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Episode 206 - Zero Back to the Future

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Nov 13, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Dutch Pinball Back to the Future rumored; Multimorphic delays games over quality; nostalgia IP debate.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast discusses Dutch Pinball rumored Back to the Future machine without securing actor/DeLorean rights, debates whether nostalgia IP remakes are necessary given untapped 80s themes, covers Multimorphic's 2023 game delay citing quality concerns around 3D-printed parts and servo usage, and addresses listener feedback including defense of Cactus Canyon's Old West theme appeal.

Key Claims

  • Dutch Pinball has secured Back to the Future license but without rights to Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, or DeLorean

    low confidence · Dennis notes this is a rumor, mentions he discussed it on Pinball Show last week; compares to Data East's Back to the Future which had similar licensing constraints

  • Stern looked at Back to the Future but passed due to infeasibility of securing actor/DeLorean rights

    low confidence · Dennis mentions 'supposedly' and notes this is rumor, distinguishes from the Dutch Pinball rumor

  • Multimorphic announced halt of first-party game development for remainder of 2023 to address quality concerns

    high confidence · Tony confirms public announcement from company; detailed discussion of Pinside thread with open letter about quality issues

  • Multimorphic has used FDM hobbyist-grade 3D printing in high-wear areas and disposable RC servos that fail quickly

    medium confidence · Tony cites accusations from open letter thread on Pinside; notes Final Resistance avoided these practices, likely by designer Scott Denisi's engineering decisions

  • Princess Bride pinball is in development

    low confidence · Email to podcast claiming 'it's happening' with theprincessbridepinball.com link; Tony skeptical this may be troll/marketing; confirms other podcasts also received email

  • Stern removed floor pricing on Legacy Home Edition games

    high confidence · Tony notes this expansion of previous policy allowing dealers to sell old Rush/Led Zeppelin without floor; applies to all Home Edition games now

  • Spooky Pinball has experienced volume production increases and may now out-produce Jersey Jack Pinball

    medium confidence · Tony speculates based on lack of success with Toy Story 4, Godfather, Elton John; acknowledges no math to prove it but leans toward this theory

  • Stern completed builds of Deadpool and is focusing on Elvira Blood Red Kiss Special Edition

    high confidence · Tony notes recent production completion and current focus; mentions Fool Fighters Pros also being made

Notable Quotes

  • “When it comes to Back to the Future, the DeLorean really ties the whole movie together. It shows up at TPF every year. Just sitting there being DeLorean-y.”

    Tony @ ~21:45 — Explains why a Back to the Future machine without DeLorean rights would fundamentally fail to capture the IP's essence

  • “I have no obligation to prop any company up.”

    Dennis @ ~47:30 — Directly refutes argument from Spooky fans that critics have duty to protect smaller manufacturers; establishes editorial independence principle

  • “I don't like when people jump right to public criticism because I think it's posturing rather than some of that is driven by... if I go and see someone and all they do is criticize the show on Pinside, it's karma farming. It's posturing.”

    Dennis @ ~41:00 — Establishes criteria for legitimacy of public criticism; values private resolution attempts first

  • “Multimorphic do seem to be very reactive when they get public criticism and we've seen in other instances where they just sort of change the website without announcing anything and stuff based on feedback that happens in the public space.”

    Tony @ ~35:15 — Characterizes Multimorphic's corporate culture as responsive to public perception rather than proactive planning

  • “I actually bought Cactus Canyon for the theme. I really like Old West themes, and there are very few Old West themed games from the 90s to the present.”

    David P. (listener email) @ ~60:45 — Listener challenges Dennis's dismissal of Cactus Canyon's theme appeal; defends legitimate theme preference market

Entities

Dutch PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyBarrels of FuncompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Boutique pinball manufacturers (Multimorphic, Spooky) attract protective fan bases that engage in aggressive online defense against criticism

    high · Dennis discusses pattern of rabid fans attacking critics; mentions Joel Engelberth's Halloween criticism backlash; notes concern about Discord message asking fans to post positive experiences in open letter thread as 'bad look'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Spooky Pinball may now be out-producing Jersey Jack Pinball based on underperformance of recent JJP titles

    medium · Tony speculates: 'I don't have any math to prove it, but especially with the lack of success we've heard about with Toy Story 4, Godfather, and probably Elton John, Spooky might be out producing JJP at this stage'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Multimorphic's approach to manufacturing parts appears reactive to public criticism rather than proactively engineered

    medium · Tony: 'Multimorphic... do seem to be very reactive when they get public criticism... change the website without announcing anything and stuff based on feedback that happens in the public space'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Princess Bride pinball game rumored via anonymous email to podcast with minimal website evidence

    low · Email sent to eclectic gamers podcast claiming 'it's happening' with theprincessbridepinball.com link; site contains 'basically nothing'; Tony speculates troll/marketing; other podcasts also received email

  • $

    market_signal: Cactus Canyon Old West theme has legitimate collector demand despite previous dismissal

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.249

0:00
welcome to the eclectic gamers podcast today is sunday november 12th this is episode 206 I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. You know, I don't know. We've actually got some listener feedback sort of things, emails that we're going to be covering today. So that's going to be some fun, which is good because I don't have a lot for you in pinball, but some of those discussions are pinball oriented. Well, that's good. So that's pretty exciting. But before we do that, we'll go ahead and get the introductions out of the way. So, Tony, it's been a couple of weeks. What's going on?
0:49
Nothing spectacular. I think I talked about all the interesting stuff a few weeks ago. The big things lately is I have had a huge two weeks in Baldur's Gate. I'll talk about that more in the video game section.
1:07
Also, that's about it. I mean, normal stuff. Oh, wait, we had to replace our washing machine. Yeah, our washing machine. I guess, you know, let's see. It would have been 18 years off of our old washing machine was all it could take. It called it quits. I did. I don't remember what year I replaced mine because I got a couple of used ones when I bought the house. And eventually, it was actually the dryer that failed, and I just went ahead and got both. Well, the dryer only – it lost one of its heating elements, but just cost-wise, it didn't make sense to replace the heat. So I was having to run it twice. So I was using a lot of electricity on it. Yeah, we lost the dryer a couple years ago, and we replaced it.
1:55
But we replaced it with a dryer that looked very similar to the old dryer, so they kind of went together. Not so much now because when we did this replacement, we got one of them fancy front load washers and all of that. So they definitely don't match anymore. But I'm not getting a new dryer to match with. Oh, okay. This washer cost as much as our washer and our original washer and dryer cost together.
Back to the Future
game
Princess Bridegame
Fifth Elementgame
Cactus Canyongame
Deadpoolgame
Elvira Blood Red Kiss Special Editiongame
Final Resistancegame
Dennis Nordmanperson
Tonyperson
Scott Denisiperson
Joel Engelberthperson
Data Eastcompany
Texas Pinball Festivalevent

medium · Listener email from David P. defends theme appeal: 'I actually bought Cactus Canyon for the theme. I really like Old West themes, and there are very few Old West themed games from the 90s to the present'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Scott Denisi's engineering decisions on Final Resistance avoided problematic manufacturing practices seen in other Multimorphic modules

    medium · Tony notes Final Resistance 'didn't use a number of these things that are quote-unquote flaws' and speculates Scott Denski likely made deliberate engineering choices based on prior experience

  • $

    market_signal: Stern removed floor pricing restrictions on Legacy Home Edition games

    high · Tony: 'They got rid of the floor... it also applies to all the Home Edition games.' Expanded previous policy allowing dealers to sell without minimum price floor

  • ?

    product_strategy: Multimorphic halted first-party game development for remainder of 2023 citing quality concerns

    high · Tony: 'they did make an announcement that they would not be putting out another first-party game this calendar year.' Announcement came end of October 2023. Original plan was multiple games.

  • ?

    product_concern: Multimorphic machines criticized for using FDM hobbyist-grade 3D printing in high-wear areas and disposable RC servos that fail quickly

    medium · Tony cites Pinside open letter thread with screenshots of service tickets; notes accusations of 'FDM hobbyist grade 3D printing jobs' and servos as 'disposable part from rc world' failing quickly

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Stern looked at Back to the Future licensing but passed due to infeasibility of securing actor and DeLorean rights

    low · Dennis mentions hearing 'another rumor that Stern really did look at getting back to the future' but distinguishes from Dutch rumor

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Dutch Pinball Back to the Future in development without securing Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, or DeLorean rights

    low · Dennis: 'purportedly, purportedly, Tony... supposedly the rumor is they have back to the future.' Notes discussion on Pinball Show last week. Explicitly labels as rumor multiple times.

