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BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·41m 11s·analyzed·Sep 5, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

FX3 features deep-dive plus serious discussion of designer John Trudeau's arrest and community reaction.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss Pinball FX 3 features and upcoming licensed tables (Jaws, Back to the Future, E.T.), then pivot to addressing the arrest of designer John Trudeau on child pornography charges and debate whether collectors should divest machines he designed.

Key Claims

  • Zen Studios now receives unsolicited licensing offers after previously having to fight for licenses

    high confidence · Chris states Universal sought out Zen with their collection of licenses rather than Zen pursuing them

  • Jaws table lacks original John Williams theme music and voice for main character Martin Brody

    high confidence · Chris reports finding no original/soundtrack music, no voices for Jaws pack, and specifically no Martin Brody character voice

  • Pinball FX 3 includes new single-player upgrade system with 'wizard powers' and passive upgrades earned through XP

    high confidence · Chris describes detailed UI walkthrough from 40-minute early access video showing triangle button activation and stat tracking

  • John Trudeau was arrested with FBI seizure of computers for child pornography possession

    high confidence · Chris reports police raid and FBI computer seizure; notes Trudeau hasn't been proven guilty but typical warrant execution suggests validity

  • John Trudeau designed at least 25+ pinball machines including Ghostbusters, WWE, Mustang, Ghostbusters, Congo, Flintstones, Judge Dredd

    high confidence · Chris provides extensive list of Trudeau-designed tables across Gottlieb and Stern eras

  • Pinball FX 3 Jaws table uses side-to-side table tilt mechanic as gameplay element affecting ball physics

    high confidence · Chris observes from screenshots that table tilts side-to-side as mission mechanic changing ball trajectory

  • FX 3 practice mode offers one-hour unlimited ball saves for learning tables

    high confidence · Chris describes practice mode feature from early access video

  • Super League Soccer table not announced for FX 3 transition despite being original Zen design

    medium confidence · Chris notes omission wasn't explicitly announced as exclusion or inclusion, speculation about status

Notable Quotes

  • “Zen throughout the years used to have to fight and scratch to get licenses, and they said now they're kind of having to turn them away, or they're being sought out, I should say. And so this was a case of Universal seeking them out and saying, hey, we've got a whole collection of really great licenses.”

    Chris Franchi @ early in content — Indicates major shift in Zen's licensing position and market leverage

  • “This guy can go ahead and rot and die in a prison cell. But in terms of the machines themselves, he was part of a team. It's not like there was kiddie porn on the pinball machines, folks.”

    Chris Franchi @ near end — Core argument distinguishing designer's criminal acts from collaborative product

  • “Hate the guy. Don't hate the art. Like, don't hate his art form. Maybe it's the thing to say here.”

    Jared Morgan @ near end — Synthesis of both hosts' position on separating artist from work

  • “I'm not sure if it's like a progressive or maybe it's actively what's going on in the community or something like that. But yeah, I wasn't able to quite figure that out.”

    Chris Franchi @ mid-content on challenges — Acknowledges uncertainty about survival challenge mechanics

  • “These tables, I think, are going to lend themselves super well to VR. Whoa, jeez. There's going to be a lot of good fun happening here for sure.”

    Chris Franchi / Jared Morgan @ early-mid content — Speculation on FX3 tables' VR compatibility and appeal

Entities

Zen StudioscompanyChris FranchipersonJared MorganpersonJohn TrudeaupersonPinball FX 3productJaws (Pinball FX 3)gameBack to the Future (Pinball FX 3)gameE.T. (Pinball FX 3)gameSorcerer's Lair (Pinball FX 3)gameUniversalcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Veteran designer John Trudeau arrested with FBI computer seizure on child pornography charges; triggered community debate on Pinside (26 pages) about divesting machines he designed

    high · Chris and Jared report FBI raid and warrant execution; Pinside forum activity documented; Ghostbusters and WWE specifically mentioned as affected titles

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts articulate nuanced position on separating artist criminal behavior from collaborative commercial product; emphasize designer as one of many contributors rather than sole creative authority

    high · Extended discussion contrasting Trudeau's design role (flow/shots) vs other contributors (artwork, code); comparison to film director vs pinball designer authorship levels

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen shifting toward physical realism in table construction design; tables now theoretically buildable as real machines rather than pure fantasy digital experiences

    high · Chris notes Back to the Future's realistic playfield construction with exposed wiring mimicking DeLorean; designers mixing across three tables

