Triple Drain Ep. 38: Manufacturing woes, Godzilla topper reaction, and why theme sells in pinball.
Summary
Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 38 features hosts Joel and Travis with guest Greg Bone (co-host of Straight Down the Middle). The episode covers new pinball releases including Hexa Pinball's Space Hunt, discusses manufacturing challenges in the industry, analyzes Stern's production struggles with Godzilla and Foo Fighters overselling expectations, evaluates the recently revealed Godzilla topper, and explores how theme, layout, and artwork drive early game sales before code updates gain traction.
Key Claims
Manufacturing games is the easiest part of the business according to Pinball Adventures owner
medium confidence · Greg referencing Don's Pinball Podcast episode with Pinball Adventures owner; heard secondhand, not direct
Stern has altered their manufacturing schedule due to Godzilla and Foo Fighters outperforming sales expectations
high confidence · Joel and Travis discussing current Stern production timeline and allocation challenges
CGC's Cactus Canyon remake was announced nearly two years ago and some day-one orders still haven't shipped
high confidence · Joel stating 'announced in October not last year but the year prior like we're approaching two years'
James Bond is not selling as well as Stern anticipated
medium confidence · Joel speculation: 'I would assume maybe this is I would assume that James Bond is not a selling as well as they assumed'
Bond's code was behind early on but recent updates are improving its prospects
medium confidence · Greg: 'I think you know there was you know a decently recent code update I think bond to me is going just because I actually like the way it shoots'
The Godzilla topper is cheaper than previous Stern toppers like Mandalorian
high confidence · Greg: 'it's a bit cheaper than what we went with Mandalorian and everything else' at around $1,000
Theme, layout, and artwork are the three primary variables that determine early game sales before code quality matters
high confidence · Joel detailed framework: 'theme it's going to be is the layout Dynamic looking... how's the artwork like those three things are really going to be the very beginning'
Godzilla succeeded commercially despite most people not caring about the theme beforehand, due to exceptional gameplay and campy tone
high confidence · Greg and Joel discussing how Godzilla converted non-fans through gameplay and theme execution
Notable Quotes
“Manufacturing the games is the easiest part and that's all I heard I was like what are you talking about”
Greg Bone (reporting from Don's Pinball Podcast)@ 13:29 — Challenges conventional wisdom about manufacturing being the bottleneck for pinball startups
“I audibly said oh no so I audibly said that it's a weird it's a weird spot”
Greg Bone@ 24:26 — First reaction to Stern's Godzilla topper reveal video; sets up larger discussion about how poorly it was presented
“Theme sells I'm always a huge proponent theme sells like is the big thing because you can you can have a game that's good just good doesn't have to be extraordinary but it's got a theme that resonates with people and it elevates that game”
Greg Bone@ 11:15 — Core industry philosophy on what drives game sales; referenced Dialed In as counterexample
“if you only have X amount of money it is you've got to do something ungodly to justify you know well because you don't want to take the risk like you said you've only got so much money so why like you wanna you you kind of want to say for bet you don't want that long shot you know to waste your money on”
Greg Bone@ 8:22 — Explains buyer hesitation with new manufacturers; risk vs. established brands like Stern, JJP, Spooky
“Godzilla it shows up and I'm like this is not only is an amazing game but the like it's so funny and campy and and actually like my kids love it and to the point where Godzilla has actually talked about as a joke”
Greg Bone@ 23:13 — Personal anecdote demonstrating how tone/theme execution converted casual player into fan
Entities
Greg BonepersonTravis MuriepersonJoel IngleberthpersonTompersonZach MenypersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinball (JJP)companySpooky PinballcompanyChicago Gaming Company (CGC)company
Signals
?
supply_chain_signal: Stern unable to keep up with demand for Godzilla and Foo Fighters despite adding multiple production runs and rescheduling manufacturing timeline; some Godzilla premium orders from 'a long time ago' still unfilled
high · Joel: 'Stern has changed their um you know shout out Travis you made this beautiful graphic for the pinball company the other day that shows the timeline the manufacturing timeline or the schedule uh for this year' and 'there are people that still don't have their Godzilla premiums and they ordered them a long time ago'
?
supply_chain_signal: CGC's Cactus Canyon remake taking nearly two years to deliver since October 2022 announcement; day-one pre-orders still pending
high · Joel: 'that was announced in October not last year but the year prior like we're approaching two years and there are people that ordered them day one and still don't have them'
$
market_signal: Stark disparity emerging in Stern's product line: Godzilla and Foo Fighters massively oversold vs. James Bond appearing to underperform expectations; manufacturers now pulling from back catalog to manage demand
high · Joel: 'Stern has things figured out there where they can pull from the back catalog at any moment' and speculation that Bond is not 'a selling as well as they assumed'
~
sentiment_shift: Initial negative reception to Stern's topper reveal video (Greg audibly said 'oh no'); sentiment shifted positive after Zach Meny's demonstration video and in-person viewing; community initially tore it apart on Pinside forums
high · Greg: 'I audibly said oh no' and 'luckily luckily Zach came through with flying colors because you just really didn't get an indication what this topper looks like and from everybody that has seen it now in person they're like okay it looks totally different'
Topics
Hexa Pinball Space Hunt (new manufacturer market entry)primaryManufacturing bottlenecks and supply chain constraintsprimaryGodzilla topper reveal and receptionprimaryTheme, layout, artwork as sales drivers vs. code qualityprimaryStern Godzilla and Foo Fighters demand exceeding expectationsprimaryJames Bond underperformance and code improvement trajectorysecondaryRisk/reward for buyers choosing between established vs. new manufacturerssecondaryIFPA World Championship in Europe (Tom's absence context)mentioned
Sentiment
mixed(0.55)— Episode is generally optimistic about the market (strong demand, successful games like Godzilla) but expresses frustration with manufacturing logistics, supply chain delays, and risk factors for new entrants. Godzilla topper initially received skeptical reaction but warmed to acceptance. Community sentiment toward Bond appears cautious. Discussion balances industry enthusiasm with pragmatic concerns about sustainability.
Transcript
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast Tom is not here but it's okay we're gonna we're gonna work through this we're gonna be strong um so I'll go to the next best person Greg Greg Greg are you ready for this are you ready I'm ready for Android good I want to come on the show for a long time well here you go here's the day um and I'll ask the guy who I think resents being on this show every episode uh Travis are you are you ready for this I'm very happy to be here now it feels like I'm part of straight down the middle so uh yeah we're we're like trending way up so I'm very happy about this we'll see how I'm happy about you that's why I had to wear I was gonna fix my hair but I was like no I gotta wear a hat today there we go Gotta Channel my inner Travis I appreciate it I mean but if you really wanted to you guys shave the beard though no I'm horrible without a beer beautiful though you look look thank you gorgeous Joel just just roll it I'll just roll it here's that intro song we we're we're three guys I mean Greg does that just get you pumped up I mean I was hyped the whole time so it's perfect um well Travis I I feel like you're just gonna make uh bone jokes the whole time you know we're entering the bone Zone what else you got you're ready to I said that in pre-production yeah that's all you you guys you said that in the uh the Facebook message group too there goes the first chat yep I woke up to a message this morning I was like yeah I was wondering what time we were starting the bone Zone you've heard that your whole life haven't you Greg yes whatever great last name whatever but actually like through through some of my life like you know obviously in school you know there's the boner jokes and you get all the bone stuff and then there was just like a Hiatus in my 20s where that I didn't get any of that and now like now in my late 30s 40 like friends and people have brought it back for some reason oh well at least there's no friends right that's what happens though you get to your late 30s early 40s it's almost like you devolved to like your 20s but yet you actually are like financially secure you've got like a little bit more knowledge from Joel you're young right you're like still in my 30s yep you're like 36. 35 how yeah yeah you're getting closer you're getting closer I'm getting there yeah um what am I I'm looking at Travis's background I feel like every week he adds something new uh you got the you got the Iron Man oh yeah my son put that up oh okay nothing else changed we're still trying to move so I'm not like yeah not trying to do all this I know I need a pinball machine so you bought a house and you didn't use Greg as your realtor is what I'm hearing what else we got in the background we got the what are the bonehead lights I see that in Greg's background like you you patented that uh shout out to Comet pinball right comment pinball amazing with their uh their little light and I feel like you put that all together and then they call it the bonehead you got a little yeah they were just like you know what we're going to use this because we like the photos and we like what it does and it's super like to me it's like the cheapest best mod that you can do and I like it a little bit in the under cab light I mean who why you want to light up your floor light up your wall where everybody's looking look behind the heads it's a no-brainer that's bloody brilliant right there I feel like that's a great transition to show off that in my background Boom the Godzilla topper it is here it is present um I know well we'll get wow we can just die we just need to go straight stop teasing the audience so here's the deal with Tom not here um the reason Tom's not here is he's still in Europe so Travis and Tom both competed in the ifpa world championship for last year over in Europe so that was in Germany um and that's all we're going to talk about it because we're going to save that for Tom um uh there was a lot of competitive pinball there was also some European something there was the what is Epstein cup which is like U.S first Europe or North America First Europe I don't know exactly how they do it but there's a lot there's a whole lot of tournament pinball played over there and then Tom is still there with his family um they're on like a European Vacation so I'm assuming he is probably on the beach in a speedo as as we speak would be that would be a little late but it's pretty close actually yeah that would be time so um so Tom will be back and we will make sure we'll dive all into that goodness um when he gets back so we were thinking we still want to do an episode it's been a little while we can't talk tournaments so we start going through the list of like all the people we've had on and we're like who do we know that doesn't like tournaments and to be honest the first person I thought of was Zach mini so I thought of Zach many and I was like people are sick of Zach you know what people love they love Greg so let's get Greg bone on here the better half is straight down the middle it's an unfair statement to say that I don't like tournaments I actually love tournaments okay I'm not I'm not Zach I love tournaments I just don't know enough about them nor do I take the time to to go out and play in them but I love them that's fair I used to play a little bit I'm going to apologize for Joel he's like a tournament snob now he has like 105 Whoppers so I mean I'm sorry I'm just gonna let you know ahead of time the rest of us tournament Players we do not look down on the people that don't play tournaments I know Joe's just like automatically like oh Greg don't play tournaments so Greg must eight tournaments Greg's an outsider well I just didn't want people to like try to slip in somebody oh my God you're like oh because we can't we know tournament talk Tom's not here we're not you know so we wanted to we wanted to go with you know somebody we knew wasn't going to slip into that and you you fit the bill so thank you thank you no worries there um so yeah so the goal here uh you know there hasn't been any crazy game release well there is one uh what is the hexa pinball the space is it space hunt or space space hunt space hunt uh they're competing against space tanks I you know I don't know if any if you guys have any initial Impressions I heard I mean so Greg does work for flipping out obviously Zach and Nicole run that company and Greg you do uh well I don't know what your title is tech support or just yeah yeah okay so I think Zach has reached out to that company it's a french-based company to to probably talk distributorship um but I I don't think that's happening I think they said something along the lines of like we're gonna stay within the country I don't know so I I'm guessing you're not going to be involved in hexa pinballs space hunt yeah like we so we we hadn't really discussed it like I was actually over there yesterday I drove down to his house um family's all out of town so I usually try to make it all about pinball and just a good time take advantage of it so I drove down there and he briefly brought it up but we didn't really go into kind of any details about what their discussions were or whether we were going to or not be carrying those okay got it um well hopefully you like bright pink because that game I mean to be honest I I love uh TNA I love total nuclear Annihilation and the color palette of that pinks purples bright greens so to be honest the color palette like I'm okay with I my daughter would freaking love it bright pink I think it's a I think it's cool looking or beautiful looking game but I don't know my view at least on on brand new manufacturers are it's just the bar is put So High by these other companies that if I if I only have X amount of money it is you've got to do something ungodly to justify you know well because you don't want to take the risk like you said you've only got so much money so why like you wanna you you kind of want to say for bet you don't want that long shot you know to waste your money on and you're like oh okay you know I was gonna get one new pin this year and now I've got a turd set in here that doesn't work or that plays like crap and that's it's tough when with these other you know manufacturers I mean Stern is consistently good jjp makes consistently good games and then spooky makes their games can be good I mean it's like even just those three alone American it's just