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Back to the Future licensing constraints documented; actor rights, DeLorean trademark, and character rights difficult to secure

    high · Dennis discusses Data East's workaround (potato face substitute for Marty); implies all three elements (Doc, Marty, DeLorean) are significant licensing barriers

    • 2:25
    So considering how cheap and little we actually spent between the Black Friday sales already being active and everything and just buying a lower end one overall, it's funny. Because, like I said, when my wife and I first got engaged, before we were even married, we moved in together and bought a washer and dryer combo set that was like $650 for both put together.
    2:53
    Yeah, I don't remember what I bought. The used models, they were barely used. The person, I just remember she was like, I only use Whirlpool or something. And she had these Kenmores. and so I was just like, okay. I didn't know that was like a thing. I've heard of brand loyalty. I didn't know it extended to laundry equipment, but apparently it did. That's crazy. To me, it was very odd, but whatever.
    3:22
    Yeah, I've only... I have continued at Starfield. Don't really have anything new to report. I've been doing a lot of side mission stuff for one of the companies, which is it's gotten me into a pattern of being able to figure out how better to travel and stuff in the game and save time. So that's been nice. So it's been going pretty well. Yeah. So that's all I guess that is for intros. So as I noted, we do have a few things in pinball. So we'll go ahead and start with that as we often always do. And so Stern, not a whole lot of news that's, I think, particularly interesting. They have just recently been completing builds of Deadpool. They seem to do that once a year. So they've been turning out some pros and premiums in Foo Fighter Pros. I think over this last week, though, has been the focus on doing that new Elvira Blood Red Kiss Special Edition, the one that's mostly black and white art. So that's what they've been working on. Also, though, I did think it would be worth noting because we kind of discussed how – I think we did – about how Stern was letting them sell like the old Led Zeppelins and Rushes and stuff that dealers, distributors are allowed to sell under – there's no floor anymore. They got rid of the floor. That actually is beyond that now. It also applies to all the Home Edition games. Oh, good. I've got $200.
    4:36
    Well, you might find a distro that – those are a bit smaller, so I don't know. Depending on how desperate they are to clear space, perhaps you could have a very Merry Christmas with a Star Wars Comic Home Edition. I don't know. Anything's possible. I don't really know where I would put it. Well, it's small. You just slide it like under a kid's bed or something. I don't know. I mean, it's like a toy for babies, right? So you can do whatever you want with it. You know, it's probably small enough I could just slide it under Campus Queen. That would be okay. That would be awesome. Like a little drawer.
    5:10
    We can play Campus Queen. Or, look. Oh, look. Jurassic Park Home. There's Jurassic Park hiding underneath. Rawr! Little raptors popping out. Rawr!
    5:21
    So, another thing I thought we could talk a little bit about. You know, this has been covered elsewhere. So I'm not resuscitating rumor corner for it. But Dutch pinball, you know them, the makers of the Big Lebowski. Me and Zach talked about this on the pinball show last week. So I thought I want to get your thoughts on this because supposedly the rumor is they have back to the future. Yeah. All right. Now, now let me let me I don't remember because my mind just blends now. I don't remember. We covered this on the pinball show, but purportedly purportedly, Tony.
    5:59
    from, I heard another rumor that Stern really did look at getting back to the future. Maybe I should have rumored. I'm not going to do it. I'm not getting this on, guys. You're getting this now. Here's the thing. I think it was Stern, but supposedly another company passed on this because it was not feasible to get the rights to Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, or DeLorean. I would like you to tell me what do you let's just run with that let's assume that Dutch you don't have any of those three let's assume Dutch has back to the future I'm air quoting but they don't have the actor who played Doc the actor who played Marty or the brand that played the car what do you tell me what your thought is about how this would be Because remember, Data East did do Back to the Future, but they could not have Michael J. Fox. So that's why you have a potato instead of him on the back box. You have Doc and then you have a potato, a potato face for Marty.
    7:11
    Let's get serious for a moment. Here's how you do that. First, you open up by doing it as a continuation off of the third movie. You don't follow Doc. You follow Jules and Vern on their adventures as teenagers in their time-traveling train. That's how you do Back to the Future without the DeLorean, without Doc Brown, and without Marty. Hmm. Okay.
    7:36
    Sales-wise, how do you think this grand, brilliant scheme works for Dutch Pinball? This is Pinball. Dutch Pinball will say, hey, we're doing a limited edition. We're going to do 500 of them, and they'll sell out in about 14 seconds. How much do you think they'll sell them for? $12,000 minimum. Okay. Interesting. I hadn't really considered, well, any of that. I think it's the obvious way to go if you don't have the rights to anything. But here's the problem. I want to say, in my opinion, you're wrong.
    8:10
    And this isn't going to work at all. So that's the stance I'm going to take. Oh, see, I wasn't saying the argument that it would work. Well, you asked me how. You could do it without those rights. I was telling you how you do it without having any of those rights. But here's the important thing to remember. When it comes to Back to the Future, the DeLorean really ties the whole movie together. Right. It shows up at TPF every year. Just sitting there being DeLorean-y. Yes.
    8:40
    It is definitely one of those things that I don't think it would work. That's how I would do it. That's the first thing that came to my mind, how to do it without any of those assets is the obvious way. I think it would be.
    8:56
    I am not one of those people who thinks that Back to the Future needs a new game at all. Well, no, I don't. I don't think so either. I think I think it's really silly. I love Back to the Future. I think the Back to the Future movies are great. I like all three. I even like three. So but at the same time, I don't think we need a new one of those any more than we need a new lethal. weapon you don't want everyone to dance now no okay well i mean i i i kind of fall in a similar boat in the sense that i think there's plenty of nostalgia out there that's never been done before you don't really need to go back and redo it even if it wasn't done well and i'm not going to argue that the first back to the future pinball game was a good game because i played it like twice and it sucks but i mean let's let's just let's just ballpark let's let's just is there really so few good themes out there that people have to revisit the well and i and i include that for like us going back and and seeing things happen like did we really need multiple jurassic parks i mean they've been three of them four of you count the home edition right it's getting a little silly it is getting silly and if you think about it there are a lot even if you want to stay in the 80s there are a lot of 80s movies that could trigger nostalgia that would completely and utterly be looking good for a pinball machine before going back to the well for another back to the future i mean die hard die hard i was actually thinking of one that that was kind of played with before the whole thing blew up once upon a time in the past predator is an obvious one that's true another one that got played with as a prototype but never got made though this might the early 90s total recall total recall very good i mean depending upon how you how you look into it like it i mean i i think running man would be an excellent one yes we're really going in leaning into the schwarzenegger we are schwarzenverse we could do just a schwarzenegger pen period we have commando on there you can commando yeah i mean commando doesn't need a pen i can't even say it with a straight face i saw the extended edition there's an extended it's him with the with the woman he initially kidnaps from the airport and it's just them having dialogue it's really it's really bad it's really it's just like whoever after seeing it it was like whoever was editor on that movie should have gotten the oscar for editing because holy cow was that fluff not needed in any way it's just like it's like it's almost like as i'm not even saying like the it was super like that they didn't act it well it's just like exp it's exposition fluff that's already covered it's truly just redundant like it's just like redundant language it's right just almost like when they were filming they're like we're not sure the movie's long enough. So we're going to pad it. Yes. And then the editor's like, no. But I fixed it. Right. Commando. I like Commando. You don't know. I mean, this just popped to mind while we were talking about it. I mean, it has a guy in a chain mail.
    12:13
    You got your chain mail and you're fighting a guy with a gun. But it popped in my head while we were talking about it. There was a Rocky machine. Obviously, let's just go with a Creed machine. Sure I mean I've enjoyed the Creed movies Of course I also enjoyed all the Rocky movies So I mean that's just a A choice Has there been a cliffhanger machine? No there hasn't Has there been an Oscar machine? No there hasn't We're going into the Stallone verse Let's get crazy now We're going with Stallone now What were his tailors? Like Fadoochies yes that movie didn't do well for no it did not do well here's the thing i'm pretty sure stop on my mom will shoot it did better than that yes that might be his worst film cop land i mean we're getting close to 2000 now but cop land was like his attempt to like do a super serious movie when it was kind of seen as an action stereotype great yeah expendables expendable the expendable that's interesting because those are relatively modern, but they're playing off of nostalgia. Yeah, and they've done it well.
