arcade video

  • ?

    technology_signal: Homebrew designers expanding beyond remakes into ground-up original designs with sophisticated mechanics (Motorhead's suicide gap flippers, Saw's custom mechs)

    high · Josh describes Motorhead as 'from scratch' non-remake with suicide gap; Saw as playfield repurpose with custom spinning saw blades and hacksaw plunger

    • 2:48
    I'll have to shoot you a picture. It really was surprising. Thankfully, we weren't there that day. We were actually watching it on TV. You just wanted out of this wind because I don't know about your neighborhood, but I know Eagle Mountain, which is across the freeway and down a little bit, houses were, like, consumed by tumbleweeds, and they were using, like, plow trucks to, like, get them off the road so you could still drive. Yep. It's been insane with the wind here. So this is Pinball and Weather brought to you by Flippin' Out Pinball.
    3:18
    All righty. So Texas Pinball Festival is going on right now. There's plenty going on. Yeah. It's insane to see these pictures. It's crazy. Don from Don's Pinball Podcast is dressed up like Wonka and going around with his mic staff, I guess, dubsing people, knighting them in pinball. I don't know.
    3:40
    You know, Eclectic Gamers is down there. It looks like they're enjoying it. Everything just – it looks like a party if you're there. I'm slightly jealous. We're going to try to get this out so you guys have something to listen to on the way back from Texas Pinball Festival. but yeah man just there's so much going on so let's talk the first thing that's kind of the biggest news is the newest release right so like barrio's barbecue challenge okay this release when you said it and i just thought i i heard it as like spanish like barrio which is it's just neighborhood so it's a barrio barbecue which is is kind of hilarious and awesome at the same time But yeah, Barry O's. This is apparently his last design before he passed away. And the team at American Pinball made a group effort to bring it into production. Is that how you understand? Is that how you understand the story? That's how I understand the story. But this this design looks oddly close to one of their previous designs. Yeah, it does. It does. I did. I did learn, though, because we got talking about this. Right. We got talking about how if you have a layout, how do you not get sued when it's that close? And obviously it's American pinball. They're not going to sue themselves. Right. Like for plagiarism. My understanding to patent a play field is near impossible.
    5:03
    And yeah, it would be because you could even argue there. Okay, I know that in trademarks, they have to modify the play field by, you know, like 10 to 20% or something like that. So you actually see the reports when it talks about the economy. It's like new products coming out. And one of the products is like Doritos. Yeah. Because they changed the bag. Yeah. Or Pepsi. Pepsi just updated their logo. And so that actually counts as a new product. um whether or not that actually has to do with pinball but it probably at some point there's only so much square footage you have in in a design right well i mean really if that were the case do you think stern could sue jjp for the likeness of two flippers on the bottom and a pop but you know pop bumper nest near the flipper yeah i don't know yeah my understanding is you just have to move a couple things on the play filter and it's you're good like as long as it's not as long as it's not a one for one which this is not a one for one yeah but but design wise let's get back to this design so barrios final design right uh barbecue is it a is it is a strange a theme to you as it is to me like when i think pinball yeah i think barbecue because we talk texas pinball festival but it's because i'm gonna go down there and eat barbecue it's not because i want to play barbecue i don't know it's just it's what are you okay okay so let's talk about the bally williams era right okay yeah okay and so so let's talk let's even go back to like mid 80s okay they have high speed yeah earthquake they have whirlwind yeah you know they have and yeah they have like the odd adams family and twilight zone in there but they also have Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness. So they have all these kind of campy themes that really have nothing to do with a license. And so this feels a little bit like they're trying to call back upon that era when people were used to, hey, this is just kind of a fun shooter thing. The challenge is we're also 30 years farther in the pinball cycle. so would a theme like that resonate today than it did back then that that's going to be one their biggest challenge if you're just talking theme alone yeah well and i would argue they didn't sell well back then granted you know like you said they went to arcades they they just went to arcades right and people who were into pinball would be like okay i'm gonna go shoot this so it cost him a buck but still like we're talking three-year difference between what adam's family and the original medieval madness no sorry we're about a little more more like five five years but still 4 000 units of medieval madness wasn't terribly amazing for that time my understanding is these games weren't highly sought after when they first came out it's not till time started getting under the belt of the pinball community and then they realized this is an amazing game next thing you know ballywilliams is already out of business and these things are hard to find because they only made four thousand dollars well it's the problem with supply and demand right it's supply and demand if you okay cactus canyon it's a fun game and i own the remake is it a twenty thousand dollar game absolutely not there's no way especially in the current state it was manufactured but it was going for around that back then yeah but my point being is is the reason these are classics the reason they work as an original theme is they never sold as an original theme originally like they never they weren't flying off the shelves as an original theme they were made an original thing because bally williams was trying to cut some costs and it it didn't help the bottom line as much as they were hoping it would right and so uh i think if you want games flying off the shelf i don't know i looked at barry's list and granted he he did he was a part of some really great games like we heard it from larry demar we've heard it from steve ritchie and others during that were there during the 80s barry o's uh space shuttle helped revive the pinball industry back in 1984 and so there is that when i think of that game it's not one of my favorites though no i mean he was part of gorgar which was the first talking pinball machine gorgar speaks but the other interesting part too is is they claim we had steve ritchie say this on our last interview we did with him at least he claimed that pop is what essentially killed bailey williams back in the 90s and that was a very good design it was a bad one yeah but was it the design or was it he hasn't hit and misses okay i wouldn't say that he is a terrible designer but i also wouldn't say that he comes to your mind if you're saying i need a collection of eight games i need one from borg i need three from elwynn i need you know all that kind of stuff very few people unless they're like no i really want that game it's uh he hasn't had as many hits but he was also out of the pinball industry for a while to be fair Yeah, he made Queen Pinball, but before that, the last game he made was Junkyard back in 1995. Right. And I don't know of anybody who says that Junkyard's in my top ten.