you got so many great options here in North America and I understand we have Global listeners so maybe there are people over in Europe that want to support somebody local I mean so I don't know I'm just in a wait and see situation uh there's a lot of question marks that's unlicensed theme like always um a song is interesting to say the least but um I don't know maybe it's incredible maybe it's incredible but we're we'll yeah maybe they'll ship you one have you and Zach make it beautiful feature at forum and it's ends up being a lovely lovely game I don't know the pinball company's not buying any that you know I mean well here's the thing you've the three the three manufacturers that you listed off right yeah Stern Jersey Jack spooky all three of them what they're very good at at this current time is getting themes yeah and more than anything it if you're a brand new business or your brand new startup it's awfully hard to get footing in this industry if you're not bringing that to the table because you're already bringing on a bunch of unknown variables like how fast are you going to get games manufactured how fast are you going to ship out what's the customer support afterwards who's designing who's doing software what's going to be the updates there's all these other things that are involved in it and so for a casual player or for somebody that's just involved in pinball to the extent that they are one of the first things they're going to look at is the theme so if you're approaching this with the unlicensed theme and you understand what that variable is I mean that's more than often it's a strike against you it especially if it's overseas I mean it's got to be an extraordinary type of game like TNA for instance that people have like it's accessible to people to where they can readily play and they can see what it is they can hear it they can feel it and it's just it's awfully hard if you're overseas for at least the American buyer to sense that unless there's just like a kick-ass promo video that puts it out there that's why that is so damn important because I mean just like the Godzilla topper prime example right there there's a lot of people that were like on the fence until Zach put out his promo and then everybody's like oh okay this looks legit this looks cool so I mean yeah that's that's just the variable with it it's not to say it's going to be a bad game or great game just simply don't know just because of those variables alone yeah theme sells I'm always a huge proponent theme sells like is the big thing because you can you can have a game that's good just good doesn't have to be extraordinary but it's got a theme that resonates with people and it elevates that game whereas you take it and you give an original thing to that good game people are still not going to hardly buy it you know and and I I always just go back to dialed in how many dialed dialed in is a fantastic game but you still just it you know when it moves along yeah you know yeah you play it it moves along or nobody wants to own it and it comes down to the theme and you know the thing he had with with TNA was Scott Danesi had such a cult following that that took years to evolve as he was building that game and took it around the shows and everything you know there was it it sort of became a popular theme within the pinball Community even though it was an original theme yeah it became its own theme that you resonated with and that you sort of knew because he had brought it around so much and there was so much hype around it and you just hard to get that especially like you said I was like overseas you're not going to get that yeah and with some of these brand new companies too even if you do have a killer theme like Queen for example that's a killer theme but there's still so many question marks of like how they're gonna build what's the build quality how's the software support is this going to do this and this and this so it's I don't know I I respect all these companies that are trying to get into the industry trying to to start something new but man has that that has to be just some ridiculous uphill battle um yes that I don't envy so stressful it's stressful running a business I mean especially if you're trying to break into a market that is very stressful to do so I mean props to people trying and hopefully it works out I will say maybe maybe this is unfair but I was listening um Don's pinball podcast it's a it's another podcast and uh that guy I I haven't heard a ton of his stuff but I was recommended I was told that on his latest episode he has the the owner of punny Factory or the owner of uh I don't know the pinball Adventures I think is the the company he had him on the episode and I've only gotten a little bit in I haven't heard the whole thing but that guy the owner of of pinball Adventures he made the comment he said um because the question was something along the lines of like congrats to you for finally actually like you have an idea and you're actually making games for customers you're actually manufacturing games and the guy said well believe it or not manufacturing the games is the easiest part and that's all I heard I was like what are you talking about like that's what I thought I I everything else that I've heard it's the exact opposite thinking of a concept designing a game making one I don't know I just heard him say manufacturing the game's the easiest part it's like what like that's where every other company is stuck right I mean you look at haggis like haggis has a beautiful game these fathoms and they are taking years to make them like it's not the design that's hard I mean it's a manufacturing that's hard part right that goes into the variable part again though I mean if you're manufacturing at scale yeah then it's highly difficult because you got to get somebody products out if you're not manufacturing the skill you only have to make a few every now and then yeah I mean maybe maybe that's it pinball Adventures maybe they're making 20 or less so it's hard to tell I don't know let's just put it this way if if whatever you come out with outpaces right like the demand totally outpaces what you're able to put out yeah guess what that manufacturing is going to feel very difficult because you're leaving a lot of money on the table you got pissed off customers yes I mean but well if you're if you can manufacture and outpace the demand well yeah it's it's not going to seem near as hard because you're not your back's not up against the wall to produce X number of games through a certain amount of time you're just meeting an allocation point at that point yeah and I maybe that's a great transition because these two games cause that problem so behind me I have Godzilla and Foo Fighters both of which I would assume way outperformed what stern was expecting them to do and here we are I mean Stern has changed their um you know shout out Travis you made this beautiful graphic for the pinball company the other day that shows the timeline the manufacturing timeline or the schedule uh for this year I saw that I was I was impressed you actually do like quality yeah I do I do some work you know I mean like 18 minutes a day I clock in so right now I've gotten seven done so far so I had to clock out for this but yeah I think Greg puts in at least an hour for the effort flipping modeling takes like eight hours a day that's tough is hard what I will say is these two games I mean clearly outperformed what they were expecting and so here's Stern kind of scrambling to like how do we do it how do we fit all these in and and you know we're still doing like there are people that still don't have their Godzilla premiums and they ordered them a long time ago Foo Fighters it's like having to add more and more runs and shift things around um if we want to go to another manufacturer I know cgc obviously manufacturing all the cactus Canyons it's taking forever that was announced in October not last year but the year prior like we're approaching two years and there are people that ordered them day one and still don't have them so yeah I just I mean it's a good problem it's a good problem to have right it's a good problem when you weigh outsell what you're expecting to do it's a good problem to have but um yeah we're seeing a lot of that we're seeing a lot of that in this industry and a lot of people waiting on games and then you have other people that have games that they're trying to sell that just I just feel like it's either one or the other right it's either a huge hit or manufacturers can't sell them or Distributors have a bunch and they're on the shelf and they're just sitting it's one or the other well and I think sometimes when some things come you take some you know you you come off of a really big hit like you know I can't imagine creating a really big game something that just sells the hell out of games and then how do you gauge the your next pin you know like do you scale down are you are you literally reflecting and thinking okay like well man we killed it last time we're gonna kill it again any ramp up manufacturing like how do you even gauge that you know when you're somebody like punny factor or you're a smaller company starting off I feel like you know you're just kind of building to demand but sure you know when your manufacturer has become a little bit more established like how are you going to gauge that how are you going to make those runs um you know so Stern's got a little more figured out because they can just throw old games back on the line and you know start rebuilding Vault something real quick and throw it online and keep all their employees working but you know you take somebody like cgc or jjp or somebody you know that's got to be like a super diff difficult thing to be able to try to gauge that next game and what that popularity is going to be getting parts stocked up you know what I'm saying so you're kind of back and forth you know if it's a big hit oh man we don't have games they're going to trickle out or now we got a bunch of games because we anticipated it was gonna be a big hit because of our last couple games and now we're setting on stock and what do we do so like sure I'm like you guys like I don't envy that at all yeah and you look at Stern I mean I I would assume maybe this is I would assume that James Bond is not a selling as well as they assumed so instead of these runs it's like all of a sudden what do they have they well they got more Godzillas they can make they have iron maidens they can make they have Jurassic Park premiums they can make it's just like it's clearly yeah Stern has things figured out there where they can pull from the back catalog at any moment and their line has been packed for years now I mean it's non-stop it's definitely buying a moving Target too yeah you're fine Greg it's just what I'm saying is it just hit it's like hitting a moving Target when you're trying to determine how many games you need to produce how much can this move what's going to be the velocity of cell you know because it's like anything else their Les are going to absolutely sell out every single time because it's going to go to all the dealers and Distributors and we're going to be able to sell it out now it becomes is the pros and the premiums how well are those gonna sell that's that's the tough part right there and that's what we're seeing with Bond right now I mean it's it's awfully hard to get games moving that's kind of set up like bond is currently well and I think Bond so I think you know there was you know a decently recent code update I think bond to me is going just because I actually like the way it shoots I know it's gotten a lot of flack I know that you know the the code early on obviously was a lot behind it but I think it's going to be another rush I think that you know any of us distributors or anybody that has a game sitting I think those games are going to sell I think that they're gonna have to throw it back on the line again because I do think that it's going to over the next year creep up as like this kind of sleeper especially if there's a lull or there's a miss you know if they come out with something like Venom or any rumor rumored titles that come out and it doesn't do as well as they think people are going to take that money and go somewhere else with it and I think it's going to be to a game like that it's like oh man I've got some time on that game I really liked it let me try it out you know I've done that with games before and I I really think that's going to be kind of another sleeper um you know that comes up well I would say as of right now every other game in Stern's catalog is basically a complete Game even though Foo Fighters isn't 1.0 that's a complete game so it's it's hard to I mean bond is getting there but yeah you know a month or two back it's just like well if you have money to buy something brand new it's like do you want to play the game of bond and hope the code involved you know yeah becomes what you want it to be or do you just get one that's basically amazing right out of the box like bond is kind of going through this weird time right now so one of the things that you can do to kind of get a glimpse of if a game's gonna be a decent seller or not it's basically three variables are involved in it it's gonna be theme it's going to be is the layout Dynamic looking meaning like does it just look fun to shoot and how's the artwork like those three things are really going to be the very beginning of whether or not it catches people's eyes because nobody can really gauge what the code is going to be but the code will help it get past that first that first few months so if the code is there after the first run and people realize it that's when the popularity really starts to go up from there and that's what we saw with Godzilla that's what you're seeing with Foo Fighters I mean because it's it's huge out of the gate right and then it just feels like it just keeps going so if you don't have those three variables in place or something's off it definitely gives people cause to pause yeah and that's kind of what we saw with Bond I mean it was a theme that maybe not everybody you know felt like it was a good theme for them just because it's a little bit older theme I know the artwork there was a lot of people that weren't pleased with artwork even though that technically was the assets from the theme right so I think that those two things just go together that if you're not into the theme you're probably not going to be into the artwork either so it's kind of like a two-for-one deal and so when you put those into that into that variable right then the code has to be like really good just to keep it going at that point for example I mean who really care I mean Godzilla's amazing artwork so it had that but I mean who the hell really cared about Godzilla really like you know there was a handful of people nobody cared but because it was such an incredibly coded game and it shot so well it was like I don't care it's Godzilla like I love Godzilla now you know yeah and I think Iron Maiden I think there's been pins has done it in the past too like Iron Maiden like I think that there wasn't I mean there's a lot of Iron Maiden fans it's a it's a big base or very well known band but I think a lot of people are like I don't care about Iron Man I don't care and then they played it and they're like I got a half Ironman oh yeah I'm a fan now like you got up in there so