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#16 - Mixed Stern Infinity Quest Reveal Feelings

A Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·38m 24s·analyzed·Sep 11, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Stern's AIQ reveal hurt the product more than helped despite excellent game design due to poor livestream execution.

Summary

A pinball podcast host analyzes the Avengers Infinity Quest reveal livestream, concluding that while the game itself is excellent, the presentation strategy was poorly executed and caused widespread consumer confusion. The host argues that live, unstructured 2-3 hour gameplay streams are ineffective for product marketing and predicts that competitors like Jersey Jack and Deep Root could capitalize on Stern's vulnerable reveal strategy to gain market share.

Key Claims

  • Every single friend of the host who was considering buying their first pinball machine decided not to after the reveal due to feeling overwhelmed by rules complexity.

    high confidence · Direct personal testimony from the host about conversations with non-pinball-enthusiast friends

  • Keith Elwin apologized on Pinside for not delving into the rules during the reveal, saying they wanted to show the game in action instead.

    high confidence · Host quotes Elwin's direct statement: 'apologies for not really delving into the rules last night. We really just wanted to show the game in action'

  • The reveal did more to hurt the product than help it, destroying FOMO and momentum that the game had going into the event.

    medium confidence · Host opinion: 'the general feeling going around is that this stream reveal or this reveal stream did more to hurt the product than it did to help the product'

  • Stern does not have a dedicated streaming room, which the host finds bewildering given their market position.

    medium confidence · Host commentary: 'how Stern does not have a dedicated streaming room at this point is beyond me'

  • Jersey Jack is preparing Guns N' Roses and possibly Toy Story pinball machines for release.

    medium confidence · Host speculation: 'if what's happening at Jersey Jack right now in terms of them getting, you know, Guns N' Roses ready, them getting possibly Toy Story ready'

  • Raymond Davidson is the current number one ranked pinball player in the world on the tournament circuit.

    high confidence · Host statement: 'Raymond Davidson is the current number one pinball player in the world on the tournament circuit'

  • Keith Elwin is considered the greatest pinball player of all time.

    medium confidence · Host opinion: 'Keith Elwin is the greatest pinball player of all time'

  • A shift in the pinball market leadership could occur within a couple of years due to Stern's vulnerability in marketing and presentation.

Notable Quotes

  • “I have several friends that were legitimately leaning towards buying their first pin. This was it. This was the theme that spoke to them. And it breaks my heart to say, but literally every single one told me today that they're out.”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ Early discussion of consumer reaction — Demonstrates direct negative impact of reveal on potential new customers entering the market

  • “if people lose interest just based off your first impression of the reveal that's money that's gone and it's not coming back it's not coming back and that just makes the decision for people that much easier to decide where they're going to spend their money”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ Mid-discussion, market analysis section — Emphasizes ripple effects of poor reveal execution on dealers, distributors, and arcade operators

  • “Imagine that I buy a brand new car and I go ahead and have a camera set up in the back seat. And I tell you guys, okay, we're going to watch me drive this now for two hours. How many people are going to stick around for that?”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ Analogy section on livestream duration — Clear illustration of why long-form unstructured gameplay reveals fail to maintain audience engagement

  • “You can stop the hype on your product so damn fast. You can stop it in its tracks and you can remove all FOMO from it.”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ Discussion of momentum loss — Core argument about how reveal execution directly damages limited edition demand

  • “If I was if I had any advice to give to either Stern Jersey Jack or Deep Root and they legitimately want to listen I'd be like guys if you have multiple games need to build your own streaming area”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ Infrastructure recommendations section — Specific actionable advice to major manufacturers about required infrastructure investment

  • “Spooky did a great job. Right before Rick and Morty, they've been building that up for years. And they've done a great job of building a fan base that is very loyal to their brand.”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) — Credits Spooky as superior model for community engagement and brand loyalty building

Entities

Avengers Infinity QuestgameStern PinballcompanyKeith ElwinpersonRaymond DavidsonpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyDeep Root PinballcompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Poor reveal execution creates downstream negative impact on dealers, distributors, arcade operators, and competitive positioning against Jersey Jack and Deep Root

    high · Host: 'if people lose interest just based off your first impression of the reveal that's money that's gone and it's not coming back... it affects everybody across the world that sells these pins'

