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Did I make another $10,000 mistake?

RetroRalph·video·11m 20s·analyzed·Jul 12, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

RetroRalph upgrades Jaws Premium to LE aesthetics using Pinball Life kit

Summary

RetroRalph documents his purchase of a Jaws Premium Edition pinball machine and installation of a Pinball Life enhancement kit designed to make it visually resemble a Limited Edition. He discusses the trade-offs in his collection (replacing Bond with Jaws), plays extended gameplay, and provides detailed feedback on kit assembly quality and fitment issues. Ralph expresses enthusiasm for Jaws as an underrated game in the community.

Key Claims

  • Jaws Limited Edition variants are very expensive on the secondary market

    high confidence · Ralph states he wanted a Jaws LE but they're 'just going for a lot of money' and opted for Premium + upgrade kit instead

  • Pinball Life offers a kit to make Premium Edition Jaws look like Limited Edition

    high confidence · Ralph purchased and installed this kit, showing before/after results

  • The enhancement kit had several assembly issues: misaligned side armor screw holes, difficult backbox bracket installation, T-molding fitment problems, and oddly-threaded leg levelers

    high confidence · Ralph provides detailed post-installation feedback on specific manufacturing tolerances

  • The Pinball Life kit appears to be out of stock or discontinued as of this video

    medium confidence · Ralph notes the kit showed 'limited stock' and says the link is no longer on the website when he checked

  • Ralph believes Jaws is underrated and the community isn't losing their minds over it as they should

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'I don't see people losing their minds over Jaws and they really should because the game is freaking epic'

Notable Quotes

  • “I fell in love with the game. It's so fun. It is such a fun game and I modded the absolute crap out of it.”

    Ralph@ 0:28 — Explains his emotional attachment to Bond and methodology for keeping loaner program machines

  • “I'm not really sure who's benefiting from this loaner program, because I just keep getting all the games that they loan to me.”

    Ralph@ 1:15 — Self-aware humor about repeatedly acquiring loaner machines from Stern

  • “So here's the thing, gentlemen: Ralph's in this program because they knew he would bite at anything they sent him. Such a pushover.”

    Todd (background voice, possibly friend)@ 1:29 — Commentary on Ralph's collecting behavior and Stern loaner strategy

  • “I feel like maybe the community is freaking out and I just haven't seen it. But from a content creation perspective, I don't see people losing their minds over Jaws and they really should.”

    Ralph@ 10:22 — Direct statement about perceived underappreciation of Jaws in the broader community

  • “This is pretty awesome... hopefully after seeing this video, I spark some interest and maybe Pinball Life will bring this back into stock because man, it just looks gorgeous.”

    Ralph@ 10:06 — Ralph attempts to drive restocking of the enhancement kit through content visibility

Entities

RalphpersonStern PinballcompanyJawsgameJames BondgameVenomgameJohn WickgamePinball LifecompanyGame Room Goodies

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Life enhancement kit appears to have limited production run and may be out of stock following video publication

    medium · Kit showed 'limited stock' label; Ralph checked website post-recording and link was no longer visible; he hopes video drives restocking

  • ?

    community_signal: Ralph uses video content strategically to drive vendor inventory decisions, explicitly hoping to spark restocking of discontinued/out-of-stock kit

    medium · Final remarks: 'hopefully after seeing this video, I spark some interest and maybe Pinball Life will bring this back into stock'

  • $

    market_signal: Jaws Limited Edition pricing on secondary market is high enough that Premium Edition + aftermarket upgrade kit is an attractive alternative to direct LE purchase

    high · Ralph explicitly states LE is 'just going for a lot of money' and opted for Premium + kit solution

  • ?

    product_strategy: Third-party vendor (Pinball Life) offering aesthetic upgrade kit to bridge visual gap between Premium and Limited Edition Jaws

    high · Kit includes upgraded side armor, backbox brackets, T-molding, and leg levelers to LE appearance; Ralph demonstrates installation and result

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball Life kit has multiple assembly fitment issues: misaligned screw holes requiring re-drilling, difficult backbox bracket access, T-molding groove sizing problems, and non-standard threaded leg levelers

    high · Ralph provides detailed post-installation feedback on each component; characterizes most issues as minor but requiring extra work

