Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth? Ooh, heaven is a place on earth. They say in heaven, love comes first. We'll make heaven a place on earth. Ooh, heaven is a place on earth. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Oh, welcome everybody to the six-time Twippy Award-winning favorite pinball podcast. Happy Sunday, everybody. is heaven going to be a place on pinball earth the remainder of 2023? You know, I actually had to make a list of how many pinball companies are in the world right now. Are you ready for it? Stern, Jersey Jack Pinball, Chicago Gaming Company, Spooky Pinball, American Pinball, Dutch Pinball, Pinball Brothers, Haggis, Multimorphic, Home Pin, Pinball Adventures, and I guess we'll count Turner Pinball. Now there are four months left in the year. Do we think anything major is going to happen between now and the end of the year. We've got Pinball Expo in October, but four more months to go. And what I want to do on this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast is I just want to go down the list of companies and I want us to ask ourselves, are we going to see anything else from these pinball companies? Now, before I go over these like 10 or 11 companies, I want to say something right now. I was talking to someone who's working at that mystery pinball company. It is coming and it is coming this year. They are just waiting on a few parts because I was talking to the person and I said to them, look, it's not a bad time to release something new in the pinball world. And we're going to see it when we go over all these companies. Not much is happening. Venom is dead on arrival. The other games over at Jersey Jack and what, American Pinball, they're not selling very well. So if there ever was an ideal moment to march into Pinball Expo, If there ever was an ideal fall to come out with a new game, I think now is the time because everyone is holding on to their money until they see Keith Elwin's next game. We're going to talk about that when we go over all the companies. But that mystery game is coming, which makes it really exciting. They have kept this thing a tight-lipped operation. Nobody has broken their NDAs. Nobody has leaked stuff to Canada. But as I was talking to this company, I was like, look, I told them, I'm like, let me help you hype this thing up a little bit. So we'll see if they give me any information moving forward. All right, so four months to go. We've got September, October, November, December. That means four more months of Twippy eligibility. Right now, it is looking like Foo Fighters is going to be the runaway game of the year. Obviously, I will cover what I think is going to win in the award shows this season, but it's way too early. So four months to go. Let's start at the top with Stern Pinball. What does Stern Pinball have in store? Well, they kind of surprised us, didn't really surprise us, because I was telling you Jurassic Park Anniversary Edition was going to come out, and it came out. We saw that logo on a Translight like a couple months ago. So Sturm Pinball is moving into a new factory. I hear there are some delays moving into the factory. I'm not sure how many delays there are. Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary for $13,000. It's not sold out. It is what it is. If you've been dying to get your hands on a Jurassic Park over the last four years, now you can go get this machine. I think everyone kind of sees through this Jurassic Park. It's just the premium with different armor and decals because the premiums were on the line. They really only had to order like a new Translight, a new apron, and new armor. And all of a sudden, this game that used to cost us $7,500 is now freaking $13,000. And I think a lot of people are seeing through it. And that's why people are not running towards this JP 30th Anniversary Edition. It's not a real... I don't know. There's just something that rubs everybody the wrong way if you're going to charge this much for a game that used to cost so much less. So we just got that from Stern. Venom is just like seemingly like two years old. Doesn't it feel like Venom came out like two years ago? Nobody's really excited about it. I think some people out there that like Venom are starting a weird rumor that this game is going to go the same way as Stranger Things. It is not, ladies and gentlemen. Stranger Things is one of the most popular contemporary TV shows of all time. It's the second most popular Netflix show of all time. It was bumped out of first place by Wednesday. Do you really think there are that many Venom fans that want to plop down $13,000 on an LE or $10,000 on a premium? There are not, ladies and gentlemen. And look, Stranger Things had a rough start because the code was not completed, but it still had a lot more interesting stuff going on in the game than Venom does. And the projector and the magnetic ball grab. It's Stranger Things. It had clips from the show that were synced up. It had the theme song from the show. And