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Episode 274 - TOTAN Around a Lot of Games

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 35m·analyzed·Jun 21, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Podcast covers Pedretti Gaming remake pricing/art reception and reviews recent Stern game launches.

Summary

A podcast discussion covering video game demos, World Cup pinball details, Pedretti Gaming of the Arabian Night 2.0 remake announcement (two editions: $10,999 Legacy and $11,999 30th Anniversary LE with alternative art by Brian Allen), and a retrospective analysis of Stern Pinball game launches from 2021-2024, examining which releases succeeded or failed and why.

Key Claims

  • Tales of the Arabian Night 2.0 has two editions: Legacy at $10,999 (initially planned 500 units, not hard-capped) and 30th Anniversary LE at $11,999 (capped at 399 units).

    high confidence · Dennis discussing Pedretti Gaming announcement

  • The LE features alternative art by Brian Allen with mythological creatures instead of the original Arabia theme, which speakers consider a bold and risky choice that may alienate collectors.

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony comparing art packages and discussing fan reaction

  • Pedretti Gaming does not have a strong reputation for build quality, which is a concern for buyers considering $10,000+ investment.

    high confidence · Dennis noting lack of confidence in Pedretti's build quality track record

  • Original TOTAN average secondary market price is around $11,500-$12,300, making the remake competitively priced.

    high confidence · Dennis checking and citing average pricing data

  • Transformers Pro and Premium sales are not moving well, though LEs sold through to distributors; reception is mixed compared to Pokemon.

    medium confidence · Dennis reporting on sales data and player reception

  • Pokemon Pinball sold great initially but is not moving well now due to incomplete code and players waiting for updates or selling machines.

    medium confidence · Dennis discussing community feedback on Pokemon sales and code frustration

  • Walking Dead Remastered (Premium/LE) reveal was poorly received because the art was not objectively better and the update felt like a cash grab with minimal new features.

    medium confidence · Dennis citing Bruce Nightingale quote from Slam Tilt Podcast regarding the remaster

  • Star Wars of the Empire had a critical launch defect: the Death Star hole was too small and rejected balls, requiring a physical fix.

    high confidence · Dennis discussing the game's launch issues and how it performed worse than expected

Notable Quotes

  • “You know what? I think I can make that better. That is a bold choice, Cotton.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Sarcastically commenting on Pedretti's decision to change the beloved original art on Tales of the Arabian Nights for the LE version

  • “The price is coming up a lot. The other point, which I had already thought of before I saw comments, but this has come up in comments as well, is Pedretti does not have a good reputation on build quality.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Identifies the two major concerns collectors have about the TOTAN remake: price and Pedretti's reliability

  • “Chicago Gaming is known to build tanks. Like that's what you're up against. That's your remake competition.”

    Tony @ N/A — Points out that Chicago Gaming's superior build quality is a major competitive advantage for their remakes

  • “I 100% in no way, shape, or form is the LE worth it in my mind. But it's only 1,000 more. That's like one of the cheapest LE upgrades ever.”

    Tony @ N/A — Despite the cheap LE upgrade price, Tony deems it not worth it due to inferior art

  • “I'm not saying they're trash. I'm just saying they're like – Chicago Gaming is known to build tanks.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Carefully distinguishes Pedretti's quality concerns while acknowledging they may not be worst-in-class

  • “They swung for the fences and couldn't get a first down.”

    Richard A. (listener email) @ N/A — Describes Transformers announcement reaction—ambitious attempt that fell short of expectations

  • “I've heard people that are selling the game because they're tired of waiting. That's rough.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Pokemon's delayed code has caused buyers to abandon the game entirely

  • “It felt like a cash grab, to quote Bruce Nightingale from Slam Tilt Podcast, because nothing really new was there.”

    Dennis — Characterizes Walking Dead Remaster as opportunistic rather than genuine upgrade

Entities

Pedretti GamingcompanyTales of the Arabian NightsgameBrian AllenpersonStern PinballcompanyPokemon PinballgameTransformersgameStar Wars Fall of the EmpiregameThe Walking Dead Remastered (Premium/LE)game

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Pedretti Gaming announced Tales of the Arabian Nights 2.0 remake with two editions: $10,999 Legacy (500+ units) and $11,999 LE (399-unit cap) featuring alternative Brian Allen art for LE

    high · Dennis and Tony discussing pricing structure, art differences, and production plans for TOTAN 2.0

  • ?

    product_concern: Pedretti Gaming faces reputation concerns over build quality, impacting collector confidence in $10k+ investment despite heritage IP

    high · Dennis: 'Pedretti does not have a good reputation on build quality' and noting lack of demonstrated quality improvements compared to Chicago Gaming

  • $

    market_signal: TOTAN 2.0 pricing ($10,999-$11,999) is competitive with secondary market average of $11,500-$12,300 for original machines

    high · Dennis checking pricing data and noting competitive positioning vs. original machines

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Transformers and Pokemon showed divergent trajectories: strong initial sales momentum followed by weak Pro/Premium performance and code frustration respectively

    high · Dennis reporting Transformers LEs sold but Pro/Premium underperforming; Pokemon code delays causing returns

  • ?

    design_innovation: Pedretti using two-edition strategy (original vs. alternative art) to appeal to different collector preferences, risking alienation of purists

    high · Dennis: 'bold move cotton' criticizing shift from beloved classic art; Tony preferring original; both noting purple armor on LE as poor choice

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.287

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 21st. This is episode 274. I am Tony. I am Dennis. Tony, we got a jam-packed episode. It is packed full of jam. We've got a ton of video games. Again, the Xbox showcase was happening right after we finished our last recording. And then there was a Nintendo Direct like two days later. Pedretti's revealed a new game, so we have a pinball thing to go over. And we did have a number of listener emails, including one that I think will be fun, kind of throwback thinking sort of thing. Almost like a game, but surely a stroll down relatively recent memory lane.
0:55
What's been going on? Have you been playing anything? I have actually been playing a lot. Steam has NexFest going on right now, which basically is their summer thing where everybody puts up demos for games that are not out yet, and you can play a lot of demos. So I've been playing a ton of demos where it's just a short little play, and then you have like, it's like, okay, delete it or wish list it or watch it or see how it goes. And it's been some of them have been interesting. One of them in particular, it's called Sir We Have an Orc Problem. It is a tower defense game. I like tower defense. You do. It's very pixely. But what started out when I first started playing it was me going, oh, this is not. I quickly got into it because it is very different than most tower defense games. In this tower defense game, you're given the map and you look at the map and you're allowed to build your defenses. And once your defenses are built, you cannot move them. You cannot add new defenses. You cannot do anything. You have to hope you put them in the right darn place. And then you start the map and you have some active abilities that you can use during gameplay, like missile launchers or you can call in airstrikes and stuff like that. But it's a roguelike because you earn diamonds, gems, whatever crud you want to call them during gameplay that you can then spend to upgrade, to buy upgrades. And as you buy upgrades, things get better. But when you go back to a map, everything is in the same place you had it placed before.
2:44
@ N/A

  • “The game looks barren. It's not fun at all.”

    Tony @ N/A — Blunt assessment of Star Wars Fall of the Empire's execution and appeal

  • “Metallica Remastered overall had a really good launch... There was no way that game was going to flop.”

    Dennis and Tony @ N/A — Metallica Remaster cited as successful modern remake, establishing baseline for quality remakes

    • Metallica Remasteredgame
    King Kong Myth of Terror Islandgame
    Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye (Premium/LE)game
    Chicago Gamingcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Dennisperson
    Tonyperson
    Richard A.person
    Bruce Nightingaleperson
    Sir We Have an Orc Problemgame
    Outer Worlds 2game
    Jawsgame
    John Wickgame
    Mandaloriangame
  • ?

    product_concern: Star Wars Fall of the Empire's Death Star hole was too small on release, causing ball rejections and requiring physical fix

    high · Dennis: 'the Death Star was rejecting the ball because the hole was too small... they had to release a physical fix'

  • ?

    code_update: Pokemon Pinball's incomplete code at release and slow update cadence caused player frustration and secondary market sales

    high · Dennis: 'people are mad that it's just not far... people that are selling the game because they're tired of waiting'

  • ?

    product_strategy: TOTAN 2.0 LE upgrade is only $1,000 (one of cheapest on market) but speakers deem it poor value due to inferior art package

    high · Tony: 'it's only 1,000 more. That's like one of the cheapest LE upgrades ever... I 100% in no way, shape, or form is the LE worth it'

  • $

    market_signal: Multiple manufacturers (Pedretti, Chicago Gaming, American Pinball) competing for J-Pop classic remake market, fragmenting demand

    medium · Dennis noting Chicago Gaming's competitive advantage and American Pinball's Circus Voltaire remake in same market segment

  • ?

    collector_signal: Pedretti using soft cap (500 planned legacy units, not hard-capped) combined with 399-unit LE cap to create artificial scarcity perception

    medium · Dennis: 'It's probably to try and make it feel more scarce than it really is'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: TOTAN 2.0 maintains original ruleset with bug fixes (unlike Funhouse 2.0's new rules), preserving classic gameplay while modernizing technology

    high · Dennis: 'Unlike Funhouse 2.0, Code, very loyal to the original Code. They have made some bug fixes, some quality of life improvements'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Spooky's build quality reputation improved over 5 years; Pedretti positioned as not yet reaching similar turnaround despite potential

    medium · Dennis: 'Spooky's build quality today than it was five years ago, but Pedretti ain't spooky. So are they there yet?'

    • And before you start the map, you can reposition. So you can fine-tune your combat to make it better. And you find, oh, okay, I had too much firepower covering this choke point here because the way the enemy flooded in, the way they bounce off the material, because it's very much like a, almost like a water, like water coming in the way they come in. They'll hit wall barriers and they'll bounce around. So sometimes they'll bounce in weird ways. You're like, oh, okay, so I didn't think very many would go this way, but because of how it bounces, they actually, a lot of them go that way. So I need to shift my defenses around to make it more efficient.
    3:30
    And it's just, it turned to be much more enjoyable and entertaining than when, like, my first playthrough or two. And as I started, once I realized it's like, oh, I can't move my units to do something better. I just have to do the best I can with what I have and then go and replay the level, reposition stuff to get a better efficiency. And when you place things, you place them and everything has an arc of fire. Your turrets have an arc of fire, but you can fine-tune it so you can make it so that they have a wider arc so they span and shoot, Or a narrower arc so they stay aimed in one close direction. But they don't specifically target things like outside. They only shoot inside the arc. And when they shoot in the arc, they just basically wave back and forth the width of the arc. They don't target specific enemies. They just wave fire. So it becomes picking choke points in the right places to put guys and narrowing their arcs so that you get the clean shot. And there's one where I found, it's like, oh, okay, the way the enemies come along this edge, they curl around this corner here, and they're right against the corner. They don't fan out wide to fill the whole space in the whole real time. They hug the corner. So if I narrow my fire so it's just scraping the wall in that corner, I'll kill a lot more of them. Because when the fire was spraying out into the wider area, more were getting through because not very many were going out into the wider area. So I was able to do it. It turned out to be a lot more fun then. And it was just I really enjoyed that one. I also played a game called Planet Killer, which is an interesting little kind of I don't know what to consider it. It's got engine physics kind of like asteroids does where you thrust, reverse, turning and thrusting and you maintain your speed and all that. But it is – you're basically blowing up – instead of blowing up asteroids, you're blowing up a planet and the planet is fighting back. It's very much not ready to go.
    5:46
    You can tell it's very early in development. It's got some interesting weapons and some interesting things, but it's nothing I'd put on my wish list yet.
    5:57
    We'll see how it blows up. And then I played Star Trek Warp, which is a trading card game using Star Trek characters.
    6:10
    And Paramount is doing this huge push, making it deep into the game space. And this is basically like you have like a magic deck.
    6:20
    So you have a ship which has powers that activate every so many turns. And then you have a crew and all the crew have different abilities, different costs or whatever. And you build up energy every turn. You get so much and it increases by one every turn. So you start with one, then two, then three, and it just builds up and you play your cards. But there's seven lanes, basically. So you can only fill those seven lanes, but somebody in a single lane blocks the lane straight across from them and the two diagonal across from them. So a single person blocks three lanes. So it becomes a lot about dropping Kirk or Uhura or Worf or Picard or whoever into the lanes where they are most likely to hit the enemy ship or block the most enemies to give you the flexibility. Kind of like in Magic how you would lay stuff out except you designate blockers by putting them in a lane. And the other guys, they can move to different lanes.
    7:27
    You can move your guys different lanes. There's trap cards you can set out that will force people to be moved in different ways.
    7:34
    It's interesting. I don't know how big. I'm guessing it's going to be one of those things where it turns into a very much like the Magic the Gathering or Heroes of the Storm where it's, oh, buy random packs of digital cards. I think that's what it's going to end up being.
    7:48
    And I've got several more that I've downloaded I haven't had a chance to try yet. And I've got a bunch that I tried and got a couple minutes in. It was just like, nah, this isn't for me. So we'll see. We'll see. But it's been fun because it's just, like I said, there's hundreds of demos out there. Yes. Used to be all games had a demo on Xbox 360. Used to be. But that was back when there was a 360.
    8:12
    I haven't been playing a lot of different stuff. A new season of Overwatch 2, or excuse me, I guess just Overwatch now, came out. So I've started that this week. They added another cyber character who is too powerful, as usual. Rides a motorcycle. Rides a motorcycle, yep.
    8:28
    And Outer Worlds 2, I've been playing a lot of Outer Worlds 2. I'm now on Saturdays because of World Cup.
    8:35
    I won't go in the – I don't think anyone wants to hear the whole thing. But basically I have to staff, remotely staff the emergency operations center to cover one of the things. And so I've signed up for all the Saturdays. That's very nice of you. Yeah, it was nice of me because I've got staff that are doing the weekdays mostly. Yeah. And they also took most of the games, which is appreciated because those run late.
    8:56
    So anyway, while I'm there and I have my laptop up and it's just constantly showing me whatever is getting reported in. So while I monitor that, it's a good time to play video games. So I haven't been like doing live streaming for my YouTube channel or anything because it's like if something comes up, I need to deal with that thing in the EOC rather than – so I need something I can walk away from. So a single-player game like Out of Worlds 2 is great. So I made a lot more progress on the last couple Saturdays of that game. I do want to, on the World Cup thing, I do, it has been hilarious to me to see a lot of the online social media stuff on World Cup, especially the things I've seen here in Kansas City where people will post stuff and you can hear the tornado sirens going off in the background and they're like, what is this? Yes. It's like, yeah, welcome to Kansas. There were a lot of pre-tournament discussions that were had about, all right, now we need to make sure we explain what the sound is to people. There was a lot of that because it's like they're coming in. We were worried about tornadoes and we were worried about extreme heat were the two big things that we were really concerned with that people would come in and not be prepared for. Right. Also on the World Cup thing, I saw it's hilarious to me watching some of the fan stuff and the fan interactions, but the one that specifically gets me was I was watching a video and it was just showing clips of different, like the fans cheering and celebrating and this and that. Norway is so awesome because, you know, some people, they cheer and they clap and they stomp and they yell and they do the whip. No, no. All of the stands, all of these Norway fans are rowing a longboat like in sync, like they're on a Viking longship rowing. That's what they're doing is they're screaming and cheering is they're all just going back and forth rowing a boat. It's hilarious to watch an entire section of a stadium just being like.
    11:05
    It cracked me up. That's how they get their crunches in. It's just exercise, really. It's great. It's great. Well, speaking of exercise, Pedretti Gaming has decided to take on the exercise of releasing a remake, something that they have done before, Funhaus 2.0. But in this case, it is Tales of the Arabian Nights. So they have appeared to have learned a few things from what happened with Funhaus. So there are two editions this time. There's a legacy edition, $10,999. They initially planned 500 units, but there's not a commitment. That's not an LE. It's not locked at 500. It could end up being more if the demand is there. And then there is the actual LE, the 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, which is $1,000 more, so $11,999, and that is capped at 399 units. The big difference is unlike Funhaus 2.0, which had that whole new rule set and stuff, the difference on the anniversary versus the legacy or the LE versus the standard for going into more traditional speak is art. Brian Allen, who has done a number of alternative art packages, has done the art package on the limited edition. And I only included one little image in our internal notes, Tony, so you could easily see some of it. Obviously, you don't get to see all the details of the playfield, but the one on the left is the Ellie. Oh, yeah. So you can see that it's gone with a different motif on the back, much more oriented around a variety of, I'll just describe it as mythological creatures, whereas the traditional Totan is much more of an Arabia theme. I mean, the genie's on the back, but other than that, it's really just like people telling the tales is sitting around discussing. I find this such an interesting choice. The choice to go and take what is considered by many to be the best classic art on a pinball machine. One of the premier World Under Glass art packages.
    13:19
    Something that's so beloved. You know what? I think I can make that better. That is a bold choice, Cotton. It was, which is why I think they're doing two different versions, just like they did with Funhaus. Unlike Funhouse, I do think that Brian Allen did – I didn't like what he did in Funhouse. It made it extremely nightmarish. I just – already the creepy mannequin head on the playfield was nightmare fuel, part of the reason why I've never had an interest in owning Funhouse. But just the tone was different.
    13:55
    I'm of mixed opinion. Personally, I feel like his composition, like his way he, like if you compare like the woman on the trans light on his and the woman on the trans light in the center of both, like his is better drawn. I feel like if you were, unfortunately, you can't see the details here. He has more detail. So in a way, I feel like his line art skill is just better. That being said, other than the genie, I don't really think of mythological creatures with tales of the Arabian Nights, so I don't understand why we've got a monster gallery on the Translight versus what was done originally. Well, and here's the thing is, it feels so busy compared to the other one. The other one feels very focused on the story and everything, and there's more open space. There was. There's more – it's more kind of a palace-y type feel where on the new one it just feels like throw everything at the wall and there's just stuff everywhere. It feels like chaos instead of a focused artistic vision. Okay. So you prefer the original. I prefer the original. I have a mixed opinion. Overall, I would probably favor the original in part because the other I mean, other than that change up there, there's like a there's like a starry black. Like it's hard to again, it's hard to tell with the images I've included here, but the the regular version, the black powder coat, like there's actually like a starry effect to it. Like there's like specks of white in it. The decision to do this glitter purple armor on the LE does not work for me. It doesn't. I don't like it either. Like there's hardly any purple in the art, so I don't even understand why there's a bunch of purple here. But I don't care for that personally. But anyway, other big things. So, again, it's a remake. Rather than a dot matrix display, it has a 21.5-inch extended color display, RGB, light show integration, LED, of course, throughout.
    16:03
    So like the Genie's on both. These are all – all this other stuff is the same for stuff. So there's like a new lamp sculpt, which I thought was pretty decent. The Genie looks pretty close to the original Genie, though. The eyes are kind of hollowed out now, and they've got LEDs, so his eyes will glow with certain – You know, they've done that sort of thing. And then unlike Funhouse 2.0, Code, very loyal to the original Code. They have made some bug fixes, some quality of life improvements have been done, but it's the original rules. It's just with some minor updates to make things that didn't, like there were some glitches in the original game. They fixed those. They didn't go in and put in a whole bunch of, there's not like a poop monster, which, what was it, Whirlwind that had Suey, Suey or Stewie, Suey. The Poop Monster? Yeah, they didn't do that. They put in a poop monster. That I've heard of. That's the wizard mode. So they tried to keep the gameplay pretty original. Art, the great and mighty poop. So you mentioned that bold move cotton on the art, and I agree. I thought that was a really odd choice to go ahead and do new art because the whole thing about the J-pop classics, World Cup soccer aside, Totan, Circus Voltaire, Theater of Magic. Everyone likes those art packages. Yeah. So why change them? You have a choice here, so you don't have to have the changed one. I think – so I thought that was a little weird. I think the expanded color display – we've seen the reaction Chicago Gaming has had with having a color display sort of approach. But it still looks like it's trying to be the classic look of the – Which I like. So I like it too. To the turning into a big LCD.
    17:47
    How do you think this does? Toten is so popular. It's going to sell well. I'm so torn. It is popular. I'm not saying they're going to go beyond the $800 total. Right, right. But I think they'll sell at least the $800. Okay. I'm on the fence for two reasons. One, the lesser reason, the price. Yes. Like, this is probably competitive to where – I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I was about to say maybe this price is competitive to how much it costs to get an original Totan off the market, but I'm not sure if you have to spend $11,000 to get one or not. I don't know. I just – I don't know. But it's – obviously, it's quite a bit more than many games on the market. It is. I think for having such a popular theme with the bug fixes in the code but letting you have the original code so it's not trying to be a new game hidden in the skin. It's not wearing an Edgar suit of the old Totan. Right. It's actual Totan with actual improvements.
    19:03
    I think they'll do it. I think they'll sell at least their minimum plans. They could. And part of my reason for noting that is just in comments on videos discussing this and stuff I have. And again, that's a minority of the viewers are bothering to leave a comment. But the price is coming up a lot. The other point, which I had already thought of before I saw comments, but this has come up in comments as well, is Pedretti does not have a good reputation on build quality. Now that's true. And so for this price in particular, but just in general, you know how pinball is. If this is fear that this remake is going to break down a lot, going to keep people away from it, even though they like the price or are comfortable with the price and love this game. And I just I really wonder because we're five figures here and we are just and it's just Pedretti doesn't have.
    20:00
    They don't have a reputation for good quality. I would know if they had a reputation. How bad is their reputation? I don't know. There are others who have commented owning other products of theirs that have been disappointed.
    20:10
    Obviously, improvements can be made. We know there's a lot more acceptance of Spooky's build quality today than it was five years ago, but Pregardy ain't spooky. So are they there yet? My struggle is I don't think they've done anything, like looking at Funhouse 2.0 or anything, I don't think they've done anything recently before this game that has given people a lot of confidence that they're really good at build quality. This might have good build quality, but I just don't know how many people will take a gander on it. Right. And I don't think we're going to run into this in a lot of locations or anything. Probably not. Because it's just not a – again, this is a theme that only appeals to pinball people. Yes. So the price – it's a valid concern with the pricing and everything. I will say 100% in no way, shape, or form is the LE worth it in my mind. But it's only 1,000 more. That's like one of the cheapest LE upgrades ever. It's only a grand more. Well, and that's the thing. When I first saw the pricing, I'm like, oh, that, okay, that's not bad.
    21:15
    But I think it has an inferior art package. And like you, I don't like the purple armor on this. Yeah. I think it takes away from the overall of, again, as I said, what is widely considered one of the most pretty games in pinball. Yes, true.
    21:37
    I guess to give you my prediction, I don't think it sells all 800. I think it sells 500. And that's probably a mix. I don't know if they even sell all the L's. I guess technically it's a mix. I said 800. I guess technically it's like 899. You know, you said all of them, yeah, because they did a weird thing. Why didn't they just add another? I don't know. It's probably to try and make it feel more scarce than it really is. But, no, I'm going to say combined maybe around 500 units moved. I'm not sure. I can see that. I'm not sure. It is a beloved game. I think if the word gets out that they're holding up, I could see it getting to what you thought, and they sell everything. I just off the get-go for five grand on a company that hasn't demonstrated good build quality in the past. I'm not saying they're trash. I'm just saying they're like – Chicago Gaming is known to build tanks. Like that's what you're up against. That's your remake competition.
    22:30
    Right, and that's true. I mean there's no quality concerns about that. And it's interesting because now with American Pinball doing remakes, they're working on the Circus Voltaire remake. It's like there's other places for remake money, other places for your J-pop remake money, places that didn't change the art package for one of the versions. So I don't know. Let's see. Average price for Totan is $12,300. Okay. So they priced it – well, I figured they probably thought about it well with pricing. I do think taking the J-pop catalog is smart.
    23:04
    This – I'm sorry. That was at the height. Oh. Currently, average is 11.5. That's still competitive. Okay. That's okay. So they're not – if it was dramatically more than an old one, that would, I think, start to – I think that's been a reason why we haven't seen certain remakes of like some of the B-tier Williams stuff. It's just the new price would be so many thousands more than what you could get a used one for that there's a worry that they won't move well. Whereas like Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars were going for significant dollars when Chicago Gaming put out the remake. So it was a good deal to actually go and buy a new one. And the reputation was really good. Right. No, no, I agree completely on that. That one of those things that so average was shown as 11 They calling a median of 10 Okay So about 1 1 more Yeah. Not bad. Not bad for new. Because again, those old ones. I mean, Williams was not like the premier on holding up. There's a lot of stuff that people have to go through. They held up better than a lot of other stuff. They learned a lot by the 90s. But there's things that do need to be dealt with, like with the boards and stuff that people worry about. Yeah. Well, we do have some emails in the realm of pinball, and this one is from Richard A., which I wanted to start with because we're actually going to have a little bit of a discussion topic on this one. But Richard wrote in as follows. Hello.
    24:38
    Topic. How announcements were received. I think that Transformers is one of the best received Pimball machines in recent history. That said, I think Pokemon did pretty well too. Although I think Transformers was a bit better. Not sure why, but I do. The consensus seemed to be one, gameplay is good. Two, enjoyed the advanced state of the code. Three, art well received, no major complaints. Four, audio and visual presentation was good. Five, Optimus Prime is an ugly piece of beep, a pile of beep. So this is Dennis inserting censorship so he doesn't have to beep it later. Sadly, I think if Optimus looked good, the criticism would not be as bad. Sure, there would still be some, why Shark not transform? Oops, I mean, why Optimus not eat ball? No, wait, I got it. Why Optimus no transform? They swung for the fences and couldn't get a first down. Yes, I am mixing metaphors. Here is the topic. Looking back at the past releases, what went well and what went poorly? Probably most in recent years have some controversy. Guns, non-eating shark. What tables seem to have moved past this and what ones seem to have become stuck, but not necessarily because of the issue? I'll give you a little push on the idea looking at John Wick and Jaws. Jaws seemed to be well-liked now. John Wick, not so much. I think Wick has to do with gameplay, but the no-guns seems to also be remembered. On the other hand, the Jaws issues seem forgotten because the game is so good. Also, what games are just sort of forgotten? Mandalorian? Here's a list of Wikipedia going back to 2021 for reference. And I'm not going to read them all here, but they're only Sterns that he's doing. So thank you, Richard, for writing it. So, yeah, I thought we'd go ahead and discuss maybe in reverse order. This isn't a bad list. It's not too long. I think we can get through it really quickly. So let's skip over this year, though. Let's not do Pokemon and Transformers because they're relatively recent. I've not played Transformers yet, though I have heard more mixed things on it than on Pokemon. Mostly in terms of reception. So here's what I've heard. I've heard that the LEs last as of a week ago, while they have sold through to distributors, they are still available.
    26:52
    But pro and premium sales are not moving well. Yeah, I've heard very, I'd say the best I would give it is 50-50 from what I've heard on people's actual enjoyment of that game. Now, I agree with Richard that I have not heard complaints about the art and the state of the code has been praised by basically everyone who's played it. Right. Pokemon sold great out the gate. I've heard it's not moving that well now, maybe not particularly surprising. The big complaint, there wasn't any real big controversy that I can think of when Pokemon came out. There has been, as people have played it, it wasn't as the trailers revealed, the state of the code is definitely a point of frustration.
    27:36
    People are mad that it's just not far. I've heard people that are selling the game because they're tired of waiting.
    27:42
    That's rough. I mean, that's like, what was it, Kiss, where it took forever to get any code on it? I can't remember if Kiss did. It took a while for them to fix parts of Kiss. There have been a mix of ones. Bond was a big one.
    27:56
    X-Men. We'll end up touching on some of these, actually. So Walking Dead Remaster. That reveal was a disaster.
    28:07
    Kind of like when Walking Dead first came out. When Walking Dead first came out, it was the state of the code in the DMD era. With this remaster, the problem that I remember was that while the art, you could argue, was objectively better, it still wasn't good art. And so that was frustrating to a lot of people. And then maybe it's finally in there, but last I have heard, there was, unlike Metallica remaster, where was the new stuff? It was just, hey, let's LCDify our dots. It felt like a cash grab, to quote Bruce Nightingale from Slamtel Podcast, because nothing really new was there. They got rid of the star rollovers and made improvements to the technology and stuff. Great, but is it really worth it? It has not sold well by all accounts, and I'm not surprised because that reveal was not good.
    29:03
    That's what I remember. Yeah, and I agree with that. It wasn't good, and I do find the art thing humorous for the simple fact that at no point do I think anybody has ever gone after Walking Dead for the art because it's just always been poor to your heart. It's probably the worst art package of a game I own or have ever owned. But the game is pretty fun. Yeah. Yeah, but it never sold well. It was very weird, like the original. It never was a popular game. I'll let you start with this one. So when Star Wars Fall of the Empire was revealed, because I know you had thoughts when it came out.
    29:46
    We've played it, and it's bad. And everything I've heard is people selling it, people not liking it. The art package is nothing special, and it feels like just, in my opinion, a rehash of everything they've ever done in Star Wars. There's no redeeming for it. Yeah, there was a lot of criticism when it came out about why Star Wars, the original trilogy. We just had Star Wars, the original trilogy. I know some people feel it plays better than Steve Ritchie's version. However, when the game first came out, the big issue was the Death Star was rejecting the ball because the hole was too small. Like the ball could physically fit in there, but it was smaller than the ramp. And so there were a lot of rejects and they had to release a physical fix, which they did do.
    30:33
    That said, the game looks barren. It's not fun at all. I think, well, it was Star Wars and it sold initially very well. I know we have a listener who's very passionate about Star Wars, who's active in our Discord, who got this game and ended up letting it go and was very frustrated. Again, I've heard that the rules and such have improved as the game has aged, but I think it has not sold as well as Stern expected Star Wars to. And I think it was for a mix of reasons, but that Death Star thing did not do them in favor. It did not. On the plus side, they did get that addressed relatively quickly, but it was a... It's still a huge negative.
    31:12
    King Kong Myth of Terror Island. And I'm trying to think on reveal, was there anything really controversial? This one I thought had a relatively clean launch.
    31:25
    I do think the only thing I ever really remembered about it was, I don't think anyone liked the animations. But I'm trying to think, is that just me? Because no, nobody can like those animations. The animations were like that. They didn't use any clips from any old movie, the original movie or any of the other movies or anything. And they just had to do a lot of custom animation. I guess that's about it. Maybe there was a little bit of criticism of the art. I don't remember it being strong, though. I think that one was a pretty clean launch. I don't think that game took off. It wasn't huge, but it didn't see it didn't have a bad launch.
    32:03
    Dungeons and Dragons, the tyrant's eye. I thought they had a really good launch. I thought so. It launched well, and I've enjoyed that game every time I've played it. Yeah, it's, again, sales-wise, it was a more niche title, but anyone who's into D&D, from the voice cast they got to what they chose to do, the dragon is a well-respected toy.
    32:23
    So, yeah, I think that was pretty solid. And I don't know, in this day and age, how niche Dungeons & Dragons are anymore. Yeah, from the pinball collecting community, like if you're into magic, are you going to go out and buy a pinball machine? I don't know. It's a lot of money. Well, yeah, magic is a lot of money. If you're into magic, you probably can't afford a pinball machine. Yeah, because you bought too many cards. Yeah. It's tough.
    32:48
    So 2024, Metallica Remastered. That overall, I thought, had a really good launch. Yeah. Trying to think. It's a solid game with everything. There was no way that game was going to flop. No, it sold great. The only things I remember is there was some criticism of not having Dirty Donnie's art package.
    33:12
    Somebody really liked the original take and so they didn't like the new take because it was different from the original Dirty Donnie package. I don't remember it being much complaint. And then there were just a bunch of people that this was the first big Stern remaster. And there were a lot of people who were annoyed who owned the originals, including the original LEs, who felt like Stern had just devalued them. And they did. Those went down in value. Just the same thing happened with Walking Dead. Right. It's amazing. Oh, well. I mean, it's not a stock.
    33:44
    Uncanny X-Men, do you remember from the launch anything that stands out to you? I barely remember that game and I've played it. It's well, so it initially, my understanding was sold very well. There was a lot of excitement when it first came out. So I think from the launch, it did well. Once it got in people's hands, two issues came up. One, the state of the code was terrible. And they took for they ended up, I think, redoing the code. So the code advancement, just like they they almost like Batman 66. Like they hit the reset button on it, except I feel like they went further along and were like, we just got to blow this all up and do it over again. And then the other thing was real quick people. And there was some pushback that people were saying this was overreacting. I don't know. As time went on, I saw more and more complaints about the plunge and that the ball wasn't like launching right around. And if games don't physically work right, it really upsets people. And so that the game got known to be, oh, yeah, X-Men, that's that game with that really cool theme and that really creative layout by Jack Danger. That doesn't launch right and has no code. Yeah. So it dried up on sales.
    34:56
    John Wick touched on a little bit already. Richard touched on it in the email. Yeah, the gun gate was a huge.
    35:04
    At the time, I felt it was grossly overblown because the guns were in the display. Like the video clips had the display. I understand people being like, I wanted there to be guns in the art and there weren't. And I'm mad. I totally get that. It's your money. It's your right to make. But acting like they weren't allowed to have – well, they weren't. There were rules about it being a toy that could be where kids are not to have guns on the – that was a licensor rule. But they were allowed to have them on the display. It wasn't just like Stern being woke or whatever people wanted to make up. It just got a little silly. However, the gameplay is not good. It's bad. I don't like this game. It's terrible. It's one of the most airbally games I've ever played. I have heard that there are a lot more people who do like it now that the code is much better than it was. And so Richard had noted that he felt Jaws was well-liked and John Wick not so much. I think that's a fair statement, but John Wick is much better liked from what I have heard than where it was. But it was only the people who stuck with it, and that wasn't very many people.
    36:10
    So before John Wick was Jaws, and yes, Shark No Eat Ball was the huge talk. It was a huge talk, but... But it was the only talk that was good. It was the only talk, and that game was good. The game was good.
    36:23
    People liked what Elizabeth Gieske did on top of what Keith Elwin had done with rules. It was once again a creative layout. It was a theme people wanted for years. I think the Shark No Eat ball was simply because people had fantasized their own version so much about... But it just... People made shark ball-eating mods. And they even made a joke where you could put a ball in the shark mouth, like Stern did, Because they kind of recognized and it kind of poked fun at the people making fun of them. But music's in it. They got Dreyfuss to do it. Custom call-outs. People got concerned about maybe there being a lack of Brody. And that was true in the play field. But again, in the display, all of them were there. The cast is there. It ended up being a very good game. And that game has sold very well. Yes, as it should. Jumping back to 2023, Venom.
    37:15
    Launch? I didn't think it launched very well. No, but I'm trying to remember because now we're in 2023. My brain's addled. I feel like Venom was over...
    37:31
    Nobody really thought about Venom at launch because of Foo. Yeah, Foo. Yeah, that one will be interesting to get to. Venom's thing, the concept was very interesting. It was the first game with kind of hardcore progression. Yes. Like Dwight Sullivan had taken his concepts he had done with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and had really dialed them up. The problem that I remember when Venom came out was Two-Fold. One, there was a lot of why would you build a game themed around Venom? He's not that popular. Like the movies were all right, I guess. But again, it's just not like I knew one person in all of pinball who was like a hardcore Venom person and they did buy this game. The thing that did stand out, and again, it wasn't like a trailer or anything, but once like the feature matrix came out and people started to compare, the pro was such a limited experience compared to the premium LE. We had a pro on location. I actually played a premium or in LE, I don't remember which, first at a show at Texas. But we had a pro on location and I went and I played it and it was like without any of the state change, the whole soul of that game was gone. Right. And it was like this shouldn't have been a cornerstone. Like if you couldn't do the state change in a pro and I totally understand that that wasn't cost effective. This game didn't shouldn't have ever had a pro. It should have been like Elvira or something. It should have been a premium LE only sort of thing. So that's what I remember. Foo was 2023, early 2023. You mentioned that one. Yeah. I remember when it launched, with it being Jack Danger's first big thing, there was a lot of excitement about it.
    39:23
    And it ended up being a very fun game, especially as a music pin that had an actual story and stuff played around. And it was much more play around than just, you know, like it's a concert. Right.
    39:37
    I feel like it was very, it had a lot of word of mouth, a lot of movement at launch, and I feel like it did really good.
    39:44
    Yeah, it was, Foo Fighters to me was the last gasp of the, holy crap, it's the pandemic, everything sells. It sold very aggressively because of that. In fact, you'll see in the list that was provided internally from Wikipedia, Foo Fighters is vaulted now. They are not making that anymore. I think it sold so rapidly, so quickly that it dried up the demand pretty well because a lot of people wanted to support Jack. It was a different looking layout. It was fun to play.
    40:18
    Criticism at the time was basically limited to, is Foo Fighters really popular enough to do this? Well, it sold well enough, I think. So, yeah, I guess it was. And some people praised that. Hey, look, not dad rock. This is something from the 90s. Right, and that was one of the big things is Foo Fighters was in my mind, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was the first real pull out of the standard dad rock older style stuff. I felt so, at least of a big company. Of a big company. It was the first step out to say, hey, something. I mean, if I'm listening to Foo Fighters and Nirvana and all of these other bands that I grew up with on the oldies station, they probably qualify as dad rock enough that we can get some pens that are not just, you know, 60s and 70s musicians. Yes. All right. 2022. James Bond 007 60th anniversary. I've never played this. Nope. All I really remember from the launch of it was complaints about the price. Yeah. It was complaints about the price on that one. Then there was Gomez's. That was an Elwin game. Then there was Gomez's James Bond 007. That launch was terrible. It was one of – I would argue it is Stern's worst launch in the last 20 years. I think it's definitely the worst launch on this list. And it wasn't all their fault. No. But, you know, it's their company and they're going to get the blame. I mean, they – from taking the game out to a show and then not being allowed to show it at the show, the code took forever. Again, I've heard the game is in a pretty good spot now, but the code took forever. I've not played it in years. The licensor, yeah, I haven't played it since like the end of 2022. The licensor was extremely strict. So like stuff like they wouldn't allow certain things to over like on the video screen assets, they wouldn't allow certain things to trigger with other things going on. And if you're accessing different parts of different films, they just they had to play by. It was really, really hard for a license that was really, really beloved. Also, I'd say people liked about 50 percent of the layout. Out. And I again, there were some hardcore Bond fans and they've kind of, you know, they've stuck with the game. But again, I've heard it. It's better than it was. But I was disappointed on a whole variety of fronts. But the launch, the launch hurt that game so bad. It was it leaks, you know, potato cam. Oh, yeah. Stuff was, you know, and then it just took forever for the game to get anywhere. It was it was definitely the worst on the list. You're right. Earlier in 2022 was Rush.
    43:00
    There was a lot of buzz about Rush. I can't think of it. There was one thing. There was one thing early after the launch that was a big complaint, and that was the scoop system on that game. The ball was always in the scoops all the time, and there were a lot of people who were really frustrated. I think one of the scoops was – I can't remember what it was. It was damaging something. Something was bending or the playfield was getting hit. There was a physical defect thing. There was Scoopgate and they released three different versions of a protector or something. That kind of – it didn't really hurt the sales. Rush is one of those – it was a flash in the pan, though. They vaulted Rush really quick.
    43:41
    Everyone in Canada bought it and that was it. Now, I never got into the game. It was the layout. I just don't like the layout. But it was popular. But yeah, it did have a physical issue, something to do with the Scoot. I just don't remember it well enough anymore. Godzilla. Do you remember the launch of Godzilla? We're way better. This is in the midst of the pandemic, deep now, 2021. I seem to recall it was very well received.
    44:09
    Yes. I mean, notice that it's still actively being sold. I mean, I'm going to – this is not going to surprise anybody. I will flat out say Godzilla is Stern's best game of the last decade at least.
    44:25
    I'm willing to argue it's their best game, period. I would argue it. I'm torn because I do think Jaws is pretty – it's a pretty good package. But I put so much more time on Godzilla. I might also just sort of have Godzilla fatigue, so I have to factor that in.
    44:41
    Excellent game in a lot of fronts. There was criticism. At launch, the main criticism was the art package. I even had this criticism. I still do. That the art choices for Godzilla, rather than going with a Godzilla artist, it's very colorful and not as aggressive as we kind of maybe would have thought. It looks nice, but it doesn't look like I wanted something more desaturated and more based off of the movie posters and stuff, and that just wasn't the choice. So there was some criticism of the art. I don't know if it held back anyone from buying it, but there was some criticism of the art. There was a mechanical issue. In fact, I encountered it myself on the Premium LEs, the building ball lock system. I think they had to improve the subway. I remember Keith Elwin actually messaged me and told me to tape a business card underneath it, and it will help it feed properly. And it did. It fixed my problem. There you go. Business card fix. So a little technical issue there.
    45:46
    No, the main thing negative about Godzilla was, until it came out, was how dare you do this to Spooky. Oh, I remember that. That was the commentary. I remember that. That was huge. But here's the thing. And it's not like the old days. We're saying anything bad against Spooky gets you disbarred from the fandom.
    46:07
    But Spooky couldn't have done nearly as well as Stern did on Godzilla. Yeah, they made it such a public thing. And again, it was a few years between when that happened, when Spooky, I guess how they had sort of described it at the time, not to put words in their mouth, but it was basically Stern came in and took the license from them. They were negotiating the license, and Stern came in and you did big brother naughtiness and took it away.
    46:33
    So they lost the negotiation. And they publicly called it out, and so people knew Stern had Godzilla for years because of Spooky choosing to publicly call it out.
    46:42
    And whether or not they publicly called it out was right or wrong, you could say it was kind of tacky, I suppose, but whatever. It wouldn't have been bad if after this had come out had Spooky said, you were right to do this to us.
    47:00
    That was never going to happen. Come on. That was never going to happen. You know what? You were better. There was no way we were going to make it that cool. No. Here's the thing. If Spooky had turned out their greatest game, their absolute game that is better than any game they've ever put out with, it still wouldn't have been as good as this one.
    47:25
    It's tough to imagine that it could have been that. Last game in his list was also 2021, which was Brian Eddy's The Mandalorian.
    47:33
    Do you remember the launch? I barely remember the game. A lot of people barely. Did they have a hologram-y thing? Didn't it have like a hologram-y thing up in there? The topper Yeah The topper you could buy which was at the time which is like a bargain now Yeah that like a cheap Topper now it is Yeah it had like a hologram thing yeah with the ship like the Razorcrest or something All right, the controversy at the launch here was why no Baby Yoda grab ball? Oh, Jesus. That was why they wanted the Grogu. There was a Grogu toy sculpted in the back left corner, and they wanted it, and then there was like a magnet to grab the ball, Kind of like the magnet in front of the genie on Totan, except it doesn't pull it into the subway. It just would grab the ball. And so there were, why no Baby Yoda grab ball? And because this was 2021 and people were still stuck at home with the pandemic, people modded it. So Baby Yoda would wave his hand. They did this. He didn't move. He didn't grab ball, but he also didn't move. So I believe it was a 21-page instruction manual to make a moving baby Yoda because people had nothing better to do. They actually did it. And it did look cool. Don't get me wrong. But I never could support a mod that had over 20 pages of instructions. That's a bridge too far, guys. But yeah, that was the controversy. And then when the game came out, yeah, Mandalorian, my favorite name for it. And what I tend to call it was the Midalorian because all your shots were just straight up the middle if you want to get anything done. They may have fixed that in later code, but the Midalorian, not a very popular game in the tournament scene, which I was still active in at the time. But thank you, Richard, for having us walk down that memory lane. Last email in the pinball segment is from David D., who wrote in as follows. Hey, Dennis, thanks as always for a terrific show. Yours is truly unique with its combination of both pinball and video games. Initially, when I started listening as a pinball enthusiast, I'd listen to the pinball section and, sorry to admit, my attention during the video game portion somewhat waned. But over time, I can now say that I listened to your entire podcast wholeheartedly. And I think that's mostly due to the great conversation slash chemistry you have with Tony and how you both have fun with it all. It truly shows through. And I can honestly say thanks to your show, you guys are the reason I bought a refurbed PS5. I never thought I would have done so, but I also blame the two of you because now I have to friggin' learn how to use all these boop buttons on this stupid controller. Why can't this be an Atari 2600 joystick? You guys suck. Just kidding. I love you both. Keep up the great show. Okay, on to my question. It's kind of more philosophical. Why do some people feel the need to collect? I love cars and I have had a few. I love pinball machines and I've had a few. I love Star Wars and I have a few vintage toys. During my course through these collecting periods, I've come to realize I don't get to enjoy them as much as I like because of two fixed factors in this equation. I am one person and there are 24 hours in the day. Your thoughts? Thanks, David. Well, thank you, David, for the feedback. You can blame John for the refurb PS5 stuff. It's completely my fault. I will admit I'm not even now up 100% on the PlayStation controller just because I've spent so much time with an Xbox controller because I use an Xbox controller on my computer too. So whenever I switch between the two, it always kind of messes with me. Yeah, I'm similar, but even with an Xbox controller, I don't think I really hold it right. Like, it's probably – well, so, like, when you're holding, how do you like to use the triggers?
    51:25
    Like you. I normally just use my index fingers. See, but I think I'm supposed to have my index on the bumpers and my middle fingers on the triggers. That's how it's supposed to be. And I will do that, like, if I'm Overwatch, if I'm playing Mercy. I will move my hands, but my default is always my indexes will be on the triggers. And maybe that's why I'm losing all these gun battles in Battlefield. It could be. Because it's like, I got to throw a grenade. Oh, I got to move my finger up instead of just being like, yeah. Yeah. And then like some of the new super controllers, they've got two more buttons on the bottom. So you've got more buttons that you can hit down below. In addition, it's – I'm a mouse and keyboard guy. Why do people collect? That's the real question. The real question. Why do people collect? Yeah.
    52:12
    The easy answer is because the purchase of stuff and stuff that brings them joy brings them joy. So they collect things that they like to say that they have it.
    52:24
    And I used to collect a lot more stuff than I do nowadays. I used to have massive collections of all sorts of things. And as I have gotten older and everything, I have definitely slid into a more minimalism where I've started getting rid of stuff or at the bare minimums packing stuff away that I'm not actively using and I'm cutting down. At one point in time, I had a full-up library that was terrible and horrible whenever I moved because I would move a half dozen to a dozen Rubbermaid tubs, the large ones, full of books, which made moving the worst hassle chore in the world. And over time, I've pared down to A, I moved a lot of my stuff to a digital format.
    53:21
    I've also moved a large amount of my stuff to just I don't need to own this book after having read it if it's not within certain things. So even now, I do have some books I collect, but when I do that, it's certain special ones, and it's in hardback. And it's for specific reasons. I very rarely keep up that much. But it is. There's just so much about the actual collecting and finding stuff and getting it and knowing, oh, this is mine. And there's stuff out there that is way out of my price range that if I could afford, I would get it in a second. A Dodge A100 vehicle, an A100 truck I would buy in an instant if I had the money and I sold one in decent condition. Same thing with the 69 Dodge Charger just because it's one of those things that is just such a quintessential vehicle in my mind.
    54:25
    But I don't really have any place for it. I wouldn't really do anything with it. So it's one of those things that's like it wouldn't be smart for me to do it, but if I could afford it, I could see myself still doing it because it makes you feel good.
    54:44
    Buying makes you feel good. Well, there's buying and there's collecting. Yeah. This is an interesting question because I started to think because I don't – like growing up – I mean I collected all sorts of stuff. I don't know that my parents collect anything. I tried to think if they do, maybe, maybe, maybe my mom does. I don't think my dad does. I, but I mean, I collected coins. I collect, I used to collect elephant figures because I just thought they were cool. I would collect shot glasses just because they were, you know, from different places you'd go. It was a cheap souvenir you could kind of do. And I, you know, sorry. And obviously I have like pinball machines and stuff now as a collection. So yeah, I was kind of researching what other people did and kind of thought it touches on a few different things for me. Some of these for me and some of them maybe not so much. So structure. Collecting can appeal to people that want to create structure. So it's sort of like the idea of bringing order out of chaos. So as a kid, I collected baseball cards. I wasn't really into baseball, but I had a bunch of baseball cards. I was into cards. And I would constantly reorder the structure of them. So I'd have the books. I'd have the loose cards. I would go through and I might organize all of the cards by year.
    55:58
    And then I might go and I might put them all in alphabetical by last name of the player. And then I might organize them by team by last name. And I would just reorganize like it was like data collating. I would just I would just all of a sudden decide, no, there's a better structure to this. I didn't memorize the stats or anything. I just would take these cards and I would organize them and create structure. And this is something I did. If I didn't feel like playing video games or something, I would create structure with that sort of thing. So I was kind of like that to a degree, even with my magic cards. Like my magic cards are, you know, the logic was, of course, to be able to access those quickly. So I didn't play around with the structuring too much. It would be like, OK, I'm going to organize by color. I need my swamps together with my fire. My fire can't be mixed in with that. And then alphabetical, but maybe land needs to be up front sort of thing. Or maybe the lands are all together but then organized by type of land, that sort of thing. So there's a structure of the piece that for some of my stuff is like that. Thrill of the Hunt. So you kind of mentioned that with like the car, the car examples. I had that early on with pinball collecting would be trying to find, you know, a particular game like the idea of the kind of accidenting because my dad actually found the listing. But actually how I ended up with hoops, that's like a Thrill of the Hunt thing. Like the getting of hoops was far more interesting than playing hoops. Right. The Hoops is a nice game. It is a good game. But yeah, Silver Slugger. I was on the quest to get Silver Slugger and went out and got that game. That thrill of the hunt, that's a big thing. Some people find it really exciting. For me, it's just sort of like a sense of achievement when you finally did it. But the quest is more interesting than the arrival sort of thing.
    57:50
    Then Nostalgia is a big one. That one's probably less in play for me for a lot of stuff. But that's definitely – we see that in a lot. Why are these themes the most important thing in what sells in pinball? A lot of people are just trying to relive their childhood and owning this thing. Why do they want He-Man? Because owning Masters of the Universe Pinball is going to remind them of a happier time or at least a happy time in their past. And that's why you see these. There are all sorts of people that are like, oh, yeah, well, if they make this, I'm going to get it. If they make Big Trouble in Little China, I'm going to get it. If they make G.I. Joe, I'm going to get it. And it's like I don't have that same pull that way with these other products, but I can understand. And again, so that's a thing. It triggers this sort of – it ties to – or identity. Like owning certain things is like I'm the whatever. Like a fellow watch collector I know. I think he's known by a lot of his friends. He's a watch guy. Like he's the watch guy. He gets lots of different types of watches because he's the watch guy. He's supposed to have different watches. The person I work with, he likes shoes. He's got all sorts of different types of shoes. I didn't know this. He didn't talk about them, but others just recognize he has all sorts of different styles of shoes he wears to work, like fun ones and stuff. I don't have fun stuff. All my fun socks were gifts. I buy really conservative socks. Social connection. So I'm not done collecting for that purpose, really, but there are communities around collecting. So people there are to it. And again, I participate in pinball, you know, but you could do like with pinball. You could play pinball and access that community. You don't have to collect. But some other things, it is easier. Watch collectors often like I'm in WhatsApp groups and stuff with with that sort of thing, because it's not my primary purpose, but it is. And then just to gain knowledge. That's part of why I started collecting because I owned watches without collecting watches for years. But the idea of to dive deep and learn about things, learn about why these different movements evolved in different ways. Same with the pinball and the electronics and the shift from EM to why are we doing these boards? Why are the boards in the back and not under the play field? And what happened when companies experimented and tried to do different things that got a little too cute for their own good? Like just collecting can be a good reason and excuse to gain more knowledge about something. You wouldn't have to collect to know about it. You don't have to collect World War II memorabilia to deep dive World War II if you want to. But it might help. You might be really interested in understanding things if you were to choose to do that. And I know people who collect like the medals that people would win and such because it makes it tangible to them. So those are the main things that came to my mind for why people. It's a whole mix of reasons. Right, and it's interesting. You hit on the nostalgia of it, and specifically the cars I named, in my mind, I acknowledge it's nostalgia, especially the Charger because Dad had one when I was a kid. I remember Dad having a 69 Dodge Charger when I was a kid. And so that's always been in my mind when I think old American muscle car, lots of people, Mustangs and Corvettes and GTXs and all that stuff. In my mind, it's the Dodge Charger because that's the vehicle that we had that existed when I was a kid. And similarly, with the Dodge A100, it's because, for those who don't know what the Dodge A100 is, that is the flat-nosed pickup truck.
    61:48
    There used to be, you'd see it, we had the Hot Wheels all the time, the little red rat wagon. It was the little flat-nosed pickup truck that rode wheelies and shooting fireballs as it drove down the road or went down the drag strip type stuff.
    62:02
    But I've just always liked those old style. Those, the old Ford E100 vans, I love full-size vans, always have. And like the old 60s vans, the 50s vans, the ones where you sit in front of the wheels where if you got in an accident, everybody in the front was guaranteed dead. There was no crumple zones. The crumple zone was U. All of those vehicles, I just like the look, and I always have since I was a kid. So I've always wanted like an old A100, an old E100 Econo line, stuff like that, because to me, when I think like a classical van, that's what it is.
    62:41
    Even though, I mean, like I said, I've driven vans my entire life, 70s Chevys, mid-80s Econo lines, my Dodge. It's just always been part of it. So those are the kind of things that have always jumped out at me in that. And that's, again, very nostalgia-driven part of that collecting universe. So, yeah, good question. Okay. Well, I guess we could go to video games. And there was an email from Brian who asked us about one. He included a link. He just asked, Ever heard of this game? I've been enjoying the show. Hope you guys are doing well. No. So I clicked and looked at the video. Yeah, it's called A Pulse. Yeah, I hadn't heard of it. I had not either. It's like a – well, I guess as they describe it, it's a roguelike pinball shooter. It's like an isometric shooter, but you're bouncing around like on a pinball field, and I guess there are roguelike elements in terms of what you encounter. So it looked interesting. I like shooters. I don't know if I'd like it in that format or not. I threw it on my list to take a look at later, but I'd never heard of it before this. Yeah, I had not either. Okay. Man, video gaming peoples that are sticking around, you're going to be here for a bit. A lot of stuff has happened. I've actually pared down a lot of the overall news just because the announcements have been so large with the Xbox and the Nintendo Direct coming out.
    64:11
    We'll go ahead and jump straight into Xbox since that's the one that happened immediately after our last episode. I went home and turned it on. Yeah, I got the edits done and I went and watched it.
    64:23
    The big obvious one is Gears of War E-Day, which is the prequel to Gears of War. I've never really played a Gears of War game, not that I can recall.
    64:39
    I've played four of them. So all of them, basically. Yeah, I mean, if you want to round up, I suppose. But I thought it looked pretty good.
    64:51
    I liked, they did after the announcement at the end of the thing, they did a big extended thing talking about EJ.
    64:58
    And it had some real interesting stuff looking into it like you go through levels as you're like escaping all of this stuff and then later you go through the exact same level but now it's wrecked kind of stuff. That all looks real interesting. So one of the really big things is it's coming out in October. Yep. And it will be an Xbox console exclusive. Oh, they've changed their mind again. They've changed their mind again. They've changed so much. And that's the thing is this one and a couple others that are Xbox console exclusives, there was some promotional art supposedly. That was being bandied about showing that it was going to be coming to PlayStation and everything else. That after the shakeup in leadership at Xbox and them having the issues of why would anybody buy an Xbox when all of our games come out on PlayStation?
    65:57
    Especially they got real bad in those several weeks leading up to this series of announcements that have been, it's been pulled. And that thing is, I've seen what is reportedly original promos for it that have PlayStation Locos on it. Okay. But it sounds like, now are those real or is that something somebody mocked up? I mean, I would have expected that that was definitely under Phil, that was definitely the plan. Oh, 100%. Whether the art was real or not. I mean, he made it clear. They were all about, let's acquire all these studios and then everyone's just going to be in Game Pass. And now there's talk about some studios getting closed and stuff. Oh, yeah. And I do have that listed later on in the discussion.
    66:46
    And numbers are being bandied about on the Game Pass price increase. It cost them so many millions of subscribers that with the price decrease and the peoples who have come back, they're talking about probably zero to very little growth compared to last year in Game Pass because they lost so many.
    67:14
    E-Day wasn't all of it. No. There's a new Fable coming out. Yeah, I saw that. Yay, I guess. I've never, I played like one of them. I've never been a fan of the Fable games. It's, it's a, it was okay. Uh, the sequel to Halo Combat Evolved, Halo Campaign Evolved is coming out. Uh, this one will be out on PS5 and PC in addition to the Xbox. Uh, and like all the other Halo games that have come out, it will require you to have an Xbox account and Gamertag to play on the PS5.
    67:46
    Uh, for, to play, let me rephrase, to play multiplayer on the PS5. Right. Okay. Because you have to have it for the cross-play to work out.
    67:55
    They're doing a remake of Persona 4, which is pretty arguably the most popular Persona game. I've heard of it. I've not played it. I know a lot of people have, and it's been pretty consistently considered the best one of them. That's coming out in February. State of Decay 3 is coming out.
    68:15
    The State of Decay games are some of my favorite zombie games. I've played State of Decay and State of Decay 2. They're fun because you play multiple survivors and you actually build your fortress, basically your little camp and try to survive. So it's more than just running from the zombie mechanics. It's all about building your community, building your protected place and all of that. But there's a new Metro 2039 coming out where you're going back into the Moscow subway because a bunch of evil has risen in the Moscow subway. There is always the evil. I like the Metro games, so this one will probably be on my list. Yeah, no, the Metro games have always been pretty good.
    69:04
    Wulong 2, Wings of Ember, it's the sequel to the Wulong Fallen Dynasty. This is another one of those action RPG Chinese mythology type games that have been so big in the last few years. Join Us, which is a game for one to four players in co-op where you build and grow a cult in a little town. Yes. It sounds – I – when I saw this, I thought maybe the – I think maybe the joke is funnier than the game is going to be good. Right. I think – But maybe – but maybe it's – I mean if it's like a new Castle Crashers by cult creators, maybe. I don't know. The concept – I find the concept hilarious because it's like a – what was it? Was it Just Cause 5 or whatever it was where you were fighting against the cult? Yes.
    70:04
    Or one of those games. Far Cry 5. You were fighting against the cult. One of those games. Oh, yeah. I guess so. I guess it was Far Cry. Yeah. I play both. So it's all the way. Right. They're very similar games. But here, instead of fighting against the cult, you are the cult and you can do it with friends. Yes. We can start the cult of Mr. Poopypants.
    70:32
    Sayuna, that's the next Hellblade game. Those games have taken off and been huge. This is going to be the third one of them, which is interesting because the studio developing it is on the chop list. Yeah, they're on the cutting block.
    70:49
    Crazy Taxi World Tour is coming out. It's the first actual new crazy taxi game since like 2008. Yeah, I don't know about this idea of you taking your taxi to different parts of the world, though. That just doesn't seem realistic. Right. It seems very Fresh Prince. Yes.
    71:07
    Now, there has been some pushback because apparently while none of it is in-game, there was a lot of generative AI used during development. But none of it is stuff that has remained in-game. Okay. Which is seeming to be the standard that a lot of companies are arguing with now. They're like, we use generative AI for placeholder stuff during development. Yeah, it's just the whole place. While the art was being developed type stuff. So we'll see. We see how this goes and how much pushback that gets Xbox is kicking out their 25th anniversary collection It a special Series X Xbox with a translucent green case and a matching controller for everybody who wants to have all the specialty hardwares I never got into collecting consoles. You're like, I already have one. Let's get another. I've never done that. Right. I know people who do. Yeah. Who collect consoles. People like to collect. Yeah. Minecraft Dungeons 2 is coming to everything. Yeah.
    72:13
    Valor Mortis. It is a first-person souls-like, but you are a Napoleonic soldier in it that's like risen from the dead. So you've got powers, but you've got like, you know, a saber and flintlock pistols. Are you going to fight in divisional squares or like what is this? No, because it's like from the trailer and everything, it looks like supernatural stuff is going down and the country is being overrun and you've got powers and stuff because you died and came back. So you've got like powers, but it's all very Napoleonic themed. The trailer is great because the whole time in the trailer it's showing you clips of like your character getting dressed and ready to go to the front and some fighting and this and that. And at the same time, it's being interspaced with Napoleon getting dressed. And he's got this great monologue over. It's like, serve your people. Serve your empire. Serve your emperor. It's great. I'm not a Souls-like person, but I will at least give a look at this one to see how it plays out. I might watch somebody else play it because I'm terrible at these type of games. But I love the Napoleonic feel of it.
    73:34
    There's a new Castlevania coming out, Belmont's Curse, following up the last Castlevania that came out.
    73:40
    Persona 6 is coming. Spyro, A Realm Beyond. It's the first Spyro game in forever. It's been a long time. I heard they plan to make more. They want to try and make more Spyros. Yeah, they do. And I was reading an interview and the reason this game exists is 100% because the fan outcry for more Spyro games was just so big. Because it has a very large fandom that has been pushing huge for it. So that's basically what got this game greenlit. And that's why they released a Spyro collection a few years ago that had all the Spyro games in it, and it sold gangbusters.
    74:27
    And between that selling so well and the overall outcry that everybody wanted a new Spyro game is literally why this game got made.
    74:34
    There was a deeper look at Clockwork Revolution that we first saw announced in like December. December, yeah. Yeah. It looks pretty cool. This is the next big Xbox console exclusive. And I could swear it was not a console exclusive back when they talked about it in December. I guess they went back in time and changed the fates.
    74:55
    Or they didn't say it was an exclusive back then. I can't remember. They surely didn't back then. I know they didn't say it was an exclusive back then. And because it's a new year, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 4, because there needs to be a new Call of Duty. Yes. This one has an extraction shooter mode because starting like three years ago, extraction shooters were all the rage. So, wow, it's Call of Duty. Yay.
    75:25
    We'll go ahead and jump to Nintendo's direction. Yeah, so they followed? They followed. Not like the next hour. Like two days later. Yeah. But it opened with basically just more games showing the fact that, hey, look, the Switch 2 is a real console because they're getting Onomushi Way of the Sword just like everybody else. They're getting Dragon's Dogma 2 just like everybody else. They're getting Stellablade, which is already out, I believe, at least on some systems. I thought it was out too, but I'm not sure. Uh, then, uh, they're getting a two-player co-op kind of anime game called, uh, Orbitals, which is like the super cutesy anime style puzzle game thing. Um, they're getting Rayman Legends Retold, which is on everything. There are people who love Rayman. Everybody loves Rayman. And they'll love him even more on Switch, too. Everybody's gonna love it. Uh, Pocopia is getting a free update that includes new underwater levels. And they announced their expansion pass, which is paid DLC. It comes in three waves, so it's going to have three different DLCs coming. Two this year, one in early 27, that add more towns, more Pokemon, more everything.
    76:39
    I still, for most of the stuff I see, the biggest argument to get a Switch 2 for most people right now is Pocopia.
    76:45
    Fire Emblem, Fortune's Weave, so a new Fire Emblem game, again, a Switch 2 exclusive. Fire Emblem has been a Nintendo staple for a long time.
    76:56
    Lords of the Fallen 2, Devil May Cray 5, Muramasa Revenant Blades is an action RPG set in Japan with a fairly large-ish character roster that you can choose between. This is more of a medieval fantasy-ish setting, so it's not like, I don't remember the name we talked about last time, that has Snoop Dogg. Yeah, I don't remember that.
    77:27
    But that's coming. A new Xenoblade game. Again, Xenoblade games have been a Nintendo staple forever. Xenoblade Genesis is coming out. There's also a Xenoblade collection coming out with all the older Xenoblade games.
    77:45
    The first of one of the really big things people are talking about, they've got a full remaster of Star Fox 64. Yeah, I was hearing talk about that. So, yeah, that one's going to be huge. All of the Star Fox games have been popular, but 64 was one of those systems that Nintendo didn't do as well as a lot of the others. So not as many people have played that one.
    78:09
    Final Fantasy Resonance. It is a kind of old school pixel style Final Fantasy game. But it is based off the first story arc from the Brave Exhibus mobile game. So Final Fantasy had a bunch of different story arcs on Brave Exhibus, which was the phone game that they had. It was a really good story. It had a lot of interesting stuff that kind of got hurt because it was a mobile game with mobile game stuff. Now, this is not just a remake of the mobile game in a different platform. This is a game. They're just using the story arcs and the story beats. And from what I understand, they've removed all the mobile crud to make it an actual game. The story was really popular, and they got a lot of backlash when they closed it down. Because the story was really popular. So they're basically hoping to convert it into an ongoing Final Fantasy series, playing out that story in a more conventional Final Fantasy setting. Okay.
    79:20
    Dragon Quest Monsters of the Withered World. So you can play Dragon Quest Pokemon. Hopefully they don't get sued by themselves for taking their own concept.
    79:32
    Whoa, okay. That's one thing. The Nintendo Power World suit is winding down. Yeah, I saw that. And Nintendo is not winning that one. The few things that were outstanding that look like Nintendo might win, Power World has changed.
    79:50
    The Duskbloods is coming to Switch 2. That's made by FromSoftware. It's kind of a the world is ending supernaturally type thing. From Software, the makers of Elden Ring. So there's going to be a certain level of expectation from that game that we'll see how it does.
    80:11
    Splatoon Raiders, a game my daughter's most excited for because it's the first single-player narrative Splatoon game. Yes. Well, the multiplayer have been popular. It's been super popular, so it's about time they put out a narrative single-player game. We'll see how it does. I think it has the possibility to go really far. Interesting to me, they have Final Fantasy XIV coming to the Switch 2.
    80:36
    Yeah. I just don't know that I'd... I mean, it's on other consoles. It's on everything. I just... It is old? Is that what you're thinking? No, I was thinking... Like, why announce it? Well, no, I understand why announcing it. I'm just trying to figure out. I don't know. In my mind, it's a game that would be very hard to play mobily on the Switch 2, like holding it. Mm-hmm. Because it's got a fair amount of reading and a fair amount of stuff. And you'd have to have a hotspot to make it work anyway. Mm-hmm. So it feels like a dock-only game, but a lot of games are. Well, maybe that's what most people will play it as. I'll be interested to see how well its sales actually do on Switch 2.
    81:19
    Kingdom Hearts Collection, they're putting out remakes of all the Kingdom Hearts games. Well, they were very popular. They were super popular. And then the big steal the show, Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced. The heart name, yes. And very popular game series. I played the first one. I played the first but I never finished it. I didn't finish it either because I'd never cared that much. It was fine to me. It was nothing special.
    81:48
    And then because Kingdom Hearts 4 wasn't a big enough launch title to end the thing, Mm-hmm. They announced the remake of Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. That is a pretty big deal. It's... It might be the most popular Zelda game. It's that or Majora's Mask. Yeah. That's my thinking. I'd still say I think Ocarina of Time is the one I hear the most about. Yeah. Mostly from the speedrunner community, but... Right. So a full remake on Switch 2 is going to be enormous.
    82:21
    It's a guaranteed hit. There's no way it's not going to be a trick hit. Yeah, hi-yah. So, back into some of the normal interesting new stuff. Steam is getting rid of physical gift cards because… Cheating. Yeah, the gift card stuff has gotten so rampant.
    82:40
    It's gotten real bad. So, they're just completely getting rid of physical gift cards. We already kind of talked about Xboxes. They're slashing budgets and they're positioning to do huge layoffs. As part of their brand reset, there's been warnings going out to all groups. They're also talking about several studios are talking about being fully closed. I've seen three listed. Yeah, and I've seen several that are listed that are in negotiations to basically buy their independence so they don't get closed down. And I think that from what I've been reading, Xbox is quite willing to sell them all rather than just shut them down if they can. Right. And those big ones are Compulsion Game, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory. Yeah, Double Fine and Ninja Theory are... Yeah. Those are pretty big studios to get shut down.
    83:33
    But they have so many. They do. They went on a huge buying spree, and with this reset, this Xbox reset, a lot of rumors going around. There's talk about spinning Xbox off finally into its own fully owned subsidiary, making it its own completely separate thing. Yeah, I've heard Nadala has basically said Xbox needs to be able to carry itself. Yes. And I think that's part of the – and that makes sense. And I think that's part of why we're seeing this whole – like under this new leadership, she's all like, well, we have to have exclusives then. I have to sell hardware to make this properly successful.
    84:08
    Obviously, doubling Game Pass's price was completely unacceptable, which is what Phil, I think, tried to do probably when he was told they needed to carry its own weight. And what else could they do? They built everything around Game Pass. I'm also expecting, I think the reason why we only saw two exclusives is a lot of these other games had already had the deals made. And again, when they bought up a lot of the studios, there were already deals that couldn't be changed with those two. I think they're going to move much more into exclusivity. I think they have to if they want to stand on their own two feet. Well, yeah, because again, if you want to move hardware, well, one, you need to make good hardware, but two, there needs to be a reason to buy it over everything else. And it was the question lots of us asked at the time when they were buying all these studios. Well, you're buying all these and you're going to put them all on PlayStation. I'm like, what's that?
    84:59
    I don't understand how it helps Xbox. I could with Game Pass, but it still seemed like a lot of money to shore up Game Pass. Right. And that was – well, and the making Cod a Game Pass day one launch is part of what made them increase the cost of Game Pass. Yes.
    85:16
    Because when they brought the price back down, they also removed Cod from it. Yes. Because that was what was driving the price up.
    85:24
    Also, they had the huge issues where they can't drive anything. Like you were saying, there can't be hardware sales because you can buy anything on everywhere.
    85:37
    Sony was going the exact opposite way. They were not just locking down console exclusives. They're shutting down their PC division. They're not doing PC releases at all of games because it's not worth their time and it siphons money from the consoles. So both companies went two completely different directions, and I think we know the winner. And the winner is Sony locking down console exclusives. Yeah, it feels regressive, but, I mean, it's what's working for them. Now, they might be doing layoffs later this year, too. That is. I've seen the rumor that they're going to have to do some cuts. It sounds like everybody's doing cuts.
    86:17
    Xboxes, the rumors are they're coming in July. We'll start seeing them. So, yeah, we're about a month out. In addition to all that, Craig Duncan, the head of Xbox Game Studios, and Louise O'Connor, the chief of staff of Xbox Game Studios, have both stepped down. Hmm. So at this point, most of the upper management of the old Xbox has been completely replaced. The new the new boss is going to put in her people. Yeah, it's not too surprising. No, it's not, especially not with such a major restructuring and such a especially these are all people that subscribe to Phil's theories. Yeah. So it's not a surprise at all. We've been talking for a couple months now how everybody is moving out of November. Yes. They're moving to September and they're moving to February. Except for Godzilla. And also Phantom Blade Zero came out of September because September got so full. They came out of September and went to the 29th of October because they're like, We'll have three weeks before GTA comes out. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. Smart. Maybe. I mean, I don't know that for sure. Right. It feels like that's plenty of time. You would think. And it's a very – from what it looks like, it's a very different style of game than GTA 6.
    87:46
    I think at this point so much weight has been put on GTA 6, it's going to fail. Hmm. It's going to sell. People are expecting so much of it, just like we were talking about Jaws and Why Shark No Eat Ball and all. People have so many expectations that it's not going to hit everybody's expectations. So it's going to be it's going to sell. It's going to be huge monetarily. But I think there'll be a lot of backlash on it because it's not going to be what people wanted or thought they were going to get. Just because people have hyped stuff to a point that is just untenable.
    88:25
    EA, we've talked about, has been talking about launching an advertising platform. They have launched that now to allow brands to put ads inside games. It's more specifically targeted at EA Sports for the obvious reasons. But it's also being input in other EA games because there will be billboards and stuff on buildings and other places. I've seen this toyed around with. It has. And they've tried it like in Burnout back in the day. They had some of that. And this is just a continuation of that concept taken up to the extreme, especially with all of the EA sports games have so much online interconnectivity. It will allow companies to literally buy blocks where it will be in the game for however long. And then it comes out and the ad space is replaced by some other company, just like at an actual sporting event. So it will be interesting to see where that goes. And my last thing, I don't have any notes on it.
    89:35
    Star Citizen has been having an enormous set of pushback lately because all of the talk was about Squadron 42 having a 2026 release. Yes. And then there were no announcements about it at any of the announcements this summer. Not the IGN's announcements, no. So people decided it's not coming out in 2026.
    90:02
    And the latest update of Star Citizen itself has been very buggy. There's been huge problems with griefing and all sorts of other issues. So a lot of the very big name, well-known people, influencer space people, several of them have quit. They're like, I'm done. I'm done. I've spent 15 years, and I just, I gotta move on.
    90:34
    Shortly after all of this started happening, middle of last week, all of the influencers that are more central to Europe on Star Citizen, And a lot of the more European-centric large backers started getting invites to a three-day Squadron 42 first look at the Manchester office. It's an in-person only. You have to come to Manchester and have three days of Squadron 42 goodness, basically. And this has actually set up, if anything, a worse uproar in the community because people are like, why are these influencers getting all this? I've got $20,000 that I've put into this game over the years and they didn't send me nothing.
    91:34
    Yep. Nope. I get it. It's like, I'm an OG back. I backed the original Kickstarter. I didn't get nothing. But it very much feels like it's a targeted influencers and the people who are very vocal on forums and discord and the like feel like a lot of the people who are getting the targets. They're all the very high engagement people are being targeted to come to this special three-day event. So we'll see what comes out of it. Maybe we'll see Squadron 42 this year. But originally Squadron 42 was supposed to be this little game that built into Star Citizen. It was going to be just a little bit. And they've completely revamped the game a couple of times.
    92:28
    Now it's supposed to be three games. It went from just a Wing Commander-esque flight sim to now it has like Call of Duty levels of stuff as well, first-person shooter stuff in addition. And it's just so interesting to me because they just keep pushing it. This is a game that had at one point there was an announcement that Squadron 42 was feature complete and just needed polishing.
    92:56
    That was 2018. Oh. It felt sooner than that, but okay. So they have completely, and since then they've completely revamped and completely redone everything and added all new stuff.
    93:14
    It is becoming such this large ongoing joke saga. And again, I'm an original backer, and I've not touched any of this alpha. I've not downloaded anything. I've never flown my one ship that I bought in the Kickstarter at the lowest possible level type thing. I've not touched it or done anything. The most I did was when they originally kicked out the hangar module. When they didn't even have a flight model, it was just you could first person, like really poorly first person, walk around and look at your ship in the hangar. That was the last time I did anything with it. And that was a decade ago. So it's it has been an interesting saga that I do not think is anywhere near done. But I'll be interested to see how this three day special event comes out. And if we actually see Squadron 42 in the next 12 months, I'm not going to say this year, next 12 months.
    94:16
    We'll see. It'll be interesting. So that's what I've got for today. Okay. Well, if people want to reach out about any of this stuff, they can always email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. You can also go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast if you want to comment there. If you want to support us, we do very much appreciate it. That is at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. You can do so for as little as a dollar a month, but we do have two other tiers as well. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we should be back in a couple of weeks. Will there be another pinball announcement by then? I think finally, I mean, Sonic's already revealed by JJP, but I think we'll finally actually be able to talk about some detail about it. Yeah. Let me give you all the secret background. Now that we're in the end, all the pinball people have stopped listening. They did. I'll give you all the secrets, all the juicy rumors I've heard about Sonic. I've heard it's blue and full of furries. There we go. Wow. That's like the CE edition. Right. Or the FE edition, furry edition. They rename their tiers all the time. There'll be a special tier where Sonic is the initial movie Sonic before they changed it because of the outcry. It'll be the FU tier. Yes. Meow. Meow. All right. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.