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.034

0:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. In today's video, we're gonna... wait a minute, where the heck did Bond go?
0:11
I mean, come on man. I got Bond from that Stern program, right? The loaner program. And then I had to give it back, but I didn't give it back because I modded it, but that's not the real reason. I ended up falling in love with it and maybe the modding was an excuse to keep it, but I bought it from Game Room Goodies. So then I had the bond. I fell in love with the game. It's so fun It is such a fun game and I modded the absolute crap out of it So, of course I would keep it it'd be stupid to get rid of something that you invested that much time effort and money into right Well, if you've been around this channel for a while You know that sometimes I do really stupid things and I went and I played jaws on location and I fell in love with jaws so now I'm in this little dilemma like what do I get rid of because Because, you know, naturally, I'm sure all of you guys watching are like, oh, that's easy. Get rid of Venom. Well, I love that game. Do I love it more than Bond? I guess I do, because we'll get into the Venom story later. But I actually got rid of Venom and then got it back again. But that's a whole other story. So the Venom that's actually here isn't even the original Venom. And that one I got from the loaner program, too. So I'm not really sure who's benefiting from this loaner program, because I just keep getting all the games that they loan to me. Who's benefiting? I know. God, he's such a mess. Todd, that's what I'm saying, brother. And that right there, Mason, is exactly why Ralph is in this program. They knew he would bite at anything they sent him.
1:41
Such a pushover. Right? Look, enjoy your chicken wings, buddy. We'll discuss more of this later. See you, buddy. but uh but i don't know maybe that's that's a good thing right i'm having a lot of fun with them and i want to have them in my home collection but anyways so what i actually did was bomb got the axe and jaws came in but really the jaws i really wanted was the jaws le but that's just going for a lot of money the le's are really expensive so even though you know the wick is an But I saw this thing on pinball life and it was a kit to make your premium look as much like an Ellie as possible Oh shit, god damn it
company
Toddperson
Masonperson
Nickperson
  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Content creator perceives Jaws as underappreciated in broader community despite being 'epic' game; suspects community enthusiasm may exist but isn't visible in mainstream content

    medium · Ralph states: 'I don't see people losing their minds over Jaws and they really should' and questions if he's just missed community excitement

