Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. This week on the Pinball Show, we shoot you straight on everything Toy Story 4. Dennis and I break it down for you, discussing revealed reactions, model differences, price increases, design methodologies, code structures, licensing hurdles, target audiences, operator arguments, and the possible rafter-rising jersey of Pat Lawler. We also inform you of Stern Pinball production updates, the new worldwide leaderboard feature, and upcoming tidbits on TNA 2.0 by Spooky Pinball. And, of course, our bastard lovechild pinball market trends. Star Command, we are go for launch. You watch them grow up and become a full person. Pinball is a game of skill. And then they leave. They go off and do things you'll never see. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, you still feel good about it, but then somehow you find yourself, after all those years, sitting in a closet, just feeling useless. It's time for the Pinball Show. Yeah. Your purpose fulfilled? Exactly. Woody, I know what your problem is. You do? You're just like me. Trash! What is it with you and trash? It's warm. Ew. It's cozy. Yes. And safe. Like somebody's whispering in your ear, everything's going to be okay. Forky, that's it. That's how Barney feels when she's with you. She does? Yes! It's pinball with personality. Wait a second. You mean she thinks I'm warm? Yep. And cozy? Uh-huh. And sometimes kind of squishy? Well, that too, yes. I get it now. I'm Bonnie's trash. Yes. Wait, what? I am Bonnie's trash. No, no, no. Not exactly. She must be feeling awful without me. Woody, we got to get going. She needs me. Hey, Bonnie, I'm coming. Come on, Woody. Bonnie, I'm coming. You got it, buddy. Hey, what's going on? Oh, no. It's a pinball show. I'm sitting here eating an apple. When you're lonely. I don't have a good reindeer, Newman. Sorry. You don't do anything? I'm just playing my song. Nope. I sound like Anastasia from Waterboy. This is not working. Joe Cocker. Where's Mark Stump when you need him? Sitting on the dock of the bay here. It's the pinball show. One time to roll away. Holy moly. Dennis Creasel singing. It's Dennis Creasel and Zach Minney. We're here with episode 103. And you've got a friend in us. Oh, boy. What a week, Dennis. We've been going. Jack, I thought you were going to cancel this record session because you seem to have been on a whirlwind of straight down the middle video production. I see what you did there, whirlwind. Mm-hmm. I know. It felt like an earth shaker the last couple weeks. I probably could have went with a different catalog or license. Yeah. Was it a roller coaster? It was a Ferris wheel, of course. Speaking of, hey, that game used tickets, too. Roller Coaster Tycoon. There were tickets, weren't there? Or maybe that was. Maybe it was, no, I guess it was actually park attendees. Just like this release, it had fucking trolls. Oh, no, say it ain't so, Joe. Oh, it was, it was. All right, so we get to talk about a lot of stuff this week. Listeners, thanks for tuning in. I'm sad very, very much right now that you guys don't get to see Dennis Creasel and I's beautiful faces. We are on audio only this week. Probably forever after what you did on 102. It was so good. I was, let me, let me give a little background for folks, because I don't know the behind scenes. Zach messaged me, hey, Dennis, do you want to do video for 102? I said, well, if you want to, we can, but I don't really want to. And Zach says, it's up to you, Dennis. And I go, well, then I'd rather just do audio only. And then we're recording, and Zach mentions, before, you all didn't hear this part, but he's like, yeah, I've been thinking about, I may go ahead and release a video of the market trend segment. I'm like, that sounds fine. The whole episode is out. I look like an asshole because it's only Zach's face. And then, of course, I looked at the YouTube comments. And I'm like, why isn't Dennis doing this? What's wrong with Dennis? Why is Dennis being difficult? Yeah. I was like, that wasn't how the discussion went. I gave an opportunity. So now I'm going to close that door. Dennis, sometimes in entertainment, you know, you've got to present what plays well. I don't mind that it's out there. Just recognize the price that has been paid. Oh, first the singing, now the video. Oh, that's really sad. But maybe you're getting your video kicks out of straight down the middle lately. I really did enjoy the featurette for the Toy Story reveal. Thank you. That was well put together. Thank you very much. I have not seen your first impressions. I was about to play it yesterday, and then I saw that it was almost 50 minutes long. And I was like, I don't have 50 minutes to give. And you get mad if I play it at 2X. I do. I'd rather you not watch it all. That's very true. But I appreciate the nice words, Dennis. And you don't have to watch the first impressions video, honestly, because you're stuck with me talking about them this week. So you can skip that one. All right. You can skip that one. So we had a big release this week. We'll talk about that. What else have you been up to? I've been so busy with work. I haven't been doing a ton, except I have been making time for pinball at home. But I don't have a Toy Story, so I've been playing Godzilla and Walking Dead mostly. Those are the two I've been focusing on. Do you think you'll ever get rid of either one of them? At this present time, I have no intention to. So never say never, of course. Same here with those two for me. Hopefully, we know that Jersey Jack and a Toy Story 4 reveal this last week. Hopefully, you'll be able to play that very soon. We will have to wait and see if the area operators will succumb to the decision to purchase. They did get the last one, Guns N' Roses, but that, I believe, was a standard. And things are different now. Come on, Nick. Come on. You had Jeff Teel was over there, right? It's the big leagues now. Yeah, I wasn't able to attend that. I had a meeting out of town that day. I got back that night. I did get back home that day. But, yeah, I was out of town for an all-day immunization thing that they decided they wanted in person. So, anyway, I missed it. But I did send Jeff a message afterwards. You know, flipping out pinball sponsors, the World Tour of Pinball in Vermont. I did know that. Yep. Giving away some stuff there. And you've been busy. Has Craig Bobby been busy? Craig Bobby has been busy. Let's jump over now to hear what he's got to say in this week's Top Stories. Hello and welcome to the Pinball Show's News Update. I'm Craig Bobby. Well, let's face it, when a new title gets released, it's always a big week in the pinball world, but when that game is made by Jersey Jack Pinball, being helmed by legendary designer Pat Lawler, and it happens to be one of the most popular Disney themes of all time in Toy Story, well, my friends, that is a week to look forward to, and it certainly did not disappoint. Or did it? Holy moly! If you want to see a hobby get polarized quickly, just release a new pinball machine, not to mention one in the theme of a beloved Disney franchise, and watch the feeding frenzy begin. Like the opening of Walmart on Black Friday, we had people climbing over one another to try and buy one of the 1,000-piece collector edition Toy Story 4 machines retailing for $15,000 and getting angry because they couldn't find one to buy or missed out ordering direct on JJP's website. We also had other people buying CEs and then trying to flip them for $5,000 to $10,000 more and getting just lambasted by others claiming that they were trying to profit on an overheated pinball market. And then on the flip side of that, we had still other people buying their CEs and then walking away from their deposits in protest after the game did not live up to their expectations. And then, of course, we had the diehards, who were only too happy to plunk down their deposit money, sight unseen and unplayed, and Antonio Cruz on down to Toy Story 4 LED Town like Zach Manion and Greg Bone heading into the Late Night Buffet in Las Vegas. Now that is some serious overindulgence. Now I'll let Zach go over the game features, gorgeous art package, mechs, and the general details of this game like the triumphant return of the JJP LED Hot Rails that were such a hit with their last game, Guns N' Roses, or their hilarious Yes I Canada Duke Caboom jump ramp. But how about those JJP release videos? Does it not seem like this is a company that is now firmly in control of their production presentation? Similar to the industry-leading release videos we saw for the JJP GNR release, Jersey Jack continues to set the high bar for the industry as they opt for not one, not two, but three very well-produced and high-quality videos to showcase their new machine, which included a release video, a fantastic 30-minute Toy Story 4 featurette making of video, and a third video in what I'm fairly sure is an industry first where we have a manufacturer showing more detailed gameplay and walkthroughs of some of the modes narrated by their lead programmer for this title, Joe Katz, on the day the game is released, opting again for no live streaming, which can often be chaotic and technically unpredictable. I think the content from these three videos in total really highlighted some of the game's stronger features, like the stunning Disney art, animations, call-outs, and light shows that fans and customers have come to expect from J.J.P. But what I found almost equally as entertaining was reading the online posts of first impressions of this game. In true release day form, early lower resolution video and game images had leaked overnight, sending overzealous fans and trolls into an absolute feeding frenzy of negative comments and assumptions about what they were seeing and how the game would ultimately play and shoot. Now, how many times have we seen this before? Like, how about whenever a new game is released by any manufacturer, which often continues long after the release day until the game makes it out into the wild and players actually have a chance to play and experience the game? You know, in a hobby that prides itself on being fairly knowledgeable about the game of pinball, which of course involves playing it, it's shocking to me to see how many folks rush to be a Debbie Downer on the day a new pin is released, before a single ball has even been publicly plunged. Like how about this complete mess? Too bad they didn't spend more on the licensing. Looks like no Buzz Lightyear. Not only is Buzz in the game, Jersey Jack got Tim Allen to do custom call-outs, along with other original voice actors from the movie, which was an absolute licensing home run. Here's another comment yet baffling comment made. Too bad they could only get Toy Story 4. If only J.J.P. had got the original Toy Story movie, it would have been so much better. Really? You mean not having Mr. Potato Head, the slinky dog, or the annoying pink piggy bank voiced by the guy from Cheers or Deal Breakers for you? Seriously? Isn't Toy Story mostly based on the adventures of Buzz and Woody, who, by the way, are very prominently featured in this game? You know, I kind of see Toy Story like a lot of the other multi-movie franchises, like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Star Trek, or even, say, Lord of the Rings. You kind of like that world, or you kind of don't. Now, you may have your favorite movie, absolutely, but to not like a Toy Story 4 game because you wanted the original, where there's no way Disney would give Jersey Jack that freedom anyway, is kind of silly and a little short-sighted, don't you think? I mean, let's not do a Star Trek pin if it can't be the Wrath of Khan, or involve every Star Trek character ever created, or a Star Wars pin that can't be based on the Empire Strikes Back. But again, each to their own. Now, I know, those model figures in the game look suspiciously like the Toy Story 4 cake toppers set that you can get on Amazon for $10 to $15, like, very suspiciously, as the online world quickly pointed out on release day. But honestly, the mod community has been trying to take care of those in about two seconds flat, like Alan Mandalorian, Godzilla, or most of the other titles where the in-game sculpts weren't up to snuff. And I think that's where we need to place good old Toy Story 4 right now. The expectation on this game, much like the pinball hobby itself, was and is at an all-time high. Just like what happened with Willy Wonka, Stranger Things, Jurassic Park, The Avengers, Beatles, Led Zeppelin... Okay, Led Zeppelin kind of deserved the hate. And even the now-fabled Godzilla, yes, even the number one pinball machine in the world, took its share of lumps early on as well when it was released. And just like what happened with them, these unrealistic expectations will slowly begin to fade more into the background as people see, play, and experience this game for themselves and accept what's been created, or let's face it, just move their laser-like focus onto the next new pinball release. But regardless of what people say and think, what is very clear is that Jersey Jack Pinball as a whole has created another runaway hit for themselves. How much of a hit? Well, the 1,000 pieces of the collector's editions sold out in just minutes online and with distributors around the world. Can you save $15 million, please, daddy? The remaining limited editions, which will be capped at 5,000 pieces and priced at a more reasonable MSRP of $12,000 US, continue to sell well with most distributors reporting brisk sales with more interested buyers waiting in the wings as they wait to try before they buy. So even if J.J.P. only sells half of their 5,000-piece