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Pinball FX Feb 16 Launch Details

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 10m·analyzed·Feb 6, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Zen Pinball FX launches Feb 16 with 86+ tables; hosts detail content lineup and clarify cross-platform migration process.

Summary

Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan discuss the February 16 launch of Zen's Pinball FX across PlayStation and Xbox consoles, exiting early access from Epic Games Store. They detail 86+ tables available at launch, including new exclusives (The The Addams Family, Borderlands, Brothers in Arms), Williams classics, and Star Wars/Universal licenses. They clarify the Founders Form process for migrating purchases from Epic to other platforms by May 5 deadline, and discuss Zen's challenges in satisfying community expectations around pricing and platform transfers.

Key Claims

  • Pinball FX will launch on February 16, 2024 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S

    high confidence · Chris Friebus, BlahCade podcast host, opening the main topic segment

  • There will be 86+ pinball tables available at launch

    high confidence · Chris Friebus, calculated from detailed table listings provided throughout the episode

  • Pinball FX is exiting early access from Epic Games Store on February 16, but will remain exclusive to Epic on PC for one year from March 2023 launch

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing Epic Games Store exclusivity window and Steam release timing

  • The Founders Form deadline for migrating purchased tables from Epic Games Store to a platform of choice is May 5

    high confidence · Chris reading directly from Zen's official response about Founders Form eligibility

  • The The Addams Family, Borderlands/Gearbox pack, and Brothers in Arms are launch day tables, not early access content

    high confidence · Chris clarifying official Zen statement about which tables qualify for Founders Form transfer

  • Walking Dead and Portal tables will not be included in Pinball FX due to licensing issues

    high confidence · Chris and Jared confirming these two tables are permanently excluded; 'ship has sailed' for licensing

  • There will be 11 Marvel tables available at launch in the Marvel pack

    medium confidence · Chris stating 'I have confirmed there's going to be a marvel pack of 11 tables' but acknowledges not knowing which specific 11

  • Fishtails is the last remaining Williams table that has not been released in previous Zen Pinball versions

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing Fishtails as the final unreleased Williams table; expected to be free like Sorcerer's Lair

Notable Quotes

  • “80-plus tables, folks.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~15:00 — Emphasizes the massive content lineup at launch

  • “It's almost like oh I feel like I'm halfway through the movie already with all this stuff that I've got to like choose what to play”

    Jared Morgan @ ~50:00 — Captures the overwhelming abundance of choice for new console players

  • “Zen was in a no-win situation because they literally did the thing that all those very people were screaming about and then the people screamed”

    Chris Friebus @ ~75:00 — Highlights the paradox of community feedback where any decision satisfies only some players

  • “Can confirm that purchases like the Adams family or the Gearbox pack made on Epic after the early access will be eligible for that one platform transfer.”

    Chris Frebus (quoting Zen's official response) @ ~65:00 — Clarifies critical policy about which purchases transfer between platforms

  • “I think that ship has sailed. Yeah. I think, yeah.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~72:00 — Confirms Walking Dead and Portal tables will not return due to licensing expiration

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyPinball FXproductEpic Games StorecompanyBlahCade Pinball PodcastorganizationThe Addams FamilygameBorderlandsgameBrothers in Armsgame

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Pinball FX exiting early access and launching across PlayStation 4/5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 16 with 86+ tables

    high · Chris and Jared provide detailed table listings and launch date confirmation from official Zen communication

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen maintaining Epic Games Store exclusivity for PC for one-year period from March 2023 launch; Steam release timing remains undetermined

    high · Chris states 'Epic Games Store came out for early access in March. Last year...They have a year exclusivity. Give it that time. I wonder when we might see the Steam release.'

  • $

    market_signal: Zen introducing Founders Form to allow early access players to migrate all purchases to single platform of choice (PlayStation, Xbox, or future PC platforms) by May 5 deadline

    high · Chris provides detailed explanation of form process and direct quote from Zen's official response about transfer eligibility

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Walking Dead and Portal tables permanently removed from Pinball FX due to expired licensing; no expected return

    high · Chris: 'The only thing that we're not getting, we're not getting Walking Dead, we're not getting Portal... I really don't think that they're going to come back. I really don't.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Reddit community criticism regarding per-system purchases conflicts with Zen's decision to implement cross-platform transfer, creating no-win perception

    medium · Chris discusses Reddit threads showing community frustration with platform pricing, noting 'they literally did the thing that all those very people were screaming about and then the people screamed'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.212

