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Episode 88 - Year of the Franchi?

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 24m·held·May 19, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers discusses rejected Superman art, Cosmic Carnival mechanics, and Stern's new Franchi art reskins.

Summary

Dennis and Tommy discuss pinball news during a slow news period, focusing heavily on Christopher Franchi art packages. They analyze the Superman 78 concept art that Stern rejected, discuss Cosmic Carnival (Suncoast's upcoming symmetrical game), and examine new reskins of Batman 66 (Catwoman edition) and Munsters Premium (colorized art). The hosts debate whether Stern's new art packages indicate underperforming sales and speculate on Cosmic Carnival market viability.

Key Claims

  • Superman 78 concept art was presented to Stern but rejected, suggesting no Superman pinball machine is in development

    high confidence · Christopher Franchi revealed Superman 78 concept art on Slap Save Pinball podcast and social media, stating Stern didn't want to proceed with it

  • Cosmic Carnival is a symmetrical game with changed ramp visuals but identical mirror-image shot geometry

    medium confidence · Hosts analyzed gameplay video and layout images; noted left ramp is habitrail-style and steeper than right ramp but shots remain symmetrical

  • Suncoast switched from custom board to P-Rock/P3 board (Multimorphic) to meet release deadlines

    medium confidence · Dennis mentioned this in discussion about why Suncoast abandoned their own board framework

  • Munsters Premium may be underperforming sales targets, prompting Stern to release a colorized version

    medium confidence · Tommy speculates: 'I actually think that Stern is not pleased with the sales counts on the premiums. I think they came in under their projections.'

  • Batman 66 Catwoman edition is primarily a back glass and cabinet side art reskin with unchanged playfield

    medium confidence · Images from Pinball Paparazzi Facebook page showing Catwoman-themed back glass and cabinet sides; Dennis notes 'maybe it's just a hair more than changing a trans light'

  • Christopher Franchi designed art packages for Superman 78, Beetlejuice, and both new Batman 66 and Munsters reskins

    high confidence · Both hosts confirm Franchi created multiple rejected and accepted art packages; Tommy notes 'This must be the year of the Franchi'

Notable Quotes

  • “I think Superman would have been a better seller. Let's just put it at that. It would have been a better seller than Beetlejuice.”

    Dennis — Hosts' comparative assessment of licensing themes and market appeal; Superman has broader name recognition despite film age

  • “I just don't. Well, they haven't proven themselves. Right. I'll be really happy if it happens, and it's good.”

    Tommy — Skepticism about Suncoast's ability to meet June release date for Cosmic Carnival; reflects broader industry history of delays

  • “At the price point, which is almost $6,000 on this game... When you can learn the entire game in half the time, and that's what you can do on a symmetrical game.”

    Tommy — Concerns about symmetrical game design at premium pricing; questions whether simplicity justifies cost

  • “I actually think that Stern is not pleased with the sales counts on the premiums. I think they came in under their projections.”

    Tommy — Direct speculation about Munsters Premium underperformance driving colorized reskin release

  • “They pop. They pop. They pop. Everyone always says pop.”

    Tommy — Commentary on Franchi's art style and community perception of color vibrancy in his designs

  • “I think seeing as how rarely it has been done anymore, it'll be a neat little one-off. But if all they do is kick out symmetrical games, it could turn into an issue.”

    Dennis — Assessment of symmetrical game design as historical throwback; concerns about manufacturer over-reliance on gimmick

Entities

Christopher FranchipersonStern PinballcompanySuncoast PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanySuperman 78gameCosmic CarnivalgameBeetlejuicegameBatman 66 Catwoman Edition

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Munsters Premium may be underperforming sales projections, prompting Stern to release colorized art variant

    medium · Tommy: 'I actually think that Stern is not pleased with the sales counts on the premiums. I think they came in under their projections'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Batman 66 Catwoman reskin perceived as minimal cosmetic change; hosts question value and point of release

    medium · Dennis: 'I didn't really see the point...seems like just a hair more than changing a trans light'; Tommy: 'I don't see the point'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Symmetrical game design at $6,000 price point raises concern about value proposition given simplified learning curve

    medium · Tommy: 'At the price point...When you can learn the entire game in half the time...I just wonder if it's too simplistic for the price point'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Superman 78 art package created by Franchi but rejected by Stern; unclear if licensing challenges or other factors caused rejection

    high · Christopher Franchi revealed Superman 78 concept art on Slap Save and Facebook, with both hosts confirming 'Stern didn't want to do anything with it'

  • $

    market_signal: New art package reskins (Batman 66 Catwoman, Munsters colorized) suggest Stern responding to underwhelming sales or market demand

    medium · Hosts debate whether reskins indicate sales issues; Tommy notes colorized Munsters addresses customer demand for color without LE pricing

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.252

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Saturday, May 18th. This is episode 88. And I'm Tommy. I am Dennis. We do sometimes record on Saturdays. We don't think of those as exceptions. It just happens. It just worked out better for stuff I've got going today because otherwise I would have been gone from my family basically all for huge chunks of two days. Yeah. So I can just do one big, big chunk of one day and stay. How could they have survived without you there? Oh, I'm sure things would have been better, but I want to make them suffer. Oh, okay. That's good. So it's been two weeks. I guess we should catch everyone up on what's been happening. Last time we knew, I don't remember what we knew last time. What did we know last time? Oh, the termites, I think. The termites. And you had cut your finger off with the dryer. Yes. Almost off. Yes. Because I actually had someone who was supposed to do a presentation. We're both leads on this topic, but I'm so new in my job that I'm like a lead in name only. And so he was going to do this presentation, and he emailed me two days before, and he said, I might not be able to make it because I have to go see the plastic surgeon. I sliced the tip of my finger off.
1:38
Okay. And I was like, I don't care about your excuse. You need to do it. And he did. It's like, this is your job. So you do what I tell you to do. No, he doesn't work for me. He's from a totally different group. I'm like, you said you'd do it. I was just like, oh, I was reading all this stuff trying to be ready to. Because I was like, okay, well, I can do it. I won't be able to answer any questions, but I can try and do it. Yeah. So your finger didn't go to that level. No, no. My finger has kind of healed nicely. It's mostly straight. Of the three cuts, I can only still see one of them. It's not terrible. It's healed pretty well. We got pinball tonight. I hope that's not your flipper finger. No. Okay. I'm a middle finger flipper guy. Yeah, I am too. That's the proper way. And I've had the visit from the exterminators for the initial thing, and then they'll be out to do the actual extermination not next week, but not next week that starts on Monday, the week after. Okay. I see. So it's almost next week. It's scheduled. All right. That's good. But they're apparently super busy. Yeah, it is termite season, and this is when all the little, I guess,
game
Munsters Premium (Colorized)game
Slap Save Pinballorganization
Dennisperson
Tommyperson
Zach Minneyperson
George Gomezperson
Scott Deniseyperson
Gene Hackmanperson
Pinball Paparazziorganization
?

community_signal: Christopher Franchi's prolific art output across multiple manufacturers/designs suggests elevated creative influence in current market cycle

medium · Tommy: 'There's a lot of Franchi art everywhere. This must be the year of the Franchi, just like last year was the year of the Yeti'

  • ?

    announcement: Batman 66 Catwoman edition and Munsters Premium colorized reskins officially announced via Pinball Paparazzi Facebook leaks

    high · Images supplied on Pinball Paparazzi Facebook showing posters for both reskins with art/back glass changes

  • ?

    product_strategy: Suncoast switched from custom board to Multimorphic P-Rock/P3 framework to meet June release deadline for Cosmic Carnival

    medium · Dennis: 'They claim they were going to do their own board set, but they switched to P-Rock or P3 Rocks, which comes out of Multimorphic'