it has one of the coolest moments in modern pinball, which is the UV kit and going into the upside down. And remember, none of that was available, the upside down kit. None of that was available when the game first launched. And the other thing was this. When Stranger Things launched, there were only 500 LEs and they were like $89.99 and they didn't sell out and the games sat in boxes because it was before COVID and we all still had common sense. So we didn't run towards the game. So there is no way Venom at these prices with a theme that's not that popular with the pinball buying demographic. Venom is dead on arrival. And so Stern must know that because the Venom orders have not come in. Dealers and distros are screwed on Venom. If they ordered a big amount of Venoms so that they could secure themselves a large amount of Keith Elwin Jaws is, they're going to be sitting on those Venoms forever. And so now everyone who's looking at Stern is looking beyond Jurassic Park, beyond Venom, and it's going to be Keith Elwin's Jaws. Everybody is saving and waiting to see that game. And we have new information exclusively from Canada's Pinball Podcast. Not only did I tell you first it's going to have the three yellow barrels but it's also now going to have a shark fin that pops up from underneath the playfield and moves around the playfield I can't wait to see this game more and more details will surface as more and more people start to see the game as it gets closer to launch it is going to be Jaws people there is not going to be a surprise back to the future announcement in November that is not happening and maybe we get something else from Stern Pinball at the end of the year. The only thing I could see them doing is a vault edition game sometime in November, December, but they're not going to want to interrupt Keith Elwin's launch. Keith Elwin is the new king of pinball. Stern Pinball knows that. They invest the most in him. They give him the most resources. They give him a higher bomb because he delivers so much more than anybody else designing pinball these days. I fully expect Stern Pinball to have a nice runway to Keith Elwin's game and doesn't overcrowd it with something else. All right, so that's Stern Pinball. Maybe a vault at the end of the year. If I were to guess what game they're going to vault, I think it is going to be Tron. I'm not 100% sure, but I do think Tron is either coming or I think it's going to be Metallica. I think it's one of those two games, Tron or Metallica. All right, Jersey Jack Pinball. What is Jersey Jack going to do now that Godfather sales are absolutely flatlined We seeing people open up their collector editions I don think they going to make all 1 collector editions There no way 1 people on a lukewarm theme like this, after they witnessed everybody losing so much money on Toy Story 4, there is no way 1,000 people went in and agreed to buy this game for $15,000. We are going to see a fire sale on every single Godfather machine between now and the end of the year. It's going to take them till November to finish the run of the collector's editions, and then there are no more orders for LEs. People getting the CEs are not going to be able to create a new demand for the LE of the game. And so that leads us to Steve Ritchie's Elton John, which I fully expect to see at the end of the year. I think Steve Ritchie's Elton John is the only pinball machine coming out between now and the end of the year that has the potential to bump Jack Danger's Foo Fighters from game of the year. I don't think there's anything else major coming out other than that mystery game. Maybe that will do it, but it's going to be really hard to bump Jack Danger's Foo Fighters simply because game of the year will be decided by popular vote and Stern has the distribution. Like more people will have owned and played Foo Fighters than will ever have owned and played freaking JJP games. But it doesn't mean JJP can't win Game of the Year. Remember, we saw Dialed In win Game of the Year. We saw Guns N' Roses win Game of the Year. So Jersey Jack seems to be able to win Game of the Year in any year where Keith Elwin does not have a game out in the world. So the door is still open for this game to be successful. I don't know anything about Elton John other than I think it's going to have Christopher Franchi on artwork. I know that Steve Ritchie was given a blank check bomb to make this game. I know there was some internal fighting over there, but Jack Winari, to get Steve Ritchie to come over, said you can put whatever you want into the game, and I think we're going to see a loaded game. I fully expect there to be a crocodile rock, crocodile mechanism that eats the balls, and I think if they do it right, I think if they make this look like 1970s Elton John. I think it's going to be super cool to see this game with all those rainbow LEDs lighting up. I think it's the perfect game for the JJP light show. I think it's weird seeing that light show in the Godfather. But Jersey