Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. It is the Pinball Show. It's episode 185. Myself, I'm Zach Minney, alongside Dennis Creasel. Dennis Fomo is back, baby. Oh, yeah. Welcome, Zach. Welcome to the almost official Beetlejuice podcast. This is a very exciting time for us. This is the official post-reaction Beetlejuice podcast. And maybe the post-post reaction to the Walking Dead remastered podcast. Whoa. Because it's a twofer. It's a twofer. I don't know if you saw me online this last week. I'll have to refer you to go back to the Flip N Out Pinball Facebook page. And I was battling in there. I was at one point. I think I did. I think I did. What were you going to call it? Art gate? it's the most engagement of any post I've ever received. I mean, hundreds of comments, hundreds of reactions. There were people sharing that post just because it was like a built-in forum of battle. It was great. Someone somewhere, I remember someone sent me a picture or a comment or something left on one of the feeds or on YouTube or what, But it was basically because we had had the conversation last time, and you had brought about the art. And I said, well, there's no way. It could be worse than the original. And someone basically said, Dennis was wrong. We're going to get into all of that. And I think I make some pretty great arguments. I just, on that forum or on that post, people were so angry that I lynched myself to maybe lighten the mood, you know. It was the opposite of reading the room. I was trying to defy the room. You have to understand that. When it comes to a product that you are selling, that is a line where it's just going to come across as shilly. the moment you defend something on, oh, well, this is currently in production, and I happen to sell them. I thought it was, and a lot of people just don't, for whatever reason, a lot of people in this hobby just don't catch on quick when it comes to sarcasm or, like, leaning. So I was trying to, like, lean into that. And I was trying to impart some logic just on when people were just so over the edge with emotion, I tried to like throw a little logic thing in there just to see and 95% would double, triple, quadruple down, man. They were like, no, not only is it horrible and negate any other enhancements on the entire game, it's made me never want to buy a pinball machine again. And fuck you for even suggesting that I play this piece of shit. Oh, man. But it was fun. It was a lot of fun for me Just because whenever things go south, like a product like that, I'm never going to win people back to Logic or anything like that. So I just lean into it. I'm like, we're here. We might as well, you know, try the food and beverages while we're here. We might as well try the attractions. Let's jump in. And speaking of jumping in, let's do that right now with Stern Pinball. Speaking of, production updates. This past couple of weeks, they've been building Metallica Remastered Premiums. Jurassic Park Premiums went prior to that. And then on the line right now is the Walking Dead Remastered. Oddly enough, here's a little switcheroo here. I don't know if they've done this before, but there is some indication that this week, usually LEs, recently, LEs ship before pros or premiums. This is just a premium LE remastered run. But this time around, that was the plan, LEs first, then premiums. But I think they're talking about sliding in some location premiums at the same time or even before the LEs roll out this week. So this week, they're talking about getting some of those location premiums out to people for them to get their hands on and to see in person. And we need to get a T-shirt, looks better in person. How many get a T-shirt that says, looks better in person? It's growing on me. There's so many great pinball T-shirts to get. But, yeah, possibly some premiums going out. And then Ellie's, I'm thinking we'll see them leaving the end of this week or into next week, the Ellie's. and then we're going to finish up November with the Walking Dead premiums for all the residential consumers. December, same thing, Jurassic Park Pro, Jaws Pro, that last Jaws 50th anniversary final run, and then James Bond Premium are going to make their way. I think the James Bond Pro was supposed to be in there and then got bumped back into 2026. Could be January, could just be as needed. And then at the end of December, probably, I would guess early January, we'll get that announcement for their first 2026 Cornerstone by Stern Pinball. Which, at this point, people are rumoring that it could be Pokemon, could be Transformers, could be Fallout. That's kind of the three that people are discussing. There was some discussion, maybe it's Pokemon. No, maybe they bumped Transformers up. No, maybe it's Pokemon. I honestly have no clue what it is. No clue. But it'll be an interesting 2026 for Stern Comparatively to 2025 And we're going to talk about that here at the Pinball Show Likely in December Next couple, as we wrap up the year, we'll talk about that Elvira Premium, I just want to make a production note here Everybody knows it's been vaulted But they still had stock over at Stern Pinball They've now officially ran out of stock at Stern Pinball of Elvira Premium So the only ones available at this point are through dealers and distributors. So that is gone. Stern Pinball, we talked about it last episode on 184. They reveal The Walking Dead Remastered. Now we know everything there is to know about it. We did know something. We knew that the game designer was on board still because it's still essentially the same layout, just tweaked. Lead programmer, still Lyman Sheets of old, historic, wonderful rule set that people love. The remastered programmer, nobody really knew. Stern did finally come out and say it's Mark Guidarelli and team. There are many hands in the honeypot, if you will, or the skull of the Walking Dead remaster. Artist Robert Lassky. So that's a new newcomer in pinball. I did look at the portfolio of Robert Lassky after all of the feedback that people have been giving about the artwork. We'll go into that discussion. wise, but pretty impressive portfolio. But some of them you do see some really dark, almost total realism. I thought this was a way that they get a Christopher Franchi-esque type back into Stern. And I think they did do that to some extent that we'll talk about. But this being the first time Robert Lasky. Hey, Rob, welcome. Welcome to pinball, my friend. And long are the days of being at Comic-Con and doing comic book stuff or gig posters, action figures possibly. Welcome, my friend, to fucking pinball. Voice talent was done. Now, we didn't know we questioned that, Dennis. We said, are we going to get that hick again, the generic redneck? No, they fixed that. But the artwork, I don't care about the enhancement. No. So we now have the individuals, the characters on the film series, Michael Rooker, who plays Merle, and Danai Gurira, who plays one of my favorites, Michonne, on the show. So those custom call-outs now. That's awesome. And then two models, premium and LE. The LE is limited to 500 units, no price increase, blah, blah, blah. We talked about that. The product launch, we've seen the teaser already, oddly enough, way before the release. Now we have seen the trailer photos, the extended product video. Still no gameplay video of this recording. I kept trying to find something because I want to see it in play. I mean, I know how the game plays. I want to see the LCD screen. That's what I wanted to see because, you know, I saw it was in an App Arcade article that supposedly they took scenes from the show, but they're, like, drawn over. So, like, it's, I guess, like an animated version of it, but they don't actually have clips. That's what Seth Davis told us, because I asked him specifically during that dealer seminar. I said, somebody was like, does it have clips? He's like, yes, we have the assets from the series. And I said, but they talked about there was styling over the top of it to be more cohesive with the rest of the game. I said, yes, but will we be seeing our favorite parts of the series in asset form on the LCD screen? And he kind of said, yeah. He said, yeah, but they will be stylized in that, like, paint styling. The rest of the thing, we want it to be cohesive, kind of like so we can bring in the prior DMD animation. we reanimated that but we stylized those so we wanted it all to be cohesive it all was business words, business words, business words, it sounded good but he even gave the reference in the dealer seminar viewer that he was like, he even used a reference like standard darkly, he was like remember when Keanu Reeves was in standard darkly and all that and I was like, oh well, so a lot of people like that and they were like, okay, well that's badass, but we haven't seen any of that Because we don't see the gameplay video. And it surely was not in the marketing material, but was that because of an IP thing? We'll talk about that soon. And then this week is going to premiere at IAFA, the arcade coin-op industry show in Orlando. So I think we're going to see it this week. I think there could be a gameplay video as early as today, but if not, I think later on this week. So what is remastered on this game? We know what was remastered on Metallica, and people ate it up. What is remastered on The Walking Dead? Well, mechanical improvements across all gameplay toys and updated mechanical devices, like an improved Well Walker toy. We even have that Well Walker toy now that has an additional coil added to it. So it independently moves now, which I think is objectively better than just it being a reactive batch toy. How dare you. How dare you say anything positive? This is going to be a running theme, people. Bear with me. Upgraded crossbow functionality. Great. Updated rollover playfield buttons. Those were finicky. I forgot to mention that. They were very finicky. I've replaced them before. They get sticky before like all star rollovers do. However, I kind of like the looks of them better. I'm not going to lie. the star rollovers transparent than a black button. Yeah, you don't spend a lot of time looking at them, though, so I don't. I agree that they don't look as good as black dots, especially because they're incongruent with the art. Another thing I wanted to add that I think people enjoy and respect the pinball show because of this. I've not heard anybody talking about it before or, you know, yet in media. I'm seeing different placement of those rollovers too One that in my opinion will actually make And they've even said it in the dealer seminar I think it's a selling point And maybe they're not, maybe they're the same spot But one that I think would be very beneficial for that skill shot, absolutely I remember there being two star rollovers up towards the top Because remember, you've got to see which star rollover you go over and all that stuff But look at the one that's in the cross, the railroad track at orbit. Right, right, the railroad shot, yeah. I think that's an additional one. I don't remember it on the original. Yeah. And see, that could do a lot of things there. Think about skill shot diversity there. Think about it can then track the shot going through the pops there. Yeah, I just loaded up a picture. Okay. It's not on the original. It's weird. But, again, what we'll talk about, my reactions to this rollout of this new product, to me, odd that they didn't focus on some of the things that I think are great selling points. And I don't know the reasoning why. But this is an example of one. Like, that's an additional thing in the game. People are like, no, it's not that big of a deal. Okay. But if you're trying to sell a product, why are you not highlighting every single thing possible that is remastered? And I think that's pretty damn cool or could be used in certainly a better way than it has in the past. Okay, so we got that. We've got the voiceovers by the characters now. That's a remastered, also remastered, completely overhauled 3D rendered graphics and custom animations that pay homage to the original dot matrix display. Again, here in these sales things, we're not hearing clips from your favorite parts. I don't know. Updated art package across the cabinet, play field, and sculpt decorations. We do have, like, the sculpts are inherently better. They just, I mean, you can't sit both of them up beside each other and be like, nope, I like that one better. They are better. To what degree? That's an argument for anyone to make, but enhance there. New lit zombie heads added to slings, trademarked on board at this point. It seems like any game that man comes out with has to have helmets everywhere. You can tell I don't like that feature. Upgraded RGB lighting implementation across the play field. That's huge. I'll talk about that. More processor power, more memory, better Wi-Fi, better graphics. There wasn't Wi-Fi on the original. Okay. Yep. I think this was just a copy-paste from Spike 3. Yeah, it sounds like Spike 3 stuff. I mean, yeah, it would have the other better stuff. New 18.5. If we're comparing what you got on the old one versus what you get on the new remastered one, you do get an 18.5-inch HD display, improved power supply, wireless headphone support, all-new improved sound system with upgraded amplifier and speaker system, updated cabinet lighting customization system, designed to allow for internal and external expression lighting on all versions of the game. And you do get Insider Connected, which people freaking love. Insider Connected. All right. And Insider Connected, this is the new cabinet. Remember we talked about Spike 3 when Star Wars came out, the fall of the Empire. Maybe it's not the base cabinet, but the head is. That's the new Spike 3. Well, this is it. Because as we see, there is the expression lighting is now, again, people are not talking about this. they're doing the same cabinet going forward. So all your cornerstones, pro, premium, LE, they're all going to have that area for these new expression lights. Now, as to whether they will implement the pro having the expression lights, I don't know, but it is a capability. It is a possibility on every single cornerstone moving forward to have that accessory being added. So that's pretty big. They also are creating this cabinet in a way that you can have the external lighting of that expression lighting