    • 2:51
    Swarmers. Yeah, the swarmers come out. Yeah. So that's when everyone notices, because otherwise they're kind of hard to detect. Yeah. And then, because that wasn't enough that day. No, it wasn't. That night, the night after I left early from not going to pinball, even though I was supposed to go to pinball, Yeah, he abandoned. And well, I think we covered that. Yeah, and all that.
    3:19
    When I got home the night after, I was turning off the shower, and the handle broke on the cold water. So you couldn't turn off the cold. So I couldn't turn the cold water off. It was turned most of the way off, so it was just kicking out a continuous stream of water out of the tub faucet about the size of my pinky. the only shut off to shut off water flow to that bathroom is to shut off water to the entire house yeah i'm not too surprised with it being the shower as i try and think about even here in this house and i've just had both of the showers redone over the last couple years i don't think i've got shut off like i've shut off valves for sinks and toilets so i can usually you know things that usually leak but okay so i'm not too surprised that was the case but But obviously that was probably... Luckily, I was able to get a plumber out the next day. Okay. Because what it was was beyond my ability to fix. Because he had to go... Because the faucets on the tub are the original faucets that were installed in 1959.
    4:23
    So he had to go to some specialty place to find the guts because he had to put whole new guts in. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because... Right. That's part of the reason I had one in my... This house was from the early 80s. and I just couldn't find handles that accommodated the innards anymore. And I got generic handles, and they would come loose all the time, and it was just a chore, and it was leaking all the time. It'd tear through gaskets and rubber washers. Anyway. Yeah. So, no, it was just awful. I've had a real rough run. It's been rough. It's cut into your streaming schedule, that's for sure. It has majorly cut into my streaming schedule. I mean it's terrible but one of these days well I have good news for not me but for any listeners that never got any t-shirts I finally found the t-shirt designs that we've done we've done three I've already same design this three color scheme they're finally out up at teespring there'll be a link in the show notes so people can look at that let's see what else gaming related is going on the The Black Knight Project that my dad bought. I like how you say it. It sounds cool when you say it that way. The Black Knight Project. I didn't say it like, I am the Black Knight. No, but I'm just saying it sounds cool when you're like, the Black Knight Project. That's its name. Anyway, the Black Knight Project, cousin to the Alan Parsons Project, is almost done. I actually thought about attempting to stream it this morning, but I went and did some play testing first after I went into the settings all the settings were working when we we tested late this week the once everything was put in the only thing I really remember immediately being noticeable was one of the switches needed to be adjusted that controls one of the magnet saves the magnet was always on so it's fairly obvious you don't want that to overheat. Yeah. So anyway, there's just a couple drop targets that aren't registering right now. And the ball lock isn't something one of the, it actually uses micro switches. I'm surprised a game that old had micro switches on it. But it does for some of the spots. And so one of the issues may be one of the, I'm wondering if one of the micro switches is bad for the ball lock. Because if it's not ready for lock and a ball goes in there, it doesn't know and doesn't try and kick it out. There's no ball search. You turn the thing off and on, it'll just stay in there. So you have to pull the glass. So they're just, yeah. So, I mean, the glass isn't in it. I haven't gone and tried to adjust the other switches yet anyway. I just made a list to send what was wrong still. He's still waiting for the replacement back glass because there was some flaking on the glass. So he actually ordered a replacement. But apparently it's coming from Canada. So he's waiting for that to arrive. And then I think once those adjustments are made, I think that's done. It's very close. so I took some time and helped with the reassembly of the game earlier this week which we did not most people take a lot of photos when they disassemble like if they strip the playfield and we didn't do that method we used the photos that were on IPDB to know the generalized placement of things like the plastics and instead he had like four dozen baggies and when we stripped it all the baggies were labeled, including notes where like, here's the order left to right. And this is the baggie for the central drop target bank. And here's the baggie for the central ramp. And so it was like that. It was like 80 baggies. There were baggies within baggies. There were some that were about the size, you know, for when you get it, you know, like when you buy a gram of Coke like that. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, I know exactly. So those are the baggies for some of the stuff. Yeah. All the way up to gallon size baggies for, it was just like throw the whole ramp in there. There, it's in the gallon baggie. But not the plastics. We piled those up on a chair. And no pictures. And nope, nope. Just relied on IPDB. It went really easy. Good. You don't have to take 20,000 photos if the game is well enough photographed that you can at least figure out the generalized placements and you label things up front.
    8:37
    So that's pretty much it in terms of intro. So I think we might as well transition formally into the first of our two major segments, the pinball segment. unsurprisingly it's a slow it's a you liked last time this is a slow news period we don't really have news we have fake news hashtag hashtag fake news and so we're going to be talking about a lot of wow i'm looking at it right now apparently pretty much all we're talking about is art other than there's a slight exception we'll go a little bit into cosmic carnival yeah but But let's start with the Superman 78 concept art. Christopher Franchi, who has a segment, it's almost like a show within a show on the Slap Save Pinball podcast.
    9:23
    So on that, he mentioned that he was going to have this art package revealed. And then later on social media, through their Facebook page, he released the conceptual art that he had created for Superman the movie, sometimes known as Superman 78 the first one with Christopher Reeve and so we all got to see the art it's very much the Franchi style of art and when he announced that much like how he did when he released information on the Beetlejuice concept art this was an art concept that was presented to Stern and it's being shown because Stern didn't want to do anything with it a lot of people really In this case, Beetlejuice, I think, was a surprise. In this case, I think there were a lot of people who really have believed that within the next 12 months, Superman was coming out from Stern. And this seems to indicate that it is in no way being made. Right. So I guess we should have a discussion about Superman. What do you think of – well, I guess let's just start with the art because that's obvious. Did you like the art? I liked the art. I don't know who wouldn't like the art. It looked like Superman to me. Right. No, I mean, there's nothing wrong with the art. There's nothing, I mean, it's not, it's franchise art. Yeah. I enjoy franchise art. It's very vibrant. Lots of the side and on the trans light had a good blend. There's a lot of reds and yellows, which, well, he may not have, I mean, those are associated with Superman's logo. Right. Which I'm sure is where he stemmed from on it. But to me, it's almost a throwback to, oh, yeah, Atari did a very bright, vibrant Superman game as well with excellent art. And so this reminds me of that, but bringing that more realistic style, because he's trying to convey the movie, Christopher is trying to convey the movie, whereas Atari 79 Superman was comic-oriented.
    11:22
    So, all right, so the art's great, so good job on that. But what do you think about the decision to not make it as a pinball machine? Now, we don't know why. We don't know if it was like Beetlejuice where George Gomez weighed in and said, we didn't have a team that was passionate about it. There could have been licensure challenges. I don't recall hearing or reading whether it was confirmed why they didn't go with it, but obviously they didn't.
    11:51
    Do you think it would have been a good theme? I think it would have been better than Monsters. I agree, but there's not much that would be worse than Monsters, outside of an unknown thing like Aquabats Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. Do you know what the Aquabats are? I do. Oh, my God.
    12:09
    All right. I don't want to do a show within a show thing, but I was listening to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, which I normally enjoy significantly, and they were talking about five music pins they would like to have made, and one of them, it was his number one. Ow. Okay. Yeah. All right. They have a poll on their Facebook page. You can go and vote and say no. Never bring this up again. So you go take care of that while we go on. I'm going to take care of that real quick. Let me get over to the Facebook page. Here's my thinking about Superman 78.
    12:43
    I did not see Superman 78 for a very long time. I saw Superman 2 a whole lot, which is supposed to be chronologically immediately in sequence. It's like Halloween 2 to Halloween in the timeline. But I was very late to getting to watch Superman 78 for whatever reason. We probably just didn't have it on tape. We might have had Superman 2 on tape. I don't remember. I remember my dad spoiling the end of the movie for me because I had never seen it before. He told me what happened and I didn't believe him because I knew what happened in Superman 2. and then it turned out he was right and I was very angry.
    13:28