    10:40
    I think if anyone's going to say top ten, it would be Dracula. Sure. Brom Stoker's Dracula. Yes. And that's because it's a really great tournament game. It's very brutal. It's very much press start one more time kind of game. What else does it have?
    10:58
    It's a great... It's a great theme. It is. It's a great theme. Yeah. Even though the movie was terrible. But Dracula is a great theme. The movie, seriously. Halfway through the movie, I turned to my brother and I said, I don't even know what's going on.
    11:14
    It was really that weird. But looking at Burio's barbecue challenge, it does look much like a throwback to the 1980s. It is. When I first saw it, I thought diner. And you pull up diner, and there's some similarities there. Sure. So I feel like this is a good throwback to that era.
    11:32
    I don't know. It's not on my short list, though, of games that I want to own. I'm not going to lie here.
    11:40
    However, actually, this could be a good location game. Because if you have a barbecue area or you have some sort of restaurant with an arcade attached or a pinball area, I would definitely put some money into it. There are tiers that I consider successful tiers. So is this a – would I – if I saw it and I had five bucks in my pocket, would I put the $5 in for the three games?
    12:15
    That's like my lowest level, right? Yeah. Would I do that for – there are some games where I'd walk up and I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing that. This is definitely in that, hey, I'm going to do that. And if it were – if with those three games, if I felt like, hey, this is a fun game. This has fun call-outs. This is – one thing that was great about Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars and even Cactus Canyon, the call-outs were hilarious. Yeah. And so by your experiencing that, you're like, you know what? That gave me a giggle. I'm willing to put some more money into it. And as long as I'm getting my money's worth, I will continue. So my first step is, will I put the $5 in for the three games? Then will I go back? If I had 20 bucks in my pocket that night, would I put $20 into that? And then you get to, would I come back to play that game? And eventually you're going to get to the point where you say, will I buy it and put it in my house? and then you say, is this a long-term keeper, a short-term keeper? And then you say, will I want the premium LE version? So there are a whole bunch of steps to what I consider a successful pinball machine. Where would my gut feeling be on this game? Probably be in the first two. It would be in the, am I willing to spend $5 on it? Am I willing to, if it's a fun experience, am I willing to spend the $20 on it? And if I go back to that restaurant again, will I go and visit it? So that's probably where it lands for me. Well, and I guess as you were talking about that, I was wondering if there's anything that you could do to make it more successful. Like, it is a barbecue theme. If you had barbecue brands tied in, would that help? I just, I don't know how much people are clamoring for a barbecue game. And like you said, yeah, location-wise it might, but... The theme is a throwaway theme. It is a, you know, it'd be the equivalent of Hot Rod. right yeah yep yeah so i don't know overall price wise i mean seven grand is not bad for it's not bad not bad for a entry game and even the limited edition limited at 100 8500 isn't terrible i am slightly concerned though i've heard that people have looked under the hood said they have went a little cheaper on the what they're putting into the games now i don't know how much truth there is to that i don't know how you test that outside of like just looking at what's in the game you know the last ability yeah yeah so it'll be interesting to see how this is received by the community later on and see how it stands the test of time so let's move oh go ahead i would say though ultimately it depends on the play like if this is a fun game then it will then you still will have a successful game but it always depends like the theme helps or hurts that but eventually it's the play that keeps the last ability yeah definitely all right uh let's the next announcement there's another game coming out april 6th by pinball brothers and apparently it has a helicopter in it everyone's speculating abba what are your thoughts scott i know it would make sense and they certainly haven't done anything to shoot down those rumors yeah um they they have you know queen which is a big theme for someone abbott is actually there are a lot of a lot of kids and when i say kids like i'm talking teenagers who are getting into the 70s and 80s music which is And it makes sense because this is music you can typically listen with your parents in the car because it doesn't have a lot of swear words. So I'm actually very serious. No, I agree. When we were at the tennis tournament, every song they were playing was pretty much a – it was from that era because it didn't have a lot of swear words, except for occasionally they put in like a 50 cent, which was like, if they could hear the lyrics on these things, they are not clean.
    16:36
    But ABBA has become a big deal, especially for kids. Yeah. So would ABBA make sense? Absolutely. I think ABBA is a great option to say, and they made it a Elton John pinball machine. Yeah. And that theme is definitely resonating. They made two movies. or you know mama mia and mama mia here i go or whatever that that show was twice so there's i this is a great option to look past the dad rock stuff i agree and uh it's going to be an interesting litmus test in my opinion and with it being pinball brothers it is a european company and so that does hit another demographic over there as well and obviously ab is from over there in Europe. So it's going to be interesting to see how this goes. I think it's, it's, it's a, it's a good move. I think it's something everyone's going to be, especially like if you haven't watched the video yet, go to nap arcade. They have a video of the helicopter lock mech and it's pretty cool.
    17:44
    But if it is ABBA, I, I, I'd like to see it. I'm not much of an ABBA fan, so I'm not on the list, but gameplay can always change my mind. So, and it does look like it does look like the helicopter on one of their albums, like their fourth album that I hear that, right? Yes. Arrival their fourth out. So if you want to check this out, like I said, Saturday, April 6th at 6 PM, they are going to be showing it at the Clarion hotel in Sweden. I bet they'll have some kind of another going to do. They've got tagged on their Facebook. So maybe they'll do a live through the Facebook.