Godzilla is 100 that and I think it's hilarious I I never I did not care about Godzilla in any way before and I remember when they announced the game I was like it's like it's not a turn off like yeah well this is probably a terrible example but like Elvira it's not a turn off but it's I can't I can't just fight like that's a team I can't have in in my house so it's like an immediate like oh crap like in Walking Dead's another situation I can't have that game in my house with little kids it's it's not a theme like that like it's not a turn off in that way but Godzilla it shows up and I'm like this is not only is an amazing game but the like it's so funny and campy and and actually like my kids love it and to the point where Godzilla has actually talked about as a joke or like the the song The Blue Oyster Cult song like my son a three-year-old requests it he thinks it's a funny song like I don't I just it's almost like I've become an actual legitimate Godzilla fan well they went the right direction with it oh yeah if they did the current Godzilla it's like serious yeah yeah it wouldn't be a mirror as well received as it is now it'd still be popular because it's an L win and the layout on the rules are great but yeah it wouldn't get the universal praise it does now just based on that alone like that theme really does help carry it a little bit and the fact that they leaned into the campiness that carries it even more I mean that was a brilliant decision by starting to do that and you said Universal praise so perfect transition to the topper universally loved by everyone that's the topper is here so let's be real let's be honest First Impressions when you guys saw the topper what was your legitimate first impression two seconds of Stearns video oh no that was I audibly said oh no so I audibly said that it's a weird it's a weird spot it's like okay there's so many Godzillas that are out there yes we figured the Topper's gonna sell no matter what so it's not an opinion of whether or not they're gonna sell or not it'll it'll sell I mean they they could put like a little two inch figurine Godzilla in there and it would sell my concern was is that just the video that they put out with all the accessories I was very confused how they just kind of slapped that towards the end and it was very brief there was almost nothing yeah and it we actually timed it just to see because I watched it probably like 10 times because I was so confused I'm like what does this topper do is there supposed to be a mode with it like what's going on you had no indication I think you said there was more footage of people flipping yeah their hands than there there was nearly the topper there was nearly double the footage of hands on the flippers and the topper and I'm like what is happening here so I was just I was very confused and I was talking to you know the people within our company I'm like are they coming out with another trailer here or is this it and so we just kind of just felt like okay well this is it so let's just cross our fingers and hope Zach comes out with the video because I figured he would look at that and he'd be like no I can't can't stand for this luckily luckily Zach came through with flying colors because you just really didn't get an indication what this topper looks like and from everybody that has seen it now in person they're like okay it looks totally different yeah and it's actually it's really good for what it is I mean nobody's saying it's it's great like black night or something like that and that's fine it doesn't but you're not turned off like you're not right turned off perfect timing camera turns off and the powers of the bone man the script writing in this episode is fantastic we are on it we are going so great you saw it you saw what was I mean what did you think when you saw it uh same thing I was kind of like I don't know about that and uh then I saw his next video I was like okay that's great man like I won't say great it's really good his video is great the Topper's good and then uh yesterday he had it and I got to see it in person it is it's a lot better in person the buildings look good um and stuff on there you know I would have went a different direction I guess sure but like I'm I'm not mad at it the things that I would probably want would probably be too difficult to do or not cost effective and that's one thing I like about it too is it's pretty cool topper and you know that it's a bit cheaper than what we went with Mandalorian and everything else so you know it's kind of refreshing to see a good topper but a hell of a lot cheaper yeah well it's funny that we're yeah it's funny that a thousand dollars is something to be excited about right like that it's cheaper but yeah and full disclaimer here I it Toppers are expensive Toppers are expensive yes and they're a hundred percent there are there are thousands of better things to spend a thousand dollars on so many better things so we're not golf carts like we're not like golf carts so we're not going to sit here and argue whether or not buying the top a good yes decision the answer is no I mean but buying a Pinball's machine is probably not a good decision either but this we we understand this is an expensive hobby so yes I am grateful though that it's a thousand dollar topper not a two thousand dollar topper I I agree with you on that when I saw the video my I I like I said I literally said out loud oh no like that was it like it was a disappointing like oh and and then the video is over we're like that's it so I'm like scouring looking at Stearns like there's there was nothing there was no info and so what do you do you go to pinside and pages and pages of people just ripping it apart I mean I love the the laughter at the zip tie I mean just tearing it apart so you're trying to here I am trying to be optimistic and I will say that after Zach put out his video and then I had a chance to stream it the other day pinside's gotten really quiet it's gotten really quiet when you actually provide quality you know video showing what the topper can do well it's providing context to the product too yes because there was Zero context provided in it and then the other thing that you actually pointed out to me Travis which it wasn't mentioned at all in the video was the exclusive mode like there's an act there's an exclusive mode to the game and it's not it was briefly mentioned in Stern's press relief in the press release and that's it and so it's like there's value to that mode and I but at the same time I also know you say exclusive mode to some people and they're like DLC and they freak out you know but I'm that I'm paying for something that it's just part of society anymore you got a console game you got a PC game you got DLC you got those little mobile games on your phone you got DLC so and again as long as I'm not missing something from it like like from the game it's itself which no one can argue that there's anything at all missing from Godzilla really like sure I'm fine with something buying a topper for an extra mode or something special that they put a little extra time into or that was an afterthought you know I'm I'm completely good with that in that that context sure and I know uh some of the other DLC modes right where like um Jurassic Park had ghost goat Mania and everybody's like nah nobody needs that like it and I forget there was something else and people like they brushed it off and then to the surprise though later on um Insider connect did bring those modes so like now everybody has if you have Insider connect you have access to that mode so it's so some people are holding out on that they're like well I assume down the road um Stern will just give it to everybody I I don't know I don't know but what I will say is I have it I have um I have it on my game um I was super grateful Keith Elm and Rick Nagel and George Gomez they made it happen where um I I had actually reached out to Keith I said hey I'm gonna get one of the Toppers in on Tuesday I'm going to stream the game on Wednesday just I want to show it off is the new mode in the game and he said no and I was like oh bummer you know no worries and he goes let me see if I can get you beta code I'm like okay and Rick was literally coding it he was making some adjustments to it on Wednesday I got it I got access to the code like three hours before the stream and updated my game so I have access to the beta code what the beta code is is and this will be released um but if you have the topper you get access to uh king of the monsters time attack so king of the monsters correct me if I'm wrong Travis you've probably actually been there in the game king of the monsters is the very end of the game right so so you you you get two stages to it you gotta fight all the all the monsters okay it's only two stages there isn't anymore at least there's only two stages because I don't know I haven't made it past stage two so I don't know I don't know if I would actually end it or not but the question is so Kingdom how do you actually get to king of the monsters in the game you have to you have to get all the way to Planet X and then beat Planet X or you don't know or is it I think there's no idea I think there's a lot of things you have to do I'll be honest I have actually never been there I've seen it but I've never been there Murray top what 25 player in the world there's a game in there's a mode in Godzilla that you have not achieved I have not seen it no I've played Planet X but I've heard of king of the monsters so here's the before I have Joel so what I will tell you though is the mode is fantastic like it is it is really really good and my thought is if Keith has put forth that much time to make this incredible wizard mode and Rick Nagel has coded this incredible wizard mode but yet No One's Gonna See It No One's Gonna see it I'm really glad they've given us the ability to to do it um in a perfect world they would give it to everybody right um I I will say when I I have Turtles it's at my parents house but um half shell challenge half shell challenge is a mode that you can just go right to and it is a blast it's a Time mode it's genuinely one of my favorite game favorite things about that game and that's where I that's all I've played that's all I've played on Godzilla the last few days is coming down here and I don't there's something mentally about knowing you have this kind of bite size thing I'm only doing this and that's it you're not going to get locked into a 45 minute game it gives you five minutes when you start and to get through the first phase your time is counting down and then it gives you a little more time we get to the second phase and whatever time you have left from the first time that's it that's all you have to do the second phase and I've run out of time every time I've yet to beat the second phase so but it's awesome it's a it's definitely a pulls draws you in one more game so I'm just amazed the mode is fantastic but nobody's talking about it like nobody's talked about it in the press release nobody looks at that as a selling point to me it's absolutely a selling point um I would tell you right now if if you took the topper off I would miss the mode more than I'd miss the topper and that says nothing bad about the topper but um but yeah overall the light integration I'm actually very impressed by um you can see the stream on flipping out um there's also a video showing it and then the to be honest though I will take the Godzilla figure off and I will replace it with another one that's what I did in my game um we actually bought this really cool figure my brother painted it it looks awesome but as soon as I saw the topper I was like okay I'm gonna move Jared's figure up to the topper and then I want to get stumblers the Atomic Godzilla mod which came out after I got that figure but I looked and that thing's discontinued right now so I'm on a waiting list to see if uh to see if I could potentially get it but I think once I swap that out then I'm good I the I will say the mechagodzilla's eyes light up you don't see that in the video and gigan's eyes light up like it's it's there's actually a lot of really cool little nuances to the topper so I think it'll be a Topper that people will grow to love but I do think Stern kind of shot themselves in the foot with their release because that two second video of it wasn't great wasn't great um I don't know it was just it was just confusing if you were if you were somebody that didn't really know pinball too well and you happen to see it you wouldn't know that the topper is an important part of the accessory experience like you would almost feel like it's an afterthought because it felt like the shooter knob and the blades were even more important to the overall gameplay than what the topper is and yeah and obviously you don't see the topper when you play yeah but when it has a mode associated with it to me that's a big deal and that should be highlighted and I understand the marketing behind grouping all the accessories you want to sell you want to promote your products but it needed to be the big in Grand Finale like spectacle to where you really showed it that's where they met you know like it yeah it was just odd they didn't give it more hands the video needed more hands on a pinball machine I mean the only thing I can think of is there there are a ton of lighting effects in this thing like a ton of animations whoever spent time I don't know who's necessarily coding all the light show that's built in that topper but I applaud you because there are a ton in there the only thing I think of is maybe when that was filmed there weren't many animations so instead of actually showing it too long they could only show a tiny bit that's very possible yeah be onto something there Joel I don't know I don't know but that's I would say Godzilla I mean I'm I'm loving it I would I if you're on the fence on the topper feel free to watch either my live stream on flipping out or Zach has now made two videos watch that but I think if you were already in I think you will be happy with it I genuine I think maybe it was we all had these unrealistic expectations of what it could be then we were disappointed with what we saw and now it's very easy to to uh surprise yourself when you actually see it kept telling you Joel it was not going to actually breathe fire everybody said that yeah and you were so fired up about it I was that's what I was saying about I had hopes for things that I weren't going to be reality and that's why it just kind of crushed me is because I wanted it to breathe fire I was hoping for movement but I will tell you with the turtle head and then I've heard it also with the the Led Zeppelin things the servos they use for movies loud yes and you know with recording the podcast and stuff like having that in the background just we've actually told Tom to turn off his Led Zeppelin topper when we recorded because you'll hear in the back there it's like I mean I appreciate your Concert Experience Tom that's going on in your room but the listeners don't need to hear it but what else is Stern sternum they've moved a bunch of stuff around um we have a game it's coming right there's uh the next game should theoretically I think August is the projected thing and rumors are Venom rumors are Venom and I know both of you guys are Marvel fans I'm curious Greg just because I haven't really talked to you about I know Spider-Man's real