as well through the cutouts of the armor and such. On this one, there are bullets going up the play field, and the light shines a la, because I heard people like, they've never done this before. They have. It's Star Trek LA. But you can have those lighting going up and down. I do have to push back a little bit from people whining and crying, the bullets are going the wrong way. Because the lights in some sequences flash from top of play field down, thus making it look like bullets are going backwards. Back into the gun, yeah. Guys. You want fucking external lighting or not? It's like, Zach, there's no sequence of lighting. This is like where you have a movie and they show the night sky and it's not the right constellations for the hemisphere they're in. That's exactly what this is. It's going to bother some people. It's going to bother folk. Folk be bothered. People ain't watching the video of this. It's okay, Zach. It's okay. I do like that it has insider connected. And I do like the external lighting. Do we not all agree? Yeah, I like lighting externally than I don't on my rails. Okay. And I did hear people say, well, the casings are still on the bullet. You know what? I'll let you have that one. All right. Okay. But to say the bullets go backwards, I mean, the effect makes them appear to be going backwards. In reality, they're not moving at all because they're lights. Because they're cutouts. They're absolutely not. They're not a real bullet. In fact, it's not a real bullet, just so you know. That's not absolutely a chasing. It's a cutout. Armor for ants? What is this? Okay. Sales introduction. I don't know why you're complaining about that. It's a fair complaint. As nitpicky as it is, it's fair. Okay. There's other complaints that are allowed. You have to be careful because you start sounding like you're picking things where it sounds like you're walking your shill line because it's like this game ain't doing what Metallica would have done. What person in my position is as hard on games as me? You're softest on Stern, though. I just ripped into John Board for putting fucking helmets on everyone in the game. You judged. It wasn't a helmet. They're zombie heads. Which shows that I'm being tough on you. But you didn't blame Stern. You blamed John. Why do you not like Stern? Stern. Why are you allowing that man to continue putting helmets everywhere? I'm thinking bike better than you. Is that what it is? Is that where this hate flows from? That is truth. No, I just want to see, I don't want to see the helmets anymore. That's all. And I'm seeing them too much. I will only pass judgment on the helmets when they give them a Kung Fu Grip action knife. And then put that on the flyer. That's a Kung Fu Grip too far for me. The little knife. Sales and production. Ellie's sales were what I would call fair. They're fair. Okay. Sold a lot of them, but still, I hold them to a high level. I want to put it in non-distro terms. If I wanted to buy an Ellie new right now, would it be easy for me to do so? Available. Okay. Available. Star Wars? Available. Ellie. Star Wars Ellie. Really? Available. Yep. I'm more surprised about that. But, of course, that is such a killer theme. Yeah. And, ultimately, all Ellies will sell. They will all sell. Yeah, just ask WWE. Man, that was like 20 years ago. We're in a different era. I mean, it was. It was. You know what, though? What about striker extremes? Depending on the price, I would buy 20 to 30 WWE LEs at this point if I could in an inbox. I would. So if you guys are hoarding them out there. Okay. Where else were we at? Oh, the sales of the premium sales, I would say actually below average. I'd say below average. I'm comparing this to like the Metallica remastered game as well as the recent Stern releases over the last couple years you can't, I don't think this is, you know as a non-distributor, I don't think it's fair though to ever so did you expect this to do Metallica levels? no, no, even though I like Walking Dead better than Metallica as a game I do too it has never been in that same orbit, by the community has never been seen as equal. We laid out on this podcast, I don't think was that behind the patron? I don't think so. I don't think it was. I thought it was the main show. This is shilly, but it's not intended to be shilly. I'm trying to be legit. Dennis and I were talking about this morning. Some of the gold that we're giving on that Patreon, that content, through those episodes, I'm kind of saddened because I'm like, man, some of that shit is just really great. discussion. And yeah, you guys have to listen to that. Patreon.com slash The Pinball Show. That was the show for it. So production-wise, we talked about it. They're making them now. Okay, let's jump into the talking points here. Pinball enthusiasts lost their collective minds regarding the art package on this game. Is that fair to say? I think it's a good It's been the focus, absolutely. Okay. Why? How? Should they have lost their minds? Like, what were your thoughts on the art package on this game? No comment. What was that? No comment? None? No, I know. You were. I know you hate it when someone doesn't have an opinion. So, oh gosh, all right And this is where I don't know if I don't want to be wrong with what I said earlier And if that's biasing me or not So the listeners and viewers can judge They're going to judge either way Yeah, they'll judge either way I will go ahead and I will say I think overall this is a better package Than the original art package But I do not like it Okay I don't like it And I just expected you know, it's like when Godzilla came out. This was like the one talking point with Godzilla. And I agreed with it there too, though it wasn't nearly at this volume. And that was, why is Godzilla so colorful? And here we are in a post-apocalyptic world. You love saturation, though. The video made it look like the saturation wasn't nearly as bad as the still photos they put out. The still photos were pumped up a little bit. I think maybe they used those sliders and slid that saturation. The flyer photos are better. The flyer photos are better. So, again, I think in person it's not going to feel as glaring. My problem is when I first thought, well, I think the characters are well composed, I do not like the decision to go with an orange and blue color scheme. To me, it's straight up out of the early 2000s born identity movie poster thing where it's like these two clashing colors that it's exciting when you put them together, and everyone just started doing it on everything. It in no way embodies the world of The Walking Dead, that color scheme. And that's really my fundamental issue. I would say you could argue that the sides of the cabinet of the original are more fitting. You could argue on the translights if you wanted to. I think the play field is still objectively better, in my view, having actual characters and cast of the shows beyond just the slings, sling plastics, booty rights stuff. So personally, for me, composition-wise, I think it's a better package on all parts. Color scheme-wise, I don't love the colors, but I'll take orange and blue over brown with red blood splatter. But could it have been something with still blood splatter and having the characters featured and not just a sea of brown. Brown can be done well. The sand, you know, the premium edition of Iron Maiden looks pretty good in brown. So you can do a good brown. The original was not a good art package. It just was not. Stick to complementary kind of or similar. But they could have just made it more, especially because the style of the characters is so realistic, it could have just been a more realistic backdrop. And instead it had to be comic book loud and it doesn't fit the theme And it wasn't like, because again, there's the graphic novel. The graphic novel style is not this style either. And so it could have been that style with AMC's characters, and they didn't do it. So I think this was not what anybody expected it to look like. That's what I think it comes down to. And in the world of pinball art packages, this will not be remembered as a highlight. Yeah, that's a really good take. almost too objective I mean again I was like so I do think we're sacrificing goats because of this art package they were offended people were offended I felt it in their text like they were harmed by this art package they were so so angry I think there's more going on than just the art but I digress they might have but where I think I there's no reason for them not to articulate what other things bother them there's no reason to hide behind the art if it's something else they don't think the game should be costless much that could be an argument but again they didn't raise the price on it so I don't really think that's the problem that's expecting them to know that that's what they're doing I would posit that they're picking on the artwork because they're unable to properly identify the other reasons in which they are frustrated with this product, this company, etc. Do you have a theory what they're frustrated with? Oh, a number of things. I mean, and we've talked about some of them on the show. I mean, I think a lot of people crying and screaming had no intentions on buying this game, had no intentions on really looking forward to this game. I think some of the people were upset because they're wanting to send a message within the hobby. It was their way of sending a message. It's also, in my belief, a lot of groupthink as well. I think that once a narrative snowball starts rolling down that hill, one of the easiest things for hobbyists to do if they're impartial is to be loud, obnoxious people as well and throw in your running joke. You're running low blow, you know, just because it's like the cool thing to do. Uh, I think that's a group thing. I think psychologically it's a lot of stuff. I think it sends a message saying we recently have gotten two things that we as hobbyists have been asking for from other companies. we are going to make sure that Stern hears that those are the kind of things that we really do want and we value those because of these reasons, which I think also leads to our second story of the day, why the hype was so strong on Beetlejuice. I think it exceeded that of which any pinball game could have ever been, but it exceeded that with the same amount and intensity of emotion that this theme negative on that chart the other way for Walking Dead. It's just a way for mass amounts of people as a group to be able to communicate things. So, yeah, I think that was some of it as well. It's also a way to tell Stern we don't want this theme. There's a way to do it as well because it's really easy to just jump on this. This isn't Walking Dead. Okay. Did you really want Walking Dead? Well, no, but okay. So it's a different issue. that you're having here. Well, damn it, this ain't it, though. Okay. So those are a couple of the reasons. I'd ask you this. If the hypothesis that Stern loves colors and the art department love colors now, right? A lot of people would argue that. I'm saying, let's, for argument's sake, say that you're right. I wonder if an art package could have still been colorful, but also been more within the world of The Walking Dead, such as more similar toned colors, such as different blues, maybe some darker greens thrown in there, but blues, purples. No opposite color circle, color hue wheel, where they're going all the way orange or opposite of blue, maybe staying in the same tone. Blues, purples, navies, that kind of stuff. still really colorful, but more dark as the world of The Walking Dead is. Do you think that would have helped? It would have helped me. Okay. Like, I'm okay with it being colorful. And again, Beetlejuice is an example. You go back and it's been a while since I've seen the movie, but the game is super colorful, more colorful than I feel the movie is. But it works fine the way they've done it, Because it feels true to the spirit of the movie. Orange and blue is not true to the spirit of, like, that's quite true to the spirit of explosions, which is not what Walking Dead is about. Yeah, this is more just a stylistic choice. To me, it felt like Stern, and maybe this is how others felt. I'm going to go out on a short limb and say I think probably a lot of people saw this. is Stern, the Marvelification of Stern and their insistence on everything being like their successful Marvel games, and this is a Marvel color scheme applied to a title that they do not want associated with Disney in any way. I don't know if they're thinking about it in those level of layers, but where I think what Stern has done makes a lot of, again, a lot of business sense. They're like, when we started doing this style, you know, hand-drawn, colorful art, our games started to move. And they're going to milk that. Branch and Yeti's combo was successful. They will milk that until it doesn't work anymore, and then they will assess to find something as a different strategy. But I think their go-to rule is things will be really, really colorful. But it's okay to use a lot of a single color, too. We saw that with Deadpool. You know, that's very, very red. Jaws has a lot of blue going on. You know, they could have done something where I think your idea of blue could have been very interesting, a real big emphasis on blue with some other colors as highlights, and it could have still been colorful that felt more authentic to the world while still being creative. Or you could have went the opposite and just went if you want to go explosions you could pull in the reds from blood and go more red yellow orange I still kind of wish they had found a way to work the blood splatter in Maybe not to the level, again, the very paint. Well, the original play feels so pink by number. But, yeah, it's not, guys, it's not good. That's the thing. Sometimes I feel like in the vitriol, the zeal behind the vitriol, don't lose sight that that first art package is really not good, especially the play field. It's really not good. It's just not good. That's why I was leaning into having fun with people online, because they were leaning that far, and I'm like, you not liking it is fine. But can we all not just be normal humans here and say that the original was complete ass? It was horrible. No, not only do I love it, I'm going to buy me an old one now, and I'm going to pay more than