Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 121 - Dots in the Popcorn

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·53m 49s·analyzed·Aug 10, 2020
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Location pinball faces multi-year decline; Ryan Claytor's arcade-themed watch sells out rapidly.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers hosts Dennis and Tony discuss pandemic-related location pinball closures and broader industry challenges, predicting a prolonged decline in location play through 2021-2022. They also cover a collaborative watch design by Ryan Claytor with Mr. Jones Watches inspired by electromechanical arcade games, and engage in speculative design banter about luxury complications.

Key Claims

  • Silver Ball Saloon in East Rochester, NY, is closing this weekend due to pandemic impacts and restrictions

    high confidence · Dennis reports recent closure announcement by Bruce Nightingale from Slam Tilt podcast, confirmed by closure date reference

  • Location pinball recovery won't meaningfully begin until 2022 at earliest

    medium confidence · Dennis predicts 2022 recovery timeline; Tony agrees, noting optimism for 2021 is unfounded given vaccine rollout timeline

  • Bar-based location pinball will take the largest losses among all location types

    medium confidence · Dennis states this based on bars being high-risk category on all state models; Tony concurs bars are most affected

  • Mr. Jones Watches Step Right Up collaboration sold out in approximately 2 hours, limited to 100 units at $245

    high confidence · Tony reports Facebook discovery of sellout; references link in show notes with waitlist available

  • Neither Dennis nor Tony have visited location pinball since early March 2020

    high confidence · Both hosts confirm no location play since pandemic lockdowns began; also haven't dined in restaurants

Notable Quotes

  • “I think at this point what we are seeing is the most likely death of location pinball for the next several years before we might start seeing a resurgence.”

    Tony @ ~33:45 — Core thesis on location pinball's near-term trajectory; pessimistic assessment of pandemic impact

  • “I think there's going to be a fair number of people who just, once it's been gone for so long, they're going to be so slow to come back that it's not going to be able to handle the large number of locations that some places had started to build up.”

    Tony @ ~34:10 — Explains mechanism of long-term location decline: customer habit loss and oversupply

  • “Why would I do that to play a game of pinball? That's to me it's silly.”

    Dennis @ ~40:30 — Articulates host reluctance to visit masked locations with unmasked diners; reflects broader consumer hesitation

  • “Artistically, it's in a good place, but the watch needs to be mechanical. It needs to have complications. I think at least a minute repeater.”

    Tony @ ~48:15 — Proposes luxury-tier redesign of Ryan Claytor's watch to extend appeal and prevent rapid sellout

  • “You won't sell out in two hours. You might sell out. But you won't sell out in two hours if we get this into a five figure range.”

    Tony @ ~48:45 — Market positioning advice: higher price point creates scarcity perception and extends sales window

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonBruce NightingalepersonRyan ClaytorpersonNick BaldridgepersonZach MinneypersonSlam TiltorganizationEclectic Gamers PodcastorganizationMr. Jones WatchescompanyStep Right Upproduct

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Location pinball arcade pricing and market positioning challenge: rapid sellout indicates underpricing relative to demand

    medium · Step Right Up watch sold out in ~2 hours at $245; Tony suggests 5-figure luxury positioning would extend sales window and justify design complexity

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Location pinball players avoiding venues due to health risk perception, not just regulatory closure

    high · Both hosts confirm no location play since March 2020 despite some venues being open; unwilling to expose themselves despite operators' survival efforts

  • ?

    event_signal: Silver Ball Saloon closing announced by operator Bruce Nightingale, final weekend occurring during podcast recording week

    high · Dennis reports closure as recent news (couple days prior); identifies venue as bar-style location in East Rochester, NY; emphasizes state-level restrictions impact outside NYC

  • $

    market_signal: Bar-based location pinball experiencing disproportionate losses compared to other venue types

    medium · Tony states bars are high-risk category on all state models; mask requirements prevent protected indoor play; clustering at bars drives disease spread

  • ?

    product_strategy: Location pinball recovery delayed significantly; meaningful recovery not expected before 2022 at earliest

    medium · Both hosts predict 2022 start to recovery; Dennis notes vaccine mass deployment unlikely before January 2021 with prioritization delaying general availability

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.161

0:00
This episode of the Eclectic Gamers Podcast is brought to you by the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Roanoke, Virginia. In a world where there are museums, the Roanoke Pinball Museum becomes the one beacon, an interactive museum dedicated to the science and the history of pinball. Their mission is to cultivate curiosity in science, art, and history through pinball, while preserving and honoring its role in American culture. The museum is open when there are not quarantines, every day, except Monday, and it houses over 65 machines with models ranging from 1932 to 2018. Roanoke Pinball Museum. Coming soon. Rated X for Extreme. Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 9th. This is episode 121. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. And I hear the pitter-patter of rain outside. So this may be the Thunderstorm edition So enjoy that Because I ain't going to work hard to edit it all out That's just too much It's too sporadic No I understand that completely Well we're back What's been going on? Anything? Oh man We don't have time The show's not long enough for me to go into everything That's been going on the last couple weeks When it comes to stuff like work And making decisions On child schooling and stress and, yeah, it's been insane. We finally, and here's the thing. At one point, our school district gave us the date that they were going to put out their plans. And the date for that was July 28th. And at the same time they announced the date that they were putting out, or they announced that date, they announced that all enrollments had to be completed by July 17th. Hmm. Well, that makes a lot of sense. And then they were surprised when they got pushback from the parents who were like, how in the cred do you want us to do all of our enrollments without you telling us what the plans are?
2:23
Yes. So what did they end up changing enrollment to? Because I'm sure they caved on that. They pushed enrollment back to the 17th of August. Okay. Originally, they pushed it back to the 3rd of August, and then they pushed it back again when the school start date got pushed back to after Labor Day. Ah. Okay, that makes sense. But if you were doing the online enrollment stuff, you still had to have it all done by the 5th. Ah. Okay.
Silver Ball Saloon
organization
Pizza Westorganization
Nub's Puborganization
Roanoke Pinball Museumorganization
Coin Op Carnivalproduct
  • ?

    technology_signal: Electromechanical arcade/pinball design aesthetics driving contemporary luxury product design (watch complication)

    medium · Ryan Claytor collaborates with Mr. Jones Watches on arcade-inspired watch; indicates ongoing cultural resonance of vintage arcade mechanics in consumer goods

    • 2:56
    So, it's been, yeah. Yeah, it's been so, and then work has just been sheer insanity. And luckily we had a really nice week because we had a ton of big outside projects going on.
    3:11
    But it's just, it was such an exhausting week. Friday night I came home, I went to bed early. I went to bed Friday night at like 8.15. I'm just like, I'm done. I didn't get on any Zoom calls with nobody. I didn't really chat with anybody I played my I had blue stacks up And played my silly little waifu game And then Passed out at like 8.15 Thunderstorm hit at midnight Woke my dog up Who decided she needed to go outside Because that's what she decides when thunderstorms hit That's when she wants to go outside Cue perfect thunder in the background Yeah I think I'm leaving that one in and so I got up, waited for a break in the rain, put her out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
    4:04
    I never went back to sleep. I didn't go back to sleep, and finally about 8.30 in the morning, my wife wasn't even awake yet. I just lurched back to the bedroom and passed out again for another four hours, so I completely blew my Saturday. Didn't get up until like 1. I felt like I could have laid back down and go back to bed without a problem, and I just drug ass everywhere yesterday. I was just completely out of it.
    4:31
    Yeah. You're making me tired. Oh, it was so bad. It was so terrible. I tried to watch shows or something just to stay, not just like half passing out in my chair because I was so exhausted. And then I would sit here like halfway through a show and say, I don't have the energy to watch this show. So I'd stop it and I'd start another show. I started like four series yesterday, and the only thing that I actually watched and finished was I went ahead and finished watching the ABC murders on Amazon Prime with John Malkovich as Hercule Poirot. Oh, I didn't know about this. I may have to add this to my list.
    5:14
    It's not terrible. I mean, I've seen better, but it's not bad. and I actually really liked Malkovich in the role. Oh, good. So I enjoyed it, but this weekend has just been a loss for me. Like last weekend, I was energy, and I did projects, and I did a whole bunch of stuff, and I burned through all of the Umbrella Academy in a day, well, season two of it in a day, and all sorts of stuff. And then this weekend, I'm just trash. I'm just hot garbage this weekend.
    5:49
    Yeah. Well, I haven't been quite as exhausted. I have not played much in the way of games for two weeks, though, in terms of video games like on my console or on PC or pinball. I've played some phone video games, mostly Archero and Wordscapes. Wordscapes is a crossword. So it's not even a real game. What the crap is Archero? Archero or Archero. I'm not quite sure how to say it. It's one of those where you go around and there are a lot of little enemies that spawn and you're shooting arrows at them. And so it's a lot about movement and placement and dealing with the types of mods and level by level by level. Yeah, some on the Kansas City Try Hard folks in pinball were playing it and told me about it at one of our tournaments last year. So I downloaded it and apparently it's free to play. But, you know, they try and get you to buy gems and stuff to upgrade faster. But they add a lot of content to it, so it's been a really good living game. So you build up your character as you go, and eventually you're able to get past the stage, and then you get to a harder stage. So it's kind of almost like a roguelike in that regard. But yeah, so it's interesting. It's something where I just go in and get my – if I don't feel like playing, I'll go in and do the daily ad watches to get some gems or go in and actually play it for a while. and usually trying to get through an entire stage might take 10 minutes if you can actually do the whole thing, because it's like maybe 50 levels per stage sort of thing. Oh, that's not bad. Yeah, it's enjoyable.
    7:27
    That's about all I've played the last couple weeks. I mean, I played a little bit right after our last episode. I played some more. I was playing more Satisfactory, and then last week I played some of the newest season of Diablo III just because I wanted something mindless while I was watching shows that I didn't have to pay a ton of attention to. And quite frankly, that's Diablo III at this point. And then other than that, yeah, I've just been playing phone games. Yeah. I'm a bad gamer. Well, maybe you're a good phone gamer, though.
    8:00
    That's the secret. Yeah, work-wise for me, I won't belabor it, But it's like, yeah, not nearly as bad as you had it. But I made a mistake. On retrospect, I feel this was a mistake.
    8:18
    And the state agency, health agency, had asked me to be an external grant reviewer for one of their funding pools that they were working with with local health departments. And because I think of the volume and the concern about getting through them all. So I agreed. I think I was the only reviewer because I swear I looked at every single one of them. oh and i just thought maybe i do like 10 or so and for those that aren't aware many listeners aren't we have 100 health departments in the state so i was just like why am i looking at something like nothing's getting processed unless i do it i finally asked like is anyone else working on these and it's told no it's like okay well now i feel obligated a bit like and it was because of the way it works with my relationship with the locals it's a little awkward because I'm sending them back their applications telling them, okay, you're asking for stuff that's not allowed, so you need to fix your stuff or else it's not going to get funded. But I'm not actually the one making that decision. I'm just enforcing it. But I work for them, not for the state, so it's extra weird. And so these were due last week, but there were a bunch that needed correction or were coming in or getting fixed up. So this Friday, I worked until 10.30 at night trying to get through all of them because they were like the fixes and stuff were due by midnight. And so it's like three of us are working. Like, I'm the only one doing these approvals. Someone else is working on the fiscal side. Someone else is doing the outreach. And it was just like I'd get in. I'd try and stop and I'd go to watch some Overwatch League and I'd get an email and it'd be like, hey, Dennis, another one's in. Can you approve it? I'm like, OK, let me get up and go and reload everything. and let's go and yes let me walk make sure it's okay or if it's not make a note and it's like oh god why did I agree and I told them that too I said you know I think that this was a mistake I think this was way more work than I was expecting so their response was does this mean you won't help on the next one and of course I have trouble saying no so I'm like yes I'll help but hopefully this next time it will be actually help and not do it all by myself well I'm pretty sure that's what they mean by help Maybe. If that means they'll get paid, then okay, I'll do it.
    10:36
    Supposedly I'm getting a contract out of this same funding pool I was doing the allocation from, so I did go ahead and bring up this week, hey, I don't actually have a contract, much less a signed one yet. You just have my proposal. I was told it was being funded, but I want it in writing because August is the first month that that's supposed to be built. I don't even have a class account code for it yet because I don't have a signed contract. So it's like, whatever. Wow. That was just the thunder here. I heard it through your mic a second or so after it hit here. Oh, actually, those were two separate. You had yours, which I heard in my headset, and then I just happened to have another one outside the window. Oh, it was just timed just right? Yep, just timed because you shouldn't be bleeding through my headset. I have it turned way down. Speaking of turned way down, apologies to everyone for the 12-minute intro, but that's because there isn't much of the way of news, so you just got to hear us talk. But don't worry, you can always go on Pinside and complain about how all the podcasts never jump into the topics. Yeah, that's fine. If you want a podcast that jumps straight into topic, let me tell you what you do.
    11:47
    Start a podcast. There you go. Easy as that. That's true. That's a good way to do it. But we will go into pinball now because we do have a few things. And the first, of course, because it's all about us, is the Build-A-Bank. So we had the Build-A-Bank from episode 120, and it was so close, Tony. Okay, sure it was. The official results are 51% to 49%, but to be more specific, I won by one vote.
    12:16
    Mm-hmm. I did not vote for myself. Oh, I don't ever vote for those. You never have either. But in case people wondered, Dennis, were they tied and you pushed it over? No, I did not. I let the market decide.
    12:29
    And as is typical, people reach out to me or sometimes I reach out to them and say, why are you picking Tony? And then they tell me why.
    12:39
    Oh, this is going to be great. It's awesome. It is. Everything's sounding very epic to me. It's like Inception with the whams. and so the general things stated were i had i think at least two people tell me they picked you because some a lot of times it's just one game that it like people don't really weigh the bank they weigh one game it seems so i believe i had two people say they picked you simply because you had countdown and that was enough it's like oh no it's good enough countdown it's a winner bank He's got Countdown.
    13:14
    I had, I believe, at least two people tell me they disqualified me simply because I had Ghostbusters and that that game is trash. And so I didn deserve to win just because I had it And there are a few comments of people that overall they liked one of our overall builds better than the other Yeah, this is typical. The ones that are actually trying to fairly judge it. Zach Many from the Pinball Show. I always assumed he wasn't going to vote for you because you took Iron Man and he does not like Iron Man. But he actually said he felt your problem was taking Safecracker. But he was the only one who told me that. Well, and Safecracker was only taken because we'd misdone that one, and I didn't feel it was fair to go back and change it again. Well, it could have been fair, because I could have technically gone back and taken Pinbot, because that was my first pick. Right. But I chose not to. I stuck with Jurassic Park. I actually thought I would get a complaint about me taking Daddy's Jurassic Park. I did not have a single person tell me that I shouldn't have done that. They may have thought it, but they didn't tell me that. But we're not playing Build a Bank this episode We're going to take a break We don't usually play them back to back anyway But closest ever Not the closest possible I for a little bit thought we were going to tie But I think I was up one vote for the last four days Yeah And you had been convinced that I was going to win I had been Well the first three days You were up Every time I looked Sometimes as high as four votes so it was close i mean it's still going to be close but you were yeah it wasn't until i looked on like wednesday that i was then up by one and it just sort of held steady from there but okay so uh next thing i thought we could talk about is uh location pinball obviously we're still in the midst of a pandemic uh as anticipated a lot of people a lot of uh epidemiologists have assumed we would see what is called the second peak or second wave in the fall. And that's just driven by the nature of people tending to be more indoors. And that's how disease spreads easier, which is why flu seasons are, it's not like flu goes away, but people wonder why flu seasons are worse in like the winter and spring. It's because people are, tend to be more clustered together because the weather's not good. And so there's always a, that's true for pretty much any disease that you can inhale or get on your hands from contaminated surfaces. So the thought has always been that we were going to have one. Obviously, so that's why they've been noting we've been still in the first wave and we've just seen a second peak of it. One of the things I've noticed lately, especially I follow a couple of threads talking about our arcades or in particular like the bar arcade style, kind of like what we know with the 403 Club, that have been closing. A lot of them had to shut down due to stay-at-home orders and try to weather the storm. Now there's a mix of places that still have limits that impose on them, and others are just facing the fact that people are, even if things are open, aren't willing to go out. So I've seen more and more closures announced. And actually just a couple days ago saw that this weekend would be the final weekend for the Silver Ball Saloon, which Bruce Nightingale from the Slam Tilt podcast, which we've guested on, that's his. And he announced he was closing it, that he can't. It's just too hard at this point. And I think New York is one of those states where they still have a lot of restrictions on those style of businesses. I hear, I know because I hear a lot of complaints because a lot of the, I believe the assumption, as I understand it, I'm not really familiar with how New York's set up, is they're doing statewide things based around what they're trying to control in New York City. And so whether or not it would be best to be statewide is up for debate. But obviously it's having an impact outside of New York City because Silver Ball Saloon was in East Rochester, which is quite a ways away from New York City. But anyway, so I just thought just in terms of a discussion, I think it's safe to assume we're going to see more of these locations shut down. But what do you think the future is on all this? Like, especially locations that, even if it's not just like a pinball arcade, but rather they use pinball as their main draw. Is this like... I'm going to be 100% honest. I think at this point what we are seeing is the most likely death of location pinball for the next several years before we might start seeing a resurgence. Okay, so you think this has a long tail before it comes back? I do. I think it's going to be a while. I think there's going to be a fair number of people who just, once it's been gone for so long, they're going to be so slow to come back that it's not going to be able to handle the large number of locations that some places had started to build up over the course of the last several years. And I think the vast majority of it's going to be just gone. And I think it'll be a long time before it rolls back. So when you say a long time, how many years are you thinking? Oh, I'm guessing you probably won't see things starting to climb again until maybe 22. Okay. Yeah, I actually I thought you might go further out 2022. Yeah, I'm kind of in that same boat as well. I think it's it's very optimistic to think that we see much in the way of location performance recovery in 2021. I think it will be better than it is now. But for those that are still open, but I think the issue there is assuming we even have a rapid vaccine rollout. And I know there's some talk about the vaccine possibly being rolled out as soon as November. I think the most realistic of a mass deployment would probably be more closer to January. And by mass deployment, I don't mean everyone. I mean, like high risk and first responders and health professionals. They're going to get first dibs for that vaccine. It's going to work exactly the same way as we've seen with any other mass inoculation thing that we've had to do. you inoculate your frontline people first and then you prioritize the at risk and you're capable of doing that. And then you roll it out to everyone else for obvious reasons related to treatment and care. But because of that, it's just I mean, they are trying. I mean, I've even I heard this this last week that one of the things they are doing, like any of the vaccines that are in the stage three mass trials, they're actually already manufacturing doses on the assumption that it'll pass the test. And if it does not survive the stage three trial, they'll just trash them. But they don't want to wait. They don't want to wait to build them up for confirmation. So it's like, okay, we're testing with 30,000 people. Let's start making millions of doses. And they've been infused with funding. It's like if it doesn't work, throw it away. But otherwise, then we'll be closer than not. We'd rather waste the money, which we've never, at least to my knowledge, we've never seen it done like that. But I also know, because Facebook never lies, Tony, there are a lot of people that are, and I don't blame them, because of the accelerated schedule of the testing, they do not want to get the vaccine immediately. They would like to wait. Oh, I've heard. I don't even need Facebook for that. I could tell you that just from talking to people. Yeah, yeah. And it's not, I mean, there have been vaccines that were rolled out in the past that had some issues. And so that's why we have it. Don't say. That's why we have, I mean, it's like any other treatment. There's always a risk. That's why, even though I'm a big vaccination fan and big supporter and proponent of it, I'm like, never go around and say that vaccine is risk-free. It's not. It's anything you're injecting is going to have a risk. so because of that there's just going to be a lot of people because of the vaccine access or the unwillingness to immediately take it that aren't going to be comfortable going out to places where they think that those they could be exposed to the disease and that pressure is really going to on these locations so that's why i agree with you i just don't i mean if the location can Like using our Kansas City examples like Pizza West and Nub's Pub. If they're surviving with the restaurant, I mean, here the restaurants are open. They may have a mask mandate, but you can go in and get food. You can eat in there and be allowed to take the mask off, which I think is silly, but they allow it.
    22:00
    Or obviously pickup was something they were doing even when the stay-at-home orders were in effect, which I'm sure was still a greatly diminished income level. But I don't know how much those pins are making on location. I can't imagine it's much, though. I don't think so. And that's the thing is we, just speaking personally for myself and my family, since the lockdown things first started, we haven't been eating at a restaurant, period. Yeah, I've gone in to pick up food. That's been my extent.
    22:32
    We've gone in to do food pickup, and that's it. I haven't sat at a table and consumed since March inside a restaurant. Same with pinball. I have not gone in since early March. I have not gone into a location and dropped quarters and played pinball. Nope, neither have I. I haven't.
    22:52
    I mean, honestly, I haven't gone and done much of anything other than standard grocery shopping or like my Home Depot runs that I have to do on occasion because we're just, we're not, we're not. No, the levels are too high. And the thing is, like with the masks, the main thing about the masks is for you to prevent the spread to someone else. So I'm wholly uncomfortable with the idea of going to one of my local locations. And because someone is eating their sandwich, you know, five feet away from me, they get to not wear their mask. And my mask isn't going to save me from them for that. And it's like, why would I do that to play a game of pinball? that's to me it's silly so so i'm not i'm not support i'm not supporting the local pinball scene and i feel bad about that but it's like i do too but there's not there's nothing to be done that's going to work around that now in the case of operators that are kind of doing it as a hobby and locations that don't need the pinball to keep their doors open i could see them surviving in the sense of keeping the pinball on location and going but otherwise it's just got to be really I mean, some of this stuff, like just surviving running a bar in general has to be incredibly difficult right now. Right. I think bars are taking the big shot, and I think that's where the location pinball or the bar-based location pinball is who's going to take the big hit and take the most losses, I think. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, on any measurement, they are the high-risk – like they're in the high-risk category on every single state's model I have seen in terms of like what is the worst place you could be at a bar.
    24:32
    Right. Why would you go? I mean, why? Why would you? Well, and we've seen a lot of younger people got bored not going and then they started to go. And that's where we've seen a number of – early on, where were the clusters? Nursing homes. Where are the clusters now? Bars, party events. But it's just that's because it's easy to spread it because people are packed in. They're packed in. You can't wear a mask and drink at the same time for obvious reasons. I mean, you could try that. It's kind of like you're waterboarding yourself with a Budweiser. Yeah. It's like that video clip I saw of that guy who tried to take a drink of water through his mask. Yeah. Got to add his mask on.
    25:12
    Well, I think that's probably enough on the location pinball thing. We'll probably talk about that again in the future as we hear about more probably devastation, quite frankly. Yeah, honestly, that's exactly what it's going to be. What we're going to start covering is major well-known places closing and the bars just being gone. Yeah, I think it'll be pretty bleak when it's all said and done. But something that's much less bleak, it's kind of a transition topic. I'm keeping it kind of in the pinball section, but it's kind of related more to EM arcade-style games in general, which we don't normally cover. But we're eclectic, and we can do what we want. And that is, I didn't know if you had heard about this, but the watch that Ryan Claytor designed. I saw it on Facebook the other day. It's awesome. Yes, yes. So apparently Ryan Claytor in the super secret darkness of his artistic studio had been working with a company called Mr. Jones Watches to design a wristwatch called Step Right Up, which is very reminiscent of those old arcade games like where you go and you shoot to win. You know, you get a gun and you shoot the targets to win a prize kind of electromechanical style amusements. and so he's got it so that uh and i have a link in the show notes uh to the mr jones site the watch is sold out it was limited to 100 watches they were i believe 245 dollars but there is a wait list so if you follow the link there's another link to the wait list if you want to get on the wait list but you can go there to look at what the watch looks like so it like one of the targets is rotating represents the hours and there another set of targets that represents the minutes I think in five increments I kind of wanted to see it like someone had recorded video of it accelerated So I could have – like I read how like the waves pointed to like what was the quarter hours and stuff, and I was having a little trouble understanding. I wanted to see it visually. I'm sure it's pretty easy to figure out once you've experienced it, but I wanted to see it in animation. But unfortunately, by the time I went to Facebook, this was sold out. Like, it was not even close.
    27:25
    So, but I just thought it was really cool. And for those longtime listeners may know, Ryan Claytor's who designed my neon sign. He's done a number of t-shirt designs in pinball or for some podcast. Like, I remember the 100th episode pinball podcast t-shirt. That's a Ryan Claytor design. And, of course, Coin Op Carnival, the book we talked about quite a bit that came out last year that he wrote with Nick Baldrige. That's him as well, obviously. So I thought it was really neat. It's just here's the thing. This sold out way too quickly. And the problem is, is that it was too cheap.
    28:02
    And so Ryan needs to design a new one. But the level needs to be upped. I know Ryan's probably like, what? I did everything. No, no, no, no, no, no. Artistically, it's in a good place, but the watch needs to be mechanical. It needs to have complications. I think at least a minute repeater. And then I think we can add a one before this 245. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Not with a minute repeater. You need to add a zero to the end as well. Because I know of hardly any minute repeaters that are under $10,000. But I'll tell you what You won't sell out in two hours You might sell out But you won't sell out in two hours If we get this into a five figure range So I've got somebody I mean come on Don't you want Where's our Throw in a perpetual calendar Like maybe one of the person's clothes Is the calendar I don't know What other complications A dual time zone So pilots want to wear it Got to do a little Oh of course GMT style thing You've already got your money set aside for it Rotating bezel I've seen enough that the rotating bezel doesn't actually have to do anything other than rotate that's fine, people are happy that's true, or you get another one of the scoring things which it rotates and then the bezel is static but you can move, it's like a second hour hand, that will show you that time zone, I have a watch like that where you have a, it's a forehand watch and one of them, the bezel doesn't move but I can switch it apparently the watch was designed so you could tell that like if it was day or night in the dark and so they originally didn't let you move that hand but in the later models they did so people can use it like a time zone watch where you can keep the second hour hand in your home time and then you just adjust the regular one for the day i'm telling you there's there's plenty to do we might have to make the watch a little bigger we're sticking in all these complications i think it's 37 millimeter which is fine but we could go to 40 when no one's going to complain um of course with big watch like we're talking Sylvester Stallone style, I guess we can go up to over 60 millimeters on the watch if we want. You just wear a tank on your arm. Some people do. I've seen some people with enormous watches. Yeah, I saw – I was reading up on large watches I think last week, and I saw some company released one that was like over 62 millimeters. I'm like, who is that going to look good on though? I mean, that's like – like I guess Dwayne the Rock Johnson could wrap it on his forearm. But even his wrists have to be relatively normal sized, right? I mean, what's the range on wrists? Six to eight inches maybe with seven being like normal? I don't – my wrists are smaller than seven but not by a lot. So I don't know. But that's – I don't know. It's just – you might as well just glue a clock. Like go to your school that's now closed and take one of those clocks off the wall and just glue it to your wrist. Or get a dog chain and wrap it up and just wear a clock. Oh that's what Ryan could do He could design a clock Think of all the real estate And a lot of people don't wear watches So if you did a clock we could hang it in our house We'll do a grandfather clock And you have look at all that room to work Think of the chimes And the chimes could be the exact same tones As like Bally's, Bally pinball machines from the 60's They could use Campus Queen as the model Oh wait I have to be careful because your Campus Queen actually Has modified because that game originally came with a bell, I think.
    31:31
    Yeah. Maybe we need Gottlieb chimes. Yeah, and they did it in – when it was redone, they added a second chime so to differentiate between the points. Yeah, it's one of those genuine Nick Schell upgrades. Now, tell me this. As you know, Tony, from when we last met with Nick, Nick is a huge watch guy. He got this. Like, how did he get in the first 100 of this? Where was my, after all my investment in Neon, where was my heads up? I don't know, but yeah. I'm supposed to believe he was just up in time because he's on the East Coast and I'm in the Midwest. I find that hard to believe. Well, maybe you don't spend enough time on Facebook. That could be true. But I feel like I spend too much time on Facebook as it is. But anyway, it's really cool. So go check it out, even if you're not planning to get on the wait list. I think it's worth taking a look at just because it's whimsical. I think that was a term I used initially. I find it very whimsical. I think that's a good term for it, honestly. And so if you're into whimsical watches, not really what I would normally be into. But had I had the opportunity, I'd have been tempted to buy this. Yeah, I think I could do this. But anyway, video games. Let's go ahead and fully transition from our eclectic EM watch segment to video games. Tony, what's going on in the world of video games? I've heard there's been a little bit of corporate drama There's been some corporate drama There's been some Some streamer drama There's been some You know what, it's just drama It's drama all the way down Well, we've actually been really calm with drama and pinball lately So I guess we'll have to get our fill here So The first round of drama let's hit is On the upcoming Marvel's Avengers game They announced that Spider-Man is going to be in the game Woo The drama is it's only going to be on Playstation Go web Playstation So that's Caused some annoyance It's because Sony has certain rights To Spider-Man Like the movies yeah Like the movies and stuff and somehow with how those Rights are laid out They are Pretty much only Going to be allowed to have it on PlayStation systems. So hopefully, as a playable character in the game, with a game that's designed to have like a living raid system type thing, Spider-Man doesn't bring a whole lot of extra powerful stuff or else anyone who's not playing on PlayStation is kind of boned? Yeah, that would be, I mean, unless it's lopsided. Normally I don't get too worked up over like character exclusives. Those have been around for a long time. Remember when Soul Calibur 4, and it was like, you got Darth Vader, you had the PlayStation, and you got Yoda, you had the Xbox, and I think you got Link, if you had a Nintendo. And it was like, it didn't, I mean, it bugs people. I get that. But if it is something like Destiny, which has had timed exclusive access for PlayStation stuff, and like the gear that you're given with that timed exclusivity was, I think for Destiny 2, very substantial. Like it made a big difference. That would be very frustrating to people. But, I mean, Sony holds the cards on this, and it's a tactic they've used for a long time. And Microsoft may be shifting on that, but Sony has the lead dog in terms of console sales right now. I can see why they would want to do this to try and hold on to keeping people into their ecosystem, especially since we still don't know the price. Yeah, it's still unknown. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not a fan of this, but, I mean, all I can say is I'm used to it. Yeah, it's nothing I mean, I don't consider it unusual But I can understand why people are upset It's better than the whole game being exclusive Right Which is something that you see At least timed exclusivity On a lot of games And there's some of that going on as well Again, as is usual Sony and Microsoft Both have done that quite a bit At least in the past Yeah And I don't think it's going away with the new generations. It's just going to continue. It is what it is. It's part of the current, how do you want to call it, marketing style. Yeah, I think it feels a little different on Microsoft's side now that they're putting everything out on PC as well. So you're not buying their hardware because they know they're going to get you on the software side. So I get why they do it. But at least in terms of like a consumer thing, it feels better because it is actually letting you have the choice. Do you want to play on a computer or do you want to play on their proprietary system?
    36:25
    Right. And that's how I've been. I mean, that's how I've been playing Xbox games lately is on computer. Yeah. So.
    36:35
    Also, the ongoing saga with the Dr. Disrespect ban. He's back to streaming I've never watched him, I don't care I think I've seen him a couple times But the whole saga Is interesting to me Because of how it's been handled On both sides And the fact that it's such a major Ban After such a large Multi-million dollar Contract And no one knows why he was banned yet He says he doesn't even know Do you believe that? Do you believe he doesn't know?
    37:16
    I think he knows, but he can't say anything for legal reasons. I agree. My guess is, and from the reports, he flat out said that with a contract as large as it was, there's a lot of legal stuff going on in the background. Because I'm sure there is. I'm sure the lawyers are just going insane over it. trying to get everything balanced out and figured out, because that was a huge contract that was just shut down with no notice and no anything. Yeah.
    37:52
    But it's interesting to me that nothing has leaked at all. I guess not very many people over at Twitch know about what the details are. The only thing that makes sense is that they've kept it very limited. And that's the word is that the people who know it are just the like high level people. Like even a lot of the mid-tier people who do the actual day-to-day working with streamers have no idea. It just came down to them that it was that it's a this is what it is there. He's gone and that's it. now I heard when he was on YouTube he had like a half a million viewers concurrent viewers is that do you know how that compares he maxed out at just over a half million concurrent viewers and then it started going down so do you happen to know how that compared to what his concurrent Twitch viewers count is I don't actually know I know half a million is a lot I just I don't know if that's like what he was getting on Twitch is it better than he was getting on Twitch? Is it worse? I don't know. If people know, write in to EclecticGamersPodcast.gmail.com and let us know because I didn't research it and I'm not in the mood to, but if someone knows, just let us know. What I did read of it, nobody mentioned what it was compared to his normal account. But I just remember when Ninja and the others were contracted and moved over to Mixer, they had high numbers, but not as high as they had at Twitch. Yeah. Their numbers dropped way off because there's a lot of people who are pretty much sold on the Twitch ecosystem. and well, a lot, there's a lot of people on YouTube also.
    39:33
    So yeah, it's a, I think the thing is with Twitch, it's people know that with the bits and the subs and like, there are a lot of people that are signed up and have their credit cards and everything ready with Twitch. And so it's, it seems more comfortable to go when you want to go search for a live stream or people think Twitch, but YouTube has a, has a lot of stuff going for it, especially on if you're saving the videos after the fact, Like, I don't point anyone to my Twitch clips. I always take a clip I make in Twitch if I think it's cool, and I export it to YouTube. Yeah, which just makes sense. And what interesting is I started to find a lot of the YouTubers that I watch run second channels that are just for like gaming So their main channel is what their main bread and butter is But then if they do gaming and streaming they run a gaming channel that is on on YouTube gaming normally And that's actually where I've started watching a fair number of, uh, streamers and streaming is from people who I didn't originally find them for their gaming content. It's just something that I started watching because I liked the regular content. Hmm. Interesting. And then there are several others where I watch their Where I watch their content On YouTube Unless I'm watching them live on Twitch So They'll do special things Like they'll put some of their specials out After a week or so They'll come out on YouTube and I'll watch it there And then they'll do their normal live stuff And their day to day streams I'll watch on Twitch Just interesting little the ways we consume our streaming and whatever you want to consider it. I don't know. What is a good way to consider watching people stream games?
    41:30
    What do you mean by consider? Well, I mean, it's not like watching TV or watching going to a movie or something. I mean, it's like it, but it's It's still different.
    41:48
    Because of the interaction, I think. Yeah. I'm not talking to Liam Neeson as he's talking to people about his certain skill set. After a year of talking about cancellations and closures and stuff, we're now going to talk about something that's not been canceled. It's just being heavily modified.
    42:15
    The 2020 World Championships for League of Legends are going to continue to take place in China like they had originally planned in a different format. The original plan had been for a, what do you want to consider it, a moving tournament where the early stages of the tournament would take place in different cities in China. And with the finals taking place in Shanghai. Instead All sections of the tournament Are going to take place in Shanghai And for the early stages There will be no live audiences And the possibility Of live audiences For the later stages of the finals Will depend upon the local guidelines for events But The World Championships for League of Legends Is like a month long tournament structure Wow It starts on the 25th of September And it runs through the 31st of October I had no idea it was so long Yeah it is A major thing And that's why they normally have like the early stages Taking place in other cities And when they choose a Country for it to take place in They spread out the early stuff throughout the country But obviously with COVID that's not something that is Happening Right now So Good on them for still trying to put on a major event while doing it in what they're hoping to be a safe way in a way allowed by the local rules. I think this is probably going to be the, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the first major size event we see this year since the lockdown started for this type of thing. Because we know pretty much all the conventions and all the other major tournaments have been completely canceled. Yeah. This is, aside from what the attempts are with the various professional sports, this is the only, which are outdoors by and large, other than basketball. But they've taken some aggressive steps too. Yeah, to my knowledge it is. So it'll be interesting to see what happens and what changes between now and the scheduled start date in late September. Yeah.
    44:32
    Also in the, once again, dipping into the Blizzard arena. There was a lot of stuff going around And Blizzard started an internal review of salaries Oh, that's good Because they wanted to make sure the salary and everything Everybody's salaries were fair And after they made their announcements of the results And made their changes It wasn't quite what people were expecting So they started circulating a spreadsheet to anonymously share your salaries and the amounts of your raises. And what's interesting is Blizzard's official announcement of their stuff talked about their raises being like 20% overall. Was it or was it like 20% over what the typical raise had been? Well, that's what it sounds like, is that it was 20% over what the typical race had been. Most people's races were well under 10%, except for some very high-end people. Some very high-end people were much higher, apparently. but this is one of those things that has been since Activision has taken a more forward stance in their direct control of Blizzard, which is what we saw with the layoffs from last year.
    46:11