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Major licensing constraint: Jaws table lacks original John Williams theme music and main character (Martin Brody) voice due to licensing limitations

    high · Chris confirms from video footage and article; only Quint character voice included

  • $

    market_signal: Zen Studios now receives unsolicited IP licensing offers after historically fighting to acquire licenses; Universal proactively approached Zen with portfolio

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.124

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frevis, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hey, Chris. Boy, we've got a busy show today. Yeah, we've got some stuff to talk about. As opposed to last week's interruption fest, but that's okay. That's right. That edited out relatively well.
0:36
I should definitely set the YouTube video stream to parental advisory recommended, though. There was a fair bit of coarse language in that episode that didn't make it into the show.
0:49
Thanks, Evan. You can't really blame the four-year-old. The good news is Zachary is back in the house He's on the mend So he's in a much better place Than he was a week ago So that's good Very very good Just a programming note for everybody Next couple of weeks Probably going to be dicey for Actual podcasts happening due to my schedule Aha it's ramping up again eh Yes So We might be able to squeeze him in We may not So just to let everybody know, enjoy this one for a little while. Yeah. Or, you know, I might be able to go solo and do a quick update on things or something. Bum, bum, bum. I've tried doing solo, folks. It's difficult. Yeah, it is. I'm anticipating it will be pretty difficult as well.
1:38
It's amazing how easy a podcast is when you have somebody to bounce off of, and then when they're not there, it's like you're speaking into a vacuum, and you just see the room closing in on you, and you're like... and you just start wrapping things up. You basically start playing yourself off stage really quickly, don't you?
Melperson
Mike (Farsight)person
Super League Soccergame
Ghostbustersgame
Stern Pinballcompany
Pinball Arcadeproduct
Pinsidewebsite/community
Blockade Podcastorganization

high · Chris reports Zen statement that Universal sought them out with licensing proposal; marks reversal from previous scarcity model

  • ?

    announcement: Zen Studios officially releasing Pinball FX 3 with three licensed tables: Jaws, Back to the Future, E.T. Late summer/early fall 2023 launch window

    high · Chris found trailer footage and screenshots; confirmed Universal license partnership; expected release within 2 weeks of Back to the Future footage

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball FX 3 implementing eSports-ready infrastructure with detailed statistics, achievements, ranked leaderboards, and progression systems comparable to competitive gaming platforms

    high · Jared connects statistics depth to Zen's existing mobile eSports initiatives; suggests complementary tournament infrastructure development

  • ?

    technology_signal: Question mark around Super League Soccer table inclusion in FX 3; original Zen design status unconfirmed despite being acclaimed table

    medium · Chris notes omission from announced lineup without explicit exclusion announcement; speculates about potential future inclusion

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball FX 3 implementing major feature overhaul: upgrade systems, wizard powers, passive XP progression, practice mode with unlimited ball saves, comprehensive statistics tracking, achievements, table mastery systems

    high · 40-minute early access video walkthrough showing detailed UI changes, new single-player modes, challenge types, and leaderboard systems