the person's asking. That's the kind of shit that I'm like, oh, God, fucking Robert Downey eye roll. Like, come on, people. You know what was funny? People love hearing this is they eye roll me. I'll lean in. I don't care. Greg Bone straight down the middle, whenever this was, we did this dealer seminar, he called me afterwards, and he was like, hey, real quick, I know you're busy. I know you, and I'm wondering, how are you going to approach this to the public? because I know you probably fucking love this. So how are you going to tell people you love it without not looking like an apologist and somebody that's trying to protect what you sell? And I was like, I don't think there's any successful way to do that. Because, and as you know, Dennis, you can attest to, I love colorful. I mean, for anybody that has listened to our show or anything I've created, go back years. You're going to hear me love the colorful things that nobody loves. That's just how I am. And I do love color on pinball machines because they are a game. And I like my games really pretty and colorful. It's just, you know, when I go to the fair, I expect colors because I'm going to a bright, loud, fun attraction. Just my preference. So when I seen this art package, I fucking loved it. I really like it. I don't know what to say. Like, I think that I don't think the cabinet is any problem. I don't think the back glass is any problem. I thoroughly think they're pretty effing beautiful. So, Lasky, I am a fan. The play field is where I think that's what tipped people over the edge. They did on the play field what I don't like that any game does. Take me back to Tron, and I do not like the dichotomy of two colors. one going one side, one going the other. I don't like when people do the different colored rubbers, the different colored sling. I just don't like, I like symmetry. So I do not like left side is orange on Legacy, Tron Legacy. Right side is blue. I hate that. That's what I don't like about the play field. If you look at the top half, I was telling Greg this as well, because he was thinking it was too colorful and stuff at times. And I said, okay, can we not agree the bottom half holds that argument. But the top half is not too colorful. It's actually browns and oranges and stuff. Okay, well, it's the bottom half. All right. The bottom half is split into two. The left side is orange. The right side is blue. If that was all blue, I don't think we'd hear much complaining here. That's kind of my take. If you use orange just as a shadows, as you did right below the flippers, you might get away with it. But that dichotomy is really what throws people. but the photo realism is beautiful the compositions and the scenes of what's depicted on the right and left sides of the cabinet on the premium le gorgeous the governor with shaded colors shooting into a zombie mass like people want to see that michonne chopping off a head with blood flying off the katana blade. On the other side, Daryl being a total fucking badass on a motorcycle as an arrow's going through the head of a walker. Okay. This is beautiful stuff. The colors, okay. But I just hate that a lot of the beauty of this artwork is being lost because people don't like the color schemes. And it's part of the art. So, yeah, I think they're entitled to that argument. But the back glasses are beautiful. I really like it. I will say that, you know, though, for the average buyer, the size of the cabinet. They don't see it. Unless it's on the end. Like, I know. We still hear. But even, like, people with the fanciest, like, large collections, they don't see the sides. They're stacking these things in rows. It's not. Unless you end cap it, you get one. Nobody, unless it's like you're not a collector and you have one game and it's like in the center of a room, like nobody ever appreciates both sides. So, like that stuff is always going to, in my view, be a lower factor because people recognize that they're honest with themselves that they don't ever get to really appreciate it. Like in my house, because mine go all the way up to a wall, you see one art package, the left side of Godzilla, that's it. Okay. And the art that you see is a play field and a translator back glass. Yeah. So I judge those – like I care more about those than I do about the size. I can see that. I think the size of the cabinet are where the artist can really showcase the grandness of their artwork. So I like it as a collectability piece there. That's why I like the Ellie having different size. I can see that. But my other thing, and we don't really have this as a talking point, but it segues well into this. I think how this product was packaged, how this was presented, you guys know, dentistry knows as well, how strongly I feel about the launch of a product. So much so that I think the launch of a product can, has the ability to make or break sales to a significant degree. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars. based on the decisions of how you launch a product. I truly believe that. And I think if this was done, I'm not saying better, I'm saying differently. If this was done differently, I think sales could have at least doubled, at least doubled, if not more. Examples of that. I still don't know why there are features that we're not showcasing. Maybe it's a licensing thing. Has anybody ever thought about that? Maybe there's a licensing restriction from putting stuff on the marketing materials, from advertising that kind of stuff. So that could be a point of why this feels like we're not really showcasing everything on this game. I also think that the color is bold. if I was making a decision on how to launch this product I would have been here's what I would have done and if you guys keep an open mind especially the people that hate this art package keep an open mind here as I pitch you something if I was doing this because the sizzle reel in and of itself the trailer was very formulaic stern shot to shot to shot to feature to shot it wasn't what I would call super special engaging. It didn't have any build-up points that you want to do in a trailer. You want to build up the stuff. You want to give them big moments. You want to come back. Didn't really have any of that. It just kept on hitting you with random shots. That puts in the buyer's mind a lot of information. Then when you just dump all these pictures far away, what's the first thing you see when you see these pictures? Orange and blue. Wow. What if I was doing this trailer? I swear to you, this would have led to so much different perception. What if, when starting this trailer up, you're fading into the close-up of a Daryl as it pans away? You're scanning, and you see the articulate photorealism, what a lot of people love about this art package, the illustrations of that. Panning again of the illustrations of the characters on the back glass. Because those things, if panned close enough, you don't see screaming orange and blue. You see the beauty. And then, perceptually, once that's in the potential consumer's brain, you've already set the foundation for, oh, this fucking art package is kind of awesome. It's a whole lot better than the last one. And then you keep panning just the sexy parts of that without focusing too much on the dichotomy of blue and orange. You can even show a background of orange or show a background of blue. but not from the bird's eye view. So if you did a couple pans of that, really sexy car commercial-esque kind of feature shots, then you show them the gameplay and stuff they love, and then you show them more bold or more stuff. I think you've already kind of set the foundation of, hey, this might not be what I like, but I can't argue this is not beautiful artwork. Just something so simple as the way you present this in a trailer, and that being the first impressions of this game, I think is, like I said, potentially millions of dollars in one decision right there. Am I crazy? Well, I don't ever want to underestimate the power of propaganda. I don't know if it would be millions more. You call it propaganda. I call it strategy and appropriate marketing and advertising. Well, but the approach that you're outlining is essentially an acknowledgement meant that the wrong decision was made on the art. So we have to make up for it. We have to manipulate how people will view it. Initially showcase more universally, things that you know universally are going to be accepted. And properly. You always want to hit them with the things that they're going to love first. I don't think that's misrepresenting anything. Propaganda doesn't have to be misrepresentation. I've got to look up the word propaganda to see how high we are here. Because that's a strong word. Maybe you're right. Yeah. It's deliberate systematic dissemination of information, including facts, arguments, rumors, lies, to influence public opinion and behavior in a biased or misleading way. It's a bias, but it's biased because the goal is to sell. So there's a bias. There's a bias. I don't know if misleading is the right word. Or misleading. It doesn't have to be both. Okay. Political ideology, point of view, sway public opinion for other purposes such as commercial gain. True. While the term is often associated with political manipulation, it's broad. It can be found in advertising. Okay. I would say how propaganda works, manipulation of information, emotional appeal, use of symbols. That's weird. Media control. And then more political stuff. Okay, I will argue that. The best propaganda, Zach, is propaganda that uses truth because it's harder to argue against. So my point being, that's what advertising is. Yes, you're right. So, yes, this is all deliberately focusing on the best stuff. Yes, it makes logical sense, and it's designed to achieve a goal, and that's why I use the word. I don't think it doubles the sales. Really? No. But, again, I'm just guessing. I do think it would help. I do think it would have helped. So, ultimately, the answer from CERN's perspective would have been right to do it your way. Think about the seed you plant, though. It might not seem like it would double the sales, but if you planted a seed, look what happened. That narrative started rolling, and that's what people rolled with. And it became to the point that's so strong that a lot of hobbyists are like, if I purchase this game now, there's something wrong with me. I'm part of the problem. So I think doubling sales is actually extremely conservative. I don't. The reason I disagree for two reasons. One, I think you're right that there are people that fall into all these camps. Right. But you had already argued, I thought, fairly successfully that not everyone who's complaining about the art is really about the art. They weren't going to buy the game anyway. So that's why I just don't think the potential is there. Because I don't think this game is popular enough to double its sales from its initial sales. I just don't think you could market it well enough. It's just not a popular enough theme It's not a popular enough game The art is not the only potential issue with this For a lot of potential buyers I think the Scanner Darkly strategy is terrible If that's what they've actually done Or it could be amazing It might look amazing But we know what the people want, Zach They want the clips What do we hear constantly? I want Harry Potter and Harry Potter And that's what JJP gives them We want John Wick and John Wick And Sturm put John Wick in We're not asking them to redesign the art of the video content. We just want the clips. Who cares if it clashes? This sounds like business speak code, for we weren't allowed to use the clips, and so we had to manipulate them. And, again, if that was the artistic vision of the show, it would be different. Yeah, if they do scanner darkly pinball, I want it to look like scanner darkly. Okay, yeah. But nobody was asking for Walking Dead to be turned into the watercolor version. Unless it's sexy. Visually, it might be interesting, but you've got to be. Look at the flowers, Lizzie. Come on. Zach, I feel it is objectively the wrong decision. You would sell more no matter how beautiful it is. You would sell more if it's the actual show. And so that was a wrong decision. So not being able to show that, I think that's what has hurt this product. The other thing is this. They really didn't market and push what the enhanced code is going to be. Like, what's the remastered code here? Whereas I think they did maybe a better job on Metallica. I agree with that. It has additional modes. It has additional this. It's got additional. Like, they didn't really push that. That's why people are buying a remastered version. They are buying it because it is everything better than the original. And one of the big things, maybe half of why they're buying a remastered version, is some enhancements, even in a great code. We get an expanded way to play this in 2025, 2026. And fortunately for Stern, if they're not, I don't know if they're happy with sales. I would assume not. Never happy with the sales you get, even if it's a success. But maybe the good news is there's a lot of sales that can come if people see this and it has what they want to see visually, and it also has a lot of enhanced code. but we're just not getting enough information I think for a lot of people to make that decision speaking of looking at the flowers look at the lighting Lizzie new lighting feature now a possibility on all Spike 3 games I think is huge I love expression lighting and most people love that but I love now this external people were screaming why can't they do what they did on Star Trek LE well here it is there's just a lot on this game that I think is so much better than the initial one. So when I'm having fun bantering with people that are so angry, my focus was this. Okay, you don't like the art. And this is what I would pose to them. Out of all the enhancements on this game, there's a list of them. Is there anything that you don't want to burn? Like, is there anything you find even acceptable or, dare I say, maybe even like that is different? And this is the problem I have with human beings and why I don't make a good one. Like, because I don't relate well because when people then are like, fuck no, man, and fuck you for asking, I don't know how to deal with that because that person doesn't make any sense to me, and I don't see, and