    13:27
    Why was there never a Rush Hour pin? Do you know how much fun the call-outs on a Rush Hour pin would be? Yes. I mean, thinking along the same lines of similarity, a fifth element that is just nothing but Ruby Rod call-outs would be so good. I didn't note it in our internal show notes. However, rumor mill is Barrels of Fun has Fifth Element. Oh, see, you could do it so well. You could. That movie has just the right level of camp. I think it was on your Watch Channel's Discord. We had a whole discussion about Gary Oldman, picking favorite Gary Oldman roles. What's your favorite Gary Oldman movie? And that is definitely, I won't say it's my favorite, but I loved him as a kid. Oh, sure. The role of Zorg in that movie. He was so good in that movie. But just everything, all the call-outs by Ruby Rod would be just amazing in that game. Okay. Well, I mean, I guess my takeaway here, back on Dutch pinball and back to the future, if the rumor is true Dutch and you've secured the license rights, but you didn't get the rights to Doc, the car, or Marty, walk away. Okay, moving on. Or go ahead and use my idea, but I want to kick back. It was my idea. Do you want a TBL machine? They could put you in the queue. They could put you in the queue with all the early adopters, I guess. You could be at the end of the line. How about that? I mean, maybe Back to the Future is their way. They finally get caught up on that. That could be. I mean, I did like the Big Lebowski when we finally got to play it. I mean, it's not a bad game. It's a great movie. Yeah, well, we'll just have to wait and see. Speaking of waiting and seeing, if you were looking forward to seeing the next first-party module for Multimorphic, you're going to have to wait outside of 2023 because they did make an announcement that they would not be putting out another first-party game this calendar year. Original plan was to put out several games this year. We know Final Resistance was at TPF earlier this year. We did go and play that. and so there was an announcement from the company indicating that that that and all first party game development is currently on hold as they try and address some recent quality concerns that have been raised so we did not talk about that thread on this we did not however we're both aware of it i believe actually i know you because you actually messaged me the messages from the thread yes so So there is a thread on Pinside. I don't have a link in the video for you guys because I didn't want to dig it up because I don't know when the last post of it was. But essentially someone wrote an open letter to Multimorphic, had included screenshots of a number of their service ticket issues, and were basically explaining why they sold the device. The thread went like in at least six different directions in my opinion. Oh, yeah. It went insane. It fragmented. However, one of the elements that I thought was really noteworthy were a lot of people were drilling down on talking about how much, for example, 3D printed parts were used in high wear areas. And apparently we were talking FDM hobbyist grade 3D printing jobs. That was the accusation. Also, a lot of complaints about the use of servos, which purportedly and I say purportedly because I'm both not familiar with 3D printing and I'm not familiar with servos. but that servos are a disposable part from the rc world and so they were failing a lot because they're not meant to last a whole really everything can fail of course it's mechanical stuff but like versus a quail they tend to go bad quickly very quickly so those sort of things again there wasn't any detail about like what are they going to change like are they going to change the 3d printing method are they going to not use servos moving forward i heard final resistance for example didn't use a number of these things that are quote-unquote flaws however i mean scott denisi developed the module and as an engineer he seems to know what he's doing so that was probably just i'm guessing but those were probably just decisions scott made because he's developed other games before and he knows what holds up so he went in a certain direction that wasn't the same as some of the other module developments went right i don't know um i i guess i'm not particularly surprised that this is an announcement because and i think this is something you know more so than me but multimorphic uh if i were to describe their their modus operandi they do seem to be very reactive when they get public criticism and we've seen in other instances where they just sort of change the website without announcing anything and stuff based and it seems to be driven by feedback that happens in the public space so i'm not surprised that they ended up having an announcement that seemed to be tied to this public feedback um i don't know necessarily if they were actually going to get a second module out this year like it would have to i mean we're at the end of the year this announcement basically came out at the end of october so it's like is it not done yet because you would like i would think perhaps wrongly but hey it's it's it's our show we can be wrong um that if the module was done why wouldn't you push it out so it sounds like Either the module isn't done anyway, and this is a convenient reason to go ahead and be, you know what, we need to work on the quality thing, and we weren't really going to get this module out without it being rushed, so let's just do that. Or this module was doing some of these things that had been criticized publicly, and they want to go back and modify it. I think both of those are solid options. My very first thought was that the module wasn't ready, and this gives them a good PR excuse to not follow through with their original.
    19:21
    with their original, we'll have another one out. And I know, as I recall, you and I both thought that there, when they last year announced their 2023 release plans, it seemed very aggressive. It was extremely, very aggressive in terms of the amount of product. And of course that's not even counting the third party stuff that's continued to come out. So anyway, I'm sure they'll, they'll have more announcements as they move forward. I don't expect them to go anywhere or anything. No, just one of those things that got some, some attention lately. Yeah. The open letter, open letter concept, not the specific open letter. Just the open letter concept is one of those things that I feel like has become much less common than it used to be, and I still kind of like it because it feels like what you see more often than not are just people complaining on forums and online and on social media, where this type of doing it as an open letter that has actual good and bad, has actual concerns and possible fixes to concerns, is much more constructive. And I feel like it's the type of thing that you can do when you know your actual feedback's not being listened to that makes it public. That's not just Joe Bob 420 in the forum says it's a bad machine type thing. I don know that it something that we see more of or not but I thought it was an interesting that whole thread was just that whole thread was just one of those things that is the reason I don spend a lot of time on pencil But there was a lot of interesting information in it. Yeah, I am. I'm good with open letters if, as you noted, like they they've gone through and you haven't gotten the appropriate resolution privately. And I liked that the original poster did include their ticket. They screenshotted their service ticket history. They clearly tried to work within the system for quite a long time to get things satisfactory, and it just didn't get to their level that they expected. I don't like when people jump right to public criticism because I think it's that's about posturing rather than some of that is driven by. Yes, the fact that we do shows, we do podcast. I have a YouTube channel. I do a couple of podcasts and there's something like there's quite bluntly like if I go and I see someone and all they do is criticize the show on Pennside. It's as far as I'm concerned, it's karma farming. It's it's posturing. It's not it's I don't respect the criticism because they're doing it in public for a reason. They really cared. They'd have reached out privately first. That's my opinion. And so in this instance, I felt that was accurately or adequately, I should say, documented as far as I was concerned. And so I felt that it made sense to go ahead at this stage because they weren't getting the redress that they they were hoping for. Now, whether they're right or wrong in terms of like, were they being too demanding? That's something, of course, the company gets to decide as well as the rest of the public viewing it. But, you know, it's interesting also to see how a company reacts in those sort of situations. Like I know someone who is on one of the, I guess, Discord channels that is about this company and noted that there was someone posted asking for people to go to that thread and say positive experiences. That is not, in my opinion, the appropriate solution to open the letter. That is a bad look if that gets out. You are begging for someone to screen grab that and share it and humiliate your company as trying to foster false reviews. essentially and it doesn't help that and as we we've talked probably more privately than we do on air because honestly we don't want the blowback but there's a reputation whether it's completely accurate or not that fans of this company are aggressive about oh yeah about trying to quote unquote take out those that criticize them and so that just feeds into that narrative and i thought it was interesting someone did post in the thread the concern that people weren't going to be willing to come and share like they'd be too scared to go into the open letter thread and share their positive experiences and i'm like it's an interesting theory cotton but that's not ever how i've seen it play out with them spooky fans were like this too and yes they were had the same reputation of you we gotta defend the little guy we gotta defend these upstart companies and so we're gonna go and we're gonna tear down anyone who's critical and that's the reputation that exists for this company as well i'm not saying it's from the official people of the company but and hey you can't control your fans but they ain't always doing you favors with that sort of that's very true and i think that stretches across the gamut there's