    18:23
    We not entirely for sure but I guarantee video is probably going to show up of it somehow some way regardless so speaking of other rumor games sterns sterns coming up and do for another one john borg's in the pipeline we know that for sure okay um but the rumored game is john wick would you like to see a stern john wick pinball machine um i know that john wick is a huge franchise. Yes. I have not seen one of them. Or if I... Okay, this is the challenge when you go outside of... And I know I just bagged on the dad rock, but everybody knows at least one song from Elton John, from Foo Fighters, Rush, Tom Sawyer, even if you're not a Rush fan, Metallica. You at least know you have some connection to this. And I know that John Wick went ballistic because they killed his dog or something. Yeah, that's all I know as well. Yeah. So. Now, however, I know it's a big deal. So if they did get the John Wick license, then I think it definitely helps out. Yeah. How many John Wick movies are there? Four. They just came out with Chapter 4 within the last year or two. Okay. And they just came out with it, right? Yeah. Yep. So at least it's a hit because we know they're not going to do – we know they're not going to do an unproven title anymore.
    20:01
    Because that's where they got into – what was that terrible game that George Gomez tried to get out of? You remember? Oh, Johnny Mnemonic? Yeah, Johnny Mnemonic. Yeah. Yeah, so they're trying to avoid that kind of stuff. I mean, even Iron Man is really Iron Man 2. Yeah, that's very true. Because they waited until that became a big thing. Yep. Oh, I agree. It certainly makes sense to capitalize on the popularity of that.
    20:36
    And there are tons of people who are huge fans. I believe Aaron Rodgers even, like, grew his hair out to dress up like John Wick for one Halloween. That's awesome. So you know at least Aaron Rodgers is buying an LE. I heard that Keanu Reeves has – he kills more people in those movies than the actual words he says in those movies. That's kind of funny actually. I don't know if that's true. Sure, why not? You know, I think Borg and John Wick is a very brilliant match. I think he's brutal at his games, and so it's going to be – if you want a brutal game with a brutal theme, you got it. Here it is. So I think people will be excited. But that's all we know. would you try to go if you had your wish list though would you try to go with spanning all of them or would you just dial in on the first movie I don't know I've heard the way it's set up it's very like Lord of the Rings-esque they're complete sets and the only reason it got split up is because well first off because Tolkien was told to split it into three books because it was too long to be one book because it was like 3000 pages it's like one through three is kind of it's kind of like it's own complete novel I don't know we want to make more money maybe I don't know I just know that John Wick all I know is he kills people and so I don't know if this is like a transporter situation with Jason Statham and they all kind of link together kind of thing I don't know if it's more of the action You're asking the wrong person. Okay, but you're going to agree with me that this would be considered an A-list property. Oh, yeah. This is something that is a desirable match. Yep, yep. I think so.
    22:29
    And when was the last mature thing that it would – would Elvira be considered a mature – Elvira, you could probably say that. Elvira is dancing into that PG-13 humor.
    22:44
    Walking Dead is definitely that mature type. And Borg. That's a Borg. Yeah, Borg tends to do it. Metallica, I would argue, is typically not a, you know, that's probably in the PG-13 category. Yeah.
    23:03
    So it makes sense with John Borg. Rush is more of a passion project, I guess, for Borg. So the next game we're going to talk about, because I feel like we've talked about, as much as we can get out of that one, we've got to. So moving on, Ninja Eclipse. This is a game that I played at Pinball Expo this last fall. Okay. Well, remind me your first impressions of Ninja Eclipse. Okay. My first impressions, and we talked about this. We had Don from Don's Pinball Podcast come on. and we talked about and i said it looked like a sizzle and it because it light because it kind of did actually it did the cabinet was like half the size of a standard cabinet not like lengthwise like playfield wise but like they just shortened it down it was like a it was like a diet cabinet it was a cabinet light cabinet yeah um the game itself was all right like i enjoyed playing it but outside the fact that the flippers were really weak um sure but it wasn't terrible i think the thing that got me after I played it and what they announced was, is they were going to try to sell it for 10 grand. And I was just like, no way. We just confirmed that we actually did pull up the nap arcade, uh, discussion of that. And the, and I, I'm going to read exactly what Jason said in his article, um, said that it's going to be, let's see. Ninja eclipse is priced at 9,000, 777. production is limited to 100 first edition units now we both balked at that we balked at the price and we balked at the image right? yes if you can find this maybe I should see if I can link the article I don't know I would say that's in the past go look it up the only reason I'm saying look it up look at how much this has changed Yes, because it's – For the article that just released four days ago. Yeah. This is like a makeover. What is it? Like this is a pinball makeover show where they take something that's not working and they revealed it and – It looks so much better. It looks a lot better. It looks legit. Now I'd actually consider maybe buying one of these games looking at this. And they went from $9.777 to $69.94. And that's on the limited editions. Right. They dropped almost three grand off for the 100 runs limited editions. So I'm impressed because it looks like they've added more to the game and dropped the price a lot less. I don't know what they were trying to accomplish beforehand, but it looks like they took all the feedback from Expo and said, this is what we're doing. The powder coat on this looks great. The purple powder coat. The original one only had black.
    25:54
    Just if you're interested. Like I said, it is past. it is past but but the new the new one it's good to see that someone took constructive criticism and changed yes it looks better it look it do you know what it gives me vibes of it's it's vibes of mulan and dragon's lair yeah like that that's the that's the color scheme it's it's going for the art style and it actually has a coin door now which That was one of our biggest things to say. Look, on location, you are not going to have someone download an app just to play your game. It's not going to happen. Nope.
    26:40
    It looks like it will fit next to other games and not look out of place. Yep. The play field looks, you know what? And it looks better. And it could just be that it looks better because it is presented in a better environment, right? Maybe, yeah. But it does look better. So is this something that I would consider taking a flyer on at just under $7,000?
    27:14
    Maybe, actually. I would not have taken a flyer on it at the other price and the other presentation. I agree. but I would consider it on this.
    27:25
    Yeah, it was, I'd hate to say this, but it was laughable at 10K. Yeah. So. But this looks like, and it looks like something that kids would really like. Like the visual presentation of it, it looks like something that kids would like. Yep.