    • 2:26
    John wick just decided to do a code updates I think new code dropped for it today And I don't know if you've ever experienced a code update on a stern machine But it makes this ungodly noise that comes out of the speakers right before it's gonna do it So please stern if you can fix that that will be awesome. But oh shit. We're not talking about John wick right now we talking about jaws So we going to take this kit from Pinball Life we going to put it on this machine and I going to show you before and after of what this thing looks like Does it make it really look like an LE We find out in a little bit
    3:14
    All right, we just finished modding this machine out. It looks beautiful, but now it's time to play. So we're going to log in to Insider Connected. Boom. And what we're going to do is we're going to try to get this first skill shot. So you've got to lightly plunge the ball and hit that pop button. I don't have that much time to do it. Ah, I missed it. Okay, it's all right.
    3:57
    We'll get it next time. I'm pretty proud of myself because my high score in this game, I've only had it for like a couple weeks, is 500 million. I feel like that's pretty respectable, actually.
    4:08
    So, oh, we bricked that shot. I don't want to do that. All right, there we go. Shoot, I missed the, uh, I didn't see the shark fin was already out there. Let's see, we get it right now. We get a backhand, oh, it's gone. Why is it gone? Okay, I don't know what's even happening right now. Enough of this. Enough of this nonsense.
    4:31
    Alright, here we go. Come on. Let's do this. We got this all day long. Man, all day long, man. Ooh, oh. We almost lost it there. Oh, no. No. Alright, there we go, we got it back. That's actually a cool feature of the game. You can kind of nudge the machine a little bit and get your ball back right there.
    4:52
    This isn't a terrible first ball so far, but I haven't really hit the shots I want to hit. There we go.
    4:59
    Alright, let's go. Get that chum in that water. Oh, shit. Alright, we're alright. We're alright. Close call. Close call, definitely a close call Alright, come on Oh, oh, oh Oh shit Aw man, that was a decent first ball though That was a decent first ball But let's keep this up That's right, we are gonna move a bigger boat Alright, we got Bounty Hunter multi-ball Get the scuba in the bucket Rip the reel Playing pretty good here We gotta keep this up Aw man I lost it That right hit Mr Jaws Right in his nose
    5:44
    Oh shit, oh no, no, no. I'm getting the ball back, I'm getting the ball back, I'm fine. That wasn't good, I wasn't paying attention.
    5:51
    Touch me now, see. Come on, punk. Oh shit, we lost it. Oh. Ah damn, I missed that. Sometimes when you get up in that orca, you gotta really focus. We're having a good game here, we gotta keep this up I'm feeling like it's a good game so far We got an extra ball, this is like The way we want it to go This is stream worthy Stuff right here, for me We're gonna hit the shark too, watch this Boom, we're gonna get him Nah, we didn't get him, shoot Alright, that's alright He'll come back around again Alright, we gotta keep it up though You guys can't see it, but there's this Button that's lit up here I can save my ball if it goes down the left out lane.
    6:36
    It's very, very critical to... Ah, shit. Damn it. Wait, did we get another? I think I got another ball. We had an extra ball. It's all right. We got some achievements. That's good.
    6:47
    238 million is not bad. This is pretty respectable, and we have an extra ball. Let's see if we can get that skill shot this time. No. Oh, no. Just a little bit late. A little bit late. Did you see that? I hit the little life preserver thing, so I saved my ball. That is a key feature that you have to be on top of when you're playing.
    7:11
    Ooh. Alright, let's see what we got here. Raft attack. Alright. Alright, let's go. Oh, no, no. Alright, we got it. We got it.
    7:30
    Let's go. Okay, okay. Feeling good in the hood right now. Oh, shoot, I didn't even see that the shark was there. Ah, crap.
    7:51
    Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Don't lose it. Not now. This game, I have my tilt set a little... No! Shit! We gotta wrap this video up, but 323 million and I have another ball. I'm feeling like the rest of this game is gonna go well, but unfortunately, your time has come to an end with me here. All right, guys, so what do I think about this enhancement kit from Pinball Life? It looks pretty damn epic. It looks very similar to the LE. The thing you'll notice is there's no shark bite in the side armor. So I mean if I wanted to do that that get really expensive because then I have to buy the side armor and then have it powder coated But I very very happy with the way it came out There were a couple issues with the kit Like the side armor had two screw holes that didn line up So I had to actually drill two new screw holes. So that's whatever. It was minor, no big deal. The brackets, I didn't show installing the support brackets for the back box. That was a pain in the ass because you have to actually go inside the back box and there's actually bolts from the top but to get to the right hand side ones you actually have to take the panel off of the power supply where the power distribution unit is so that was kind of a pain. The T-molding was kind of a pain too and I say that because sometimes if you slot T-molding and you put too big of a groove you know you kind of have tendency to after it's torn off like the original T-mold is torn off your groove is actually too big. I did notice they actually put some glue in the factory in a couple sections, so I might have to go back and just put some glue in just two areas that aren't quite securing correctly to the cabinet. But I mean, other than that, oh, there's one more thing. The casters that you put inside, I think they'd call them casters, I don't know, levelers, I guess, that you put inside the legs, they were threaded kind of weird. Like I had to really crank down on them. And most of the stern stock legs I've ever worked with, they're not like that. It's just easy to screw it on. So I don't know what was up with that. But I mean, all in all, with the couple of issues, this is pretty awesome. The problem is, is I just went on the website because my buddy Nick was like, man, I want to do that to mine. And it doesn't look like the link is there anymore. It did say limited stock. So hopefully after seeing this video, I spark some interest and maybe Pinball Life will bring this back into stock because man, it just looks gorgeous. And this game, if you haven't played Jaws, like I know I'm a little bit late to the game, but I am freaking out over Jaws. I feel like maybe the community is freaking out and I just haven't seen it. But from a content creation perspective, I don't see people losing their minds over Jaws and they really should because the game is freaking epic. So if you get a chance to play this on location somewhere, absolutely do it. You're going to love it. Anyways, that wraps up this video, guys. If you enjoyed it, give me a thumbs up. Consider subscribing to the channel. Put your comments below. I want to know what you think about this kit. And I'm sorry that I didn't film every aspect of it. It got to be a real pain in the ass and I was like, screw it. So we just kind of like fast forwarded through it a little bit. That's it for now, guys. We will see you on the next one.
    11:02
    Thank you.