big for you I know you own a bunch of comments and whatnot I mean is Venom is Venom one of those themes that really you're is getting you going or or whatever yeah it is especially if it's just done right like and obviously I think they gotta go comic book on that one um I mean I love Tom Hardy I love those movies but um and they're gonna go comic book but I I'm pretty excited about it honestly and like I said they don't miss so that makes it even more appealing to me um because I got a whole comic room and I keep a couple pins back there and so I've got a Deadpool back there right now and an Iron Man so I'd love to squeeze yeah and I know my son once again three-year-old son is upset he loves Spider-Man so like I'm this is one of those games where I'm genuinely excited when I have a chance to stream it because I think he will I think he'll really get into it um we do know we do know the next pin we don't know if it is Venom or not but we do know the next pin is zombie Eddie art Brian Eddy on design and Dwight on code that's what we know that's been that's been confirmed um uh well Gomez mentioned all that in a in a podcast so um it's got to be comic book art then it's got to be and it's and if it's not a complete mess it's it's a it's a guaranteed buy for me like it's guaranteed you're in probably premium most likely on that one yeah I'm excited I that is a that is a theme that I'm that I'm very much excited for very much excited I mean Travis I know your dream team was Avengers uh which you already have but this would probably be I don't know spider I get it if it was more of a Spider-Man thing and you've said before a theme that would absolutely Crush would be if they did a um like another Spider-Man into the Multiverse type of game into the spider-verse spider-verse yeah like that would be with that type of art style and color I agree I think and it'd be a huge hit for young people you know always trying to get young people and getting more kids and more people into it that movie is so phenomenal that series of movies is phenomenal and kids and adults alike eat it up so it's like that would be a huge huge pin yeah it'd be a top five for stern of all time in sales it's just no doubt about it yeah but when it comes to Venom though let's just assume it is Venom of course we don't don't know for sure but we're going to make the Assumption it's actually would be coming out at a pretty good time if it came out around around the August September time frame because the new Spider-Man video game for PS5 comes out in October so the awareness of Spider-Man is going to go up and Venom is supposed to be featured in that game now it's not going to be the Eddie Brock version but it's still Venom so I mean it's kind of the timing is actually coming around to where it would make a lot of sense for it to come out around this time because then the awareness of people searching for Spider-Man and searching for Venom will go up this fall I will tell you maybe this is just a random thought that I've had but from an art Direction standpoint Venom is he's a black character like I'm very curious if this is really going to be focused on Venom from a color palette standpoint how zombieity is going to do that and all I can think of is like a lot of black dark blue dark purples like a lot of pinball machines don't look that way and I will be honest I mean these are both incredible art packages both Foo Fighters and Godzilla but when you take a few steps back and look at them if you squint your eyes a little bit the color palettes are almost identical you know he's got that red green yellow color palette figured out so I think this is going to be a drastic shift for him from a coach I don't know man because if you look at some of those the covers of venom on some of the comics I mean they're not necessarily super muted you know there's some really colorful like 90s rendition you know that that kind of Pop I mean it's nowhere near what he does now obviously sure uh you know Super Color saturation You Know Rich but I mean there are some decent colors to work in there around that particular character yeah sure I I mean I think you'll cry it will be weird yeah I think he'll question I'm just uh somebody had pointed out a lot of times in pinball you don't see a lot of green like a lot of heavy green and you don't see black like and and so that's what coming up I'm like this is this is going to be interesting this is going to be interesting to see how this how this looks I mean you have to assume that Venom's gonna fight villains like Venom is going to be the anti-hero okay so if you're running under that assumption then the color scheme is going to be based off them also a little bit so I'd be shocked if you didn't have Carnage in the game yeah which is red bright red yeah right right up in his alley right it loves Red Zone that's why I said right up his alley you're gonna have some colors in the game I don't see it being you know I don't think it's going to be dull I just think it's gonna be interesting the way Venom is too is most of the comics like Greg alluded to it's that the colors around it are the opposite of Venom like they want you to know Venom is Venom so there's some storylines in which of course the colors are black around him or a little bit dark around him but I don't necessarily see them doing that with a pinball machine just because you want things to really stand out and if you have a little bit more colors around that's just going to make venom stand out even more when you see them on the play field or see them in the artwork well I'm excited I mean Brian Eddy he he is a creative like I just feel like he always is pushing for something kind of out of the box unique like I don't know I mean Shadow is still my favorite layout of his but um I'm just curious I'm really curious to see what he's gonna do and then we know Dwight really does theme well theme Integrations well light shows well so this is a game I'm genuinely excited about I'm genuinely looking forward to it if if that ends up being it I'm I'm really looking forward to it um sternways I don't know anything else from Stern or news from Stern that you guys want to mention or talk about that's probably about it it's really really not much they're getting ready for their Factory move here in a couple of months so that's pretty cool it's almost like we're just kind of gliding into that yeah at this point they're producing the games that they can so I will say it's crazy that people have Distributors have Jurassic Park premiums in stock like I don't know if that was ever going to be a thing I mean they've sold so well for so many years and then iron maidens to see people like still getting now getting getting an Iron Maiden brand new that I think both are still selling hot they're still selling hot you still enjoying your I mean I know you're all in on Jurassic Park but you still enjoying your uh Jurassic Park premium I see right there in the background yeah I mean it's actually grown up I'm the girl on me I was still just disgruntled you know I was like kind of one of those people it's like oh it's a fantastic game you know it's definitely a Shooters game I mean there can be some flow but I mean it's a it's a shooting game you get a lot of bricks it's a challenge it is it really is and so like I enjoy it but I just I wish that they would have still movie themed it more you know just being a fan I was like you know I was just separate from a lot of other you know I was like all the Star Wars people when Star Wars came out and everybody freaked out over Star Wars like there's nothing in it there's a baron and everything well like I got that but then the assets are all mixed up you know yeah you have a dinosaur from Jurassic world that doesn't even belong in Jurassic Park and you just got Raptors from the third like it's just it was all over the place and so that was disappointing to me but uh no I mean I still love the way it shoots man that's one like probably my top five games yeah well I know it's clear that the theme like the theme is a huge part of that though like it's obviously a huge part of that and I I'm in a similar boat with turtles like I really do genuinely love Turtles but the reason Turtles is still here is because it's turtles yeah and yeah and I mean I know Travis you've probably seen every square inch of Avengers but I don't think it'll ever leave your house because it's Avengers you know I just and it's keep that one but you know so yeah I agree that's why it stays I mean you know it's just you know yeah it's still good and it's Jurassic Park and I'm lucky like you can't complain too much when you've got a theme that's literally 30 years old Sunday that they remade again so like I'm lucky to have three of my favorite three Jurassic Park yeah so it's like yeah I won't complain about it yeah that's fair uh well good well Stern well done uh keep doing what you're doing you're doing it really well um let's transition to jjp jjp um this is kind of a spoiler for my stream coming up on Wednesday but Zach dropped off a um Godfather uh Ellie so I have Godfather's stream now um two things with that first he didn't drop it off um a buddy of mine picked it up but Zach gave me his old escalera so Zach got a new escalera I now have his his escalator that's probably moved hundreds of pins at this point uh the thing is definitely used simply used but I will say now using now actually physically using an escalera to move a pin up and down basement stairs incredible what an incredible incredible really is if you are a collector and you have a basement and you're one of those people that genuinely is moving games frequently just save your back and buy it escalator that I'm not trying to shill it I just it really they work so well they work they really it's the right tool for the job but once you learn that balance and you get over that initial fear it is it's a game changer like yeah and you don't have it's just nice to be able to move something without having to call a buddy call somebody over go get a neighbor or wait to move a game to get somebody over it's like okay immediately I can get that downstairs into my basement and we're good yep the hardest part was getting it out of the back of the the car onto the ground that was genuinely the hardest part of the whole thing getting a but once once you did boom strap it up to escalera and all the way down it's awesome um once again unboxing a jjp game is an experience it the I just always forget how how nice they are like it is you know and it's nothing in Stern like but I'm used to unboxing Stern Bros so when you unbox that like this isn't this is a limited edition this is an Le level game the powder coating it is just the the printing it's so shiny it's so nice the quality I I've just once again blown away I felt the same thing when I unboxed Toy Story um they really do make a beautiful pin they make a beautiful pin uh shout out to Christopher Franchi the artwork on this really is exceptional and you forget how big that screen is until you turn it on next to a Stern um jjp is doing a whole lot right a whole lot right with their presentation and the overall quality and I'm just I'm impressed I'm impressed with it my wife said the same thing when she came down I mean it's a beautiful looking game um I'd never seen Godfather my wife and I actually watched it together earlier this week watched it experienced it just it just had never never happened um my takeaway is great moving it's definitely a theme I would never ask for for a pinball machine but now that I've seen the movie uh shout out you know props to Eric the integration of how he's integrated different scenes and different clips into some of the different modes I mean genuinely it's very well done I would assume if you are a Godfather fan you were probably very happy with their overall execution of this game um I'm still early on to it it's um it's a jjp game with with kefir code it's it's uh it's a lot of multi balls a lot going on all at once and really trying to understand and decipher the best way to tackle it and work your way through it I've watched some of Carl D'Python Anghelo on I.E pinball some of his streams just really trying to wrap my mind my mind around it um on really the best way to progress through the game but um I don't know there's a lot going on there's a family's weapons there's a lot to take in and a lot to explore like that's one thing you can say about the like it's it's not a learning curve it's just an exploration like every time you play you're picking up something new yep and and and um Hobbit when I had Hobbit was that way like my love of that game grew the longer I had it because you really start to learn it GNR was a similar thing I streamed that and had that for months and I just the more and more and more and more you learn about how much is actually going on in that game is it it really is incredible Toy Story was a step back not in a bad way but it was a lot easier to digest what you're doing in Toy Story and how to approach it um that was more kind of the way my mind works that was easy to to to do and enjoy yeah this is back to like all right get the notepad out and let's you know let's yeah let's figure this out but have you at least found a baseline for it like a baseline strategy yeah I don't really care I mean I'm I don't really care about points but I'm seeing like I I understand the multiplier and I get how important that is to build up your weapons and I don't know there's a lot there I'm gonna stream it I'm probably gonna have chat tell me all the things I'm doing wrong and then hopefully um uh jjp's actually reached out they there's a chance that maybe I'll get somebody from from jjp either in chat or potentially even to talk about it more so I just I want to get one stream under my belt for sure of just you know a good solid Baseline but I know Tom Tom you pointed out something right there Joel that I think is would be important for some of the listeners to hear though because how long have you had Godfather oh about a week okay so if you're not interested in points what are you generally like how are you attacking it like what do you want to see or what shots are you going for or what do you see that's satisfying to what combos have you figured that part out yet or at least have a little bit of an idea what's funny is normally when I get a Stern game or any any other game the goal is always well how do I get to multiball right like that's always the usually you're going to be progressing through through something and then you get the multiball this that's not how jjp rolls like you can fall into multiballs so I I'm not I'm not motivated by by the multiball it's more just about jobs and getting into a job and realizing that when you're in a job what what each job does and and how you can progress through them because there's kind of a cash out system there and just kind of feel like I actually understand what I'm doing and once I know that then it's easy to like okay start the job let's start this multiball I do enjoy hitting the guy um beating them up isn't super satisfying the first two ones but once they get deeper in the game you actually have to like flip the flippers and spin the disc and do some stuff but I will say what's in her I I do enjoy the the layout like the layout is very entertaining and man those diverters it surprises me all the time all the time where that ball comes out I'm I don't