    27:43
    So. Good luck to them. The only other thing that changed too, back in October, they were only asking for 150 to deposit. Now they're asking for a full 1,000, but they're claiming that's fully refundable. Okay. That is entirely up to you guys how you want to take that. Yep. Yeah. And even has like a link, new cabinet, new price. So, hey, the whole secret to a successful company is taking feedback and implementing that feedback. Yep. Now, you can't always implement everything. And as we have talked with Elwin before, when he said, look, before I got in the industry, I had exactly the same questions all y'all do and exactly the same concerns. And he said, when you get into the industry, you say, oh, they actually have the same questions and their reasons why they don't do what we're suggesting, like have the shark eat the ball, stuff like that. right so good for him good for him for pivoting and trying to make it work oh the other thing on ninja eclipse uh they didn't have a plunger before it was an auto plunger and they've actually added in a physical plunger now too which makes it look like a real game right i'm a real game well well okay but okay that's funny um but most games aside from the other games like when's the last game that had a button plunger? Probably Pinball 2000? No. I mean, all the P3s do because they can't actually put a physical plunger in it. Yeah, okay. I'm talking your standard, and I'm not going to say the fake pinball because P3, we know, is a real pinball company and a pinball machine. But let's say that people want, because part of your code is going to be about varying your plunge. Yep. So, you know, we have Medieval Madness. We have Attack from Mars. We even have, you know, even Cacus Canyon had a pull plunge, though. Yeah.
    29:55
    So that it makes sense to say, no, we want this to look like other games. I agree. So. All righty, moving on. We have.
    30:08
    Do we want to talk? Speaking of P3, do we want to talk Princess Bride at all? we did talk a lot last episode about princess bride and did kind of full coverage there we're hearing people are loving it down at uh at texas pinball festival the only complaint which is this is the same complaint as always like it's become an echo chamber and like kind of a mute point at this point that the buttons aren't tied together that's the only thing i've heard that are like why can't they be on the same button but yeah and that's that's more of a p3 analysis or feedback than a Princess Bride feedback, right? Yeah, exactly. When you and I played, like Weird Al is their last big reveal, right? Yeah. I guess they had – I'm sorry. They actually had Scott Benici's game. Yeah, they had Final Resistance too.
    30:59
    But it was a fun game to play. Yeah. So if you're going to buy – if you're going to jump into the P3 market, I mean you have Final Resistance. You have Princess Bride. you have Weird Al when you add those all together you can probably get all even a few more modules you can probably get four games for under $20,000 I'm just adding them up in my head that's basically for pro stern the knock is you can't play them at once, you have to swap them out but if you still are limited on space but you want to try it hey princess bride it's a we we have said if you're looking for an a theme that's an a theme yeah so i i think we did talk plenty about that last last episode let's move on we're seeing some great homebrews so two were just announced these games look amazing like uh let's let's talk motorhead first brad albright he's been on the show he did our work for our shoes he did all the art for Motorhead. He originally did it for Led Zeppelin. That's actually how we got to know him. He did the Led Zeppelin homebrew as well. Killed it on this Motorhead. It looks amazing. And David Peck is the one that made this. He also did the Led Zeppelin. Amazing. Just holy crap. And I guess Steve Ritchie approves, man. I guess they got a picture and he said that is amazing. That is the best homebrew he's ever played. So actually this is – David Peck did this from scratch. You can look – if you're really intrigued, you can go on Pinside. It's called Announcing Motorhead Pinball, and it shows it from a white wood. It's actually not a remake of any pinball machine. This is from the ground up, and it's very much a throwback to that like Gottlieb, Stern. Centaur. It has the total centaur vibe. It's the red, white, and silver. Oh, yeah. Black, white, silver, red. Yep. And this game looks pretty amazing. It looks pretty good. It looks pretty awesome. It even has, like, I love the flippers on the right, the double flippers on the right that have that suicide gap, where if you try to trap up on the lower flipper, you drain.
    33:24
    Yep. I mean, this game, honestly, I would not be shocked if pinball manufacturers were approaching David Peck this weekend and ask him, hey, can we buy this for you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it looks good. It looks pretty good. I want to know. I want people to comment. If you were at TPF, comment on our Facebook, comment on this episode. We want to know how this played because it looks really good. Yeah, it looks awesome. and wow it's visually it looks i hey brad awesome you're really good at your job it's crazy yep uh another homebrew that came out this weekend that has been under wraps we've known about it for a little bit uh saw pinball i'm so glad this is finally being revealed okay i'm not a horror fan i just yeah it's not not my thing however there are tons of people who are right but this game holy crap so this one is actually a repurposed play field this is an old world win play field if you look really close you can you can tell it's what's funny though is like i mean yeah if you really look you can tell but this looks nothing like world win and no the spinning saw blades in the game, the hacksaw plunger, the reverse bear trap or whatever the heck that topper is. I mean, this game is amazing. Holy crap. Like, it astounds me. It's amazing what homebrew can do, right? Like it's amazing to me mainly that you see I totally understand why licensors are jealous of their property and they want to present it in a certain way. The example that I can think of is when Star Wars, when kids stopped buying the action figure doll things and they tried to repurpose them into something else. and they they made it's it's kind of laughable because you remember the the star wars figures that were kind of like stick figures almost like from the 70s right yep and they had ones that looked like he-man and so so it was like uh so the the joke was han solo flex because he looked like a big he-man guy which is totally not how star wars goes so i understand why licensors are like, no, we like the way we present things. We like the, it's a, it's a tried and true way of doing it. However, when you give someone the opportunity to run with it, you can have some amazing results that, that would surprise the original licensor to say, yeah, we should have done that in the first place. 100%. And this is, this is a great example. This had a team come together as well.