    But I just, I mean, obviously the movie's very different now. So like from an operator concept, again, I question, is this a good theme? Here, let's leverage this a little differently because I'm struggling with it. Would this or Beetlejuice have been a better pinball theme? I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to roll that just a little. because I feel like you're looking at a different, when it comes to the license, you're looking at a slightly different group of people who are going to have the higher interest levels. Right, I agree. I think Spider-Man, I think Superman is going to have a much larger overall appeal, and I think Superman would probably work better on location. I can think of a lot of things just off the top of my head that I think might make Beetlejuice a game that you would have more fun stuff you could do with it. And that's where my head's at as well. I think if I were to choose between it, it's a strange, you know, false choice that I'm presenting. But other than in France, he had two art concepts. Neither of them are becoming reality. I agree. I think Superman broadly has far more name recognition. Even though the movie's older, I think that there's just a lot of fans. DC still has a lot of fans, even though their movies are terrible. And their TV shows are good. Yeah. And here's the thing. An important thing to remember is even if you ask people who've seen and grown up with the more recent Supermans, most of them still consider the Christopher Reeve Superman to be Superman. He's the iconic look. He looks like what we all think of as Superman. Right. It was almost as if Superman was drawn based off of Christopher Reeve before he was born. Exactly. And I think that's a big part of it. But, I mean, movie-wise, Superman the movie is very slow.
    15:40
    I mean, it's been so long since I've seen it, but it's not like how movies are today. So it's not very action-oriented. No. And I, so, I mean, if that movie were to come out, if you were to, like, remake Superman 78, I think it would flop.
    15:58
    Well, of course it would. I think Gene Hackman's too old at this point to reprise such an amazing movie. We wouldn't have him reprise. He would be recast. Everything would be recast. Who could possibly be better than Gene Hackman? I, just as another aside, I do not subscribe, at least most of the time, I do not subscribe to these stances that people have where only one person can ever play a role and that we just can't consider things. Oh, I'm not saying that somebody else couldn't play it. Several other people have played the role. I just don't think any of them have been as good as Gene Hackman.
    16:32
    I don't know. It was so campy as he did it. That was what I enjoyed about it. Because that's what Kevin Spacey ended up doing. He was just playing Gene Hackman playing Lex Luthor in Superman Returns, which I know you love that movie.
    16:49
    Yeah. I don't know. So, all right. I think Superman would have been a better seller. Let's just put it at that. It would have been a better seller than Beetlejuice. What I think regarding the idea of things in the movie making interesting toys, Beetle just would have the lead on that. I think so. It's like, Beetle just seems like the sort of theme that Jersey Jack Pinball would have been interested in. Thinking, oh, we can cram in all sorts of toys. Oh, I can see that, definitely. Whereas with Superman, I could see Stern Pinball, had they wanted to, being a company that had been like, oh yeah, and we'll just put, well, you know, we'll throw, the ball will go through a ramp and it looks like it's passing through the Fortress of Solitude. And then we'll put Lex on a spring and it'll be our... They don't always use springs, but we still kind of... The Black Knight's a really cool toy in Black Knight's sort of rage. It is. So... Do you think they could have gotten Gene Hackman to do the call-outs? He's retired, so... But I guess. I mean, I haven't heard, like, he's having any mental deficiencies. Like, I've heard rumors that Sean Connery, for example, is not good. Right. I've heard that also. But I haven't heard anything like that about Gene Hackman. And I just heard that he wanted to retire and he retired. Like Sidney Poitier, he retired and he still is active. I mean, like he watches movies and likes to analyze movies, but he just doesn't want to act anymore. Yeah. And so, yeah, maybe, but I don't think they would. That would be interesting because who would you get?
    18:21
    You couldn't really get anyone else from the movie to do the call-outs. Not anyone recognizable. And so I don't think they would try, though. I think they would go with a generic announcer. I don't know if they would try and just bring in a sound-alike to sound like Superman.
    18:41
    Probably what they would do is just a generic announcer and a sound-alike. And they have to use a lot of sound-alikes when they do the Marvel properties. That's usually part of the license is that they have to use a sound-alike.
    18:53
    Anyway, I just thought it was interesting. I don't know. I mean, I can't say it would be a buy for me. but I don't buy off of theme so it would have been interesting conceptually because I mean I was hearing it so much I really did think that Superman was probably in the pipeline and now apparently it's not in the pipeline is empty of Superman's before we talk about more art let's transition to Cosmic Carnival which oh and I should have mentioned this in the intro I agreed to go ahead and start when we don't record on the opposite weekends. I'm going to try and record the This Week in Pinball podcast with Zach Minney from straight down the middle.
    19:38
    This came up on the prior week because I was on. That was my first one in this new attempt to be more active in pinball as I feel it is. As they probably feel it is. Me providing the guiding light to bring structure and hope to the listener base. They're sitting there and you just heard this like, the beacons are lit! This weekend pinball calls for aid.
    20:01
    That was it. It's more like Zach was Denethor, and he didn't want any help. Jeff crawled up there and lit the beacons himself.
    20:15
    And Argon here, I got on my Shadowfax. I borrowed it from Gandalf. I rode out there, and I was like, I'll help, but only like sometimes.
    20:26
    So I'm kind of like the ghosts. You're the ghost. I'm like the ghost. You're like, our obligation. Our obligation's done. Release me.
    20:35
    Release me. Yeah, that's kind of that. I think, I'm pretty sure that, that's my headcanon, at least as to what happened. So, anyway, we talked about Cosmic Carnival. Right. That's the Suncoast game. I didn't play it. It was at Texas Pinball Festival. It was. I walked past it. In a very rudimentary like there was no they had it so that the flippers worked but there was no programming is my understanding Right No real coding They have a gameplay video that came out They called it a gameplay preview We have a link to it in the show notes. I had not seen it before Twip, but I have seen it now, where they started to show how that looks. The game, tying it back into art, it's got the dirty, dirty art package. I think the art package looks stellar. I think the play field looks stellar in terms of how they've added some toys on the ramps and stuff but the thing that always stood out to me was this is a very symmetrical game they have changed it up I'm air quoting for those that can't see they've changed it up in that the left ramp now feeds into it's like a habitrail ramp whereas the right ramp is entirely plastic the left ramp is also a lot steeper and I noticed in the video there are a lot of rejects that may be a flipper power issue However, the shots remain symmetrical. That shot is, that ramp shot is in the exact same spot mirrored as the right ramp. They did not change the layout. They changed, but visually they did a very good job when you first glance at it thinking, oh, this isn't symmetrical. And then as you look at it and you get out your protractor and ruler like I do, and then you go, oh, wait, every degree, every shot is exactly mirror for mirror. I don't what did you I should ask have you seen the video you've seen the layout though you've seen the images of it what do you think of the idea of Cosmic Carnival I liked the I mean the sounds again the sounds might get a little grating over time it sounds like a mix of amusement park and sci-fi sounds like the name suggests the animations looked fine to me and the display better than American Pinball's animations to be frank How hard is that, though? Well, I don't know how hard it is, but, I mean, the bar clearance is not very high. When you compare all of the manufacturers, they're the ones that are lagging on animation, in my judgment.
    23:00
    But I had a brief discussion with Zach on this, but I'd rather have a discussion with someone who knows pinball. So I'd like you to weigh in on what your thoughts are about releasing a symmetrical game in 2019. because it's supposed to come out here before a wonka. Oh, their time, their time frame and everything that they've talked about, I don't see it.
    23:24
    Well, they claim they were going to do their own board set, but they switched to P-Rock or P3 Rocks, which comes out of Multimorphic, much like other small manufacturers have, in order to meet those deadlines. And I'm assuming that's because the skeleton framework, which is the base package of software that comes on those, has your flippers and stuff already. Yeah, which makes total sense. I mean, I can completely understand. So you don't think they're going to make the June release?
    23:50
    It's possible. It's so weird. I would be happy to see somebody who can go from having a system where they're talking about it, where they actually go, oh, yeah, here, here's some video, and here's the game in a month, other than start. Oh, I would, too. That would be amazing. It's just I've been so burned by pinball companies where it's like, yeah, we'll be out in two months. Two years later, the game comes out. Stuff like that, that it's just like, okay, that's why I have a hard time seeing it. Nothing against them or saying that, oh, they can't handle this or anything like that. I just don't.
    24:30
    Well, they haven't proven themselves. Right. I'll be really happy if it happens, and it's good. Okay. That's going to be the big thing. As for the symmetrical thing that this whole questioning started with, I think it's fine. I think seeing as how rarely it has been done anymore,
    24:49
    it'll be a neat little one-off. But if all they do is kick out symmetrical games, it could turn into an issue. I don't expect them to continue to do symmetrical games any more than I would expect Scott Denisey to do another single-level game. Actually, I'd be amazed if Scott ever does another single-level game ever again, period. Yeah, that'd be... And that's in part driven by the fact that he stated he accomplished everything he could think of that he thought would make the best single-level game in TNA.
    25:21
    He was just like, he did everything he wanted with it. Yeah. He couldn't come up with anything else. People have suggested other features, and whenever he's weighed in on them, anytime I've seen it, he's like, yeah, oh yeah, I thought about that, But I think what I did was more fun. So I didn't go with that. Why didn't you put another spinner in? I didn't think you needed another spinner. I think you're right. Why did you do three flippers? I thought three flippers was the best way to do it. All that stuff. So given that, I'm not prejudging any of their future games.