    • 1:58
    You're not waiting for pauses or anything. You just start talking and talking and talking and talking. I don't know how these guys do it on radio shows where they're the sole voice. It's an art form. It's the same as our friend Nick Baldridge from the For Music Only podcast. He did it for like 400 episodes. I don't know. He does it. it's tough. I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually. I think you do. Get used to the sound of your own voice. That being said, I don't want to get used to that. Anyway, if Jared has a go at it, I encourage you all to listen, but cut him some slack. It'll probably be a train wreck, so it'll be funny.
    2:35
    Okay, hey, let's dive in. We're going to get into controversial subject matter. We rarely get into that kind of thing. We're going to save that for later, but first off, we're going to get into the good stuff, which is, I did some homework this week. Well, actually, today.
    2:53
    That's still this week. That's fine. Regarding Pinball FX 3, I decided there's got to be some footage out there of everything that's going on, and not only that, but they released the trailer for what Jaws is going to look like. Yeah. So from that digging around, I wound up finding screenshots from E.T., Jaws, and Back to the Future, which I hadn't seen before. Oh, yeah. And I got to say, after looking at all three of them, and don't worry, folks, if you go to the website, blockadepinball.com, you will find links to the images that we're talking about. I will. But of the three, ET definitely is looking like the weakest just visually. And Back to the Future is looking pretty cool. You know what I love? We'll go into the details about the playfield first, but just at first glance, I love all the exposed wiring on it. It looks like the DeLorean, right? They've really got a nice job. It absolutely does. And not only that, in this particular screen image, I guess it's during multiball, but there are flame trails all over the table. Oh, so good. It's going to be fun. It's really cool. And just in general, it looks like a pinball machine. Yeah, it looks like something you pull off in real life, right? Yeah, I mean, other than the... Zen, right? At the moment, they're going less for the fantasy feel, at least for the mechanics of the table, and they're making it so you could theoretically build these, and I love that.
    4:30
    Yeah, and unfortunately, I didn't do my homework well enough to find out. It's three different designers for all three tables, so we're getting kind of a mix. It's not like sometimes where all three tables are by the same guy.
    4:43
    That's good. I think it's good actually mixing them up. It is. another podcast that I think had both Mike from Farsight and Mel from Zen on it in the one billing. Oh, nice. And I think I haven't actually had a chance to listen to it yet, but I really want to because I think there's a lot of information about Zen in it and there's a direction with this pack. So I've really got to set aside some time to listen to it. We'll put a link to that in the show notes as well if I remember. Yeah, so it was kind of interesting to find out that Zen throughout the years, they used to have to fight and scratch to get licenses, and they said now they're kind of having to turn them away, or they're being sought out, I should say. And so this was a case of Universal seeking them out and saying, hey, we've got a whole collection of really great licenses. How about it?
    5:33
    Again, so if you watch the trailer for Jaws on Pinball FX3, you'll immediately notice that it ain't the music. yeah and that was a big point of contention wasn't it I know that on Pimple Arcade fans forum they went what there's no Jaws theme hmm this is the one that needs the theme the most it does but I think do you think if it was just the Jaws dun dun dun dun dun dun dun theme over and over again that would actually get pretty tiresome well no you use that very sparingly because just think about it in the suspenseful acts Yeah, because in the movie, it's not like it was constantly playing. There's a whole... It's John Williams. The guy knows how to score a movie. So there's lots of other music other than the dum-dum-dum. That only signaled that the shark was coming. Yeah, true. Yeah, it is a well-scored film, I have to admit. Yeah, it's a shame. But again, big money, right?
    6:30
    Well, yeah, so there's no... And this goes for all three of them. It's no original music or soundtrack music and no voices. and I've already read that it's hit and misses on the voices as Zen is wont to do.
    6:45
    Is this like hit and miss on the old Marty McFly, good old, good voice they always love to butcher in all these Back to the Future things? I really don't know. All I have to do is I just point to just look at Aliens vs. Predator and that's what I call the bad voices where it's just really hideous voice acting. yeah yeah yeah that's pretty so pretty terrible yeah and there was there was there was a one Star Wars table where the Han Solo was just so off yeah it was it to be laughable but um so with the Jaws table you're getting Quint and you're getting uh you're well I know for sure you're getting Quint who you're not getting is you're not getting Martin Brody so it's like it went see ya to the main character right off the bat. But as predicted, as me and Jared predicted last time, yep, it's the pop-up fins. There's three trails for the pop-up fins.
    7:46