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball cited as superior model for consistent community engagement and brand loyalty building through content strategy

    medium · Host: 'Spooky did a great job. Right before Rick and Morty, they've been building that up for years. And they've done a great job of building a fan base that is very loyal to their brand'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community reaction to reveal is decidedly mixed with widespread reports of consumer confusion and overwhelming complexity despite positive game design reception

    high · Host states: 'if you've been on message boards this morning, you'll notice that the reviews or not the reviews, but the reaction to the reveal is decidedly mixed'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern's reveal vulnerability may accelerate market share loss to competitors; Jersey Jack and Deep Root actively monitoring Stern's mistakes to inform their strategy

    high · Host: 'if I wake up this morning and I'm with Deep Root and I'm with Jersey Jack, I am thrilled today' and 'I guarantee you they are actively watching this'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern's reveal philosophy appears to prioritize casual entertainment value over controlled consumer messaging and sales effectiveness for luxury product positioning

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.115

0:00
All right, welcome back, guys, to another episode of a pinball podcast. And today we're going to talk about the Avengers Infinity Quest reveal. Now, I've gone back and forth over whether or not I'm going to actually talk about the gameplay and the rule set. I decided to save that for another podcast because I feel like discussing the reveal in general is a whole nother topic compared to just the play field and the gameplay and the rule set and all that. So I'm going to save that for another podcast. And also just to get this out of the way up front, we do have the two winners for the giveaway. I mentioned it just the other day on the podcast. I'm going to save that for the next one when I discuss gameplay and rules and all that. So I promise you we've got the two winners. I'm going to mention it there. I'll reveal it then. Until then, let's go ahead and get going on this podcast. And I'd also encourage you to go ahead and grab a beer if you need to if you're watching this or listening to it at nighttime. If it's in the morning, grab coffee. I wouldn't recommend beer this early. And we're going to get right down to it. Now, if you've been on message boards this morning, you'll notice that the reviews or not the reviews, but the reaction to the reveal is decidedly mixed. Now, that's not to say that there's no positive. It's not extremely negative. It's just kind of it's mixed. There's no other way to put it. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And to be honest with you, I'm mixed as well. And I am the type of person, though, I am glad to see that Stern has a new pinball machine out. I'm glad to see that Jack was able to debut it. I'm glad to see that Keith put together an excellent pin. I'm glad to see that Ray had a say on the rules. I think we're extremely lucky as pinball players to be able to have both Elwin and Raymond Davidson on the same pin itself. And if you're not familiar with these two names, basically Keith Elwin is the greatest pinball player of all time. And Raymond Davidson is the current number one pinball player in the world on the tournament circuit. Just ranked number one in the world. He's just an outstanding player. Very outstanding. So, you know, I really want to, before I go down the road of discussing this reveal, I want to emphasize the positives as much as I can. And all those things to me are positives. I'm glad that Stern is putting out games. I'm glad that, you know, we are getting games at an awesome rate. It's only been a few months since Ninja Turtles, like the end of May, and here we are at the beginning of September, and there's already another pin. I mean, that's excellent. So, you know, credit where credit is due, for sure. But I will say, with this podcast, since I am mixed on the reveal overall, you know, some of the views that I might have might come off a little negative. And I want to be clear up front before I say anything. Everything that I'm saying is said with the utmost respect that I am simply a fan with an unbiased opinion that's trying to figure out exactly what's going on. I have an opinion and it doesn't mean I'm right. It doesn't mean I'm right. People out there listening, they can have a different opinion and they could be right at the same time. I could be totally wrong. I don't know. But this is just my opinions. This is how I feel about it. And that's what we're going to get into right now. and you know the feeling that I had with this reveal is I was I was really mixed on going back and forth like I thought Rami did a great job of explaining the rules and I know that some people might have felt a little overwhelmed about it with me because I already knew what the play field looked like because my mind works in a way that I can hear information and I can figure it out really quick and apply it to something I'm seeing that I didn't have an issue really understanding what's going on in the game. Now I can understand why other people might have that issue and I can a hundred percent understand why the issue was happening with this reveal and why this morning, a lot of people are talking about that. And for me, you know, I had a lot of friends that I talked to this morning that aren't pinball fans in terms of buying pins. They barely ever play pinball. They might play it maybe twice a year. But I have several friends that were legitimately leaning towards buying their first pin. This was it. This was the theme that spoke to them. And it breaks my heart to say, but literally every single one told me today that they're out. They're not wanting to get a pin anymore. And, you know, I asked them the reasons for it and I, you know, I got the reasons for it in general that and, you know, the general consensus was is they had no idea what was going on. It just felt too overwhelming.