    25:52
    My thing with it is, yeah, it's been a while. Yeah, it's a one-off. Are they trying to be a big producer? are... The problem I have with Symmetry isn't that it's from the past. I'm all for bringing back neat ideas from the past and reusing them. And I don't hate all symmetrical games. I've been looking for a Cleopatra. It's a symmetrical game. But I really... At the price point, which is almost $6,000 on this game. It's apparently what they're going for, US.
    26:24
    When you can learn the entire game in half the time, and that's what you can do on a symmetrical game. Because once you learn them on one, you've learned them on the other. It's that simple. I just wonder if it's too simplistic for the price point to move very many units. I don't know what their goal is on the number of units. I don't know what their target production count per week is. Let's throw something out here. How many Cosmic Carnivals do you think they sell? let's assume they release on time too we'll give them benefit of the doubt would you like me to start I'm going to have you start 150 America's most haunted that's what I think 150 units symmetrical, it's expensive it's not too I shouldn't say it like that it's more than a Stern Pro so that's noted unlicensed theme so that's not going to resonate right what it's got going for it is there will be some people that want to support a new manufacturer that's a motivating factor for a number of collectors and the dirty darty art package is so awesome that no one's going to feel bad having that in their lineup that's pretty much it so i'm going to say 150 see in here i was thinking low because i was thinking like between two and three. Units? Yeah. Two and three hundred. Oh, I thought you meant two or three. I mean, the one that did Mafia. I don't even think they sold ten, so I could have seen two or three. Two or three hundred. Okay. Was the range I was putting in my head. For a first time rollout, I mean, we're not talking thousands here. I mean... Well, and I doubt they thought they would move thousands. No, but yeah, I know. I was thinking two to three hundred. Okay. But it was just a question of who is, is the market still at a point where it's stable for that amount of sales? Right. And by the way, I'll just call it because people are going to probably start getting this picked up a bit on the microphones. There are thunderstorms moving through, so there's going to be thunder coming in. But we should be A-okay because we've got battery support to keep all this stuff running.
    28:46
    All right. Well, that was Cosmic Carnival. The final... I'm going to kind of merge these. The final piece of pinball news that I wanted to go through is... I guess these are still technically rumors, but images were supplied on Facebook by the page called Pinball Paparazzi,
    29:05
    which showed posters for two reskins of currently produced Stern games. one is Batman 66 with a Catwoman edition which my understanding is the play field remains the same but the back glass and the sides of the cabinet head now prominently feature Catwoman, not sure if they changed the art on the sides of the cabinet or not and then the other one is Munster's Premium which has the Franchi black and white art package, is the art package but the colorized version of that art package. So premium and now in color. But all the, which, I mean, I'm sure when he went in, he had all those layers. I remember having him explain it. So I always figured it would be fairly easy for them to turn the color back on.
    29:58
    But do you have any thoughts about, Franchi did both these art packages. There's a lot of Franchi art everywhere. This must be the year of the Franchi, just like last year was the year of the Yeti. French. But, so what do you, let's start with Catwoman. I mean, when I saw this, I just, maybe it's because the side of the cab and the image still showed Batman and Robin, and it was really just the part on the back glass. I didn't really see the point. I don't see the point. I mean, it seems like just a hair more than changing a trans light is basically what it amounts to to me. and now the colorized Munsters Premium is less surprising to me because before Munsters came out and people first saw the art packages, there were a lot of people who were, well, I want to have the lower play field, but I ain't buying an LE because they're expensive. And I don't want black and white. And I don't like black and white because I want color. I want Christopher Franchi's colors because they pop. They pop. Everyone always says pop. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Pop it out of the park. pop-up video pop-up video pop I think that's how it went. Something like that. It was basically I did that voice work back in the 90s. Back in the 90s. That's how I paid for school. That's how you paid for high school? No, that's how I paid for college. I was in college in the 90s. I am not that young or old or what. I'm both. I was in both in the 90s. I was going to say. Oh, the 90s were so long ago. I always tried. That's right. I guess I did all of that then.
    31:32
    So, here's what I'm wondering. Are these games not reaching the sales targets that Stern Pinball was hoping for, and they're doing new art packages to try and reinvigorate some sales? Do you think that's the factor? Or maybe the motivations are different on the two games. I would think the motivations would be different. because I think of the two, the one that makes the most sense to me is the Monsters one because Monsters is not a great theme and because it needs any help it can get and a lot of people were turned off by the black and white artwork that I think having colorized artwork would be a big thing and would make sense sales-wise for them. I agree with you. I think that in the case of Munsters,
    32:35
    I actually think that Stern is not pleased with the sales counts on the premiums. I think they came in under their projections. I'll go that blunt about it. I think that the premiums didn't sell in the volume that they were calculating that they would, and the hope is that it was the black and white that turned people off. So now that there's a color version. Not the terrible lower play field.
    33:00
    Actually, I kind of like the lower play field. You know. Once they dialed down the flipper power so I wasn't getting an air ball every time I flipped at 403 Club, the last time I went, I felt like the lower play field was. I haven't played it with that redone. Because last time I played it, every time I hit it, it felt like the ball was trying to fly out of the machine. Yeah, last time when I went, when you skipped. When I had to bail out. When you had the mites. Yeah, the mites. The mites, as we call them. Yes, we had mites. Well, the term versions. They were term-limited mites.
    33:33
    Yeah, I was like, because the first time when I played it at Texas Pinball Festival, it was just like, it seemed like every other flip I got an air ball in, and it was just like, this doesn't feel like just a smaller version. This feels like the ball's too light. See, because every time I played it, it just felt like I was just slinging the ball everywhere. It didn't feel like it had any. But earlier this month at 403 Club, I thought, no, actually, I thought it felt pretty. The shots were challenging. They're a little different. It's not all like Stewie Pinball where it's laid out in a fan, which. Right. A symmetrical fan at that. So, again. So, anyway. Yeah, I actually liked it a little more there. Here's where I don't think this solves their problem, though.
    34:15
    Most of the people I have seen who were very skeptical or even downright negative on the black and white art package, when they saw it in person, seemed to gravitate a bit more towards it or think, oh, it's okay. Had this been a choice at the time, some of the preliminary sales would have been better.
    34:35
    The problem with Munsters isn't the art package, though. And I don't think it's the lower play field either. I think the problem that people have with the Munsters is they don't like the code. the discussions I've been following there's a thread on Pinside I'm not linking it because I don't want to encourage this there's a thread on Pinside that's roughly titled Munsters the worst code ever now that in my judgment is more than a little harsh it's wholly inaccurate but I had theorized when Munsters first came out that there was, probably even before it came out that there was room in the market for a game like Iron Man, where the code wasn't a whole bunch of modes and depth, just challenging stuff to do.
    35:26
    Monsters is kind of like that Iron Man code, but there are two problems with it. One, not everyone's like me, and a lot of people actually are annoyed that this isn't like a mode-driven game with a lot of depth to it. And unlike Iron Man, the challenge that they have with Munsters is that getting through to the quote-unquote wizard mode and then doing it through the second level is actually relatively easy. Relatively easy. So good players are doing it. Decent players are getting to the first level all the time. Yeah. And so unlike Iron Man where trying to go and there's like a do or die multiball and it's almost impossible for players to pull off. Probably too hard, quite frankly, but there's nothing to reach for with Munsters. And factoring in that Dwight Sullivan, the programmer, lead programmer on the game, has repeatedly said that that was the style of code he was going for. No one has any confidence that it's getting any deeper. and if I were them, I wouldn't because it sounds like it's not meant to be any deeper. But I guess I was wrong. I thought there'd be an appetite for a one-off, occasionally have a game like this. Apparently not, at least not at this price point. So I think they didn't sell as many premiums because as people have gotten more and more experience with be they premiums or pros on location, this is not code that they want to own in the home.
    37:01
    Whereas, like on location at 403, the reactions when I've spoken to other players, very mixed. I know some people who say they think it's actually a really fun game. They like the challenge of trying to build up the jackpot and then collect the jackpot. And they think that's a lot of fun. I had another top-level player earlier this month tell me he thought it was the worst game in the building.
    37:20