fans of everything and some of them are always going to be rabid and intense to a scary point do you feel though that it's it's more pronounced i don't think this is just applicable to pinball but that it's more pronounced when it's the little guy like people feel like i stick up for the little guy and those people because they know they're in the small kind of niche group that they are a little more vicious about it than... Stern has fanboys. But Stern's like over 80% on the market. So who cares if people criticize Stern? You know that you're... Let me give you another example that's pinball, but not multimorphic. It's back to spooky. I remember Joel Engelberth, one of the hosts of Triple Drain, YouTube channel, all that. And very, very... You've met Joel. He's super chill, real friendly, and that's kind of the persona he uses on his media creation, too. He's very, very kind would be how I describe it. But he didn't like Halloween, the pinball machine, Halloween, for good reason, in my opinion. And so he had some criticisms that he aired on – I don't remember if this was on his podcast or YouTube or what, but he aired some criticisms of it. This individual – I won't call him out. I don't even remember who it was. But this individual went on Pennside publicly, of course, because we got a posture and just tore into him and they were explaining their logic and their logic. And that's why I wanted to tie this in here. Their logic was that it was extra damaging that he did this to Halloween because Spooky is such a smaller company that his own words could actually hurt the value of the game for people that when they wanted to sell it. And that this was actually a disservice to everyone who had invested into Spooky's products. That's insane. And I don't think anyone is worried that every podcaster basically hated Led Zeppelin Pro because it's Stern. And Stern's going to be okay. But the idea was, well, Spooky only sells a couple thousand at most of a game. If they lose their rep on one game, maybe that's the end of Spooky. And we, as commentators, have an obligation to prop these companies up or something. I don't know. That was getting beyond what the person wrote. I'm trying to read into it. I have no obligation to prop any company up. What? I know. It's amazing. What? But we've been very vocal on our criticisms with spooky for build quality and non-fun games since the beginning. I remember early on when we first started, we would get a lot of feedback any time we said anything bad about Spooky. And to be fair, that feedback has gone away as Spooky's problems have persisted and not gotten better. I think it's less – you're right. But I think it's less about that the problems have persisted and more that their volume counts have gone up. They're not seen as the little guy anymore. Oh, I could see that. In fact, I've heard some people argue, and I actually lean this way. I don't have any math to prove it, but especially with the lack of success we've heard about with Toy Story 4, Godfather, and probably Elton John, Spooky might be out producing JJP at this stage. It's entirely possible. And if they're not, they're definitely ahead of Chicago Gaming. Oh, for sure. So they've got to be in the top three at this point. That's really amazing for a company that's based out of rural Wisconsin. That is. I mean, though it also says terrible things about JJP. it gets it yeah well that's a whole other thing and thankfully we ain't diving into them today so but but no i mean it is definitely back to the original thing is it's one of those spots that it's just i think it's a good thing the open letter when used appropriately yeah that's a fair argument well speaking of arguments i don't think we're going to have an argument about this because we actually on the last episode talked about how princess bride was going to be a really good idea as a license i was arguing that it would have been an even better pick than labyrinth for barrels of fun to open with a little bit after that episode came out we got an email to eclectic gamers podcast.gmail.com claiming that the princess bride is happening the email basically just said like quote it's happening and then included the link to www.theprincessbridepinball.com I did go to the site. There's basically nothing there. It's so nothing there that I cannot tell if this is like a troll joke thing, which normally I like when Barrels of Fun was doing all their teasing stuff with History Pinball Company. We didn't talk about it on air. In fact, I don't even think I told you about the emails because I just delete them because I'm not here to be a part of your market. Like if you want me to be a tool in your marketing, you have to manipulate me better than that. So you got you got to put in some real effort. This ain't a guessing game thing. That will work on a forum. It does not work in this format. So anyway, I don't know if this is true or not. However, I initially thought someone to send it to us because we talked about the about Princess Bride on the episode. However, I believe I have read or heard that other podcasts also got this email. So it may have just been an interesting coincidence. But I thought it was kind of funny. That is an interesting coincidence. So Princess Bride is maybe possibly happening. Better choice than Back to the Future. Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's a lot of options for call-outs there. You could get Mandy Patinkin or you could get Carrie Eels. Either one would work very well, I think.
    30:00
    Well, moving on from that. Dreams. We have a couple individuals I mentioned wrote in to us. Okay. A couple of them on the pinball section. So here's the first one I wanted to go ahead and do. David P. wrote in. And this is actually regarding some of our discussion about Cactus Canyon. You might recall that I made some jokes at the expense of Cactus Canyon's theme. Maybe one joke, but anyway. So David writes in, Dennis, thanks again for all the work you and Tony do on the podcast. It's always my first and often my only pinball podcast listen. And I really like the video game section too. Last episode you said, quote, Nobody bought Cactus Canyon for the theme. Nobody cares about cacti, end quote.
    30:44
    Okay, that may be the exact quote I said. Or something along those lines. Well, David, that is, if not exactly what I said, it's very close. Because I don't remember because I was really proud of saying cacti.
    30:58
    It's little victories that we have to run with. Anyway, back to the email. And you said people only buy it because it's easy. I know that this was said at least partly in jest. I actually bought Cactus Canyon for the theme. I really like Old West themes, and there are very few Old West themed games from the 90s to the present. Also, Cactus Canyon has a lot of cheesy humor, which adds to its appeal. I even got wife approval when we played an original at the Pinball Hall of Fame a few years ago. Also, Chicago Gaming makes high-quality, reliable machines, even if they ship slowly, that don't break often. The new code, addition of color-changing LEDs with new light show, and the nice, bigger color display make this a much better game than the original Cactus Canyon, in my opinion.
    31:42
    Being a fan layout, it's a nice, smooth shooter, but I didn't think of it being easy as a reason to buy it. I have 13 games of varying difficulty. The game being easy never crossed my mind as a reason to buy it. I know this is way more analysis and feedback than you probably wanted on an offhand comment, but I really love my Cactus Canyon. Thanks again for such a wonderful podcast. Well, David, thank you for writing, and Tony got a chuckle out of the remembrance of the Pepperidge Farm moment about how mean I was to Cactus Canyon.
    32:13
    I will agree. Chicago Gaming Company, excellent build quality reputation. Very much so. The best, I'd say, reputation in the entire hobby. It is such a shame that they turn out games so slowly, both in terms of how many they ship and how quickly they put out new product. Because I absolutely concur. Their build quality is incredible. Their games look great.
    32:37
    I also agree that you are correct. There have been next to no Western themes as of the 90s. Oh, yeah. No, Westerns are for all intents and purposes. Nobody cares. For all intents and purposes, Westerns are dead anymore. I got doubling down. We know there are still good westerns. Yeah, sure we are. There are still good westerns out there. There are. But you want to say Unforgiven, and that was going to be the first one you were going to say. But that was a long time ago. Unforgiven probably would have been. Gene Hackman was still acting. That's true. If you want something more recent, 310 to Yuma. That's a remake. But okay. It was good. I saw it. It was good.
    33:24
    I'll drink your milkshake. There will be blood. What was... The name just left my head. There was the remake of True Grit. Is that the one? There was a remake of True Grit. That's actually better than the original. I agree. That was better. That was better than the original. It was better. It was a lot better. No, I was thinking of Blood Tomahawk. I have not seen Blood Tomahawk. It's more horror than Western. It's like a horror western. But the problem is the western – the role that the western played in movies and TV back in the day has kind of been usurped by science fiction and fantasy, I feel. I remember once hearing an argument that the movies like car chases and that style of action movie is what displaced the western. But it's interesting. I would – here's the thing. fundamentally, the reason for my statement was primarily because the aforementioned Joel Ingeborg birth by Cactus Canyon, because it's easy. And I have applied his logic to everyone because that is what I've chosen to do, because you and I, as we've noted several times, have played the original Cactus Canyon. And in my opinion, I won't speak for you. It's not that good of a game. It's OK. It shoots well, but in a world where you're getting fan layouts that are Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness, Cactus Canyon would be – now, I'd actually take Cactus Canyon as a layout over Monster Bash, but as a theme, I would not. As a rule set, I would not. But as acknowledged, Chicago Gaming did complete the rules. And we're not talking about the separate enhanced rule set, which isn't out yet. We just mean they completed the rules. So that's not a perfect apples to