Greg have you played a God's Godfather at all did you oh I've got to play a little bit and then you know kind of that initial first when we were filming on it uh a little bit but yeah I mean I I kind of agree with you in the same way like it's it's it's definitely a journey oh yeah pinball machine and like you said the diverters are probably the best part which Eric design you know to be almost a toy within themselves yeah um just so you didn't know where it is I know a lot of people don't look at it as being a true toy or anything but like I said it can be as fun as because you don't know where the hell the balls come from you don't know what it's going to do sure every time so I mean yeah I mean I like it it shoots good uh there's a lot going on in it it's just yeah I mean theme this theme okay yeah yeah I I it's I'm I'm excited to let it grow on me but it's but my view it's kind of I've kind of had this with every um every jjp I've stepped up to like if I just stepped up to up to this game in a bar and I put in a dollar or two dollars like if I only put in one or two games there's just so much there it's hard to I think it would be hard to grab me it would be hard to grab me so it just I really think jjp does a great job of of making home kind of a home use only game of like you're buying this because you're prepared to Buckle in and put a lot of games on this and there's going to be a lot for you to unfold the more and more time you put on it while some people on maybe a Stern where it's like they bring it into their home and after a week or two of having it they may see everything that's in the game and I'm not saying that's shallow it's just it's just different it's just a totally different type of ownership so uh or sorry Tom I know owns one Travis were you considering getting a a Godfather because yeah I was considering it I mean the theme doesn't do anything for me but when I had Eric explain it to me at tpf the game started making a lot more sense and I was seeing the shots for what they were or I was kind of get an idea of how to flow through the game and so it's something that's totally different than what is out there for anything else from any other company so that's that's interesting to me just to have something different and not just feel like you're just you know doing the same progression every single time or even a similar layout so I mean in that regard that's that's what's catching my eye and this like if I had the choice I would get this pin 100 times over over you know Toy Story and all that sure my vote's still against all the women in the house too so are your twins talking to you yet are they no no no no they'll get over it eventually I mean yeah I probably gotta take them to Disney World or something at this point like oh here I'm up shits Creek completely um I watching Carl or watching IE pinball stream the game though it's very much like he he knows what he's doing and he's doing the modes in a very particular order because he wants this and he wants this perk and then to see him like play and he's like all right I should probably build this a little more all right let me use my elbow to hit the 10 times multiplier and then hit this one crazy shot for a gazillion points I mean it's that's the type of complexity that I I doubt I will ever get to yeah but just knowing that I do think that's cool for the higher level players to to give you that type of channel it's just that risk reward it's like one of the ultimate like risk reward games like how far do you take it yeah um uh jgp apparently the Collector's Editions are on the line so it'll be cool to see some unboxings there I mean I'm telling you the Le is already a gorgeous game so I have no doubt the CE I I don't know I think there will be plenty of collectors that'll be very happy when those show up on their door um I know we talked a little bit about it already I am curious uh Greg maybe you have some thoughts on it but Harry Potter we don't have to go crazy into it I mean that's still the rumor we have no idea how long it just sounds like jjp has it we've never heard we haven't yet to hear any sort of confirmation on it um but one thing that that keeps staying in my head is is um Stern's smart Stern is really smart and if they lost this license did they lose it or did they pass on it and my question is if they passed on it why and there's been a lot of discussion I don't know we've been talking about this with with some people I mean Travis and others and and whatnot and and if Stern passed on Harry Potter why and um I don't know I have some interesting thoughts there and you know licensing is obviously a huge part of that right you know like um um James Bond they've they've run into many brick walls with that and and the restrictions of that license yeah so is there a chance that what they learned was the Harry Potter license was going to be so restricting that they didn't want to touch it or is there something else I don't I I don't know overall thoughts on your that's what that's where my mind would go would obviously be possibly not full assets or not enough assets of what they felt they needed that it was gonna have to be too generic um or like you said restrictive I mean it was a license that no one thought they were going to get anyways that any pinball manufacturer would get just because of JK Rowling like you know the way that her stance on everything oh he's gone no he's his camera sorry Greg that that Joel is interrupting you here Joel be nice to our guests come on I'm so excited about this how did Travis's camera go off and this is my fault I'm the one getting yelled at what sorry keep going Greg is it too restrictive because you know did they just not want that battle because there was some stipulations up front that they knew they were gonna have to fight or did they just have something that set them off in some conversation with the license holder that made them feel they weren't going to be able to do this Justice and it was going to maybe backfire on them um but then again it's like I I don't know even if it was that I wouldn't take the risk because it's Harry Potter and you're still gonna sell well four units than anything else here's my crazy thought right and I don't here's my crazy thought so the rumor was JK Rawlings doesn't like pinball because she doesn't like bars she doesn't like this so what if there was some stipulation of like I don't want these in bars well we can't control that right we can't control where they're sold so what what could you do to a pinball machine to keep it from being a location game pull the coin Max Point pull the coin mix so that's my question what if that is actually the the stipulation wood Stern pass on a license if they're not allowed to have a coin door I could see that happen and who better who better makes like jjp it's clear they like making home games I don't know I it's a crazy thought it's a thought that never crossed my mind but that's it's a crazy thought so my thought it like does that bother me no I don't like coin doors don't mean anything to me I don't care like what I still that doesn't hurt that doesn't hinder my buying yeah thought but like what does that mean like if I mean this is I don't know anything I don't know I don't know anything but it's what's been grinding on my head is why if Stern maybe Stern did lose it maybe this was a whoopsie but reality is or my thought is if Stern passed on it or if there was something in the licensor that was a barrier for stern that they couldn't meet eye to eye on what could that be and I don't know it's just a thought that that I that's come to my like what if that's the thought as you no well I'm okay with it but no coin mix I don't know it is a thought it is a thought so we will see I don't know I don't know what that means um but I think it was an interesting discussion I mean it's a it's it's plausible but I think it would have to be something different from that I don't know it would be a weird I don't know I don't know either I mean I you you look at Stern though they are all about tournaments they're all about their Stern Army they're all about their on locations locations everything and if and if Stern's saying like I know this is probably one of the biggest like oh Greg's camera went out what yes if that's the view is like this is one of the biggest licenses ever but you know what we we gotta hold to our guns we are dedicated to location play and sorry you know off to the next one I don't know but I think I would just say that there's always a reason there's got to be a reason yeah there's always a reason uh and that's all I can say about that topic that's okay there you go I don't yeah this is this is all speculation yeah and I don't I don't want to put anybody in a bad spot but um Greg you doing all right you can you hear us or did we like lose Greg I think he's here I don't know we'll see good thing you can edit this possibly possibly depends on how long and awkward the silence is I would say that that is not long enough for me to put in the time to edit it out you're good our first other Elgato no signal I love it the first oh yeah the first person hey um all right jjp check I think we can check that box um Scooby-Doo so spooky pinball spooky pinball is just pumping out games they're pumping out Scooby-Doo props that they are they're continuing to make them but um uh what I I follow their YouTube channel and and their their continuing to update uh code there's more and more code coming out um Greg you own a Scooby-Doo you have one in your house you've played the heck out of it go for it 100 since March okay I guess I picked it up um at the Louisville show um so I'm because it's not one of those games I mean it's like a lot of it's early it's very early in code um it is a long player uh you know especially For You tournament guys definitely like you you definitely need to move those posts um that left one and maybe you can even entirely remove the right post uh which you know frees it up a lot better it's I actually like the way it shoots like I don't mind the way it shoots I think it's it's not bad at all like I'm not mad at it by any means uh code is just so in its infancy still you know like all the basis is there with you know your monsters and the modes and stuff that you're gonna go through um but it's still kind of in its infancy and and I just after playing it a lot uh you know it's one honestly it's one of the most gorgeous games I've ever seen like in person when you have it in your home it's a statement piece that's what I always tell everybody it's like there is not a game in your house no matter what collection you have that looks anything like this game or that you can even honestly come close to Aesthetics with all the toys the colored wire forms just everything it's just it is gorgeous um and it just stands out but like I um it's it I just I need a little more into it than the modes you know like I equate it to something like you know I I love Deadpool I still love Deadpool and Deadpool like Zach kind of like oh Deadpool is just you know it's a little too easy I just push through it and everything and I get that but there's so many small moments in there and there's so many different things like that that's going on that it keeps you um interested you're kind of intrigued you know your dazzler pops up or you've got a team up running yeah or you know you go into mech suit multiball you've got some of these things that as you progress you kind of know to expect that kind of I don't know it gives you something to look forward to um I need a little bit of that in this game like I need something kind of unexpected that I start some little sub modes or something else that I start other than just trying to progress towards a multiball uh which the multiples are cool the locks on the apron is super awesome like I actually really like that that's really cool it's Innovative but yeah I just need I just need you need a little polish is what it sounds like yeah yeah there should need some filler some filler yeah so I think it's that's interesting because you're almost talking about hurry up modes or potential things that would distract you along the way and uh you know like I think Dwight is really good um Dwight Sullivan is really good at that um he has plenty of those some people get really frustrated by hurry up modes because they think they're interrupting what they're trying to do the bigger picture but I don't mind being pulled pulled those random directions I mean Godzilla you have a gazillion things all going or you're working towards a ton of them at the same time yes none of them interrupt you besides like a destruction jackpot like nothing interrupts you but you're always progressing and you can divert into whatever you need to get to at anything like side quest basically yeah yeah and that and that's the key to an excellent code or an excellent rule set when you have these mini side quests that are there that you don't necessarily need to focus on but can add to your overall progression but if you want to you can completely abandon whatever it was you were doing and go to something else so you you never feel in gel it never feels like a true grind it never feels like you're hitting a wall so yeah that's a key that's a great code when you just have your structured modes and you just have your modes there then it's just okay I'm out of that mode I'm just going directly into another mode and that's the only thing you can focus on where and it doesn't oh I mean like you said a lot of games will grind you this doesn't really feel grindy because the modes are so funny you kind of look forward to going into them but it does just because there's not like okay I'm just looking forward to the next mode sure like I want to be able to progress in something and experience a different experience hit me the further I go along um which I think they'll get there um because I mean I don't know Halloween is sort of structured the same way but I love Halloween um I think you guys hate Halloween though yeah so maybe that's a question if you if you had to sell one of those two right now would you get rid of Scooby Scooby so you yeah I know no offense anything but I love Halloween like I I don't know why like something when I first got I didn't think I would but I I love the modes in it um it's a little challenging for me I'm not as good as you guys it's a little challenging for me to progress through those modes but it's still doable um and I don't know man it's just something just so I don't know I love it you love Scoops is what I'm hearing you love what you love Halloween yeah you just love the ball leaving the Playfield and coming up I could do away with the the hedges over there and those like I could do away with that like yeah that's kind of wasted over there in a sense but me I don't know I like everything I kind of like the layout because we always complain you know turn up you guys are different being tournament Players but like I think you always complain for like this different layout something different something different and this difference is just different it's so different but it's still pretty smooth it still shoots well it's you know still got really good modes in it and I I think it just maybe deviates for most people just a little too far from that normal fan layout that it messes with them but okay I don't know dude I love it hey that's the best part about pinball right