    36:42
    This had a great team that came together as well. If you want to, check out the Nap Arcade right up on this one. We want to shout out to Glenn Wechter who did the sound and everything on that Amazing job Glenn always a good friend Yeah There is plenty of people down there looking at these things i would not be shocked if they got approached afterwards either saying hey you guys want to sell this game to us because holy crap this is amazing and obviously it's gonna have to be tweaked a little bit if it's a world right it's a pat lawler design right Yeah. But you could do. Yeah, it looks so good. It looks so good. And the the theme looks like the lighting of it. It looks so good. You know how sometimes it you know, this is I don't want to get in trouble here. But there are some things where you see the lighting that is presented and it doesn't seem consistent with the theme. yeah right yeah and so if something feels a little bit more like a like a carnival game or a or a slot machine or something that doesn't really match what what the theme that you're trying to do this is bright it's popping and it is definitely led heavy but it looks so good with the saw theme.
    38:09
    So that's the right way of doing it. So I've got to ask you a question. This is starting to... I've heard this floating around. Okay.
    38:18
    We've got saw, we've got motorhead. The thing about motorhead, it's from the ground up, right? Sure. But the coder is Matt Kemp who works for Spooky Pinball. Okay. So when do we start crossing the line? if we're getting professional coders on these games uh when do we start crossing the line of it's not no longer a homebrew because honestly these two games look like production quality games they do in production do you know what it looks like okay just looking at this you know like frankenstein yeah you know john blake's bring a sign from uh from yeah yeah where it's a theme that may not be well known but you're like you're like yeah this seems like it could have been a production game. If you put these three together, if you put Motorhead, Saw, and Frankenstein and said, pick which one was the production game, you would not choose Frankenstein. No, but you're also putting up against a 90s game. I totally get it. I get it. But you're going to be surprised by the quality. Maybe this isn't fair, and maybe we shouldn't do this, but if you were to put Motorhead, Saw, and Berry Ho's Barbecue Challenge in a row together. Which one would you say is the absolute home run of the three?
    39:37
    Yeah. You can plead the fifth on this one. Yeah, you're certainly blurring the lines. And I would point out that that's not really a knock on Berrio's BBQ. What it is, is it's a compliment to Saw and Motorhead. I agree. Because they look professional and even when and and we love sonic like the the homebrew version of it it still felt like a homebrew like the the playfield layout still felt like a homebrew this feels like and i know saw is a real layout like a real production layout but it still feels very much like wow this is this is a great game yep well and looking at so like with with uh motorhead you've got david Peck who who did everything mechanically and all that stuff and then you had you had Brad Albright obviously doing art and then like I said Matt Kemp on code with Saw you have uh it was spearheaded and programmed by Austin Kerrigan, Eric Colts and Joe Farnsworth on engineering and then Glenn Wechter on music and cause this is a four-man team the other one's a three-man team and these are starting to turn into these homebrews are almost turning into like a 1990s pinball team You know what I'm saying? Right. And to make a good machine, that's actually what you want. Yep. You want someone – Glenn's great with music and all that. So, yes, you're going to want someone who specializes in that to actually do the part that they're good at. That's a whole – like that's economics. It's specialization. Yep.
    41:25
    So I've just got to say – I've got to take my hat off to you guys. it's this is amazing both teams hands down amazing yeah let's move on we still have a couple more things to cover okay uh foo fighters accessories i do like that they actually planned this out and said hey this is what we're doing we're gonna do an official release date for these accessories i think either a you you release it with the game like they have in the past with some games or you do this you set a special date so that way it's just some random tuesday hey by the way the toppers dropping today uh my opinion on these accessories these are pretty awesome um yeah people are complaining about the two two thousand dollar price tag it's kind of where stern's resting at right now with their with their games and honestly it seems like anything with the moving head on it commands that 2k at least that's what they've learned does it look like it's moving just side to side though yeah it looks like it's just moving side to side it's not like Black Knight that goes up and down and around.
    42:24
    But then again, you look at Turtles, which was another 2K, and it was just the eye on top of the Technodrome. Turtles was 1K.
    42:31
    Was it, though? Turtles was 1K. We'll agree to disagree on that one. No, I've got to look it up. Okay, but my point being is, this is a pretty good-looking topper. It's pretty awesome.
    42:48
    I don't know if there's more to this topper. I've heard rumors that yeah there's a thousand dollars turtles was a thousand dollars oh never mind then i apologize so the first one that jumped up to this point was uh mandalorian oh okay mandalorian was was two thousand dollars and what about the uh stranger things one with stranger things was like a thousand bucks maybe okay yeah so mando's i guess you're right mando yeah i don't think this is a 2k topper and if you're gonna put next to mando i yeah i don't think it is uh stranger things well i see it's just googling i see it for about 700 bucks okay i'm not i'm not gonna fight you on that yeah so it's that okay we are getting to the point though when i look at a topper and i say that's not worth it and sadly i okay i bought the rush topper for $1,800 or $1,600. I think it was like $1,700. Okay. Because I have the limited edition.
    43:59
    There is a point. It makes sense. And it actually, it does look good. The challenge is, okay, I'm just going to pull up pinside.com and I'm going to pull up Foo Fighters. Okay. So let's just pull up Foo Fight.
    44:20
    Okay, Foo Fighters, and let's just see what a pro Foo Fighters is going for. Okay? Any idea? 6,500. Okay. Yeah, there are some that are, yeah, you're looking between 6,000 and 6,300, okay? Okay. So let me just look at what this is offering. so you have I have so many tabs opening I'm going to close some of these so you have to edit some of this out
    45:11
    we didn't talk about road trip yet did we or did we No, not yet. Yeah, okay. So, okay, so you can get back on.
    45:24
    Okay. So I'm pulling out and saying that we have the topper at $190. I'm going to round these because it makes it easier. $2,000 for a topper, okay? Okay. Expression lighting kit, $500. Shooter Rod, $225. Side Armor, $225. Art Blades, $100.