low confidence · Host prediction: 'I think we're going to see a radical shift just in the next couple of years'

@ Competitive benchmark analysis

  • “I think that there's a storm brewing that right now Stern can get away with this type of reveal because they have so much market share.”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ Late-episode competitive analysis — Suggests Stern's market dominance masks vulnerability to competitor disruption

  • “There's a time and place for relaxed and chill. Revealing a product ain't it. It ain't it. There's too much money on the line.”

    Podcast Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ Philosophy statement near end — Clear delineation between entertainment content and high-stakes product marketing strategy

    • Deadflip
    person
    Jack Dangerperson
    Zombie Yetiperson
    Carl D'Angeloperson
    Pinsideorganization

    high · Host: 'Stern has to decide what vibe they're going for with their reveals... do they want to be super chill drinking beer... or do they want to be professional and try to sell'

  • $

    market_signal: Potential FOMO destruction on Avengers Infinity Quest LE/Premium orders due to reveal execution undermining scarcity narrative

    medium · Host: 'You can stop the hype on your product so damn fast. You can stop it in its tracks and you can remove all FOMO from it. And that wouldn't surprise me if something like this happened with this product'

  • $

    market_signal: Reveal format characterized as 'self-proclaimed lifestyle global brand' opening with microphone testing and jokes about the word 'fart,' undermining professional product presentation

    high · Host plays audio clip of reveal opening: discussion of microphone quality and testing 'fart' sound before any game content

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Keith Elwin (designer) and Raymond Davidson (tournament #1 player) collaborated on game design; Elwin posted public apology on Pinside regarding insufficient rules explanation during reveal

    high · Host: 'Keith Elwin himself was on the thread. And one of his first words was apologizing' with quote: 'apologies for not really delving into the rules last night'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack reportedly preparing Guns N' Roses and possibly Toy Story pinball releases with improved reveal execution planned

    medium · Host: 'if what's happening at Jersey Jack right now in terms of them getting, you know, Guns N' Roses ready, them getting possibly Toy Story ready'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern lacks dedicated streaming infrastructure (no dedicated streaming room), creating production quality disadvantage vs. competitors

    medium · Host: 'how Stern does not have a dedicated streaming room at this point is beyond me'