    Out of 12. It's like, this is the worst game. His absolute worst game. and I'm not I don't recall if it was the I think it was software based were his complaints because the geometry is pretty solid I mean I like the game alright it is in no way on my radar to own it was of all the stuff currently being made by Stern I'd probably buy all of it ahead of Munsters and this is where the theme didn't do it any favors I'm trying to think like what's still in production from Stern Batman, I like Batman more. Even though the layout's a little inferior, the code's so much better. Guardians is a better use of the layout in my view. I think Guardians is a really fun game. I actually like Aerosmith more than Munsters from a rules perspective. And then Black Knight, yeah, easily. I don't know what else is still like. Maybe they're still building Ghostbusters. I actually like Ghostbusters. I know a lot of people don't. It's not bad. But I think you're right. I would if I was somebody walked up and handed me monsters I'd flip it. If you won a free pro I would flip it as fast as possible. If you won a free pro I'm guessing then it wouldn't be on your list of games to get. Oh, you get to have a free Stern Pro. No, not at all.
    38:43
    I don't hate the game. It's no WWE or anything. It doesn't resonate with me on really any level. I would be surrendering. Like I said, I'd be surrendering everything because it's like, oh, it's an okay game with a theme that I don't care about at all. Yeah. No, the theme, the call-outs, none of that really appeals to me. I do find The Raven somewhat annoying to listen to as I play the game.
    39:07
    If I see it on location, I'm happy enough to drop quarters in it. Yeah. But I don't have any compulsion to try and acquire one. No. Now, Batman, I don't know because it's been out for a while. The problem that Batman has is if they had a particular target in mind, this is one of those kapow games. There ain't no pro level. It's like the same thing with Beatles. Beatles is a fun game, but I would never pay the price of a Beatles gold for what it is. If you had that available at a pro price, a Beatles at a pro price, I'd consider it. too. Because I'm starting to accept I did end up buying a TNA and I did struggle with $6,000 price point for a single level game.
    39:53
    But that's because all the single level games I own were like early 90s and before and were really cheap because they were used.
    40:01
    So I don't know if that's the motivation on Batman. I think Batman can't sell many more units as is. But I think Monsters is kind of stuck too because Black Knight's the new hotness from Stern. It's the newest game. And with people wanting the code to be different on Munsters and that's not going to happen, I just don't think that it can. Its reputation is what it is. Some people love it and absolutely love that code. You just have to like that style. And I think too many home collectors are put off by it or scared about it and won't deal with it. And I think you're exactly right. I don't think it's doing any favors. I don't think it's going to be... Nobody wants it. Okay. I mean, let me rephrase. It's not that nobody wants it. Nobody wants to spend that much money. Right. It's like they got the sales to expect. I just don't think it will be a long-produced game. No. But I do like that Zach did challenge me quite a while ago. I have to wait. I have to wait a year. But I'll pull those Pennside numbers, I must remember to, and look and see how many people list owning a Deadpool and then how many list owning a Munsters. But based off of how things are going, I am very confident in my prediction that Deadpool will outsell, will be verified by those ownership figures. Oh, yeah. It was always a given. The theme was always better. Always. And anyone who believed that that 60s old man theme was really going to resonate was deluding themselves. I know pinball is in a bubble, but guys, come on. You got to be. You can't aqua bat this stuff, folks. You can't do it. You can't aqua bat this. Don't Aquabat this. So that's it for news. So, and we're not going to do 20 questions a day because we're going to have a pinball discussion again, kind of like we did last time. That went over pretty well, actually. Oh I do want to note I did have I think two maybe three people brought up the last 20 questions Surprisingly to me no well yes but surprisingly to me I did not have anyone respond thinking that Dr. Dude should have been listed as a sci-fi game. So what I thought would have been the controversy because that's where your mind had went with it. And when I went back and looked at it, I shouldn't have described it as a high school layout. It was a very doctor-y layout, actually, on the play field. It looks like you're in a doctor's office. It doesn't even really show you what the ray is. So I felt better after looking at it. Where people pushed back was when you asked me if it was a Williams game, and I said yes.
    42:40
    Now, you kept that in. You factored that. So it met what your expectation was. But I had a couple of people, one who understood after I explained at the end, and another who didn't care after I explained at the end, that when you asked Williams, They thought I should have said no and only had responded to Bally or Midway.
    43:02
    I can see that argument, but it's a discussion we've had in the past where if I – because I did that one other time where I'd asked Bally and then I asked Williams. And you said, well, I – or I'd asked Williams and I'd asked Bally, and you're like, well, I just put them all as the same. So since that time, I've always – I knew that going in. And I guess, and while I did explain at the end of the last episode, to better explain it to people, I'm not trying to be so nitpicky. I've seen other, like there was a video game podcast that I used to listen to called the Link Cable Podcast. They used to play 20 questions, and one of the questioners wanted to trick people, and he would slice and dice in the most, in my view, ridiculous ways. That's not my goal. I want to be fair with all the interpretations. but if someone asks me is it a Williams and Williams manufacturing built it then it's a Williams if someone wanted to narrow it in the way that a lot of people's minds are working in terms of what does it say on the back glass then you or anyone could just as easily do it by saying is it trademarked Williams and then the answer is no it was trademarked Bally because they run with a trademark you just have to ask is this a trademark it'd be like if there was if Alien Star was the game I was having you guess, Gottlieb game while Milstar owned it, and you ask me, is it a Premier? The answer is no, because Premier didn't build it. If you ask me it's a Gottlieb, I'll say yes, even if it says Milstar on it. It'll also say Gottlieb on it, too, in that case. If you ask me if it's trademark Gottlieb, the answer would be yes. If you ask me if it was built by Milstar, the answer would be yes. Or is it a Milstar or is it a Gottlieb? Yes, yes. Just couldn't say Premier in that case. but if my game was Silver Slugger and you said is it a Gottlieb I'd tell you yes if you said it's a Premier I'd tell you yes well that I understand because I'm not the one who had any issues but this whole conversation did bring up a thought is a Mountaineer a Ford oh I don't know a cargument interesting because I mean it's made by Mercury but it's identical to an Explorer. Right, but it's made by Mercury. Well, right, but Mercury's owned by Ford.
    45:21
    So maybe. I mean, they literally are made on the exact same lines and they just get a different bass. In that case, yeah. In that case, yeah, I don't know. In the world of cars, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have counted it. I mean, honestly, I just wouldn't have. Yeah. I think we wouldn't be having that conversation about cars. Well, but if we were, no. I would have said no because to a layperson, they wouldn't have known it. They wouldn't have thought about it. But, I mean, Dr. Dude is built by WMS Industries. That's the name of the company that built it. It's not like operating as – it wasn't like Bally and Williams were operating independently at that point. There's an impression that Mercury and Ford are separate entities in some capacity. I know some people who swear up and down they can tell the difference between those two vehicles.
    46:10
    I don't know. how, but they say they can. Sometimes there have even been consumer reports that are like, we don't know why, but for some reason, the Mercury version does actually run better. At least in the one we tested.
    46:21
    And so it's interesting, but I just thought I'd opine a little bit on it about when you're talking about the manufacturer, that's why Zach had a game with me on the last This Week in Pinball podcast, and I said Bally Williams. Bally Williams, the company was WMS Industries, commonly referred to as Bally Williams. Williams acquired Bally. It didn't keep them operating separately. As far as I can understand, there was no logic to what games got the Bally brand and what got Williams. There was some speculation that the licensed stuff was Williams. I heard someone else who used to work for them say they flipped a coin as to what they'd call a Bally and what they'd call a Williams. They didn't really care. There's no difference. Except because they had that Bally brand, And on the back glass, it would say Bally on the Bally ones. So if you were a Bally fan, maybe you would think that taxi was crap because it said Williams. I mean, I don't know. And that doctor dude was cool because it said Bally. Oh, yeah, I know. I don't know. Anyway, that's not today's discussion. But I thought I'd touch on it since we're not going to play 20 questions. Today's discussion is on pop bumpers in the modern era. Pop Bumper. Now, we've talked about Pop Bumpers before when we talked about how safe modern pinball designs are versus historically. And at that time, we both conveyed a generalized sense that we would like to see Pop Bumpers be more dangerous in that random sense like they used to be. I think a good case in point would be Total Nuclear Annihilation's solo Pop Bumper. How it's placed is dangerous, makes for a good challenge. What we didn't mean, or at least I didn't mean at the time, was, oh, well, Jurassic Park, if you don't level it just right, has a terrible feed out of the pops right down the middle. And even if you do level it right, it sometimes doesn't. It still doesn't. It's like the feed shouldn't be bad. If you want the pop bumpers to randomly be dangerous, place them in a random dangerous place. But feeds should be safe if you're having them be feeds. Right. Usually, the approach. But this was a listener of ours, Matt Roberts, wrote in, and he wanted us to talk about this in this following context. So I'll read the parameters out of the discussion. He asked us, for a future episode, would you consider exploring the role pop bumpers have taken in the modern era? For example, Ghostbusters and whodunit pop bumpers granting mystery awards. Attack from Mars pop bumpers building bonus to meet the Super Jets goal in the game. Iron Maiden pop bumpers contributing to the Power Jackpot in lighting Cyborg multiball. Metallica pop bumpers light blown pistons for a collect, which if I know the rules right, I looked it up. That's how I would try and know the rules right. I believe the way Metallica works is if you collect 10 piston light, it lights extra ball. And you can collect those by getting on the pops. Jersey Jacks, Pirates of the Caribbean. the pop bumpers raise the value of the mystery award they have levels and it raises the level up stern pirates of the caribbean pop bumpers earn bonus multipliers and then guardians of the galaxy the pop bumpers on that were used to advance in the mode yaka era so actually they played a role in a mode so based off of that and what he asked was which is best? which is worst? what would you do? AFM's best. You've picked the best game out of the games he provided us. I actually like what they've been doing where the pop bumpers do have something more than just straight point scoring. I like the addition.