    45:52
    Okay. So what does that come up into the game? So the grand total there, you're like around $3,000, a little over $3,000. Yeah, $3,000. So you're looking at that and you're saying, okay, so this game is worth $6,200. Let's just say $6,100, $6,200. Okay. And I know this is the pro. But let's just say, okay, so let's – okay, the accessories are not worth half of the game. I agree. We can agree with that, right? Yeah. Okay, so we have the premium. Okay, I see a premium for sale at $7,200.
    46:43
    I see a premium for sale for $7,000, $8,500, $8,000. Yeah, we're dropping value quickly on the secondary market on these pairs. Right, and so, okay, here's my suggestion. if if this is your game and you really want to do it go ahead and and heaven knows i have bought tons of accessories basically every game that i have right now except for iron maiden has a topper because when i bought iron maiden they were not making the toppers okay but if you're looking at this this is where you may want to consider as a used uh as a used buyer if you if you're looking at that that you could say well how if i really want all that stuff do i want to wait until i can find one that someone else has paid the premium on that yeah and then you can say hey this has the topper this has the uh because we saw that with beatles right yeah people said hey beatles is going for this and it has a topper well you couldn't buy the topper alone but you could buy the machine with a topper yeah and and you could you could definitely significantly drop that investment cost and i if if you love the game then i say go ahead you know bling it out do whatever you want i am i am concerned that we are getting too ridiculous uh category where it's no longer it no longer feels that hey if you want this game and you want to spend a little more and get the nice version this feels a little bit like a price gouge from stern yeah well i think here's the other problem too is accessories they're not like bread and butter right like the pinball machines the bread and butter for stern and i think what we're going to start seeing is not necessarily price gouging but we're trying to make up pricing because venom didn't do well at all and jaws is doing pretty good but who knows where john wick's gonna land if it is john wick with john board and so the question is because pre-covid i mean we're four years after covid now right but pre-covid these machines respectively were you know pro was at the like 61 62 right uh premium was like was it it was high sevens low eights i want to say and your le's were under 10 And we jumped a lot. I mean, your LE went up three, four grand. Your premium went up almost 1,700. And then your pros went up almost 1,000. And so my question is, I guess to everyone that's sitting here listening and wondering about this, has all the pinball companies put themselves in a pickle at this point? Because if you do drop the price, it automatically devalues everything that's been bought in the last four years. There is a cascade effect. Yes. There definitely is a cascade effect, and it sends shockwaves, exactly what you're saying. So it becomes like, well, do we keep prices where they are, even though we're selling less units, and try to find money elsewhere? Or do we drop price? And I guarantee every company – because look at Berrio's Barbecue Challenge. It's $69.95. Galactic Tank Force's bottom one wasn't that. I want to say it was like $75. I could be wrong.
    50:19
    I mean, Turner Pinball apparently just dropped theirs $3,000. You see what I'm saying? Like, we're looking at pinball prices are starting to drop across the board. Granted, Stern is the big dog. They have a lot more wiggle room than the rest of them do. And they're not hurting as much as other companies. Correct. They're not. They're still selling games. Correct. So... it's going to be intriguing to see what happens this next couple of years. If we see, um, I think the $2,000 price tag is to kind of help make up for some money that may not be there from previous titles. Um, I could be wrong though. Like you said, a game like this is the thousand dollars. It's a thousand dollar topper. Now, the one thing I don't have access to and, and our good friend, Josh Sharp pointed this out when I was railing about topper prices back in the day. it's like the one thing you don't have is any numbers to back up your argument and i totally appreciate that i appreciate that i don't have access to their sales i don't have access to their margins i don't know um this is me looking at a topper and saying that they're probably i'm guessing on a build a material for a machine you're probably looking at about 55 to maybe 60 percent is is building materials and they're working with a 45 to 40 percent margin uh the total price of the game right yeah okay these if you look at these things and there is maybe 20 percent yeah like that topper does not cost more than 400 to make that's true there's no chance And so this is definitely a high margin thing. Would they sell a bunch more at a lower price? Yeah, they would. Now, is it worth it to them to lower the price and to sell?
    52:20
    It seems like the answer is no. Yeah. Because they are showing with the product and their pricing that they are more interested in whatever sales numbers and sales margin they're getting from that product. Yeah. Go ahead. I was just going to say the other thing too is prices haven't – your bill of material that you've been talking about, prices of those haven't come down since COVID as well. Yeah. So we do have to take that factor as well too. Right. And the challenge is what this does is eventually – okay, you're not – you're probably not old enough to remember this. Okay. Just throwing this out there, okay? The movie that actually, from my recollection, totally broke the mold for home ownership of a product was Top Gun. Oh, yeah? Because there's a reason why they had video rental places that you were paying a couple bucks to rent Star Wars or whatever it was, is because they were selling the movies for 75 bucks.
    53:36
    And this is back in like 1983 or whatever. I thought it was released in 86. Okay. No, I know. But what I'm saying is before that, the prices for these, if you wanted to buy the actual – if you wanted to buy a non-bootleg, that's the bottom line. If you wanted to buy a product from Paramount Pictures, it was like $75 to buy Return of the Jedi or whatever. And I know that's not Paramount. That's Fox. But when Top Gun came out, they started advertising, hey, you want Top Gun? 1995.