    • 4:49
    And I could definitely see it from their point of view because it matches up with what a lot of people were talking about this morning in terms of feeling overwhelmed by rules and whatnot. So, you know, we're in a weird situation in which, you know, even if you go on Pennside this morning, you'll notice that Keith Elwin himself was on the thread. And one of his first words was apologizing for, let me read exactly what it was. I got it right here. Okay, it says, apologies for not really delving into the rules last night. We really just wanted to show the game in action because, let's face it, if you don't have access to one to play, then it's going to be in one ear and out the other. I agree with that to a certain extent, and we'll get into that a little bit more of what could have been done, I believe, a lot better. That would have benefited Stern a lot.
    5:45
    So we're seeing a lot of people this morning that were on the fence about getting it, and some of them are, I don't know if anybody's, you know, bouncing from their LE. I don't know if people are bouncing from their premium order. I don't know. There's no telling at this point. I do know the general feeling going around is that this stream reveal or this reveal stream did more to hurt the product than it did to help the product, which is obviously the exact opposite of what you want to do.
    6:17
    So if we haven't, I'm saying so a lot just because I'm trying to process everything that I want to talk about here because there's so damn much. There's so damn much to really process and work our way through this that it makes sense to you guys as a listener.
    6:31
    And like I said, the things I'm going to talk about, it is a little bit of a negative viewpoint, but I'm going to be as respectful as possible about this because they're just concerns for me as a pinball fan.
    6:46
    And what I'm going to go ahead and do up front is I'm just going to go ahead and play about the first minute of the reveal, and I just want you guys to listen to it, and then we'll have context on where we're going with this, and we'll just go from there. All right, let's roll it. Let's figure out our audio really quick. We just want to make sure we sound the best as I swing this microphone around. Watch now. Hey, hey, hey. How does this microphone sound, ladies and gentlemen does it sound good bad good and bad good or bad it sounds good sounds good jeremy can you say the word fart for me really quick fart nice how did that sound fart you're hearing the word fart okay good good good excellent uh and so if that all sounds good then that means that the game is going to sound good too. Heck, best fart ever. Alright. I mean, I'm into it. Jeremy nods in agreement. Yeah.
    7:56
    Excellent. Let's do it. So, audio sounded great so far? Heck yeah. What's that? That right there was the first minute to Stern Pinball's Avengers Infinity Quest pinball reveal.
    8:15
    A self-proclaimed lifestyle global brand. Like, I don't know. I don't know what else to say. I really don't know what else to say. And it leads me to wonder,
    8:32
    I don't know who exactly controls these reveals. I don't know if it's Stern. I don't know if it's Deadflip. My instinct tells me that Deadflip has a lot of say in how the reveals go simply because it's shown on his Twitch channel and then it goes over to his YouTube. None of this content really ever, I don't remember if it ever has, crosses over to Stern's content in terms of being on their Facebook, on their Instagram, on their own YouTube channel, on their own Twitch channel, whatever it could be. And so I'm not really sure exactly who is making these decisions in terms of how these reveals play out.
    9:17
    And what I think really too, because of that, because of the way that the reveals are ran, I think it also leads to a lot of consumer confusion, which is the exact opposite of what you wanting to do especially when you presenting a product for the first time ever for people to see in its full glory That a message that you want to heavily control because it will heavily influence a lot of money a lot of money, and that affects everybody. This isn't just something that just affects people at the top. This affects everybody across the world that sells these pins. Dealers, distributors, arcades that put these pins on location it affects them just as much because if people lose interest just based off your first impression of the reveal that's money that's gone and it's not coming back it's not coming back and that just makes the decision for people that much easier to decide where they're going to spend their money are they going to take like if i wake up this morning and I'm with Deep Root and I'm with Jersey Jack, I am thrilled today. I am thrilled that there's a lot of people that are genuinely confused about what is going on with Infinity Quest in terms of whether it might be the shots, it might be the rules. It's just how it was packaged to people. People didn't really understand what was going on. There's lots of people that are saying, yeah, I tuned in the middle of the stream and I was lost. I've talked to over a dozen people already this morning that said the exact same thing to me. And that just goes to show you, there's got to be a way to grab these consumers and keep their attention.
    11:13