everybody can love what they want to love and there's so many games out there there's so many different types of games and you know uh me saying that one game's good and one's bad at my my opinion doesn't mean anything so yeah but some games click with people like I always tell people that I'm like you know there's games like walking dead I can blow I can kill Walking Dead and I'm not a real great player but it fits same thing with Godzilla I can blow up Godzilla like but for some reason like just the geometry of that game or the way it feels clicks with me but then other games that people just dominate like Batman 66 I can't play a game worth of [ __ ] like it's horrible at it I'm horrible at it no matter what strategy I I go I'm just I can't my scores are all low so it's like some of that I think has to do with you know how people like a game too if it just clicks with you and it feels good in your hands like you resonate towards that no matter who likes it or who doesn't 100 I mean I I always think of uh Game of Thrones uh Chuck work chuck chuck work uh Eric that guy loves Game of Thrones so much he made it's like six hours of YouTube videos the tutorial of that is explaining the tutorial is longer than the series yeah but that's the net some people they look at Game of Thrones I know what George Fisher Don't Panic flip streamed it like he could he could beat the game every single time like it just to him it was too easy of a game but yet the idea of the way you could tackle it and do it is what kept pulling him in so it was almost more just like they loved what Dwight did the Dwight toad they just feel as a masterpiece and and Chuck still thinks like Eric wurtenberg still is like he still puts uh Game of Thrones as one of his all-time favorite greatest games I've probably put 10 or less games on Game of Thrones I didn't care for it at all at all no it just didn't nothing shame on you it just didn't you know the the layout like there wasn't anything kinetically that was that was exciting to me and the code was so deep that it's just like I don't want to dive into that pool like I I don't have the mental capacity to handle that right now but you have a Godfather well I did but but that's here that's a there's a difference is when you have a game in your basement and you're not putting quarters in it and you can just put nothing but time into it and you can learn it maybe maybe I'll I'll backpedal and and at the end of the day game or Game of Thrones ends up being like one I maybe I agree maybe I'd be on that I would honestly say Game of Thrones is probably my favorite Dwight coded game like I I really do enjoy Game of Thrones overall I don't own one but I had one on loan for a while a couple years ago like right when the new code came out for it and it was a lot of fun I put a lot of time on it really enjoy the game well you brought up a good point Joel that I've talked about before too there's a huge difference like your mind can completely change when you own a game versus playing it in a tournament or playing it on location dropping some dollars into it or at a show like when you own some games in a home environment and just you're able to open them up a little more or just experience like I don't know there's just something different sometimes about and I've had it happen in Reverse there's games I've played online it might got me I love this and I get it home and I'm like and I mean TNA is another very uh decisive game like that where it's just like decisive divisive but I don't know it's they're I love the device I I will teach you how to speak English thank you for yes it is I love I was waiting for somebody else there's only three hammers me all the time so this is excellent got him I said the wrong word you just say words wrong like that this isn't about me Joel so TNA it's like some people are like why why would anybody love that game you're doing the same thing over and over nine times like they just they but I don't I don't I mean I get it that's what's different it's a simple layout but some people they need all the mechanical mechs they they need the most complex thing ever for them to like a pinball machine other people give me something simple but really challenging I mean that's what's great about pinball pinball is very unique though that in which it's very much repetition based you're you're playing the same modes you're doing the same layout and you might see some deviation just from the physical movement of the ball sure and that's about it otherwise you're you're very much getting into the repetition and we're all creatures of habit once you blow up a game it's very difficult to all of a sudden try a different strategy because you're like okay now I know how to get through to the end part of the game or whatever and you kind of you tend to keep doing that you go the same path yeah right and so I think having a game at home it allows you to explore a little bit more and it's very difficult for the majority of pinball players to go out on location and drop quarters into something with the idea that they're going to explore the game for a long period of time you know you might do that if you're considering buying it and you just happen to need to do it but you know if I'm playing a game and it's brand new to me I'm not necessarily thinking about just exploring everything about the game I just want to know how how do I light my modes how do I get a multiball and then I try to figure things out right it's the tournament yeah I think I even had that mindset before I even start playing tournaments well because it's almost like I want to try out the different shots like if I'm at a show then I don't care about the roles at all I just want to try out the different shots I want to see how how it feels how it shoots and that's really my goal overall if I'm playing a game for the very first time is to figure that part out and I can see how that's difficult for a lot of people to do if they're dropping coin drop in to explore a game and it's just much easier if you get a game at your house and you're not having to worry about it you can take the glass off you could hit some switches you could set your ball to 5K or you could set your game to five ball or ten ball which I actually encourage a lot of people to do if you're first trying to get used to a game like why not set it there so you can kind of see some stuff and you could always just you know erase the scores afterwards I think that's a good way to kind of explore your pin and get used to the nuances of it early on well to to pull it back to Scooby um sorry no no no you're no and this is this is how this [ __ ] your Scoobies to ten balls this is how that show works we just go where the conversation goes um Scooby uh a buddy of mine Derek got his and I had a chance to see his um and I will say I agree with you it is it is a beautiful game the presentation of the game is exceptional in every way and I played two games real quick when I was over at his house and I had more fun playing those than I did at the show I mean actually hearing the game it shot a lot better than at the show so I don't know if that's just like you know uh better stronger flippers I don't know like the game actually felt kind of fast the way like if you're not paying attention on that upper flipper with the bookshelf or the bookcase flipper yeah that ball goes whizzing by right back to your left flipper so it's like okay this actually has some you know this is kind of a unique thing you got to pay attention here the upper Playfield wasn't nearly as floaty as it felt like in tpf um and it can create some more challenging shots and I was just saying I mean the light show is is really impressive and I think they do they do a good job of making this the modes a storytelling type experience you know yes instead of just hit lit shots it's like no you have to do this and then do this and that's why and this guy's chasing you and this or that I mean because if you hit these one shots then it shows uh Footprints like yep and that's the wrong shot or whatever you need to track down a picture and all kinds like it is that's what I'm saying the modes are really good it has some really great great aspects and you know back to that upper Playfield it's probably one of my upper favorite upper playfields ever um you know that that bookcase the way that it interacts and hit that well you know you just can't necessarily trap up because if you do then it's gonna hit It's Gonna Knock the ball across the Playfield um which adds a little bit Dynamic and sometimes you have to utilize that because like during Black Knight there's a sling up there that you have to him to engage it and so it's kind of hard and difficult to gauge and even get enough power off of that to smack that shot and light it and then even hitting down those ramps hitting the the you know the little alleys there to go down the ramps is it's kind of difficult sometimes when you need those shots um yeah I mean it's I don't it's cool it's like theme integration is superb on it like yeah you know like I said with the clips and everything are amazing they have a lot of time left they're still making them so yes that's my only thing with with um spooky my only little concern is like I don't really know how much time they're putting into Ultraman or Halloween code at this point I I would assume they've they've moved most of if most of their folks I know they hired that one guy so maybe he's still focused on Halloween I thought he was going to be focused I thought they said something and I'd have to con you know I'd have to confirm with them but I thought that they said something they hired that guy just to keep working on it for like the next year yeah so I hope they're still chugging away at it because nobody wants that nobody right I mean Stern's been accused of that of before and I mean people still complain about Pirates Caribbean with jjp like it doesn't have the final wizard mode well how many of you how many of you have been anywhere near it you know yeah so I I hope that that that gets flushed out I'm glad you're enjoying Halloween my my my issues with Halloween were the first I don't know four or five versions I played I just kept getting so many Center Center ramp rejects that I'm like I can't see the code because I can't shoot the game so if you have a game that shoots well that's awesome I I've not experienced that with Scooby like at least I'm I'm not I'm not experiencing any mechanical issues so it's like okay they've got a solid base here with a unique and creative layout so if they go nuts with the code and make something that's really enjoyable and fun to explore you know and people complain that the multiball song was dumb so they put in a new song that you can change yes you know the fact that they're responding to people I you know shout out to bug and lose they're super responsive to people you know like since bugging them took it over like they've been super responsive I feel to to people you know sometimes might be too good because they might be listening to the wrong people but sometimes you know there's a pretty responsive to you know what people are wanting what people are looking for and the criticism people have you know I don't I don't think that they take it like a lot of people wouldn't take it as you know take offense to it they look at it and go okay this is something that maybe we do see too and we need correcting because enough people are saying so let's fix it because we want we want our games to be the best one they can be yeah yeah and I think they're solid about that because I mean I'm not hearing too many other than the ease like it's just a great it's a great family fan it's one of those things like what you talked about it's like grades that you can put in the house that is still fun for you to play you might run through it pretty quick but the entire family anybody comes over and get on it and enjoy it like yeah my only kind of thing mechanical is I think that damn ball lock up there with the um I don't know if you experienced that Joel when you were playing with his just the time you know it's like a double Mech up there by that van yeah and it has to shoot you know it shoots it up and then it holds it and then another coil has to shoot it out yeah um and I wish there was something up there where it was holding a ball and kept a ball up there ready so you do it's not a killer you know I talked about like what we first did First Impressions it's definitely not a killer but it's just it just slows it down yeah I wish there was a little bit of more speed there that I could I could skip yeah no I don't blame you um what I'm hearing here is that this pin is my way back into my twins lives it could possibly be I did really like it I I have no doubt that my kids would like that game um I have no doubt but yeah that's just a never-ending challenge of are you building your collection are you trying to build one for your family what are you doing I don't know blah blah we know what Travis when my kids start paying the bills I'll start listening to them more yeah so yeah Scooby's uh yeah I I'm I'm glad that Scooby is it seems like it's it's improved like it's continuing to get better which is which is cool because I think some of the issues that I had at least with Halloween and Ultraman were things they really can't fix so it just it just kept going but I mean I know I played a version at uh what was it clean that that actually played really well or was Cincinnati one of those um so I do know there that there are games out there that you can tweaking really well and that's what I think like we talked to Zach's I think when we were there for the the awards uh we had talked about that about how you kind of hated that center around I was like mine shoots perfect like and I guess that's you know that can definitely affect your thoughts on it and if you can't really explode you're saying I give up I'm done oh 100 I there's so many I mean Stern even has games where the same thing happened with Avengers and the Captain Marvel ramp to where people had to make a lot of adjustments to it so and then same thing happens with the rush Loop if it doesn't register there's a lot of people that are upset about that and there there had to be aftermarket mods for that so yeah it's not just a spooky thing it's definitely it happens across the board but you guys did hit the nail on the head earlier what I really like about spooky is that they are responsive to critiques they are responsive to feedback and I think that's the sign of a company that's going the right direction when they're able to do that and they're able to Pivot like that and they're able to just kind of it's almost like a live service game nearly to where they're able to make those changes that appease as the customer base that you know to flesh out the product a little bit more of the item a little bit more so I think that's definitely a good thing on their part sure I think they're always progressing I think everything they do they're getting better and better with every single game like I think build quality like I never had a problem with my Halloween I got real lucky with my Halloween I guess because I know there was just certain fitment issues and different things that would go on nothing major with people but they were still just issues that they had um maybe more a little bit of quality control stuff but as far as I know spooky