    54:21
    Like you can buy it from us. You can buy the original because what was happening is they were losing so much money to bootleggers or people who would rent. Like back in the day, people would rent a movie. They would have VCR attached to another VCR and they would just copy it. Yeah. And so they had the like back in the 80s, like watch the Goldbergs walk, walk into someone's VCR collection. And it was all a whole bunch of like handwritten labels on these movies. Yeah. Because they were all bootlegged. OK, so what you're doing when you start setting these prices at what they are is you are giving incentive for people to look at unlicensed products as an alternative and whether or not now we all have seen them, the unlicensed toppers. And I not I not promoting this at all But outside of the country there are people who basically take the artwork Zombie Yeti art and they screen print it on a piece of plastic and they sell it for and people put it on their machine And that's going to increase the incentive for people to do that if they want a topper look on a game. Yeah. And it's easier to bootleg a topper or – you know a shooter rod the game itself it's just there's just no way but no no but the side armor you can definitely buy alternative versions of laser cut side armor for 100 bucks yep so no i get you i think like i said it's i think we're really in the wild west of a pinball pricing at the moment because i don't think anyone has the answer uh there's a lot of variable factors like you said we don't have the numbers we don't we don't see behind the scenes of those numbers No one does besides the higher-ups at work at Stern. So we're just trending at where newer games are coming out price-wise.
    56:23
    I bet we see some shift here in the next couple of years. Where that shift goes, I don't know. And I said shift. I kind of said, okay. Lost the F in it. Yeah. Oops. You know, I will also argue that I am not super interested in Stern's shooter rods.
    56:43
    Me neither. They kind of stink, to be frank. And this is a physics thing. You feel a shooter rod that's an OEM shooter rod, and then you compare it to the shooter rods. Now, I have three extra shooter rods that I have put in my games. I have Rush, I have Avengers Infinity Quest, and I also have Jurassic Park. Okay? They stink because they are heavier than the OEM one. And I'm not kidding how ridiculous it is on Avengers Infinity Quest. The cool shooter rod that you pay extra for, you pull it back into a full plunge and it doesn't even make it all the way around. You have to auto plunge it to make it all the way around. and rush is kind of the same way but you kind of do want a short plunge on rush so it's not as big of a deal yeah but the fact that they obviously don't care like you're supposed to you are putting more inside strings to spring to it yeah you can but you shouldn't have to modify something that's a a licensed accessory from the manufacturer no that's what i'm saying i agree with you they should be putting the spring in at the factory as they're assembling it they should make sure that the pull like how far you pull back the shooter rod on a custom uh like knob is going to give you the same force this is a physics equation this has nothing to do and because it's the moment of inertia because you have a heavier piece of plastic on the shooter rod yeah so the one thing you don't want to do is pay more to upgrade a game and you get a less like a worse experience than something that is six thousand bucks out of the box no i agree so all right i think i think we've talked about this one so i drove that into the ground but okay tell me if i'm wrong if you think i'm wrong it's fine tell me i'm wrong tell scott yeah tell me actually send it to josh because Josh checks all the email.
    58:56
    Oh my goodness. All right. Tilt Bob Pinball, a new pinball company, has officially revealed their game Road Trip. Not the full game, though. Just like the lower two-thirds. They've posted confidential stuff over the top third.
    59:17
    I'm going to go first. Okay. This is you. Go. Uh, this looks like another division of like pinball adventures from the like almost children's book artwork on the play field to the concept. It just.
    59:36
    It's not for me. OK, it's a no for me, dog, as Randy would say, off of American Idol, like what, 30 years ago. OK, so why why would you say that? I know you just saying on presentation presentation. The game looked like it was really fun to shoot.
    59:55
    As the guy's shooting it, I don't fully understand what that left ramp is doing. It looks like you hit it, and it kind of just dumps it in the upper play field. I don't know if there's something up there they're trying to hide. I mean, obviously there are because it's a confidential thing. But it just – I guess this is the hard part, right? Let's talk Ninja Eclipse from like six months ago. If you were comparing, it'd probably be a no from there. but i think if tilt bob reverses course on some of this if they get some well-known names from the pinball industry in there that know what they're doing just to give them some advice i'm not saying to come in and like pay them to remake the thing okay just just get some good constructive criticism to make this better because as it sits right now i have no interest in this game that's just me okay okay now this is still in the hey we're revealing it and it's getting like this is not a production ready game right yeah so you can't buy it right now nope and it says it probably won't be right it says it should be ready by the end of 2024 if i remember correctly like so it's it's not making a public yeah so it's public they do as nap says public debut in 2024 so okay so yeah this okay i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing um they have the screen in the play field which makes you think of alien right back in the day like the original alien uh it also has you know it has wire form ramps that actually i would say look like pretty good they're they're they're colored they're powder coated which makes you think a little bit of like roller coaster tycoon right yeah the artwork does feel very much like uh an 80s game or it feels very much like you know those carpets that you buy for your kids rooms that have like the... This is not an insult. Yeah, you have a matchbox car and you go around and you go, boom. That's what it looks like. Yep.
    62:08
    We know that... Okay, it does look professional though. It does look like they did put some effort onto the artwork. The cows seem strange.
    62:21
    Like, do the cows move? Because it kind of looks like there's a slot on the cows. Yeah, actually, they're pop-up targets. Yeah, you hit them and they drop down. Yeah. So they seem different, but maybe they're going for a – this is definitely someone that would go for a family theme. Yeah.