    There is a way, as a matter of fact. And like I said, the way that these reveals are going, it's not it. it's not it because the people that are basically already in on this pin they might stay but there's a lot more things that can go wrong with a live reveal then can go right especially if you don't have things in order especially if you're not organized in terms of how you want to present your content and your information and i feel like stern is at this crossroads where they're really not sure where they want to go. I don't know if they know where they want to go with it. And quite frankly, they haven't had to know because nobody's really pushing them. But I'm telling you, if what's happening at Jersey Jack right now in terms of them getting, you know, Guns N' Roses ready, them getting possibly Toy Story ready, if Deep Root even does half the stuff they're talking about, there's going to be new players really entering the market and trying to make some noise. And this is a clear vulnerability that Stern has because I cannot tell what vibe exactly. Like Stern has to decide what vibe they're going for with their reveals. They say that they're a global lifestyle brand, but all of their reveals do not reflect that because they come off very confusing. It comes off in a way that it's hard to keep interest in this for hours at a time. so they got to decide how do they want these reveals to go do they want to be super chill drinking beer like what was happening yesterday or do they want to be professional and try to sell and maybe you can do both you could do both at the same time too there's ways to do that as well there is totally ways to do that as well to where you connect with your audience i just feel like the timing needs to work on needs to be worked on as well because the two to three hour long gameplay streams, they just, they don't work. And I've talked about this before in other podcasts. And, you know, an analogy that I like to give is just imagine this, guys. Imagine that I buy a brand new car and I go ahead and have a camera set up in the back seat. And I tell you guys, okay, we're going to watch me drive this now for two hours. And I'll talk about some of the features of the car. How many people are going to stick around for that? How many people are going to zone out. I mean, I would say anytime you present a product like that, the interest will peak at the very beginning. The zone out happens quickly. It happens quickly. And it just, I don't, I don't get it personally. And that's why you've got to be careful with doing the reveals like this, because you can stop the hype on your product so damn fast. You can stop it in its tracks and you can remove all FOMO from it. You can remove the fear of missing out. And that wouldn't surprise me if something like this happened with this product. It wouldn't surprise me one bit. And I think it's a great game. I, I personally really enjoyed it. It was fun watching Elwin and Ray play it, you know, but of course there's a lot of people too, this morning they're talking about, well, it, they're worried about whether or not they can play it as an average player because quite frankly that pin was just kicking jack's ass it just it was and you know it there's reasons for that obviously the pin was set up difficult at least that's what they were saying on stream and it had to be set up a certain way because once you get good players on a pin that's set up default you can play all freaking day i can tell you up front i'm not near the player that Elwin and Raymond are, but if I had all my pins set up to default, it would take all day long. And that's just what happens when you get to a certain skill level and you work at your craft a lot, you tend to get to that point. And there's thousands of us out there like that. And so that's another thing that I think needs to be taken into consideration is, is who are you marketing this to and how are you going to get their attention very quickly?
    15:32
    And when I watched this reveal, I'm not sure exactly what preparation went into it. I don't know. It came off as it wasn't really that prepared. Like maybe they had the general idea of how they wanted to go, but there didn't really seem to be like any, okay, we're going to do this real quick. Then we're going to go here, and then we're going to go here. We're going to flow every which direction. And there's so many major parts of this pen. And when you don't have your roadmap or your direction that you're going to go to be able to explain these different parts of the pen in a way that the consumer wants to hear the way that they're going to bring in that content, you lose people so fast. Fast. So we need to know that like the questions really ask is, is like, how prepared was this? Were there any points that they said they need to discuss? Was questions asked before about how we want to how we want to show the viewer this or was it just winged? And when you just wing things and you don't have a plan, it leads to confused customers. It leads to your designer and your rules guy going on a message board and apologizing this morning. It leads to all that. And it leads to people being, like I said, really confused. The easiest way to fix this, and I've said this for a long time, gameplay reveals should be very limited. I'm talking five, ten minutes at most. You have some of the best players in the world at Stern. You could show them playing for five or ten minutes with narration over it that is produced that is produced you could do all this you when you do these reveals i think you really need to have b-roll involved in it as well a simple thing that you can do is simply have like carl d'angelo is excellent at this he did this for his big buck hunter stream when he was chasing after the main wizard mode in which he actually had a produced video that showed all the things that you need to do in order to get to that wizard mode.
    17:43
    Why can't Stern put something together like that to easily convey to the viewers what they're seeing? It can easily tell them the basic rules. You don't have to explain the whole thing, but you give the viewer an inside view and you give them immediate information that they can start piecing together themselves so much easier. Okay. Yeah. That shot means this. Oh yeah. That shot means that instead of hearing it on the fly, if you hear it on the fly, it's hard to follow. It's hard to follow for me at times. So I can't imagine somebody that's not fully into pinball on a near daily basis. That might be a casual fan. They're not going to follow it. And they're going to be brain dead within minutes. That is just the reality. You know, if it were me and somebody was like, Travis, what would you do for our reveal? How would you do this? I would be like, look, B roll two minutes at most, maybe even just 90 seconds. Show, show a clip of something like how to start modes, how you start this multi-ball, what shots it lit, it lights. And then you go ahead and you show that every 15 minutes you show it. You know why? Because you don't have the same people staying for the entire live stream. The same people that show up at the very beginning are not the exact same people that are there two and a half hours later There are so many people coming in and out in and out They click They might be in there for 30 seconds a minute at most And then they gone Same time you might have somebody that there 15 minutes to 30 minutes Then they're gone.