apples thing, but that's kind of where I was coming from just in terms of my experience with the game. It's okay, but to me it was probably C tier at best out of Williams. I'd rather own a Shadow. I'd rather own Brom Stoker's Dracula. I'd definitely rather have Attack from Mars than this. This has been wannabe, let's finish out the line while we're trying to finish Pinball 2000 title. Right, but it's interesting to me that you're listing as a C tier And then you're talking about the games you'd rather have That are all, I think, undeniably A tier Let's be honest Shadow and Braum are B tier games Okay, I'd rather have Creature Is that A tier or B tier? I'd rather have Kongo, that's not A tier That's not A tier See, here's the thing Amy is good gorilla Is there a good gorilla in Cactus? And Braum as B plus I would put Creatures B I can see people are probably I'd rather have Junkyard Oh, I don't know if even I can say that You can because you get to shoot toast at a dog Is there toast in Cactus Canyon? I don't think so Except toasty cacti Oh, that's a tough one I'd rather have Junkyard than Cactus Canyon Come on, it's got that hanging freaking ball thing I mean, it does, it does but I don't know if I'm willing to go so far as to say I'd rather have a junkyard than Cactus Canyon. No, actually, I won't. I'd rather have Gilligan's. Okay. Now you're just being evil. I am. I mean. I don't. Next thing you know, you're going to tell me you'd rather have Popeye than. No, that would hurt my reputation. What little there is left. Or Looney Tunes or the Bugs Bunny birthday bash. Is it birthday bash or birthday ball? I can never keep it straight. That game. Let's be honest. It's Bugs Bunny birthday trash. That game is awesome in a group, though. Oh, no. It's really worth it. In fact, you should play dollar games. Oh, no. We both almost said bad words. I'll have to go back and check and see if Tony did one there. I think I stopped it. I think I stopped it at the F, but yeah.
    37:21
    Let's go with Battlestar Galactica. Frack that game. There we go. Yes, fracking. anyway but thank you david for writing in and explaining why real fans would buy cactus canyon i don't hate cactus canyon would you ever buy it you wouldn't you wouldn't i don't have enough space to have don't use i don't if you had would i ever buy it if i had space and infinite money yes infinite money and infinite space is you could buy everything and not you'd be like why do i care i'm rich exactly that's not any But the reality is, would I buy one? Probably not, because I can think of at least 15 games I would want before it, and I can't imagine myself having room for that kind of game-age. Okay.
    38:10
    Well, let's move on. That was a fun email, so I really appreciate David writing into us with it. But we've got another interesting one. This one is more of a query. This one you're going to have to put your thinking cap on. Ben M. wrote in, and he asked us, or wrote, I should say. There will be a query, though. In my time in this hobby, it seems that there are much Williams Valley worship, both promoted by podcasters and YouTubers, and it's a disservice to the population at large. Very bold statement from Ben coming out of the gate. Let's continue. Here's what I mean. New people into this hobby look to you people for guidance, and much of what you present is going to largely influence what people expect out of this hobby. If a podcast or a YouTuber simply uses Williams as their defining metric as what constitutes the gold standard in experience and only promote based off of what you use, then it renders the other opportunities to see other manufacturers as something else and not getting much exposure. It's prevalent in our collections and familial experiences. If our dads only showed us Williams that others like Gottlieb, Zacharia, I think that's what he means by ZZZ are not. That's what he wrote. so FYI, are not in our experiences, and it severely limits our ability to grasp the hobby in its entirety. Consider this, F-15 versus Goldwing. If you compare the two, the layout with Goldwing's, there's more to do than F-15, but F-15 ranks higher than Goldwing.
    39:38
    Okay, so I've taken this as a question. The question is, why do we who create content in this hobby use Williams, Bally Williams, WMS, we'll just say, use WMS as the gold standard?
    39:55
    Kick us off, Tony. What are your thoughts on that? Because I think it's a fair criticism to bring up because it's true. It's definitely WMS. When we're talking like 90s and before, not counting the EM era, so basically electronic pinball as of the late, well, by the early 80s up through 1999, it's WMS that we're talking about or Bally and Williams as separate entities until they merged. But OK.
    40:22
    I think this is tough for me because I can definitely see where this is a valid criticism. but at the same time I can tell you right off the top of my head that I probably could not name the company that produced several of my favorite games because I've just never paid attention to it I'm more about the individual games myself but thinking on it I think they're almost all William's games.
    41:00
    I'd have to look it up to be sure. But I do think there is a definite difference in game quality there. I have played Gold Wings. Gold Wings is a, it's not a bad game. I don't dislike Gold Wings, but it's definitely not one of the highest level games out there that I would play with. I think he was comparing it to, he wrote F-15. I think he was comparing it to F-14. Yeah, which makes sense to me. But F is its own special like high speed crazy thing Yeah I it a it a fair point And I think there are there are a couple aspects here that are in play that I want to touch on because yeah I do think it a valid criticism However, I also think that there are valid reasons that content creators do it the way that they do. Now, you might not agree that you might not like the reasons, but but I do think there's a logic to it. All right. First of all, the gold standard issue. the reason why bally williams is held up as the gold standard is because it was the gold standard you you need and i don't i don't mean it in like a snarky way i mean it in a please try and understand if you're if you're not and it's been a long time since i've looked into this but when pinball was happening in the 90s in particular bally williams wms was like 70 plus percent of the market it was the gold standard it was what the operators were buying so that's just the history of it data east later on as sega pinball and premiere operating the gotley brand were significantly smaller companies data east became the number two u.s seller of games around i think uh 1990 or so really when they started to lean more into licenses and gotley moved into number three and then other brands like zoccheria and such much much smaller now that was often because they were targeting a much smaller market like italy for example and such and while europe was a big buyer of games it wasn't the only buyer of games out there but we're going far too far in the history so that that's part of the issue with it being the gold standard is that it just was so much of the market that it was the standard that leans into part of the reason why you find a lot of YouTubers, podcasters, other content creators doing this has been described as a disservice. Understand a lot of these individuals, despite the fact that they are content creators. I'm going to tell you something. You might not folks listening. You might not know this. You might not have thought about it. In fact, why would you necessarily? A lot of these people don't actually know these other games. They've never played them.
    43:43
    And you might lament that you might wish that people who are creating content would go out of their way to play as many different games as possible, there's no true barrier to becoming a content creator. And so there's a lot of times where they wouldn't have experienced this. In fact, and it might not.
    44:04
    In fact, I would argue in most cases, it wouldn't be deliberate. Think about if you were someone who played pinball in the heyday, in the 80s, in the 90s, going to arcades, it is quite plausible that you would have only readily encountered WMS games. And if you're not going to shows and not all of these content creators do, you might not experience other games. And even if you go to shows, a lot of the content creators spend so much time interacting with the people who watch their content that they don't play very many games. When Tony and I first started going to Texas Pinball Festival, that is what we did is we focused on playing games. But honestly, at this point, other than going and playing the new stuff, we don't spend a whole lot of time playing pinball games. It's really amazing how much less time we spend at conventions playing games than we do talking to people anymore. And I can say, because I wanted to broaden my experience on it, like just using Texas as an example, the pickings in terms of being able to go and find just say, godly premier games. It's a very, very small portion of what's shown up in the solid state era. There are people that will come, and you will go around, and you will see that there might be three or four medieval madnesses around that showroom floor. And you'll be like, I want to play system ADB games from Gottlieb, and you'll be lucky to find two. And they won't be the same, and maybe they're not working. I mean, it was years. I had on my wish list for a long time World Challenge Soccer. got leaves it's basically world cup soccer it was years before i finally saw it at a show to play it years and that was a game i was actively trying to find to play and it was for sale pretty cheap as i recall it wasn't very good and it ended up not on my list anymore however the point is a lot of these games just did not get very big exposure and even at shows quite bluntly still doesn't get very much exposure how many zoccheria games have you been able to play in person i've played farfalla and maybe one other they're just not around yeah that that's valid they're not showing up we can't talk to you about other games unless we actually experience them and i'm not going to pat myself on the back because i it's not a positive or a negative in my view but i feel especially if we limit ourselves just to people who create content in pinball i've owned quite a bit of non-WMS games compared to, I think, a lot of my contemporaries. I think you have. You had quite a collection of