0:00
Blockade Pinball Podcast This is the Blockade Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, aka Shut Your Trap. Joining me, as always, halfway across the world, is Jared Morgan.
0:36
Hey, everyone. How you going? Alrighty Things are moving along We actually had rain in California Go figure Oh that's nice That would be nice It happens on occasion On occasion Wow that's good Well we've had plenty of that here We've probably had too much of it Most of There's a big river running through Australia called the Murray River And there was a lot of rain Upstream of that river and it's pretty much flooded two states as it ran through both states and you know the size of the states in australia are not small so you can imagine that that's pretty much widespread disaster along the length of the river so hooray it was good like these these towns a little bit like um um the some of the southern states in the u.s where they have levees and stuff like that and even some of those were breached because there was so much rain and so much water traveling down this river. So, yeah, we wish we could send it over your way, you know, to fill up your – because I've seen the dams and stuff. Well, I mean, I'm sure that you guys have plenty of drought in Australia in certain portions that could definitely use that rain instead, so.
1:52
Yeah. Well, I've just seen the state of some of your reservoirs over there and dams. Oh, California's abysmal.
1:59
It's just like, what water? What dam? I shouldn't say California. It's, yeah, California, Utah, Colorado.
2:07
Walking Dead
game
Portalgame
Fishtailsgame
Medieval Madnessgame
Attack from Marsgame
Jurassic Parkgame
Star Wars (Zen Pinball)game
Marvel (Zen Pinball)game
Sorcerer's Lairgame
Founders Formproduct
PlayStationcompany
Xboxcompany
The Last of Usgame
  • ?

    business_signal: Zen planning post-launch content cadence with monthly pack releases; Marvel 11-table pack confirmed but specific titles unannounced

    medium · Jared: 'give it a month i reckon new pack a month after the main platform goes live' and Chris confirming Marvel pack with unknown composition

  • ?

    product_concern: Achievement/collectible shelf interface limitations preventing optimal placement of items; cursor navigation issues in man cave customization

    medium · Chris reports inability to place more than one item per shelf row despite Star Wars VR allowing three items per row; cursor navigation not intuitive

  • ?

    product_concern: Achievement sync issues between Epic press build and production build causing temporary achievement loss until manual reinitiation

    medium · Chris: 'when you switch back to the production version of the game all your achievements are lost until you go into the table play a game and then they start loading back up again'

  • ?

    announcement: 86+ pinball tables confirmed for Pinball FX launch including 20 Zen originals, ~30 Williams tables, 20+ Star Wars tables, 11 Marvel tables, and Universal/other licenses

    high · Chris provides detailed multi-page table listing breakdown with specific IP categorization

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Pinball tables require active licensing agreements; Walking Dead and Portal tables indicate licensing agreements expired with no renewal

    high · Chris and Jared confirm these two IP licenses expired and 'ship has sailed' for renewal

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade podcast providing detailed community-facing information about Pinball FX launch instead of formal Zen press event (24-hour marathon mentioned as alternative)

    medium · Chris: 'information that we've come across and they're happy for us to talk about... instead i believe they're doing a 24-hour marathon pinball play thing'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen planning rapid post-launch content releases to capitalize on console launch momentum; additional content packs queued for 1-2 months after February 16

    medium · Jared: 'they're ready to go probably a month or two after the release... give it a month i reckon new pack a month after the main platform goes live'