Ellie allotment, that's another $30 million. Mama. Bringing the total haul in at an estimated $45 million in revenue for this one title. So why do they need to try and release more than one great game a year again, exactly? Now, early reports of players finishing Toy Story 4, some even multiple times in a single game after playing the machine only a handful of times, are already starting to pop up online. The quickest I heard was only after 11 minutes. So clearly there are some game code tweaks here to try and tighten things up. And maybe Pat Lawler's assertion that wizard modes for all players isn't the best way to go. However, I would also argue that many of the players reporting to have finished this game easily are top world-class players that finish most games regardless of designer or manufacturer, so take those reports that the game is too easy with a massive grain of salt. And just to finish with Jersey Jack, I did get confirmation from my source at JJP that Toy Story 4 is in fact Pat Lawler's last Jersey Jack game for the foreseeable future. Although don't count Pat out of the pinball world just yet as he moves down the proverbial pinball highway to plot a next potential move or opportunity. And moving on to other news, you'd think the rest of the pinball world would take a breather in the wake of Jersey Jack's big release week, but no! We have big news from industry leader and rival Stern Pinball that they have released their first worldwide leaderboard for their internet-connected online platform. Say what? Now, before everyone rushes to their internet-connected machines, so far this leaderboard feature is only available for Godzilla owners for one month and for operators who wish to set up a custom leaderboard for any Spike 2 internet-connected game at their location. And lastly, some spooky news courtesy of the NAP Arcade News website. Scott D'Anissi, the designer for Spooky's Pinball Fantastic Total Nuclear Annihilation pinball machine, stated that while he does not know the exact timetable for an announcement, quote, Spooky will definitely be rerunning TNA again soon. Say what? Now, the rumor for a TNA 2.0 has been around for well over a year, as many believe that a second run of Total Nuclear Annihilation would include new 2.0 code, which Denise is rumored to be working on. Further speculation says that any new 2.0 code would also be compatible with the first run of the game. But, we shall have to wait and see. Well, you know what? I'm exhausted after a very exciting and busy week on the TPS News Desk. For the Pinball Show, I'm Bob Craigie. Craig Bobby, catch you on the flip side. That Craig Bobby, he sure is putting in the work. Oh, man, we will catch him on the flip side. Nicely done, CB. He talked a lot about Jersey Jack Pinball's recent reveal and release of Toy Story 4. Oh, sorry, I'm obligated to say Disney Pixar's Toy Story 4. Yeah, register. Wow. Even some of those barriers and particularities even trickled down to Greg and I was straight down the middle doing the featurette. Really? Uh-huh. I guess it makes sense. Here's the big thing for me, Dennis. Not only was this revealed this last week, what did it reveal on Tuesday? Yes, I think so. Okay, so we had Tuesday, the sizzle reel done by the production company that's done most of theirs, the sexy ones, those really nice ones. The ones everyone loves. Yes, the ones everyone loves. The ones everyone loves more than Straight Down the Middle. Industry gold standard, I would say. Well, you know, it's apples and oranges, but okay, rub it in. And then we had the Straight Down the Middle featurette, more of a behind-the-scenes 30-minute interview with the creators. And then we had, later on that day, the gameplay video done by Jersey Jack Pinball. And then some of the deep dives and deep cuts and info dumps that we get from all the pictures and stuff that we get from places like NAP Arcade. So we did receive very much in Jersey Jack fashion a reveal that was plentiful of content, I would say. And the big thing for me, that nobody for some reason is talking about much, these things shipped already. They're already shipping. I've been playing one for days. Yeah, and that's a good point. My guess, and again, just a guess, Zach, but my guess as to why that's not being discussed is, one, I had been hearing that these were going to go out. This game was going to be revealed when they had games ready to go out. And I know I've discussed it on air before. So I think a lot of people just kind of went in and once it happened, it was just sort of known that they were going to ship. And I cannot remember, but I thought, did not GNR have that happen? Yes, GNR was like that. So as unfair as it might be when we think about it vis-a-vis other pinball manufacturers, but it's just kind of expected from Jersey Jack at this point. I suppose. For some reason, it felt like the Jersey Jack GNR was a little later, though. Maybe that was just because of shipping for me as a particular dealer. I don't know if it was that or maybe there's just more volume this time that got shipped out. Possibly. Because these things legit shipped Wednesday. They shipped Wednesday. It felt like more people received more Toy Story 4s than what I remember from GNR. But GNR was two years ago, so it's just difficult for me to recall. And I'm trying to think they had kind of a grand public launch at Interium in Chicago, formerly Level 257. And I believe, what was that? They had it on location. It wasn't too, I think it was Wednesday, the very next day. But nonetheless, from the last time we talked to you guys, not only did we get a Jersey Jack revealed, but they're in a lot of homes and locations. So that's really cool. A lot of people got their hands on it. And I think very important for this particular title and product that people get their hands on it because the first reactions from people were not well received overall. And I think that's because we have to talk about before this officially revealed on Tuesday around noon Central Time, there was a leak. There was a leak that morning where just some pictures went out and just segments of that sizzle reel went out, and people about lost their damn minds. Yeah, and though, you know, that was an interesting leak. I say that because the stuff seemed to, as near as I could tell, come straight from Jersey Jack's website. Yeah, it wasn't real. It wasn't secured. It was publicly. It's like you didn't have to type in a password to get it. I remember someone referred to it as being hacked. It's like it's not a hack when you can just type an extra part to the HTML and it takes you to that. That's not called hacking. Yeah, I don't know what happened there. I'm assuming they were trying to put everything up online but privately so that they could flip the switch and go live and not have to build the page. And the way they did it was not a secure method. Yeah, because I checked it whenever all that was coming out, and you couldn't, dumb, dumb Zach couldn't access it. So you had to kind of go searching and try to find and guess, but yeah. And when that happened, at least, this is my view, it wasn't like a bunch of potato cam photos. At least this was good, you know, good imagery. The stuff Jersey Jack was going to rely on, real good, you know, the sizzle reveal wasn't super detailed. Well, the backlash at that point that I remember, and I try to keep up with one of the threads, because once I got alerted to the information getting out early, I went to Pennside, of course, because that's where the drama is, and found the thread that seemed to be the one blowing up about talking about everything. And, you know, it wasn't, I didn't feel, it got picked apart, as any release does over time, but it was the theme was what ended up being the point of discussion. And I think it's a fair point of discussion. But that's why if it were to have launched all at the same time, I think the reaction would have been a little better because you do have more explanation and more detail. Because it's not you're stuck with just visuals of, I thought this was Toy Story, but this is not. This is Toy Story 4. I thought this was Pat Lawler's greatest hits and packed with all this, but I can't see any of it. Everybody kind of freaked out. So I think it stumbled out of the gate, and it did significantly impact the initial reactions and still bleeding into current reactions of people who haven't played the game. Sure. And I'm not too surprised. And this could be, probably not for this episode, but at some point it might be worth having a discussion about, does it make sense for Pinball to continue with this, and I'll just kind of show my cards here, antiquated model of keeping the theme secret until it's time to show the game. Video games don't do this. That's true. Video games give years notice on what they're working on. And I'm wondering at this point, as homeowner oriented as things have gotten, is it really a serious issue of, well, we'll undermine what's currently on the line if there's something better that people want coming out later when so many people are, you know, putting in deposits or not deposits, but getting on lists, lists like with flipping out pinball. for themes that they've rumored or hope will, just hope will come out. And I'm wondering at this point if that's the issue. Because in this case, obviously there were a lot. We knew, we being me and the rest of Pinball, knew Toy Story was a theme that Jersey Jack Pinball had. This has been going on for years. Like this rumor, the last of the major rumors, the last of the disgruntled employee leaks. But for then people to find out that it's specifically the fourth movie, that changes a lot of things. Yes, it does. I mean, the analogy I most commonly have been told is this would be like if the rumor was Jersey Jack had Harry Potter and then they put out Fantastic Beasts. Oh, no, no. I mean, that's the analogy people have been telling me. I would have gone with, I think, the much more accurate analogy of this would be like, hey, and this is a future rumored Jersey Jack title, but hey, they've got the Godfather and we find out it's going to be Godfather 3. No. What? Your examples know. Correct me because I've only seen the first one. Okay. But broadly speaking, it sounds like Toy Story 4 is the worst of the four Toy Stories. Yeah, but the discrepancy between it being the least preferred to Godzilla or to Godfather 3 and to the Fantastic Beasts. Using your example, this is more like Harry Potter coming out and we finding out it was the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire. Okay. That's how this is. Maybe not the most preferred of the series of Harry Potter, but nonetheless still a great piece of the Harry Potter franchise. Is Fantastic Beasts bad? I haven't seen it. It's fine. I think this one works with that. No, Toy Story 4 is a great film. Is Fantastic Beasts not an okay film? It's okay, but Toy Story 4 is a great film. It is a great film. so that yeah okay well anyway moving moving on that's that was the drama i think we i think everyone agrees the drama was people were excited about either the first toy story or the entire series or at least the first three because there's kind of a break between the third and the fourth they thought we'd be in andy's room yeah they thought there would be a claw that picks up the balls and yeah and a slinky dog ramp and yeah yeah i mean i've heard all this you know the stereotypical like what would someone do without putting any i think i saw someone i think it was a jersey jack employee had a tweet about that the slinky dog ramp is pretty uninspired okay and i but i agreed it's like i i thought it was a good idea no but it's so paint by number obvious that you know it's one of those a hey if you were to have ai design design toy story what what's the stuff that even the dumbest bot would come up with, and it's like, Slinky Dog Ramp. Yeah. Slinky Dog Ramp would be... I like this Very Target idea. That would have been a little bit more tricksy. But I do like Very Targets. I know. You're a trucker for Very Targets. I have my biases. I admit them. What's that mean? The other thing I think people freaked out about was the price increase. Oh, my gosh. Well, you know, no standard edition is part of that. We have an LE model that came out that was bumped up from $11,000 to $12,000 MSRP, plus shipping and tax. And then the collector's edition from a 12.5 that we're used to on GNR to a $15,000. That's a lot of money. It's huge. And that's where my mentioning about that I don't know if we're getting one of these on location, the discussion, what limited discussion I've seen has been it's an awful lot of money for an operator to want to put down on a game that probably won't coin drop, you know, more than the other cheaper games that they get Yeah and there been a lot of discussion about operators on the forums of whether or not this is a good financial decision to put this on location because nobody can argue Dennis and listener that this type of theme will draw in flocks of people. That's not the argument. The argument is, but will it draw in enough people to cover two certain pros? That's the argument. Right, and, you know, different operators can share what their experiences are, And different games perform better or worse at different places. I think this game is a good location theme. But with this decision, this is a question I really would have for Jersey Jackets. Have they written off operators? Because this pricing model, I think I saw with Australians, which, of course, they have horrific import fees. They would have to, their operators, based off of just average gameplay that they can expect on any title, would