    46:46
    premier games. You had a lot of Gottliebs. To me, a lot. And part of that was because they were cheaper. Because people don't want them. People want WMS. I have not owned a single WMS game ever. Ever. I've owned Williams. I've owned Bally. But all predating the merger. I never owned a DMD Valley Williams game ever.
    47:08
    And so, I mean, that's just kind of where it's coming from. So it's not so much in my view that the content creators are deliberately doing a disservice to the population. You just need to understand. Everyone needs to understand that this stuff isn't like manna from heaven that's just falling on us. You can't just walk down the street and get to play a Zacharia game or go and experience a premier title. Even at shows, they tend to be really few and far between. It's very unfortunate. But that's just the reality. Though I will, if there's one and it's running, especially something by Zachary, I'll definitely give it a shot. Oh, sure. Anytime I'm walking and I see a game that I've never seen before and it's working, I'll try and give it a shot. Right. But, I mean, I'm reminded of a couple years ago when we were at Pinball Expo. Do you remember how many games that were so rare, so weird, so different? And how many of them were working? Like none. It was just a waste. And I mean, that was what it was, but we did our best. So I don't know if all the other content creators do. Quite frankly, no. I think a lot of them are completely ingrained in a bias that it's WMS. And maybe, I mean, for a long time, this is another thing for, and I don't know if Ben's been in the hobby a lot or a long time or not. But for a long time, I mean, even with the resurgence of pinball, up until I'd say just before the – up until the LCD era of Stern, I would say, there were still a lot of people that were just like, Bally Williams is better than everything modern, too. It was a real strong bias. There was a very strong bias for that. That's actually shifted now where modern Stern is seen as the best, I would say. I think so. But it took a lot of price increases and a lot of changes in terms of just depth of code is how they've gotten there. And I honestly think there's a lot of people newer to the hobby who did not grow up with the Bally Williams. Yes, that's part of it. We're starting to need the people who are growing up with, from Stern being the primary, being the big dog.
    49:10
    They're the ones, and most of what they've had access to are newer games. because, I mean, I know for a fact I've talked to a couple people who've had very limited access to anything pre-call it mid-'90s and don't even, a lot of them haven't even played games that I would consider a common core pinball machine just because it's from the early-'90s or even the-'80s, let alone something older. case in point like Knight Riders what late 70s and that's one of those games that there's nothing super special but I've seen it in a lot of shows and I've played it a bunch but I it came up in a conversation once somebody thought oh they made a game for the Knight Rider TV show it's like no no it's not that at all but I've talked to plenty of people that all of their experience is just with modern machines And I think you're right. I think we're going to see that more and more. And the bias on the Bally Williams is disappearing, which is also means the whole Gottlieb premier Zachary. They're going to become things of myth and legend, things that people have heard about maybe, but not ever actually played, except for maybe some of the absolute biggest name special things. Yeah, they're just they're just not common. And that's for various reasons. But anyway, Ben, I hope you thought the discussion was interesting. I thought it was an interesting topic. I think I do. I do think it's an interesting topic because I think it's a bias that is very, very real.
    50:50
    OK, video games. We did get a review for one of the free steam codes. So I will go ahead and read that and then we will move on to what you've put together. So this is what Michael wrote about the game that he got. This code ended up being for Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth. Released in 2006, this game is a first-person survival horror game. Graphics quality is about standard for the time. It is set in the 1920s. You play a detective with mental health problems, paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, that investigates a secluded town looking for a missing person. Everyone in the town seems evil and insane. The mood is dark and uneasy, and you never really know what is real or just insanity. There are cool jump scares, flashbacks, and visual effects to help set the mood. It plays like a first-person Resident Evil 1, but the game feels more linear, and the puzzles are simpler, meaning everything you need to solve any puzzle is in the same room. Keys, codes, parts, tools, etc. I enjoyed the simplified play. There is no combat or weapons early on. The early game consists of mostly solving a puzzle, then moving on to the next puzzle. And then, in the next phase, bad guys, townsfolk, get introduced and you mostly run away from and sneak past the bad guys. Then weapons finally, eventually get introduced and you can choose to fight or sneak your way to the next puzzle. I played about five hours into it so far. If you want a simplified throwback first-person survival horror with a creepy feel, this game is totally passable. I just didn't like how long you have to wait so long before weapons come into play. I didn't enjoy running away from and sneaking around the bad guys for so long. Well, thank you, Michael, for doing that review. I actually played a different Call of Cthulhu game. I had to go back and check to see if it was Dark Corners of the Earth, and I didn't think it was, and it wasn't. It was a more modern one that came out on the Xbox 360, and it was just called Call of Cthulhu. But kind of a similar vibe as this was. I mean, I knew this when he started talking about this review. It sounded really familiar. I've not played it. But Matt McMuscles, who does the What Happened? I know he just did one on Gollum. Yeah, did he? Yeah, I watched it yesterday. My face is a swizzle. I must have his first $1. He did a Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth. What happened? Not that long ago. Oh, okay. That's why this was going on. I haven't seen that one. As we were going through it, I was like, oh, this sounds so familiar.
    53:27
    And that's what it is. So I highly recommend if you've never watched any of the What Happened. Yeah. What Happened? They're great. They are. They're great. He has a plushie now. Does he? He's promoting it constantly on the Golem one. Of course he does. Man. I think I – Where's our plushie? I don't – I want us to be the crab in the wall versus plushies. Make it happen. Check your contractors. I'll see what I can do. Okay. Anyway, go on. I'll look into plushie development. Yes.
    53:59
    So, but – Right into the Click to Get a Podcast at gmail.com if you want to buy a plushie. Okay, go ahead. Call of Cthulhu is one of those things that I've never really been able to personally grasp as a video game concept, just because to me it feels like it'd be too restricted, you know what I mean, in a video game setting, as opposed to being a more free form like a tabletop setting. But I say that, and then games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate and the whole Baldur's Gate series takes the same concept, D&D concept, and works with it extremely well. So I guess it can be done. But I just don't think I've ever actually played one of the Call of Cthulhu games other than I've played them on tabletop multiple times. But interesting. Thank you for writing in. I thought it was interesting. It just caught me. It's like, man, this sounds real familiar all of a sudden.
    55:01
    Well, you probably have some really familiar, more modern games than the early 2000s to walk us through. I do. I have actually gone pretty heavy the last two weeks in Baldur's Gate.
    55:17
    And I successfully, last night actually, completed Act 2. Part 2. and it is amazing to me how this game turned out in this day and age. This is one of those games that the more and more I play it, the more and more it pulls me in, the more interested I become in the characters and the story, and just based upon what we've seen in games in general in the last four or five years, to see a single-player game that is this polished with this much stuff going on, is crazy to me.
    55:57
    After I finished Act 2 last night, I went back and looked at some other stuff just to see if there was anything major I'd missed, just in Act 1. I didn't even look in Act 2. I was just looking at major things in Act 1 and to find out how much stuff I'd missed in Act 1 makes me wonder, how much stuff did I end up missing in Act 2? I don't know. We'll find out eventually. But for the depth of this game and the different options and the different ways you can go considering how it makes so many of the other games that we've seen in recent years that are supposedly, you know, like these huge wide go-anywhere-do-anything games feel so much more shallow because while you can go anywhere, there's not necessarily anything big or important in it, that it has just been insane to me just how well it's done. And the voice acting and everything is so good. And they do a good job of making you actually care about the characters. And, like, one of the, I mean, J.K. Simmons is a voice actor in it. And, for example, J.K. Simmons is just amazing in everything. And he just nailed his role so well in this game. And I've just been really, really pleased by it. and I've made multiple mentions before that I'm looking forward to doing another playthrough just to play things in a completely different way than the route I'm going now.
    57:30
    And at the amount of hours, I don't know how long it's going to take because I've seen a lot of comments that basically say Act 3 is as long as Act 1 and 2 put together. And the game has a level cap where you hit your max levels at level 12. And from everything I've read, you should be there with about a third of the way into Act 3. You should spend most of Act 3 at level 12, typically, is how most people end up being. Which has me going, well, how much is that? Because I just hit eight not that long ago in Act 2. So how big is Act 3 going to be? Considering all of Act 3 appears to take place in Baldur's Gate, I've not even gotten there yet, it's going to be crazy. But I have so deeply enjoyed this game.