    • Everything is ruined because there's no snow. No snow melt. Well, and you know, there's also more people trying to use the water.
    2:15
    Yeah, that's right. And not enough rain or anything. So something's got to give. Something's got to give or guess what? The quarter steps are going to get us. Have you been watching Last of Us? No, I haven't actually been watching the season at all. Now, did you actually play the game? No, I'm completely isolated from the whole franchise. So this announcement, which we're going to be talking about today, means nothing to me, and I have no reference at all to anything.
    2:45
    What announcement? The Borderlands pack. That's not The Last of Us? Oh, it's The Last of Us. I'm thinking about the two. No, no, no, no, The Last of Us. So here's the fun thing, then, for you, Jared. What's that? Well, they are going to be releasing The Last of Us on PC. um the first volume oh and i highly recommend it it's oh really it's an amazing well look i've there's no bones about it uncharted is my absolute favorite game series and part of that is the gameplay play most of it is the story and so when naughty dog announced that they were doing another game and it looks to me like it was using all the same technology and assets that they used in Uncharted, I was like, sign me up! And then I tried playing it, and I tried playing it like Uncharted, and that was a critically fatal move, because the two do not play the same, because Uncharted is like, plenty of ammo and guns everywhere! And in The Last of Us, we'll give you a bullet. Yeah. Here's a bullet. A bullet. Here's a bullet. But that being said, I revisited it like two years later and came at it with a completely fresh lens came out with a fresh lens and different way of playing you know thinking about playing it and absolutely loved it and so now the TV show is out and my god hey folks this is how you do a video game adaption you don't reinvent the wheel you pretty much follow exactly what they did in the game yeah it doesn't need to be a new story when the story itself is good well i mean this is what frustrated me with uh tomb raider uh the the alicia vikander version uh so that latest version um because by the trailers it looked like oh we're gonna follow the pc game the the the tomb raider reboot and instead no they don't trust the audience i guess the way video game designers trust the audience because the video game literally starts you off with a boat wreck her being stranded on a beach and immediately trying for survival and you have no clue why she's there what's going on and it's only through the course of the game that you start getting backstory and some flashbacks that's really good though that's great storytelling yeah yeah whereas the movie spoon fed in the movie it's does like a half an hour of her being a bike messenger doing a little race and then trying to follow in her father's footsteps and renting the boat and it's literally like 20 minutes i think before you finally get to the boat wreck i'm just like what was that story yeah yeah and it was like we didn't need any of this other stuff you could just throw us right in and then even more criminally they there's two really awesome set pieces in the game one of them being this um think about aerial aerial tram cars you know on cables that they used to be holding like ore and stuff but it's all since been rusted out and not used and there winds up being this big old fight and you know some of the brakes get loose and so the tram cars are rolling and just oh that's cool mass destruction everywhere and it is heaps of fun and do you think they put that in the movie. Of course not. No, it would have cost too much to do. Yeah. Instead, they had her solving a puzzle on a wall. Ooh, exciting. Boring. So, anyway, we're only three episodes in. By the time most people watch this episode, we'll have gone into episode four. And, I'm just telling you, I'm loving absolutely every bit of it. And, it's making me want to play the game all over again. So, you reckon, if this is like me, if this is my first ever introduction to the franchise, where should I start?
    6:49
    Honestly, you can start with the TV show. Oh, right. I honestly don't... Because the TV show is doing such an excellent job of adapting, and the changes that they are making, they're making because it's more interesting for a viewer. Right. But it's not sacrificing the story in the process. But what that means is there's plenty of surprises then in store for you playing as a gamer.
    7:22
    Right. Okay. Also, there's some things that you're not going to get if you watch the series that will go, oh, okay, that's a divergence from what I saw. The main thing that I can say is, you know, the game, there's a lot of shooting and killing things. and in the TV show there's not because that would be excessive.
    7:41
    It's not necessary because that would get boring real quick because it's there to entertain you as a game not for the story. So here yes there's still some shooting and bang bang but it's all about the characters and the story instead. So that's what I'm saying. As gameplay would go there's going to be stuff that will be there to surprise you but there's going to be plenty obviously spoiled for you in the game based off of this but that doesn't make the game any less pleasurable to play it's still going to have a blast playing it because I think they Naughty Dog, they were going to release it at the beginning of March and they just issued a notice saying that they're going to have to wait until the end of March to release it because they want to they said basically that since the anticipation is so high for this they want to make sure that they absolutely crush all the bugs for the pc that's very good of them right that's not something you hear very often these days in video game development is it no um and i mean obviously the game's been out for years on playstation so um i really love to see these like these established franchises on consoles getting that exposure on PC and getting the release to a wider audience, you know? Well, I mean, truth be told, this is why I don't feel like I need a PS5 because they're... Because they have the thing about PlayStation Studios now. It's not just PlayStation. Yeah, but I mean, they're releasing like I said, they're releasing Last of Us. They've already released the first God of War. They've released The Last Uncharted and the DLC, well, it wasn't the DLC pack, but the spin-off that they did of that. I hope they go back and release all of the Uncharted series on PC.