    19:20
    Legitimately, if somebody stayed there and watched it for a full hour, they were still not even there for half of the reveal event.
    19:28
    It's too long. The B-roll would help out so much. On top of that, I would involve other people as well. I would have interviews with the designer. Like I would lead that up. I would not start just cold with a game and throw people into it that nobody has any idea what's going on because then you're automatically playing catch up. You're automatically confusing your consumer, your viewer of that content. And when you automatically confuse them, now you have to unconfuse them. You're basically saying, okay, here's my hill to climb. I'm going to go ahead and go this way a little bit more, and then we're going to try to climb it some more. Like, you can't do that. So I really believe having B-roll at the very beginning of it, let Keith Elwin or whoever's designing it, let them talk about real quick their vision for this. You can do all kinds of shots with it. Let the rule, like whoever codes it, whoever does the rules, let them decide. And in this case, it is Elwin doing the rules. But let them talk about it as well. Then you can even cut later on. You can talk about the R package and you can have zombie Yeti talking about it. Like this is pre done to where they don't have to do it live. They, they don't have to do it live. You can, you can be live as a host, but you can send in all this B roll while you're not live. It's all pre taped and you control the message, which makes it clear for the potential consumer to understand. And there's so many other things that you could talk about. You could talk about the light show. Let's just go over it. Design, code, rules, light show, mechs, art, options. How many times have we watched the reveal? Did we even get a call to action to buy this pen?
    21:24
    Like maybe twice, three times at most? I heard more confusion than I did somebody trying to sell a pen.
    21:33
    That's concerning. These reveals should be designed to say, hey, here's our pin. You guys need to go buy it. Find your local dealer. Find your local distributor, whoever you use. Buy it.
    21:47
    You have to capture sell. You have to make an effort to capture sell. And your content has to reflect that you're trying to capture sell. It can't reflect that you're just here for a hobby. because like I said, these decisions, they have, it's a ripple effect down to the people that are trying to sell this pen that are trying to make a living. It has a ripple effect to if you're a competitor, you've seen straight up what not to do, how not to reveal a pen because we just took a pen that people were so damn excited about, even me, I still am excited about, but you turned it on its head to where now the reaction are mixed. You had all that momentum and all because of decisions of how to do this reveal. It has reverberating repercussions. It just does.
    22:42
    Thus, I believe that you can make it to where it's just like an hour long event, maybe even just 45 minutes, 30 minutes.
    22:52
    You know, because it's going to live on in YouTube. You don't have to be live in front of a bunch of people to make it relevant, YouTube, it stays on there.
    23:02
    You could put it on your Facebook. It stays on there. That's all things you could do. And then on top of that, you can show all this and then you could do your Q&A. You could announce, hey, Q&A at this time. Or after it's all said and done, you're like, we'll be live over at Facebook. come here and we'll do Q&A with you here. That's so much easier than trying to do just a very disjointed Q&A to where you're trying to read the chat and answer things on the fly. You might've answered the same thing over and over again. You have people asking about the same things such as co-op over and over again. And there's nothing that says that if you are doing a live stream, even on Twitch, and you have people talking, just make your chat go slow-mo and read the questions. Tell them this is your time to ask questions.
    23:52
    It's really that easy. And that could make it to where you're very prepared in terms of what's happening and you're very prepared in terms of trying to sell a game.
    24:05
    And so that's why at the end of the day, I'm really confused exactly what's going on. And I feel like that there is a storm brewing that right now Stern can get away with this type of reveal because they have so much market share. And obviously it's not close. Between one and two, it's not close. People that are two and three, it's a lot closer between them. But you do have these companies that are trying to gain ground. and I guarantee you they are actively watching this and they're actively deciding how they want to approach this because they can see the consumer reaction to this. They can see it. And I have a feeling that the landscape of not only how reveals are, are done, but the landscape of pinball in general, in terms of who's the major players, who has a slice of pie of the market, you know, who has the most part of the market. I think we're going to see a radical shift just in the next couple of years. It's coming. And it could be either companies going out of business. It could be existing companies joining together. It could be an existing company that is