    58:28
    And I believe that it's been pretty clear that I'm not the only one who's enjoying this game. Because this week, Baldur's Gate cleaned up at the Golden Joystick Awards. They got seven of the awards. That's never happened before. In all the years the Golden Joystick has been around, no one game has ever gotten seven awards. They won Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, Studio of the Year, Best Game Community, PC Game of the Year, Ultimate Game of the Year, and Best Supporting Performer for Neil Newbon as Astron. So that's pretty impressive Wow The full list of the winners is interesting as well Because it includes some things I didn't expect The still playing award goes to No Man's Sky Somehow No Man's Sky is still out there getting stuff I mean considering the flop it was when it launched But it seems to be winning awards for best comeback And best game we're still playing and all that Best game expansion went to Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty Best indie game was Sea of Stars Best Verizon game Verizon Best VR game is Horizon Call of the Mountain The best multiplayer game was Mortal Kombat 1 Really? Which Okay Sure, okay Best audio, Final Fantasy 16 Best Game Trailer Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty You know, I can understand that That game trailer was pretty good What a dumb category It is the dumbest of categories I mean, I would rather see Best Kiss In all honesty Just like the old Team Choice Awards But it was a good trailer The Idris Elba trailer That was pretty good Best Streaming Game was Valorant I didn't know that game was still Being a thing So apparently maybe not doing so well competitively, but like nothing is anymore. Yeah. Best Gaming Hardware is PSVR 2. I guess that's not really a surprise.
    60:39
    The Breakthrough Award was for Cocoon slash Geometric Interactive. So I don't know. Critics Choice Award, Alan Wake 2. Yeah, I need to add that to my list. I've heard good things about it, but I've not played it yet. Best lead performer was Ben Starr for Final Fantasy XVI. I believe he was the main character.
    61:01
    Nintendo's Game of the Year was Tears of the Kingdom. What a shock. No kidding. Xbox's Game of the Year was Starfield. What a shock. Really.
    61:10
    PlayStation's Game of the Year was Resident Evil 4. Maybe a quasi-shock? Actually, I was kind of shocked by that one. Yeah, I mean... And the most wanted game was Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Yes. Which is not a surprise, but also another dumb category. Yes. I want it. Give me one. We need this remake. Yeah. But speaking of Mortal Kombat 1, $70 game. Yep. With a premium real-world money store for cosmetics. As if that wasn't enough of a problem. they received a fairly hefty amount of fan backlash because they released a halloween special fatality for ten dollars for the fatality well maybe it was really good even like mortal kombat 11 the previous mortal kombat that had the online real money thing you could buy characters you could buy like all of the characters for 20 bucks so for ten dollars for a single fatality Warner Brothers took a pretty hefty bit of fan backlash from the Mortal Kombat fandom Enough that they responded by giving anyone who had spent the $10 on the Halloween fatality the upcoming Thanksgiving and winter fatalities to go with it. Oh, okay. So now it's $10 for three fatalities in a game you spent $70 on. I don't know. I mean, it's Mortal Kombat, so people love it. But at the same time, that is a little steep for me, considering my feelings on that whole real money purchasing. At least it's just cosmetics and non-game-breaking stuff. That's good, but definitely kind of disappointing. just like during a recent earnings call the Warner Brothers CEO outlined plans to transform its games from traditional console and PC releases into always on live service games to drive engagement and monetization everyone wants always live now it's like the I'm trying to think what was the it thing in the past that everyone just started it's the new NFT it's just always on and just constantly upgrading the game i get why they're like yeah we just have this one game it could just keep making us money it'd be so much easier than having to constantly like new games yeah i get i mean i get it i mean look it worked for rockstar how long have has grand theft auto been i just i'm just current incarnation i never really multiple consoles have come and gone who would have been a big thing multiplayer i never really contemplated it but that's like lightning in a bottle and it's rock And it didn't apply to every, like, they didn't have the same success with, like, Red Dead Redemption 1's multiplayer. Right. So. That's because it's a Western. No one cares about cacti.
    64:17
    That's why it didn't work. Westerns are good. They had a really good DLC with zombies, though. Red Dead 1. I never played the zombie one. Oh, that was a good DLC. It was just everything's on its head. It's weird. They just kind of go with it. I had an apocalypse pony that I rode around. Apocalypse pony. His hooves left flames. I'm pestilence pony.
    64:42
    War pony. Oh, man. The Escapist. Oh, that hit web presence with Yahtzee, the really popular reviewer. You're right. It's like the big main thing. The only thing I know it for, you mean? That escapist? That escapist. Okay. They've been around a long time. They have. They've been around for over a decade.
    65:08
    The Zero Punctuation game reviews by Yahtzee have been one of the earliest and still maintainably most popular about style review ever. I remember when he reviewed Fallout 3. Yeah. I haven't watched him in years, but I just remember Fallout 3. And I remember it opened because he's always just being really negative. He just goes, it's pretty good. And they're just playing the end thing and they have to go back and just dog it because that's what he's paid to do. Or was paid to do. Was paid to do. The Escapist is owned by a larger – Embracer group? It's not an embracer group. I just knew it said larger and I was like, embracer group. No, it's a larger group. It's called Gamers with a U instead of an ERS. So speaking of stupid gamers. It's Gamers. they recently terminated several employees including uh nick calendandra who was the editor-in-chief of their video game section uh for not meeting goals set by its parent company gamers apparently these goals were not well communicated and were actively impossible to get levels of engagement and increase in income and views.
    66:32
    And Nick Calendaro, when he quit or when he was terminated, refused his severance and refused to sign an NDA. Oh, I bet the NDA was the condition for the severance. Okay.
    66:46
    And talked about it quite openly and was followed within a day by every single member of his team. Wow. Wow, that's very rare. The entire video game division of The Escapist is gone. Or not video game, but the video section of The Escapist is gone. Oh, they were doing like their series. Everybody who did all their series, all their video production stuff, the people who ran The Escapist YouTube channel, they're all gone, including Yahtzee. The primary reason The Escapist still exists. Right.
    67:21
    He must have offered them a new, like Nick must have set something up. That's the only way that would have ever happened because most people can't just walk away from their job. It's too risky. Right. And he did. Okay. They already, like the announcement, like he was let go at the beginning of the week, literally this last week. I saw the news article about it on the 8th. and also on the 8th, they already had a video for their new group that was Nick and Yahtzee coming together, and the group's called Second Wind.
    68:01
    A little on the nose, but it also makes me think of farting. It's time for my second wind. But they put out a one-hour live stream where they answered questions and stuff. most of what amounted to it's like basically we're going to try and take as much of the stuff that we we're going to do exactly what we're doing there here but everything's going to have new titles because we don't have rights to any of the titles and we're trying to see what we do and don't have the rights to uh but most of the stories and the the type of stuff they're doing they're going to be doing the exact same type of stuff okay because like yahtzee wrote all of his stuff the company can't claim his writing style. He can't use the name Zero Punctuation. He can't use the – he can't just continue. He might need new graphics. They actually answered that question in the live stream, and their answer was, we don't know yet. Because he's going to do a new series that is going to have a new name, and it's going to be the exact same type of spiel written by him, voiced by him, animated.
    69:15
    But they might have to change the animation style. They're still trying to figure it out. And this stuff's going to hit the ground eventually, but they're still trying to spin it up because this has just basically been one insane week for them.
    69:31
    So we will see. We'll see how that turns out for them. I'm interested to see how it turns out for the escapist. Oh, I can only imagine it turns out one way. Bye-bye now. Yeah. Bye-bye now. It's going to be bad. See you later. Except not later.
    69:50
    I'm interested to see if they attempt to continue something like zero punctuation and just find some new British guy to do it and try and play it off like nothing happened. with their animating crew that they don't have. Right. And their writer who they don't have. I mean, they might make a go of it, but honestly, if they were setting up unrealistic expectations and stuff, I'm guessing that they were struggling to continue to monetize their model. Right. And it might just be time for Gamer to close it. Yeah.
    70:23