Jack Pinball needs a home run. They are down. It is the bottom of the ninth. This company's mojo is gone. They need a hit game. And look, I hope it's a hit game. Do I have faith in Steve Ritchie after the games he put out over at Stern Pinball? I'm just going to plead the Robert Mueller fifth. I don't want to self-incriminate myself, everybody. All right, let's go on to Chicago Gaming Company. So between now and the end of the year, we should see these Pulp Fictions on the line. Not the LEs, but the standard versions of the game. I don't like that decision. They should be making the LEs first. I don't know why they would not make the LEs first. It's the same exact game. Let me repeat that. It is the same exact game except for a mirrored trans light and a topper. So why wouldn't you just make the LE games? Maybe the armor is a little bit nicer and the speaker grill is a little bit nicer. But for the most part, everything on the play field is the same exact thing. The cabinet, the same exact thing between the LE and the SE or the SE plus. So I think all these pinball companies need to learn a lesson. If you don't have a pro version of the game, if you just have two trims, you make the high-end trim first. Don't make your most expensive buyers wait the longest. The people who buy first class, they get on the airplane first, okay? So we're going to see that at the very end of the year. I don't think we're going to see many of them. And then we're supposed to get the LEs sometime in February. I don't know though, because when it comes to CGC manufacturing games, the only word that comes to mind is delays. Delays, delays, delays. Nothing comes out when they say it's going to come out. So that is what we're going to see from CGC. Spooky Pinball, we already know the answer. They are only halfway through the Scooby-Doo runs. So halfway through, which means we're going to be another full year of Scooby-Doo before they show the next game. Now I think Spooky's plans will be simply this. I think they're going to move into their larger factory. I think they're going to be able to up their production a little bit quicker. And I think we're going to see their next game or two by the end of next year, but nothing by the end of this year. So it's a Scooby-Doo holiday for everybody over at Spooky Pinball. I got a nice note from Luke over there. I'm going to follow up with him. Yeah, and see, everyone doesn't hate Canada just because a few people want to complain about me. I think we're still doing really strong and I'm really excited to do these shows for you guys and take the Facebook break. Don't worry, we're coming back. I got a great plan for when I come back. All right, let's go on. Spooky Pinball, congratulations on all the successes. American Pinball, this is the company I'm worried about. I'm really worried about American Pinball. If there's any pinball company, if there's any two pinball companies where I worry about the doors closing on them, The two companies I'm most worried about are American Pinball and Haggis Pinball. I think American Pinball has made a lot of really boneheaded decisions. I don't understand why a company that has access to some really hard to get parts. Remember, it's like Ametron makes the boards for this game. That is how this entire company came into existence. Do you know the backstory? Do people forget the backstory that the reason why American Pinball exists is because John Papadiuk ordered his boards from Ametron. Like Ametron was making the boards for Magic Girl. And that is why they let John Papadiuk go over there and tinker for another year and a half and try to get those broken Magic Girls out the door because they were just trying to recoup their investment. And Mukesh just made a pinball company just to give to people in his family because those kids clearly couldn't find other professions. That is the origins of American pinball. And then they bring in David Fix and he goes around on this media tour for two years in which he tells us he's going to assemble the new American pinball team and it's going to blow us away. They've got Dennis Nordman. They got Zofia Ryan from over at Valley Williams. And I just want to say this, like looking down at that game. Now, look, I don't really blame Zofia Ryan because Dennis Nordman designed that game before she ever became a part of the project. So I don't think her talents were really implemented into that game. I also, after all of these years and watching all of these Bally Williams engineers parade themselves around the last 10 or 15 years, it's quite obvious that Bally Williams had a team of engineers that made these designers look like rock stars. It's why we've never seen anything nearly as impressive mechanically on any modern games as we've seen on Bally Williams machines. It doesn't matter. Pat Lawler didn't have the talent to do it at JJP. John Papadiuk couldn't do it when he was on his own. Dennis Nordman, we haven't seen anything. Brian Eddy wears the medieval Madness Castle-like