just killing it because of altering and pivoting in terms of how they do business. And I honestly think that we're going to see that this day and age, especially with COVID. obviously a lot of us have lived more of our lives online than what we have in the past and so it should be an extreme extreme priority for all these companies to have an online presence now how stern and i thought i heard it mentioned that they were streaming from the kitchen i don't know if they were just saying that because they but i know that they've done it before how Stern does not have a dedicated streaming room at this point is beyond me I that actually kind of baffles me if I was if I had any advice to give to either Stern Jersey Jack or Deep Root and they legitimately want to listen I'd be like guys if you have multiple games need to build your own streaming area that way you can connect with fans on a near daily basis you can be able to show off different aspects of your game. And that doesn't mean that you just blindly stream the game for hours at a time just with redundant gameplay. You don't have to do it like that. You don't. Simply having a streaming room could mean you're like me right now. I have a camera right here. I have a mic. I have a computer. I have a background. I'm talking to you guys, and this is a different way that you guys take in pinball content. This is a whole different way. And this is a way that these companies obviously have a much larger following than I do, although I appreciate all you guys that do follow, but they have a much larger following, and that's something that they could take advantage of. Stern has over 500,000 people that like their Facebook page. Now, that doesn't mean that 500,000 people tune in every single time, but I guarantee you if they leverage Facebook even more, going live, communicating, sales would go up, popularity would go up. I guarantee you if Jersey Jack tried to do the same thing and try to connect in that way, which I think that they are trying to, but if they go all in on that, they would see a radical difference. Same with Deep Root. Content like that keeps people involved. That type of content, when you let people in on what your process is, your process on a near daily basis, you're documenting that. They respond to that. They become fans of that. Spooky did a great job. Right before Rick and Morty, they've been building that up for years. And they've done a great job of building a fan base that is very loyal to their brand. and Stern, you know, they've done that too. There's a reason why they're number one, but it's also 2020 times will keep changing. And if you're not evolving with it, you're, you're vulnerable. And I see a clear vulnerability right now in terms of the reveals in terms of how this is presented. And if Jersey Jack does their reveals similar to how they did Wonka and they start doing that consistently because they're releasing pins more consistent than just a couple of years apart, we're going to end up witnessing a radical shift. And I think it going to happen a lot sooner than people realize And I hearing rumblings that that kind of where Jersey Jack going Like I hearing rumblings that they are looking at doing something professional, professionally made. And why wouldn't you? You're selling a luxury item to a lot of people that do have deep pockets and a lot of people that save up and may not have the deep pockets, but they're loyal to a brand or they see a particular theme that they want. And you have one opportunity to really capture, to really capture. And if you don't capture, you might have a second, you might have a third to try to reel them in. But that's the point is now you're trying to reel somebody back in when they have all these other options. You have all these other options to look at. And so it's clear, it's clear that I don't know why Stern does it this way, but I do believe, I think, I'm not even saying that they should not use dead flip. I think that's great. Use an influencer to the best of their ability, to the best of your ability, but there's a right way to utilize that influencer.
    29:58
    To me, I would much rather see Jack host the stream, if he's going to do it, or host the reveal and be able to control what is happening in those segments. Bring out the best in Keith. Bring out the best in Raymond. Allow them a platform to really explain what's going on and follow up with something that might be worth great informational content for a potential consumer. I think that that's the best way to do it. And if it's laid back, if it's chill, I think that's great. Laid back and chill is great. Is laid back and chill great for an actual product reveal? No. It's just not. It's a recipe for disaster, and that's why we're seeing mixed reactions today. That's exactly why we're seeing it. I think that there's a time and place for relaxed and chill.
    30:56
    Revealing a product ain't it. It ain't it. There's too much money on the line. There's too much potential for something that can go wrong when you can't control the message. There's people that are wanting to enter the space and that are wanting to take you out. I'm talking like Deep Root and Jersey Jack competing with Stern. That's what I'm referring to.
    31:23
    They're not going to let up. I think, if anything, this invigorates them. I really do. I think it invigorates them. Does that mean their reveals will be any better? I don't know. I don't know until somebody proves otherwise. But there's just so much other things you could do with the reveal. And I know at this point I'm sounding redundant, and I might even be going long right now. But just think about this, guys. If we're so confused about how a pin plays, why can we not have the B-roll that explains out a shot? Why can't we have a flyover of the play field? Like the features thing that they did before the reveal, that should have played at the very beginning of the reveal. The features trailer should play. That should even be considered to be on damn near loop.
    32:15