    It's got to have them. One interesting aspect that I saw with the table is there's something that tilts the table side to side. I don't know if you send out the buoys and start pulling it or whatever. Yeah, it's a mission. It's a mission, yeah. According to this article. Yeah, it changes the trajectory of the ball. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. Very interesting. Yeah. So, you know, it's as if the whole table is rocking side to side and you're having to, I mean, that's going to just throw the physics all over the map, which is kind of cool. Well, you know, the whole table, if you have a look at the environment, it is actually on a boat. So that actually plays in really well to that environment. They're actually using the environments as part of the gameplay aspect in this table, which is pretty cool.
    8:31
    Yeah, it absolutely is. And they also did this kind of interesting wraparound. We call it in the film business a psych, but at the back of the play field it's curved, so it's like it's one continuous image of the horizon. It looks like a diorama sort of background. Yeah, it looks really good.
    8:50
    And they've got like a tower, the lighthouse tower sort of built into the cabinet, so it's not like on the play field. It's sort of like sticking out of the background. Yeah. So it's got this, even without 3D, the table's got this really big idea of 3d depth in it and i've also noticed that um the the back of the play field if you look at a traditional pinball machine this thing's deep as anything like i'm actually having a look at the picture zoomed in and the the play field itself looks almost at the same level as the environment deck in the picture like if you have a look and zoomed it actually looks like it's on the same plane as the deck of the ship. It's that deep into the back of the back box with all the stuff sticking up. So, yeah, they've got a lot of stuff happening in the back there. Another thing that I was able to notice from the trailer, and this is indicative of what they're doing with Pinball FX3 in general, is the lighting.
    9:50
    There was a certain mode where the whole table goes dark and it's a flashlight beaming around. Yes. And it just looks really cool. I saw that in the video. I went, oh, that's going to be interesting to see how they do that on Android. They usually do environmental lighting pretty well on Android. Yeah.
    10:08
    Which I'm kind of happy about. But yeah imagine that in VR Whoa Jeez These tables I think are going to lend themselves super well to VR There going to be a lot of good fun happening here for sure
    10:25
    Now, also in me looking around for stuff regarding this, I came across a YouTube video. It's a 40-minute long video. And it's basically somebody that has early access to Pinball FX3. and the only table they got clearance to show was Sorcerer's Lair,
    10:46
    which I think we've all seen to death. So the only thing we really knew to look at with regards to the table, other than the lighting, looked phenomenal.
    10:57
    And again, it's much more shadowed. There's shadows. You can see the effects happening on the ball. It's darker.
    11:08
    And so, I mean, when, you know, there's moments on that table where the lights pretty much go out, especially like when you lose the ball and it's a complete blackout and only the insert lights are popping. Yeah. And you compare that to just playing it in Pinball FX 2 and immediately you'll see the difference. Yeah, right. Again, and that particular player, he hates ball trails, so he turned them off and it just, I think I'm going to have to start turning the belt rails off. I've always left them on. but man it really makes the table just look phenomenal with them off because it just becomes real pinball or I shouldn't say real pinball but more like TPA is but the other thing that he did and this is where I'm going to kind of walk you through and again you're more than willing to more than able excuse me as I fudge up some words to look up the YouTube video yourself but hey, if you don't want to, that's what I'm here for.
    12:07
    One thing he did, he went through the new user interface and was kind of showing that off. And it is different than Pinball FX 2, but it's not wildly different. It's basically much more refined and honed in. The first thing you'll notice is just the table selection page. So remember last week when I read off the different table packs? well they've clumped them in this so think of a column uh columns and at the top it would say like zen and the next to it says universal next to that it says marvel and next to that says star wars as a single column you'll see like four tables but if you click on zen that column expands and shows all the tables that are just zen tables on star wars it expands and then it's all the star worse tables. So it's a much cleaner way, and you're no longer... Because with Pinball FX 2, the grid of tables, the images were getting smaller and smaller and smaller, so they could fit all in on the same page. And this allows you to have them nice and big, and you can just go by theme and real quickly select... You should have seen my mobile, mate. Oh, man.
    13:19
    That's when they started making subfolders for all these games, because it was just getting ridiculous. And that's really interesting. Taking the folder's idea, but making it even quicker to access through. So it's basically a Zoom context. And it's really interesting. I tried a launcher on Android the other day that used exactly that same concept. It had all of your apps on one screen. You only have one screen in this launcher. They were all little tiny tiles. But as you move your finger over them, they zoomed into view. So you could actually see exactly what they were. And that kind of drove me insane on Android. But on this, because it's grouped by category, and you can see the category is sort of relatively clearly, that will work quite well.
    13:59
    From there, we kind of get a taste of what's different. So you have the classic single player, as they call it, and that's basically what we all know and love. Then there's the single player. Now the single player opens up a whole new aspect to this game, and that is that you can now do table upgrades.