    9:39
    But it's like they've released Horizon Zero Dawn, so basically what I'm saying is a lot of the games that I was going to play or that I've played on PS4, but their sequels are coming out on the PS5, I have no doubt they're going to come out on the PC. So I'm like, I don't need it. console now appears to be just a platform that you can choose to play games on, not a platform that you need to buy based on exclusivity of a particular franchise. There's going to be outlying exceptions to that, obviously, where they're really strong franchises that will never make the jump. Correct. Because they sell units, basically. But a lot of the really popular ones, I think you can expect those to come out eventually. You might have to wait a few years. And I think it's also in reaction to Xbox is obviously doing this. Yeah, it's a smart decision. They're treating the console as an alternative platform to someone who doesn't want to go through the hassle of setting up a PC and managing that.
    10:38
    And PlayStation has an opportunity here to do the same thing. All right. Well, enough of that talk. Let's get into what you all came here for. So, February 16th. That is the date for Zen's Pinball FX. Coming to both PlayStations, PlayStation 4 and 5, and then Xbox Series 1 and Series Xbox S, I think. Yes, yes, yes, that's right. I don't know the Xbox nomenclature. Anyway. All the Xbox-ers, except for the old ones. Yeah.
    11:15
    Right? Yeah, that's right. So it's coming to those two. it is exiting early access on that same date from the Epic Games Store. It's still as far as PC is concerned only on Epic Games Store but we'll just tell you this do the math. Epic Games Store came out for early access in March. Last year. March last year. They have a year exclusivity. Give it that time. I wonder when it might I wonder when we might see the Steam release. I wonder. And others.
    11:54
    So anyway, that's the deal. So what we want to do, though, today is go through, show you all the titles that are going to be there on day one of launch. There's a lot. There is a lot. It's 80-plus tables, folks.
    12:13
    So, yeah, let's just dive right into this and see what we see. Yeah, for sure. All right, here we go. So on this first page, I listed and then I discovered after I'd made all this that I made two errors or didn't put two additions. But here's all the tables that have not been in FX3. So these are your tables that are exclusive to Pinball FX.
    12:42
    There's actually a total of 20 of them on this page. Unfortunately, I only listed 18. I'll tell you what the other two are in a moment. we can't reveal everything it's like one of those slide decks that you have you can't tell everyone, you can't just have a slide deck of doom, you've got to leave something behind the scenes so in one pack you're going to get the Dreamworks pack that's How to Train Your Dragon, Trolls Pinball, Kung Fu Panda Peanut Snoopy Pinball that's going to be sold on its own I believe My Little Pony is going to be sold on its own then you've got Wrath of the Elder Gods Grim Tales I imagine those are probably going to be bundled together I don't know They did just announce this bundle Sky Pirates, Pinball Noir and Curse of the Mummy Which were the first three That was almost like the core pack of original releases that they released at the very start of Early Access Yes, that was the very first Early Access tables I believe Then we got World War Z Then you're going to get this bundle which is Homeworld, Journey to Hagara, Borderlands, Vault Hunter Pinball, and Brothers in Arms. I'm curious about this bundle though because many people will have already bought Homeworld.
    13:57
    Yeah, that's going to be interesting, isn't it? Yeah, so we'll have to see how Zen works that out in terms of... We'll talk about their Founders Forum, the little forum that you can fill out too. We'll go into all that. but anyway um later then of course the uh so brothers in arms and adam's family oh and borderlands those are all going to be brand new to everybody day one of launch yes um obviously adam's family being the one that i'm looking most forward to i'm like played one this weekend at a pinball tournament and i am looking forward to playing the digital version because the one that i played was it could have been in better condition. Was it a bit hammered?
    14:44
    Yeah, a little bit. I won't derail the conversation, but yes, it could have used a little bit of work in the flippers, I think. Yeah.
    14:54
    We also have World Cup Soccer 94, The Mandalorian, Star Wars Classic Collectibles, and then there's the two that I forgot to add onto this list and I didn't want to go back and renumber everything.
    15:07
    But Jared so kindly reminded me that we are also missing Swords of Fury. Yes. And what was the other one, Jared? Fishtails. No.
    15:24