I'm sure they're a lovely person, but I just don't understand them. I can take something I hate and still objectively look at it and be like, dude, I hate the art so much that any of the other enhancements which I love is still not as impactful as the hatred I have for that art. Okay. But most people will then say, no, there's no enhancements. There's not a damn thing enhanced. And then you give them a list of stuff. Nope. I don't see that. I think it's a problem with our society. That's why it bleeds into politics and everything. I don't know. I just struggle with people, Dennis. I love them, but I struggle with them. I mean, I... There are a number of great games on this. Read your thread. Like, I haven't heard anyone complain that the voice call-out cast wasn't an upgrade. They don't want to acknowledge that it's an upgrade because they hate the art so much. That seems to happen. Well, now I can understand someone saying, I will not own this game because I hate the art package. Maybe they don't own the original because they hate the art package. And I say, is there anything else that you do like, though? And they say, absolutely not. Okay. I mean, I guess they may just be trolling. I mean, you just watercolored down your art argument when you do that to me. Sure. But it's not. I mean, I don't know. Like, what's the there's not there's not a lot of intellectual satisfaction to be had in trying like, well, isn't there something that's nice? I mean, what's like this to me? There's no discussion. There's no discussion. It really showcases and illustrates their lack of an actual opinion that merits any attention. Or at least their willingness to articulate it. But that's, you know, this is, it's not unusual. I guess it's common. The lighting, okay, but they can get lighting in any Spike 3 with this enhanced thing. So there's no, it's neither here nor there. Like nobody, there probably are some, I'm going to say it like that. Nobody's going to buy this because it's got Spike 3 lighting in it. Like, all they care about is the lighting. It's like, why not just wait for the next Spike 3 game and get the lighting on a game you actually care about? Like, there's no – it's just not enough to move it. I'm with you. I was so confused why they didn't talk about any of the new modes or anything. I'm unclear. Based off the art package, is this any later seasons? I didn't see any Negan stuff. Yeah, I don't know. So it feels like it's all still the same seasons. I just this was a miss for me even though I actually think the art package overall is superior to the original and there's a lot of like every technical enhancement is an improvement that they've listed and the code probably will be more interesting with whatever they do end up doing with it but I'm just like the way the clips the way the clips were described like that was the one big thing to have a screen on about it especially with it being the AMC show. You couldn't do that right. Not a color scheme I'm a huge fan of. I could look past it because I hate the original art so much. But, okay. Call-outs are great, but I already dropped in movie clips into my personal version. Including Negan clips, you know, Negan audio stuff. And this never, I'm going to rub my temples, Zach. This never was a theme that made sense for Stern to redo. I really do not understand why they picked this one. I do not. Other than that, we all know that, like, we, those of us on the inside know that it's a really good game. It just, it's not, it was not the right answer. It was not the right answer. And we don't know what that threshold of them having, quote, unquote, success is. Right. No, we don't. They may have, at minimum, been like, all right, this didn't sell as great as Godzilla. but we still made enough money to do things like this, and it makes sense for us. It still makes us money, so, yeah, we'll keep doing it. I mean, I have assumed that they do not assume that remasters will move like cornerstones. Like, that's my assumption. It's a way to. They have to have a sales target, but I don't know. I am assuming that the sales target for Metallica and for Walking Dead are lower than the sales targets for King Kong and D&D. Now, whether that actually happened or they exceeded those is another question. But just not having the pros, all this other stuff just mathematically, I would assume they would expect them to move fewer units. If I were them, I would also have assumed that Metallica had a higher target than Walking Dead did. And whether I reached that or not, not our business. Here's a good question as we're transferring over to transitioning. Here's a good question as we're transitioning over to Spooky Pinball's Beetlejuice. We talk about threshold of success and stuff. Do you think that the gross profit of The Walking Dead for Stern Pinball exceeds that of the gross profit that we've seen in the extremely perceived as successful Beetlejuice by Spooky Pinball? Gross profit? after one year. He's drinking, ladies and gentlemen. Walking Dead will exceed gross profit. So gross revenue, basically. Not factoring in the money. Just the share sales that they... Overhead. Basically, we're saying that. How many dollars that they raised off of sales before factoring in any expenses. Yes, Walking Dead will beat Beetlejuice. So I think that will say a lot to the viewer on whether or not Stern has failed utterly while another company has just killed them. Well, because that's another that's another narrative that we continue to hear. Sure. But I mean, the more important number would have been the net profit, which we can't know. But another thing to factor in is Spooky, their decision to limit the count where they did hurt their maximum sale potential. And we'll get into that with Spooky because I thought it made sense for Winchester. I don't think it makes sense here. Oh, okay. So, yeah, my silly part is bye-bye-bye. Bye-bye-bye! You see, you mentioned how you love the art and the colors, Zach. If I wanted to probe things deeply, I would have had you start ranking this art package against the other games that came out this year. That's where the real truth lies. I would be happy to do that. I'm not saying that this is my favorite. No, you didn't. I'm just saying, like, I like this. But you liked everything this year, so. No. What art package that came out this year that you not like? Hold up real quick. I'm trying to think. You praised Winchester. All right, machines. Winchester. You praised Harry Potter. this Star Wars. Oh, you still got some, Zach. Be careful. No, no. Ba-ba-ba. Ba-ba-ba. I'm not an art expert. But give me the Walking Dead artwork over Star Wars artwork. Colors and all. I like the style much more. I don't think the Star Wars artwork is as... I don't like the illustration style as much. It feels antiquated. It feels like it's supposed to look old. It feels like it's supposed to be movie poster. Mm-hmm. I like that fine drawing, Christopher Franchi photo realism, blaster color kind of. But Star Wars had that Hoth package. that there's a package with a lot of blue, and it works. There's Ewoks on speed bikes, too, that didn't cut it for me. Yeah, but Luke on a Tauntaun with a probe droid. The Jaws 50th is more iconic and nostalgic, but from an artistic standpoint, I liked it better than Predator. Harry Potter I love that everybody just conveniently Forgets about Harry Potter They brush through it too If you hear some of these media people They're like this thing is worse art than ever I mean what did we get this year We got King Kong We got Merlin's Archive Dungeons and Dragons We also got And then they're like We also got Harry Potter and Predator We got And they just go right back As if that was accepted I hate to tell you but Harry Potter There are parts on The Walking Dead that are far surpassed the quality of some of the artwork that I can snapshot and send you of Harry Potter. Just saying. King Kong, I like zombie yeti stuff, so I'll give the edge to King Kong. Dune, I like Dune better than The Walking Dead art package. Merlin's Arcade, I like Merlin's Arcade, but, I mean, it doesn't do anything for me. Portal was beautiful. I really like Portal artwork. For me, maybe it's the theme, but give me the Walking Dead remastered artwork over Dungeons and Dragons all day. I don't like Dungeons and Dragons. Metallica was gorgeous. Avatar was really good, too. Uncanny X-Men was really good. You're going back too far. I really like the artwork. Okay. And I think a lot of people are wrong. Do you like it better than Beetlejuice? No. Disgusting. Because there's a right answer. And you have chosen wisely. Let's talk about Scooter Pinball's recently announced and unveiled Beetlejuice Pinball Machine. 999 units. Only one model. $9,999. They have a topper. $15.99. Butter cabinet. That's $15.99. Goat glass 250. Glass dust cover. That's $60. Custom plaque is $125. The game designer is Corwin Emery and Luke Kastner, Spooky Luke and Bug. Lead programmer, Spooky DJ. Also got help from Casey, formerly of American Pinball, now Orbit Games. The artist, Christopher Franchi. Sound, Brady Hearn. And then had Danny Danny Elfman, of course, as part of the sound stuff. Harry Belafonte doing the... We had sculpts by Matt Reicherer from Back Alley Creations. And the topper sculpt, not to be forgotten, was Gary Tunicliffe, who also did the Evil Dead topper as well. Product launch itself, we had the teasers weeks before. Then we had pics. Trailers came out. Featurette came out. Then they did a lot of media teases and content. But almost excessively so, I would say. Given how it sold, I will say. There was no reason to do that much. Yeah. So it felt like, I don't think this thing could be hyped any more. I was worried about the level of hype it was getting. Just from a business standpoint, I'm like, I just... It doesn't seem like there was much risk of it blowing up in their face. So I don't understand why. It's almost like the thing that, like, I like to under-promise and over-deliver. Okay. That's just my style. Okay. So if I know I got aces in the hand, I'm just not crazy about winking at everybody to let them know, you better not go all in here. I don't know. Like, I'm a pretty good dancer, but I'm not going to start bragging about my ability of dancing before the ball. I don't know. It's just it didn't matter either way. But it's just I started kind of hearing the hype, getting tired of it. But maybe it's just because I was behind the scenes. I'd already seen this. I've already filmed it. Maybe that was something to do with it. But it was pretty heavy. But it worked because this was, and we'll get into the specifics, but arguably one of the best-released, initial-reviewed, first-reaction impression games and the highest hype since I've been in the hobby. I went back and looked at 10 years' worth of titles, and it followed through. Sales immediately sold out. This thing was about as fiery and as hot as they've ever come. Can you think of anything that compared to it? I don't know see the thing is I don't I can't remember what all games may have also sold out basically day one right in the past Spooky's had a few where they sold out like didn't Halloween sell out day one yes and we will talk in our I'll push a little bit other than it felt maybe like there's more widespread excitement in this instance than there was with like the Halloween Ultraman thing but in terms of like a day one sales no, we've seen that before or close, like Winchester, basically a day and a half and there was a lot of hype or excitement around that hype maybe not so much, but definitely it's definitely atypical, let's put it that way, and it's been a while since we've seen this so I would agree with those pieces. Yeah, and we'll talk in our exclusive club membership content some of the examples because we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about supply and demand. We're going to talk about how should the hobby handle extremely desirable future releases because myself as a hobbyist and more so myself as a dealer ran into some very unique circumstances I've not seen as a dealer before quite to this degree. And how should dealers, how should manufacturers deal with something that could be this successful so immediately? Should they make more units? Should they sell them for more? Should there be a lottery? We're going to talk about all of that at the Pinball Show Club. So patreon.com slash the Pinball Show. Some of the examples that I'm going to use in that discussion that I can think of dating back 10 plus years, Ghostbusters LE, pretty hyped. Batman SLE, and there's only 80 of those. You had to do an application process just to get your hands on one or to even be reviewed for it. Metallica Remastered LE, pretty much sold out immediately. Pulp Fiction LE, let us not forget, even though it took forever, that was one, whenever all the launch material came out, that was a holy shit. This is different in a way that I have to sign up immediately. I mean, that was a single level. So that went against so much of the grain, no LCD screen, but people loved the topper, the assets, the way it was presented. That was a huge one. and then Winchester Mystery House, that immediate released sellout there Because Pulp Fiction did pretty much the same too So we get into all that But yeah super successful here Not to bury anybody in the weeds of it but I was fortunate enough to be a part of Straight Down the Middle. We partnered up with Spooky to help with the launch materials, the official trailer, the alternate SDTM cut trailer that you see on our channel, SDTM, and then the official featurette, the documentary behind the scenes. That was very well done, by the way. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was a lot of fun. Oh, that was super stressful and fun, and maybe we'll talk on a Patreon episode about it in the future. But you know what was different this time around? Hopefully Spooky won't care. I always pitch to these, and Inside Baseball, for those of you, I apologize, but this is the kind of stuff I'm passionate about. I love doing this, advertising, marketing, film work. But one of the hardest parts of doing these featurettes and trailers is that you have to film on location a lot of times. And taking all of the gear necessary is a monster. It really sucks. and then you get to these places and they don't have any location that you can really, that's conducive to, you know, some crane work and some different lenses. It's just too much to pack into an SUV or a van and drive up eight hours to Benton, Wisconsin and try to do. This summer, it was a little different. We did go up there for the filming of the featurette, the interviews and such, because that makes the most sense. But I've pitched for manufacturers for years now as we're doing trailers and featurettes to do it like a professional job where Element Studios does J.J.P. stuff now. Their trailer, you know, the huge big movie budget for a commercial. And they have the game for months at their studio, states away, with a team of 40 people that are all doing their own. It's a film. Like, it is truly a film. They spend, like, independent film dollars kind of to make these things, which is, in a sense, odd. But it goes without saying, they get the game. I've pushed, like, guys, I don't want to have to try to film everything on site. Because if I miss a shot, how am I going to do that in the sizzle or the B-roll? What if I miss something? Like, you don't know what you get until you're getting in the editing room and you're like, oh shit the flashers during that particular shot that I thought I had were distracting or they don't mesh well with the transition of the next shot like it would be nice just to go back and capture a shot really quick so I was able to convince them and this meant a lot to me to to borrow their one and only Beetlejuice game to take to our studio to film to film it and that that was and one that I haven't shared publicly yet because I didn't know if they cared, but at this point they don't give a shit. They're excited about everything. But, yeah, we got to properly do the job that we were tasked to do. And hopefully the results show, and I think people overall were happy with the launch of this game, and that was part of it. But very, very odd, I must say, to have in my studio a one-of-one game that nobody could see, that I had to protect to a degree that legally I had to protect where if something were to happen, like that's a lot of trust. And I wanted to bring it up here just because that's how much I admire and respect this company, that they would give me and my team the opportunity to do that. And we didn't prove them wrong. I think we reinforced why we thought it was a good idea. And going forward, we'll probably do the same. But, yeah, that's one that all the other manufacturers essentially tell me, like, yeah, that's not going to happen, Zach. Sorry. Get what you can in the one and a half days that you're here and go. But, yeah, it was amazing. But everybody's like, have you played it? Do you love it? Do you love it? Am I alive, guys? I had it a long-ish time. I didn't have time to play any of it. Like, you just can't. And a prototype game, and for those in the industry, a true prototype game, it's playable, but the code is so early. I mean, they're working on the code back at Spooky. This is just for filming purposes. So I get the feel of how it felt, but you don't really know until it's launch ready. So I'm interested in playing a launch ready game. But it was a lot of fun. And boy, oh boy, did I not go in and look at that thing a lot. I just, it's easy to look at, isn't it? As we talk about the artwork. Maybe Christopher Franchi's best art package. I mean, at this point, he's sitting atop the desirability charts of art in this hobby. Yeah. I don't know. I'd need to review all the other stuff. I really liked it a lot. I'm not a big Beetlejuice fan. Okay. I didn't know how you were about this thing. I mean, yeah, I enjoyed the movie. Like, I haven't seen it, though, in probably at least 20 years. So, you know, it's not part of my, like, go back and visit. But, like, in terms of, like, the color scheme, I feel works really well with it. Christopher, you know, I've always kind of favored his approach. And the way I'll describe it is I always sort of, well, one, And it's sort of that photorealism aspect is the thing that I think stands out the most. But another thing I wanted to point out was sort of the approach he has to color. I don't feel like he does the oversaturation thing. I feel like he uses rich colors. Does that make sense? He uses, yeah, a lot of colors without oversaturating. And so to me, when I see his stuff normally, I, and again, sometimes it's how it's presented because someone can, you know, take his art and turn the dials up if they want to. but it just felt like he's tended to lean into having a lot of color, but without really relying on this super saturation. It's just the color choices are usually pretty bold and loyal to the material. Like, you know, the mock-ups he's done of Wonder Woman and Superman and all that stuff, like, just really rich, almost, I don't know, this is probably not true. I'm not really an art person, but, like, it always felt to me like acrylic paints looked really vibrant to me versus, like, oils. Like, that's the style that it reminds me of. This is sort of a vibrancy without, but not like this artificial oversaturation, which is a digital manipulation. I don't know if I can describe it any better than that. No, I think you nailed it. And it made me think of like, you're right. He's not afraid to use the color, like, for example, pink. But he doesn't scream a pink. He's fine using the subtleties of a pastel pink if he needs to. It doesn't have to be an oversaturated pink. There are parts of this game that are very, very colorful. I think this is easily a top three for him It may be his best Easily an A plus art package for me And arguably probably the best of the entire year There's some that would contest it But it's really, really, really good And he's had some time to work on it This is a dream theme of his So he was going to do it justice I love, and I don't know if a lot of people love this for whatever reason, it goes back to the saturation piece, the right cabinet side is predominantly green on purpose. It is almost blasted in its entirety green as to over-accentuate the styling. And I just love that he was brave enough to do that because it is loud. It is super loud, but it makes so much sense. where the left side is more reserved, the back last more reserved. But that was the one side that I'm like, holy crap, you really just said, fuck it, we're going green here because it makes sense to it and it's very stylized. And it seemed like a risk that I've not seen Franchi take before. And not the one that I may want to see again for a long time, but one that I think paid dividends. I love that. Now there are some It's an A plus Playfield is stunning I've seen every little cranny and crack Of this game I assure you A plus all around The back glass is near perfection I think Compositionally that is near perfection Some of the stuff that's underrated His illustrations of the Maitland's Top right of the back glass For those of you who get a chance to be To see this in person It's It's magnificent. His line work on them, just truly phenomenal. And I was able to see high res stuff, so that's why I've pointed that out here. So, so beautiful. But that back glass is just phenomenal. There are some things that I could nitpick. I'm not going to. But there are some things, and now Francis is going to message me and be like, no, what are they? But there are some things that I would have done differently, but I'm not a fucking artist. Who am I? I don't know. But bar none, this is beautiful. Just stunning. artwork. There's not much more to say about the artwork besides everyone loves it, I think. It's just interesting because I remember when he would get shit for introducing a lot of color into artwork in pinball and he would be told like skittles and clown, you know, he would have to hear a lot of that stuff. But over time, maybe he modified how it's presented and he struck a wonderful cord with everybody on this art package. A lot of people are saying this game is loaded. Loaded. Toys, mechs, features. Let's talk about them and list them now. Standard body, three-flipper game, ball-eating sandworm with motorized target bank and subway targets? This is predominantly the biggest, most obvious toy in the game, wouldn't you say? Yeah, and Bug noted that in the featurette. That's what people were going to identify. And how can you not? Because you've got the moving sandworm guarded by a drop target bank, and then there are targets like subways, and there are targets in the back of the – What an odd choice, though, right? You know, I'm going to – I wondered how you felt about this. Because it's – How do? Well, I don't work for them. It's one of those things where I'm like, I agree with you about this game being loaded, But then it raises questions to me from a gameplay perspective of a, you know, you were so busy trying to decide if you could. You didn't stop to think if you should. You didn't even hit the featurette. They're kind of like, yeah, Bug just keeps having me try and cram more and more things in. And I'm like, this is a lot. Like, are you really going to be able to aim for those things? Like, it's going to be like a random. Doesn't it naturally hit them gravity-wise? Right, right, right. And I'm sure that's how it ends up having to be. but it's just kind of like a, okay, it looks good on the flyer of features, but I don't know the purpose either. I'm going to be honest. I think that the sandworm, it's just it and the drop bank in front of it, like, to me, that was plenty. But others will feel differently. Bug on a future game. Now, if you put a three-drop bank down there and you only hit one at a time whenever you're draining into the subway, that makes it more interesting because I visually know what I've knocked down to start a multiball or something like that. But stand-up targets, eh, eh, okay. But the ball-eating sandworm, I don't even think anything is revolutionary. I mean, we've seen it just this past year in Dungeons & Dragons. And I think maybe Maybe It is a little different I was going to say maybe even done better in Dungeons and Dragons Because it was different The ball was shooting out of his mouth Almost like a gun And the articulation was pretty Stellar in Dungeons and Dragons But Theme wise It looks so good in this game Like the sculpt and the colors That's what just nails it here is the look of it. It looks perfect. But it's very similar. And the dragon didn't eat ball. Where sandworm eats ball. So that's something as well. Physical ball lock, waiting room, couch. Everybody likes physical ball lock. And they love it when it's a couch. It's fantastic. Yeah, so physical ball lock makes sense for the theming of the game as they're waiting in the waiting room there. So I like that. You feel, I mean, it doesn't matter. It's sold out. You feel maybe it invited too many comparisons to Simpsons? Yeah, I could see that argument Because that's the first thing I thought of But again, it had been a while since I saw the movie And I was like, oh yeah, there's the With the whole now serving thing It makes total sense to do that It is a better way to do that ball walk If you're going to do a kind of ball walk I agree But yeah, I do It is Simpsons ask Beetlejuice grave rising sculpts So we have a lot of sculpts in this game With a magnet grab feature and a wire form launch Now, Luke said this was probably not only his favorite toy on this game, but one of those favorites that they've ever done. It is a clever little thing. It reminds me of Doc Ock's Spider-Man, where he stops the ball in a magnet, he can pick the ball up, and then does he fire it onto a, is it a Vuk? No, it can pass. Now, what does Doc Ock do with that ball? I thought he just had a magnet in front of him, and then isn't there a Vuk? Okay, so, but it kind of reminds me of that. But this one, I like that it's a multifunctional thing. You heard in the featurette, for those of you who watched it, a big thing is Bug, as a designer says, he wants the majority of shots to do three things. So that's what this right orbit-esque should do, where it can either pass through and go up a wire form as a ramp, or it could do the, it could stop, or no, that's the right ramp. Nope, that's not. That is the right wire form. Sorry. There's a lot of different things. Or the magnet can stop the ball. Beetlejuice picks it up, throws it at you to start a mode kind of thing. Or there's a drop target in front of it that you can stage a ball. That's really cool, too. So I think it goes back, stops it, then the drop target pops up to hold it in place. Then that's what Beetlejuice comes down with, magnet on the bottom, grabbing the ball. So it's a staging thing, too. And we'll even talk about that during its Showtime multiball moment. But that's a really cool thing, drop target ball hold. Double stack ramp where it's a 180 ramp or when the locks are lit, it opens up so you go to a back ramp up the wire form to the couch lock. So that's a double stack ramp. Love that. Multi-purpose shots. Dante's Inferno scope ramp with roulette still wheel. I like that too because, again, theming. But instead of just a left ramp shot, it becomes a skill-based action button. You hit that when you want the roulette wheel to stop spinning, and then the ball, whatever it lands on, it's kind of like a mystery award kind of thing. We've got the magnet ball save and death launch is what I call it, because in the film, the Maitlands, they crash through the covered bridge and they die. But that's what you do. There are certain scenarios, if you're launching correctly, you will go right down the drain and you will die yourself. Magnet catches it and brings you right back through the afterlife to start your game. Very clever theme integration there. And it also serves as a magnet grab feature. I've told them that for a couple years now. Do what you did on Alice Cooper, but make the action button save the ball, like when you have a ball save. We recently seen that on using the force on Star Wars. I love this feature. So we do have that. Covered bridge sculpt, waiting room play area. I think a lot of pinball pinball players are going to like this design element in the game because otherwise it's a pretty, I'm not going to say pedestrian, pretty standard layout. Like it's not a, it's not super eclectic in its layout, I wouldn't say. You've got scoops. You've got three bank targets. You've got, you know, captive balls. but it's that figure