    62:45
    Is road trip something that people are clamoring for? No. But if it's a fun shooter – And it has been done before. It has been, yeah. if it's a fun shooter and it has interesting call outs maybe because you see his vacation uh yeah yeah anyhow yeah it it is a little puzzling that someone would go with um with an unlicensed thing for a for a debut i guess yeah and there's a reason why labyrinth went with you know labyrinth yep because because i haven't had people contact me who labyrinth for no apparent reason is like one of their favorite movies um i i don't think that i it doesn't connect at all with me because i saw it like six months ago and i just thought it was weird yeah but it does connect with some people so going off something like this is there no license that you could afford or maybe they're just thinking we're not going to make a thousand of these and so they just want something safe like america's most haunted yeah or something like that which really isn't a bad idea like really i mean america's most haunted was 125 so that makes sense good luck to them let's see we're going to expo so i'm guessing maybe they'll have it there i don't know i'll play it i'll give my thoughts i would say initial impressions though initial impressions make me yeah it just looks like too much of a throwback yeah and so I'm hoping that it's going to you know whatever their top secret thing up there is going to be really cool yeah that it's you know right now it's more of a curiosity than I'm really interested in buying this game all right let's talk the last rumor flying around right now okay the new bally williams company so i don't know if this is like separate from pendretti because pendretti was announced back in january it was they are officially licensed with planetary pinball um and they do plan on making remakes right um or if this is like a separate company entirely but my my money's on pendretti but the rumor is is the remake coming out from them the the new bally williams company next is uh funhouse which would go in line with my pedretti because they made funhouse 2.0 right it only makes sense if they already have the license for the 2.0 why why wouldn't you make and honestly funhouse is a really good game and i think it would do well as a as a remake and there are other ones that i would go with first that's my gut feeling i think if you already have production down though if you already have it already paid for okay they already have it on a pipeline and it was received modestly all right you know it was better than whirlwind sure what i'm trying to think of like let's okay i'm pulling up the list of like the bally williams games from the 90s okay so give me a second i think with this being an original theme you're not fighting licensing either outside of if you've already got the planetary pinball license yeah you're not fighting very much there as well plus you're already doing the upgrades to the the mystery mirror like they did the little uh lcd there i just i think it's a smart move like i said if it is for sure pendretti making fun house i just i think it's a smart decision i get it but as fun house like okay i just throwing things out there i would do tales of the arabian nights first i'm not gonna fight you on that no yeah and i would also do theater magic before that i would also do if you can do it indiana jones the pinball adventure yeah and they they just made a new indiana jones movie that i I know it didn't do super well, but my friend who sold his super awesome – his Indiana Jones, the Bally Williams game, the Pinball Adventure, he still says, you know, if they made that, I'd buy it right now. And his Tales of the Arabian Nights, he said the same thing. If they made that, I'd buy it right now. I don't feel the same way if they said, great, you know, there's a new fun house out there.
    67:19
    And maybe it's just because I'm not the biggest Pat Lawler guy. Maybe. Personally, me, I think Funhaus is one of his best games he's made. Really? Okay. I think out of all the Pat Lawler designs I've played, Funhaus is one where I'm still excited to play every time I play it. Really? Mm-hmm. I love Funhaus. Okay. That's why I'm saying, like I said, from a production standpoint, if you already own the licensing, you've already put money into development with Cutting Pass 2.0, I just think it makes great business sense to get your company off the ground to begin with. I agree with you. There's probably better 90s games to start off with. But from a business standpoint, I think it's smart if they are going with that. It's still a solid game, and you are correct in saying that if you've already put some money into this theme, then maybe that's something to continue with. So I agree with you on that. And the secondary market, have you seen the secondary market for fun houses right now? It's insane. When I first got in, I thought $3,500 was insane for a fun house.
    68:27
    For a fun house, this is not 2.0. This is just fun house straight out. You're still looking at high sixes, low sevens. So you're basically looking at a Stern Pro.
    68:38
    Yep, you're looking at a Stern Pro. I guess there's one in Jersey for $5,800. One in San Diego for $61. one apparently in Phoenix for $13,000. That's sell-pounding. I don't know what – does it mean $13,000 is what they're getting? Even the Funhouse 2.0, I wonder what people are trying to sell those. $8,800 to $10,300. Yeah, that's a lot. One right now you want to buy in New York for $11,000.
    69:08
    There's three marketplace ads for Tales of the Arabian Nights. One's for $10,500. One's a trade. and one's 13,000 firm. Yep.
    69:19
    Another one, let's just look at, and I know we're playing what if. Yeah, we are definitely playing what if. Because, you know, you made the point that, hey, if you're going to do it, you probably just want to stick with what you've already made. Okay, so in the pinball adventures, $11,250 $12,500 so you're still looking at an Ellie Stern yeah the question is do you have to fight Disney on the licensing on something like that because now they own Indiana Jones or is it because okay I'm sorry it can't be that hard they need like a billion of the Marvel movies true they need Star Wars it can't be that hard to negotiate an existing product this is not even a new product yeah true you're just re-upping a license from or would you be re-upping a license because you would well i guess if you do any changes from the original i don't know i don't know tell us your thoughts do you think funhouse is a good game i don't know it wouldn't be a good one for me, but I understand from a business decision-making standpoint why they would do it.
    70:41
    Okay, I think that pretty much does it for us, Scott. We've been I don't know if I have to edit this down. We went a little long. Sorry. Hopefully you enjoyed the time we had together. Definitely. We got plenty coming up. Like I said, we were supposed to record last Saturday and sadly both our guests had to bail so um maybe we'll have an interview episode here soon i don't know we're trying to still figure this out springtime's always kind of a weird time so yeah but uh if you want to get a hold of us we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com i need to start saying this at the beginning of the episode because we do have a youtube if you go there and press subscribe it helps us out uh just because we can then like link our silver ball swag if you want our t-shirts or if you'd like some shoes or whatever, you can go to silverballswag.com slash loser kid. We'd be able to attach that to our YouTube. I don't know why you have to have 500 subscribers, but that's, that's the agreement. Apparently you have to have Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, YouTube, all at loser kid pinball. And like I said, again, if you do want to get hold of us, probably the best ways messenger on Facebook, but the Gmail does come straight to me. I will respond to that as well. As long as for some odd reason, my phone doesn't like to notify me i get gmail so that's like manually update you have to look at it yeah yeah uh other than that what what else you got for scott okay i want feedback from texas since we weren't able to go we're living vicariously through you so please give us your feedback from texas and tell us what you like tell us what you were disappointed in and tell us what you're looking forward to in expo yes and as we close this out this is glenn wechter's zeps test song enjoy We'll be right back. Thank you.