    14:24
    And when I say table upgrades, That means that you can, there's what are called wizard powers, and then there's passive upgrades. Wizard powers are activated by, well, on a PS4 controller, it's by pushing the triangle. But I believe it's in-game, it'll all of a sudden activate, you know, like 20 seconds of whatever on the table. So if it's, you know, you need a quick boost of points, basically you push that. and think of it kind of like launching the smart missile on Jurassic Park. Collects anything lit, basically, sort of thing. Right. So it's just a quick bonus boost. But then what you got with the passive upgrades is that over time, basically you're earning experience points and stars and stuff like that. And so what it will do is if you activate some of these upgrades, it's all of a sudden you're getting more points out of the Bop Bumpers or you're getting more points if you successfully do combos in a certain amount of speed.
    15:26
    It will allow you to maybe always nail the skill shot. And you have to earn these upgrades, but you can then apply them.
    15:36
    And it's kind of cool because, again, it's not becoming mandatory in the game. You still can play the regular single player, classic single player, and you're going to have to be the leaderboarded. That would be the leaderboard for classic single player, right? But then there's going to be also leaderboards for this upgrade. Oh, okay. That's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting to see how they're going to rank people based on the effects and in-game things that they've got activated. Yeah, yeah. And so within, when you go into the single player that has the upgrades available, there's also, so you're earning XP every time you play. and now you actually will be earning xp also just in the regular but the you're earning it but you're not being able to apply it you might say so it's kind of cool that no matter what mode you're playing and you're still going to be earning xp for for getting upgrades later that's cool but then you're also still being able to collect your super score and then there's a wizard score that you're also going to be collecting on but then there's lots of layers oh lots of layers But then there's also challenges. And so there's like a one ball challenge, which is getting the highest score on one ball. There's the five minute challenge, which is getting the highest score within five minutes. And then there is a survival challenge, which is you're beating and increasing score targets. So it's kind of I don't know if it's like a progressive or maybe it's actively what's going on in the community or something like that. But yeah, I wasn't able to quite figure out that out. but with each of these challenges you're trying to unlock stars and I'm not sure if it's once you, like they had it set up for 15 stars and I'm not sure if you unlock 15 stars that then also introduces a new challenge for single ball or whatever it's hard to tell off the video because the guy hadn't opened up anything yet and he also didn't have his PS4 connected to the internet well he termed it because I guess he gets a lot of these advance previews of games, and he doesn't want anybody either him accidentally sharing it, or anybody maybe being able to hack in and see, or even just read the title that he's playing, because on PS4 it'll show, you look up your friends and it'll show what they're playing.
    17:58
    So anyway, he didn't have it connected to the internet, so that was kind of blocking some of the other aspects that could have possibly been right.
    18:07
    Something else that you can play is practice mode, where for one hour you have unlimited ball saves. Oh. And so that's kind of cool if you're just interested in trying to get through the table. The game. Yeah, it's the other modes, which would be fantastic because there's been some times where... Like Aliens, for example, right? Well, I'm thinking Iron Man. I've only ever gotten to the wizard mode twice. Twice. And it was brutal trying to get there. And it's so frustrating when you're so close. so in other words they're giving you glass off mode pretty much yeah that's cool that's actually great because then you can you can see the game first and then you can switch it off and start to actually challenge yourself to get there brilliant brilliant um yeah so that's all very cool this is all winding up to be a pretty amazing um release fx3 let's hope some of these people just dribble into the mobile platforms which i think is inevitable uh just maybe take some time.
    19:07
    And so then the last thing that I noticed within the whole user interface is that there is I'm not sure what section, but it's a subsection of it, and it's basically showing all your progress, you might say. And so listed across the tabs that you can hit upon are Summary, Friends, Table Mastery, Trophies, and Customization. So if you start with Customization, there is the ability to earn and unlock what they call frames and backgrounds. And I'm not quite sure exactly what these are, other than the frame goes around a picture. I'm assuming that that is around your user avatar. Avatar, yeah. I'm not sure what the background would necessarily be for, if it's just part of your interface menu, what the background looks like, or if it's for public viewing, but I'm not quite sure. Trophies, these are not just the trophies that we've seen that you can earn in-game for each table. This is now achievements.
    20:08
    So it's you were able to score X amount in this amount of time, or you've played this many tournaments.
    20:16
    It's the classic Steam achievements or Xbox achievements. It's that whole laundry list of achievements that you can go through just for playing different modes. And I think it's really cool because it encourages you to do different aspects with the game If you one of those people who likes to collect all of that manner of stuff Then there is the table mastery tab and from there it shows your progress.