eight loop around waiting room that makes it, I think it gives its signature style to the layout here on this game. I do like that it's almost a two-way layout up there in that play area. The left orbit can go up there and do the swirl around, or it can go under the flipper, the hidden flipper, or you can go back the other way with the little flipper up there that does loops the other way. So that's pretty cool. up there, very flowy up in that area. Where else we got here? We got Juno Scoop and the Spinner combo. I only say that as a combo because it is a floating spinner, and Bug on the featurette was correct. It is one of the best-feeling shots of the game because ripping a spinner like that to that degree and then directly going into a scoop does really feel good. It feels better than it probably should, But then it almost TNA scoops it back out. Very, very odd that I don't think a lot of designers would want to do because it can be odd. But it TNA scoops it back out and hits the spinner again on the return back to your flipper. So it does feel good. We have the now serving digital sign, that dot matrix sign that is a great detail. So Beetlejuice grave marquee sign, you had to have that in there with all the marquee bulbs and the arrow. The Barleroid camera, it's a sculpt. It's a small part of the, you know, they were really boosting it up, and I was like, okay, it's a Polaroid camera sculpt. And they were like, yeah, but it flashes. It does flash. On the featurettes, a CGI helped them a little bit accentuate that flash, of course. But the lighting show is cool whenever you hit that. It does flash through the whole, and the whole thing goes white. And almost prior to it, when you load it up, the place of lighting, if they self-coated this way, is kind of dead. Like all the inserts, everything is like dark, and you have that one hurry-up flashing shot you have to hit. And once you hit that, that's what the flash of the camera goes, and it lights up everything you do. You've got the Maitland sculpts. They're so well done. Back alley. You went above and beyond on those sculpts in particular, but they're just hanging out back at the play field. New lighting enhancements and light sound choreography, which is assisted by the new developed framework that the DJ talked about. And they're not lying. They know that moments are made by that choreography and more studios, more companies are going to start doing this because people are reacting very positively to the lights going off in sequence with music in the game. It's pretty simple to do. We've seen it in GNR done to perfection, and here it is again to a pretty significant degree. And I think the people have spoken. They like this. They have to be careful, though, not to rant here, sorry, but they do have to be careful because when you do flash to the rhythms of music, you can overdo it, and you can start not blinding people. Yeah, you can start bothering people with how much, you know, I want them to tone down some of the gameplay. Like if you've seen, they did a gameplay video. And I was apprehensive because I was like, I don't know how much code you've got in this to be doing a gameplay video on launch day. But, man, put your big balls on the table, I guess. I don't, not what I would have done, but okay, go for it. And one of the feedback things was, hey, man, even during modes and stuff, There's just a lot of uniform flashing, like the whole play field flashing green, flashing green. It's like we don't need that much. I get that you want to, and it'll get better with code, but it's a flashy game. Damn, it's a flashy game. It's beautiful. Beetlesnake Interactive Topper. All right, we got to talk about it. Does the topper live up to the hype of Evil Dead and toppers of past? Yes. It's nice. It's really nicely done. It's worth $1,599. In the scheme of topper pricing, it seems fine. It seems fair. But, yeah, $1,599 is a lot of money. But what do you think the percentage of people, Dennis, are going to purchase the topper? 95%. I think it's probably about accurate. I'm still working down the list on the accessories that everybody wants, but topper is easily the most picked. A lot of butter cabinet people, too. on this one. I'm always surprised at that. You can't really fix it if you scratch it, though. I know, but a lot of people go on Butter. Ghost Glass is another one that they're really doing. That kind of surprised me. It kind of surprised me to the degree that it's an add-on. I just think out of concern. That's in Stern Ellies. Everybody wants to say, look at all this stuff that is not in a Stern Ellie. That's one of the things that is in a Stern Ellie. But a lot of people do buy that. I think my assumption is they've done this solely because they want to be able to list it at under $10,000. Yep. It's a smart move. I'm also a little confused about the flyer they developed regarding the topper saying lifelike hair when he's dead. Well, yeah, undead hair is what it should. Well, mistakes were made. Yeah. Now, it is a beautifully sculpted topper. I do like the lighting in the tail that his head articulates left and right. It's creepy as shit. The eyes blink as if or flash as if they're blinking. I did pitch them this idea. They didn't go with it. It's a little bit too complex. I would have loved to have seen maybe a little hole in the mouth area with a little reeled piece of Marc Silk for a tongue that just kind of unrolls and rolls back in at times. But, you know, you only do so much I get that Well, maybe you've done cotton instead of Marc Silk Of course, Marc Silk, oh yes Ever since that gold-foiled lost arc topper I will pitch, if I see something that could be That I think is doable, that could be better And I'm not necessarily ass, but part of the team in a sense I'll say stuff, I will say this It's not my place to say in particular what But there is something On this particular game That I was Given Included in Sales Included in part of it months and months back And I suggested And it made its way Into this game and I was really proud of it Not my place to say what it was or anything Because ultimately it's their game But yeah, I was really proud to be able to help in some small little way. Okay. Three pop bumpers. Oddly enough, you don't even see them, but they're wonderful in this game. It's pop bumpers that make sense because they can fly back at the flippers and such, and you smoothly go through them with a clean shot, but they're kind of out of the way and perfectly in the way. Like, this is the only way I want pop bumpers to be in a game because I could care less about pop bumpers. I really like them. Spooky Speak will talk about Art Blades, powder coat, trim package, all that stuff, wire form, speaker panel. They really put it all into, especially at $99.99. It is, in my opinion, it's hard to argue this not being the best-valued product in the entire hobby. I think the only comparable would be a Serm Pro. And I still might say this is a better value. $69.99, $99.99. You know what I mean? Like, you see my argument? I do. I don't know. I think it's a little weird to leave CGC out of the mix on value, but. Well, their LE of Medieval is $12,000, but Cactus was only, what was Cactus? $10,000? LE is $10,000, I think. So, yeah. And that comes with a topper. So, yeah, you're right. Good point. All right, layout. What are your thoughts? Any thoughts, details upon the layout of this? They played it safe. I'm not saying that's a safe layout. I'm saying that they have continued, and I think this is the right decision for them. People did, similar. That this sort of layout, it's not too crazy. That makes sense. It's like Halloween is like my poster example of where they went way too far. They went way too far with trying to put everything in and do the theme immersion. Here I feel like they decided, okay, we'll have our upper little waiting area thing. Otherwise, we're going to lay it out pretty much in conventional fan form, and let's stick everything in with respect to making sure that these shots are there. I need to play it, so I don't want to speak too far out of turn. I'm not sure. looking at this, it doesn't look to me like it plays as well as Evil Dead does, but it looks okay. And it looks like it could be fast. Just by principle of it not being a wide body, it is not as controllable as Evil Dead. Evil Dead some people thought was a bit easy. I could see that argument. But not Scooby-Doo easy. So that's why it resonated so well with people, Evil Dead, because everybody was able to play it, still had a lot of challenge, but it wasn't extremely difficult. It was very smooth. This is substantially faster, and it's the placement of their mechs. If you look at it, that was the feedback I gave them. I said, this can be chaotic at times. It is a speed demon. But you're doing a lot of a little past mid-play field. You're doing a lot of shots that are going to come right back to you Whenever you have a target bank instead of drop targets That's the stand-up targets firing right back at you Under your camera, you've got two stand-up targets That's going to fire right back at you You've got two scoops, mid and back of play field That are going to fire back at you So, yeah, a lot of firing A lot of fast shots But they are getting really good with their layouts I'll give them a lot of credit there But yes, I think more of a conventional layout And it's not like they were taking the risk That Carl D'Python Anghelo took on Winchester Whether it paid off or not Is a whole other podcast But not taking that risk Not taking the uncanny accident risk To your point Not taking the risk that they did with Halloween in the past But a very conventional-esque layout that people, I think, are really going to enjoy. And I like their philosophy is more don't take risks there, but load up the shots. Make it conventional, but multipurpose those shots so that they are doing something so different you're not getting tired of the convention of a Star Wars follow the Empire fan layout. So I do like that. Rules and code, I'm going to put in moments. Spooky speak. What are your thoughts on spooky speak? voice activation that can interact with the game, can cue different things up, has some functional purposes, Easter egg stuff. Right. It's the first time. Yeah. I just, I'm not feeling it yet. Yeah. Until we see what it can do, I think it's hard to describe. They sounded in the featurette extremely excited about it. I cut it down half. I mean, they're very excited about this. Being able to, like, the idea behind being able to turn the game on like that, I can imagine being in the writer's room where they came up with that, like, oh, my God, can you imagine? And it's just like each little, like, there's just nothing there except say my name three times. I get it, which is great. One time. When you do that. And then all the times where you show your friends that haven't seen it yet, that, hey, look at this, and they're like, wow. So from an immersion standpoint, it's great. By game 10, you're pushing start. And so that's where, again, I just have some things like, here's part of the problem. This is the dentist problem that other people, like maybe most people don't have. But when I play a lot of games, I'm saying stuff to the game all the time. Am I going to have to watch my mouth because I'm going to start triggering stuff that I don't want to trigger? You might. Like, you know, for example, where probably when we, you know, I know this will shock everyone who's ever heard us discuss Godzilla, but, like, when my ball drains in Godzilla and it's doing the little squirt thing, and at the end, when Godzilla roars, I roar with him. Every time. Every time. So, if it was designed where it's like, it's going to use my action button if I roar like Godzilla, we've got a problem here. Because I am Godzilla. That's right. I think it could be cool. I don't want to rely on it the gameplay part is more interesting to me but again the logistics of it I'm like if I'm having people over and we're all playing games and I've got Walking Dead to the left of me and Iron Man to the right is it going to hear me is it going to like how well does it work am I going to remember what to say is it always going to coach me that's true I I'm more interested in what they've done on the play field than spooky speak. I'll put it like that. I think, yeah, because it is something, an industry first, I think a lot of people are similar to us in that we don't know what it's going to be because it's a first. So it's going to be hard for us. And I don't want to get expectations too high because this is an interesting feature that could go great or it could just be an afterthought. Three releases down the line. Part of my issue is I've played video games where they incorporated voice activation. There was some stuff with some headset stuff that happened. There was the whole thing with the Kinect, which was motion but also did sound. And all of it ended up feeling gimmicky, and I just got tired of it. I thought 3D TV was the next thing, you know, 10 years ago. Yeah, well. Yeah, that makes everyone nauseous. I did like that, and there was just so much information I couldn't put in a featurette, but DJ was talking, or no, it was Spooky, or Luke, it was Bug. I'm sorry, guys. You just named, like, everyone. I know. Which one wasn't? There's some very functional things that you can do. Like, let's say you do have the playfield lifted up. They want to make it to where, Spooky speak, you can kind of talk, and it will tell you, like, what feature, what switch is being hit or something. So he said, like, if you're taking out a game or something, they're wanting to utilize Spooky Speak for functional things as well. I was like, oh, well, that's because I don't know if anybody can relate, but nothing pisses me off more than when I have a play field up and I can't see the LCD screen. And I don't, I'm doing this where I'm like, fuck it, what? And I'm trying to lower, like, what does it say? Shit. And that, like, you activate and you don't know if it's being activated. So maybe when you hit a test to switch it, it's like honk or, you know, like. Right, right. I get it. Yeah, no, I can see that. Like activate spooky speak let me know what switch I doing Okay the Dale mode we have to talk about that I like that that one of the coolest moments I probably seen in pinball They've