mechanisms that we saw. He's not doing that over at Stern Pinball. Now he got doppelgangers swinging out with three USB sticks hanging from his butt So I just want to say this The Bally Williams team at the heyday of pinball in the mid runs circles around anybody in this hobby right now on a mechanical engineering level I mean, look at the mechanical engineering in Circus Voltaire, in Theater of Magic, in Tales of the Arabian Nights, in Adam's Family, in Twilight Zone. And those games were like $3,000. And this is the problem. is like nobody wants to like look back at those games. Look at what you used to get for the money. And even if you incorporate inflation, people, you are around like $7,000 or $8,000 for a game like that. If they made a game like that now, these companies would charge us $25,000. So American Pinball, Galactic Tank Force sales are done. They're never gonna get sales back. They are trickling these games out. They have not even made a single signature edition. You know, that $17,500 addition with the thermos, those haven't even been made yet. So this company really needs to get to its next game. Its next game is going to be based on a video game and cartoon series. I think it's either going to be like Golden Axe or maybe Dungeons and Dragons. It's going to be something like that. It's Ryan McQuaid's first game. Ryan McQuaid used to be a friend of the show. And then just like everybody else, the moment they get close to that pinball sun, they get really smug. They get anti-Canada. And then all of a sudden, they don't talk to me anymore. And it's cool. It's cool. It's really cool to just cold shoulder the guy that's got an audience that's larger than the total amount of games American Pinball has ever sold. Okay? Do you want me to repeat that? I have more people following Canadian Pinball Podcast than the total number of games American Pinball has ever sold. And yet, let's treat him like he's some sort of black sheep. So look, I think there's nothing new coming out from AP this year. I think it's going to be a slow trickle of galactic tank forces making their way out. And I do think this company is in jeopardy. I think at any moment Mukesh could pull the plug on it. And the irony is this. If they pulled the plug on American Pinball and the company went away, then all of a sudden, right, those galactic tank forces would skyrocket in value. It doesn't matter if the game is great or not. It's a modern game where there weren't many made, and only scarcity would make that game successful. And I mean it when I say it. If I was in charge of marketing over at American Pinball, I could have sold them 1,000 of those games instantly. Here's what they did wrong. They should have said from the very beginning, we are only making 1,000. There's 250 tank editions and there's 750 regular editions. It's a quirky game. It's a weird game. You're never gonna sell more than 1,000. And if they did that, there would have been a run on that title. Instead, they did the dumbest thing ever and they just made it feel like no version of the game was special. And the only version that felt really, really special was freaking ripping everybody off with $17,500 price tag. And all of that was a marketing decision. And the way they rolled the game out with that horrible video, they should have given the game to Greg and Zach to do a straight down the middle overview of the game. They did everything wrong and it just goes to show you, if you launch a quirky, weird product in the wrong way, it will be dead on arrival. The same thing happened with Dialed In. All right, so that's American pinball. Dutch pinball, they have nothing new. They are going to make the Lebowskis. They are getting the EAs their games. I've been talking to Barry. He's really excited about what's next, what's around the corner. I think it's the Matrix. I think it's going to blow people away sometime, maybe, maybe at the end of next year. But we've got a long way to go. But Barry's in a really good position. A company like his is exactly the kind of company that I would make if I were advising someone. What kind of pinball company should we make? Make a very small run, high-end boutique pinball company that actually puts magic into the game. That is what I would do. They're the only company that is making games that looks like a Bally Williams modern version of pinball. They are the only company right now. Jersey Jack started out that way, and then they started removing everything from the game. If you lift up Guns N' Roses, Toy Story, and Godfather, they are empty compared to Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, and Dialed In. They just are. Do me a favor. Do it. Just lift up the hood on the first three Jersey Jack machines and put them next to the last three Jersey Jack machines. They went the direction of like artwork and lights and LCD screen, and they took out the mechanical magic, and it's not going to work for those prices. Barry is in the driver's seat. If he has the matrix and he does what I know he can do to a theme and he actually markets it the right way from day one, this guy's in the driver's seat. I think Dutch Pinball has the potential to be the first pinball company to truly do what nobody has been able to do before. Be the Bugatti of pinball. Don't make apologies. Don't make excuses. There are enough super rich guys in this hobby that nobody is really catering to. Stern is laughing all the way to the bank because the only thing they're doing is putting different stickers on a machine and charging $4,000 more. And that's the only thing the rich guys can buy. But if Barry comes out of the gate and says, we are just making a thousand matrix machines and they are $20,000 each, he will sell every single one. Trust me on this. Every single one. Because now that Sterns are $13,000 for a non-scarce LE that everybody has the same game when they buy the premium. If you make only a thousand matrixes and they're 20 grand a pop, I'd rather have that than two Stern premiums. Think about it, people. One game that's truly limited, a grade A theme that is absolutely loaded with magic is definitely worth the price of two Stern premiums. The same way a Bugatti is worth the price of four or five Lamborghinis, people. We need someone to have the guts it takes to go super high end in pinball. But the only way it works is if you make a freaking masterpiece. And I think if there's anybody out there that can make a freaking masterpiece and claim the title of high end pinball boutique, it's not Jersey Jack, it's Dutch pinball. Barry, get it done. Let's talk, brother. All right, pinball brothers. I hear they have a surprise title coming. I hear it's a big game coming. I hear pinball brothers is about to shock us in 2023. So I think this is one of the companies where we are going to see something new this year. I don't think we've seen everything yet. I think they are done with the Andrew Highway era of machines, which was Queen and Alien Pinball. I think this is what's going to happen. I think Pinball Brothers and Pedretti Gaming are going to announce a partnership with Planetary Pinball. And I think we're going to see the Twilight Zone or Big Bang Bar. It's going to be one of them. And I think that's what we're going to see at the end of this year. Now, look, you know, even though they made so many more Twilight Zones, Twilight Zone would be way more successful than Big Bang Bar. I'll tell you why. There's so many newbies in this hobby. There's so many newbie dudes that don't want to buy a 30-year-old Twilight Zone. They just don't. They want to open up a box These new guys to the hobby they really value cardboard more than anything So if I were making a decision between Big Bang Bar and Twilight Zone absolutely go Twilight Zone It sounds like a nightmare to make one in modern times but it obviously the game that's iconic. Like when you look at the top pinball machines of all time, it's up there, isn't it? So, you know, that's what I think Pinball Brothers is going to do. So keep them on your short list of companies that could surprise us in 2023. All right. Now after them is haggis pinball now the only real question of haggis and i've stopped ragging on them the only thing i'll say is this i think they're in jeopardy as well as american pinball of closing its doors i can't imagine they're doing super well financially they didn't sell out of any of their centaur editions you know i'm not surprised people saw what happened with fathom you know fathom is easy to get if you just wait and see you would have saved money on fathom you would not have had to have locked your money up for two years and now you can march in and get a brand new fathom for sticker price and also fathom is arguably the better game it's just a huge red flag that they had to announce that game so early get all the pre-order dollars in why if you were doing well financially and actually making profit on fathom you wouldn't have to do this now what we're looking for at this year is not a new game from them because we already know what their next game is what we are looking for is that damien keeps his word he said he's going to finish production of all the fathoms by the end of this year. So let's see if he can accomplish that. All right, after that is Multimorphic. What is Multimorphic got going on? Well, look, Jerry's making games. I don't know how many he's making. It feels like maybe like a few a week. He keeps showing pictures of people inside the Multimorphic factory. I think Multimorphic is a company that desperately needs to partner up with somebody else. like I think Jerry should call up spooky pinball and be like hey can I rent out your garage and can you just kick me some line workers and can you just help me make like 300 games a year there's just something about multi-morphic trying to do all of it on its own that just looks kind of weird I mean I gotta be honest when I see the pictures of the manufacturing over there it looks like you know when you see those prison shots of people making license plates like it just doesn't feel like an assembly line. It just feels like people like in woodshop in high school just at different stations. And we know what an efficient pinball assembly line looks like. And that's not it. Now, look, Jerry's gone all in on this platform. What I fully expect from him is some other like consumer generated game. But I don't think we're going to get anything else other than Scott Danesi's game is going to start to roll out. All the weird owls need to be built. So nothing really new or mind-boggling from Multimorphic. HomePin, I can just skip over completely. Spinal Tap, apparently, maybe is going to come out this year. Nobody cares about it. Nobody's going to buy it. It's not a company anyone really pays much attention to. All right, then we get to Pinball Adventures, Andrew McBain's company, Pinball Adventures with Bunny Factory. One game went out to one of my friends who now is no longer a friend of mine because I wouldn't rag on Pinball Adventures. Well, the reason I ain't rag on Pinball Adventures is the same reason I just said about Homepin is nobody really cares. These aren't pinball companies making any dent in the pinball marketplace. And Pinball Adventures has another like unlicensed theme that has no target audience. There's no market research going on here. And so, yeah, they don't get much airtime because if I talked about Pinball Adventures for more than a minute, you would cancel your subscription to Canada's Pinball Podcast. the same way Andrew McBain canceled his subscription to my show the moment I didn't speak positively about his company. This is my show. I'm free to say what I want to say. I'm not going to kiss a company's ass for five or ten bucks a month. Last and certainly least is Turner Pinball. They don't have anything coming out. I don't know what this guy is doing. If he were smart, he would just auction off those working razas he has. But I don't know why he's even bothering with Ninja Eclipse or whatever that game is. I saw it at Texas. It doesn't make any sense. Okay, so that's a lot of companies and not a lot happening. It always feels like this way in pinball, right? It's like everybody launched, everyone fired their missiles in March, and now we don't really have much to get that excited about. I think next year is going to be a big make or break year for pinball. I think Keith Elwin is going to deliver. I think Jaws will have a super limited edition version of it that will be fully featured. I think they learned their lesson with James Bond's 60th. And I think everyone who says like, oh, you know, high-end pinball is dead and people aren't going to spend this much money. I think we're going to see a feeding frenzy for Keith Elwin's game. I think distributors need it. I think Stern needs it. I think dealers need it. And I also think that's why Play Mechanics took all those orders on Pulp Fiction, because once Keith Elwin's game comes out, everybody else is in big trouble. it's like at these prices Keith Elwin is the only one that I think can consistently deliver a pinball experience worthy of this much money everybody else you're just going to wait and see like even as great as Foo Fighters is and it's a great pin and it's an amazing inaugural effort from Jack Danger if you just wait it you can now go buy it new in box and LE for at least a thousand dollars off and the more and more we see of this the more and more we're going to put pressure on the companies to make magic. And that's a good thing. Everybody, I love doing this podcast. I had a great day with the family yesterday. We went down to South Street Seaport right when I was about to do my Saturday morning spectacular. I took Killian and Brenda on a ferry and we had the most amazing day together. Then I went to the gym for 90 minutes. I'm working out every single moment I would have done a Facebook live. And I love it. And I love turning a negative into a positive, you know, and everyone else can be negative and everyone else who says they don't want to be part of pinball drama. It's funny to watch how everybody shows their true colors. But at the end of the day, there's only one pinball content creator that has won the award for favorite pinball podcast for freaking six years in a row. There's only one guy that can stream pinball without even pinball in the stream and win the world's second favorite pinball streamer without even playing pinball. I am always going to be here. I'm always going to be a champion for the customers and the consumers. I will never be a shill. And my gosh, people can share all the private messages they want. If I were to share all of the private messages I have from all of these people running their mouths, nobody would have any friends left in pinball. But I don't do that because I take the high road. Everybody have a great Sunday. We will be back. We will be back real soon with more episodes of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. Kaneda out. We'll see you next time.