    If I were Gamer, I would give up at this. I'd be like, no, we lost all the talent. I'm not even going to say that they had a ploy with Nick. I think it was probably just C-suite. People are just like, this needs to start doing these level of numbers. They were completely unrealistic. No one pushed back on them about how it happened. It couldn't happen. And then their whole creative team has spun off. So why try and rebuild it, especially if it wasn't making money in the first place? Well, that's the thing is, was it not making money or was it just not making enough money? Because this would not be the first time where we've seen companies and groups and items that were profitable. They were making money get shut down because they weren't making enough money. Even though they were paying for themselves and earning a profit, people think they should be earning more money than they are, and they don't. I mean, completely plausible. I also, I mean, because, and again, this is my bias because I only ever used Escapist for zero punctuation, and that was it. Me too. In my mind, it doesn't even necessarily make sense to do Second Wind. That Yahtzee could have, in my head, just as easily said, no, thank you, Nick. I'm going to YouTube. I'll pay an animator, and I'll just make money off of ad revenue of Patreon and subs. Right. And he honestly, my guess would be he's probably popular enough. He could generate enough money to do all of that and only do zero punctuation. The new version, you know, with a new name. And and because who cares about the rest of the video stuff Escapist was doing? Not to say that Second Wind maybe didn't have some good ideas there. Maybe it's more popular than I realize, or they could potentially build it all up. But Yahtzee is the star, not Nick. So I just don't know if that's – but maybe he doesn't want to deal with the business side of it. It could be. And I can't comment because, again, I don't watch anything else there. I've read good things about some of it, but I don't watch any of it. I've got a limited amount of time to watch stuff. There's a limited amount of stuff I can watch, and quite frankly, video game stuff and pinball stuff eat a big chunk of that time, and I dump most of the rest of it into, like, lore and motorcycles. And I have to balance that. There's just so much I can do, and I can't watch all of everything. I can't even watch all of everything that I would necessarily like to watch. I mean, I quit watching Zero Punctuation because after a while, the stick got tired to me. Right. It's a formula, and the formula becomes so formulaic that you're like, I know exactly how this is going to go. I can't even trust that this is an honest thing. Everything's getting nitpicked out of proportion because he has to dog the game. That's what people want to watch. So that's why I walked away from it. We'll see. Well, I'm sure they're going to hit the ground running pretty well if they took their entire team with them. Yeah. Because they're basically just going to change names of everything. They'll have to, obviously, anything that they had pre-filmed and had pre-ready, which I'm sure was a lot, is gone. They're going to have to start over and rename everything and generate the business. But from the looks of it, it's going to be an on-YouTube video segment or video thing. and it's in a lot of ways from watching the live stream it feels like the pinball network where second wind is the overarching connector but it's a lot it'll be a lot of individuals with their own individual stuff that are tied into it as part of an overall okay yeah the main thing would be whether or not they're all doing it under one channel or not would be the big question It looks like that they all have their own individual things, but they also are talking about having other things that will drop specifically on the overarching channel. So it's a combination. But that was from a live stream where they're literally saying, we don't know 100% yet. This is what we're looking at. So it sounds like it's going to be very much that way to go. Other news we got No surprise to anybody Nintendo's making a movie They're going to make a live action Legend of Zelda movie I don't know about the decision To do live action I don't know either I think the Super Mario animated movie Did very well for them Doing a live action Legend of Zelda Is going to be Interesting considering how poorly so many things have translated to live action from video games or even animation.
    75:11
    It's definitely going to be a high bar to cross. The ongoing rapid, as with anything getting converted into live action, the fan casting, let's call it, for the roles is hilarious. I've seen some extremely funny fan castings for roles. And a surprisingly large number of people who can't wait to see Chris Pratt as Tingle.
    75:45
    Okay. Simmer down now. Oh, you know, I mean, everything's got to have a Chris in it. I guess. That's the way it's been going lately. Johnny Depp is Link.
    76:07
    Oh, man. We've been talking a lot lately about Unity and their little, we're going to charge you for literally everything under the sun.
    76:19
    And since that backlash and they've had to back off and make those changes from that announcement and their CEO retired due to the backlash. They are now reassessing their product portfolio and are in the process of right-sizing the company, which is going to include the fact that they are likely to be announcing layoffs before the end of quarter one next year.
    76:46
    None of that's a surprise. No. especially if they were in such desperate needs of funds to make the announcement and change that they made earlier this year the fact that the blowback on that means that they are definitely not in a better place now than they were then they lost a lot of games and a lot of developers finish out with a couple little numbers here the PS5 has hit 46.5 million sold and for the first time since its launch they're ready for the holiday season with a full supply of PS5s including the slim variety so that there should not be any shortages this Christmas season so good luck for those of you who are still hunting a PS5 at this point, should be pretty easy now that said, Nintendo Switch sales have passed 132 million and there are still no official comments on plans for a follow-up device, even though there are rumors that have been denied of a new system coming out in 24. Yeah.
    78:08
    They like to play it close to the vest. I'm sure we'll hear something next year, even if it doesn't come out next year. That would be my guess as well. I don't want to necessarily say it's getting a little long in the tooth, but it kind of is. It is, especially for starting out so much farther below the threshold. Right, and that's more of the point. It was not a cutting edge in terms of hardware specs at the time, so they could do a lot more for the same amount of money at this stage. So that's why I just think they'll feel pressure to do it, especially if the new version can play the old games. then it's just another great cash cow for them. Yeah, it would be. Because the rumor has always been Nintendo, unlike we've heard with Sony and Microsoft in the past, that sometimes they've sold consoles as lost leaders to try and make money on the license fees they get from the games, for example. But I'd always heard Nintendo always makes money on their consoles. That's part of their model. They need to make the money on the consoles. And so the expectation would be launching a new console makes sense for them because the actual sale of the hardware is highly profitable to the company. Right. And I think that's likely to happen. I know we've seen what a handheld system similar to the Switch can do, what with the Steam Deck and how well that has done for Steam. So I wouldn't surprise me to see in the next couple of years a more powerful version come out, though I don't necessarily know that it would be Steam Deck levels of powerful. as that's a lot higher than the kind of price point Nintendo seems willing to put systems out for.
    79:45
    So, and I completely forgot to include it in my notes, but BlizzCon happened. Oh, yeah, that's right. And the, I mean, it was BlizzCon. I didn't hear anything about any new announcements other than it seems to be interesting that they are taking the World of Warcraft Classic servers, and they seem to be using them as a trial for interesting things. We've talked about in the past about they did that hardcore servers. Right. Now they're also doing a series of servers that will utilize, like, extreme changes to balance and to build, up to the point of even allowing you to build, like, tank priests and major changes in play style within the realms of World of Warcraft.
    80:47
    Interesting idea. I think it's an interesting idea, especially because it feels like they are hunting to maintain the financial viability of World of Warcraft. Sure. I mean, it's one of those games that serve as one of the oldest at this point. Yeah. Very long-running, successful cash cow. So I understand them needing to, you know, I'll never go back. I can't, I can't invest that level of time again. So I don't want to go back into, I don't want to go back into an MMO. Not because I wouldn't like it. I'm worried that I would. No, I understand that, that concern completely.
    81:22
    I definitely feel like I have more hobbies and needs for my time between, you know, work and family and hobbies and everything that I have actual time to invest. And I'm a person who doesn't get a lot of sleep at night anyway. And I still feel like I have more time because I mean, most of my video game playing happens in the very early mornings because,
    81:53
    well, we've shared a hotel room. You know, I wake up at like 4 a.m. every day. It's just when I wake up, nothing, I can't stay asleep past that. So I do a lot of video game playing in the mornings before I go to work and stuff. So I definitely do not have it within me to return to an MMO. I did for a while last year playing Final Fantasy XIV, but it got to the point where it was just demanding so much time that I wasn't doing anything else. And it was costing me monthly money for that time. Right. So it just was to the point where it's like, okay, I'm going to let this go. so but that's what i have on video games okay well that's it for the show then so folks if you want to reach out to us you can always email eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com we're available on facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast and we have a patreon if you'd like to support us for as little as a dollar a month that's at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers we're available on instagram and twitch as eclectic underscore gamers and we will talk to you all again in two weeks with the latest in video game and pinball news but until then my name is dennis and i'm tony goodbye everybody see ya