    It's become a more unfriendly place to work from all the reports that have come out of it. Yeah. The people are very unhappy because while there are some very high-level people who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, or even in the case of the CEOs and vice presidents and this and that, in millions per year, the vast majority of the staff makes minimum wage. Yeah, I saw that. It sounds like a lot of this isn't – like the engineers and programmers are, I guess, competitively paid by and large. This was more like the play testers, the people on the customer service and support side that were the really, really low pay. Though I was a little confused because it sounds like even amongst those that are maybe doing more of the design work on the games, it sounds like some companies like Riot have been pretty successful in poaching employees from Blizzard, which, I mean, maybe they did an internal study to see about the fair pay as defined by how they're paying people within the same or similar positions within their own organization. But I really question, based off of that feedback, if they did a lot of comparison to other companies to see if they were paying industry average.
    47:30
    Right. And I mean, that's the type of thing I think companies need to do. I mean, that happened at my employment place a couple years ago where there was a comparison to the people who are direct competitors for employees.
    47:47
    And I think that's something they do because most of the reports I've been seeing is people who leave Blizzard and go to other companies, some of whom are literally based within miles of Blizzard's offices, are making double their pay. Yeah, it's definitely something. If they didn't do it as part of the internal review, they definitely need to do a salary and wage comparison within the industry, at least within the geographic area within the industry. Right. Because I understand that different areas will pay differently based off geography. But yeah, it was – I mean, at my past job, kind of – we were too small to need to do a whole huge study. But I only ever asked specifically for one raise ever. And that was when I had information within the same driving distance. Actually, it was closer for me of a position that was basically my job description. And it made like $15,000 more a year than I did. right and i so i went and i said i think i'm not paid market and i did not get 15 000 but i did get i did get a bump and it wasn't an insignificant bump yeah well and i think that's also even internally to companies you'll see where people in the exact same position might have massive differences in pay which could make sense in some situations for like long yeah longevity But sometimes I've seen reports of people who were hired literally the same day having massive differences in pay. And that's just one of those things that it comes from the whole. I'm from a situation where everybody knows what everybody makes. I mean, it's just it's required. So it doesn't bother me for people to know that. And I know a lot of people are bothered by the thought of somebody else knowing how much they make.
    49:47
    And I think it's actually a pretty good thing inside a company for people to know what everybody else in the company makes. I think it leads to better outcomes overall.
    49:58
    I agree. And, in fact, one of, I think, the biggest issues is that, and maybe this is just in America, But there is this – people have this sense like that it's inappropriate to share what your pay is. And I didn't even know – I think I even worked for a business. My understanding is it's completely illegal to prohibit you from sharing what your pay is with anyone. But I even worked for – I think I worked for a bank once. They put that in the personnel manual, said you weren't allowed to share pay. I remember because I got lectured one time when I found out another person at the bank in the same position was making more than me. And I went to the bank president and complained. He said, well, you're not supposed to share that. And I was like, well, I did. So what are you going to do about it? The thing is, I'm not positive. I think it might vary by state, but I know at least in some places it's literally illegal to tell people that they can't share that information. I don't know if it's at the federal level or a state level. I don't remember. I thought it was. See, I was thinking it was federal level, but it might be state. I just don't remember. All right. I did a quick search and it says you're right to discuss your salary information with your co-workers is protected by the federal government.
    51:11
    The National Labor Relations Act states that employers can't ban the discussion of salary and working conditions among employees. So it's federal. So there you go. That's right. I mean, that's.
    51:24
    Get that. Get them spreadsheets flowing. Feel free to keep your names on them, too. But yeah, I mean, I was public sector for years as well. So as Tony noted, everyone, the public gets to know how much you make there. It's so, which I think is really nice because then you can figure out whether or not you're being mistreated. Right. Without having to ask.
    51:45
    Because you just know. I mean, it's just there. Who else is in this position? Have they been there longer than me? No. Then why do they make more? And then you go in and then they tell you because you're bad at your job and they're good. And you get sad. And then you're sad. And then you're sad, but, hey. So sad. At least you're not.
    52:04
    And I know that that was our last topic. I know. It's a short one. Well, it's a short world. World that's been shortened by COVID. So for people that want to reach out to us about any of these particular topics or to suggest other ones that we cover, feel free to email us at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com. or you can reach out to us through the messenger thing at facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast we're available on twitch twitter and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we'll plan to be back in a couple weeks even if there still isn't any news hopefully there'll be less thunder then but we don't know yet hopefully we'll find out we could be wrong maybe there'll be some news too oh i hope so uh well wouldn't that be nice it would just because it helps it It helps make the conversation flip. Otherwise, I need suggestions on esoteric theories that we can discuss, like how we kind of dived into what's the world going to look like for location pinball. Maybe we need to talk about what would DMDs have been like if the dots were twice as large. I don't know. I don't think anyone cares. Yeah, no. That would have been weird, actually. I haven't had dots the candy in a long time. I really like those. Were you one of those people who would Shake those into your popcorn at the movie theater? No, I didn't know that was a thing I knew somebody who did that Kind of like people would do that with the What, the Raisinets? They'd shake it into the popcorn? No, no, no, never I knew a girl who would do it with the dots Though I do associate dots and Twizzlers Are like my two theater candies Yeah, which makes sense Yeah, because they're good Well, alright, that's it So take care, everyone.
    53:48
    See you later.