was very quick to remedy those and help people but with this like I haven't really heard too many people other than maybe some lighting issues with the top or like I don't think that there's really been any big problems that I've heard people complain about with this I think build quality is a lot better and they've kind of focused on that with this game good on them and I know it's a whole new board set in there and people are like what do you mean so I haven't heard any issues with that so it sounds like they're yeah it sounds like things are headed in the right direction which is awesome so we'll we'll continue to watch that um and pretty much everybody else is kind of uh we're in a waiting game uh which is surprising American pinball with Galactic tank force I didn't expect us to be in a waiting game but it just doesn't seem like there are many out there um a bunch on location I mean they've had to make some fixes apparently add magnetized balls which is one of the reasons the the lock wasn't working they've worked on the tank I don't know I was I was so on the hype train for that just because I love the the thought of it um I still love the way the game looks but I don't know I don't know where they go from here I hope I hope I'd say just give it a few months because they're they're fixing the targets with what it is and I'm sure the same way the code will mature even more based on the feedback that they get so I'm interested to see where that game goes in the next couple of months yeah but I know that and you know they got to get them out there right but for the most part you know there's some tweaks and stuff with Houdini but for the most part their games have all been pretty solid and their manufacturing have has been insane like you know you saw very few Houdini's that ever broke down or you ever had any issues with man and they're manufacturing I mean they were getting games not granted at that time you know through Hot Wheels or anything it wasn't like there was mass you know back to when we were first talking about demand and stuff you know it's a little better but they still to figure out that manufacturing and that to get it rolling like they did I think people don't credit them enough for what they were able to accomplish early on and start getting games out so like I kind of hate to see the this far in that they've kind of come up with some issues and different things that are holding them back for once yeah well I hope yeah I hope once they can get through those issues they can figure it out they can make a nice reliable game and then they can just continue to flesh out the game and um yeah we'll have to see on that apparently apparently uh Dave fix said they're like uh certain bars it's out the galactic hearing force is outperforming Foo Fighters so I don't know I don't know what bar that is but uh but yeah we will we'll see on that um so that's American uh what else we got haggis is still chugging right along opposing apparently they're supposed to announce their next game sometime soon which is interesting because I think they still have a lot of fathoms left I could I could be wrong on that um whatever there's punny Factory we had mention that heck so we mentioned that pinball Brothers with Queen uh Dutch pinball still making Big Lebowski I mean everybody else cgc cgc I'll tell you I'm waiting for an SE plus it's weird I I don't like this waiting game but at the same time I can't feel bad because there are Le buyers that have been waiting a year and a half and still I think we're in the 700s out of 1250 I think it's 1250 or maybe it's 1500. they got a lot they got a lot more to go I just hope they get everything together because I'm ready for Pulp Fiction yeah it's creeping up faster October seemed forever ago and now it's like October seems right around the corner sort of thing so like I hope that they get it all together I don't know professionally what's the smart decision do you slow down your Cactus Canyon production and try to do two lines and start on Pulp Fiction to help or do you do you know do you prioritize the people that have paid money I'm not sure they have two separate lines for it well pretty sure they will yeah I think so I don't know as an Le buyer of cactus 90 sure there's going to be two separate lines for it because with them announcing or saying hey here's when Pulp Fiction's coming right we see the Cadence that Cactus Canyon's coming out now it's like those two timelines are kind of gonna intersect each other I think the last thing they want to do is start pushing Pulp Fiction like off because they announced it so early yeah and the last thing you want do is that because then you're running a massive risk because we know whose next game is coming up pretty soon and like why would you want to release anything around that uh for the listeners that are scratching their heads Travis is talking about Keith Owens game which would which is is rumored to be into the year like very end of the year uh early next year and yeah I don't think anybody wants to wants to release why would you like why would you it's like trying to do trying to go up against an Avengers movie event like yeah you know what I mean I mean you might win some awards off to the side but who's your box off is going to be any good no probably not so that's a little bit tough to do but my here's my worry with pinball with right now because we're naming off so many different companies and there's so many games I'm kind of curious to see if we're going to hit that saturation Point anytime soon like I'm very curious because it just seems like there's a new there's a new manufacturer and then yeah and then the one balls one yeah I mean there's so many coming out and then the current manufacturers they're actually producing more than one game like jjp's trying to up their Cadence I you know American pinball they're trying to up their Cadence you just mentioned haggis doing the same thing cgc with two separate games I mean it's kind of it makes me curious to see where pinball is going to go from this fall like Summer's always a slow time regardless because people getting outside it's just how it is but I'm very curious to see what happens come quarter three quarter four I I think we're gonna see a lot more of what what we currently are seeing which is very hot and cold I mean there's going to be games where you cannot we are nowhere near meet and demand and then a lot of games are like they just don't sell they don't I think at this point you got to come out with bangers at this point either we're stirring with a new facility they're going to be producing more games I mean you you got to be bringing your best every single time well the last thing I wanted to chat about was um and I think it's Unique because of the the two of you who you are um you guys both that you guys are both uh official chills at this point you both work for pinball companies right so you're not allowed to say anything negative right that that any any time that you say something negative Travis about a pinball machine you're keeping food out of your children's mouths oh yeah you're definitely not safe anything negative about the Godzilla topper we definitely did not yeah see like the stern snipers give me right now just the opposite like there is there is no winning in our position because yeah like if you talk too good about something you're literally just chilling you can't like anything you can't thoroughly enjoy anything because if you do you're just trying to sell it that's all you're doing is trying to sell this yeah you can't have it you can't have an opinion on something that may go against the norm because at that point you're just you're Win Schilling the [ __ ] out of them that you're done just to clarify the only reason you like Halloween Greg is because you have a lot on the shelf and you have to sell them and that's your response we have an entire Warehouse full for Halloween yeah that we just have to move and and you're allowed to lose your home because you can't sell them at a discount yeah so I have to talk about how amazing that haters game is to sell the hell out of them yeah please please I have children no um but okay but being that you now both have seen behind the curtain I'm curious what like what surprises you about that being on the other side what what weren't you prepared for um and and I know like one thing Travis I know you said many many times is pinball is way bigger than people give people assume I don't to go from just assuming it's the pinball the pin side Loyalists and a few extra like you're saying no the pinball audience is way bigger than what we well I I just go back to this it's like how many people out there listening play video games for instance right like that may be one of your Main Hobbies that you do on a near daily basis okay how many Expos do you go to for that often are you posting online about video games probably a lot of people say well no I don't do that so yeah I think that the ones that see the Expos and they see like Facebook and pinside that they think that that's everything and it's it's not it's still a section of it but yeah I mean there's just a lot of people that know about pinball just take uh like Stern Pinball put something up on Facebook the other day where I think it was an actor like Jason uh sedakis from Saturday Night Live and Ted lasso and he was talking about pinball on there and he's been to have a few pinball machines so yeah no he's a huge jjp fan that's what like on Ted lasso he showed off uh uh Wizard of Oz a lot of times yeah yeah exactly it's just it's just much larger but honestly it's not that that shocked me what shocks me is just I think the biggest surprise for me is when you get somebody that's very casual the pinball or brand new right you assume that they don't know some things which is perfectly fine but then there's just some things that are just so off the wall that you're just like I don't know how you didn't know that like for instance we had somebody get a machine and for like a week they were like it can't it doesn't come on like okay you know you start going through everything well is it the boards is it this is it that and you don't want to be like condescending and you don't want to be rude and make assumptions but finally I was just like okay do you you know where the start button is like oh yeah yeah I'm like is it plugged in it was not plugged in at all they'd even bother putting it there so it's just like it happens and that's literally what mine was going to be I I took for granted um how many new people are in pinball that don't experience pinball and it's like you said it's very hard because we're knowledgeable you don't have to be the most knowledgeable but to the same thing I had somebody come in and they were like oh this ramp's all screwed up I need this this ramp is messed up it it doesn't work right well all that had happened was the screw came loose on the post and the ramp the metal the wire guide it it shifted the metal ramp shifted a little bit I was like all you have to do is put that back over the in lane and tighten that screw down and they were like oh yeah okay I can do that I'm like it's a if you can work a screwdriver you're good yeah but you know they were terrified the broken rubber calls as well oh yeah my flipper rubber broke what do I do it's like stop flipping like don't don't blow anymore yes yeah I mean we've had that we've had some that have had a ball stuck in which they it just scared him to death they take the glass out you know and it's just it's those little things that like Greg said we take for granted because we're used to it it's like second nature it's like a broken bulb that popped out of a spotlight and it got banged around didn't work and I was like it's a damn bulb but then again like if somebody that's new to they don't have a stock of comet pinball bulbs or bulbs laying around like most of us do so it's one of those things you gotta you gotta pull it back a little bit and go okay if I was brand new I never owned this thing in my life like what do I do because like when I very first the lost world was my very first machine I never was in the pimples what got me into pinball never thought about pinball and when I got it home played it for like two days half my GI went out and I was like uh what is this and you know I called the guy got it for me he kind of talked to me like I was stupid a little bit um Joe you probably know who it is um from your area and uh and he was like well did you uh you know did you lift the place or look it was lift no look in the bat box and I was like there's [ __ ] in the backbox like yeah yeah yeah what are you talking about like you know and all it was was like a little relay thing and I had to tap on it and then you know that clicks your GI you know you hear it in the older games like a white stars like click click click and GI would flash well that was just stuck and that's all it was but I had no idea there was the board set and everything in the back I thought everything was under the Playfield that he had showed me and you know going back I didn't know how to remove a bulb first time I had to remove a bulb I tried to pull it out and like I didn't know you had to push down and turn yeah like I was like it won't unscrew I'll just pluck it out maybe it's like a wedge but it wasn't you know and I broke the top off so yeah you gotta you go back to those days like you just gotta think you know put yourself in their shoes again back when we all started but it is it's fascinating I remember when I bought uh I had bought I bought an Avatar Avatar pinball machine and that was the first like real Pim uh it was actually yeah I had bought one other one but it was anyways that was the first one I really bought and I show up there and this family had owned it for years and I remember thinking I'd read everything online what do you do when you're buying your game and they're like well check the boards on the back and I remember getting there and I'm like crap how do I get the back glass off and here I am I literally pull up my phone on a YouTube like pinball back last removal and what I was oh okay and then the lockdown bar though that they showed in that video had the lever but this was a Stern that had the latches so I'm like remove Stern lockdown bar like Googling that yeah so I take that off and then slide the glass off and they're like I didn't know you could do that you know and then I get the key out and take the bag they're like well you know they're blown it's like this has been here in your house for four years no idea do you guys deal with that every day we've we've had people call that literally they've left their game off for over a year because it has a ball stuck and they didn't know how to remove the glass I have no clue how they got a game in their house because I mean and Greg will tell you this so you'll get calls from people that don't even buy from you and then they'll just yes they'll have a lot of questions so we hear it like everywhere I my most favorite one was somebody had said that their Jurassic Park was malfunctioning and so their malfunction was and you guys can suss this out quick their malfunction was is that multiple balls were getting kicked out onto the Playfield gearing the game not before they plunged during the game so they didn't know there's multiball they had no idea like they were just like my game malfunction it does the way