have to go up to like $3 a play to justify this. There's a lot of operators in the U.S. that are doing $2 a play on Jersey Jack games. I've seen that. Around here, nothing gets priced over a dollar. That's tough. Because at that point, you're really asking people to drop in a lot of coins or stick in multiple bills, and people don't want to do it. It's a mental barrier. I can see the $2 thing, especially with the card readers nowadays. You see most of our locations don't use card readers. Yeah. I think once we see more, the key is to those card readers. Family entertainment centers, you put everything on a card. You say you don't like your credit card. You don't know what you're spending. hell I'll pay $1.52 for a damn coin pusher sometimes it feels like I'm like oh shit what did I just pay I don't know it still says green when I slide so I'm good so I think that was another of the big things the other big thing we know that the design was done physical design by Pat Lawler the legendary Pat Lawler this is his I believe he said 24th coin op machine that he's designed and lead code designer was Joe Katz He, of course, had the team, Keith P. Johnson and J.T. Hartke and a lot of other people. But Joe Cass was lead design on this. But when we see Pat Lawler games, we kind of know what we're going to get, some of his tropes that he easily goes for. But a lot of people came back and they said, initially, we get more of a price increase. We get more CE allotments, 1,000 CE units instead of 500. Right, double the CE count. Yep. They increased the price substantially. and when people look down, they don't see the Toy Story they know, they see Toy Story 4, and their argument is, where are the toys? The toys. Toy Story is toys. We have cake toppers. Cake toppers. Ten inch LCD screen. What is this iPad? What are we doing? Now, yeah, the ten inch screen, I mean, I get with the minigames why they're, I mean, what they're doing with it. But honestly, the screens keep getting bigger under the playfield glass with JJP. I'm getting a little worried that if they get much bigger, like, is Multimorphic going to come after them with passion and friendship? I mean, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. This screen ain't exactly subtle. My wife, Nicole, and I were having dinner, and we were driving home, talking about things, about the release and stuff. She had like the coolest idea and I was like, well, holy shit, that's actually pretty cool. She said, I don't know, like if they were going to do the screen, that's great. But I wonder if somebody at some point will do, not like the multi-morph, the whole damn play field of the screen. But if they were to do that screen up there, but actually put flippers on it so it wasn't upper play field, like people love for Jersey Jacks, like the Wizard of Oz with the upper playfields. But you just, it's a screen play field. And I was like, ah, I think people would have been okay with that. What do you think? I don't know what you expect for $15,000, Zach. I know, I know. Maybe next year when it's $20,000. Next year, that's so optimistic. Some of the main features on this game include, it's an LE and a CE, so you get all the trim packets, all the beauty there, the powder coats and all that stuff. We talked about the 10-inch screen. There is a jump ramp that's kind of the main central toy in this game. A flap comes up from the play field, and he hits a Duke Kaboom where it flies up through the air, goes through a passage that is riddled with RGB light show LEDs around, like a circle ring that you make. There's a Gabby Gabby that pops up that you hit. There's a physical ball lock. There's a spinning wheel that can stop. It's kind of a game in and of itself where it stops at certain places. You've got a drop target over there. You've got four key stand-up targets. You have a central scoop. You have four pop bumpers, which Pat loves those pop bumpers. You get four of those. A third flipper. Mini flipper. Yeah, I was worried about the mini flipper. Is that a normal two-inch flipper size, or is this a unique custom-sized mini flipper? I don't know for sure. To me, it's just like the other mini flippers that are used on upper playfields and whatnot. Okay. So it seems pretty normal there. Just a shitload of lights. That's what everybody that's played at my place so far, the first thing they say is, wow, this thing is, like, really dynamic looking. So you have that. Let's see. Two spinners. We have two spinners in this game. And I think, are they Optos? Yeah. I think Jersey Jack, for the most part, does opto-spinners on their games. Like, nobody ever says anything, but they're like, we've been doing opto-spinners for a good while. Maybe that's why, when you always do it. Just like sending out your games when they're revealed. You have a ball diverter on the ramp itself that can switch all, I guess Adam's family did that, or down at East Jurassic Park, where it can divert. It can also hold the ball up there for certain scenes. All right. So, you know, your shaker motor and all the other stuff. So, there's a lot of stuff in here, but nothing big and central like a castle or something that people were. Right. And that was, of course, beyond the theme. And you've touched on it at this point a couple of times. The lack of a really sort of major mech that catches one's eye. My take is, like you've noted, the jump ramp is the major mech. And I think the jump ramp is a really cool idea. But, you know, one of the things I saw a number of people kind of complaining about was, I guess, as part of your featurette video that you did for Straight Down the Middle, there's a lot of talk about the innovation of this game. But everyone looks at all the individual components, and they're not identifying. And I do agree. I'm not really seeing where there's, like, a major innovative shift here versus, like, jump ramp. I remember the jump ramp from Jokers, you know. So Gabby Gabby Bash is the leftover Hobbit mech. Jump ramp was on No Good Gophers. It was a slam ramp, but similar. Right, right, right. And I think this is probably going to be a lot better for the play field than that thing ever was. But you got trolls. We got pop-up trolls. We got Hobbit that has pop-up stuff. All right, so the spinning disc has got some new capabilities, but mechanically it seems like the same old spinning disc that we've seen for a while. You know, I'm not personally surprised at any of that, but I don't know if I would play it up as particularly innovative either in that regard. I forgot. We have Hot Rails again make their return here. We're glad they do. Makes sense. I think that was smart. Wonderful feature. And then I forgot about the characters, the actual toys living throughout the play field. Twerky. Oh, people that got angry when they saw the price of those things on Amazon. Oh, man. They're only about two bucks on AliExpress if you want to go to the stores. It's $20 for that set. This is bullshit. You can put them on cakes. Let them eat cakes? That's right. You'll have to go, listener, if you haven't seen already on social media. I did some unboxing pics, and I was having fun with all of my actual Toy Story toys that I have. The ones that weren't in this movie. That's right. Well, let's show they're all in here. But as I opened up the coin box, I've seen the extra, you know, how you get the cards and you get the balls and you get all this stuff. They have extra figures in there. You get Gabby Gabby in there. You get Duke Kaboom in there. You get, who's the other one in there? I think there's somebody else. Maybe Jesse. You get Jesse in there. And I'm like, there's more toys down here. And I was trying to troll a little bit. And I said, oh, my gosh, even more toys here? That's icing on the cake. I thought that was pretty fun. That was pretty clever. And then you've got those guys that you're excited and even you're poking fun with them, but then all of a sudden they're like, there's more toys outside of this game than there is on the game. And I'm like, I already made the joke. You don't have to come back in with an inferior joke. I've already made it. The self-awareness in this industry. Well, they do the best they can, Zach. Those are the main features. What about the design? When you look at this design, Dennis, I loved hearing, well, of course it's going to shoot great. Pat Lawler's do shoot great. It's one of those things we expect. It's like the game's going to ship when it's revealed. Okay. It's going to have a good light show. Of course it's going to be awesome. The animations are great as well, Zach. Let's get that out of the way again, as usual. I mean, yes. Do you think it's the thing, Dennis, where the expectation is so high because they are the industry leader in so many categories, such as animation, that we're getting spoiled? Or do you think this is just a miss? No. Why not both? Why not both? Okay. I mean, in a nutshell, what are the winning things here? By all reports I've heard, it shoots well. It's a somewhat long player, but a lot of Jersey Jack games have been somewhat long players. Animations are great. Light show is great. Sound package is mixed because some people don't like those. It sounds like a slot machine. Yeah, yeah. The slot machine style sounds and stuff that they've had more recently, ever since they lost David Thiel. Art, that one seems kind of just like indifferent, like play field art. It's all there. It looks nice, but it's not. I thought it was stylistically. I thought it was, they could have easily went Photoshop, you know, from what Toy Story gave them or what Disney gave them. I think there's a richness and, like, that background, very luxurious bokeh with blues and pearls. I thought it was actually very well done. I thought, given, especially knowing that it's a Disney property, that they pulled it off better than I thought it would be. That's my impression of it. But it's also, like, it's not going to beat Zombie Yeti in an award. 100% agree. So, setting aside sound, all the other stuff would sort of be seen probably pretty positive by most of the people that I've been reading about online. I think the issue is threefold. One is when Jersey Jack as a company came out, and remember, everyone goes back to Wizard of Oz. And it's like they were mechanically feature rich. And they look at this and they don't see it. I mean, they see a bunch. I mean, look at Forky over there. Why are those stand-ups and not drops, Zach? It's stuff like that. It is. They look at this and they go, why is this not – why are they, like, stern now? I said that on my first impressions video. Oh, and I didn't even watch that one. I was giving criticisms and one of them was, come on, Pat. Well, I know you're a big fan of drops. But that's one of the things where people back in the day, back in my day, back in the day of the 60s, where people would go, you know, they'd see that, like, Forky would be like it is in a stern, and they'd go, you know, if Jersey Jack had that, they'd have sprung for drops. Yeah. Remember the Hobbit? So, yeah, yeah. That was the big thing was really that. You know, everyone talked about the dragon that you couldn't interact with with the ball, but the drop thing was a whole newly, that was that innovative mech thing. But I'm saying that aside. Okay. This does not seem mechanically impressive compared to their prior titles. So that's the first strike. I could see that argument, yes. The second strike is, as you've noted, the price increases. And no one's going to like price increases. That's not surprising. But nonetheless, they'll view it as the second strike. Well, it becomes exponential when they don't feel like mechanically there's a lot in there. Yes. It's not about price increases. It's about price increases. We're going up in one direction and down another. Yeah. Okay. And then the third strike is that the theme is only Toy Story 4. Most of the people, like if you were a kid when you saw Toy Story 4, you're still a kid now. But if you were, because it only came out like four years ago. But if you were a kid when the first Toy Story came out, now you're an adult with money. So to a lot of people, that's where I think everything started to turn initially is people who wanted to buy this by and large. I mean, there are some that have bought it because their kids are into Toy Story or whatever. But a lot of people who have nostalgia for the first film or the first three films and could have been on board with something themed around the first all first four films, you know, keeping light year out of it. When you don't have the one that they were a kid for, they're like they don't have the nostalgia tie. Yeah. You're asking them the nostalgia tie is now. Hey, you remember Woody and you remember Buzz. Well, Buzz is only kind of in this, but we got him doing the voice call outs, even though he's barely in the movie. And here, enjoy Forky. that's the third I think that's the biggest strike that's the problem the theme is the myth even though it's still tied to and the movie itself did very well it's not it's not like if you did Back to the Future you did a reboot version it's got the naming, it's got some of the stuff or like one could argue Back to the Future 3 is still Back to the Future but But it's not the most loved. It's the least loved of them. That's right. And I think it's fair to say that Toy Story 4 is the least loved of the franchise. The difference, though, between that, you know, all of our examples that we're trying to do all have flaws. And the one with Back to the Future 3 is, that one's still so old, though, that people would still have nostalgia for it. You can't have nostalgia for Toy Story 4 because it's too new. Okay. I can see that. It's like it's not even a decade old. It's too new. I don't think it's even five years old. I was surprised at the amount of people that have not seen Toy Story 4. And I think that's where a lot of the anger came from, is they hadn't even seen the film. The film is still damn good. I don't get it. That's our own fault for not seeing the film. But that said, if you wanted me to buy a game and you wanted me to buy it based off a theme, if it's something I haven't bothered to see yet, that ain't going to work. That's going to be troublesome. I know people who will go in and be like, hey, I really enjoyed The Walking Dead pinball, so let's go and watch the show. But when the game came out, it was designed for people who were already watching the show. You were either into it or you weren't. And timing-wise, that was a really smart decision because that was on fire at that point. Yeah, that was, I mean, as it limps along to its finish line, it's a moon-cast shadow of what it once was. But at the time, it was, you know, it probably still is AMC's most popular show, but at the time it was a cultural phenomenon. Yeah. And there was a time when Toy Story was a cultural phenomenon. It wasn't when Toy Story 4 came out. As we're seeing the box office numbers. Oh, yeah, with Lightyear. I mean, I'd almost have said, I mean, if they wanted. I'm actually, I'm very. No, well, and based off of what's been going on with the critical reviews of Buzz, I'm pretty sure it's going to be the worst of the five in terms of performance. No, it's not even in the same world. That's a different point. No, and those are all fair and valid points. I would love to know why Jersey Jack decided to go with four, and only four, and didn't either walk away, if that's all they could have, or didn't take steps to do all four of the movies. If Disney really wanted all four incorporated, I just don't understand. I think, yeah, that's assuming they had a decision. They had a decision to take the license. They had that choice. Exactly. That may have been the only decision they had. And if that were the case, I still think it is a smart idea to go Toy Story 4 over Toy Story Nothing. I really do. I can't say yes to that because, in theory, there's infinite other things they could have picked, and some of those would have been better. Absolutely. I mean, in a vacuum, it's not fair because what am I supposed to like? If I could say, well, they could have gotten Frozen. if that's the scenario Disney was like well you can have Toy Story 4 or Frozen 1 well Frozen 1 is the right answer I don't know I think it is now not to get political or anything like that but I think you have a Frozen genre that skews more female based I love that film and just love it to death I would definitely own a Frozen pinball machine but I think it may skew more female base where your predominant buyer in pinball, I'm sorry, is middle-aged man, right? So I think Toy Story, Cowboy, Space Ranger still skews more towards... But that's not Toy Story 4. It still is. It's still that world. It's about a fork. I think I'm... Oh, that's tough. Between Toy Story and Toy Story 4. Well, but here's part of, I guess, part of the reason why that one pops in my mind. Because, all right, you raise a point. And demographics are obviously relevant on any sort of sales product. But the initial marketing that I saw from Jersey Jack seemed to be orienting this to it shows a father with a young girl playing the game. Yeah, and you're right. It's kind of oriented towards children, families, which if that's the case, then it would not matter. And not to bust throw him, but TPN, co-host of Triple Dream Pinball Podcast, Travis Murray, he stated part of the reason he bought Toy Story was his kids and wife were really into the theme. And they still were interested with it being Toy Story 4 specific. Yeah, I understand. Based off his play experience, which now he's an excellent player. He scared me. Yeah, when he already got through the wizard mode almost three times. On the first day he owned it. And again, that made me wonder. And that can be a strategy. Like if it's designed to be a longer player and wizard mode that children can get to. That was how it was described. So it seems like Jersey Jack was like, we want to make a game that's targeting children. But they can't afford it. And the operators can't. See, this is where I'm having. Like, these are the questions I would have for the company is, okay, I get the idea, but why not structure it then to really try and get it on location so that more kids would have the opportunity to play it and fall in love with pinball? Because this is going to end up in homeowner collections. It's just too expensive. I don't know the answer to that. They might argue there's already, you know, we're not going to try to compete against certain pros. I could see plenty of reasons to forsake the operator market, which has never been, in my view, Jersey Jack's primary means of sales. But that was also when they were making things that seemed to be mostly designed for really long, deep, we're talking like Kiefer having 20-plus characters to choose from, with a theme that was child-friendly. I'm thinking Pirates, but the games had this immense level of depth, and winning them was a problem. Well, the other thing is, if they are, they can still sell the idea of, I don't know if it's the correct one, but still sell the idea of families, because where do families play? Families play at family entertainment centers. These big coin pitchers. You've got the Raw Thrills games. You've got the Shootin' the Hoops. So if they're trying to get into there, their argument still holds true, because for $12,000, Most of those big arcade games, those things can be $15,000, $18,000. They're even more than this. And they take up four times the room. But they don't require a tech. Excellent point. Pinball breaks all the time. And my understanding of why a lot of family entertainment centers got out of having pinball wasn't that no one played pinball and that people don't come in and ask for pinball, but they have to have a trained technician on site to keep them up, and they don't want to pay for it. When you think about just, this is going in a different direction, but still a very interesting one, I think, for the listeners. We have seen, Dennis, a really big shift over the last even three years. The ups and downs, the homeowner versus the location, the rising prices, the inflation, the money being spent and making money secondhand on some of these games. If they obtained this license three years ago, which likely they did, there was a lot of changes between the three years of design of this, so they may have had one idea going in, and they've seen this changing market and these fluctuations. It probably made it very, very difficult to steer the course on who in the hell are we targeting here. Now, I have a question for you because, again, I've not seen Toy Story 4. I probably should have just for homework. No, I wish you would have. I could have these questions answered myself, but I'll just have to ask you. Now, you mentioned in the first three and the thought that this was going to be set in Andy's room. And I noticed this game is set at a carnival. Yes. I had seen some statements, though I don't know if they were true or not, so I'll ask you, that in the film, the antique shop is actually the center point of activity, not the carnival. It is very much mixed. Because you've got very much like a sitcom or a film, you have these groups of characters, and you go through their different storylines all at different times, just like a series you watch on Netflix, right? So one of the groups is more in the RV park carnival kind of thing. The other one is more captured stuck in the antique shop. So it occurs at both places. Okay. Because here's the thing I hadn't thought about initially when I first saw your featurette. And you have an outtake at the end of that featurette with Pat, and you ask him, like, which Toy Story character does he most identify with. And he didn't want to answer it. He didn't want to answer it, which is fine. Initially, I just thought, that's just Pat being Pat. He doesn't want to play your stupid little game. Rejected. However, as I saw more and more about this and saw how carny-oriented the whole gameplay seems to be, you know what I then thought? I thought, I don't think he's seen it. Oh, surely. He doesn't know the characters in Toy Story. The artists have put these all on, and the coders had to work it in. And like Joe Katz, whose enthusiasm was infectious, by the way, in that feature for the roles and stuff that he came up with. But I thought, you know what? That would make a lot of sense, too. It's not just Pat thinks your question is dumb, but Pat's like, I didn't watch this stuff. I have a carnival game. And they just changed it to be a Toy Story carnival game. I still thought he would have went with a main character, but I don't know what put him off there. I think he just didn't want to have to say the word Woody. So, but then I thought, okay, well, I could really, you know, Pat has had other, Rollercoaster Tycoon is really just a carnival game as well. So maybe he's just like, I really want to do another carnival style game. I think kids will really like it. And then they just kind of shaped it, molded it. You know, it's got a facade. Well, yeah, but the easy hanger here is, okay, we know this film takes place at an RV park, an antique shop, or a carnival. Okay, well, I think we lean into the carnival thing there. Look, also in your feature, I'm pulling from your feature, there's a lot of talk about all the innovation on this game. Okay. What would have been more innovative than RV theme or antique shop theme? I can't think of any pinball game that has ever done either. Carnies, though, I can think of carnies. I would have been fine with them going all in on the antique shop with the ventriloquist dummies, a lot of aged wood and mahogany. You can almost smell the mothballs. I would have really, I like that. But they went with the carnival theme here. I don't think going with the carnival is a bad idea. In fact, it's probably the best from a gameplay incorporation perspective, from all three options that I'm aware of. So I get that. I'm just saying, though, that that's what it is. If you're looking straight down at this play field, what do you think about the design? I think it looks like a fun shooter. Okay. The layout works for you. You don't see anything in particular that you're like, oh, design choice-wise. I don't know why that looks clunky or that doesn't look like it's fun. I mean, in terms of what I like, I like the two ramp shots going on. I like the jump ramp. I think that looks really fun. I like that idea. And the ball lock and the diverter thing with the ramp, that's pretty cool. What would I complain about? It looks like there's really only one shot for the mini flipper, so I just like, I don't know. I mean, that can work. Like, it works for, like, Star Trek with the warp ramp because the warp ramp's so flowy and fun. I don't know what this is like because that's not usually how Pat does it, so I'm not sure. I'm not sold on that, so that's just like a, let's call it a red flag. I don't know that I wouldn't actually like it. I'm just, I'm not impressed by it, I guess would be my initial thought. The Gabby Gabby Bash, I hated those on Hobbit, so I'm not, I don't care about that. I actually think I would actively hate it. And then 4K being a bunch of stand-ups. I don't know. Mistake. Yeah. What about 4 Pops? You okay with 4 Pops? I actually am okay with 4 Pops. My problem is that Pop Nest is safe. So what's the point? You've got the – That's been one of my hobby horses for a long time. It's like Pop Bumpers should be dangerous. That's my biggest gripe with Star Trek's layout is the Pops get a ton of action, and they're super safe. It's like if I need a break and I don't want to think on Star Trek and competitive, I plunge into Pops. It's in the middle of those being safe because it does have a bad exit. It's got one bad exit, one safe exit. Straight down the middle kind of bad exit there. From the people playing it, it's my understanding. It's recoverable. It's an exceedingly safe set of Pops. And you get a lot of action in the Pops too. I like that they put a saucer up there. I was saying it on our impressions video. No reason I should like that saucer. But for some reason, it just works for me. I like that it's up there. It's different. I'm fine with it. It's like the spinning disc. I'm okay with it. I don't really feel any way. See, that's where I'm at. I'm done with spinning discs. I know a lot of people don't like spinning discs because it adds too much randomness. It punishes you when it's spinning, even if you're doing well. Mine was like, it's just been done. I mean, he's a fan of it. I love the Orbit and I a sucker for Orbit to ramp or Orbit to wire form It feels very much like dialed in that right orbit crawls up a a wireform I just love those You know something neither of us have said What that The giant 10 screen That's right. Don't you all have phones? Here's my thing. That's a Blizzard reference. Here's my thing with the whole screen thing, because people are losing their fucking minds. Because they're covering 15% of the play field. That's what they say, 15%. No, they said 25%. I'm not taking it down to a realistic number. Okay, so I can see the argument. Do I want a 10-inch screen there? Because I've got to cover it here because everybody thinks I purposefully left it out of the first impression. We just ran out of time. We didn't think about it. Oh, did you not cover it? We talked about it. How did you run out of time? You went for 40 minutes. Exactly. I didn't want to go any longer. But I'll pay it here. To the floor. But you get new monetization. At 50. You're done, people. No, you're done. Those that are wondering, like, you need eight minutes if you want to have mid-roll ads. But I'll talk about it here. Do I give two shits about a 10-inch screen? No. Like, it's not a feature that I'm like, ooh, look at that. Does it make me angry or set fire to things? No. It's a 10-inch screen. Like, they have monitors in all their games. This one is industry-leading large. I don't know. My thought was, it doesn't bug me as much. I don't mind that the screen's there. I don't even mind that it's 10 inches. I do sympathize with people that see all that space and go, that's where our mech could have gone. And here's what I'm hearing all week. I've heard that. That's right. My question would be, fine. That's fine. Let's pull it out of there. What do we put in its place? because if people actually think about the design, think about the design, though. Did anybody think about that on Wonka? No. It's the same. What are you covering? You're covering a wire form, a ramp. Like, what are you going to put there? Well, I don't think, I think everyone is acknowledging, well, they're not saying it, so maybe they're not, but I would acknowledge that. It's not as simple as removing the screen and putting it in a mech. It would require the upper left quadrant to be redesigned. Yes, yes. That would be my point. But that Lawler is a brilliant designer. He could still have it be a great layout and have a mech up there. I think they purposefully put it in there during design phases because they've seen it as a central feature. I think they also wanted to lean in on the Tiki Multiball, which is a virtual like of pinball machine, right, where you've got a pinball machine virtually within a physical pinball machine that reacts to the physicalities of the pinball machine. Unique novel concept. You all know how I feel about virtual pinball. Yeah, I was going to ask, what is your thought? Because actually, when I saw the Carnival games, that there was virtual pinball in the real pinball was the only one that annoyed me. I don't see a need for it. But then again, if you're sticking a 10-inch screen in there, I think it's the best way you could utilize it. The best. You don't think any other carny games could be like shooting ducks? I don't know what all those are. Well, they've got those on there. They're all on there. Like the skee-ball, when you're playing the skee-ball mode, the balls are going up. Do we need virtual pinball in it too? If you're going to put a screen in there, yeah. Does it have the one where we use the squirt gun to fill the balloon and pop the balloon? No, but it's got the balloon top where you throw the darts. I saw the balloon one. But my point is, if you're going to have to put virtual pinball on there, They did it. They executed it wonderfully because you have light integration. You've got actual physical coil integration and feedback from that little thing. Now, I don't care about virtual pinball at all, but it looks cool. But, no, I don't need virtual pinball. So, I don't know. I'm saying you take away that screen, you're going to have something where you look down on Wonka, and it doesn't have a big 10-inch screen, and you just see the ramps. Okay? People like to watch the ramps, though. Okay. I can see that. In fact, I saw someone. I remember who it was. I'm sure it was one of the Pennside posts that goes, you covered up habitrails, wire forms. You never cover those up. That's what people want to look at. But look at, like, Star Wars. Yeah, but that's a bunch of plastic. I'm saying, Star Wars, nobody said, what is this big... Oh, yeah, they did. That's because we were so busy trying to hatch open our egg yolk that is the Death Star. That's right. I think people were focusing on it when... But you know what the thing was about that stern little egg Death Star? It wasn't a cake topper. No, the people are mad about that. Mod people are going to go crazy on this game. Well, that's another thing. Again, it's not new to this, but they are. Pinball people do not like toys off the shelf. They like to stick them in with zip ties like crazy. Somebody was like, Disney's charging this much or J.J. Jack's charging this much for this game. It should have custom molded sculpts in it. And I'm like, hold on. That's what they're big into saying, that pinball manufacturers should be doing custom molded sculpts. They get mad when they use off-the-shelf toys, and they get mad when they don't change the poses of the characters from the default art package. It's like, that was Star Wars. These are the same Han Solo poses on the lunchbox. Yes. And they get mad at that, even if you hand-drew it, which that's how large they already give you. Okay, but guys, let's have Disney go through the licensing of a custom mold for one of their figures. Sure. Okay. You're not going to get that. It's Disney. And people also don't like that Woody and Buzz in the upper right are super tiny and the rabbit's big. And what some people may not know, but I know this to be a fact, that whole character kit there that everybody's complaining about, that is a licensed Disney set. it's their cake set that's licensed Disney it's like the sets we go to Disney store some of the parents out there know what I'm talking about you go into the Disney store and you can pick any movie out and there's like a box set of all the figures to play with like a toy and that's what this is and you know I think there would always be grouse thing about it so you can't win for losing they put Woody and Buzz back in the bag They don't need to be in the back. But the one other thing, and again, getting back to my three-striker one, Zach, and the thing that you basically opened with, the pricing. That's the issue. I know. $12,000. I mean, so it's unfair. It's completely unfair. But you know what? Life in pinball isn't fair. And it finds a way. You look at this, and you look at $9,000 Godzilla premium, and like interactive feature-wise, which one wins? cake toppers or a Mechagodzilla that grabs a ball, giant 10-inch screen or a bridge that collapses, four pop bumper nests with two little Woody and Buzz cake toppers, or a building that changes levels? You see, that's what it is. That's the thing that's pissing people off is it's $3,000 more for feature or what looks like on the surface at least less mechanical features. How do you square that circle? You don't. You don't for a lot of people, no. I mean, on the surface, there's a lot about this that looks fun to me, but it's like Pop Bumper Nest without custom, you know, there's like why are there not custom things on top of the pops? You know, there are all sorts of little things that people are going to nitpick about when it's a five-figure game and $12,000 is the cheapest one of that. But then you're going to get this other group of people like myself as a player and a collector. The shills. No, you're going to get people like me that I completely agree with all your points. But then again, if I get the theme of Godzilla or Toy Story 4, I sure as hell go Toy Story 4. A lot of people who have bought have ultimately said, bought the CE I should be more specific about, have said in the end it's still enough Toy Story. I mean, Toy Story 4 is still Toy Story. It is. It might not be your favorite movie. It might not be the full trilogy that you most love. but it's still got the characters you care about. It's pretty much Toy Story. And it's still a Pixar film. It's still put together well. But what I'm saying is the other one would be, okay, so you got that. You give me a Godzilla premium light show or you give me a Toy Story 4 light show, and again, there's a big, big space in between there. So there are some features that balance it out. That's true, but I think for most, and again, and it may not be your group of people may be different than my group of people, But in my view, by and large, as impressive and beautiful as the light shows are, most people are – it's not 10 years ago. People don't expect this additional light show to be a grand more. They know the bulbs don't cost that much. Yeah, but – And you're going to have to program in the light integration, whether it's a million bulbs or 12 bulbs. They're all color-changing RGB now. So everyone's doing lighting effects. There's a difference between the coating lighting effects of a full RGB like this compared to another manufacturer's light shows. They're just significantly different. Yes, except we saw them do this with Guns N' Roses, and the price has gone up so much more since then. We're not buying that that's what went up. It's not the source of the high pricing. What I'm saying is I know that there's a difference there because Godzilla is going to sell probably five times more than this pin ever will. So that just shows the massive monster and one of the greatest ever that Godzilla is. But if I have 20 people that walk up to Godzilla and I say, what's the first thing that just really kind of smacks you in the face? They're going to say that building. The last thing that any of them, I don't think any of them are going to say, the lights, the light show, the look of the colors. Nobody's going to say it. You can't avoid it on this game. No, I think that's fair. I think that's fair. You know, interesting when you bring up and you noted the unfairness of the, you know, comparing sales. Well, how do you think Toy Story 4 does versus Guns N' Roses? That would be a fair comparison. People have been asking me that. I would say the initial so far, it's been, it's tough. We ordered more Toy Stories than we did Guns N' Roses for our initial order. Dealers will continue to order this over the next year or two. our initial order was substantially more for Toy Story. But I would say sales, like confirmed sales, were below that of Guns N' Roses. But higher than that of Willy Wonka. So that's kind of where it's falling in. Yeah, and I guess I wouldn't be too surprised. When it's all said and done, I do not think this matches Guns N' Roses sales. I think you might be right. It's early, but I'm here to speculate, and that's what I'm going to speculate. Because Guns N' Roses had the stage show, it felt like the world of the stage show. When you look at this, what's the first thing that stands out? Well, the first thing you're going to see is the screen. We're used to the light rails, these hot rails. That's what sold Guns N' Roses. A lot of it was. Well, because lights are so important to a rock and roll stage show. More important than it is to Toy Story, actually. Yeah, I can see that. But we're used to it. All these things that they're adding we're used to, and we're expecting, what's the next big thing? I think that's where you had some of those people going, where's the super cool innovation on this? And they're struggling to find it. Even if it's iteratively better in all features versus GNR, they're still going, but where's the new thing? Yeah, because people didn't see that leap when it came to a Wonka reveal. People were like, what the hell? What's different? There's nothing special in this game. And then GNR came out. Whoa, that is a big innovation. And then we're back to Toy Story 4. I don't see anything crazy different here for the price increase. And one of the things I think that might have hurt Wonka was, oh, my gosh, the hype on that thing. Remember, it was the stories about how different colored balls were going to do. I mean, people just got. This has actually happened to Jersey Jack several times. This happened to Toy Story, too, yeah. Yeah, to a degree. But I'm also kind of thinking of, like, it was almost an opposite thing with pirates. With Wonka, you had all this stuff where people just thought the game was going to levitate or something. They thought there was going to be some sort of incredible, never-before-seen tech that you couldn't even imagine in it. And then with Pirates, it was there were all these super amazing, cool features. And even with the cool things like the rocking play field for the ship and stuff still in it, when things like the triple-swinging discs went out, they were like, you're stripping it back. Well, when Pirates came out, people thought, we don't want that theme. So it started like that. They're like, oh, man. Well, now, both of those, there were the issues of the screen assets. There are also the people that complain about the integration of the screen assets. Yeah, this has full assets. We didn't even talk about that. They got Tim Allen. They got Jim Hanks. They got Annie Annie Potts. Does it not matter anymore? Well, she's in the LE too. But, you know, I feel like they're not giving due credit to some of the things that we've been screaming as pinball players in the past. And not to look up for this game. There's a lot of negatives about this game. But for me, overall, the positives heavily outweigh the negatives. And I think that some people are just hard-headed and don't want to admit to it. That's all. That's where I'm at on this game. You may be right. I would say that. Well, the thing was, Wonka wasn't $12,000 to $15,000. Times are different, though. This is super. No, they're not that different. This is beyond inflation. Walgett still was one of the most expensive pinball machines at that time. But it had mechanics in it that people were interested in. There aren't that many more mechanics. I don't know. A little baby jump wrap and a troll. A troll. The tennis screen. They even stick in four of them. Thank you. Really quick, I will say, Travis Meary murdered this game. He got to all this stuff. So much scared me. And I'm like, oh, no. I can honestly tell you, because when I heard about the code and I was being described the code, this is exactly the type of code I like. That's why I was so pumped for this game, because I love Wonka code. Because this game came out at 1.0, didn't it? Oh, that's a good question. I have not checked mine. I thought it had. I'm pretty sure. If not, it sounded like it was close. It was close. Yeah, it was right there. Because I like the different tasks, the seven scenes. I like the 12 modes here. You get the other multiballs with their own stages. You get a wizard mode that has multiple stages and two paths that you've got to get through twice just to complete it. It had a lot going for it, and I still think it does. Travis scared me, but I still haven't got to the wizard mode. I've been playing this more than I typically play new out-of-box games, and I'm having a blast with it. So I'm not worried now. I was worried. I'm not worried now. It's going to give you the speed and length of duration like a dialed in. And for those of you who want to know what this shoots like, no one will argue with me when I tell you objectively that this shoots like dialed in, stuck it inside of Wonka. And it came out with a child that's called Toy Story 4. You will feel dialed in and you will feel Wonka. And I can honestly say that if it's important to you, the gameplay and the code and stuff, if you like the way dialed-in plays in the code, as well as Wonka, you will love this game. If you hate those two games, you're really going to struggle with this game. The layout mimics both of those together, and so does the code. Wonka code, you get all those Wonka bars, right, Dennis? This has those in tickets and in the carnival stuff, but it also has what Wonka really doesn't. Wonka kind of skimped on those scenes and those modes. Really didn't have much of that. Where this has that, very much like a dialed-in, where you collect the characters, the SIM card, et cetera. A little bit easier code-wise than dialed-in SIM cards, but it is the marriage and the mignolation of both of those perfectly. For better or worse. We didn't even talk about the Benson targets popping up and blocking you. No, got to watch out for those. Individually triggered, too. They'll pop them up on you. Do you think this is Pat Lawler's last game? I do, yes. Oh, the swan song. Caw-caw. I think they actually honk. I looked them up because you made a goose sound. It's kind of like that, but it's distinctly different. I thought it was like hissing. Yeah. Hissing bastards. They probably hiss at you when you get close to their bread. Do you know you're not supposed to feed them bread? Yeah. You can't kill them. Aw. Don't kill the geese. I don't know if this is a swan. Is this Swan and Goose? We did this already. No, it's its own thing. All right. You killed Black Swan. I think, I don't know if it's a Swan song. I think it might be. A hell of a legend. A hell of a legacy that he's left on pinball. Maybe it's his last one, Jersey Jack. Maybe he tries to do the whole contract work, the PLD, you know, Pat Lollard designs thing with other people. I don't know. Dave Fix right now is on speed dial. He's got it. Hey! You know, we need another designer. Yes, yes, get another one. We're looking at 2028 if you've got an opening there, Pat. All right. I think you're going to really enjoy it, Dennis, to shoot this game. It's a Jersey Jack, though. It feels like a Jersey Jack. I know that Pat talked to us. I don't even know if I had it in the video. We have some unreleased stuff we may release about other features, such as boosting the power of that ramp flipper whenever you need to hit that ramp. He also said they did go in, they've heard the complaints about mushy flippers, and then after two hours or so, getting a hell of a lot more dead, they've dedicated software and hardware to fix that. Pat Lawler has claimed to us that this will play the same flipper strength-wise two hours as it does two minutes of playing. He said you're not going to lose any power there. I saw they also pulled the art back from the post. I'm assuming to deal with the shipping issues. I saw that as well. I didn't know this on Wonka that had it as well. by the scoop. You see like a different color decal, like art-wise. That is actually, he said, because he was geeking out over it, and I'm like, it's almost too boring to put in the featurette, sorry Pat. They inlay a piece of Lexane into the play field. So he said you'll never need a protector. He said you'll never need a metal protector. That's smart. You should have seen him. He was just chucking it in. No, I could see why you'd be excited about that. That's actually very clever. Greg was like, you need to include it. Maybe he could mail one of those over to Stern for Josh. So he said Wonka was the same way. You'll see it on this. And they've done a lot of little tweaks here and there. Like when you're on location, there's some QR code that you can scan to the camera, and you can set up how strong that one ramp flipper is based on the fluctuations of your particular electricity. He said that way if they're at shows or on location or at your home, it can all be different and easily configured. So little big tweaks here and there so they are listening. I think overall I can't wait until people play it Because we've seen the whole When this game comes out just like any game It gets trashed And then people like it And then it gets trashed Just like quirky Trash I want to go through really quick and give you guys what I've done on past releases And the things I like to call things I like, things I don't About JJP's Toy Story 4 YOU ARE A TOY Something I really don't like I don't like the price shock either. It is more money. And did it look like they put that extra money in this game compared to the last release? Admittedly, no. There. Have it. Adele right now is like, yeah, but I know that you're criticizing, but you're not criticizing strong enough. So you're still a shill, son of a bitch. Yeah, I don't see the price increase either. But, I mean, times have changed. The look at gas. I don't know what to tell you. I'm not saying it's awesome. I'm just saying, yeah, that's a downside to this game is the price shock and the increase there. You are a sad, strange little man. The thing I like is that damn good-looking machine. This will stand out in a lineup. Jersey Jacks often do. Don't put it next to Wonka. You'll get mixed up which one you're walking up to. I heard someone post that. I'm kind of frustrated with the whole CE powder coat being the same color, too, but whatever. I use them leftovers. They went that one from Star. That's right. WWE? Hello, hello! Hello, WWE, Trim! Oh, man. It is such a phenomenal, beautiful, succulent-looking machine. There's no arguing that. Hey, who's got my hat? Look! I'm Woody! Howdy, howdy, howdy! Aha! Aha! Give me that! On the other hand, something I don't like. It's not Toy Story 1. It's not Toy Story 2. Hell, it's not even Toy Story 3. I would have been fine with just all of them together, But it's not. It's not Toy Story. It's not the Toy Stories we just, that we love the most. You're mocking me, aren't you? But on the positive side, something I do like about Toy Story 4, it's still Toy Story. Dennis was talking about it. And it is not an overstatement. It truly is. When you're playing this game, you're freaking playing Toy Story. You hear Woody. You hear Buzz. You see Woody. You see Buzz. You see all of the characters. It's very much Toy Story. It is not so separate from itself. It is a world of Toy Story, so that's positive. Buzz, look, an alien! Where? Ah! But then again, one of the things I didn't like about Toy Story 4, I'm with you guys. I kind of wanted at least one big, large toy mech. You got toys that are alive. I want something physical in there. So I'm with you. I agree with you. The answer of taking out the 10-inch screen, is that the answer? I don't know if that's the answer. But regardless, give me one big toy, whether it's a crane or whether it's a Zerg or whether it's just... I like that with all my games. It doesn't have to just be your Jack games. Give me one big toy in every game that's mechanical. Yeah, sure. You go ahead. Melton with your scary laser. I've set my laser from stun to kill. Ah, great. Great. Yeah, and if anyone attacks us, we can blink them to death. And the last thing that I really do like about JJP's Toy Story 4, it is undeniably Pat Lawler. I love when a game comes out and people want to trash it, but they're left by default saying, well, yeah, it shoots great and the rules are fantastic. Well, for fuck's sake, can we at least just start there? Can we at least admit that it shoots fantastic and that's a big part of pinball? Can we at least admit that the code is awesome and that's at least a big part of pinball? that it looks great. That's a big part of pinball. Sure, the missing part is where are the toys, where are the match, where is the physicality? You can argue that. But don't discredit the other things that make it great. And don't discredit what Pat Lawler seemingly does with ease nowadays. What do you think? That guy can write on napkins, throw it into somebody, and they cap it up, and it'd be great. This thing shoots phenomenally. Greg Bone straight in the middle said, he may think it shoots better than Wonka. I don't have enough time on it to make that call. But it certainly is up there. Pat Lawler games shoot the best. They just do, especially the Jersey Jack one, Styled Inn, Toy Story, Willy Wonka. If you like a good playing game, this is it. Look, we're all very impressed with Andy's new toy. Toy? T-O-Y. Toy. Excuse me, I think the word you're searching for is Space Ranger. The word I'm searching for, I can't say, because of his preschool toys press. But see, I'm both. Both sides there, Dennis. You're so flexible. I am. You want to see me put my leg over my head? Nope. Happy Father's Day. Stern Pinball Production Updates, Dennis. I'm hearing all sorts of things are coming off. No. God, bye. I don't know. They're cutting Groot into a stump. I am Grooted? Oh, man, they're about to group that. I forgot that game was still in production. It's been out so long. I know. The premium's been discontinued for quite some time, but the Guardians of the Galaxy Pro has still been here and there. They are making their last call for a September run. So they planned on doing it in 2023, but they said, you know what? We get the parts. We're going to do one final run. We're bumping it all the way up to September. And Stern Pinball, they made me grind my teeth this last week because we had some of them on, a handful of them. We had a lot on order. And they said, yeah, but we're only giving you this many. And I said, okay, well, I thought this was the last call. What about my other 12 or 15 that are left? Well, yeah, so we're canceling this. Shit! What the? So I don't know. I used to think Stern always fulfills everything. But, man, when they do something like that, it sucks. But they said maybe if enough oversees cancel and stuff, I'll still get my full order. but I might be cut short. You can't count on it. Can't count on it. Might be cut short there. Also, last call on Led Zeppelin. Pro and premium already. I'm surprised they waited this long. Oh, wow. Ouch, man. Ouch. I'm sorry. There ain't no stairway mech in it. Oh. You can buy Led Zeppelin. From anyone. As the prize still will fall. It makes Halloween's drop look small. I'm so mean today. And a blimp should have been a ball lock. So, same thing. It was supposed to be 2023, made again, but they said, no, we're calling it. We're calling it. We're going to pull it all the way up to August. You're going to see those pros and premiums in August. Last run there for that. Mandalorian Pro and Premium has been shipping last week. Yeah, I saw a photo of them on the line. There's a ton of them out there, so those are coming. I don't see them running that again until next year because they have been just making so many catching up on back orders. I think most people should be caught up on, most dealers caught up on their back orders of Mando. Okay. It was pretty popular when it came out. Yeah, they still sell well, but now there's just a lot of them. Oh, yeah. We haven't bought them. That's going to happen with Godzilla eventually. Same kind of thing. Up next should be Rush Pro and Premium, still this month at the end of June here, running into July. So we've got Rush Pro and Premium. And in July, we also have a run of Godzilla Pro and Premium, thank God, and Jurassic Park Pro. Now, remember, they had that bump up from the Jurassic Park Premium. They have not confirmed whether there are, in fact, more Jurassic Park Premiums to run. I know that for me as a dealer, they fulfilled my order last month, so I don't have any slated in particular for July. So I know for sure they're making some of our pros, but I don't know if they're doing any premiums during that time. And then in August, we have, like I said, Led Zeppelin, but we also have Star Wars Pro and Premium, that original artwork. That's going to be in August. I don't know why they're doing original artwork again. That baffles me. I guess there's demand. I don't know if they ran out of the comic license, but it doesn't make sense. Yeah, maybe it was limited. Call Randy and make a new deal guys I don understand It looks so much better But what I asked every day and I have a hard time believing Dennis is that the July run of Godzilla premiums based on the production schedule that we have is not being run again for the rest of the year. I find that hard to believe. I mean, I know that at some point they've got to make the new cornerstone, but the demand, again, I'm not a distributor, but my understanding was there's still a lot of unfulfilled demand. That's an awful long wait. It's going to be a half a year after that. Excluding Elvira Premium, I can take everything that we have backordered and preordered from customers, put them together, and I would guess it's very similar to just Godzilla Premium backorders for us. So I have a hard time believing that they're not going to add some kind of run in August or September or October, November. They can run them every damn month and sell out every single time. Yeah, I probably should commit to saying I'll never get rid of Godzilla Premium because by the time the 20 billion units are out there, it'll be worth like $5. That's right. Once they're all finally done, the market's going to be like, I'll trade this to you for a Big Mac. Right now, it's still high on the market. It's still $12,000 for a used one. It's a great game. So that's the production updates. Hopefully, we'll get some additional runs of Godzilla, but at this point in time, we are not told. When it comes to toppers, I'm still hearing you're going to see sequentially kind of the unreleased ones coming out together here and there, staggering out. I'm guessing end of summer is what's starting to feel good to me. End of summer, beginning of fall, we'll start seeing those toppers come out. And also with this week, we have Stern announcing another way to Insider Connect, and that is the worldwide leaderboard for Godzilla. I don't know enough about this. I did a seminar with CEO Seth Davis. We sat through a seminar on it. But so the leaderboard stuff that many have been seeing at shows, they have this big old monitor. Okay, I've seen that. Yeah, so it's kind of like that, but it's across the world. Is it full from the Insider Connected? Because I went in on my Godzilla yesterday and checked to see if there was a software update, and it said there was not. Yeah, so I think that's what it is. Okay. Now, to be verified, though, to get on the verified list, you still have to be on location. But they're still going to do homeowner leaderboard as well. But for those, it's a really cool feature that happens at shows. I don't know how to best describe it. We may talk about it more in depth on a future episode. But the worldwide leaderboard is a big thing. I think Jack Danger streamed kind of an example of it this last week. So if you want to see that, go check that one out. But the worldwide leaderboard is a lot of cool things they can do with contests and stuff. Stern Pinball can by seeing, look at your rank and, oh, I want to get there. How do I get there? Etc. The only other thing that I know of is spooky pinball in the news this week. I've seen on a recent stream, Scott Danesi, he was a guest in that he was talking about TNA 2.0. We know that they'll probably release that, I don't know, before their new title release, if they'll do another run of TNA or if it'll be after, but he was talking about it. He, this surprised me, He talked about adding a small multiball into the new code and even another song. That's surprising. I thought 2.0 was just going to be another run with maybe upgraded parts or something. I'm more surprised at a new gameplay feature than a song, but okay. And he also said that no need to worry for all of those that own TNA already because any additions to the 2.0 version are going to be applicable to the original run of games as well. Yeah, I would have assumed that. Otherwise, it's technically a different game. Yeah, and I don't think it's going to be an additional fee or anything, like some companies are doing. So that's pretty cool. I wonder if TNA sells really well again. I think One More Run sells really well. I guess. You know, I don't know. They've been talking about it coming out soon, like before Rick and Morty. So I don't really know when to expect it. I think they could sell another 250 units. I think they could, too. I mean, the original run was 550 units. Have they done it like last year when we had the full-on everyone's buying everything pandemic stuff going on? I bet you they could have even breached their first 550 run of it because it's got such a word of mouth. But now that prices are coming, well, you know, toy story aside, now that secondhand prices are starting to fall on a variety of games, and games that are not good are actually falling significantly below their retail prices, which we were not seeing during the pandemic. Yeah, I agree. I don't – the demand for this versus new stuff, I think, is just going to – I think it's going to become less and less popular. Well, and I think very fitting as we're – I would prioritize putting it out, I guess, would be my suggestion. If you're hoping to sell a lot of them, I really recommend you do it, like, sooner rather than later. And very fitting as we're ending the news section and jumping over into the market section. I will say, when we were talking about the price increase of that Jersey Jack game and everybody freaking out, holy shit, this is too expensive. Where I get hung up still, Dennis, and I very frequently make this argument whenever we're talking prices, and I think I have an argument here, too, is that I don't care how much a pin is necessarily. For me, I worry mostly about the quote-unquote value everybody's bidding. It's not worth $15,000. It's not worth $12,000. There's not $12,000 worth of stuff in that game. It's bullshit. Who cares? I'm more concerned about the value of it when I go to sell it. Now, if I go to sell it and lose my ass, that's when I start caring about pricing. This thing could be $50,000, and I still buy it without hesitation if I know that it holds a $50,000 value later on or close to it. I can make some losses whenever I'm selling games as a collector or as a player, But if it tanks a la Halloween and stuff, that's when I have an issue. I don't care if it's $10 or $10,000. So I never understand that whole argument of there's not $15,000 worth. Well, shit. I mean, the blue jeans you're wearing aren't valued at that. You can say that about everything that's sold. Yes. While you have a fair point, I think while they couch it in those terms, The bigger issue for a lot of them in part is not everyone has that much liquid capital. So there is a – like I know plenty of people that could buy a $15,000 pinball machine. They could not afford – even if they could get the money back, could not afford to put $50,000 down on one. They don't carry that much cash available in their bank accounts. So there's that aspect. And then the other thing is the pandemic created a really – an artificial environment. and I've just seen it collapse in so many other things. I'm certain it will happen. Yeah. Sorry. Crypto really collapsed. But, I mean, even like my hobby with wristwatches and stuff, we're already seeing, even the hype pieces are falling significantly. We're seeing it in collector cards, too. I'm pretty sure that pinball is going to, I believe, pinball is going to get back to a place where retail is the high price outside of LEs and such, you know, really limited items. and other stuff by and large, other new stuff, is going to sell for less use than it does new, as it should be. I'm agreeing with you. Because that's the normal market condition. That's what most pinball has been at. I don't think that, you know, we're not surprising each other with these statements. But then the quality of the games is going to start to matter a lot more. And that's kind of where maybe some of the concern is with if, so let's say winning Toy Story is easy. like I inherently there's nothing wrong with an easy wizard mode scared stiff is a beloved game and that is a pretty easy wizard mode to get to to monster bash at least the version without getting all the instruments is pretty easy to get to I say that because I've actually done that one that's what like it's a master it's hard but you know some people who buy games play them until they get to the wizard mode and they consider that they've beaten the game and then that you know I think some of the concern is are people going to start immediately, like a month out, flipping their $12,000 game, and is my game going to be devalued because they're getting rid of the game so quickly, and I'm going to be pressured to get rid of the game quick because I'm going to be afraid it's going to get back to like 2018, 2019, where you would expect to lose $500 on any Stern Pro you open, but when you open a Jersey Jack, you're going to lose $2,000. Yeah, and to piggyback off of that, I think that you're right. We'll get back down to the point at some point where you're not going to make money off of the mass produced, you know, in this case, LE or Stern Pro or Premium. But I still think we're going to see a higher price and a collectible price for the collector's editions or the LE models that Stern has. The ones that are limited, you know, if we keep going past this 1,000 piece limited, we're getting hairy there. But if we stick 1,000 or below, I think that you're still going to see, you know, Mando Ellie is selling for $1,000 more than Ellie or a Godzilla Ellie. Truly limited items, but that's always been true. Godzilla Ellie is at like $18,000, and I don't see that moving much. It's certainly not going to move all the way down to $11,000, so I still think there's some collectability there, which is going to drive people to want ever more those damn Ellies whenever they come out and fighting for them. But you're right. If it does come down, that market does come down, things like features or things like code are going to be even more important moving forward for some of these products. Because of the, as you noted, even if they can, I mean, I think a lot of people, at least a lot of the old timers, understand and expect to take a bit of a loss on a new game. But, you know, when they go, well, you know, GNR's features and what comes in it means I'm only going to lose $750. And if Toy Story is going to be $1,500, that's going to start influencing what they're willing to. But that's where I think the actual issue is. Yeah, obviously, there's not $15,000 worth of stuff on the surface of Toy Story CE because the company would not have made any money had that been true. Yep, and they sold out of those CEs very fast. Yeah, to distros. Oh, God, you're doing the whole sold-through thing, too. Well, I have to say, when I saw Jack G make that statement, it was like, you sold 100 of them direct. And then I get it. From the manufacturer's perspective, they sold 1,000 immediately. But I don't know if I'd emphasize this how quickly, like it was some sort of consumer grassroots demand. Here's the real deal. They did sell them quickly, and for the most part, the majority of them were still initially sold out everywhere. The problem is, is what some of these, especially smaller dealers probably did, they probably only got one, two, if any, CEs. And they were like, damn it, I'm going to follow this trend. And they held on to them, waiting. I saw it. I saw it. 25,000. Yep. They were waiting for that, and when that didn't happen. They thought it was going to be a 40th. Exactly. If that didn't happen, then you start seeing them, well, okay, shit, I better get what I can. So you see them struggling. But the CEs are gone. There's going to be some floating here and there and everywhere, but that's a sold-out game, just like any other Sternelli that comes out sold out. At the end of it all, all I'd say is when it comes to the pricing and stuff like that, give me a $20,000 pinball machine that I know is not going to lose money over a $2,000 pinball machine that I know will lose 40% of its value. That's just where I'm at. And that's been your pinball market trends. Well, speaking of, let's jump into it right now. That was more of a market trend that you would like. That the people would like. The real one. The people want it, but I don't have any videos. Can I even have an eagle in this way? I can't even have my eagle. There he is. It's paintball market trends. Didn't feel as good as after waiting flag and the goats. Oh, shit, that was an F-14 Top Cat flew by. I got jets in here. I can't even tune my flag impression. Five out of ten, just like your golem does. That's a Amanda Hamilton impression. My song is not very good with the jets in it. Oh, it's a sun thing. Tritting up this week is, you heard it, Led Zeppelin Pro and Premium as well as Guardians of the Galaxy Pro. And it's because numbers don't lie. And I'm only here to report the facts. If you're doing a last call on that thing, that's when everybody wants it. It's like that partner out there doing their sexy little dance on the dance floor and you know they got that ring on it. Can't have it, but you want it more. Is that how people do that? What a weird way to describe that. Yeah, so those are certainly trending up this week. Because you're not going to be able to find them anymore. Guardians are actually, they are already pretty high. But they're going to be even more so. You're going to be able to find Led Zeppelin. You'll be able to find it. But it's not going to keep dropping once they stop making them. And especially once they get another run of those expression lights out to people. Yeah, it'll go up. And then you get a Guardians of the Galaxy 3 that comes out. It'll go up. See Stranger Things Season 4. Also training up this week is angry people. Some of you guys. Chill out. Take your high blood pressure meds. Take your Xanax. You guys are freaking out over a pinball machine. I've been cold everything under the sun this week, Dennis. Well, it's always about you, Zach. They were angry. A mob. I got poked in the ass with pitchforks. Wow. People talking about burning down my treehouse. They're mean. They're crusty. I get when expectations for years, you think a Toy Story, a beloved title is going to come out, and then you see this Toy Story 4. I get the kick in the nuts. I felt it myself. Albeit months prior than everybody, I still felt it myself. I have more knowledge than all of you. I am the spy. No, I'm with you. I'm one of y'all. I would say it's got to be Toy Story, Zach. It's got to be right. And Zach's like, well, I don't really know, partner. Jeez, so obnoxious. It's not trash. So I get the feeling that you're nuts in your stomach. I get it. What I don't understand, I get sadness, frustrated, being upset. I get anxiety. You know, I see it like, oh, I'm nervous now. I'm going to go. But the anger I don't get, the hostility I don't get, the fighting amongst adults on forums I don't get. There's a difference between debate and the douchebag. Well, Zach, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Anger is a secondary emotion in psychology. We describe it as masking another more primary emotion, such as sadness or anxiety. Or hunger. Maybe they were just hungry. Yeah. Ask Nicole. She gets real angry when she don't have her food in her. So I get it. So, yeah, trending up this week is angry people because there is a flurry of them. Sycophant. Are they saying you're a sycophant? Yeah, I was called that. Ah, it feels easier to say. Man, a sycophant. Oh, man. I'm lying to people. I hate this game, but I'm just wanting to make sales. Idiots. Trending down this week. I want to be those people, but there's so many of them I have to trend up. Trending down this week is, oh, no. Toy Story 4 pricing. Oh, trending down this week, Toy Story 4 figurines. Oh, minus Debbie's cake. Trending down this week, Toy Story 4 10-inch LCD monitor. Holy shit. This is no good. What am I going to do? Dennis, everything is trending down on this game. You'll always have Gabby Gabby. Wait for the new game with a 14-inch screen. It does. And it's going to be a physical pinball of the virtual pinball of physical pinball. Colleen Nicole's idea there. Let's do a virtual pinball of her play field, but it's actually going to be physical. Oh, boy. Multimorphic Jerry right now. He's angry. Oh, so training down all the features of Toy Story. Wait a minute. Oh, late breaking news here. training out this week is the reaction to toy story 4 after actually playing it and experiencing the damn thing mic drop bitches there it is whine cry change your shitty diaper people you can't say that this game is not now being heralded very quickly as a fun game a great shooter a good rule set. Overall, it is a hit. Jersey Jack's going all the way to the bank, and I may be bolting this thing to my floor. Oh, they're so mad now, Dennis. They're so angry. They don't want to admit it. Of course it's going to shoot great. Well, of course it drives better than anything I've ever driven, but did you see the paint job? And you buttheads out there better find me a Radical for my pinball bounty. Please. There's the nothing on Radical. Well, you know, they didn't make all that many. I still need to call HEP. That was your idea. Yeah, but you, I mean, you need to get, I think he requires to get him the game. He's not going to find the game for you, so. It's just the play skills. He's going to have trouble with play skills. Damn it. Trust him. He's got skills. He like nickel plates the underside of the screws. All the over-the-top ridiculous stuff you love. I love it. I worry about nickel poisoning. I hope he's okay. Oh, jeez. I just think of nickel. Loot in folder, bro! Oh, my God. The next music then from J.J. Peepo. Oh, no. You know what? This or that. The theme alone. Guns N' Roses or Toy Story 4? Well, Guns N' Roses. For me, that's why people think I'm lying about loving this theme so much. For me, it's not even a question, Toy Story 4 over Guns N' Roses. Well, I mean, for me, it's easy. I haven't seen Toy Story 4, and I like Guns N' Roses music. The only difficult this or that for a Toy Story 4 would be Wonka, because the original Wonka and this right one, I would have trouble with that. But I'll take Toy Story 4 license over Wizard of Oz. I'll take it over Godzilla. I'll take it over damn near everything. Stranger Things? No. Interesting. I haven't seen Stranger Things either, so I'm indifferent. If it was Toy Story 1 or the entire Toy Story, we'd have an argument. But just four. That's where it ranks. And as always, look, people, put away your pitchforks. I'm just here as a medium of communication and truth, honesty, justice, integrity, damn it. I'm here to report the facts. Whether you like it or not, numbers will never lie to you on TPS's pinball market trends. Let's close it in. Say bye to the people. Say bye-bye, people. Bye-bye now. Yeah, where can people find you? Don't harass me. I don't sell these things. But you can email me at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast and you can send a message through the messenger tool. Message him today. That's it. There are no other ways to reach me. I'm otherwise impossible. Tony's been pretty hard the last couple weeks. I'm just waiting. I'm not still looking over my shoulder. I was at, we had a friend of ours, she hosted a party. We haven't had a party in a long time, so we went over. and Tony laughed with glee as he recounted. I don't remember how it came out. We were listening to music. We were listening to, like, 90s music. And with glee regarding him sending you M&M's Super Mario Brothers. Oh, God. And your reaction. It was the most annoying thing ever. And he was, like, he was so happy he had to recount the story. He baited me, too, because I really thought it was going to be good. It really wasn't fair because you never messaged Zach, so he thought it was important. I was like, oh, Tom Bond opened up to me. But it was important to me to do that. It was a trap. And then he said, you know what? We really should have an M&M pinball machine, though. Oh. See? That's what came up. We were talking about pinball. I pulled you back in. Damn it, Tony. And he's like, really? M&M should have a pinball machine at this point. We're old enough that we have the money, so we should be the ones making the decisions. I'd be a buyer. I'd be a buyer for sure. But not what rendition he sent me. That was gone awful. Well, yes, he said that it was bad. He was just being mean. And you can reach me at thepinballnetworkatgmail.com or over at, straight down the middle, sdtmpinballatgmail.com. Or help support a guy by purchasing an accessory or a pinball machine from flippinoutpinball.com, the sponsor of this show. You can go to flippinoutpinball.com to see what we have in stock. As well as, as a reminder, people, go follow, like the page of Flip N Out Pinball on Facebook. because the top post will always show you what's currently in inventory, both new and used. People are like, where can I find your used games? Because you're getting a flurry of those things in there. Where can I find those? You can find those on our Facebook page. Product showcase this week, it's got to be Toy Story 4, right? Sure, we don't have any CEs, but LEs, we're building that list, that backward list, and it's not horrible right now. Considering how fast Jersey Jack is cranking these things out, If you want a Godzilla Premium right now, we're looking well into 2023. If you're wanting a Jurassic Park, we're into 2023. If you're wanting a Deadpool, we'd love to take it down. And again, if you message me, instead of just going to the website, no deposit needed, we'll just put you down for it. We're people of our word. No deposit needed, not a cent until it ships to you. So if you're up for the wait, 2023 on that as well. But Toy Story 4, I anticipate still having some spots that we can get it to you before Christmas. probably in the next couple months here if I had to guess. We're still waiting for Jersey Jack to give us more of a rough timeline like Stern does and other manufacturers do at times. But as of right now, I'm just guessing new orders one to three months. I don't know where we're at right now. Jersey Jack, if that is wrong, please tell me immediately. But the product showcase is the Toy Story for L.A. Now, on those, there is a nonrefundable deposit. The C.E.'s had a nonrefundable deposit of $2,500. The L.A.'s are only $1,000. So let's get that order in. I've had some people like, just let me know when they're in stock. I'm sorry, I can't do that. I've got so much, I can't. No, if you'd like to order one, we can get you a deposit, and it would be good to go. And in the meantime, get out there and do yourself a favor, honestly. Play this game. People were ripping my ass up. And at this point, I'm used to it, getting ripped up about people being like, oh, you're Win Schilling, you're just wanting to sell these things. I'm not going to lie to you people. It's a damn great game. I told you it's a damn great game. And I was almost second guessing myself when I'm like, shit, I'm pretty good with knowing if games are great or not. This is one of them, but it felt like a stranger things all over again. I'm like, am I wrong? And then, no, two days later, people started playing. They're like, oh, okay, this game is quite fantastic. Now, they're not going to go back and apologize for shitting all over me for being right, but they're acknowledging that it is good. Other things that we have in stock, Mandalorian Pro, Mandalorian Premium. And we've got a lot of games that we can ship to you today, many of which we're one of the only dealers still providing free shipping to your door. So Mandalorian Pro and Premium, we can get them out there, free shipping to your door, ready to go. Avengers Pro, ready to go. Guns N' Roses, L.A., we've even got Art Blades, Toppers, Banners for that. Texans Canyon Remake SE, I believe we have some in stock. We even have a Rush Pro pre-owned, Elvira 40th Anniversary, number 40. Star Wars L.E., in stock, pre-owned. a TMNT Premium pre-owned, a Deadpool LA, Munsters Pro all pre-owned, Corvette, Batman Forever, Tommy. I think we just got a Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with color DMD in. We got a bunch of stuff right now. Even Rush stuff. I've got open spots for Rush Pro, I believe, in this next upcoming run, as well as, I think I have some Star Wars spots too. So check those out. Give me a call. Email me at Zach, Z-A-C-H at flip, the letter N out, pinball.com. We'll get you taken care of. And for those of you customers through Flip N Out Pinball having any issues with your games that you unbox or throughout the warranty period, email Greg for tech work at greg, G-O-R-E-G, at Flipp, the letter N, outpinball.com. Toppers-wise, I did want to let you guys know I did get Deadpool toppers back in stock. They're on the website. Go get them now. I didn't think they were going to make any more of those for a long time, if ever. They made them. We got Turtles toppers, Strangers, Things toppers, Lead Zeppelin toppers. We've got a bunch of armor. We got a bunch of shooter rods, shaker motors. Hell, we got golden tees. We got banners. Escalator is still taking forever. We got merchandise. We got a lot of stuff. And I can't just keep piling it up, so buy some of this stuff. Help support us at Flip N Out Pinball. TVN last week, there was a lot of good stuff. We had Silver Ball Chronicles with the Data East stuff. We had a final round talking about Toy Story, talking about Haggis Mermaid editions of Fathom Revisited. We also had the Iron Battle between Joel Engelberth from Flip N Out Pinball and Don't Panic Flips George on TMNT. We had Hub Challenge doing the Toy Story stream. We had a lot of fun stuff on TPN last week as well as TPN this week. We got a lot of cool stuff coming up this week. I don't want to give all of it away, but you're going to have to tune in. There's some special stuff coming. Follow, like, and subscribe to the Pinball Network on YouTube, especially on YouTube, because we built that up. Facebook, you've got to get your name. Twitch, and I think Twitter and Instagram. I don't know. David Den's where you are. Oh, it's time for me to enjoy my Father's Day and go hang out with my family and maybe get a little time with Forky in the game. Well, and always remember, folks, when you're disappointed in seeing a 10-inch screen, just ask yourself, what exactly do you expect for $15,000? And always practice faith. Pinball as you put down your pitchforks, look in the mirror and realize, people, that it's okay to enjoy fun shooting pinball. It's okay to like toys and to like toy stories. It's okay. You don't have to have all this hair on your chest and a huge big dick. You don't have to have any of that. Be yourself. Have fun. Don't be fake. And don't be assholes to one another. Here we go. Open it up. You got a friend in me. You're my favorite deputy. There's a snake in my boot. Hmm. None of those are from Toy Story 4. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm going to guess what it is. You're right. You are right. I like how you just lean into them. That's not true. You want to talk about fake pinball. Here you go. Oh, God. That's right. Everybody's so mad I didn't talk about the screen. You don't talk about the screen. I got a good joke for that one, too. Don't you worry. I'm full of fun. I'm a barrel of last. Oh, I can only imagine. I'm a barrel of last. Ken, you should have been on. Or maybe you're glad you're not. Maybe not. Guess we'll find out once we're done recording. All right, I am back. Sorry about that. That was a bit premature, but I don't know why. Premature adrenculation. I'm thirsty this morning. These pretzels are making me tasty.