    20:47
    There's basically four symbols that they're showing. There's a star, a ribbon, which is your trophies. So like the star, there's zero out of 90 that you can collect. I'm not quite sure what that is. the ribbon there's 20 out of 20 that you can collect for and it's basically your trophies that you're earning then there's the upgrades that are it was showing a 0 out of 90 so 90 points of upgrades you can go and then there was the mastery points or XP and they had like 0 out of 200 listed so that's a whole chart that you can check out friends because he wasn't online it didn't show anything about your friends but I imagine it's going to show you a lot of this information regarding them maybe what they played most or if they're currently in-game. Who knows? And then the one that I really found interesting, and he only quickly paused the video to read it, and there was a whole section to scroll down so that you didn't scroll through it to show everything, but it was the table summary. So it shows tables owned, trophies unlocked, mastery points, mastery rewards, best matchup result, super score, wizard score, upgrades leveled up. So it was a real quick, easy visual reference. Statistics everywhere. So some of these things we're actually kind of familiar with with regards to what TPA did with their UI, but this is really easy. Take it to the next level. You know what? It sounds like on the whole statistics thing, you know how Zen were actually going into the eSports arena? Yeah. I've got a feeling that the level of statistics you're seeing now in FX3 is paving the way or complementing that moving forward. Because generally, if you're a pro player in esports, that's exactly the sort of information you want when you're trying to look at what a player is doing.
    22:40
    So, yeah, maybe that's why they're actually going deep into stats now. You're right. I didn't even think about the esports aspect, and I think you're full-on correct. because they do esports on mobile. Yeah, they do. They've got an esports special app for it. And yeah, I think this is the beginning of competitive, like, ranked Zens playing. Pretty much like what they do in all the other games. Like, I think Infinite Mini Golf has very much this sort of thing as well. Yeah. So I think what they're trying to do is basically make these ready-made for esports, which is a smart move because it's huge business. Yeah. So anyway, that's all pretty cool.
    23:21
    Um, something that I think we completely missed and a lot of people are kind of going, Hmm. Um, so of the tables that we listed, uh, last time about the, or coming over and aren't coming over to pinball effects. Three. One time we completely skipped over was super league soccer. Oh, really football. And I get why, because you could purchase actual licensed license. Yeah. But there was the generic Zen team. Which is the one I bought. And you're not playing, I mean, other than I'm saying you're playing a particular country, but it's not logoed or anything else like that. No. So I'm really kind of surprised that we don't have Super League in there. I like Super League a lot. I love it too. It's a great game. It is. It's the combo city, and I love the upper play field. actually it was our stopgap for our World Cup Soccer 94 sorry challenge, our championship Soccer 94 until we actually got it and it's still superior because of those moving goals they're really hard so I'm really surprised because that's a completely original table on their part I'm kind of wondering if they're just in the works because it wasn't announced that it wasn't, it wasn't announced that it is so it's kind of interesting it is interesting isn't it here's hoping that they put it in because I really do like that table so yeah anyway lots of exciting stuff regarding Zen they're trickling out information I imagine next week or the week after we'll see footage of Back to the Future and I would think once we see that you'll probably expect the release within two weeks after that I think so yeah definitely so they said late summer early fall summer's winding down fall's about to be here it's coming out for sure it's coming out really soon okay that's what we had to deal with the happy yay news the other news oh my god so a very famous pinball designer by the name of John Trudeau this past week got arrested police showed up to his house FBI seized his computers because the man had child porn on there which is a truly despicable hideous thing it's absolutely horrid and you know I just he's a brown spot on the human race that's all I can say and yes people are like well hey he hasn't been proven guilty yet or not and this is true he hasn't Um, but also typically people don't go raid in your house with a warrant and confiscate computers and that have you, that have allegedly a whole pile of kiddie porn. Right. Um, yeah, I don't know. I think, yeah, allegedly if this is the case, then yeah, he's screwed.
    26:27