    50:06
    I really do like the kind of slot machine type thing Stern has been doing with the pop bumpers. Are you thinking like the Ghostbusters style where you might get the mystery award if it lines up? Right. Okay. I don't actually care for that one. I kind of like that because it kind of gives you an extra. But I like having more than just points in the pop-up. Yeah, no, I agree. I do like having it. I like the idea of them having a role beyond scoring points. Because back in the day, their scoring points role was a little more relevant because a lot of games relied on somehow in some capacity lighting pop-up bumpers and then they were worth a lot. Right. And now they're just like paltry, paltry points. Star Trek's pop bumpers are, I mean, you get super pops and you get some decent points then, but otherwise it's like the bonus multiplier is in the top lanes, not the pops, so they're helpful for helping, but they themselves don't advance the bonus. Right. See, and I like them doing something like that. I like them advancing a bonus or being directly involved in something. so there's a good reason to go into them yeah now Attack for Mars which you mentioned I do like how the pops behave there I like the idea of the pop bumpers not just scoring points but building up bonus I'm okay with that and obviously if you stay in the pops enough it would then get you into super jets as it was called but super pop bumpers I thought that was fine pedestrian but fine plebes well Well, well... Peasant. It's time for the peasant. And Iron Maiden, the pops building up to the power jackpot. So they advance a jackpot shot value. I think that's a clever, simple but clever use. Yeah, no, that's very good. So I like that.
    51:59
    I don't care for the Jersey Jack Pirates raising the mystery award level because... I had to look into that. There have been a couple games that do things like that. There's another, I can't remember what game it was. I don't think it was the Pops, but there was another game that had levels and mystery. Oh, I think it's Metallica. And it's like, okay, so if you build up the level, then if you have mystery late and you go, I don't know. You get better rewards. I don't know how they all work the same. Like, do they just rule out the lower awards? Are there awards not available at the lower tiers that are at the higher tiers? or this is just to adjust the percentage. So the percentage chance of the better awards just improves. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter.
    52:49
    I don't care. From a home play environment, I guess that's kind of neat. I don't hate mystery awards. We obviously talked about it last time. But I don't know about taking them to the level. What I like about this is you do have to do work to level them up. and that's a skill-based concept, so I approve of that, but it wouldn't excite me. It doesn't impress me. Right. I don't. Much like the, I thought it was kind of neat when I saw the slot machine mystery. Again, instead of shooting a scoop, it's different, but I just don't think, oh, I need to shoot the pops again because I want to try and collect my mystery slot machine. It's whatever. It just doesn't click for me the same way as some of these other ones. what do you think about the pops building the bonus multiplier up like they do on Stern Pirates I didn't even remember if Stern Pirates did that I didn't remember it either well it's kind of hard to get in those pops you have that one shot to the right of the ship that kicks them into it because you have that top play field when you plunge so a lot of times you don't really end up in the pops on the launch I'm fine with that that's a clever It's a nice change up from lighting. So many games are light the top lanes to advance your bonus. Right. It's like everything. That's like all the games. When that doesn't do it, you're like, what? What happened? Yeah.
    54:14
    And pops for modes. Yeah, actually, I think those are, I like that. Jurassic Park does that. The Timmy, Timmy mode.
    54:22
    Electric fence mode is the actual name of the mode where you're trying to save Timmy. That's a pop mode where you want to get the ball in the pops to turn off the fence. and break the canon of the movie. Spoilers. So, and I'm guessing, I haven't really played much in Yaka era when I've played Guardians, but yeah, I like that idea. So, I mean, I guess for me, the worst ones are the ones oriented around the mystery awards, and I guess the best ones, best, that's a tough word. I definitely like Pops being used in modes, so that's probably the best, and then after that, I like the idea of Pops either building bonuses or jackpots or doing the bonus multipliers, I think. Those would probably be my favorites. I think they work best for building something because you rarely hit a pop once. You're bouncing around in the pops. That's the whole point of the pops. So using them to build stuff, I think, works very – it's got a good synergy.
    55:17
    Well, that really covers the pinball discussion. So at this point, we can go ahead and move to our second major topic area, video games. Video game discussion. Well, we have news first. Yeah, we have news. Nothing too crazy this time around. Oh, no. I see almost a half dozen things here. A couple crazy things. Just an interesting announcement. Yesterday, actually, Microsoft had an announcement about a new Minecraft, a new mobile Minecraft game. Mobilecraft. They're calling it Minecraft Earth. Aw. It is Pokemon Go for Minecraft. Really? Yeah. It's going to have, based upon the stuff I've read in the trailers, it's going to have actually different segments that you do. Like it will have a Pokemon Go type segment thing where when you're out and about in the world, you can find resources. You get within 20 foot of the resource and you can click it and you collect resources. Oh, okay. So you collect resources that way, but then when you're back home, you can enter into a mode where you design and build things. and then when you go back out into the world you can drop those things you built so that other people can interact with them and a fair amount of other stuff it's not even in a it's moving towards the beta stage at this point we don't have a release date or anything nothing firm but it uses the it's an AR game similar to something that was originally designed for the HoloLens when they were working on that little experiment. I remember HoloLens. Everyone wanted to play Minecraft HoloLens and then they found out that it's really a business application. Right.
    57:05
    So now this is what they're basically what that became, the HoloLens became was this. Now what's interesting is this is a mobile game that is going to require a pretty high end cell phone. And no idea on the battery call, but you have to use one of the much newer versions. You need to have an Android or an iOS phone with the six degrees of tracking, and you need to have the more recent versions of the OSs that include the VR portions of it that have been added on. So we're looking at, you know, it's going to be high-end phones and flagship phones. You're not going to be able to do this with budget phones, at least not right out the gate, not until the budget phones become more commonly having those extra features. Hmm. Okay. But I can see the draw for this because there are 91 million people playing Minecraft. It's very popular. It's got a huge draw. So we'll see what happens. I'm not really sure. I don't know how well these games are going to take off. I'm not sure how well AR games that are this way are going to take off. I mean, Pokemon Go was huge at first, and it's much, much smaller now.
    58:26
    Niantic, the company that kicked out Pokemon Go, is going to be releasing their new version of Pokemon.
    58:34
    It's the same concept as Pokemon Go, but it's set in the Harry Potter world. It's a Harry Potter game.
    58:42
    Now, they had a game before Pokemon, didn't they? Yes, they had a game before Pokemon and it was Ingress. Okay. Yeah, it was called Ingress. That's right. I played it for a while. It was an interesting enough game. I think Pokemon Go started out pretty much the same level that Ingress was with stuff to do.
    59:04
    Slightly differently because with Ingress you basically would capture points, which are the same points that are the gems and the Pokestops and all that stuff for Pokemon Go, and as you captured groups of them, they would combine and they would create a field that covered a whole section of town, and no other fields could be formed in that section. So the opposing team, because they had a blue and a green team, the opposing colored team couldn't form inside that section. They would have to capture one of your points or form around you, which would shut your field down, and the whole thing was trying to generate the bigger and bigger fields. Because I remember there was a huge thing at one time, because somebody had generated in a field that covered like all of New England and most of Canada and up into Greenland. Yeah. They just need to take Australia and then they have all the good risk choices. Yes, exactly. Well, and Australia gets all the new games. My wife is not happy because there's a new Pokemon mobile game coming out and it's already out in Australia because most companies use Australia as a test market because it's kind of a contained market to drop that stuff while still being large enough to get good feedback without it being as stress testing as doing a worldwide drop on a game. Ah, okay.
    60:25
    The other bit of news is also Microsoft related. Microsoft and Sony are working together. Oh, that's sweet. They're friends forever. Mm-hmm.
    60:41
    In reality, they signed, this is the most business-like thing ever. The rivals signed a memorandum of understanding. I love a good MOU. In which they're going to explore joint development of future cloud solutions to support their respective game and content streaming services.
    61:00
    What it amounts to is it sounds like PlayStation Live is basically going to go to Microsoft's, I think it's called the Apex. Or something like... Azure Cloud, I think. Yeah, Azure Cloud. Microsoft's got very highly developed Azure Cloud computing services. And they've been expanding it quite a bit. I think in a lot of competition with things like Amazon's cloud service and such. Yeah, and it sounds like Sony's going to be moving their PlayStation Live onto that. They should, because Sony's online network is crap. And that company has no money to fix it. As successful as the PlayStation is, people complain about the download speeds. all the time. Microsoft doesn't have that problem. Their download speeds are so horrible. Microsoft doesn't make a bunch of money on its Xbox division. It makes its money on its cloud division at this point, where they've really been shifting to as PC sales have gone down more and more. They just can't rely on just selling operating systems. Right. That's what they've been doing is cloud. My understanding from their quarterly financial calls is that the cloud side has been doing very well for them. It's the same way Amazon's cloud side is where most of Amazon's money comes from. Same thing with Google. Google stuff. Google Cloud, yeah. That's all. It's a huge thing. It also seems to be a kind of preemptive setup against the coming of Google Strata, which is their online, high-res, high-speed streaming, only no-console video game thing that Google's been talking about. It could be. I think when a lot of people saw this article, I think the thought process jumped immediately to cross-play between Sony and Microsoft. I don't think so. I'm not sure anything related to that comes out of this. I don't think so. I believe that Sony is looking for a solution to their streaming limitations and it just easier at this point for them to contract with someone that done it than to try and build their own Yeah, because... And Microsoft would love to have an account this big. Yeah, because every time I go to install a new game on my PlayStation, it's, all right, the install has started. Guess I'm going to go do something else for two hours. And I've got real good internet.
    63:24
    It's just terrible. It'll be a win for PlayStation fans. Yeah. Because the download thing, I mean, yeah, the online infrastructure has often been complained about. And that's not Sony's core. Sony's in a weird situation because they have the PlayStation, but they're not like this computing powerhouse like Microsoft is. They were known for making TVs and really bad movies. So it's just different. They never moved into that market. It wasn't what their company was. They needed to find someone who had that strength to work with. And they know Microsoft can do it on gaming because they do it for their own gaming platform. Right. And Microsoft's all about the money. They don't. If it doesn't advance Xbox, Microsoft doesn't care if it advances Microsoft. Right. So.
    64:10
    Overall, it's a positive. Yeah, I don't see any negatives coming out of this. It's not like it's going to make them, you know, fight more than they were. No, no. There's no negatives that can come out of this. We finally got a launch date For World of Warcraft Classic That was revealed back at Not the launch date But the game was revealed back at BlizzCon Right As I remember Right And the launch date is now revealed as August 27th Which has caused some Non-minor rage Because at BlizzCon The talk was Of the launch date Was the launch date was The summer of 19 And some people apparently consider The end of August A little late to be summer Yeah Yeah, but technically it's still summer. Technically it's still summer. I think what it amounts to is... Oh, you're back in school. You're back in school. Do your homework and quit crying. Right. Are there that many kids who are still in school who are going to be playing World of Warcraft Classic? I have no idea. You're going to sign up and play World of Warcraft Classic, I'm sure. No. But, I mean, when I last played World of Warcraft, I think I was still in my 20s. Yeah, I did too.
    65:17
    Has it been that long? I think. It has been. Final Fantasy for sure. Final Fantasy XI for sure. I think Warcraft as well. Maybe not. Maybe into our early 30s.
    65:27
    I don't know. It's been a long time. I haven't played Warcraft since... Oh yeah, it's been a decade for me. And I quit first.
    65:37
    Hmm. But my oldest was only like one or two when I quit, and she's 11. So yeah, it's been a decade. Okay. Wow.
    65:48
    No, I'll probably not revisit that. Yeah, I'm not either. Now, a game that I have some interest in revisiting, they finally, Saberware, mentioned again, Final Fantasy VII Remake. It's never going to happen. You know what's going to happen is they're getting so close, and then Square is just going to cancel the project and fire the team. I mean. It's what Square does. Yeah. I just, I, I mean, we've talked before on this show about how seminal for us Final Fantasy VII was as a game.
    66:29
    I always think fondly of Final Fantasy VII. I don't think fondly about the announced remake. I'm normally fairly, I'd rather them just port things and just, if they need to, to keep it in front of people rather than, I mean, a nice remake is great. but this is what Capcom started sort of doing for a long time. And Capcom's gotten better. Now Capcom has been doing real remakes where they've rebuilt the game from the ground up, and now it's a first-person game sort of stuff, like they've been doing with some of the Resident Evils. That's been going over really well. When it was just, here, let's just upgrade the, you know, let's smooth out those polygon assets and then put it out. That's kind of what I was, that's all I'm expecting of this. But it is a great game. But have you seen the trailer? No.
    67:16
    Total rebuild with new engine. Okay. This is a whole new creature. It's not just an HD upgrade. Is Aeris going to be okay?
    67:27
    No. Oh. Well, then I guess it's not a real rebuild, is it? You want people to care, you get rid of Tifa. They'll care then. Oh, they'll care. No one wanted Aeris in their party. She was awful. She was! I mean, you know, she could heal. She could heal. We've got to be healers. Keefa, though. She's ready to fight for you. Yeah. Anyway. She bounced. Yeah, she will. Yes. She bounced a lot. In multiple ways. But the interesting thing to me that until I saw this trailer drop and read some of the articles about it, I hadn't realized that it's been four years since they announced this game. This is the first time we've heard anything about it in four years. I really don't think Square's interested in it. I don't think so either. I think this was done to appease fans for whatever reason. And it reminds me of a, and I know it's not in your notes, but there was a discussion about the Tekken cross Street Fighter game. Oh, yeah. Maybe a couple weeks ago, maybe a week ago. I don't remember exactly. And in an interview, the guy who was overseeing the Tekken project was like, yeah, we have the ability. Because the Street Fighter one came out really fast, where the Tekken characters were brought into the 2D Street Fighter. Right. But the deal was that Namco would be able to make a Tekken game with the Street Fighter characters brought into their 3D world. And for those of you that don't play fighting games, Tekken and Street Fighter play very differently. Very, very. And so no one ever got the Tekken version. And Namco is like, we're doing so well with what? Is it Tekken 10 or whatever? The current Tekken? They're like, we don't have a financial need to make this game. So we're not. unless and until we view it as viable. But our profit margins are so good on the current tech endgame, we're not looking to undermine that. It's basically what was said. We don't want to cut ourselves down. Right. And so I don't know. It's not the best analogy to what's going on with Square, but I think Square has always been so slow for the last 15 years. I'm putting stuff out. You think about the long development cycles, The long development cycle for Final Fantasy XV A game that I don't think was worth The development cycle it had A feeling I've had for most of their games And I've enjoyed most of them Including XV But it ain't an 8 year game Right They need to tighten their stuff down At the time they spend on stuff They should be twice as good as a Rockstar game And they aren't And I do have a link for the Trailer for Final Fantasy I will go watch it I added it, so the remake. Good, they must feed. The last little bit of news is just interesting. It's part of the ongoing Epic Game Store. Epic! Steam stuff. And Epic's having their first major sale, which they're calling their Epic Mega Sale.
    70:26
    And they've had a lot of their people pull their games off the Epic Store because of it. Wow, that's not much of a sale if nothing's there, don't lie. I mean, not tons of them, but, like, a lot of the big things, like Borderlands 3, you can no longer preorder. And it's only available in the Epic Store. And it's because of the sale. Ah. And the same thing with, like, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 was pulled because of the sale. And there's some other games that have had, they've made changes to their pricing structure because of the sale. Because what they did with their sales, besides having the normal kind of, oh, this game's 25% off, this game's 75% off. That's fine. But even games that aren't part of that sales structure, every game over $14.99 is $10 off. And that includes their pre-orders. Oh, wow. So a lot of the pre-order people are like, no, no. The game's not even out yet. We're not putting it on sale. And people who have games who just dropped are doing the same thing. It's like we don't want the game on sale yet. I've wondered how entities like Steam and now like Epic do sales. Like, if you use a service, are you subjected to any sale that they come up with? Do you have to opt in? Did they opt in without really being aware that they opted in when they signed up for Epic? Because it said that they had, I don't know any of these. I don't know the answer to these things. Now, I do know from an article I read that the Epic Store has said that publishers can opt in or out of sales. Okay. So they just need to opt out of this. They don't actually have to pull their games down.
    72:16
    Except apparently that's the only way to opt out of it right now because they might be having a back-end problem. Maybe they opted in initially and they don't have a way to toggle that after you do so. It's possible. And it could just be because the Epic Store is still, it's not that well developed. They might still be having some back-end issues. Nick Baldridge of Gaming on 10, on their Discord, on the Gaming on 10 Discord, he was just telling me last night, in fact, that he won't do Epic.
    72:46
    I've done it because it got satisfactory. Yes. That's it. You should have, if you had seen that, you could have told them they have satisfactory, so you have to. Right. Now, he didn't say he didn't do it because of the sales or anything. He only, he's one of those, he's one of those that just wants one place for the games. He doesn't want, but he also is someone who tries the game on Linux, you know, tries, because that's all anyone. It's hard to do. Well, that's all. I pulled the Steam stats from April, and not even 1% of the user base uses Linux. I don't know why we cater to these people.
    73:22
    I don't understand either. Oh, well, that's what happens. Well, we do have a video game discussion triggered by another listener who wrote in to us on Facebook, Andrew Clark. He actually writes in quite a bit to us on Facebook. But he asked, I believe yesterday, I saw it this morning, though, for any thoughts we might have on controllers for PC and Steam games. He said he's tired of bashing his laptop keyboard up. So I thought, okay, well, recommendations are fine. But I also figured we probably should have a discussion because I think most, actually most people I know, So when you think of PC gaming, people think mouse and keyboard. And that's true enough for strategy games and FPS games. But I think most PC gamers, I think console gamers may be surprised at how often PC gamers use controllers. Because I don't think it's rare. Oh, I've got one. I use all the Microsoft's Xbox controllers. All of the wired ones, if you plug it into a Windows machine, it works perfectly. Nothing else has to do. You just plug it into a Windows machine. It works perfectly.
    74:44
    And from the stuff I've heard, and that's because that's what I use. I've not upgraded. But from everything I've heard, the Xbox One controllers will wirelessly connect easily to modern Windows machines with no problem. And I know you can connect PlayStation to DualShock, the newer ones, the Bluetooth ones, to the computers. It just typically requires a software download to work.
    75:14
    Yes, that's my understanding as well. In terms of, you play far more PC gaming than I do. When I play on PC and when I use a controller, I mostly use a wired Xbox One controller. I also have a wired 360 controller. in my personal opinion the Xbox controllers as of the 360 era are basically the best ergonomically designed controller that there is I actually do not like the DualShock I don't think it feels very good in the hands I'm going to agree with you I think the Xbox controllers are more helpful and I think it has to do with the linear symmetrical I should say the symmetrical nature of the analog sticks on the DualShock I think that just Microsoft offsets theirs. I like the offset. And I just think it just – now, if I had to pick between the two, I do actually, once I learned it, it's not much different. But I do think the Xbox One controller is a little bit better designed. But these are marginal differences. So that would be the controller I would recommend. And I get a wired one, even though I have wireless ones and they can work with the PC, just because since I'm so close to the USB port, I don't have to worry about batteries. Right. And I use a wired Xbox 360 controller, and I'll use a wired Xbox 360 controller until it breaks. And then I'll get a wired Xbox One or Xbox Five controller or whatever the Xbox Diablo, whatever they decide to call it. Now, I probably wouldn't go back or get that redo Duke controller from the original Xbox. You might want to just use a DualShock. Yeah. If you're thinking about that. The Duke. You're the Duke. You're a number one. Okay. Oh, man.
    77:02
    But, Tony, how about you weigh in some about when do you pull out the controller for a PC game versus when you bang on your laptop keyboard? Well, you don't bang on a laptop keyboard. He even right here on the table has his external keyboard because he doesn't like to bang on laptop keyboards. Yeah, I hate laptop keyboards. I use them when I absolutely have to. What type of games do you pull out the controller for? I pull out the controller for any platformer. I pull out the controller for pretty much all flight sims. I pull out the controller for... Honestly, I pull out the controller for everything except for first-person shooters. RTSs and like grand strategy games. To be fair. That's the vast majority of the games I play. Oh, and also isometric games. Because stuff like, the vast majority of the games I play, I run keyboard and mouse because they're the ones I play the most. But if I'm playing stuff like Shantae or like any of the Super Meat Boys or any, I mean, I can just pull up my list. About half my Steam list I play on control. I find platformers almost impossible with a keyboard. I don't see how anybody can play with a keyboard.
    78:23
    So there was one I got once I was on sale through Steam, and I just finally pulled out the controller. I was like, oh, this game actually isn't hard. Yeah, there are play advantages on FPS to using a mouse and keyboard. So you should use a mouse and keyboard on shooters in general. Not shmups, though. Schmucks are usually designed with a controller in mind. So there's that.
    78:48
    Obviously, most of the PC versions won't even be oriented at all to let you play a strategy game with a controller. And why would you want to? I don't know why you'd want to.
    79:00
    Especially because I play so many console games, I can understand the desire if you're more experienced with console to want to do a shooter with a controller.
    79:09
    In a single-player experience, that's fine, where the handicap isn't going to be a big deal. But when it comes to strategy games, holy crap, I do not like controllers at all. It's just easier, way easier. And all the hotkeys you want with the keyboard is the big deal. I play a lot of 4X games. I play a lot of stuff like that that is designed around lots of hotkeys and a mouse. Can you imagine playing StarCraft with a controller? I mean, the Halo, there were a couple of Halo Wars games. They were strategy games designed with a controller in mind. Those are tolerable. Almost everything else is an incredible chore because it becomes a challenge to even select units. It actually makes the game much, much harder. I played Red Alert 3 on the Xbox 360. That, especially when playing on the hardest setting, played with a friend of mine, Alan, who Tony and I used to play World of Warcraft with, we played all the way through on the highest settings, and you're just fighting the controller. That's what makes it hard.
    80:19
    Definitely. Yeah, I mean, I would align in pretty much all the same way. So in terms of genre, I would say most PC games are probably better for a controller, but the most popular genres tend to be those that are predominantly mouse and keyboard. Right. Those are the ones I play the most. Yeah. Well, I mean, I just, the PCs are a better source of strategy games in general anyway. So in that regard, it's like, you got slim pickings on ones that got ported to consoles anyway. So that really stands out. And of course, shooters are everywhere. But shooters originated on PCs, so the mouse and keyboard there. But other than that, I think most of, like, if you play a lot of digital pinball games, play with a controller. It's such a better experience. I mean, there have been times where, especially in the old days, where I'd play with a keyboard. And it works, but this is more comfortable to hold a controller. You can just kick back, play with your bumpers or play with the triggers, however you want to configure it. And on some of those things, you need to be cognizant of lag, make sure the settings are working so that your controller is behaving as you want it to. But as Tony noted, so many of the controllers, Steam can detect a lot of controllers now as well, and Andrew mentioned Steam. So a lot of these common controllers, like the Sony controllers, are going to be recognized when you plug them in anyway through that service. It's definitely Don't handicap yourself by trying to play Flight Sims Oh god On a keyboard Is terrible And you should play Flight Sims And once you play Flight Sims You'll understand why all games should always give you the option To invert the Y axis Because that's the proper way to use it And those of you who do not invert Are essentially inferior beings Yes You're dark and dirty terrible people Because if you ever have pilots who pass out and you have to take control of a plane, you're going to crash it because you don't understand inversion. So learn inversion. Except x-axis inversion. That's weird Japanese stuff. We don't even want that in those weeb games.
    82:34
    There are things that let you invert x. I don't know why you would. I don't either. That's weird. The only reason I can figure out is if for some specific reason you wanted to hold the controller upside down. Okay. So I guess if your controller is listing one way and you're playing a NASCAR game and you need to always just turn one direction, maybe then.
    82:57
    I don't know. I'm sure there's a reason for something. Well, we have no reason to keep going, though, because we've reached the end of the show. We have. We did it. So as a reminder, you can email us, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. We're also accessible on Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. And we're available on Twitch, where we're seen most often, and Instagram and Twitter as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And as I noted, it's too long to read out, but there will be a link in the show notes to Teespring. If you do want the T-shirts that we have with our logo on them, we also have a link to our Discord channel there because it's too hard to say because I haven't memorized. But that's actually fairly active. We have a number of people in there where the dankest of memes are shared. The dankest of memes. Yes. We don't censor on the Discord, so FYI. It's a much darker place than this podcast. Much darker. But other than that, we'll be back in two weeks. And until next time, I'm Dennis. And I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody.