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The Pinball Show Ep 143: The Best Pinball Of 2023 & The Death Of Pinball Award Shows

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 57m·analyzed·Dec 19, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

TPS ep143: 2023 awards collapse, Spooky's dual releases, Stern updates, market analysis.

Summary

The Pinball Show hosts Zach Minney and Dennis Creasel discuss 2023's best pinball releases and industry trends, covering Spooky Pinball's new Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre games, Stern production updates, and the controversial collapse of pinball award shows including the Twippies and Pinball Awards. They conduct major giveaways and analyze market positioning, pricing strategies, and game design decisions across manufacturers.

Key Claims

  • The Pinball Show is the most popular pinball podcast on the planet based on listener numbers and audience feel

    medium confidence · Host self-identification at episode open; claims 5,000-6,000 average listens per episode, episode 124 garnered 7,000+ listens

  • Episode 124 (Foo Fighters vs. Godfather) was the largest episode of 2023 with over 7,000 listens

    high confidence · Zach directly states listener statistics for this episode

  • Spooky Pinball is producing 888 units each of Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1,776 total combined)

    high confidence · Zach states this directly; notes these can be any edition mix (Collector's, Bloodsuckers, Standard)

  • Spooky reduced the Collector's Edition price while raising Standard prices on new releases

    high confidence · Dennis and Zach discuss pricing strategy shift; hosts observed this during filming at Spooky facility

  • Stern shipped majority of Stranger Things Premium units before year-end 2023 contrary to market expectations

    high confidence · Zach confirms as distributor that Flippin' Out received majority of December allocation; remainder arriving early next week

  • Stern is planning small production runs of James Bond Premium, Godzilla Premium, and Stranger Things Premium in January 2024

    medium confidence · Zach states these are planned but uses cautious language; notes Godzilla and James Bond toppers already shipping

  • Papa (Professional Amateur Pinball Association) announced comeback in 2024 via YouTube trailer

    high confidence · Craig Bobby reports Papa posted brief trailer on YouTube channel stating 'coming in 2024'

  • Both Twippies and Pinball Awards award shows experienced major issues/cancellations in 2023

    high confidence · Craig Bobby reports Twippies removed then reinstated Content Creators Awards and cancelled Texas Pinball Festival live presentation; Pinball Awards cancelled entire 2023 season

Notable Quotes

  • “Numbers don't lie, is what they say”

    Zach Minney @ ~0:03:00 — Establishes podcast's claim to popularity based on listener statistics; becomes running joke throughout episode

  • “I was overwhelmed. I didn't see that coming to that level.”

    Zach Minney @ ~0:10:00 — Reflects genuine surprise at volume of listener responses (hundreds of emails and 70+ social shares) to giveaway

  • “PMT didn't even win an award. PMT became an award. How about that? That's when you know when you transcend popularity there.”

    Zach Minney @ ~0:15:00 — Highlights the Pinball Market Trends segment's popularity—community members specifically cited it as favorite part of show

  • “Well, speaking of coming, with the holiday season here and the last segment of the year, I'd like to personally thank all of our faithful listeners for tuning in week in and week out”

    Craig Bobby @ ~0:25:00 — Genuine gratitude from news correspondent; frames episode as year-end reflection

  • “Spooky took the straight-down-the-middle approach, appealing to their horror-themed fanbase with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and also a more family-friendly theme of Looney Tunes”

    Craig Bobby @ ~0:27:00 — Summarizes Spooky's deliberate design strategy to appeal to both themes with traditional layout approach

  • “I think Spooky may have two home runs on their hands with these new releases”

    Craig Bobby @ ~0:28:00 — Positive market assessment of both games; balanced with 'but as I've said before, we shall have to wait and see'

  • “I feel that when you look at it, it looks a lot more, I'll use the word, traditional”

    Dennis Creasel @ ~0:39:00 — Key design observation: traditional layout perceived as lower-risk compared to past Spooky multi-level experiments

  • “I think one of these two games is going to be seen as better...And does that have an impact long-term? Maybe, especially if they don't all immediately sell out.”

Entities

Zach MinneypersonDennis CreaselpersonCraig BobbypersonThe Pinball ShoworganizationSpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyFlippin' Out PinballcompanyLooney Tunesgame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Twippies award show removed Content Creators Awards then awkwardly reinstated them; cancelled live Texas Pinball Festival presentation. Pinball Awards cancelled entire 2023 season.

    high · Craig Bobby reports both award show crises as major news stories overshadowing new game releases; describes as 'award show meltdowns' and 'pit of despair and disappointment'

  • ?

    community_signal: The Pinball Show podcast achieved 7,000+ listens on episode 124 with original content analysis (Foo Fighters vs Godfather comparisons) rather than exclusive interviews

    high · Zach explicitly states podcast creates original content vs interview-dependent model; episode 124 garnered 7,000+ listens; podcast averages 5,000-6,000 per episode

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Spooky producing 888 units each of two games (1,776 total) vs. higher quantities on Scooby-Doo; hosts note reduced build quantity reflects niche nature of Texas Chainsaw Massacre theme

    medium · Zach states 'they lowered the total build quantity from Scooby'; hosts discuss whether TCM's niche horror appeal justifies lower production despite strong gameplay

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky's Standard edition artwork significantly diminished vs other tiers; Standard features minimal/generic art (Texas Chainsaw: 'two hands' and mystery, Looney Tunes: 'bricks and logo') while higher tiers feature 'best art the industry has ever seen'

    medium · Dennis critiques Standard art as pulling punches; Looney Tunes description as 'just bricks and then a logo'; TCM as 'just like what is that?' suggesting design quality gap between tiers

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.354

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:11
The Pinball Network is online. Launching The Pinball Show. Welcome back to The Pinball Show, the most popular pinball podcast on the planet, based on numbers, because, well, they don't lie. And also, ah, based on a feeling. This week, Dennis and I chat about Stern Pinball production updates, the newly released Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre games by Spooky Pinball, pop-pop, award show meltdowns, pinball market trends, and we give away virtual plastic trophies for the best of the best from 2023 and sincerely the happiest of holidays from the Pinball Show to you and to yours this season.
1:03
Another year in the books, didn't we? Did it? I don't want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing I need. I don't care about the presents. Underneath the Christmas tree I just want to fall my own All you could ever know Make my wish come true All I want for Christmas It's time for the Pinball Show.
1:48
It's pinball. With personality. Hey, what do you know? It's the Pinball Show, episode 143. Not only America's, but the world's most popular and favorited, most listened to pinball podcast. Those are big designations there, Dennis. That's bold claim, Cotton. Let's see if it pans out for us. You know what? Numbers don't lie, is what they say. Oh, they do say that. Data is data. I had to argue with somebody about that today. What were they trying to argue data was? Well, I had to kind of teach them there's a difference between feeling like something is bigger than it is versus, I don't know, math.

  • Spooky is using two separate design teams for Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre despite identical layout

    high confidence · Dennis discusses this as response to feedback about slow patching on Halloween/Ultraman

  • Stern Pinball typically shuts down production last two weeks of December; this year doing same in new factory

    high confidence · Zach explains this is different from historical pattern but makes sense for new facility operations

    • Dennis Creasel @ ~0:42:00 — Identifies potential long-term market impact of two separate design teams producing different rule sets

  • “I feel like they just want to make one model...guys, can we not? Like, it's easier for us to plan if we can just do all collectors.”

    Zach Minney @ ~0:48:00 — Speculation about manufacturer frustration with three-tier model; suggests preference for simplification

  • “I bet you the standard sells the least, and I feel this isn't the first time we've said that when we've seen Spooky.”

    Dennis Creasel @ ~0:50:00 — Pattern observation: Standard edition pricing strategy may be discouraging purchases; recurring industry concern

    • Texas Chainsaw Massacre
    game
    Stranger Things Premiumgame
    Twippiesevent
    Pinball Awardsevent
    Papa (Professional Amateur Pinball Association)organization
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Keith Elwinperson
    Loser Kid Pinball Showorganization
    Barrels of Funcompany
    JJP (Jersey Jack Pinball)company
    Spooky Lukeperson
    Godzilla Premiumgame
    James Bond Premiumgame
    Scooby-Doogame
    Halloween/Ultramangame
    Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
    EGPorganization

    design_philosophy: Spooky Pinball deliberately shifted to traditional playfield layouts with new mechs for Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, abandoning multi-level and experimental design risks from previous releases

    high · Dennis praises 'straight-down-the-middle' approach; notes layout looks 'far more traditional'; Craig Bobby describes as 'favored new mechs and traditional layout vs risky non-traditional layouts'; hosts credit this to addressing market concerns about Halloween/Ultraman

  • $

    market_signal: Stern accelerated Stranger Things Premium shipping to before year-end 2023, contrary to market expectations of January release

    high · Zach states as distributor that majority already shipped, remainder arriving early next week; directly contradicts rumors of January-only shipment

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Spooky Pinball assembled two separate design teams for Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre despite identical playfield layout

    high · Dennis states this was direct response to feedback about slow patching on Halloween/Ultraman from single team managing both; hosts discuss long-term implications if one ruleset becomes clearly superior

  • $

    market_signal: Spooky raised Standard edition prices significantly while reducing Collector's Edition price; hosts discuss inefficiency of three-tier model with Standard consistently underperforming

    high · Dennis notes Standard price spiked 'several' dollars vs Bloodsuckers' couple hundred; Zach speculates Spooky prefers single Collector's model; hosts cite pattern of Standard underperformance and Slam Tilt Podcast observations that pricing discourages Standard purchases

  • ?

    announcement: Papa (Professional Amateur Pinball Association) announced 2024 comeback via YouTube trailer after being defunct

    high · Craig Bobby reports Papa posted brief trailer on YouTube stating 'coming in 2024'; previously ran Pinburg, Replay FX, and World Championships

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Keith Elwin's next Stern Pinball cornerstone release rumored to be announced pre-Christmas to capture holiday sales; expected to be major market mover

    medium · Craig Bobby states 'rumors for Stern's next Keith Elwin release are growing louder by the day' with most predicting pre-Christmas announcement; Zach confirms this matches his sources but announcement did not occur

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Spooky received positive reception for reducing Collector's Edition pricing despite maintaining three-tier model; hosts credit this as smart consumer relations despite higher Standard/Bloodsucker prices

    medium · Dennis notes reducing CE price was 'a nice little nod to the consumer base'; hosts acknowledge Spooky was 'really smart' and worthy of 'kudos' for publicly announcing price reduction rather than maintaining status quo

    • 2:38
    Oh, okay. I was trying to convince them that 2 plus 2 is 4, even if it feels like 5. Eh, unfortunately, it's still 4. It can be hard to overcome emotion like that. But it feels like five. Dennis, what have you been up to? Oh, I've been so busy just working, getting ready for the holiday festivities. Christmas presents are all purchased. The last one arrived yesterday. So everything I think is in everyone's home or has arrived to me for that gentle wrapping. Wow. You've never seen me wrap a present. It's pretty appalling. So I usually use gift bags. It's like if you were wrapping it with mittens on. It's like They get it and they're like He doesn't have hands Like a cat with a ball of yarn You just Well but you got it all done right I did I still have to start What are we at the 18th I got a couple of days Is Amazon still getting shit here in time We're starting to hit those thresholds Where I think like Monday Today this Monday is like sort of the threshold for stuff easily getting there without you necessarily having to accelerate the shipping schedules. You know, when you start paying for two-day on everything, and it's like, oh, okay, now I'm going to need to do overnight. I'm going to need new overnight air. You know, where FedEx charges you $50 for a one-pound item. Oh, they know what they're doing. Oh, yeah. They know what they're doing. Man, we've had one hell of a year. We've had some big numbers on Episode 142. A lot of people interested in some timely topics on 142, if you haven't listened, listener. When 143 comes along, we now have to do the giveaway. We teased it last episode with the biggest giveaway that we've ever done, maybe a pinball podcast history, and giving away the likes of a topper, a play field, armor, insider connectors, shaker motors, banners.
    4:30
    You know, I felt really bad for you, Zach, because I was there, and we were getting it all set up last time, like, okay, we're going to ask people to share the episode, go on the Facebook and stuff. I was like, we should have an email option, too. And then no one used it.
    4:47
    There was, like, no emails. Oh, there wasn't. Wow. People were really interested. It was such a bad idea to bring up that not everyone is on Facebook.
    4:58
    How many emails did we get? I quit counting. I did, too. So many people were just super polite about, thank you guys so much for actually not just making it be for Facebook. It was an avalanche. I don't even know if I've been able to read all of them yet. And they weren't all like, enter me in. It was usually like they would spell out what you would have written in a post. What wonderful, heartfelt messages that we received there. It was very kind of them. And hell, even on social media, over 70 shares of the episode alone, all with reasoning as to why TPS is their favorite pinball podcast on the planet. And, yeah, so, so nice, the responses and whatever one was saying. I was overwhelmed. I didn't see that coming. Didn't see that coming to that level. But thank you, everybody, for all the well wishes and all of the reasons why we're your favorite. And now it's time to give away the bribes. So let's do it. Let's do it. Let's start with the banners. As a reminder, if you win a prize here, all you've got to do is email us, thepinballshow at gmail.com. You can also email me at zach at flippinoutpinball.com, whichever you'd prefer, and give me your information on where we can ship this to, and we will get it out to you. Some of these giveaways were options as to which ones you want, so I can recap those for you in the email, or if you know something that you want, let me know. But the banner, one of our banners is going out to Craig Hughes. Congratulations, Craig Hughes, on winning a banner from the Pinball Show. Craig's comment said, quote, sharing my favorite pinball podcast for all to enjoy. Zach and Dennis bringing years of enjoyment and animal sounds to the pinball hobby. Great opinions, reviews, insight, and market speculation. The numbers don't lie. Oh, nicely done. Congratulations, Craig. Another banner giveaway, Dennis, is to Tony Scudero. Oh, fuck. Scudero. Tony Scudero. That sounds like a Bruce Nightingale impression. It's Tony Scudero. That's right. It's the Scoots. The Scoots want a banner. Tony said, quote, one of the best podcasts. Dennis Creasel and Zach Minney on the pinball show. Funny, entertaining, hilarious, and informative with pinball market trends and news. Thank you guys for always a great podcast. Keep up the great work. Give it a listen. If you know, you know. And if you don't know, then get the twip out of here. Oh, that's extra timely now. A little throw. Yes, it is.
    7:37
    We'll be talking about that here soon. Congratulations on the banner win, Tony. Email me. Let me know which one you want. Another banner giveaway to Jamie Marie.
    7:47
    Nicely done, Jamie Marie. Thank you for the comments and for the continued support of the Pinball Show. She said, quote, I love the Pinball Show. Zach is a clown.
    7:58
    Why did you? Does he amuse you? Is he a clown to you? Am I funny? How am I funny? Am I ha-ha funny? Am I a clown? Zach is a clown, and Dennis is a grump.
    8:10
    You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. Hey. She threw herself in the middle of us. The bus is being backed over my old brittle bones. They make the perfect match for a podcast of pinball news, rumors, and just good fun. I never miss an episode. Thank you, Jamie. I think. Let's give away an Insider Connected kit or a shaker. I don't remember which one I gave, but I named one of them, or you might have named one. Who knows what we're giving, but you can choose. if you want an insider-connected kit from Stern Pinball or Shaker.
    8:50
    Congratulations, Todd Michard, or Mitchard, depending on what part of the region you live in. Todd, email him. Todd said, quote, this is my favorite pinball podcast. Enjoy at your own risk. And bye, bye, bye. That's just what he said. Todd, we're getting higher up the food chain here. We're going to give away a set of Stern armor. The winner of the armor goes to...
    9:15
    Dennis Partka. Dennis, I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name. Partika Partka. I don't know what it is. Thank you, Dennis. Dennis has been a supporter for a long time of the Pinball Show on social media. After sharing everything, Dennis said, quote, I don't post much, but when I do, it's to share that if anyone is a nerd and into pinball like me, that this podcast is the bee's knees for anything pinball related. Bee's knees. Nice. I like that reference, the bee's knees. news, rumors, market trends it's all entertaining plus buying for Flippin' Out Pinball is super straightforward and pain free if you're wanting to build out your own home arcade or add to your business man thanks for the plug there Dennis and congratulations on your armor alright play field Dennis who's going to win a play field it's none other than Andrew Payne congratulations Andrew Payne thanks for being a supporter of the pinball show Andrew said on social media I quote, Merry Christmas to my favorite podcasters. I look forward to every episode, especially the best segment in all of pinball podcasting, Pinball Market Trends.
    10:24
    You see a theme here. People love PMT. PMT didn't even win an award. PMT became an award. How about that? That's when you know when you transcend popularity there. And we've got to give away a topper. The big topper here. The big topper, the big prize here goes to Paul Patzer. Congratulations, Paul Patzer. If you're hearing this, email me and let me know which topper you want. And thanks for the support over the years here at The Pinball Show. He said on social media, quote, The Pinball Show is my favorite pinball podcast because of Zach and Dennis. Anyone can give you the news, but these guys are great friends, and they make you feel like they're a friend, too.
    11:03
    Wow. A nice little hallmark Christmas movie moment there right at the end. Congratulations, Paul. And again to everyone that submitted and shared your kindness this holiday season for the pinball show, truly and genuinely, thank you. You know what, Dennis? What? Of the hundreds of responses and entrants that we got, this is super hokey. This is like Bob Saget full house shit here. But each and every one of those are an award to us at the pinball show. Yay. Wonderful stuff. We're going to go to Craig Bobby. But before so, I just wanted to, you guys do want to EGP like this thing where you update everybody on the year of your listens. And if you guys are getting more popular, less popular. Yeah, we do a little stat breakdown. Usually it's our first January episode that we do that. Oh, well, we'll break the mold here. I figured we'd do that. I wanted to, we have some people that are interested in how the podcast here at the Pinball Show is doing. Is it climbing in popularity? Is it declining? Are we withering away? How's the sausage made? Tell them about the sausage. So I figured we'd let everyone know that the podcast does, based on numbers, continues to grow year after year since its inception in, oh, God, what was that, 2020?
    12:24
    Yeah, I think so. 2020. So it has been growing, not exponentially. I don't know if anything would, but a considerable pace each and every year. As we continue to grow, the averages that we get nowadays for one of our episodes is higher than years prior and so on and so forth. Any guess as to what our largest episode was this year? Oh, well, on EGP, it's usually an episode that has to do with a major pinball release. That's how. Yeah, yeah. Was it an episode where we did something? Oh, gosh. I mean, we've had a lot of releases. So I could guess Foo Fighters, but I could also guess Venom because people were... I'm going to go ahead and guess Venom. Oh, that was a big one. But you were right before. Oh, it was Foo? Well, it was the combination. So we had our longest episode was episode 124 of the Pinball Show where we titled it Foo Fighters vs. Godfather vs. TGF vs. Teenage Foo Carbon Copy. Oh, I was exhausted after that episode. There was so much to do. It was a lot of information, but it was a lot of releases all at once around TPF. So episode 124 of the Pinball Show, we garnered a little over 7,000 listens on that episode. Damn!
    13:44
    I don't usually go back and look at the stats on it. You don't ever look at the stats, but yeah, that's a big one. Well, I guess it was worth the effort then. That was a mondo-sized one. So thank you to all of those listens on that one. That was a big one for us. And what made me proud was, like, here we are creating original content. Generally speaking, in the pinball podcast world, you'll get interviews from people, exclusive interviews. That's where pinball podcasters say they get their numbers from. But here at the Pinball Show, we are the content. So I was proud to be a part of a 7,000-plus listen episode when it was just you and I and CB. Love to see CB. I don't even know if he was on that episode. Oh, Craig. Oh, come on. Surely we covered that many releases. He had to be in full mahogany table mode or something.
    14:34
    Well, I'll have to go back and see if the record shows that. Even like our last episode. The last episode was two weeks, so it's not even full life yet. It's 5,300, 5,400 listens. So generally we'll average anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 listens per episode. A lot bigger than Eclectic Gamers. Yeah, not bad. Well, I mean, come on. We are the most popular and most listened to pinball podcast on the planet. So the numbers don't lie. That's true. I only report the facts. Speaking of facts, you said that Craig Bobby is with us again. I don't know if he's speaking facts or opinion. Let's see what he's feeling here in the pinball news world. Hello and welcome back to the Pinball Show's Top Stories.
    15:30
    I'm Craig Bobby. Well, what a two weeks it's been in the news with what should have been headline news with the new pinball release from Spooky Pinball instead seemed to be overshadowed by pinball award show drama as the People's Choice Award Show, the Twippies, were modified with the removal and then subsequent awkward reinstatement of the Content Creators Awards only to be followed by the unfortunate cancelling of their popular live presentation show at the Texas Pinball Festival. Then right after we had all taken an Adderall, smoked a joint, had a stiff drink and were just getting our collective shit together again Hell yeah! The other titan of the pinball awards in the pinball awards also dropped a bombshell of their own on the community, announcing they were outright cancelling their awards for the 2023 season for various personal and professional reasons.
    16:25
    Oh, there's never a dull moment in our friendly, humble, and well-meaning pinball community, so let's do ourselves a favour for this segment and not put our collective heads onto the train tracks with said train barrelling toward us, But definitely step aside this pit of despair and disappointment where there is sadly no winners and talk some happy pinball news. Spooky Pinball, the not-so-boutique pinball company, is back to their old two-themes-one-layout shenanigans with the exciting reveal of their Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre-themed pinball release. The two new trailers and reveal featurette that were both brilliantly edited by our own Zach Menny showcased layout choices by Spooky that favored new mechs and a more traditional layout with tons of great shot paths and possible combos versus trying to push the limits on multiple level playfields or more risky, i.e. not fun, non-traditional layouts that have not been as critically applauded. This time, however, Spooky took the straight-down-the-middle approach, appealing to their horror-themed fanbase with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and also a more family-friendly theme of Looney Tunes. But what amazes me is how Spooky has upped their theme integration for both themes, doing the seemingly impossible with artwork, animations, and mechanics that give each theme and game its own perfect integration. As Spooky, Luke, and Bud rightly noted on their recent appearance on the Loser Kid Pinball Show, fans of either theme will feel very satisfied and feel like Spooky spent the most time on the theme the individual fans love the most. Not only are the trailers some of the best you'll see in the industry today, but I think Spooky may have two home runs on their hands with these new releases. But, as I've said before, we shall have to wait and see. And in other exciting news, the rumors for Stern's next Keith Elwin release are growing louder by the day, with most predicting that Stern will still make a pre-Christmas announcement to try and wrangle some Christmas pinball dollars away from industry competitors like Spooky or Barrels of Fun with their more recent new game announcements. And like a beautiful phoenix from the flames, it appears that previously defunct and beloved Papa, the professional amateur pinball association that was responsible for Pinburg, Pittsburgh's Replay FX convention, and also the Pinball World Championships seems to be making their improbable comeback, according to their Papa YouTube channel, where earlier this week they posted a brief trailer stating that it's, quote, coming in 2024. Stay tuned, unquote. Say what? Well, speaking of coming, with the holiday season here and the last segment of the year, I'd like to personally thank all of our faithful listeners for tuning in week in and week out to listen to myself and our great hosts, Zach and Dennis, go over the latest news, rumors, trends, and events in the pinball industry today. I hope you and your families have a safe and happy holidays, and I look forward to chatting with you all in 2024. For The Pinball Show, I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side.
    19:38
    Well, thanks, Craig, for that awesome coverage, And also thank you, Craig, for not doing 12 paragraphs on awards.
    19:46
    And Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Holidays, Craig Bobby. Holiday time. I think Craig Bobby's riding a horse right now. I bet he likes eggnog. He does look like a... I wonder if they maple flavor it up there. Well, it's a thing naturally, just it's in the water, so it's probably... Is there water in eggnog? It's probably in the milk. It's probably in the nog. Thanks again, Craig Bobby. Stern Pinball in the news. Not a lot of Stern Pinball production updates, listener. As you remember, the last two full weeks of Stern Pinball, they're not really in big production mode. Now, I do think people are still working. They still may be even shipping games. But when it comes to production line stuff, I think they're doing inventory, getting the joint back together for the big year starting 2024. Typically, they would do this the first two weeks of January. In the new factory here, they're doing the last two weeks of December, which Dennis and I talked about before. It kind of makes more sense. Since then, we've had Stranger Things premiums shipping. Everybody rumored, oh, they weren't going to come out until January. Here at the Pinball Show, we let you know that, no, our sources are telling us direct from CERN that they are still coming this year, and coming they have been. We, as a distributor at Flippin' Out Pinball, have received the majority, and actually will receive the entirety of our December production allotment here early next week. So the majority have already been shipped out, but the remainder for us will come on Monday, I believe, Monday or Tuesday. So those are going out. So you may see some games still trickling out of Stern Pinball this next week. But besides that, no real big updates. We know that in January we're still going to get small little runs of James Bond Premium, Godzilla Premium, and Stranger Things Premium. potentially.
    21:34
    People have been rumoring, somebody rumored that we were going to see the next Cornerstone teased a couple days ago. That didn't happen. Because it's not happening this year. I still think.
    21:47
    Sir, I saw one of the person who emailed and asked for this. I think it was an email. Sir, Dennis here. People do love this.
    21:57
    It's a bit now. So those of you who hate it, feel free to complain on Pinty. And then it'd be more popular.
    22:05
    Sturg, listen, this dentist here, stay strong. This is your Christmas present to me. Do not reveal in 2023.
    22:15
    Oh, you're rhyming in your dentist ears now? Look, I work with the tools that I have. It's beginning to look a lot like chum water.
    22:26
    Isn't that what they do? They throw the chum in the water? I hope it's actually like Piranha instead.
    22:33
    The Campy Bee movie, Piranha. Shouldn't it have Tara Reiden? Or no, that was the old one. You're talking about the Piranha was like James Cameron's first. Or no, he was Piranha 2? I don't know. I don't recall. I don't recall either. Be on the lookout for the next Cornerstone. The things that I'm hearing is that it's going to make you think twice about any type of market recession or market going down or anything like that. Yeah, but if it's Elwynn, I mean, everyone's expecting it to do well, even if it was an original theme. He's the phoenix that flies over the market clouds. He just, he is. But instead of calling out like a majestic eagle, he calls out like this.
    23:14
    Keith and I are like that, you know. Did you like my, the listeners won't get this, but someone had asked the question, they were, I want to know if you liked my joke on where they'd open up the thing. They had a trans light that they said was supposed to have been signed by Elwynn, and they hadn't opened it in years. They opened it and it was unsigned. And I said, because he's not the goat, he's the ghost. That was in our Discord.
    23:40
    I thought it was sort of clever. I think they only got one upvote. No, they tipped their hat to you, I think. Yeah, one upvote. And everyone else was like, no, he's the ghost. Thank you in advance, Keith Edwin, for what you're about to bring to the world. Pinball accessories, we have seen Godzilla toppers shipping, thankfully. So those are going out. Still going fast. I hate to see how many Godzilla toppers Stern Pinball has made. Even James Bond toppers, I think, going out. Black Knight toppers were going out. Also in January. January is when they believe that Stranger Things accessories are going to be built. So hang tight on those. Spooky pinball on the news? Big time. They revealed two games. Now, you and Tony discussed this on EGP, as well as a lot of content creators. This has been almost two weeks since we have spoken. So the reveal of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes from Spooky Pinball. We got teasers. Then we got trailers. Then we got pictures. Then some featurettes. Then a TCM gameplay video. So all the information is out there. Their orders have been open. They've been taking orders. They are making 888 of each of these titles, the combined total being 1,776 total units that they're creating of these two games, but 888 each. Now, that's not 888 of the collector's edition. It is merely we're just going to build whatever you guys order of the 888. So they could all be collectors or they could all be bloodsucker or standard or whatever they may be. So, you'd seen these releases, Dennis. What were your first reactions just in general to how they launched it and the product that they were putting out there? I thought the launch was pretty good. Spooky usually does a decent job on the launches. I usually put them a little behind JJP in terms of the overall launch package. But they do a good job, you know, in terms of like the teasers and stuff. I thought that they were very smart with the layout decision this time. I think one of the things, and some longtime spooky buyers might actually feel differently, but I feel that when you look at it, it looks a lot more, I'll use the word, traditional. Okay. And so because of that, I think a lot of people think that when they look at it, they're not going to instinctively start looking at these weird, you know, like let's have three play fields and stuff and then start. And then your mind immediately starts going, well, okay, well, how's that interaction going to be? How is that going to affect gameplay? Three left scoops and a right scoop. Right, right, right. And so you look at this, and it looks far more traditional. And because of that, I think people look and they go, oh, okay, this looks like it will probably play okay. Yeah, traditional without being stale. Yeah, I mean, it's not like a family. They've got a four-flipper configuration, and it's doing some stuff. So it's not a cookie cutter, but when you look at it, it doesn't feel like everyone just came up with every weird idea ever and then glued it all into one game. So your first reaction was looking at the layout. That's what it felt like, yeah. So I thought, no, my reaction to the play field looked really good. Another thing I think will solve a lot of the initial concerns stemming from the Halloween Ultraman was the decision to do two different design teams. So even though the layout is identical, you're going to have two different groups working on a rule set. Now, they're going with two different rules. I know, based off of feedback I've read online, that a lot of people have been frustrated because patching and stuff has been slow with Halloween and Ultraman because it's one team doing both games. And so that will alleviate that. So that solves the problem they last faced. The question that this will then run into, I think, but this is a longer-term thing, is one of these two games is going to be seen as better. One of these two games is going to have a better rule set because they're going in two different directions. And does that have an impact long-term? Maybe, especially if they don't all immediately sell out. It might impact which one gets to $888. That's true. And it obviously could have a second-hand impact, which they probably aren't particularly concerned with, but buyers maybe. But I think it was still the speed thing needed to be addressed, and so they've taken a method that will address that. So I thought that was smart. I do like that. Yeah, good points. Good points all around. So those are the main things that kind of jumped out at me. Also, the pricing's weird, weird to me. Like, they really raised the price on the standard quite a bit. They slightly raised the price on the Bloodsuckers. This is all in comparison to Scooby-Doo. And they dropped the price on the Collectors. Yeah, they were big about, we had the pleasure going up there and filming for the trailers and for the featurettes straight down the middle. But that was one of the things they were emphasizing. Really wanted to emphasize adding more to their CE objectively, too. Like, you can just, you can look at their other CEs. They added a lot more to these things. Even, like, the new magnetic stuff, they didn't even need to, but they still added it all. So that was cool. but they wanted to add a lot more and they wanted to show like they're reducing the price in this market. That was a big thing that they were emphasizing in the featurettes, which I applaud them for, actually, because even I think coming out and saying we're not changing the price would have been viewed positively by the consumer base. So saying we're actually going to reduce the price, even if it's only $100, whatever it is, it's still a nice little nod to the consumer base. I think it was really smart to do. So kudos to them for that. But I think it also like you were saying they raised the price of the other ones I honestly feel like and they didn tell me this but you know I feel like they just want to make one model They're good offering it, but they're like, guys, can we not? Like, it's easier for us to plan if we can just do all collectors. I wonder if it's a direction or the direction maybe is the hope. I'm a little surprised they don't just go to two models. And I think it was Slam Tilt Podcast I was listening to with Ron Hallett in particular, I believe, who kind of called out, it seems like they really don't want you to choose the standard. Like, there's significant differences if you go above the standard into the Bloodsuckers or the Collector's Edition. And the standard is where they went ahead and spiked the price the most. The Bloodsuckers only went up a couple hundred, I think, but standard went up several. and I look at that and I look and think, I bet you the standard sells the least, and I feel this isn't the first time we've said that when we've seen Spooky. So I'm wondering why they still are doing three models, especially when we've seen Barrels of Fun have quite a bit of success just doing one and then selling some additional things as accessories, which Spooky also does. I mean, they do have separate accessories you can buy. So I think that I don't know necessarily if they want to jump. Well, clearly they don't want to right away jump because they haven't into one model. But I'm thinking maybe they need to pull a JJP and go to two because they don't seem to have the heart to do three. But they still continue to do it for some reason. Yeah. Yeah, almost. If they get a bigger differentiation in price between just two models, it may make more sense. But then they're going to run into Well I bought a standard and it doesn't come with it Is there any way I can buy this one And you're dealing with accessories And parts orders Yeah I do I get that as well I don't know what the answer is there But you can It feels like they're even like pulling punches On the art package On the regular one Scooby Doo is okay just because the Mystery Machine is iconic But then you see like Texas Chainsaw Massacre side and two hands and it's just like, what is that? And then the Looney Tunes one, it was just bricks and then a logo. That one's okay, but it's almost like we're going to offer you some of the best art that we've ever seen in the industry or just really nothing.
    31:51
    Oh, I do also want to say I thought it was very smart of them to go ahead and lower the total build quantity from Scooby. Yeah, I did too. Now, some may argue that with these themes and titles, especially with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, very niche choice in making a consumable product, not consumable product, you're not eating these things, a consumer-based product, maybe even lower on something like that. I was surprised they did a 50-50 split on the total counts. I would have thought, had they done a market analysis, which it felt like maybe they had done with Halloween, where it's like, okay, Ultraman's niche, we are not 50-50ing the total build. We're going to do most of the build as Halloween. And I would have thought if they had done any sort of examination, it would have told them, we need to do most of this build as Looney Tunes, not Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But it's 50-50. And I have no idea why. But, I mean, it is what it is. But it wouldn't have been my recommendation. I think there's probably a couple of reasons why. We won't get into all of them, but if I dabbled into the brains of a spooky pinball company, I would say some of it, whether or not they want to try to control their own subconscious thoughts, some of it they're so close to the horror titles that they're going to maybe overestimate other people's enjoyment of those types of themes.
    33:24
    Having said that, though, because I would have thought Looney Tunes was going to appeal to more people anyway, I can say that when we were up there filming, they kind of got the feeling that they would be even. And to their credit, I was listening to them on the Loser Kid Pinball podcast, they spoke about sales and how sales actually were 50-50 at this point. Now, that's sales through them, I think they were referring to. Their direct order or direct sales from them because I can pretty confidently say that the dealers may have different ordering behavior. But maybe they were referring to the orders they'd received from dealers as well. I just thought maybe they were doing direct sales comparisons, saying they're neck and neck for it. The other part of me is thinking, Dennis, like, when you look at these games, and they talked about it on the Loser Kid podcast, go listen to that, but they talked about them building them in unison, kind of at the same time building, designing them. So where it may look like they designed Texas Chainsaw Massacre and then just like, Yeah, we'll re-theme it around Looney Tunes. They even talked about that in the featurette. That wasn't really the case. It really wasn't. They simultaneously knew going into this design that both of these games and themes were going to be utilized for these games. And I do believe them on that, especially just off the record discussing things with them. That did seem like the case. However, the guys up there can't tell me that they didn't favor some of the mechanisms and toys in a TCM and adjusted them the best to their ability on certain things to the Looney Tunes. Mostly with that meat grinder. That's a predominant toy in TCM where it's the Marvin's Rocket on Looney Tunes. It doesn't make as much sense. I like, you know, anvil loading. I get it. It doesn't make as much sense. They kind of lucked out of a main theme of needing a main object spinning center play field with the most iconic of Texas Chainsaw Massacre moments in that film with at the end Leatherface kind of twirling and dancing with that chainsaw up in the air. That is perfection in theme integration on how they did it on the game, Whereas what are we doing spinning-wise on Looney Tunes? The most spinning object in cartoon history, Tasmanian Devil. That makes sense, too. So that makes sense. And then I do like to the right, to the right, they made two different toys entirely. So maybe I am wrong saying they look like they favor TCM because those are two different toys. You've got a person in a freezer jumping out, which is perfect theme integration, which is contrastly different to Wile E. Coyote's TNT plunger going up and down. I would guess probably maybe the same mechanism being used, but being utilized totally in different ways, and it doesn't look like a skin of one another. It looks like two totally different toys, interactive toys at that. I mean, I thought they tied it fairly well. I really struggle to see Looney Tunes being the basis of most of the toy platforms. Though, as you noted, there was at least one change-up. But, I mean, I can't help but notice the slow turn of the chainsaw killer, and then I see the Tasmanian turtle instead of the Tanzanian devil.
    37:06
    Tassie turtle. Because, I think, at the very least, it needed a faster motor. I'm just saying, it doesn't come across like, it comes across like, yeah, we came up with a slow-turning killer thing, And now, okay, well, let's just repurpose it and not even make it faster. I wonder if that motor is capable of going... I don't know. That's why I would have thought... I mean, you could probably overdrive it to some degree. I don't know what its spec rates were. But I'm just saying, you know, people, when they think about Tasmanian Devil, it's not him slowly turning. It's him going... And there are motors that do that, but it would probably be a different motor than the one they bought for Texas. It would be like a drone motor.
    37:48
    I have heard some people say that Taz should have had the base of him should have showed no legs, and it should have just been a tornado or a whirlwind type of thing, and him staying stable above that, almost a floating dress, if you will, as a tornado whirlwind under him. And I'm okay with that idea. Even mod makers out there may look into that idea. However, if you think about a conical shape and it spinning, I don't know if you're going to get much visual interest there. Because a conical-shaped spinning will just look like it's in place. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I get where they're coming from. Unless you're lopsided at me.
    38:29
    I think the mod people need to try and figure out if there's a way you can kind of hook him up to the base of a red trimmer and whip him around. I don't know. Poor Taz. He wants to keep his appendages. I will, you know what the kind of the blow though the blow is the meat hooks in the back that's Texas Chainsaw Massacre when you've got balls physically loaded onto hooks that screams to you what is it on Looney, is it like a cliff? yeah, the Wile E. Doughty cliff yeah, that was the first thing actually besides the Taz chainsaw spin that caught my eyes like, oh no, this is a Texas toy and then, the cliff's like, again They picked a good iconic thing, but it's just, eh, okay. I played Earthshaker, whatever. I do like that this game has, as we're just kind of listening, just generally discussing different features in this game or in these games, I do really love that there are a lot of interactive toys, but what stands out to me is the design and layout of this game. It almost feels as if the designers over at Spooky Pinball, i.e. Bug and Spooky Luke, it feels as if not only are they trying to listen to what people want, they're really leaning into, it's not like an insecurity, it's just like a,
    39:54
    the community really spoke to what they did not like in Halloween. When you have Joel Engelberth speaking publicly about that, like, okay, so they noted that. They come to Scooby-Doo probably already in its full design, if not pretty close, wide body, which is going to make it feel different than a standard body. Somebody said the other day narrow body. I hate that term. Why would we ever call anything narrow body? That makes no – no. You know, someone could design a narrow body and probably play like crap. So Scooby-Doo was going to be what it is. It almost felt like they were like, you know what, damn it We are going to stay in this room Until we design a game That they can no longer say the only design elements Coming out of Spooky Pinball Are Scott and Nisi I don't care if we have no toys on this thing I don't give a shit We are not leaving until And they did just that This thing, when you have four flippers That it can hit four different ramps Orbits and eight The figure eight shots that go into scoops that kick it around in orbit, it's pretty masterful. And I think that people are now saying, okay. Like, they don't want to concede and say, you know, I was wrong. But I think people are like, let's see how this plays, because they may have proven us wrong moving forward. We may not have to worry as much as we have in past releases about the layout or how these things are going to shoot. You've been harsh on their layouts in the past. Would you agree with that assessment? Or do you still think it was not a focus? They're kind of lucky here. I don't know if they went so far, Zach, as to actually need to lock themselves in a room, per se, because. Being theatric. I understand the hyperbole. I'm just saying that. Like Oppenheimer. There are a lot of kind of trusted layouts that they could look at, and that's kind of my vibe. You know, I think they looked and took some ideas of layouts, is my guess, that they looked at layouts that have done very well and then said, okay, well, we don't want to make a carbon copy, right? We don't want to go and just reuse the Godzilla layout. So what do we see that people really have liked, and let's see how we can kind of incorporate that and put a spin on it. Maybe they started with a handful of toy ideas that they wanted to do, like the meat hook lock and stuff, and then said, okay, what sort of layout structures can we do that accommodate that without getting really crazy? Or what I actually think they did is they came in and they said, we have one rule, no upper playfields. Oh, okay. Because I think that's what's screwing them up. They have really, since America's Most Haunted, it feels like, they've constantly just tried to have upper playfield one or more, and they almost always suck. Because upper playfields suck. Yeah, people are starting to agree with that now. it's not well and this is where you know and you you'd see this up for years and i'm sure it's still there like on pin side and stuff where people have these discussions and debates and these frustrations about like you know there's always this stuff about the toys oh i want the toy i want the toys from the 90s a lot of the toys from the 90s were were really bad yeah like coil baser yeah well i mean like they hurt gameplay like play maverick and the cool riverboat steam pedal ball lock. I was about to say the same thing. Which looks cool the first time, same with fist fails, looks cool the first time, and then you're sitting there, you know, pouring yourself a pint, waiting for it to ball lock. I mean, that's the thing that's different. It's not like how it used to be where you needed the toys to catch people's eye to get what few quarters they might put in, and then you'll never see that person again and it's fine because it's a revolving door at the arcade. Great point. These are in homes now. That's why layout has to take priority. That's why magnets matter so much. Manufacturers, put them in your games. Sorry. I love magnets. So that's where you end up with this sort of... It's not just like competitive people that turn off all the physical ball locks. It's not just that.
    44:06
    That's a big factor. Things need to feel like you're playing a game. It can't just be spectacle. And so the problem I think that they've run into with a lot of their upper play fields is they try and make them very thematic, interesting, visually and all of that, and then when you get the ball on them, it's kind of like, all right, once the novelty wears off, is it really fun to shoot? And I don't know yet, and I've seen a lot of the stuff regarding these two games. I've not watched the gameplay yet of TCM. So I don't know yet, and, of course, I'd want my own experience to identify whether I think this actually plays well, which their games have been arranged. They've not all been like bad players, but they've had several, which would have sunk startups today if they had had them in sequence. But they usually had this sort of... I feel people kind of felt America's Most Haunted shot okay. That was also during that hype era where when games would sell out, everyone still... I call it the Big Bang Bar effect where everyone was still kind of like, let's get in and make a whole bunch of money by buying games on speculation as investments. That's what the whole Zidware model was. People weren't really wanting to play J-pop. There were some, I know. I'm being hyperbolic now. But that's why Rob Zombie sold that right away. It's because, oh, wow, Spooky Only Made, 150 Americas Most High. We've got to get in on Rob Zombie. And Rob Zombie, one of the very good players. You know, Alice Cooper, seen as a pretty decent player. TNA, of course, but that was a totally Scott Denise-y developed thing. And then, you know, you kind of have this back and forth. Like Jetsons wasn't good. Okay, contract game. And then you bounce over to, which I never played Jetsons. So I don't. Actually, no, I played it once. I haven't played Dominos. And, you know, it's kind of like they've been hit or miss on the layout. So it's like Scooby-Doo layout. I think it's okay. Yeah, people like the layout. But compared to Halloween, it's awesome. Because Halloween's layout was awful. Greg Bone is the only person in the entire world who likes it. I like my Halloween, too. But the layout is not what I would say is good. Greg, he's the only one. He will fight for that layout. Spooky doesn't like it. Even Spooky's like, Greg, you sure? All right. The hyperbole is going a little far. But my point being, I think that I do agree with you, long story short. I think they were like, you know what? People might criticize us for all sorts of things with the mix and stuff breaking, and we're going to struggle with that for whatever reason. The one thing we definitely can fix is we can take the layout out of the equation. There are plenty of examples of good shots that we can piece together into our own thing. and it not be, and maybe they go in saying, we know our layout's not ever going to win an award, because there are no more awards. But if there were, they could be like, okay, it's not going to be an award-winning layout, but you know what? It will be competent. And they're going to win a Facebook poll.
    47:06
    I'm going to have to push back on this one. No, you don't have to. You know what? Not a full-blown show. Wow. But a pushback. We might get 8,000 listens, Dennis. With that sort of logic? It feels like what you're doing is you're still not giving my boys any proper credit. You're saying, look, they can sample a bunch of games and figure out how to make something that doesn't shoot like a complete one. It's DJ Spooky. This is my DJ Spooky remix. Come on. But the problem here is that I think that this layout, I think the way it goes against your argument, Dennis, is that this layout is not looking like it's sampled from other things. This layout is not standard in any means. Now, when you compare what they've, they took risks here. They really took some risks, and they've done something layout-wise that, frankly, may not have been done anywhere else. And I will say, let's compare Steve Ritchie. Steve Ritchie went and made an Elton John. Do you feel like there was any risk taken there versus this design team? Yeah, the theme was incredibly risky. A vast difference in design and layout between those two games. So seeing a four-flipper game that has four ramps, that flows and lends the ball feeding to different places as it does, figure eight to a scoop that outkicks it around. I think just saying that they finally learned how to look at other games, I don't think it's given them the proper due. Now, I will say that I have played this game, and I've not played it enough to know that it is the Elwynn-esque that those wonderfully done trailers and feature edits made it appear. So I don't know. I really don't. I still go back to Stern games feel like that because they have found some amygdala of material. I still think it's like a materials thing that make it feel the way it does. I'm still not convinced nowadays that my brain would prefer taking a stern layout and applying all Bally Williams parts to it and exchanging all of those. Something tells me I would still prefer the feel of that stern for whatever reason, and I think that whatever reason is materials. I don't know why. I keep preaching this for years, but there's something there. So I will say that it still may not feel as good as a stern, but this is easily their best layout, and this is strong.
    49:55
    I would say this is, oof, it's so apples and oranges. I want to say that this does more layout, work, design. It feels better than TNA because that's Herald is kind of their best game in general.
    50:12
    But TNA's layout, I mean, it's an orbit and stand-up targets. I don't know what to put. They're so different. But I give them a lot of credit here on the layout because it is a lot of fun to shoot. As we're talking about other things, then it's art. They're both pretty. They got the artist thing down, right? They know the importance of bringing hand-illustrated art to their products, unlike maybe some other manufacturers still struggling with that concept. Them bringing over Brad Duke from Deep Root, I think, was a great idea. Looting Tunes looks spectacular. It is hard not to look at that game and think, whew, that's pretty. The questionable use of powder-coated ramps is on a lot of people's minds. They've done that before, though, right? Yeah. Didn't they do that on Scooby? They have, yeah. But they're just more, they feel more hidden because of the upper play field. But it's like, do we need orange ramps? Do we need bloody ramps? I don't really like the Looney Tunes color scheme, but it goes with Looney Tunes. I just, you know, it's fine. I just, I hope manufacturers don't underestimate the beauty of if you're using stainless steel, like a polished stainless steel wire form. There's something really beautiful and elegant about that. Maybe they should use titanium like the new iPhone. It has titanium. You know, that metal that's not precious. The themes, I think, takes a chance. I was a little niche. I think that Looney Tunes, I still don't think Looney Tunes is as big as Scooby-Doo. No, I agree with you. In the grand scheme of things, it's probably bigger historically. But when it comes to relevancy and product integration in 2024, yeah, I still think it's not as strong as Scooby-Doo. But it's okay. It's good. It's a good thing. It's iconic. It's just – it's mostly vignettes, so I think that's kind of where it gets at, Whereas while you could argue each episode of Scooby-Doo is standalone, I feel like there's more of a structured plot to it. And Looney Tunes was mostly about just silly characters doing silly things with some very loose rubric kind of draped over them. But that's more than Hot Wheels had going for it. Well, but that goes without saying. Well, yeah. Again, my whole thing with Hot Wheels was where I think American Pinball was like, but look, guys, we used a licensed theme. Why don't you guys love us? And, of course, a lot of what happened was the pandemic really screwed up the Hot Wheels launch. But I think the problem was there was no plot to Hot Wheels. Now, they can point and say, well, there's this whole YouTube show. Their launch was a mess, too. But no one over the age of eight had seen it. So, anyway. That's fine. But that's another manufacturer, and that's another story. And then we talk about the rules and code, how they have separate coding teams now. Yes. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is being led kind of by Ben Heckendorner, Ben Heck, which he's back to help with this. I think that's really neat. I know that working with him up there, they said that Ben Heck has dedicated so much time to this that right now I would bet TCM is much more fleshed out than Looney Tunes. And it did kind of feel like that as we were recording up there. And then you've got Looney Tunes that is being kind of led by Eric Pripty, which we know people love him from Rick and Morty. Now, his time probably also diverted a little bit because he's also doing code and rules for Labyrinth with Barrels of Fun. So you've got that. So I think, hot damn, we've got two good coding teams with names that we like to hear. So I'm not worried about that. time it takes to get it all fleshed out. Sure, they did say the progress is more than Scooby at release, so okay, I'm good with that. And Spooky does a good job of, like Stern, over time updating these games to craft them into something very special. They are dedicated to that. That's really neat as well. Animation display, it's hard to say. I wasn't there long enough to kind of see, and we certainly couldn't display it on the featurette or the trailers. Woo! Warner Brothers. Woo, guys.
    54:38
    They are, they love their IP. So a lot of people, I don't know if people know this or not, but they should. The rights that you get to use in a game, the licensed rights, so you can use, I can show all these Looney Tunes. We bought the rights for this game. We can show them in the game, and we can play the call-outs, and we can do all this. those are different rights than promotional rights or marketing rights. Yeah, they're limited. So you're limited with what you can use for that kind of stuff. So when I was editing up this trailer and producing the trailer, there were a lot of limitations, not only for Warner Brothers, but basically you don't want to go spending that much money on just a trailer or you're going to have people floating around. Why spend that amount of money just to produce a trailer? So you didn't get the call-outs in the official trailer from the voice actor that does all the Looney Tunes stuff. You got some of the animation cuts from Looney Tunes, but you didn't get all of them. You didn't get all the sound effects. There's a lot of restrictions there. Even the music. Spooky Pinball, I guess wasn't going to pay additional just to use that Looney Tunes.
    55:59
    So last minute I had to swap that one. And boy, I tell you, you get a trailer done, you submit it to Warner Brothers, and then they come back and say, well, you don't have the, you didn't secure the rights to this, so you need to change the music. Now, in the trailer world, you're cutting every single one of those scenes And you're doing beats per minute, and you're doing it based, those cuts are based on the music, because that's what you have to. So, yeah, cutting that within 24, recutting that within 24 hours is nothing short of a nightmare.
    56:34
    But people seem to like it, so it's fine. Sales-wise for me, Dennis, do you think it's more 50-50 for flipping out pinball or sales from Texas Chainsaw Massacre compared to Looney Tunes? I do not. I think you're selling Looney Tunes better. Okay. Any ratio of how much better? Two to one. Fucking nailed it, man. That's what we're about. We're about two to one when it comes to Looney Tunes versus Texas Chainsaw Massacre sales. And pretty much sustainable throughout launch day all the way up until now. We're still getting sales for this game. And they come in more closer to even now. But they're still, you know, totals-wise, two to one Looney Tunes to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So pretty significantly different there. Sales overall have been, I would say, good. I was a little bit hesitant on how well the game would do, given the market right now, given the worries of the Jaws, Elwynn coming out, given the Texas Chainsaw Massacre theme, Looney Tunes, you know.
    57:34
    So they're kind of along the lines of what I thought they would be, which I think is a success and certainly a success for Spooky Pinball. I think they sell hundreds upon hundreds of these games, and I think that you definitely need to keep your eye on Spooky Pinball in the future. Remember me saying that. Did you watch the featurettes, Dennis? Yes, I did. Oh, thank you. Also, go to the Loser Kid Pinball podcast. In addition to the wonderful information in the featurettes, there was additional interviews by Loser Kid with Spooky Luke and Bug, and I thought very interesting stuff about licensing. If you guys listen to that and talking about pre-orders and why do we take pre-orders and deposit? Why do we do this? Some really good discussion there. Maybe I'm just so close to it as a content creator and as a dealer, but some really good stuff there if you pay attention to what is being said over there because they are an open book. Sometimes I tell my friends to speak with me. I'm like, eh, don't need to, you know, maybe don't tell me. Eh, maybe, you know, keep that close.
    58:40
    Jersey Jack pinball. Did you know that Elton John got 1.0 code? Boom. Whoa. When is Pirates? Oh, you are.
    58:52
    Joel with Flippin Out Pinball He did a stream last week of Elton John with the lead programmer Bill Grupp That was neat You definitely got to go watch that And I wanted to update everybody with Barrels of Fun. Barrels of Fun had some production updates. Everybody's wondering if Labyrinth, they're still kind of trickling out. They do have a little bit of an emphasis to get these into operators and arcades around the country so that people can play them. That's why I couldn't have one of the first ones. More like barrels of stern Maybe you get one of the first hundred I don't care I can't get number one But they did give an update They said quote we are confident That invoices by 62 Through 702 will ship Between December 1st and the end of February Confidence there So they are gearing up I think for a big January February build I think that they gave that information out, listener, because they are now confident that the games they are getting off the line are in the speed and the quality that they are now very confident and happy with. So congratulations, barrels of fun. Now, as to what this means, a lot of people are like, 562 to 702, wait a minute. That means that those games are shipped? There's not been 500 shipped. Okay, let me clear up this. There's not been a 500 shipped thus far? No, no, no. We don't know what invoice number they started with. And also, these individual invoices, this is the part that listeners aren't going to like. Let's say I ordered a bajillion of them as a dealer. My order number could be 580. And those bajillion are just a part of 580. That makes sense, right?
    60:41
    I think so. So 562 to 702, what is that, 140? So you're saying those are invoices, not number of games that might be on the invoice? Correct. Okay. And I don't even know of those 140 invoices because if you think about it, 140 games in two months for a new company, not bad. Not bad at all. But I would say that even, I don't even know if those invoices, what if those invoices, some of them are just a topper? Yeah. Or a shooter. So it doesn't really tell a whole lot. But what it does tell is that I, as a dealer, am now working this week, reaching out to people, letting them know if they fall within that first run. We do anticipate it flipping out pinball, a big old bulk, flipping out, a big old bulk of games from our orders will be going out towards the end of February. So you're going to see a lot of flipping out pinball labyrinths leaving the factory over at Barrels in Houston at the end of February. So congratulations. Have you ever thought about getting a company to do a flipping out addition, kind of like how Jersey Jack used to do when he was a big distro? Oh, you know what? I'm not going to lie to these people. I have. And I have talked to at least one manufacturer about the possibility of doing something like that. Can I have one guess as to which manufacturer it was? Sure.
    62:08
    Was it American Pinball? It was not. Okay. Thanks for letting me play. No, it's fine. Now, the company that I presented this to, they probably thought to themselves, hey, I think we might have done that before, and now that person has their own company.
    62:28
    And then all of a sudden you see all these 30th anniversaries pop up, 40th anniversary. I'm like, good. Would they do Godzilla 70 if they could do Godzilla minus one? As a business man, I think something like that is very smart to take maybe something like a, even my pitch may have been something like a Jurassic Park, and make a limited edition run of 100 of them or so, and me and a couple other dealers go in and buy 100. Maybe. But I think Stern knows what they're doing. What about Dutch Pinball? Do they know what they're doing?
    63:04
    I have no idea. Dutch Pinball don't fuck this up If you have Back to the Future It's going to be such a long year The rumors are that Dutch Pinball has Back to the Future You're not going to see them until the end of 2024 At the earliest Not end of 2025 I still The more inside I talk to people There's just When they inquired about it It could be had but with zero asset I just, I'm terrified. Dutch Pinball, reach out to me. And still a little hope in this 88-mile-per-hour pacemaker of mine. All of this pleases me greatly. I know it does.
    63:48
    Finally. This thing can finally be done. I was thinking one myself. Dutch Pinball, speaking of Dutch Pinball, Christopher Franchi posted something on social media, and they quickly took it down.
    64:00
    Art. He had artwork that he had. Oh, I saw this. Yes. It looked good. It did. For the Big Lebowski, it was like an anniversary package. Very, very beautiful artwork. It was awesome. I like the Translight a lot. Yeah. The composition. With Goodman and stuff. So they were contemplating coming out with an anniversary edition over Dutch Pinball, the Big Lebowski, but it was not approved by Universal Studios. So womp, womp. Yeah. It's news I thought I'd bring it up because the art was awesome. It was really, really good. But then it told me, like, wait, do they still anticipate just continuing to make Big Lebowski for a long, long, long, long time? I don't know. And there's rumblings of Franchi working with them on Back to the Future.
    64:45
    Franchi, don't fuck this up for me. Great Scott. Well, he doesn't have any assets. What's he going to do?
    64:53
    He'll have really nice buildings from the town. He's such a realism person. Oh, no. Well, they'll be realistic buildings. Oh, City Hall. We'll have realistic potatoes. The next story I'm just going to call Papa.
    65:10
    Question mark. Did you see this teaser that was, is this a trolly? I don't know what to make of this. It was a little teaser that was teasing Bob-omb, like some kind of Jaws little floating shark toy. But then it had the Papa logo. And then it said coming soon or 2024. And we all know, the Papas, like the tutorials, Pinberg, like Papas was everything years back. Yes. What the hell? It was. They were, I would say, credited as being the premier competitive pinball venues for a number of years. In fact, when I got into pinball and started paying attention to competitive pinball, the way I always thought about it, which was not accurate, but it was just sort of how my head wrapped around it, was IFPA oversaw small events. PAPA did big events. That's how I thought of it. Okay. They were the big events. Yeah. They even did PAPA final. Right. Because they had two big things in particular, like the PENBURG, of course, which is what everyone most loved. But then they also, for a long time, had their PAPA event, not just like the circuit and stuff being separate, But they had their pop-up facility would host these competitive things, and there would be the pop-up bracket thing. World-class. You'd qualify. The pop-up format was where you had to do good on your entire ticket for the entry to count. You couldn't just go by game. You had to play all the games, and they all added together, and only that ticket score counted. So it was – anyway, it was where all the top people used to go to prove themselves. The Pack from Mars alien on the trophy, that was the big. I don't I do not remember. But, you know, I remember that they were having location issues. So they suspended doing the like Papa finals, the Papa event. But they saw a Pinberg like replay effects, which is the nonprofit that ran runs still. Technically, they never went away, runs Papa. And then they had Pinberg, which was the I mean, a lot of people would go to Pinberg. I wanted to go to Pinberg. I never feel like they're still mourning the loss. Well, yeah, because it was one of, if not, I don't know, I think it's safe to say it was the largest competitive event. But the other thing that I thought was very noteworthy about it is it was incredibly well run. You look at all the, I mean, we have some veteran tournament runners who I'm sure do a, overall do a very good job. But the one thing you see about all of this stuff all of the time is that they don't run on time. Everything runs long, but Pinnberg actually seemed to be able to run on a schedule. Oh, man. Do you remember those big event weekends? Oh, it was people who were so excited. So much about Pinnberg was so smart because they would have all these ABCD divisions. So after you did your initial qualifying stuff, you were actually grouped with people of your skill set, which is one of the biggest problems with almost every other tournament is you're most of the time stuck with, I mean, I can't beat Bo and Karens. I can't beat Keith Elwin. Like, I'm not a good player. I don't belong in A division. I don't belong in B division. I don't know where I belong, but not there.
    68:29
    And you could play all weekend. Yeah, you would play all weekend. And then after, like, your first day where you might get up and put up against those top players, it sorts you out. And then you're playing with people that are kind of on the same level as you, like how golf or anything else is supposed to be. And then they had the big stage during the finals.
    68:48
    And the commentary and all the – they had so many different games. So you saw all sorts of new stuff, old stuff, weird stuff, EM stuff. And it was a mix. They always – every bracket was a mix of games. So you had to prove yourself on the modern era. You couldn't just be a classics champ, but they always had a classics in there. So the whippersnappers coming in had to remember the rules of EM pinball. So anyway, it was – and how it went away was so lame.
    69:22
    I'm just – it was – here's the irony. I don't want to whine about it because, again, I had never gone. So it didn't really directly impact me. But I remember looking. I remember seeing their 990s as a foundation and everything. That's a tax form for those that don't know. And it was so preventable. That was what was so frustrating. It was so preventable. I mean, here we are, you know, this week where you have this stuff, the changes with the Twippies, the changes with the pinball boards, and all of that. And that may come up in a little while. But with this, the thing was, there was so much passion, but there was never the opportunity for anyone to apply it. So it was kind of like, the way it worked was Replay was very reliant on one owner in particular who, it was their games. and when they didn't want to be involved anymore, it just seemed like, and granted the pandemic was going on, so it screwed up that year, and they just kind of seemed to, this is the impression from the outside looking in, throw up their arms and just say, we don't know, liquidate everything, and we'll be a shell of ourselves. But we'll keep the replaying foundation because we could come back. Damn, I can almost relate to that. Yeah, so here we are. This trailer drops. If it's a teaser for, like, there's a little rubber ducky shark thrown into water, and I'm playing the Jaws theme. If this was a teaser for Bowen to do a tutorial on pool sharks, this was a really bad idea because people are going to, you know how it is. I know. People are going to be really angry. It's very trolly, though, with Joel's coming out. It is. But why would they make a teaser for that? I don't know. Again, because he's had other, I mean, they've still been turning, I think they do it on their channel. He's had other videos come out since the pandemic.
    71:13
    No, they don't. It feels like something else. I'm hearing some buzzing around. So I would guess slash hope that it's either the Papa event or Pemburg. The thing is, in either scenario, they don't own the games they used to own. They sold them all. Yeah. And this is not, well, prices have started to come down.
    71:38
    They would not have been able to buy them all back is my point. So if they're doing anything, either a new event is being started up reliant on one or more collectors to supply stuff, which is fine. There are events that do that. Or maybe they're getting the branding on an existing event. Like imagine going in and making a deal with Carl and saying InDisc is now Pinberg. Oh, okay. I see. So I floated all those in my – those are all the things I thought about. But what are your thoughts, Zach? I think there's rumblings around that would indicate that maybe it's not a trolly thing and maybe there's good things to come. I'm not a competitive player, so what does Zach know about competitive pinball? Wink, wink. You'll have to wait and see. I guess it'll have to stay a mystery. Castle. No, God, no. Do it. Okay, speaking of throwing your hands up, Dennis, this last week or two, whoa, for the award shows, what is going on? Total annihilation meltdowns abound. And we had, I would say, industry, not industry shifting, an industry spotlight on the award show that is or was the Twippies. All right. You know what? I want to dive into the Twippies. I want to tell you my opinion. Dennis, you're going to tell your opinion on the Twippies, how they handled everything, what happened, and even some behind-the-scenes stuff that I am very sure that none of you guys are aware of, as well as the pinball awards shutting the doors this year. Maybe not shutting it forever, but no pinball awards for 2023? What is going on, Dennis? We're going to discuss all of that exclusively to our GPS. Yes, paywallet. To our GPS subscribers.
    73:49
    Patreon.com slash the pinball show. And if you think we're just casual observers, you've got another thing coming. Oh, surely they don't think they do know we founded the pinball awards. Originally, it was the pinball industry awards. You know, somebody was bitching and moaning about me thanking the pinball awards committee for all of y'all's hard work. They were like, you're thanking yourself, you asshole. I'm like, well, I wasn't part of the committee last year. No, or the year before, I don't think. Only the first year. I was helping. I was producing the show, but I wasn't doing the voting. I didn't even vote in it. I wasn't doing the voting. I wasn't doing any of the collections. So I was merely thanking you guys for all of that hard work because you were the official committee. Right. There's a reason why Zach's name is not on the signed on the statement. Well, that would involve reading, Dennis. Yeah. Well, I do understand how, because, I mean, we did, I think it was pretty much you and me who pieced it together initially. So, like, if you're, like, thinking, like, quote, unquote, ownership, then that's one thing. But Zach deliberately distanced himself from being on the committee because of reason. Yes, I wouldn't get the shit that I continue to get. Well, okay, that was the reason. It didn't have a fix on anything, just like he didn't vote in them. And it's still, he's giving himself an award. It didn't matter. Hey, but you know what? They can't bitch about it this year, can they? Well, they can, and I'm sure they will. But only you can hear about it exclusively on the Pinball Show's Patreon subscriber content. Buy, buy, buy now at the $10 level or the $25 level. Get all kinds of swag and different stuff and pick a topic for the show. And even the $100 Screaming Goat level, those individuals get their own nickname that gets etched into the annals of pinball lore. and media history. Do you think you can go anywhere and not be called Bobcat?
    75:46
    I don't think so. Go listen now. Subscribe, follow. We very much appreciate it. You're going to want to hear this one. You know what else they're going to want to hear? They're going to want to hear what our takes on this year's best of. Since there's no award show, Dennis, they're going to want to hear our best of this year regarding all of the different games that came out. Well, what do you think the game of the year is? Don't say it now. That would really ruin the segment. What about the best art? What about layout? Let's go through those, Dennis. What do you think? Okay. So what games are we confining ourselves to? So we're not going to... It's going to be low-lift here. We're going to list out the games that we think make the most sense to do our best of this year. That would be Scooby-Doo. It was released late last year into this year. Wasn't really in a lot of awards rating stuff. James Bond 007 60th Anniversary, Keith Elwin Design, Foo Fighters, Final Resistance, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Galactic Tank Force, Sentai Revisited, Venom, Labyrinth, Alien Ripley Edition for some of the different categories, and Elton John. What about Queen?
    77:01
    Queen was the year before. Okay. It felt like the year before. What about Space Hunt? I forgot it was a game.
    77:11
    That, the punny stuff, we just haven't played it. It's not big enough. No thanks. Okay. Is that fair? And then like Elvira's Blood Red Kiss. No, it's not really appropriate. Stranger Things rerun. Even like Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's just a little bit premature, which is why we're doing Scooby-Doo this year. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. All right. If we're talking about best theme, Dennis, you're looking at all of those. I'm going to give you my best theme first while you're thinking. But out of all of those games, for me, best theme was Scooby-Doo. For me, it was Scooby-Doo. Now, my runner-up, my close, pretty close is Pulp Fiction. It's hard to beat Pulp Fiction. But I think overall, Scooby-Doo is maybe one of the most perfect themes for pinball. And then my personal is Labyrinth, just because I love that. But I've got to say, objectively, best theme, objectively, not my preference, objectively, was Scooby-Doo. What do you say?
    78:12
    Yeah, for me, it was really close between Scooby and Labyrinth, because I both think they best exploit nostalgia out of anything else that came out. I think Pulp's too new of a film to have been close in that regard. I would agree with you, though, that I think Scooby, objectively, is, in terms of theme, Not integration, but in tune. Best theme alone, Scooby-Doo. All right, so we're on the same page there. What about best design and layout? How this damn thing shoots, the geometry behind it. Hmm.
    78:42
    Elton John, maybe. I haven't played it, but looking at Elton John, I have ragged on the theme, but it looks fun to shoot. I'm going to say Elton John. You're going to go Elton John? It's hard to argue that. Yeah, Foo Fighters was close, but I think Elton probably outdoes it. It's very hard to argue Elton John with the Steve Ritchie familiar yet different layout and all the bells and whistles that accentuate that design. Yeah, this year I went with Foo Fighters. So I had Elton John in that list, too. There was maybe some familiarity that I didn't. I was like, I can't fully credit Elton John for some of that. Plus, it's got a dead-end shot, which just makes me feel... able to let that win me again. I sympathize. Now, I think it's sold as a repeatable shot that comes back and you should be able to hit it again.
    79:35
    Maybe I need to adjust the games I played it on, but for me, Foo Fighters, it almost shoots too well. I've said that on my broken record. The design of that game is pretty brilliant. It's really, really good. For a design to be so good that I care about a game that the theme I just don't really care much about says a lot. And I'd also throw a nod to, maybe even more so than Elton John, Keith Elwin's design of James Bond 00760, the anniversary, because I think he nailed a design that is better than 98% of solid state games, single-level solid state games from the 80s or 70s or fucking 60s. You take your pick. Keith Ellwin said, hey, it's 2023, and I'll do better than all of them, and he did.
    80:28
    I'll kick it off with best toys. This isn't innovation or anything. It's just toys, just toys, mechs, that kind of stuff.
    80:36
    I've got to give it to Scooby-Doo again. There's a lot of games out there. Labyrinth had a ton of interactive toys and moving toys and different things.
    80:46
    Honestly, even I was considering Pulp Fiction here too. Say what you want, but you've got moldings. You've got a briefcase that's turning and shining. You've got physical ball locks. You have magnets. There's a lot of stuff going on in Pulp Fiction 2. But Scooby-Doo is a world under glass with those toys. It looks like a castle. You have a physical ball lock in multiple places, one of which is on the apron. That's a cool toy. One of which is a mystery machine, which is so iconic. That's a cool toy. You've got moldings. You've got a Scooby that pops up out of a barrel. You've got a bookcase that's shaped like a flipper. That's kind of a toy too You've got Captain Cutler with magnets Under the play field and moldings that you bat There's a ton of stuff in there So just objectively I think Scooby Doo takes it home For toys as well Hmm See this one's a little tricky For me because it kind of depends What I want to count as a toy Sure I count anything toy wise Anything that's not a plastic or a flat Like a brain Anything that looks like a toy or a mechanism. Okay. So, especially the mechanism thing. I'm going to say Godfather. I can see that. Because of the number of diverter use.
    82:05
    It's been a very long time, I feel, since we've seen something that honestly... Actually, I don't think we've ever seen a game that mixed up shot returns in particular as much as Godfather did. whether or not you want to count the topper as well, which was a very kind of visual spectacle or audio spectacle-wise. It was interactive with the game. So given that, but really coming down to the diverters in particular, because I don't think when you look at the play field, you don't see how Labyrinth, that world under glass toy, approached to the same degree. But what they did mechanism-wise I think is very impressive. I think that's far more than what it looks like on the surface. So I'll say Godfather for this one. Yeah, you make a good point. You make a good argument, too, Dennis, because I'm thinking, like, the molding of that mobster and they turn, interacts with the sound and everything, light show. You get that fountain that has all those RGBs that even you're listing a lot of the mechanical pieces. These are still molded, nice toys. Oh, yeah. And let's not forget, like, that spinning disc thing they have, that's player controllable. Yes, yeah. That is cool. You've got your Champion Pub toy, but he rotates both ways and stuff in this. Yeah, you've got the Statue of Liberty back. That's a molded toy. You've got even a physical captive ball but physical lock toy that you can even plunge into to backdoor it. Like, yeah, you're right. There's a lot there. Yeah, 29 ball paths. I had to look it up. 29 ball paths. It was, I mean, that's a lot. That's a lot of stuff. That's a good call there. All right, let's jump into rules and code. It's kind of a tough category because we may not have played as many of these games as we've wanted to long. But any thoughts on that? Yeah, I'm giving it to Venom for being so bold as to really push the envelope on carryover progress. I know it's not going to resonate for everyone, but it's innovative for pinball. So, yeah, that's why I'm picking it. We'll see that later on in innovation for me as well. But it's hard to argue that because it is so fresh and new that it stands apart for rules. I'm with you. I'm giving a nudge, though, to Foo Fighters. I think it's just tried and true. It's Tanyo, and it's just solid. It's not glitchy. It's full. It's hard to get to everything. There's so much in that game, but it's not impossible to get to everything. And everything is just approachable Feels good And again, makes me care about a theme Otherwise I may not care So Best Rules feels like Foo Fighters to me I give a nod to Labyrinth Because of what is already there The team that is working on it And what I know it's going to become I think maybe keep your eye on the Labyrinth As it develops this year But it's Best Rules As we look into Best Animation and Display It's a godfather for me It's J.P. to win it saying. Okay, everybody's like, oh, Foo Fighters is great this year. It was maybe some of Spurgeon's best ever. But the details and the quality still of Godfather, it's just seconds of none. It really is good. Even Venom was a beautifully animated game this year, but Godfather's where it's at. What about Call-Aps? Oh, gosh.
    85:23
    The right answer is Pulp Fiction. I just didn't know. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't want to be the same again. I know, but yeah, you're right. I mean, there's no, but it may be some of the best call-outs in pinball history.
    85:37
    It's, it's, it's filthy. Let go! Try it, it should be cool! Um, and it's obscene at times. I'm the foot-fucking-master. But it's Pulp Fiction, and they got all of the, they got every call-out in the entirety of that movie. They got the entire stem of, of the recordings. They can use whatever, and they use a crap load of it. You mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down? Best Sound of Music? I'm sticking with Pulp Fiction again. It's David Thiel. We finally get him back, and not only does he do some of the greatest sound and music work in all of pinball, but he comes back to the deliciousness of the IP that they were actually able to get in the music of the soundtrack, Pulp Fiction. And again, it screams retro And nobody else can master it like David Thiel It was hard though Foo Fighters is a great sounding game And I've got to tip my hat to Scott Denise He was Final Resistance Anything he touches sounding music wise It's phenomenal And even Elton John sounds good But for me this year was Pulp Fiction Yeah, this was a little tough for me Because I haven't played it yet So it's unfair, but I will go Elton John with it just because, again, we're talking sounds and music, but I can't separate that from the integration. And just like with Guns N' Roses, I just think the integration is really there when it comes to, like, what they got with the marquee on the piano and the light shows that they tie to it. So that's why it's unfair is because, to me, it's linked with how the lights are happening. It's not just, like, your song selection. Whereas I prefer, probably would say overall I prefer the songs that are in Pulp Fiction itself I just think I think JJP has this sound integration down very, very well And I'll give it to him for Elton I like that you're giving a lot of nods to Elton John there I think you're giving two of them to Elton I still like it I still like the Elton John nods there And you're right, with Elton John It plays pinball wizard, for God's sake Well, okay, that almost disqualified it Yeah, but it's still so iconic. We don't want to admit to people outside of pinball. We want to let them know we hate that. But secretly, we still can't. No, we don't. Here's the thing, Zach, that you don't. Because you don't go and play on location. When you go to bars and stuff, people put this on the jukebox when they see people playing pinball. And it just gets really tiresome. Really tiresome. Ever since I was a young boy, I did play the silver ball. But I didn't play it at like, I played it in bowling alleys and stuff. Best topper. It's important. It is important, Dennis. I know you don't care about it. Can you think of a top? I mean look we got Pulp Fiction Topper We got Labyrinth Topper with the head We got James Bond Topper with the LED light show You got Godfather CE popping off with the gangsters Any best of for you this year with Topper You know, I don't think too much about Toppers. But overall, just in terms of being able to catch your attention, I would have given it to Godfather. Okay. Godfather's getting – What are you, Pulp? I'm Pulp, yeah. Yeah, that's good, too. I've got to go Pulp there. This is a year of great toppers. Nice job, manufacturers, of knowing the importance of that. But you can't argue any of those. You can't argue this, though. Best art. This is a surprise for people. If anybody hasn't seen straight down the middle, we went somewhere that nobody probably is going to go this year. We gave the nod for best art, and I stand by it, to Christopher Franchi's Galactic Tank Force. TGF! Finally win something! It is very good art. It's just, I love the theme of it and the integration of, you can take known stuff like Venom, or you can take known stuff like Godfather, and you can create compositions pretty easily, not easily, but you know what I mean, it's there for you. Christopher Franchi, when we know that he does photorealism, I think it was probably a pretty big challenge for him as an artist to think of some original work and to really integrate the head folding out to look like a tank and then also to put artwork that not only looked beautiful and Christopher Franchi-like, but also nods itself to the old 50s space or 30s space kind of feel. You expose some of the bare wood on the play field in your artwork to make it feel old and retro. Even when people are like, there's not a lot of graphics. No, but that's what made it great. When you look down at the center of the play field, it felt like an old 60s or 70s Gottlieb type of art style. And it was superb and it was beautiful. Even the characters that people made fun of, he made them beautiful. And just the color schemes and stuff. It was great. Sure. Look, the Venom was beautiful. Foo Fighters, Zombie Eddie, beautiful. Even Scooby-Doo, effing amazing looking. Elton John is the one everybody's saying is so great by Christopher Francis this year. I'm giving it to GTF.
    90:51
    I understand. I am not. I was going to give it to Scooby. I think it actually looks like the classic cartoon, and that's why. It's so colorful. Throughout the play field. Beautiful. And an excellent side cap. They're translights and side caps. I think Spooky gets, because of some other issues that people have had with the games, I think sometimes they don't get as much credit on the art as they deserve.
    91:15
    Because I think, especially when it's come to trans lights and sides of the cabinet, I think they have often had a lot of the top packages. And I think Spooky really embraces it. So, well, I totally see GTF as being, I mean, I can't really think of a game that had, maybe Hex, Pen Ball, Space Hunt that had bad art. But I'm going to give it to Scooby, I guess. I like it. That's all I'm saying. We were talking earlier about Venom being so innovative, and I'm giving it for best innovation. I am giving it to Venom this year primarily because of not only the code, but primarily because of that code. I think it's something different that we will see in the future in positive ways. It's hard to feel that now and to know what to do with that now, but I think it makes sense later on, And especially, you physically change the game with that code, and that's cool. So best innovation for me is Venom. Elton John's cool, but Venom for me. Yeah, I was going to say Venom as well. In part, the rules that I already talked about, but the premium LE and the game state changes by character. That, I think that's a pretty worthy innovation. There's a lot of worlds under glass and theme integration this year, Dennis, whether it's Scooby-Doo, Galactic Tank Force, Pulp Fiction, Labyrinth, you name it. what do you feel like was the best integrated game theme-wise for these? Actually, I thought this one was easy, Labyrinth. I went Labyrinth too. Yep. I absolutely did. You have to. It's truly a world under glass. Yeah. And the use of the screen for the back to give that depth and additional stuff was so smart. It's both so obvious and so smart at the same time. Very much so. Looking at that, it looks like Labyrinth. It makes me want to go back and look at my designation for toys or innovation. I really did think about labyrinth for toys. It's not good. But here, I thought it was easy. I hope that is a marker in all the barrels games moving forward, that back panel being an LCD screen. I really, really hope that's the case. Best lighting for me was Elton John.
    93:18
    It is a dazzler, man. Yeah. It's phenomenal. I mean, to me, it and Godfather, because they're just drinking light. Anything Galactic Came Force with its own little lighting system that works well. Foo Fighters with the expression lighting. There's a lot of good lighting out there. Yeah, I'll say Elton as well. Her music pins, it just works better. It works perfect. It's so dazzling. Yes, nicely done, JJP. What about Surprise View? We're almost done here. Your best surprise of this year. Labyrinth. Yeah, me too. I mean, come on.
    93:57
    Okay, what about... I didn't do this one straight down the middle. Game of the Year. Oh! This is so tough. Can we talk about what's in contention really here? To me, there's three games that stand out. To me, the games that stand out for Game of the Year, truly and objectively,
    94:18
    are Labyrinth, Foo Fighters, and Pulp Fiction. Hmm. Okay. I can't include Pulp Fiction. Okay. Because I can't even put them out.
    94:33
    Okay. I mean, you ain't built. It's like, I'm willing to, I played it. I'm willing to give it a lot of credit, guys. If you can't build it, they can't come. I mean, look, Fields of Dreams is kicking in here. They've built a lot more labyrinths, haven't they? I can't. I can't give a game of the year to a game that can't even get out in a year. I cannot do it. I'm giving it to Foo Fighters. I'd pick it for anything else, but overall, as a package, because it's not my favorite style of art. It's definitely not my theme. I don't think the toys are particularly great. They're good. It's got a lot of Gottlieb throwback stuff. The ball times are maybe overly long, but you know what? It's approachable. People understand it. The rules are easy to comprehend. it's fun to play and it's fun to go through the rules and it's fun to shoot so game of the year pretty easily for me Foo Fighters pretty easily Pulp Fiction wasn't even top 5 oh sorry you gotta build if you want game of the year you gotta build it almost makes me want to pick it now do it I said why don't you pick my game with it's got plastic ramps I made a virus house of horrors
    95:50
    But GCF is the one that's incontented. It has ice cream. It has actors that have to look and read the cue cards above the camera.
    96:00
    I wrote those cue cards. Where is she? Where is she going? Where is she looking? Swear to me. My parents died in that cow.
    96:15
    Like the Revenant. That is why when you bring them up, I talk about their utter destruction. Do you know who my favorite bad guy is? Moo-Gatu.
    96:35
    Now we're crossing universes. I'm milking this for all I've got. Now vote for me. The piano next time.
    96:43
    Oh, wow. Who got to? We're mad. I think. Holy shit. I think if I'm being objective here, I've got to go through and count the votes and look at what I gave the most. No, that's dumb. It's because it's the whole package. When things come in number two and a bunch of stuff, it's just like the Oscars. That's how you get things like what's the movie where they did the Ben Affleck one where they rescued all the Iran hostages. That was like a one-nothing except movie of the year because it was, you know, like three or four on everything. Why am I blanking on that? I should Argo. Yeah, Argo. Because we only ever saw it once. Yeah, we did. It's true. It's very fair. You see it because you have to. It's an Academy Award. But that's kind of why I'm picking Foo Fighters as well. because when I think of what the best game is, I really look at two things.
    97:50
    Enjoyability and theme are big for me, but for me it's the design of it and it's the rules of it. And I said earlier in this segment that both of those got the best of for me. So objectively, I think Foo Fighters is the best game of this year. However, my personal favorite pick of this year would be Labyrinth of Pulp Fiction. But I probably would take Labyrinth of Pulp Fiction over Foo Fighters. Because Pulp Fiction is something special. But I thought you liked GGF. I've owned a GGF. I like it. But it comes nowhere near any of these games. And I will also say, for Foo Fighters, easily the best seller. that well yeah but that's but that's easy everyone knew that yeah that's partly market dynamics more even than the game yeah but yeah i mean part of the reason i would pick foo as game of the year and did is also like if someone was just like i want to buy a game and i want it to be a game that came out in 2023 which one should i get without knowing anything about them foo is the safest bet yeah that thing it's not nothing about well i don't know many people that are like offended by Foo Fighters music. So it's a safe music choice. The art's nice. I don't think it's Jeremy's best package, but it's nice. The rules are pretty easy to understand, but there's depth there. And, you know what? Oh, is it a forgiving layout. Regardless of what people want to say, it has made people even more excited in another stern designer in Jack Danger. People are going to be excited for what's coming next because of the design we got for Foo Fighters. That's a fact.
    99:33
    That was fun, Dennis. All right. We got to say thank you, Dennis. Thanks. We got to say thank you to a bobcat.
    99:42
    Hopefully he didn't attack anybody's wives this last week. Surely not. Oh, shoot that fucker! Thanks again, Rodney. We got to say thank you to Bumblebee.
    99:51
    Bumblebee! Oh, my gosh. Bumblebee. Steve, congratulations on your new upcoming game, too. You know what I'm talking about, baby. Congrats. The Panther. Thank you, Panther. And I got to specifically say, Rob, thank you, thank you, thank you for your generosity and, you know, being so, so wonderfully nice to the minis on Christmas. Thank you. Kineticist.
    100:17
    Colin, thank you for not going into a rage tilt versus all these people in the industry. Thank you for still keeping your cool. and smiling and being witty.
    100:31
    Jeez, man. Thank you for being you. And thank you for the support. And thank you for the baby. Thank you, Falcon. Frank, appreciate you. Ready to hang out, Falcon? I'm ready. I want to go play a collection.
    100:44
    The Shaker Motors. You've sold a very shaky Christmas this season. A red trimmer-y Christmas. That's right. If anybody gets a red trimmer for Christmas, email me. at Zach at FlipNetPinball.com so I can exchange it.
    101:01
    So mean. I'm like the angry book people that want to burn all the books. Burn all those red trimmers. Thank you, Dave. And the Fox. Thank you, Dale Fox. So, so, so very appreciated, buddy, for everything. And the bell. We can't forget about the bell. Dingle dong, baby Charlie.
    101:22
    Appreciate it. And congratulations for your upcoming game, Winky Wink. What about the dude? I know that guy. He's a nihilist. William, the dude. William has got a recent game, too. I don't think. Wow. Not from me. Everybody assumes it's from me. I'm not saying that these are customers of mine. I'm just saying that, see, people can still be supportive here at Screaming Goat Club and not be buyers. Maybe they are. Maybe Will is a buyer. Who knows? All I know is that this is what happens, Larry. This is what happens when you support the Screaming Goat Club.
    102:00
    Thanks, Will, and happy holidays to all of our Screaming Goat Club members. Paywall polos are coming, y'all. Yeah, stay tuned for size requests.
    102:10
    Dennis, I don't know about you, but I am feeling amped. I'm feeling hyped. I'm feeling energized. I'm excited for Christmas and to start a new chapter or two in 2024. But for now, we'll keep those cards close to my chest while I lie down for you on the table, the royal flush of pinball podcasting content and a little thing, ladies and gentlemen, we call pinball market trends.
    102:33
    I like your style, dude. Trending up, up, up this week is pitchforks. They can't keep the shelf stocked at Pinball Life and Marco's Specialties. All the pitchforks are selling. People are buy, buy, buying. Buy, buy, buy! This holiday season, if you've got a grievance to air, grab yourself a pitchfork and stab it in the chest of something you disagree with and likely don't entirely understand. I'm joking, I'm joking. Training up this week, actually, are new games. Right now, holiday season, we are seeing a lot of sales for new in-box games. Some of them by non-dealers.
    103:16
    I've got them jokes today. We'll talk about that later. But, yes, what I am seeing is a trend in the upward direction of sales of new machines. This typically happens every year. Very common market trend, but a trend nonetheless. Trending down, on the other hand, you will see pre-owned and older title games not selling as rapidly here in the end of Q4. Because you've got a lot of people buying brand new pinball machines. A lot of those people just getting into the hobby and wanting to share something with their family and friends. And that of a pre-owned or an older title typically is not what is purchased. For example, trending down this week is Addams Family. Take a look at it. There are 18 listings on Pennside alone of Addams Family. It took a big uptick about a year ago to two years ago during the pandemic and post-pandemic era where Addams Family skyrocketed in value. You couldn't find even a dirty-ass one for under $10,000. Here recently, you can find a solid one right under $10,000. You're still going to be spending $11,000, $12,000, even more for restored or really prime examples of an Addams Family. But right now, sub $10,000. Some of that is a reflection on the market in general, but also to the more recent trend of holiday sales being a little bit lower for those pre-owned and older titles versus the new in-box games. But trending up this week is Spooky Pinball. A round of applause right now. Go ahead. Give Spooky Pinball a round of applause. Even if you're not buying the game, it doesn't matter. They are doing great things over there. And I and many others are quite impressed with this recent layout design for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes. Spooky Pinball, in your newly released collector's edition model, you are giving us more and you are charging us less. Nice job. Ooh, baby, we love that. Also trending up this week. What is this? A pinball media market trend? What? Trending up this week is Ron Hallett from the Slam Tilt Podcast. 2023 in particular has been a hot year for Slam Tilt Podcast, and I gave Bruce Nightingale some love weeks or months back, but this week in particular, it's got to go out to Ron Hallett Jr. The guy's a little fireball right now, but you wouldn't know it unless you gave him a big old hug. Careful. No, in all seriousness, this last Slam Tilt Podcast, I witnessed one of the most articulate, rational, logical, while still being entertaining analyses in the last year. It was such a highlight for me. Do yourself a favor. Go listen to this episode. Like usual, Ron Hallett shot you straight with his thoughts and opinions on the recent social community media kind of stuff. But he did so in a way that I respect the hell out of. He didn't just open his chest and pull out his heart and throw it on the table for quick listens. That shit is easy to do. Have an emotional meltdown or scream, Right?
    106:17
    And people will pay attention. Ron was like a fine wine. Not too dry. Sweet. He delivered the goods to the listener, but I applaud him for having a bite to his bark. Ron, it was very clear you did the work, and you educated yourself before presenting your take on a situation, and the result was exactly what makes me proud to be a part of the cringeworthy term pinball media. Fucking A-plus, Ron. Nicely done. Also trending up this week, apparently, is Dolly Parton. So I get a restored model in for myself. You guys know my Dolly, my love for Dolly Parton. I've been bountying that for a while. Found a fully restored one, brought it in. So I was going to sell my super nice condition one, not fully restored, but it was on deck to be restored if I couldn't find a restored one. I list this thing, which I thought, you know, fair price, but not like a crazy deal but I think a really fair price for a game in a condition, Dolly Parton, that's not easy to find with a nice play field and such but by no means was it restored. It was just an above average player's condition game. And some of you who bought those pitchforks at the beginning of this segment, you guys got those. You guys were fighting each other for this damn Dolly Parton. If I would have known there was going to be this much competition to get this game, I would have bought the price $2.50. Daddy needs to pay for some Christmas presents. So congratulations. It's going up north to the Chicagoland area. So two, three, four years ago, nobody cared about Dolly Parton pinball. Even the most competitive players that liked these early solid state, nobody cared. Nobody wanted it. Sure, I'm the one that said, hey, it's got one hell of a spinner. It's got one hell of a theme. Inline drop size. This thing is fantastic. You didn't want it. Now you want it. And I don't blame you. Let's find some balance here, though. Well, turning down this week, not only are those pre-owned older titles, that Addams Family turning down, it is what it is. Numbers don't lie. Turning down this week is Pinball Awards. Oh, gosh. After this week, one single tear trails down the face of a Zach Manning. So much news related to Pinball Awards this week and the following week. The Twippies are dead or they're dying. Maybe they're on a breathing machine, but no longer moving forward. Are they even a shell of what they once were? Can they be brought back to the glory of what once was? Only time will tell. And as Craig Bobby always says, you'll just have to tune in to Patreon as an exclusive club member of the Pinball Show to find out.
    108:43
    The Pinball Award. Even the Pinball Awards announced they were having no show this year. What is going on? And the amazing part of all of this is the surface level story of all of these happenings are super interesting. But just like Freud's iceberg, so much more behind the scenes. Even more juice there. Very interesting stuff. But trending down the year of 2023 when it comes to pinball awards. They're dead. They're not happening this year, people. And honestly, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with this industry, with this community having no awards this year. As we look back years from now, I think we will all agree, regardless of what sides we're on or whatever, we'll all agree we needed a break. Also trending down this week, apparently, is non-dealers selling new in-box games. I told you I'd talk about it. Some of you saw on Facebook that there's some back and forth between some people in the community. I was trying to sell my new in-box game that I just no longer wanted, clearing some space, and starting pinball contacting me, and they were angry, told me I couldn't sell for this, etc., etc., etc. There's another story that some information, not fully to present it, but nonetheless, I think I'm with a lot of people. it would be very difficult to expect that somebody that owns something is their property, and they're trying to sell it. How is a company going to say, wait a minute, you can't sell that property? Wait, that doesn't make any sense. If Joe Blow's got a game new in box, he decided not to open it, and he wants to sell it, he should be able to sell it for whatever he wants to sell it for, right? So if that really were the case, why would Stern Pinball ever step in and try to figure out what's going on here? Maybe there is more to the story. Regardless, I can tell you this. I really don't think Stern Pinball is concerned with consumers selling their pinball machines, whether they're in the box or out of the box. Not really concerned with that. What they're not okay with are dealers taking their inventory and having other people sell said games at cheaper-than-agreed-upon distribution agreement pricing. That's the issue they have. Now, I'm not saying whether this is that situation or not. I'm not saying that. You go looking into it because it didn't pertain to me, so I didn't do the work to suggest one way or the other. All I'm saying is Stern is very concerned if dealers do such. Because we have a business relationship, we as in dealers, have a business relationship with Stern and Pinball. An agreement of sorts and breaking terms of agreement can disrupt the entire sales structure of the products that we represent. And if I'm a hobbyist and a hobbyist alone, yeah, sure, I want these damn games to be as cheap as possible. But it's a slippery slope. It's one of those things that you think you want that until over time it messes up everything. And then we live in a world where there's no laws or rules and people are fighting for chicken legs in the back alleys. Yeah, that's what will happen.
    111:31
    Just believe me when I say that it is very important for Stern Pinball to be on top of these things, to not allow dealers to not artificially disrupt the value of their products. I assure you, you will see other manufacturers fall into that trap before Stern Pinball. And what you're probably thinking right now is the same as what I'm about to say. Look at the value of other manufacturers' products and how slippery they can get compared to the stability that we have seen historically from a Stern Pinball. There's reason for that, everyone. And even as a dealer, do I want Stern Pinball on my ass about sales and making sure I'm in the up and up, right? It's kind of like the police. You know, I'm driving. I guess I've got a police officer behind me. Even if I'm nervous, it doesn't mean I've got an eight ball of coke in the trunk. It's just I get a little unease. Right? So, I don't want Stern being on my ass about this kind of stuff either, even if I'm not doing anything wrong. But I'm glad they're there.
    112:30
    Did I just compare Stern to the 5-0? You know what I mean. And if not, then I suppose I'm just a man and part of the problem myself. Let's go to deal of the week. I want to save you guys a dollar or two. Buy, buy, buy! I'm going to take you guys some money on a Venom Premium. I recently listed and sold one, or pre-owned one, for $85.99. That's a hell of a deal right there. Had another one come in very similar to this one. It has a couple hundred more plays on it. I think it's about 400, 500 plays on this thing. Just came in. I'm going to reduce it now for the holiday, $81.99. Bam! Take it and leave it, baby. Come get you some Venom Premium. Bye, bye, bye! Bye, bye, bye. Indeed, Steve. Pinball Bouncy, still looking for a radical. Still looking for a Congo I only want the mintiest examples And I'll add another one on there Lord of the Rings baby You heard it Lord of the Rings is now being added to the pinball bounty I need some more Gollum in my life Home use only Get me that really really nice juicy example Of Lord of the Rings I don't have to have the LA Because I can't guarantee you That I'm not going to strip this game down And hire an artist to redo all the artwork for me anyway But I still need it to be fresh and new Lord of the Rings added to the list And as always, Fables, I'm just here to report the facts because numbers don't lie and neither do I on the award-winning Pinball Market Trends.
    113:54
    Let's close down the show. Where can people catch you? I can reach out at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. Or you can email us both at thepinballshow at gmail.com. Dennis doesn't check those regularly. I do, but I can forward those to him. Also, go follow, like, and subscribe The Pinball Show We just kind of showed you what happens when you do When you continue to support us and love on us We extend and return All that loving, baby Even if it's in the form of hardwood A plate field, you know, innuendo Or topics And also follow, like, and subscribe straight down the middle Video series on YouTube that I do with my buddy Greg We just did our best of And review of 2023 As well as an upcoming episode titled Sneak Peek into 2024 Pinball. And the sponsor of the pinball show is proudly Flippin' Out Pinball.
    115:04
    Product showcase this week. Honestly, if you're listening to this on Monday, is any machine you're willing to buy for Christmas for yourself or someone else, give me the challenge of trying to get it to you before Christmas. I can't guarantee it, but I think we can. Flippin' out equals flippin' fast, so let's see if we can do it. We've got nearly any title on the market that you want right now in stock. And for Stern Pinball Machines, we are still holding to free shipping. Ain't no bullshit free shipping to a terminal for you to have to go pick up. No, no. It's free shipping to your door. Let's get it there. Flippin' Out with Friends, go watch Joel. Support him as he streams the newest and greatest games as well. This has kind of a vodcast, podcast kind of thing where he does Flippin' Out with Friends, talking with different industry media people, usually, or experts in the field of creating pinball, or even fans like yourself. Flippin' Out with Friends. Pinball party. I've got to give a shout-out to Pinball Party. Jason doing the 12 balls of Christmas. very entertaining segments, 12 podcasts, 12 days. I was able to be the number one ball, so he interviewed me, and that was a great showing. We had a lot of fun discussing the ins and outs of not only pinball, but like of the holiday season, whether I believed in ghosts, aliens, just always fun over there with Jason. And if you're asking me, the great new thing that came out of last year or so in podcasting is definitely pinball party. What about TPN last week? We did actually have a couple of things that came out after our last episode that we did. One of those was final round. It was episode 76. 100% pinball, which maybe they rounded the percentage on. It's all I'll say. It's going Brazil numbers there. Yeah. And then Dr. John on his Aussie Pinball Podcast had Escher Lefkoff. Oh, yeah. That was a good one. Man, Dr. John. Isn't it? Man. Bringing the heat over there. Love it. Well, folks, always remember, Papa, don't let us down, Papa. Don't you do it. This better not be a pull-shanks tutorial.
    117:12
    And always practice safe pinball and pre-order your next Stern Cornerstone today from Flippin' Out Pinball. Email me at Zach at FlippinOutPinball.com. Z-A-C-H is FlippinOutPinball.com. Or text me, 812-457-9711. Happy holidays, everybody. Bye, bye, bye. Bye. I want to work with you, baby I want to work out with you, baby Oh, I want to work out with you, baby