taken what, especially people like myself, and talking about pinball moments and such. I want all the other manufacturers, like, okay, they understood the assignment now. This is what we're talking about, something like this, where this is just a regular mode, I believe. This is just one of the eight, 12 modes, whatever it is. but it's programmed in a way that it feels, I'd hate to even compare it again to GNR, like that thing where we were like, holy shit, this is what pinball can do. This is what pinball can be. But it is choreographing everything mechanical on a play field to interact with the choreography of a song, a song that everybody can get behind and sing with and tap their foot to, even better than the insanity mode, because it's what it's akin to, from Evil Dead where everything's laughing and going crazy and going insane on the playfield. This makes even more sense, and it's even more fluid and beautiful and fun. And it's not like you start this mode up and everything starts dancing. I love that there is purpose to it, too. You have to then activate all of them to get them all to start dancing, whether it's the couch, Beetlejuice, the worm, whatever it may be. But I just, it's such a cool, and that's why I featured it in the alternate cut of the trailer. Because I wanted to show people briefly how that juxtaposition between, oh, Catherine, oh, why am I blanking on her name? Home Alone Mom. I'm sorry. How she sings, so iconic. And the worm articulates and sings the same thing. Catherine O'Hara? I'm going with Catherine O'Hara. It's Showtime, multiple. Also, very cool, the whole fanfare start sequence of it, it'll stop you. They're going to give you a choreographed show. And then they're even going to – that's where some of the spooky speak comes in. I saw it in the gameplay video. Like you have to say it three times, but it cues you. Say his name, Beetlejuice. And then when you say it, Lydia says it on the LCD screen, dun-dun, and it makes you do it. It's a sequence to start off. You can probably press the action button to skip it. But again, it's just really cool. And then during that, something that it's not, I'm not going to compare it to a very target, but something really clever of the test your strength. I thought this was very smart. Using the drop target in the right lane orbit as the ball hold during test your strength, like on the video or on the film, he hits the hammer down and people go flying up, just like a carnival ride and hits the bell. But they're using, when you hit that drop target as a two-ball multiball, when you hit that, the other ball is then kinetically going to go up the play field. And the amount of time it takes for it to come back to hit that opto again is going to be commiserate of the points you get or how high up that sledgehammer test your strength. That is clever. That's novel. That's cool. It's not very target, right? Because it doesn't have a target. Right, right. It's how hard you hit a target to score, and that's so cool. Different Beetlejuice modes. They've got Juno modes, too. Sandworm battles. So up the gut, very Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, a lot of your multivolves there. I like that Spooky's not afraid to repurpose what people love in pinball. You can tell. Like, shit that people talk about all the time, that's what they're going to give you. and they're going to do their own take on it. It's very smart. The roulette skill wheel, there's a video mode. I put it in the trailer. It's actually a fun video mode. I don't like video modes for the most part. But when they're good, they're good. And this one is really good. It's like at the carnival and you're shooting the little clown heads that are Beetlejuice. The kinetics on it are really fun. And it's a video mode that I've not seen. What video modes in pinball do we have where you control the flippers? like left or right, but you're hitting the action button to shoot the balls. So it is difficult because you're shooting the ball instead of the ball just automatically shooting, like a Bram Stoker's Dracula where you're scanning or AFM. You're actually having to shoot the balls at the clowns, so it's difficult. And then the ghost fly was something I thought was cool when filming it was annoying because I didn't know how to default out of it. but I wanted to capture the screen, and like this little fly will come up on the LCD screen, and he'll like walk around on the LCD screen, and then your action button is like the fly swatter, and you can hit him, and you can kill the fly if you time it just right. So you're doing that while you're playing the game too. I don't know the rules of it or how it works, but then the little bastard on subsequent balls can come back, the fly, but he's a ghost fly, and I thought that was really clever. He's a ghost fly that you try to stop. It's cute. Music and sound is top-notch. This new guy that they've got is freaking aces. This guy is awesome. This Brady Hearn dude, he made the whole world of Tim Burton come to life. Like, I love, it sounds like Danny Danny Elfman stuff, and, yeah, This is the first time I was finally filming and doing featurette or doing trailer work where usually these manufacturers don't give me enough music. They don't give me enough assets. I'm stretching here. I'm paying for content just to use. No, first time I didn't have to because all of his work was phenomenal. Loved it. Animation display, it's the movie. So they're using one of the modes, Dennis. like even I was like are they going to show 5 minutes of the film? like what are we doing here? they'll show you the entire sequencing you can always double flip to skip but they give you the entirety of the film like they'll use everything they can I love it anything I'm missing or anything you want to touch on when it comes to any of the moments any of the music, animation no you hit on all the highlights Deo mode stood out to me Probably it's my favorite aspect that I saw, though the test your strength thing I thought was a pretty clever implementation without sticking another mech in, too. Well, and one of the things that for anybody working at manufacturers, specifically the programming teams for different manufacturers, we know. Now, I don't mean this negatively spooky team. it's not like they're like the most, the biggest geniuses and experts in pinball history and what pinball machines rules right? It's fair to say they're closer to hobbyists than they are like these big competitive like what I'm getting at is if they can figure out how to make each of the different modes in this game clever like they did on Evil Dead, utilizing a knocker during certain... Spooky is becoming so noteworthy when it comes to differentiation within modes and novelty in modes that I really wish some of the bigger manufacturers would pay attention to that because we have really good players that are doing some coding that I think it flies over their head on simple stuff like what Spooky is doing that just comes second nature to them. I want to see all manufacturers doing that because I think that's what a lot of pinball players and collectors and hobbyists want. And we're just not seeing enough. But we're seeing it ad nauseum with Spooky. Like, they're making every single mode feel like a special wizard mode or something. And, yeah, like, even when you talk to people about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they'll tell you the same thing. What a clever, novel game because of the damn modes. Like, they just pour everything into that. It's nicely done. Sales, it sold out immediately. I do want to say production update. These things are going to probably start shipping January 2026 slowly. They always trickle January, February. They're exponentially, because even Evil Dead, I was like, guys, I know you're building them fast, but you've got to step it up, and then all of a sudden you see them, and then they're making a crap load. Last episode, I think, where they were on like 600 Evil Dead number. Now they're on like 770. So the last fourth, they're just flying through these things production-wise because they're just a well-oiled machine. But you'll see them in January 2026 start to trickle out a little bit. But back to the sales. Sold out immediately, which brings up an issue a lot of people had. There's a lot of people wanting this Beetlejuice that didn't get one. A lot of people extremely angry and throwing stones to the degree of spooky is making poor decisions. Spooky is not doing what people want. How dare they? It's a, you know, it's a you have to know somebody in order to get this kind of thing. People are angry about that. A lot of frustration. But on the other hand, a lot of people holding value for their games, too. It's a slippery slope of what do you do? How do you handle this kind of stuff? This thing is selling. We'll talk. I mean, remember last episode on Market Trends, I said things are selling for $3,000 before it's even shown? We're up to $5,000 over MSRP now for the spot. And those spots could take a year to build, $5,000 over. So 50%, they're worth 50% more than what the market came out with them at. That is beyond huge numbers-wise. Do people have – what do you think about the whole sales thing? Are people justified in their anger? Is this bad decision-making? We'll get into the details in the Patreon thing, but just a little sniff here. I mean, I can't really fault people emotionally for how they're going to feel for not having the opportunity I mean, the best I could do is use myself, I guess, as an example because you know my buying habits I won't buy a new in-box game unless I've played it, that was never going to be an opportunity for that here and I knew that well before the featurette and everything came out, so So, you know, in that sort of scenario, it's either change my approach or live with my decision. And some people might feel like if it's that they didn't have enough information, they weren't even being as, you know, don't even have the expectations I do. They just wanted to see the layout, that that's not, you know. I can see the argument that it's not fair. But, I mean, they knew how many were going to be made. I mean, some of the stuff was announced fairly early. So I'm not going to say they're unjustified in their anger, but it's not necessarily anyone's job to fix it for them either. Does that make sense? Yeah. They did first come first serve on launch day, but Spooky only was selling at 10% of what they were building. Right. So that was the only real opportunity. The argument would be from people saying by the time this was properly advertised as being a thing, only if you were so deep into the hobby did you even have a chance at getting one of these items. And I think that's all true. I don't think anyone's debating that. People are saying that, like, they're not doing their consumer-based any justice. I would argue that they are to a certain extent, but, I mean. No. Spooky could have managed it better, yes. But that gets into production of more units or price of the units that they are selling. There are some other ways. There are things they could have done. and given that it's Beetlejuice I will say they should have known better than doing it the way they did that's a good tease right there as we jump into we have some exclusive content for all the club members all you got to do is go to patreon.com slash the pinball show this is one you're going to want to hear because we discuss all of that as to what they did right what they did wrong how they could do it different do they need to do it different and from a distribution sales perspective, I can tell you right now, I'm going to present in this page around some situations that I was presented with that I was not ready for and some really hard decisions that I've had to make or in the process of making now and certainly will have to adjust moving forward. On this one, this one's so juicy that we reached out to some of our club members to ask them, as a buyer. What do you think is fair? What's unfair? What would turn you off from buying new and boxed pinball totally? What do you think would be advantageous to make you buy more or quicker? Do you like the way that do you like what it takes to purchase really desirable pinball machines in 2025? Do you think this makes the hobby better or worse? we dive. I even hate putting this behind Patreon because this is going to be good stuff and maybe we figure out a way to discuss it in future episodes. I know some of you don't want to pay anything and you're pissed off about it, but I got to say, support us. Just support us. It's freaking $10 a month. You pay more for Peacock. Can we agree? Nobody needs to be paying for Peacock. They have ads and you're still paying like $12 a month. I told Nicole the other day, Nicole, we have to question our decisions in life if we continue to pay for Peacock. What are we doing here? Is there a specific show that you're really wanting to watch? Maybe that we're paying for it this quarter? No. Okay. Let's cancel Peacock. All right? This is our push. Cancel the Peacock and add the goat. Right? Out with the cock. And with goat. Let's, uh, sorry. Except Spooky doesn't want to listen to this one, because number four may dismay you. Oh, that's right. Speaking of the screaming goat, we have a club. There's all kinds of screaming goats. There's screaming whales. Woo! That's what I'm screaming. Yeah, I didn't take that out. Did any of the whales not get the veal juice they wanted? Oh, we're going to find out. Thanks again, Rodney. Oh, you are a bobcat. There were some people after seeing that Walking Dead remastered art package. Yeah, well, shoot that fucker. Shoot that fucker. Wow. I thought the hit from the first game came back. Shoot that fucker. Shoot the CDC. Thanks, Rodney. Rob, thank you so much. Oh, Rodney. Yeah, Rodney. Rob, thanks so much, Rob, for the continued support. You are our panther. Rob, do you think Rob bought one? I can't remember if he's a Beelgeuse guy. I'm going to say no. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay. All right, Frank. Thank you, Frank and Falcon. What color would the Falcon be on an art package of a stern? No, we can't do that. Color of explosion. Color of explosion. And you'd be like, well, we could still sell him if we zoom in on the feather and show how well drawn it is. Yeah. And then you pan it. You pan it to maybe the quill, the quill portion. That beak shot. And then the end on the eye. And then at the end, zoom out and for half a second, show them the entire package. You'll double the number of falcons out there. Double it. Easily double it. It's not a falcon. It's a parrot. Just don't call it. Just don't call it. propaganda. That's right. Hey, look, that's the one thing. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I don't have to. Some of you need to work on that though. Okay, thank you so much, Charlie. Ring Charlie's bell. Ding dong. Thank you. I think the bell might be back on The Walking Dead. Why? I bought Beetlejuice. I made Beetlejuice. Okay. Well, the bigger question is how many people bought The Walking Dead? William, The dude. Both. The dude abides. The dude knows the finer things in life, and he wants to try everything. That's all. I can play it. Adam. Papa. Fasha. I just still love it when we call him Big Papa. He has the best... You are like Papa! I just love that. I think Papa's in. On both? Hmm. I'd have to go back and check. I think everybody bought Beetlejuice, didn't they? I don't know. Probably. Probably. The caretaker. I'm the caretaker. I don't know. Can he shoot the balloons with a ton of hand? Okay. But he might be the one that had to say no for... Well, maybe Spooky Speak will let him. Oh, there you go. Allow me to pop this balloon while I walk away. Whoa. Oh, wow. Shut up. Has he ever reached out about if he's okay with his nickname? Still haven't. Okay. We'll still just wait. He probably doesn't even listen. What? Why would he be a member? Because he wants to support us. But he doesn't need to want that much. Doug, you Doug, Doug, thank you so much. The gopher. One of our newest members. Probably just wishes Spooky had done a gopher topper for you. That's right. That's the same thing. See, the gopher. Oh. See, the call outs They lend themselves to this whole thing You take drugs Danny? Thank you so much Doug I do it every time I'm so sorry You know how hard it was for me to find a pic of Caddyshack 2 Credit sequence Fucking impossible This movie is trash I couldn't get a shot of the Poodle dancing before that made him go Could not find it I'd have to pull that movie from a VHS just to get it for the... Couldn't do it. Holy crap. Dennis, we've got another Screaming Goat Club member. I swear to you. Somebody has joined the club. It's not Aqua Velvet. It's not the Shaker Motor. RIP to all of those past members. No, it's not them. It's none other than Mr. Allen. Thank you. Thank you, Allen, for joining. Like Dr. Allen Grant? Oh, that's where we're going. What is Alan going to be? We have to, for those of you that are not accustomed, whenever our Screaming Goat Club members join our elite club, we give them a nickname that we will refer to them as in the future. And they've earned it. They've earned it, financially speaking. So we're going to give it to them. And we give it to them hard. There's no justification as to why. It's just a running dialogue and improvisational banter that leads us to something. And this one was a damn weird one, but we secretly loved it and couldn't stop giggling about it. So he's going to be moving forward. Also, always known for the pinball show as Alan. He is our velociraptor. People are like, so why a velociraptor? Well, he's got the same little hand. Yeah. That little dewclaw. Alan. Alan. Wait. Right? Can you explain it to people? Yeah. It's like, what are you talking about? All right. So, Jurassic Park, which for many of you is probably the greatest pinball machine of all time. Yeah. One of them, at least. One of the best films of all time, Jurassic Park. All right. Well, there was also a sequel to that film. There have been many. Jurassic Park 3 I believe it was in 2001 the most hated one what no I don't know number 2 with the girls gymnastic sequence to fight a velociraptor is pretty low on the bar and then but you see Jurassic World sequels are probably the most hated so anyway Jurassic Park 3 this is the one with William H. Macy gotta go find his son who's been living in the jungle with dinosaurs by himself for a while, and they brought back Sam Neill. That's true, though. So, because they had Jeff Goldblum back for the second one, but they brought back Sam Neill for the third one. Anyway, so there's a scene where Dr. Grant is, Sam Neill, is asleep on an airplane. The most controversial scene of this movie. And he wakes up, and nobody's flying the plane. It's deserted. And then he looks over, and in the other seat is a velociraptor that says, Alan! And it speaks to him. Alan. Alan. Alan. Alan. And then he wakes up because it was actually a dream within a dream, very inception. Inception of dreams. Yes. On Jurassic Park 3. A lot of people, it's been a meme where it's just like, Alan, like, this part where they're talking. Someone decided that a talking puppet of a velociraptor was a good idea. And it was only for about two seconds. But that's fantastic. Anyway, so Alan is our Velociraptor. That's perfect, too. I like the sounds of all of these things because I don't know how to make a Velociraptor because they howl, don't they? Oh, oh. That's the sound they had them do. Yeah. Oh. And I don't know what the real Velociraptor is. Right. If Alan does something really, like, smart, we can say, clever gal. Oh, we can. There's a lot of stuff. And if he's starting to go out like he's buying too many pinball machines, we can hold up the hand like, blue, no. Blue, stop. Stop, blue. Stop. He's got a little clicker. Can we not wave the flare? Yes. That was for the T-Rex. That was for the T-Rex. I wonder if Alan takes a shit in a little tiki hut. These are more kills related to the T-Rex, not the Velociraptor. Can we not go into Harry Potter with Alan Rickman? It's like, nape. I'll teach you how to brew evil. Galaxy Club. And stop her death. And just keep going into the universe. My Gropfar's hammer. What a savings. I could totally tower, man. Arafat gets his suits from the same place. Discord, we've been talking about. Oh, you're going to hear from a lot of the people in our Patreon episode about what we've been talking about in Discord. I think a lot of them were, I like discussing with these people because they're normal human beings, and they can see all kinds of sides. So we've been talking about how to handle moving forward, how to handle desirable gains. They see every side except Penn's side. Oh, man. The Penn's side is a hell of a side to see. People are angry there. I thought the Walking Dead angry people and the Beetlejuice angry people were going to team up together. Gosh. Thank you all for the continued support. We do have a live happy hour hangout for those part of our Nordman level club and the Screaming Goat Club coming up this Wednesday, I believe, right? Yep. From 8 to 9 Central. Yep. Wonderful. Okay. So if you're at that $10 a month club because you're like, I had to hear this latest episode, bump up to 25. Meet us on the happy hour hangout. That's where I usually drink a little bit, maybe excessive. I don't get drunk, but I get chatty. Yeah, that's accurate. Dennis will do, like... I poke harder. People, when I poke here, they feel like I'm being mean. So I poke harder there where people, I think, understand that it's just to drive a discussion. You lead into the entertainment piece over there. I try. My jokes are better on the live than they are here. But they make me blush sometimes. This one's going to be a wild one because I know people are going to want to talk about Walking Dead and Beetlejuice both. Oh, my gosh. That's going to be a good one. They're always better when there's a new game to discuss, I found. Oh, absolutely. Where can people catch you? They can always email at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com. Yeah, and we can be reached at thepinballshow at gmail.com. Please follow, like, and subscribe to Facebook, all the TikToks and stuff. We do chat in Discord in a private-ish server, chat server. So sign up to Patreon for that. Again, it's patreon.com slash thepinballshow. So all of your support is very, very much appreciated. Straight Down the Middle is a video series I do on YouTube. Go check that out. Follow, like, and subscribe. And, of course, I've got to boost the sponsor of the show, none other than my company, Flip N Out Pinball. When I buy my pinballs, then I buy from Flip N Out Pinball. From Topper Shop, Blitz TV, yes, I got it. Flip N Out Pinball. Flip N Out Pinball. Flip N Out Pinball. When I take a pinball, I take it out. Flip N Out Pinball. Flip N Out Pinball. And I will ask this. We just met a pretty big milestone for my company on social media, Facebook. We just passed 10,000 subscribers, followers on Facebook. And for a business, that's a good thing. So we're excited about that. But we really don't want to stop there. So please, if you haven't followed, and it's advantageous for you too as well because that's where we post all of our used games and coming up used games-wise. This does not mean I need anybody emailing saying, hey, I didn't see it posted. How much is it going to be? Don't need that because that's a lot of work. We'll post it on the Facebook page. But I've got the likes of Tron LE coming in used. That's freaking awesome. Munsters LE number two. We've got Black Knight LE, Iron Maiden LE, the Hobbit Black Arrow Edition, GTF, Galactic Tank Force Deluxe. Oh, yeah. An attack from Mars OG. I've got Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro I think coming in Guardians of the Galaxy LE Some of these are hard to get So Star Trek Pro Follow us now Dungeons and Dragons LE I've got like 12 to post So follow us there And I do appreciate you following us Product showcase Honestly at this point it's The next spooky interested list Because I know that Greg and Ken who work in sales with us at Flip N Out Pinball and great buddies. They were like, hey, did you say something to people? Because our entire weekend has been plagued with none other than like, put me on the next spooky list. Put me on the gremlins list. Put me on the whatever list. And, yeah, they're getting flooded. And I think it's kind of funny. I'm sorry, but I kind of do because I've been really busy lately and I like them feeling a little pain. So do me a favor. reach out to Greg at FlippinOutPinball.com or Ken at FlippinOutPinball.com and add yourself if you want a rumored game. I don't want you filling up our list for no reason. But get on the interested list because because of how things were rolled out and handled on Beetlejuice and the popularity of that and Evil Dead it's going to be the same way for better or worse on their next game. So right now right now. If you are pissed you didn't get a Beetlejuice, you have the opportunity right now to get on the list so you don't have to worry about that. Or you can email me at Zach at FlippinOutPenball.com. The Walking Dead Remastered, LE and Premium. Go ahead and grab yourself one of those. Free shipping on those. Medieval Madness Remake, they're making more next year. We don't know our allocation, so we're taking a list to get on that. Harry Potter, I was going to trend it up this week if we did market trends because that thing continues to sell. It's like almost Elwyn Effect-esque here as it continues to make sales. When they can build them, spring, late winter, not ideal, but it continues to sell well, so get yourself pre-ordered on one of those. King Kong, it's going to be kind of the game of 2026, mark my word, just as Jaws was here in 2025. We do have 50th anniversary spots. Treat that like a limited game, but at the cost of a premium, once those are gone. They're gone. They're making more here in a couple weeks. So sign up for that. Dune, the bell of the ball, we've sold like 50% of our Dunes have been since Expo. It is really taking on another thing, and people are talking very highly about recent code updates, the wizard modes. Joel's been talking about that. Pre-owned games, we've talked about that. All the stirring games. Just, we'd really appreciate. Our goal, this is crazy, Tess. I'm not trying to have an ego here. But my goal is to, with flipping out pinball, is to give no viable reason to purchase your pinball machine elsewhere. That's my goal. I think I'm not doing my job as a business owner and somebody in this industry is trying to move the industry forward. If there are reasons people are buying elsewhere, I would like to figure out what those reasons are and do it better. So when I say we would love to earn your business, I truly feel like we will do what we need to do to deserve that business. So if we're not doing something that prevents you from that, please let us know what that is. Because my goal is to earn, as you're watching this, is to earn your business. Roll your eyes all you want, but there's got to be a way. All right. And you can trade in games. We're doing this great thing. We're about to release and unveil. Great stuff. I should talk about X-Men accessories that leaked, but we don't know what they are. So if you want any accessories. And did we even talk about that? The Walking Dead accessories, I think they're supposed to be by the end of the year here. We did not talk about it. Yeah, so that's going to be cool as well. Flip N Out Pinball Media Channels. Joel at Flip N Out Pinball YouTube channel recently streamed the monsters, and we have a tutorial coming up for that. It's one of the only Spike 2s that he has not streamed or done gameplay videos on, so he wanted to get his hands on that. And then Flip N Out Pinball Podcast, everybody's favorite new podcast with Ken and Greg. Episode 13 now, I believe they're on. They gave first impressions of The Walking Dead Remastered. And I think they're getting ready to record one for Beetlejuice, too. Yeah. All right, Dennis, teach people something. I was just thinking about the new features with Beetlejuice. So, Spooky, if Spooky Speak doesn't work out, I do think you have another strategy you could pivot to, sort of a diversification, to make Spooky Speak in spell. I like that. A-O. The story. D-A-Y-O. A-O. And always practice safe pinball, and remember, don't live your life like the desired artwork package of a walking dead pinball machine. Green, brown, stuff that resembles a turd. Live it like we all love our pinball machines. Bright, refreshing, colorful, and beautiful. That's all I've got.