The One Where Money Talks

The Hardy Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·15m 17s·analyzed·Aug 17, 2020

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

Hardy reflects on Kaneda's monetization challenges and shares Stern personnel intel.

Summary

Hardy discusses Kaneda's surprise livestream where Kaneda expressed frustration about listener-to-supporter conversion rates (2,500-3,000 listeners but only ~30 Patreon supporters), sparking broader conversation about content creator compensation and audience engagement. Hardy reflects on this dynamic, announces his own new Patreon page, and shares industry intel about Johnny Crap's firing from Stern and speculates that Zombie Yeti will now handle artwork for Keith Elwin's next two games.

Key Claims

Kaneda had 2,500-3,000 listeners per episode but only ~30 Patreon contributors
high confidence · Hardy reporting directly from Kaneda's livestream comments
Johnny Crap was fired from Stern after finishing art for Jurassic Park
medium confidence · Hardy citing Kaneda's livestream statement, though Hardy notes uncertainty ('I don't know when')
Keith Elwin stated his next two games will use an artist he previously worked with
medium confidence · Hardy reporting Keith Elwin's statement; Hardy infers this is Zombie Yeti
Kaneda has industry sources ('moles') at almost every manufacturing place
medium confidence · Hardy's characterization of Kaneda's sourcing capabilities during livestream discussion
Hardy has information about certain manufacturers but won't disclose it due to confidentiality
high confidence · Hardy's direct statement in episode

Notable Quotes

“yeah, you miss me and you want me, but where were you whenever I was on the air? Out of the 2,500 to 3,000 people that would listen to every one of his episodes, he only had, what he says, 30 people were contributing to his Patreon page monthly.”
Kaneda (reported by Hardy)@ 1:36 — Core conflict: massive audience but minimal financial support; catalyst for entire episode's discussion
“a lot of you out there want us to keep putting out content and giving you giving you giving you giving you when nothing is returned”
Hardy paraphrasing Kaneda@ 3:31 — Summarizes the central tension between content consumption and creator compensation
“I would cancel my Disney Plus to hear his content because, I mean, Disney is, what, $8 a month kind of thing?”
Hardy@ 5:15 — Hardy demonstrating support and empathy for Kaneda's position via concrete example
“why is no one talking about this? And I'm like, yeah, I would love to talk about that, but that requires a lot of effort and research and looking into stuff, a lot of journalism time that needs to be done”
Hardy (referencing Kaneda's question)@ 6:36 — Reveals resource and time constraints limiting Hardy's investigative capacity versus Kaneda's
“the art for that game was the downside to it. Everything else was great. You had a great soundtrack... but then you throw on the downside to it, which was the art, which was an immediate turnoff for me.”
Hardy@ 9:53 — Substantive critique of Jurassic Park's visual design and indirect critique of Johnny Crap's work
“Zombie Yeti and Keith Elwin are teaming up again because what have we got? We've got an Iron Maiden to show that that was a damn good combination”

Entities

KanedapersonCarrie HardypersonJohnny CrappersonZombie Yetiperson Keith ElwinpersonStern PinballcompanyTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesgame

Signals

?
community_signal: Kaneda's livestream surfaced widespread listener-to-supporter conversion failure (2,500-3,000 listeners vs. ~30 Patreon contributors), sparking broader community conversation about willingness to pay for content
high · Hardy directly reporting Kaneda's statement from livestream with specific numbers
?
personnel_signal: Johnny Crap reportedly fired from Stern after completing Jurassic Park artwork; timing and reason confirmed by Kaneda during livestream
medium · Hardy citing Kaneda's statement; Hardy expresses uncertainty about exact timing ('I don't know when')
?
design_signal: Keith Elwin announced his next two games will use a previously-collaborated artist; Hardy infers this is Zombie Yeti based on Iron Maiden precedent and Johnny Crap's departure
medium · Hardy's logical inference from Keith Elwin statement + Johnny Crap firing; not explicitly confirmed
?
product_concern: Hardy critiques Jurassic Park's artwork as major aesthetic downside despite strong game design, soundtrack, and theme; suggests Data East's minimalist approach would have been preferable
high · Hardy's detailed critique with specific design suggestions and comparisons
?
content_signal: Hardy acknowledges Kaneda has superior industry sourcing ('moles in almost every manufacturing place') compared to Hardy's limited sources; resource constraint limiting Hardy's investigative journalism
high · Hardy's direct statement comparing his sourcing to Kaneda's during discussion of why Kaneda breaks more stories

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.046

0:00

what's up guys and welcome back to the hardy pinball podcast episode 3 the one where money talks now let's jump right into it to yesterday i'm busy working on my teenage mutant ninja turtles pinball review and my phone goes off to alarm notify me that kaneda's pinball podcast has just gone live. Now, due to the unexpected nature of this, I had to immediately check this out just to see what was going on, whether it was going to be him playing the piano again or if there was going to be him actually speaking. And to my surprise, this was him actually speaking to all of us. And I think he had a peak moment of about 86 individuals watching at one time. He was on there for like an hour and a half. I don't really know the exact time because for me, the stream kind of abruptly ended. So I don't know if that's actually how it ended or if that's just, you know, my internet going to crap. I don't know. But he was on there over an hour for sure. And people were asking him all kinds of questions and he answered. And that's what we're going to talk about first. I think one of the most common questions he was getting asked was, when are you coming back? We miss you, we miss hearing you, we want your content, etc.

1:29

And this was a little bit of a turning point and kind of unexpected on my part. He was like, yeah, you miss me and you want me, but where were you whenever I was on the air? Out of the 2,500 to 3,000 people that would listen to every one of his episodes, he only had, what he says, 30 people were contributing to his Patreon page monthly. That gives you an idea right there that people will say one thing but actually do another. The fact remains, guys, and I've been doing YouTube for, I don't know, over a year now. A year and a half, doesn't matter. I've been giving out content for quite a while now, and I have made very little in comparison to how much time and effort and hours goes into what I do. We're talking a lot of time gets put into a lot of these things. Yes, granted, some of my videos require less effort than others, but still, that time that's put into putting things together to put up on YouTube for everyone's enjoyment takes time and effort that I technically don't even have to do. All of us content creators do this for the enjoyment of others, and we, at least the majority of us, don't ask for anything in return. But it definitely would be nice and a really good incentive to continue doing what we do. With that being said, you have Kaneda that is talking about having a largest, more than the largest, there's no way any other pinball podcast had the audience that he did. So when you have such a large audience and people that really loved his content, wanted to hear his content, that so little were willing to give back. And that what the major thing is guys is that a lot of you out there want us to keep putting out content and giving you giving you giving you giving you when nothing is returned That the ordeal So whenever he talking about how like you know where is this you know if if you guys give me this much money you know then maybe i give out the final episode or the 500th episode which is supposed to be his best episode ever so a lot of talk went back and forth about you know money and maybe if more people started contributing to the patreon then that would give him much more incentive to come back. I know a lot of people were like a little upset when they heard this, but the fact of the matter is, is that I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm on board with it. I agree. I am guilty of being the individual that listens or watches content and doesn't give things back.

4:30

I'm humble enough to look back at myself and realize that, yeah, I'm one of those people. Not all the time. Now, there's definitely times where I go on to TNT's videos when he's doing premieres, and I'll throw in five bucks here, maybe even ten bucks there, whatever. I like to give back when I can. Same thing goes for streams. I mean, I technically only watch the flipping out stream, and I'll throw biddies at them and stuff like that. So I do like to give when I can. When I have the time to watch or whatever, then I definitely will do what I can to give to them, because I'm in the same pool as them knowing that what they're doing is not something that is easily done. I remember joking with him on the stream that I would cancel my Disney Plus to hear his content because, I mean, Disney is, what, $8 a month kind of thing? And, honestly, we don't even freaking watch it right now. I mean, it's very rare that unless my girls want to watch Frozen 2, which honestly I just need to buy the damn friggin DVD of it or Blu-ray whatever just so I don't have to pay for Disney Plus anymore but the fact remains is that he was pointing out that a lot of you out there pay monthly for something that you don't even use or is crap where that money could be going into something that you actually do use whether it be podcasts or YouTube whatever His point was that there's a lot of people willing to take, take, take, but not give. I think that was the gist of the whole conversation. He would put out multiple episodes a week, giving us all kinds of information, rumors, or even facts that he gets from his sources amongst the industry. Moles in almost every manufacturing place that gives him information to feed to us. that we were not going to be getting from anybody else. And me and Chris will talk every once in a while, and he's always like, Carrie, why aren't you talking about this? You should talk about this. This is a story. Talk about this. This is something that, you know, why is no one talking about this? And I'm like, yeah, I would love to talk about that, but that requires a lot of effort and research and looking into stuff, a lot of journalism time that needs to be done, of which I don't have that. So mainly either he had more time than I did or he had a lot more resources than I did when it came to getting the information. That's the thing I'm lacking right now is that I don't have the sources throughout everywhere. I mean, I've got a couple, but nowhere near what it sounds like he's got when it comes to getting the rumors and what's going on. I mean, I have information about certain manufacturers that I'm not going to tell because it's definitely secret. And if it does get out, then it's obvious that I'm the one that told because I'm only one of a couple that know. There are things that yeah I wouldn mind giving people information on or hints secrets whatever But I don have that information and I don want to lie to people so I not going to make up stuff either But if there's always a few out there that are in the industry, and you are curious about getting that information out in an anonymous form, then by all means contact me at hardypinball at gmail.com. As of right now, I do not have a Patreon page, but I'm thinking about creating one for those of you out there that are willing to contribute whether it be a dollar a month whatever then you can and like I said it's all up to you whether you want to or not I mean as of as of right now I'm not trying to go if you don't give me money then I'm going to stop making content no that's not how it is it's going to be out there just as it was for Kaneda for those that want to contribute to the content creator in the future I will have Chris on the show for us to talk pinball. He's already specified during his stream that he doesn't want to come on podcasts and be interviewed. That's not the way I anticipated him having on here anyways. I didn't want to have him on here and interview him. No, I wanted to have him on and we were going to talk pinball. Our thoughts and stuff like that and just let it rip. I think I'm going to hold out until Guns N' Roses is revealed. I think that will be when the iron is hot and that we need to strike and get the uh get all the info and thoughts and everything from kaneda on that is when guns and roses gets officially revealed that i'm going to have chris on here and we can give our thoughts on the game another tidbit of information that he said was that johnny crap from stern was fired after i i don't know when but he says that he was fired after his art was done for the Jurassic Park, which I thought was, I don't want to say funny. It's not funny when someone loses their job, but it does back up my theory and opinion that the art for that game was the downside to it. Everything else was great. You had a great soundtrack. You incorporated John Williams' score in there. The theme in general was gold because it's Jurassic Park. The game design was epic, but then you throw on the downside to it, which was the art, which was an immediate turnoff for me. And I'm like, oh, man.

11:50

Zombie Yeti. so I would say that it's a safe bet that if everything is true that what we've heard then Zombie Yeti is doing the work for Keith Elwin's next two titles which is very good news if it is true that Zombie Yeti and Keith Elwin are teaming up again because what have we got? We've got an Iron Maiden to show that that was a damn good combination Zombie does great work, we know that especially for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles his most recent work like I said I'm working on the review right now and I'm starting the art section and I'm like do I even really need to go into all this detail about the art for this because it really speaks for itself, I mean it's an obvious just home run but that was my gathering of information so when he said that Johnny Crap was fired from Stern I'm like, oh, well then that means Zombie Yeti is going to be doing the artwork for Keith Elwin's next two games. That's what I got from that. When it comes to upcoming content for me, I am actually really behind. I have got to get my next video out for Straight Down the Middle. I'm still tearing that machine apart. And I've got my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review that I'm working on. I'm hoping to get that out in the next day or so. I've got me a wireless lapel mic that should be coming in the mail today. I'm hoping that the audio quality on that is good enough for me to do, because that's going to make some recordings a lot better when it comes to me working on machines, because I'm hoping, fingers crossed, that that's going to work out real good. And then I've also already got mods in the mail that I need to get tested and reviewed on. I'm piled up here, so I've got plenty of future content. I just need to get the time to do so. The kids are in school now, so that's going to be a help. But I still have a number of other things that need to be accomplished in my life. So bear with me, guys. Content is on the way. As far as my early review, here is what I can say what my review is going to be for TMNT. right now this game looks like it's going to be getting a pretty high score i'll just leave it at that i will go into details on the things i like and what i do not like though that will be coming in the future as well and as of right now guys i officially do in fact have a patreon page you can find it at patreon.com slash carrie hardy you will see it there it's brand spanking new so as of right now as of recording this I have created a page I'm still new to it but this is all going to be new and learning for me but I figured I'd put it out there for those of you out there that do want to contribute and give back and I think on this note as of right now I'm going to bring this episode to a close until next time guys peace out