    No, it's actually been released. Oh, Bratapinbop. Oh, yes. B.A.P. That's right. Yes. Yeah. We were having a discussion about Fishtails because it turns out Fishtails is the one table of Williams that hasn't been released yet. literally the only one yeah yeah everything else in fx3 is out it was the first one and now it's gonna be the last one um last one and i seem to remember in a previous episode that mel was saying he's gonna they're gonna do something quite unquote special very special with that table i don't know what the very special is you thinking that's gonna be a freebie again well it probably is it was the first time around so i don't really see any reason why they charge for it right so probably make that the freebie and make um sorcerer's lair lair i was like is it sorcerer's tail sorcerer's lair sorcerer's lair sorcerer's lair yeah the the free one uh again because the bars already set with those they're already free so they probably can't now charge for them because that feels a bit you know on the nose right so yeah they'll probably be free i would i would think all right let's look at our next page here here's all your Williams tables so Indiana Jones the pinball adventure the machine brought a pinbot like I said we just mentioned that Funhouse, Space Station, Doctor Dude and his excellent Ray, their swords of fury Tales of the Arabian Nights Red and Ted's Roadshow, Whitewater No Good Gophers, Hurricanes, Circus Voltaire Medieval Madness, The Getaway High Speed 2, Junkyard, Attack from Mars, Black Rose, The Party Zone The Champion Pub, Theater of Magic Safecracker, Monster Bash, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
    17:08
    That right there is quite a lineup. That's not a terrible pinball arcade, that one. No? Not real pinballs. I'd be quite happy to walk up to that. I was going to say, if I walked into a pinball arcade that had that, I'd be pretty stoked. Yep. I would be very happy about all those being on the floor and playable. Yeah, most definitely. Did I? Hold on. Oh, yeah, Party Zone is in there. I was like, wait. I was looking at Dr. Doom. But what about that other one? No, yeah, it's there. You know what I starting to do right now Jared What that Well because when I been playing the less play of things and I bring up my man cave there and everybody was mocking me for not having any collectibles up. So I decided to start going through and getting all the collectibles. So I'm working my way through all the Williams tables, trying to do just that. get those collectibles so the next time I play I actually have things on my shelf and a statue or two up.
    18:11
    Yeah, yeah. I've gone and done that. I have at one point a safecracker wall. The thing I find weird is that on the shelves like in Star Wars pinball VR, which is where that was inspired from, you could actually have three things per row and I haven't been able to put anything more than one on each row, which is a little bit frustrating because there's a bunch of stuff in the you can that you have there's it's a weird way of scrolling it to the next box oh is it yeah so it's not intuitive right okay i'm gonna have to like mash the buttons and see if i can get to jump to the cursor because i've everything i've tried i can't get the cursor to move to the next slot so i can put things in so that's frustrating if that's the case make make that a little bit better hopefully they have made it better for launch because you know that would that's is frustrating i had no idea you could actually put more stuff on there yep so that'll be also something curious to then see um for those people that earned all this stuff in the early access and are switching will that all carry over or are you going to have to re-achievement all that stuff it's going to be interesting because I can say as Chris and I switch between the press build and this build when Epic does the whole cloud syncing thing on it and if you sync the wrong thing you when you switch back to the production version of the game all your achievements are lost until you go into the table play a game and then they start loading back up again so So it seems like it's still with your profile, but you have to sort of reinitiate the sync, I guess. So a cleaner way of doing that would be appreciated.
    20:05
    Not a problem for most folks, but it's just interesting to see the behavior of it, which might foreshadow what the experience would be if you migrate at the moment.
    20:16
    All right, let's move forward here. So get on. So that's all the Williams pinball. Yep. So we're not even halfway through.
    20:27
    Or we're almost right at the halfway mark, I should say. We're about halfway at the moment. All right, so here we go. Here's all your Star Wars tables. Empire Strikes Back, Clone Wars, Boba Fett, Han Solo, Droids, A New Hope, Masters of the Force, Boo, Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader, Starfighter Assault, The Force Awakens, Might of the First Order, Star Wars Rebels, Rogue One, The Last Jedi, Octo Island, Solo, Battle of Mimban, and Calrissian Chronicles. there's 60 tables yeah tell you what it's even with the first two slides and having like 40 tables on launch yeah it's it's gonna be like as a console person coming in it's almost like oh i i feel like i'm halfway through the movie already with all this stuff that i've got to like choose what to play you're gonna you know i think they always need to have a like how to safely get back into pinball effects again after a a massive one year hiatus from it and also to with all the content that you can possibly have your uh access to again it's going to be like a kid in a candy store well i just think about because you know that they're out there the people that have never played zen pinball yeah that's right fresh to the platform are going to come fresh to your platform and be like holy crap where do i start uh holy crap this is going to cost me a lot of money yeah yeah what do i buy first what's like there's going to be all those questions coming up again right on the forums again where do i start what do i do what do i do and that's going to be very dependent on what do you like because that's the other thing with fx there's so many different types of tables and and uh genres and stuff like that on there that it's going to be very much up to the personal choices of everyone joining about what appeals to them.
    22:22
    Alright, let's finish out this list. Here we go. Alright, so Jaws, Back to the Future, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Jurassic Pinball, Jurassic World, Jurassic Park Pinball, Mayhem,
    22:35
    guarantee that Jurassic Ones are going to be in their own pack, Jaws is going to be in its own pack. Yeah, Universal's pack. Adventureland, Son of Zeus, I'm sure those are going to be in their own pack, like they used to be. Yep. Secrets of the Deep, Rome, Biolab, Pasha, but those are all in their own pack.
    22:50
    And while West and Castle Storm will be in their own pack, probably. Yep. And then I put over here, at number 75, I put Garfield, because... Yeah, we haven't heard much about Garfield, eh? We haven't. They haven't really explicitly said anything. But again, I think we're reaching that one-year point.
    23:08
    Yeah. On Apple Arcade. Which, it would have been content release point, too, because remember, Zen people, party had stage releases as well just like early access had yep and i think you're right garfield was at the it was the last table that was released in that platform yes and then yes i have confirmed there's going to be a marvel pack of 11 tables on release day yes i don't know what those 11 tables are but but there will be they will be there two one of two apparently yeah one of two packs yeah but they're 11 the first pack yeah 11 in the first pack um so that brings our total folks up to 86 tables at launch yeah we're still more in the pipe they're ready to go probably a month or two after the release plus or the like three monthly content which they've probably already lined up a pack close to after release like give it a month i reckon new pack a month after the main platform goes live on all the consoles for sure. They want to bring that up swell and capitalize on the momentum that the launch gives them, I reckon. Yeah, and then you've still got the remainder of the Xen Originals. You've still got the Balls of Fury, which is the Fox pack. You've still got Aliens, that pack. Yes. The only thing that we're not getting, we're not getting Walking Dead, we're not getting Portal. Yeah, those two are off the table. Those two are off the table. And I really don't think that they're going to come back. I really don't. I don't think so either. I think that ship has sailed. Yeah. I think, yeah. Which, I mean, it's unfortunate, but... I really quite enjoyed The Walking Dead table. It was a well-laid-out table, and it played quite nicely as well.
    24:59
    I think Portal... Portal was weird. It was a little weird. I liked the jump ramp in it, but... Everything else was a bit strange. Yeah, the thing that I appreciated about Portal was it very much captured the game. I mean, like, the sense of humor and everything was there. That was excellent. The pinball itself, I didn't really think was that great.
    25:22
    It wasn't the strongest of tables, I don't think. Yeah. Definitely nailed the theme, though. So that's definitely a tick in the box. Yeah.
    25:31
    So anyway, there you go, folks. You're going to have... And unless we get... So much stuff. 86 tables at launch. Dang.
    25:41
    That's a lot. It is a lot. All right, so let's talk about other things that we would like to have clarified here. For those of you that are going to be making that switch from Epic Game Store to your console of choice or to the eventual other PC, as it's noted in the form here, with big air quotes around it I'm putting up this lovely oh so easy to remember link just in case anybody has not gone here and here I'll even read it out loud for our audio only listeners yes here we go oh god we'll put it in show notes yeah it is it's a google form They're pretty horrible. The URLs are not friendly. Yeah. I'm going to leave it up here anyway for a little while just for people to copy down if they feel the need to. Or just go into the... It's on Discord.
    26:47
    Yeah, it's in a lot of places. It's on the official Reddit forum for FX3 or Pinball. I don't know if they've... I think it's still just known as FX3. I don't think they've changed it to Pinball FX. but yeah this is where you're going to well it's where you're going to choose if you're not going to stay with Epic Games Store what platform you're going to go to and the idea is that Zen is going to gift all of the things you purchased in Epic Games Store to the platform of your choice so if you were already doing all this purchasing during Epic Games Store that's what's going to happen right there and this works around the um the problems with what was supposed to be crossed by and now it's turned into pinball pass and people sort of feeling a little bit you know not so happy about that arrangement falling through yeah so this gives you an opportunity to have a one-time purge from the early access platform in epic over to whatever one you would like to stick with right so that brought up a question that i posed to this team at zen which is well what happens if i like with adam's family and these borderland and brother in arms table that's about to come out what if i purchase the last drop of content hey yeah if i purchase it on at the game store and then put in that form what happens to those new purchases um so what you hear back from zinn about that yeah i heard back so here's the deal folks um i'm just gonna read this word for word the current deadline to fill out the founders form that's what that link is that we posted there is may 5th okay gotta have that form in by may 5th um can confirm that purchases like the Adams family or the Gearbox pack made on Epic after the early access will be eligible for that one platform transfer. We will check the purchases of players who chose the other PC option and gift those tables visible on their account on that day once those kinds of things are announced.
    29:04
    Does that clear things up? I think so. I think that's very transparent about what you need to do. So, you know, spread that news around, folks. We don't want people worrying that they're going to get burned. But it does bring up an interesting question.
    29:22
    What about whatever Zen decides to release in March? Yes. That's the question I'm not sure about. What about the founders? I think it only applies to early access purchases. So it is directly there to support people who have content in the early access build. Right. Because officially, the Brothers in Arms and Borderlands, the Gearbox, that Gearbox pack, and then Adam's family, those are not early access. That's the official date of early access being done. That's right. That is the essentially launch day tables for general availability or not early access. So you're safe to purchase those and have those transfer over.
    30:06
    But anything else... Anything after that, truth be told, I would, until we hear more information, I'm going to say hold off on making your purchase until you make the transfer and then make those purchases. If you're going to ditch Epic Game Store, don't make those last purchases. Especially since we also aren't entirely sure what's going to happen with people that have leftover tickets already from Epic Game Store. because how that conversion is going to be refunded. They said they're going to make it right. How they're going to make it right, I have no clue. No, because that has not been discussed yet. I'd say when it comes close to the churn period, we're going to get more information probably in the pinball show about that as a public announcement.
    30:55
    But at this stage, it's very much, it will happen. Now, the mechanics of it, don't know. I don't see because that was Zen's own currency basically I don't see how Zen could translate that into say you know the Sony store having your wallet filled I don't unless they buy credit on behalf of like gift credit on behalf of people but that's the same as I mean they might be able to transfer the balance to your platform of choice in the form of say other PC gift card credits or something like that but again it's sort of like like how would you do that you have to be tied somehow to credit in the store that you could somehow redeem or i don't yeah it's i don't know it feels like it's going to be a little messy um but yeah balance i mean it's one thing converting titles over like one for one dlc transfers you can see how that's just a that's just a code let's face That's looking at the SKUs you've got.
    32:10
    Yeah, that's okay. I think we had both stopped talking at the same time, so that was okay. Yeah. You were saying something about the SKUs.
    32:21
    Oh, I don't know. I can't remember what I was talking about in the flow of the narrative. Five seconds ago was so long ago. It was. Yeah, but you're blocking, you're purging your case. And off it goes into the ether. I don't know. Something about transfers. Yeah. Anyway. I don't know. I mean, we're going to have to see. So, obviously, it's a matter of staying tuned to that information and going from there. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, though, we know that we'll hear about it. Yeah.
    32:56
    Yeah. Is that me? Is it my end doing this? You know, it might be my end. I don't know. it's you're going away i'm bye-bye you go away and then i don't know so it seems to be when you switch to me is when it happens yeah um yeah so i don't know just don't switch to me okay i won't only switch to me yeah um anyway that's that's all the uh launch information that we have uh to share with you we want to just go through that be uh crystal clear because uh zen's not doing a pinball show about this basically no no this is you know information that we've come across and they're happy for us to talk about yeah um instead i believe they're doing a 24-hour marathon pinball play thing i don't know how that works but that's what i've heard that's that sounds interesting yeah um also terribly terribly tiring but yeah sure right um so i've come across uh two bits we're not going to dive in i we we We toyed with the idea.
    34:18
    So there's been all sorts of stuff on Reddit discussing, once again, Zen's greed over people having to purchase per system and all that. And I had a read-through, and it just made me laugh because it literally shows how zen was in a no-win situation because they literally did the thing that all those very people were screaming about and then the people screamed you could absolutely not getting oh sorry we just it just happened yeah it's happening a lot yeah uh we might have to sort of end it very surely but um or not we just keep on going you can all suffer through it. But yeah it really is telling They not gonna be able to please anyone which is of all the time like they will never make everyone happy but in this particular case it just seemed like the reaction to what they were trying to do and the perception out there in the market and they admit that it's probably because of the way they framed it and branded it at the outset but it was just that there was never going to win and no one's ever going to be happy with it so now everyone's going oh i've just completely forgotten that and now zen are criminals so you know um the other thing that i came across there was a uh youtube video and i can try and find it real quickly hold on uh i'm just gonna put us on multi-screen so that jared can freeze and you guys can watch me not stare at the camera um yeah right let's see if i can find it because i made a comment about it Here we go.
    36:11
    So this was known called The Truth About Legends Pinball, 10 Ways They Missed by, it's a channel called Digital Victory.
    36:23
    Oh, yeah. And the guy basically listed his 10 ways that he thought the legends missed. Right. Which, I mean, I was like, hey, somebody's actually, you know, calling me out on some things. Providing some fatigue about it. Interesting. Yeah, makes a change.
    36:42
    But then the problem is that, as is a lot of situations, people don't quite know all the information that we know. And I kind of wish that they would have, you know, seen.
    37:02
    I'm trying to find my comments because I could quickly... Well, it doesn't really matter. the main, the one thing that he was sitting there begrudging about was why did they pick those 22 tables for lunch that are all Gottliebs and those aren't the best Gottlieb tables? And I was like, well, there's this thing called the Pinball Arcade.
    37:28
    Which they got the content from. They got the content from. And then he was complaining about the quality of them. And I was like, well, there's this thing called the Pinball Arcade. Which we've covered all that at length before.
    37:42
    And then it was, and how come they didn't go with any of the Williams tables? Well, that game isn't exactly licensed with Zen.
    37:51
    Yeah, exactly right. So it was just kind of funny. Yeah, it was just one of those things where I was just like, you know, I appreciate the effort.
    38:01
    But I wish you watched our channel because then you would have known all these answers. Yes. So I kindly responded, gave him the information. I wasn't snarky or anything.
    38:14
    Like a good digital citizen that you are. Yes. And then he messaged me back and was like, So when can we do a collab?
    38:25
    Oh, right. Okay. If you need some information and you need me to come on, I'll come on and I'll happily disseminate and let you know what the what is. But it's hard to do, though, that kind of a collab because there was plenty of things that he was mentioning that I don't have an at-games cab. I can't comment on what their customer service is like or what the download or how to selecting of the tables and backing out of the tables. I don't – I've not felt it for myself. I can only go off of what somebody else is saying. um yeah yeah we've heard the with the we've heard about the issues with the ribbon cable and how fragile it is it is i can't really comment about that i can comment about the looks of the thing i can comment that i think their placement of ports was hideous it's bad um i can comment on the fact that for somebody that seemingly knew people were going to hook up their pc to this thing they certainly didn't make it easy no and you have to buy another board to make it really arguably functional if you have an external pc um but that's okay aftermarket board as well and that's the other thing like and you didn't have good haptics i don't know anyway um there's a lot of lessons learned that if they ever games is learning those lessons and that maybe they'll come out with a version two of that based off of what they learned.
    40:01
    I really hope they do. Because, I mean, for the most part, the AtGames cabinet, for all the things that we've said about it in the past, they're the closest thing to being, like, the leading pinball cabinet. I mean, one-up offering, while it was officially licensed and everything, it's not really that great. Well, I mean, the problem with the 1-Up one is that everybody immediately modded it by swapping out the monitor, adding a backbox monitor. It was like, and those were the two things that AtGames already had. Yeah, that's right. Really, they were just modding it to reach parity with what AtGames already shipped. Yeah. But then you got the problem of AtGames' cabinet is not at the same height that a regular pinball cabinet is, whereas Arcade 1-Ups is. arcade one-ups cabs are arguably 100 better looking um what their art from the art package yes their plunger doesn't look like a cheap toy uh true you know so i mean there's a lot visually aesthetic wise that one-up nailed but on the tech side it seems that at games nailed kind of got there first yeah yeah um so so he's hoping i think it will be good to see iteration 2 of the AtGames because I'm pretty sure we don't really follow it that closely but there hasn't been in iteration 2. It's still the same product that was shipped two and a half years ago. Which doesn't surprise me entirely because the same thing kind of went with their arcade cab.
    41:36
    Yeah, the Legends arcade. Yeah, and also COVID. It's hard to do things in the constraints of COVID. But the Legends arcade cab was out before COVID.
    41:47
    True. so I mean that's what I'm saying I hope that they don't go well I think they came out with a deluxe version from their original original but I don't know I wonder why they're not producing more cabs but then again I also look at arcade one up with hey let's put out yet another pac-man cab yeah it's like really i mean well and that one is funny because they finally have the monitor the way it should be displayed which is kind of a laid down if i look for my flat more flat monitor the way that you know it was back in the day um so they keep on with every iteration they keep on coming closer and closer to being the version that was in the arcades yeah but it's comical how many times do you expect your customer base to buy the same thing? To buy a Pac-Man cabinet, yeah. It's like, well, people, they wouldn't keep doing it if people don't keep buying them. Well, that's true. This is true. You know.
    43:00
    All right. So that's all we have for you guys today. If you have any questions, please fire them off to our Twitter handles so that we can look at them that way. feel free to hop on over to our Discord channel and throw things there or drop them here on the YouTube and try and comment that way of doing well considering it's February now and considering the next time we do our little Dog and Pony show Taff should be out and the Gearbox Pack should be out so I think we're probably going to be doing some let's play of that action i think that's probably likely yeah which will be fun yep but in addition to that we always do jared's favorite stuff the stuff and the things that you've known to love that's right and grown to love all right folks so until then buh-bye buh-bye
    44:09
    you Thank you.