    Like if you're going to run into a half hour stream, I would make sure I have that at the very least. If you're going to show gameplay for that long, you have to break it up. You have to break up the monotony of it. You do. I mean, it's quite simply that. I think once people see how it plays, they just have to watch one game. Like, if you watch Keith Elwin play one game, you will know pretty much how that pin shoots. You will know. He's not going to power drain three straight balls and not get a flipper on it. You will know. If Raymond Davidson plays a game in one game, you will know exactly how that game plays. Because they play so damn good. but they catch, they can shoot, they're accurate, they understand the geometry. Plus, on top of that, anybody that's at Stern, they've had time on these pens anyways. They already have the experience.
    33:03
    I'm not a big fan of reveals of somebody that's inexperienced trying to play on the pen that doesn't really know because then they're kind of fishing around and trying to figure out what's happening. And that's good if maybe it's lasting two or three minutes, you know, and you're just doing a little fluff piece. It's not good if it's 30 minutes to an hour to two hours long. Then it just tends to get tedious watching. For me, it gets sloggy. It gets sloggy trying to get through all that because I'm really wanting to see how a pin shoots. And if I'm just as inexperienced as somebody else on that pin that doesn't know, neither one of us are really gaining that much information. Whereas if I can see somebody that either designed the pin or is world class and works at Stern and has been playing on that pen for a long time, then I can get a better idea.
    33:55
    And I think at the end of the day, though, I hope the next reveal, the very next reveal they do, that Stern does, I think if they decide right off the bat, we're going to keep this under an hour, we are going to announce it ahead of time, world debut. We are going to show the designer interview. We are going to give a flyover of the play field. We're going to give a quick flyover of the basic rules. Like you don't have to give every multiplier. Just how do these multi-ball start? How do these modes start? And you play that every 15 minutes. You could probably work in your games during that time. Schedule in a Q&A to where everybody actually stops. You're on camera. You're paying attention to the chat even more. You're fully in on the chat. All that could be done, and you're controlling the message. You're not exposing any flaws. That's the problem. If you do not control your content in a professional manner, your content or your product that you're trying to show, it gets exposed so much more because it's out there in the open.
    35:05
    It is out there, and that's what happens. I mean, it happened with Stranger Things, and it kind of happened with Avengers, you know, where people see different shots, and they're just kind of wondering, okay, what is here, what is that? And we'll talk about the shots a little bit more and the rules in general. I don't think it's not as alarming as some people are making it out to be. I think people need to take into consideration, one, pin setup, two, a lot of the half ramps that were happening. If you actually slow it down, you'll notice that the ball was hitting off a post before. So naturally, that's going to de-accelerate the ball. And the ball, I mean, on the Captain Marvel ramp, it's got to go straight up anyways. So if you de-accelerate, it's not going to make it. That's just the way it is. You just got to hit flush. But I think that's where we're going to wrap it up right here. Let me know what you guys think. You guys agree? Disagree? Is there anything that you think could be better? Do you think that this is just perfect? Some people may love the chill vibe. They may love it. I don't doubt that one bit. There's probably a lot of people out there that enjoy the chill vibe. What I'm looking at is people that may not be hardcore pinball people, may not be the type that watch Deadflip every day on his streams, may not be the type that even consumes Stern stuff on a weekly basis or even a monthly basis. So I'm really, I'm not going to lie, I'm a little concerned about tomorrow's Marvel stream. I'm really concerned about that Just because I feel like there needs to be A presence there That One of course is enthusiastic Which I believe it will be there But two is one of those that Is able to talk about this pen In a way that the common Person that is watching This that's never Played pinball before And understand what is Going on and that's going to be the trick that is going to be the trick tomorrow that reveal on Marvel that's going to be on the front page is so damn important it might quite possibly be the most important piece of pinball content in this past decade it could be that big a deal there's going to be a lot of people that may not even be aware of pinball seeing this for the first time and they might have questions and it has to be talked about in such a way that makes them understand. The elevator pitch has to be there to make them understand within 30 seconds what they're seeing that makes them want to stick around. So I got, it's gonna be interesting. I know I'll be there. I wish Jack all the luck in that because the whole pinball community at this point, all eyes are on him. We're counting on it. I hope he hits a home run with it. I really do. I want pinball to grow. I want people to enjoy this hobby to be extremely successful. I want Stern to be successful But, man, vulnerabilities there. Can't wait to see this arms race that's going to happen. It's going to happen sooner rather than later. But, anyways, you guys, go ahead and leave a comment down below if you want to discuss this some more. If I'm batshit crazy, feel free to tell me that, too. You're not going to hurt my feelings. I think discussion is great in this hobby, and I love hearing different opinions. But other than that, though, guys, I'm out. I'll see you guys soon. Later, guys.