    So, so anyway, um, what has happened though is now people are, going, oh, but what about his machines? What about his machines? And so specifically on the Pinball Arcade forums, people are going, oh, does that mean we're not going to get Ghostbusters in Stern Pinball app? They probably shouldn't put it in. And I've read elsewhere where people are like, oh, I'm now selling my tables, and oh, I can't believe it. I wouldn't want nothing to do with these tables. and so I was asked for a response on Twitter about this and I gave the short version and the short version was basically yeah this guy can go ahead and rot and die in a prison cell but in terms of the machines themselves he was part of a team yeah that was separated from all this it's not like there was kiddie porn on the pinball machines folks correct exactly the point and by and large most of the public and this was me too the only reason why I knew that Trudeau had done Ghostbusters was because that's what everybody kept on saying and I was like I honestly can't name any of his tables so I looked them up listen to this just partial list and tell me if you're going to stop playing any of these folks so Ghostbusters is the most recent I think he's actually got one in the pipes at Stern right now if I'm not mistaken but I'm not sure what that is so Ghostbusters, WWE Mustang then an off the requested table in Pinball Arcade, Congo there's the Flintstones Judge Dredd, Creature from the Black Lagoon Black Rose, Bride of Pinbot he did Bugs Bunny's Birthday Bash which, yeah, I don't need to play that one I can go with him to the cell so he has to play it every day Yeah, he was also very prolific with Gottlieb. He did Silver Slugger, Deadly Weapon, which was a knockoff of Lethal Weapon. He did all those knockoff premiere tables. Caribbean Cruise, TX Sector, Robo War, Excalibur, Victory, Monte Carlo, Spring Break, Hollywood Heat, Rock Encore, Raven, Genesis, Gold Wings.
    28:50
    I mean, it's a massive list. and again fine he was the table designer but he didn't work on it it's not like it's his own artwork you know what I mean he's not the sole person responsible for any of these things and that's where I kind of you gotta draw a line obviously for yourself of what you find acceptable but think about the rock bands that you listen to think about the movie stars that you watch I guarantee you that there's something that you like that probably has a despicable past in it. Shoot.
    29:28
    Think about Roman Polanski films. And here's a guy that has been fled the United States in the 1970s, I believe, and has been pleading to go back in because he was basically caught with statutory rape. and yet people still adore and love his movies.
    29:55
    Yeah, because again, people have actually applied some logic to it and go, he's a director in that role and then in his private life, he does this.
    30:05
    But what I'm saying is in his, a director of a film usually is a much more personal piece of art. I mean, it's almost like being a painter. Again, you are working on a team, but a director is... you've got the final say. You've got the final say and it, it bears your thumbprint explicitly. Um, with a pinball machine, the design, which we're talking about is, you know, the flow of the table. Yeah, that's right. The shots is a little, it's a little less of a thumbprint than the artwork that you're staring at, uh, or the, uh, code that the table is running. So, I don't know. It's, again, I'm not, uh, I not affected by the machines because I can judge them by and by and large by themselves But I do find it interesting that people are just like Oh that it I dumping my ghostbusters
    30:58
    Okay. Well, I'll have it. So my way, make sure if you're really going to, if you really hate him that much, you shouldn't get much profit from it. So make sure you sell it to me for at least a thousand dollars. Well, that's the other thing is, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but a pinball designer is not getting residuals off any table sales.
    31:21
    I'm not sure. It depends on the contract, I guess. Probably. But if you go back, any of the Bally Williams tables are long since gone, since if there was profit sharing, that he'd be earning profits because they're not making the tables. It's now on the private market. Right. It's like buying new CDs. the artist isn't getting any money from the UBCD sale that's right so he's not making any benefit out of it I don't know it's strange, people do react in different ways when they hear news like this most of the time it's because of sheer disgust and that's fine and that's valid and you know it comes a time where you need to actually go okay, I'm disgusted by this behaviour but this is a commercial product that I'm using. This is a piece of design and a piece of art and a piece of everything. Yeah. Does this require me to actually get rid of this? Like what, what do I need to do to make myself feel better about it? Hate the guy. Don't hate the art. Like don't hate his art form. Maybe it's the thing to say here. Anyway, if you go over to pin side, there's like at last count today, there was 26 pages devoted to this. Oh, I dare say there wouldn't be, mate. Yeah.
    32:46
    Which is pretty amazing. Like you said, it's only a week old worth of news. And it's already got 26 people, 26 pages with the people going with their social commentary about it all. That's good.
    33:00
    Hey, speaking of Pinside, I've been doing some work on Pinside. Not really work, but adding lots and lots of locations to the pin map on Pinside. Now, so for those who don't know, Pinside have a pinball map, and it's global. So you can actually add locations anywhere. Now, this is different to pinballmap.com, which is only for the US. Okay. The reason why I've gone down this path is I tried to contact pinballmap.com and get Australia added to their map because it's all API driven. And it basically puts, the way they do it, they put a layer on top of Google Maps and allow you to add metadata about the location to it. So for example, Netherworld will have a Google Maps listing and then this extra map layer on top allows you to put machine names, condition, all that sort of stuff on top. And all they would need to do is turn on Australia in their API. and from what I've heard on the Australian forums, they have no interest in doing that. They're basically just US only and the rest of the world is dead to them, which is a shame because their system is really slick and they have an app for both Android and iOS.
    34:18