that they described it it doesn't happen every game but sometimes it'll just randomly throw out balls into the Playfield and that's when we finally sussed it out and they walked us through it it's like sure as [ __ ] like you've got a multiball bro excellent your game's not broken you're not broken keep playing yeah like you're fine I think the hardest thing though is too like like people that are new to pinball and don't know pinball they get very frustrated or they think that something is very wrong it's like well I found a couple extra screws in there or this I had to adjust this I had to mess with this and you tried to it's such a hard thing to try to explain to them this is part of pinball without making them feel that everything is just defective and gonna fall apart on them yeah so it's a very that's that's probably like the toughest thing dealing with that is just trying to be you know educating them on pinball but at the same time not scare them away from pinball because you do you have to adjust stuff on a lot of games some games I've got that are perfect and in some games I've got to pull a few things off been a you know a ball guide or do something with it and you know when you go doing something to people that they're not accustomed to that they buy a car they expect everything to be perfect they buy a coffee pot it works um involves just a little different or they play you know 50 plays on it and something goes awry that they need to fix like that's that's the only like difficult part of it is you know walking that tightrope with with people yeah no that's good to know I mean I would assume everybody that's listening to this podcast probably finds the humor in that nobody nobody listened to a pinball podcast that probably well maybe that's not that's an unfair assumption yeah I would assume the majority of people that listen to this podcast know how to do those simple things and if you don't there's great tutorial videos on YouTube I'll tell you something and this this is what I found a little surprising too is there are people there are two kinds of people basically in pinball when it comes to something and these this isn't just new pinball people that's never owned a game before this is some people that I know very well and there are two kinds of people when something goes wrong there's people that jump in and they're immediately ready to try to diagnose it fix it get you on the phone you know even if you're needing help because they just don't have the knowledge but they'll they'll jump in there and work through stuff and find stuff and then there's the people that just absolutely refuse to touch anything and that you've got to get attack out to them because they just will not take that initiative to pick up a screwdriver and do the simplest of tasks and then I I had one guy I don't want to talk about the game just to give too much away but there was an older gentleman in his 70s that bought a specific game and there was an issue with a bracket and a whole Mech well by the time I got that guy back on the phone trying to diagnose what it was he done took it out to his Workshop drilled out holes bigger did all this stuff got it working like figured out never owned a pinball machine in his life man it was already like whoa slow down like you can sometimes take it a little too far like yeah yeah but I mean you know there's that that balance of people and like I said some sometimes it's pinball people that are you know into the hobby quite a bit but when it comes to actually working or diagnosing something with their game they're just at a loss and they're not they don't want to jump in yeah they're just terrified too yeah this would be the wrong Hobby in my mind if I I think if you own a pinball machine you either need to learn to fix it or you need to be ready to pay somebody to come fix it I agree because it's gonna Something's Gonna Break Ball's gonna get stuck your ball's gonna come out Something's Gonna Break and yeah that's there's a reason why I have a little tool bag that's that sits under my pin I think most people do with this hobby right there it's just intimidating for people sure like most stuff is fairly simple especially with Sterns most everything running through node boards and everything is everything is pretty damn simple most of their mechs are very simple you know there's stuff that once you start to really learn it and you get accustomed to that particular manufacturer you know it it the Simplicity of you know it's not like when you had board sets you need to pull off and resolder a transistor or anything on you know on white stars or anything else or any of the you know other games the spikes in all the modern games it's either you replace a damn board because the board's bad or it's something else small that a wire popped off or something you can do um you know I don't I don't know I'm I'm not terrified I mean I guess because I've done most up for so long but you're yeah it's simpler than people think a Stern game you're going to be grabbing a screwdriver before you grab uh anything yeah a lot of the older games I agree it was like something's up switch nuts working yep that Old Wire because it's 30 plus years or whatever it is pops off like soldering iron is normally involved but a newer game nah it's going to be it's going to be a screwdriver with most optos and everything else there's all Molex going to most things so it's like you know you just unplug that again screwdriver you replace that and plug it back in and you're good to go um so yeah it's it's different yeah well cool well I think that's I don't know is there anything else you guys wanted to mention or talk or uh no I mean we could go on a full soapbox dealing with the difficult customers if you want us to but we probably need to keep that one private definitely there's a lot of that similarity of just did you try clicking that did you try restarting that did you try this and then the others where they're like it's just like can you just we can well sometimes like because Travis I don't know if you like for whatever reason I still can't explain it sometimes just reseating a connection like unplug it plug it back in works and you know it's probably like a 30 chance that it's gonna work and to tell people that they think you're ridiculous yeah or you know you got to switch this going off somewhere in opto and you say okay I need you to bang around on the Playfield take your fist hit the Playfield see what switch why am I hitting the like they will talk to you like you're just the dumbest person because it's so simple yeah you know and I think they expect something more and so you know most things are pretty damn simple we can digest pretty quick just bear with me you just you just gotta remind them what they did with their Nintendos when they were kids yeah we all blew in the cartridge yeah basically the equivalent to that at this point speaking of plug-in things in we should probably wrap it up and go ahead and do plugs so uh Greg feel free plug away whatever you got um yeah go for it yeah visit uh flipping out pinball flip letter N Out pinball.com uh check out me and Zach on straight down the middle uh we're on YouTube uh our Facebook yeah we do a little bit on but mainly YouTube uh we got a couple of episodes uh that should be coming out soon I think we're recording some fresh stuff next week so uh that's always exciting and fun get a little bit of stuff off my chest and talk about some games even further yeah even after you guys um and then we might have some other big new things coming up that we can't talk about yet awesome that rubber band collector right that's the that's the other band ball yeah yeah and for the uh you know this incredibly small demographic that we have if you live in Southern Indiana reach out to Zach and uh sorry reach out to Greg and work with him on buying or selling a house right isn't that yeah definitely yes yes it's a realtor if you're in the area hey I've sold and bought a lot of pinball people and I give great pinball gifts just ask anybody I gave a guy a hobbit Playfield one time that bought a house nice for me like I give amazing closing gifts to my pinball friends so not not to talk it up too much but you know it's uh I'm pretty generous to my pinball friends when they buy a house but you're I'm assuming you're only licensed in Indiana or is that yeah in Indiana yeah yeah but I've got great for girls in Kentucky so if you're in Kentucky awesome awesome well Greg thank you so much for being on man yeah thank you guys for having me man great time I knew you wanted to talk about tournaments and I'm sorry I know I'm disappointed now yeah uh Travis plug away man yeah you guys can find me right here on the uh triple train pinball podcast with uh with Greg bone and Tom Graf yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh replace Joel congrats Joel yeah he was just too mean he's got a good beard he could do it yeah he does has an excellent beard yeah uh and yeah I'm Joel I do the flipping out stream every Wednesday night from 10 to midnight Eastern Standard Time check us out there otherwise uh we sold some lunchboxes so zazzle.com if you check that out and go to Triple drain we actually sold some lunch boxes somebody bought a golf towel I'm just saying uh and what I didn't realize is you can edit the design and so there was a guy that actually took the design and by editing the design you can change products so he made like a triple drain frisbee he made like you can do whatever you want so we have a triple drain frisbee I don't have a link to it but he took one of our designs edited it changed the product to a Frisbee and we have it we definitely need to penetrate the frisbee golf industry man now it's our Channel Market yeah um so we got some stuff there obviously silver ball swag check that out and then thank you to all the patreon supporters we really appreciate you guys we have some stuff in the works with YouTube so I know currently all these things are on the the pinball network uh on the YouTube channel but believe it or not we have a triple drain YouTube channel and I think we're going to start doing just some shorts and stuff like that so if you can't get enough of us feel free to subscribe to the YouTube channel there for just some additional extra content but um normally Tom gets the last words but you know what I I think uh Greg I'm gonna give them to you so uh oh do not put that pressure on me foreign
“if they did the current Godzilla it's like serious yeah yeah it wouldn't be a mirror as well received as it is now”
Joel@ 23:36 — Discusses Stern's strategic decision to embrace campy 80s aesthetic for Godzilla rather than modern tone
“we're still doing like there are people that still don't have their Godzilla premiums and they ordered them a long time ago Foo Fighters it's like having to add more and more runs and shift things around”
Joel@ 15:50 — Concrete evidence of manufacturing bottleneck despite high demand
“it's a good problem to have right it's a good problem when you weigh outsell what you're expecting to do it's a good problem to have but um yeah we're seeing a lot of that”
Joel@ 16:16 — Acknowledges demand outpacing supply as positive but operational challenge
product_strategy: Stern positioned Godzilla topper at ~$1,000, marketed as cheaper alternative to previous toppers like Mandalorian; community appears appreciative of cost optimization while acknowledging toppers remain expensive discretionary purchase
high · Greg: 'it's a bit cheaper than what we went with Mandalorian and everything else' and 'it's funny that we're yeah it's funny that a thousand dollars is something to be excited about right'
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design_philosophy: Stern deliberately chose campy, 80s aesthetic for Godzilla rather than modern/serious tone; strategic decision credited with universal appeal and theme conversion of non-fans
high · Joel: 'if they did the current Godzilla it's like serious yeah yeah it wouldn't be a mirror as well received as it is now' and Greg noting campiness appeals even to his three-year-old son
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gameplay_signal: James Bond receiving recent code updates that observers believe will improve long-term sales trajectory; contrast with Godzilla and Foo Fighters which launched with strong code; suggests code updates can resurrect struggling titles
medium · Greg: 'I think you know there was you know a decently recent code update I think bond to me is going just because I actually like the way it shoots' and broader discussion of code as secondary to theme/layout/artwork in driving initial sales
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product_concern: Consensus skepticism about new pinball manufacturers entering market, particularly overseas/unlicensed operations like Hexa Pinball; risk factors include: unlicensed theme, overseas manufacturing unknown variables, lack of established reputation, difficulty obtaining major IP licensing
high · Greg: 'my view at least on on brand new manufacturers are it's just the bar is put So High by these other companies' and discussion of how Hexa's French origin and unlicensed theme create structural disadvantage vs. Stern/JJP/Spooky
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gameplay_signal: Industry consensus framework: Theme + Layout + Artwork drive initial sales visibility; Code quality determines 3-6 month sales trajectory and secondary market appeal. Layout and art can overcome weak theme if gameplay exceptional (Godzilla, Iron Maiden examples)
high · Joel: 'one of the things that you can do to kind of get a glimpse of if a game's gonna be a decent seller or not it's basically three variables are involved in it it's gonna be theme it's going to be is the layout Dynamic looking... how's the artwork'
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manufacturing_signal: Small/startup manufacturers (Pinball Adventures claimed) may experience manufacturing as 'easiest part' due to low-volume production; established manufacturers like Stern experience manufacturing as critical bottleneck due to scale demands
medium · Greg discussing Pinball Adventures owner's claim on DPP that 'manufacturing the games is the easiest part' vs. supply chain realities for Stern, JJP, CGC facing production scaling challenges
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licensing_signal: Established manufacturers (Stern, JJP, Spooky) have structural advantage in securing major IP licensing; new entrants forced to pursue unlicensed originals (like Hexa) which significantly reduces market appeal and buyer confidence
high · Greg: 'the three manufacturers that you listed off right yeah Stern Jersey Jack spooky all three of them what they're very good at at this current time is getting themes' and discussion of how new manufacturers adding unknown variables on top of unlicensed theme creates compounded risk
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market_signal: Clear bifurcation emerging: high-demand games (Godzilla, Foo Fighters) rapidly resell and maintain value; lower-performing games accumulate on dealer shelves creating inventory management crisis; few middle-ground titles
high · Joel: 'I just feel like it's either one or the other right it's either a huge hit or manufacturers can't sell them or Distributors have a bunch and they're on the shelf and they're just sitting it's one or the other'