    So I thought, well, what's an alternative? And I went, well, this pin map seems to be pretty decent on pin side. So I'm going to focus my efforts on updating that. and I did all the, we have this list in the Brisbane Pinball Club, basically. It's a Facebook post that just gets constantly edited with all new location changes and machine lineups at the location. I thought, this is ridiculous. Why are we doing this manually? Yeah. When there's services out there, you can do it. Now, the thing that's interesting about this is that pinballmap.com and the other one is the same sort of thing, but done kind of differently. and well I'm talking I just have to give some medicine to Zachary so that whole thing is one of those things where people go you know what I can do this better I'm going to do this better I'm going to do another site that's going to have all this cool stuff in it rather than going why don't we just do the same thing over and over again when we can just concentrate our efforts on doing one and do it right. Yeah. You know, you've got Pinball Map with its own database and its own condition list. Then you've got the Pinside Forum with its own set of data.
    35:42
    You know, this is what frustrates me as a product manager and a product owner. I go, why don't we just work together and make one thing that everyone can use. it has an open source API and you can just do it. But yeah, I don't know. It's one of those bugbears I get when I see people doing the same thing over and over again. But the good thing about it is I've gone and I've done the update now and everything is good. We've got heaps of new locations on the map in Brisbane and the Gold Coast and even as far up as Warwick because there's a couple of little roadside places that have some pinball machines. so go and check it out if you are in Australia, in Brisbane and keep it up to date yourself because it's user contributed, anyone with a Pinsight account can go in there and add and remove locations and it's worth doing See the real trick is to get those actual locations to change it themselves Oh absolutely so as soon as there's a change they update it so who knows maybe it's one of those things that you should let each location know, hey, you're up now. It's really easy to when you get into it, go ahead and pop in, make a quick edit and away you go.
    36:58
    Exactly. And that's what it comes down to because it is self-service. Anyone can go in there and do it. And really venues should be doing it themselves. They should be going there and keeping their own house in order, really. I agree. That should be something that they do as part of their marketing campaign, really. Yeah. So you did the heavy lifting. now they can just do the easy stuff. Exactly. Speaking of easy stuff, here in America, we've got Labor Day weekend. So yay for the holiday. And there in Australia, you've got Father's Day going on right now. Yeah, it's happening. I've had my pancakes and ice cream this morning. So good. And I'm now very full and in a bit of a pancake coma.
    37:41
    Fantastic. Well, why don't we put a pin in it? Stop right here. Nice, short, sweet, compact episode of the Blockade. Hey, folks, follow us on Twitter. The show is at Blockade. Or you can follow Jared at Jared Morgz.
    38:02
    I am at ShutYourTraps. There's also the website to go to, Pinball Arcade. God, I do that all the time, don't I? BlockadePinball.com. there's where you can find past shows as well as show notes and website linkage, which as I said, the beginning of this show would be handy because we've got links to the very things we were talking about. And then you could put visual to the audio. Ooh. Um, don't forget. We also have a YouTube channel, which we use to record the session. So if you want to see the, the unedited, um, version of the podcast and our faces, uh, and our t-shirts, that's right. Go on there and check it out. And, leave us some comments if you like it. For instance, Jared today is wearing a what have you got there? A coast-to-coast pinball shirt of the very first iteration. The Heather Red coast-to-coast five balls is cheating shirt. There you go. And today I am wearing a earth element, water element, fire element, wind element, and leeloo element, fifth element t-shirt.
    39:05
    That's pretty cool too. Very nice. Yeah, we never mentioned the YouTube because we don't really synchronize the I've never gone in and synchronized the titles of the shows to the website which I probably should do to keep everything in sync yeah it's just one of those things that you never get a chance to do it's more of a recording medium for us rather than really the sort of polished version of the show but it's there and you can go and check it out and I'll say also always right before we record on Twitter. I post a link to our session. You're more than willing to click on that and you can watch us record live when we're doing that. Typically in the US, we're typically recording on Saturdays at about 3pm in Australia or the southern hemisphere that winds up being on Sunday in the morning. At around 8ish normally in the morning.
    40:02
    Anyways, bring your cornflakes along and sit down and watch a bit of Black Aid in the morning if you're in the hemisphere. Okay, folks. So until next time, which, like I said, I'm not quite sure when that might be. It might be as long as three weeks away, or we might squeeze in some Sunday sessions. I'm not sure. But anyway, until then, thank you so much for listening. Leave us comments. Oh, yeah, or email, blahblahblah at gmail.com. Yeah. Drop us a line there, and we'd love to respond. Okay.
    40:33
    So until then, bye-bye. Bye-bye. wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization don't forget to leave a review on itunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to we can't improve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball you