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The Pinball Show Ep 132: Venom Revisited & Presidential Toppers

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·2h 34m·analyzed·Jul 18, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Venom officially announced; Stern production roadmap shared; industry mourns Shelley Sachs Eldridge.

Summary

The Pinball Show discusses Shelley Sachs Eldridge's passing (legendary Stern Pinball executive), recent production updates including Venom's official announcement for July 18th reveal, James Bond 60th anniversary accessories criticism for repetitive design, and Haggis Pinball's Centaur Revisited remake announcement. Host also recounts a four-hour moving saga relocating three pinball machines to his brother-in-law's basement.

Key Claims

  • Shelley Sacks Eldridge passed away after fighting cancer for years; she worked at Stern for 40+ years and was instrumental to the company's founding in 1986

    high confidence · Official Stern Pinball press release read on air; Gary Stern quoted directly

  • Venom pinball officially revealed by Stern; designed by Brian Eddy, coded by Dwight Sullivan with Raymond Davidson, art by Zombie Yeti

    high confidence · Craig Bobby news segment citing Stern's State of the Union announcement and YouTube teaser trailer

  • Venom pricing: $6,999 Pro, $9,699 Premium, $12,999 Limited Edition; same as Foo Fighters

    high confidence · Craig Bobby news segment providing official pricing structure

  • Venom production: Pro starts late August (locations), Premium late September, LE mid-December

    high confidence · Craig Bobby news segment with confirmed production timeline

  • Venom official reveal is scheduled for Tuesday, July 18th, coinciding with San Diego Comic Con

    high confidence · Craig Bobby news segment citing Stern's official announcement

  • James Bond 60th Anniversary accessories are recycled from previous releases (same shooter rod as 60th, same R-Blade as Led Zeppelin, same armor, same topper)

    high confidence · Craig Bobby and hosts discussing accessory reveal; complaints about sameness

  • Dwight Sullivan confirmed in chat that Venom team is working on an exceptional topper that will exceed Mandalorian's topper

    high confidence · Craig Bobby citing Flippin' Out With Friends YouTube stream featuring coder Dwight Sullivan

  • Haggis Pinball announced Centaur Revisited remake with two trim levels called 'The Beast' and 'Oblivion'

    high confidence · Craig Bobby news segment confirming Haggis Pinball announcement

  • Keith Elwin recently discussed upcoming game design with Joel Engelberth, hinting at release maybe by end of 2023 or probably 2024

Notable Quotes

  • “Without Shelly, there would be no Stern Pinball. Shelly embodied our company's entrepreneurial get-it-done spirit.”

    Gary Stern @ N/A — Official statement from Stern chairman on Shelley's critical importance to company founding and culture

  • “Is anyone other than me experiencing rumor overload right now? I mean, you can't throw a rock online without hearing credible rumors about Harry Potter to Jaws to Back to the Future to The Matrix, Indiana Jones, Dune, Spider-Man, Fast and Furious, He-Man, King Kong, Monty Python, M&M, Barbie...”

    Craig Bobby @ N/A — Meta-commentary on the saturation of unconfirmed rumors in pinball industry discourse

  • “We are Venom. Yes, hold on to your hats, Marvel fans, as one of Spider-Man's greatest arch-enemies is getting the nod as Stern's next cornerstone pinball title.”

    Craig Bobby @ N/A — Dramatic announcement of Venom as confirmed Stern release

  • “The topper is the same damn topper...These games are not ambi-turners. They only flip le[ft].”

    Zach/Dennis (hosts, paraphrasing complaint) @ N/A — Cynical critique of James Bond 60th Anniversary accessories being recycled from previous releases

  • “I think with this individual [Shelley], it would have been a high likelihood that pinball would not exist. It certainly wouldn't exist as we know it today.”

    Zach (host) @ N/A — Assessment of Shelley's outsized impact on pinball industry survival

Entities

Shelley Sachs EldridgepersonStern PinballcompanyVenomgameBrian EddypersonDwight SullivanpersonZombie YetipersonRaymond Davidsonperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Shelley Sachs Eldridge passing represents loss of foundational Stern Pinball figure; hosts characterize her as essential to industry survival

    high · Gary Stern quote: 'Without Shelly, there would be no Stern Pinball'; Zach: 'I believe it to be true. This individual who had recently passed us last week...is responsible for pinball still being a thing.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Dwight Sullivan actively engaging in YouTube chat (Flippin' Out With Friends) confirming development progress on Venom topper

    high · Craig Bobby: 'Dwight Sullivan chime into the chat to confirm that the Venom team is working hard on an exceptional topper'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: James Bond 60th Anniversary accessories criticized as recycled from previous releases (same shooter rod, R-Blade, armor, topper)

    high · Craig Bobby and hosts: 'People are like, well, the shooter rod looks just like the shooter rod on the 60th anniversary. The R-Blade looks just like the R-Blade on the LZ...The topper is the same damn topper.'

  • $

    market_signal: Haggis Pinball's Centaur Revisited remake announced with premium two-tier structure ('The Beast' and 'Oblivion')

    high · Craig Bobby: 'Haggis Pinball confirming that their next release will in fact be the remake of the rumored Centaur...with two trim levels'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Venom production tied to Venom 3 movie release fall 2023; Premium production scheduled late September to coincide

    high · Craig Bobby: 'Venom Premium models in late September, which will coincide perfectly with the release of the Venom 3 movie due out this fall'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.463

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:13
The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. A big old episode this week as Dennis and I discuss a gigantic loss to our industry. We talk Space Grambler New CIRM pinball production updates Including the ongoing Where's My Rush Expression lighting kit saga We chat Bon Topper selling out Venom pinball being announced Batsy flipping out with Dwight Sullivan A bubbly moment maker version Of Keith Elwin The definitive top 10 greatest pinball machines of all time Video being launched The new Centaur revisited game being revealed Followed by Dennis and I debating the new game release An exclusive tease Of an exclusive pinball market trends and presidential toppers. Of course this is where it's at. This is the pinball show.
1:12
I am a monster. And I have the power. Pinball is a game of skill. I'll turn you into a slated cow. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle.
1:36
It's time for the pinball show. It's pinball with personality. Lingo, lingo, lingo are. No, no, Zach, I've been, you know, I've been really busy. I know this coming week, this week, you're going to be very busy. Oh my gosh, yeah, something's hosting soon. But I have a new pinball game. What? Yes, right. You bought a new pinball machine? Well, you know, define new. You bought new to you? Well, it's complicated. You didn't buy a vertical Just like life. It's complicated. But, no, no. I have, it's been a while since I have acquired a Gottlieb. Oh. And by a while, I mean a few months ago. Okay. Because I think it was about a year ago, actually, that I got Sinbad. I was going to say, that was the last one, wasn't it? It was the last one. Since Sinbad, the only game that's come in was Deadpool Pro Game, which you kindly gifted me. Oh, another Gottlieb. Yes. So this last week has been a, not this whole topic. I know some people don't like it when the answers aren't pinball. It's going to be dripping with pinball. So, well, dripping with Gottlieb. Yes. So, well, no, I'm going to expand it out. So to get the lead out of the way and not bury it. So the new game is Gottlieb's hit 1987 title victory. Oh, I, you, I know that you've had an eye on this game. I, I have for a while. And so, So Victory arrived yesterday. It's going to be probably a bit of a project. I'm going to check some – it might just be a few. I'm going to check some things at first. I got it from the same person who got me Sinbad. Okay. And they had been working, and the displays currently aren't. So something may have shifted in transit. So that's the first thing I'm going to check. But anyway, so it's in my garage as a project. But the reason why it's in the garage is I have finally unloaded Space Gambler. Now, you're probably not familiar with Space Gamble. I am not, no. That is the hit Playmatic game from 1978, which was their first solid-state game. Playmatic was a Spanish manufacturer, and that game was not mine. That was my brother-in-law's game. I didn't remember you ever having that. No, I don't own it. It's not mine. However, it came to my house because it needed some board work done or something. And so at the time, my dad, who, as I've mentioned before, is a retired electrical engineer, he was going to work on the game. But he was going to work on it from my house because my brother-in-law only really had space in his area. He was storing pinball for two pinball machines, and he had three.

medium confidence · Craig Bobby citing Flippin' Out With Friends interview but noting hints are vague

  • Shelley Sachs Eldridge is primarily responsible for pinball still existing as an industry today

    medium confidence · Host opinion stated during tribute; based on her foundational role at Stern

    • Gary Stern
    person
    Haggis Pinballcompany
    Keith Elwinperson
    San Diego Comic Conevent
    Joel Engelberthperson
    Craig Bobbyperson
    Dennisperson
    Zachperson
    Centaur Revisitedgame
    James Bond 007 (60th Anniversary)game
    Flippin' Out With Friendsmedia
  • ?

    community_signal: Matt Kanin (co-host of Slap Save Pinball Podcast) visited by Zach during St. Louis pin run; still active in community despite podcast history

    medium · Zach: 'I went to St. Louis...and visited Kanin...He was co-hosting with Jason Fowler on Slap Save'

  • $

    market_signal: Venom pricing identical to Foo Fighters ($6,999 Pro/$9,699 Premium/$12,999 LE), maintaining controversial three-tier structure

    high · Craig Bobby: 'Pricing for all three Venom trims is exactly the same as it was for Stern's last release, Foo Fighters'

  • ?

    announcement: Venom officially announced as Stern's next cornerstone title with full reveal scheduled July 18th at San Diego Comic Con

    high · Craig Bobby: 'Venom is getting the nod as Stern's next cornerstone pinball title...The rumors were confirmed last week by Stern's own State of the Union News posting'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern production schedule through 2024 detailed: Venom Pro (late Aug), Premium (late Sept), LE (mid-Dec); James Bond (Dec); Star Wars and Mandalorian bumped to 2024

    high · Zach provides complete production timeline for multiple titles through 2024

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Venom rumored to contain multiple Marvel characters (Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Captain America) but details still leaking

    medium · Craig Bobby: 'It is heavily rumored by people who have seen the Stern pin that it will contain a number of other Marvel characters'

    • 5:04
    I didn't realize you have a brother-in-law that has not only a pinball machine but more than one. Yep. Very cool. He has Black Knight, the hit Williams game. Yep. Steve Ritchie classic. He has Laser War, the very first Data East game. People love that game, yeah. And Space Gambler. So Space Gambler came to my house for repair, and it was repaired years ago. This was all prior to COVID-19. So it has languished in my garage. I power it up from time to time. You know, I put a few games on it. But it's languished in my garage for years. in that my brother-in-law and my sister have reorganized their house and they wanted to have the pinball machine back because they were going to put them in the basement. Ooh. So. I love the sound of that. This is the part. I think a lot of listeners are going to commiserate with me on this. Now, have you all, including yourself, Zach, have you ever thought, okay, here's a pinball project that's going to happen, a moving project, if you will. Let me construct a time estimate based off of how I think things are going to go. and maybe that time estimate is accurate or maybe you're like me and the time estimate is not accurate what do you estimate? my estimated is this breaking down the games? is this driving them over there? what do we have in mind? so my estimate was once that once at his house okay so Space Gambler would already be broken down because I would have moved it from my house Forgive me, Playmanics, did the heads come off or did they have a tent? Yes, yes, the heads come off. Okay. So the idea was, all right, we're going to go ahead.
    6:50
    After getting it to his house, unloading it from the truck, moving it downstairs, breaking down and moving down Laser War and Black Knight, I estimated probably 90 minutes for three games. That's speedy. Okay. I thought, eh, maybe a little bit. All right. Now, including breaking it down from my house, the total project time was four hours.
    7:17
    And the breakdown of Space Gambler went quick. What, with the loading? No, the loading. Getting the actually, I wish, it's only because I started my, you know, looked at my watch when the truck arrived and then looked when I left. And that's why I know it's the four hours. Otherwise, I would factor out the playmatic movement. Moving playmatic there went really quick. It tells me it's time for an escalator, my friend. Damn. Well, okay. So since we discussed this, I was like, all right, well, what are we going to do? Do you have a dolly? And my brother-in-law does. And he has one of those stair dollies, like the triple tire thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that you can take down. So I was like, okay, so I won't bring my dolly, which doesn't do that. I have just a very rudimentary dolly because all my games are ground level. Sure. So I don't need a dolly to move things around my house. So loading Space Gambler was really easy. We just labeled the – my dad brought some tape to label the – that game uses Jones plugs like an EM. So, again, it's a very early solid state. So just made sure those were all labeled in the back box. And then we just pulled the plugs, took the head off. Now – and we did Space Gambler first because Space Gambler is the heaviest because it's an MDF cabinet, not plywood. Oh. So we actually dollied the head downstairs and then dollied the game down. Sure, okay. The problem with the stair dollies, the stair dollies' wheels worked great on those stairs, but the problem is at the angle for the game, the handles didn't pull out far enough on the dolly, so my brother-in-law would be working the dolly from the top, and my dad and I would be bracing each game as we went down each step. Each step, yeah. But my brother-in-law was practically lying down on the stairs in order to maintain control over the handles, And it slipped on Space Scrambler. It slipped. So it didn't roll down because there were two of us bracing it. More like a couple of Space Scramblers, am I right?
    9:14
    It was a little spooky there. It's a good thing we didn't have that head on. So, all right, so we get the first game down. Didn't take too long. Just it was less convenient than we thought it would be with the dolly. We're talking about Pulse. Can you not? I do a cheat sometimes on EMs or something like that where even if the head comes off, I take it off, try to leave the plug-ins in. If there's a lip of a neck of the game, I lay it down like I would if there were hinges and then wrap the hell out of it with saran wrap so that it still stays to the side, and I don't have to unplug anything. Was that not possible? It would have been possible. The issue is we had already taken the head off at my house because, as an MDF game, that head was really heavy. Yeah, that's true. And so the thought was, let's just take the head down separate, and we went ahead and we attached it to the dolly, and dolly bent down. As people would do, yeah. And so that's why we did it that way. Now, step two. Now, the process, I told you it's a four-hour process. So this thing, it ain't done yet. So next, we did laser war. And laser war is hinged. Yeah. Still heavy game, though. So, yes. But I was like, you know what? I think we should leave the head on. And we kind of debated if we wanted to try and take the head off. We looked at the wire connections. We were like, let's go ahead and leave the head on. Didn't have an engineer there, but, yeah. It's a lot, yeah. Well, and he was leaning more towards taking the head off. Of course he was. Until he saw it was hinged, and I was like, okay. So I brought plastic wraps, and we folded the head down, wrapped it up, took the legs off, got it on the dolly, strapped it to the dolly, start wheeling. It's kind of in a – my sister grows orchids and such, and so she's kind of got the – and that's what – I think that space is being turned into more of a plant area. The plants have taken over. It's all poison. Horticulture. Yeah. She's taken it all over, and she didn't have a bane to push the bane button to carry the pinball machine. Any bonsai trees? I think she may have one so anyway so we're there and we're wheeling and this is kind of like the plant area is sort of like where I think on the house floor plan it would be called the breakfast nook and then so then there's the kitchen and then there's the stairs down yeah so anyway so we're wheeling it along and then boom we can't get it out of the kitchen to the stairs because the cabinets are too close together for where and with the head on and the head's too wide. It's the head. We can't. We try any angle. We can't do it. We would have to.
    11:36
    So it's like, okay. And you already have it wrapped? Yes. We already have it wrapped. So it's like, okay. Wake up. Well, there's another angle, because their living room has two entryways that connect to that kitchen. So we could go through, and I'm like, oh, well, let's go around and go through the living room. Crossing the carpet now. And skip the counters. However, I hadn't been there since they put in some new shelving in the living room, so it wasn't going to clear that either. So it's like, okay, what are we going to do? So what we decided is, all right, let's take it off the dolly, leave the head wrapped, and let's just lift it over the counter. So that's what we did. You lifted it over the counter? Yeah, because all that had to clear the counter was the head. So we coffin carried it. Oh, I see. So we took it off the dolly. We haven't strapped it to the dolly yet, but the head's wrapped. So we picked it up like a coffin, and we lifted it so the head would clear. We cleared the counter off. The air fryer had to go off the counter. So we carried it over the counter. I mean, it's like a foot, and then we were able to put it back on the dolly. You should have Clark Griswold the newel post and just. No, no, no. We're not done yet. Oh, no. The trauma's not done yet. So now we go, we strap it to the dolly. Are you sweating profusely at this point? I'm probably sweating a little bit. Absolutely. We're in Ray. We're going to take it down the stairs. This game is much lighter than Space Gambler. So it's like, okay, it's on the dolly. Let's take it down the stairs. Thunk. Oh, okay. No, with the head on, it ain't fitting past the door. So we had to remove the door to the downstairs next. It was that close, though.
    13:15
    It's like an inch too much. I mean, it might have technically fit. We could have opened the door a little more, but we couldn't. So I was like, all right, so we pulled the doornails, took the door off, and then that one went down the stairs without incident and went ahead and got that one put back together. However, that game wasn't working right. So now part of this I can't be blamed for, though I should have factored it in because I knew it wasn't working before we took it downstairs. But we tried to troubleshoot why the game wasn't working right at the time. So that ate into time now. So we put it back together. But it gave us a break from moving. So it's like, okay, what's going wrong with the game? You know, check that out. Catching your breath, drinking some water. And that one actually didn't get solved that day. It got solved yesterday. And the answer was it was just the fuse. Oh, damn.
    14:07
    Transportation man. It was a fuse that wasn't even in the original design. Someone in the past had installed a one-amp slow blow on the ball launcher that launches into the shooter lane. Tricky. Yeah. So that fuse had apparently blown at some point. Okay. So we put in a new fuse, and it was fine. For now. All right. Yeah, for now. So, okay. So now there's just Black Knight left, okay? That ain't a hinged back box. Nope. These cables are already labeled because we pulled the head before, back when he first got it. So we take off all the wiring, but there's so much. Because, you know, that's like a system 7 or something. It's so much wiring. Almost so much wiring fills the neck of the game when you take the head off. Yes, it was bulging with stuff. I didn't mention with Laser War, another part of the delay was we bolted the head back down and forgot to pull the power cable out. So we had to take the head back. I still make that damn mistake. I still make that mistake. My sister actually said, do they still do power cables like this, or do they finally have a separate detachable power cable? I'm like, no, Stern just lets you plug in like a computer power cable into the back. You don't have to go through this anymore. They've learned their lesson. So Black Knight, we pull all the wires, push them down through, take the head off. Don't dolly it. This head's so much lighter than the space camera. We just walk it down the stairs. Really? Black Knight. I'm surprised. Between two of us, yeah. These are really wide. They have really wide stairwell. It's not an uncomfortable stairwell. It's a straight shot straight down. There's no bends or anything. So to do that, go ahead, get Black Knight strapped on. wheel it down. That one actually goes pretty smooth, except then we have to reattach all the wiring. And it just, there was so much that, even though I thought I had to use a flashlight, I thought I pulled all the wiring out. I missed, I didn't, I'd go back twice and get more wires out because we were like, we still got blank spots on the board. There must be more stuff down there. Get all that up, get it all attached, put back together. And now this game's launching two balls into the shooter lane, which it was not having a problem before that. So I finally figured out it was a stuck switch and got that worked loose and sorted out. So then that game worked. And then I looked in my 3 p.m. project start time. I left at 7. And you didn't even play any games with them? No, just the test to make sure that Laser War was working again. Oh, man. Your sister didn't even order pizza. Well, no, because I thought we were going to be done by far. It was a pizza night right there. What did you have to do? Were you rushing home? I still had Star Trek to watch. Oh, see, I knew that there was a reason you were hurrying back. Yeah, Star Trek night. Strange new worlds. I went to St. Louis on a pin run this last week. Oh, is St. Louis a regular St. Louis? It was actually west, past St. Louis a bit. Oh. Had a couple pin stops there, and the only reason I bring it up, listener, is because some of these individuals were probably big fans of one of the recipients of a trade we made. And that was the Slap Save Pinball Podcast's ferry on Matt Kanin. Oh, I remember that. Remember Matt Kanin? Yeah. So he was co-hosting with Jason Fowler on Slap Save. So I visited Kanin. Yeah. So that was a lot of fun catching up with him. But that was my pin run for the week, St. Louis. I've got a Nashville run next. Speaking of traveling, and then we'll get into it, I get to go on vacation. I'm so stoked. I get to go back to Disney World. That's like where I want to be, Dennis. I want to live there. I want to be a greeter at Disney World when I retire. I get to ride the Tron ride. Woo-hoo. Wow. Yeah. You've never been to Disney, right? I've been to Disney World twice. Yeah, when you were young. Yeah. Okay. I don't like Florida. It's so humid. Oh, here we go. Kansas is bad enough as it is. I wouldn't mind trying Disney. You know, I've never been to California. California is wonderful. Yeah. So I'd like to try Disneyland because I think I'd like the weather better. Why don't we try to get somebody, some high roller in California, reach out to us, sponsor Dennis and I to take a video trip to California to go to Disneyland. Isn't Keith Elwin from California? Yeah. We'll be talking a lot about him. But I get to... See, I'm tying it all together. I get to go to Disney World. Plenty of Disney licensed themes that are coming out recently. And I would tell you how I have planned special events for my Disney World vacation, but then you'd make fun of me, so I'm not going to. Yeah. Hopefully Craig Bobby has something. Is he even here this week? Hopefully he's got something. I hear that he is. All the pressure we put on him, all the judgment he felt, the sting. Like a piece of coal. Mm-hmm.
    19:04
    Hello and welcome back to the Pinball Show's Top Stories. I'm Craig Bobby. Yes, I'm back and I'm b-b-b-bad to the bone. So let's dispense with the pleasantries and get right down to the show. Is anyone other than me experiencing rumor overload right now? I mean, you can't throw a rock online in any of the pinball forums these days without hearing from some user who purports to have credible rumors about what the next big reveal or title might be. From Harry Potter to Jaws to Back to the Future to The Matrix, Indiana Jones, Dune, another Spider-Man pin based on the recent Spider-Verse animated series, We have rumors about the Fast and the Furious, He-Man, King Kong, Monty Python, Pinball, M&M, Barbie, and even the new upcoming Zack Snyder film, Rebel Moon. Never before in the pinball world has there been so much hype and trolling with so little fact and showing. I mean, how long does a guy have to hang out underneath these ridiculously small and poorly ventilated boardroom tables just to get some juicy, credible tidbits of information? only to get one-up Charlie by every slip-happy user on Pinside that claims they have the inside scoop on the next big title. Now, speaking of rumors, I'll tell you what's not a rumor. We are Venom. Yes, hold on to your hats, Marvel fans, as one of Spider-Man's greatest arch-enemies and anti-heroes in Venom is getting the nod as Stern's next cornerstone pinball title. Say what? The rumors were confirmed last week by Stern's own State of the Union News posting and Stern Produce's YouTube teaser trailer showing the Venom logo mixed with what looks like to be snippets of zombie yeti Venom art laid into the Venom and Marvel logos. Yes, frantic Venom pinheads, the official reveal date for the full trailer and Venom features are coming this Tuesday, July 18th, which, surprise, surprise, coincides perfectly with the upcoming San Diego Comic Con, which runs from July 20th to July 23rd. We also know that this game will be helmed by long-time veteran designer Brian Eddy, whose last game was The Mandalorian. Brian is once again teaming up with The Mandalorian coder extraordinaire Dwight Sullivan with assistance from pinball world champion Raymond Davidson, with lead artist being the ever-popular and Marvel favorite, Zombie Eddy. Venom will of course be available in three trim levels, Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition, with Stern once again selling a very limited number of LEs off their Stern Pinball website for all access members to purchase, with the Stern website showing a countdown clock for when Venom officially goes on sale next week. Pricing for all three Venom trims is exactly the same as it was for Stern's last release, Foo Fighters, $6,999 for the Pro, $9,699 for the Premium, and $12,999 for the Limited Edition. Production of Pro Machines is slated to begin in late August, starting with games for locations. Venom LE's production is not slated to begin until mid-December, followed by premium models in late September, which will coincide perfectly with the release of the Venom 3 movie due out this fall. While not much is leaking about the various design features of Venom, it is heavily rumored by people who have seen the Stern pin that it will contain a number of other Marvel characters, such as The Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Captain America. Courtesy of the YouTube pinball stream Flippin' Out With Friends with host Joel Engelbert this past week, saw coder Dwight Sullivan chime into the chat to confirm that the Venom team is working hard on an exceptional topper for the game that will exceed Stern's recent super fancy topper for Mandalorian. There's no word yet on what the music for the Venom pin will be like. It had been rumored that the music might include songs by Ozzy Osbourne, since Stern held an autograph session featuring Ozzy and Todd McFarlane in its booth at last year's San Diego Comic-Con, but at this point we have no idea whether that will actually happen. However, my gut is telling me that yes, there will be some involvement by Todd McFarlane and Osbourne in this Venom title. But yes, you guessed it, we shall have to wait and see. In other Stern-related news, Stern posted a James Bond accessories trailer, which was... ...newsfest, as Stern seems determined to use the cut-and-paste treatment of, like, every other trailer they've ever done before. Yes, Stern, it's okay to ad-lib a little, you know, loosen up a little bit, although that James Bond topper is so damn cool. Quickly, in other notable pinball news, we have pinball boutique manufacturer Haggis Pinball confirming that their next release will in fact be the remake of the rumored Centaur. Say what? Yes, the Centaur Revisited remake with two trim levels to choose from that they are calling The Beast and Oblivion, which is exactly what your credit card, bank account, or line of credit will be feeling as you try and pay for this very expensive but well-made and faithful remake. And lastly, flipping out, Friends YouTube stream Joel Engelberth chatted with Stern designer Keith Elwin this past week, where they talked Godzilla success, James Bond's 60th anniversary edition, the design of the Godzilla topper, wizard mode, minigames, and a few choice hints about features in his next game coming out, maybe by the end of this year, but probably sometime in 2024. That Joel Engelberth, he is on a roll, baby, a roll. All right, everybody, I'll turn the rest of the news items back over to our capable hosts, Vak and Dennis, for the Pinball Show. I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side.
    25:04
    Great to hear you back, Craig Bobby. Welcome back, Craig. So you did a nice overview of stuff we're going to be covering this episode. We opened up big. We had a big, long discussion there. I can't believe we did because we've got a huge episode this week. So much information, but we're going to start on some somber news. Yes. Pinball icon, iconoclast. I would say this individual is responsible. This is a swing here, but I believe it to be true. This individual who had recently passed us last week, I feel, is responsible for pinball still being a thing. I think with this individual, it would have been a high likelihood that pinball would not exist. It certainly wouldn't exist as we know it today. We had this last week, the passing of Shelly Sachs Eldridge from Stern Pinball. We know Shelly was a long time. She was there. We've praised her before on this show. Dennis, she was there with Gary Stern and Joe Kamikow. It was those three that started Data East, essentially. And she stuck with being a leader of that company into the Sega ages and then into the Stern Pinball Inc. ages. I'm going to read the official what we were emailed and messaged. I suppose it's like a press release here.
    26:29
    It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Stern Pinball's legendary jack-of-all-trades, J-O-A-T, Shelley Sachs Eldridge. Shelley worked alongside Gary Stern for more than 40 years. Shelley bravely fought cancer for many years.
    26:43
    Without Shelly, there would be no Stern Pinball, said Gary Stern, chairman and founder. Shelly embodied our company's entrepreneurial get-it-done spirit. More importantly, she was one of my closest and dearest friends, and I will miss her. When Shelly helped found the company in 1986, she wore many hats, serving as receptionist, purchasing clerk, bookkeeper, traffic manager, personnel manager, office manager, and administrative assistant. The title of her business card was lovingly changed to J-O-A-T, Jack of all trades, and never changed during her time at Stern Pinball. Shelly began her career working for four buyers in the furniture department at Montgomery Ward. As she started developing her organizational skills, management took notice and moved her up the company ladder. In 1979, a friend told her about an opening for an executive assistant at a pinball company. She always wondered where those things came from. She went on the interview, accepted the job on the spot, and the rest is history.
    27:48
    Despite her occasional profane protestations to the contrary, Shelly absolutely loved what she did and being part of the Stern Pinball family, said Gary. We will never forget Shelly.
    28:00
    Her immense contributions to our company and to the pinball industry will live on forever. Rest in peace, Shelly. End quote, Gary Stern.
    28:11
    Shelly is survived by her husband, Larry Eldridge, brother and sister-in-law, Steve and Diane Fax, and niece, Misty Sacks. Memorial arrangements are being planned.
    28:22
    So our thoughts and condolences, prayers go out from the pinball show here and the rest of the pinball industry to Shelly, to her colleagues, to her family, and everybody who's changed this industry for the best. I had the wonderful privilege of working with her for several years. here and I can't say enough about her and her importance to the entire industry. moving right along in the pinball show I figure before we talk about some venom Let's talk about Stern Pinball Production Updates, Dennis. Hmm. Ooh, Avengers Pros. You want one? They've been shipping. You know, I hear that they're the perfect accompaniment to the unseen venom, but no thank you. That was a pretty good answer. Nobody stole it yet, so that's good.
    29:33
    Also shipping throughout this week will be... How do you know, Zach? How do you know that's the perfect pairing? How do you know? Somebody did say that. And I was like, well. Yes, I know. I'm taking from what they're saying. You know, I had a good explanation. Same gaming universe. Same artist. I think that's good. Foo Fighters Pros. Those are good, too. Those are shipping throughout this week. A lot of those are rolling out of the factory. Then the following over the next two weeks should be Avengers Premium. We've got some Foo Fighters Premium and the remaining Godzilla Pro and Premiums that have not been made yet. They kind of were splitting up, probably waiting for parts and such. but splitting up those Godzilla Pro and Premiums here and there. So four title or four different models over the next couple weeks. August, we're still getting that Jurassic Park Pro. Here's the update, though. I'm predicting this is going to happen late in the month of August, Jurassic Park Pro, Dennis, because I believe now predicting the move, the quote-unquote the move, is happening the first two weeks of August for Stern Pinball. Okay. We'll talk about this here soon, but the end of August, We're going to see Venom Pros for locations start to roll out. Mid-September is going to be the Venom Limited Edition Series, and late September is going to be Venom Premium Edition. Rolling into October, still Deadpool Pro and Premiums, as well as a very small run of Foo Fighters Pro and Premiums. November, still open, smiley. December, James Bond 007 Pro and Premium, which I still predict could get pushed, but we shall see. And 2024, they still have plans for a number of different games, notably Star Wars and Mandalorian that were bumped from December of 2023.
    31:13
    All right. That's some good updates there. Where's Rush? Oh, so about Rush. Ray, you might want to sit down for this.
    31:24
    You know what's going to happen if they do a small run sometime next year? No. He's going to be like, boo-ya, motherfucker. Bam. He might. He will. So he'll throw one of those weird-ass shooter rod. No, that was Led Zeppelin. Never mind. I'm thinking a Led Zeppelin shooter rod.
    31:45
    Weird. They probably have plenty of those. With a freaking horn on the end. What a weird shooter rod.
    31:53
    All right. Accessories update. Oh, this is a big one. Since we spoke last, Dennis and listener James Bond, 007 accessories were revealed. Woo! Yeah, that's true. And they came with some mixed reactions. People are like, well, the shooter rod looks just like the shooter rod on the 60th anniversary.
    32:09
    The R-Blade looks just like the R-Blade on the LZ. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries. The snozzberries taste like the armors. The same armor is on the 60th anniversary. And the topper. Don't forget the topper is the same topper. I'll never forget the topper. The topper is the same damn topper. So some were upset. They're all the same. Blue steel.
    32:29
    Bond accessories. Bond 60th. They're all the same. That's crazy, Phil. These games are not ambi-turners. They only flip left. You know what? We have to have a special occasion. If they ever make Zublander pinball, that's this show's official themed pinball. We need that. What if that's the big license that people are going to be upset about that Home Pin has? Oh!
    32:55
    Then we'll fly to Taiwan and take delivery of the first one. So the accessories were announced. And people were mixed on them, but you couldn't convince their wallets because those things opened up plentifully. They have been a big sales success, I would say, from my experience thus far. The toppers came out. They were $1,000. And for any of you who have seen the gameplay or have played yourself the 60th anniversary, the topper is pretty phenomenal. It's very, very much integrated with a plethora of RGB lights. Now, I only know how it is integrated on the 60th anniversary, which is pretty heavy. I mean, every switch, every spinner, that thing is just lighting up like a Christmas tree. It's awesome. I can't confirm that it does that for the cornerstone because I simply just haven't seen it yet. I would imagine it to be the same way, though. But at $1,000, I think it's on par with some of the other things that we're getting for $1,000 from Stern Pinball. And here's the kicker, though.
    34:02
    Like the other games, they don't put a limit on it or anything. They say, hey, we're going to run them. We might run them again. We won't tell you when. And when we do, it's way too long. And Zach stays up late answering emails about information he doesn't have regarding when they're going to produce them again. I digress. The top is $1,000. And they have no future plans to build after initial 500-unit run. So we had, what, Bond 60th? I mean, those they made 500? Mm-hmm. So they made 500 of those with the Keith Allen signature on the back. Don't forget that. And then I believe they're making a run of 500 this month, along with the other Bond accessories. That's the other news. Mid-July here this month. And they have no plans to make any more. They just want to run that 500. I don't know if that's a licensing thing. It feels kind of like a licensing thing. Well, it's not exactly a complex topper, so what else would it be? Yeah, and these sold out immediately everywhere. I don't think you can find a James Bond topper anymore, a spot. You know, those Bond fanatics are, well, fanatics. They gobbled those things up. I wonder if David Dennis got one.
    35:11
    Seems like he'd view, well, would he view it as a good investment? Now he might. It seems like he'd mess up and forget to order something. Well, yeah, that's true. So those have been announced. Congratulations to anybody who got those spots. Another batch of Jurassic Park shooter rods have just shipped out. Everybody's been asking, what about those Rush toppers? Oh, I got some info, people. They are back on the line in November. Second run of Rush toppers comes on the line in November. Alongside the Rush Express and Lighting, we finally have a schedule for those. November.
    35:47
    Thank God. It is my understanding that that will be the second and final run of those accessories for Rush. Not surprising since they're done making the game. Yep, so they will try to fulfill all of the orders they currently have. They have stopped taking orders for Rush toppers and expression lighting, to my knowledge. And once they make them in November, they will be done. Iron Maiden Aces High topper was actually bumped up from October to August. So that's coming alongside Elvira topper in August as well. So we've got some of those toppers right around the corner. Avengers Topper, remember Stern gets cute and they say it's Reassembling in October That's coming, if you guys are getting your Avengers Games now, go ahead and get in line For one of those Avengers Toppers in October And the new Rush Expression lighting question that I Am getting throughout emails and Messages and texts and calls is I ordered the Godzilla Topper Dennis, I didn't get it in the first Run, when's it coming? And up to this last week I simply said I have no clue They have not informed us of when. I would guess the next couple of months, though. I was wrong.
    36:59
    Turning down this week, the turnaround time for the second run of the Godzilla topper is the beginning of Q1 2024.
    37:10
    Oh, no. Sad roar. This seems probably insignificant to most people. but to me it's the dealer waiting for a truckload of them that are backordered as well as the people waiting for those truckloads. It's going to be a long time. August, September, October, November, December. Yeah, it's a happy year basically. Oh, no. We stopped taking orders. Beginning of Q1 means sometime in January because it's the first month of Q1. Shit. Oh, well. No one really cares though, so it's okay. Okay. Why does it take so long? It's hard to assemble. If they'd done that version with him holding a blanket in his mouth, it would have been easier. You know what's bad? You're going to start seeing these Godzilla toppers from here over the next four months go up about $500 on the secondary market. Hmm. Maybe they're, uh, there's, I always like to think that whoever makes these decisions, that Stern is just real snarky. They're just like, oh, you want to shit on our topper? Okay, that's fine. We sold out on the first run, and, eh, you know what? We're just going to wait. How about let's just wait? We're not going anywhere. We don't hurt if we don't have it. I just don't know why. I just always picture this person making decisions based on responses of us hobbyists It not true but in my fantasy world it is What gets to me is the way they presented us as dealers In our email correspondence they said and due to popular demand, there's going to be a second round of Godzilla Top. I'm like, what do you mean due to popular demand? Like, I haven't received 50% of my freaking order yet. Due to popular demand? Yeah. I'm so glad that you're running them again after you accepted the freaking order. Stern Pinball's got a new game coming out, and it's called Venom.
    39:02
    Yes. I thought for sure we've got the alien sound, we get a Godzilla sound, and very reptilian-like Venom. I don't really know what Venom sounds like. I haven't seen, well, what does Topher Grace sound like? That's what he sounds like.
    39:19
    What's the theme song to that 70s show? I never watched that show. I always think of him in Predators. Did you ever see Predators? No, I didn't. Okay. He's in Predators. Oh, no. He's also in that movie that was really blue and really yellow, the one about the drug war. And he's like a little druggie getting the drug czar's daughter hooked on all these drugs. That was real blue and real yellow. Well, whenever they shot all the scenes in America, they used like blue filters. So everything's ultra blue. And then when they shot things in, I think it was somewhere south of the border, I don't know what country, it was all really yellow. Like they just put on these extreme filters. That's right. It starred Michael Douglas. I don't remember the name of the movie. Yeah, I don't remember. We need a sound for Venom. I think we should go for the sound of the landlord on Kingpin when she looks at him and she goes, The tongue. You already jarred something loose there, Tech. Venom is coming. And the reports are it's coming on Tuesday, July 18th. That's what we're hearing. Oh, very soon. Very soon. Oh, man. That's tomorrow. Holy moly.
    40:34
    Maybe at like 9 or 10 a.m. Who knows? There are other rumors. We don't even know what time zone. That's how speculative this is. It could be central. We have no clue. Could be. Hard to say. No one really knows where Stern is based anymore. Some say that they're on a flying airship, and their headquarters is constantly changing. Some say that as of August 1st, they're considered in their new facility. Who knows? Other things of question. It's like us last week, Dennis, when we were trying to record a podcast and still plan for Centaur revisits. Oh, my gosh. Should we wait? Should we not wait? How do we do that? So much. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. So much content hit the cutting room floor. We recorded for like four and a half hours that day. We thought it was...
    41:24
    We couldn't wait. But I'm not there. No. I love wasting my time. Thanks, Damien. But it finally came out. We'll talk about that soon. But first, it's all...
    41:38
    Alan, did you ever see Kung Pao, Ender of the Fist? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There. Tonguey. There's Tonguey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tonguey, Tonguey. Okay, yeah. But we've had a whole episode about that.
    41:53
    Mui, miu, miu. Mui, piu, piu. Oh, what was her name? I can't remember. I almost said Wimple-O, but that's the guy that they taught how to fight wrong. All right, a slight aside regarding Kung Pao. Yeah, Betty. Oh, Evil Betty. My name. Bertie, Bertie. Tiger. Maybe that's what Home Pin is. That movie I did not like when I first saw it. However, back when I was younger, I could do almost all the voices Steve Odekirk could do. Sure. I could do most of those characters because he just voiced them all. And I was at a work conference a couple weeks ago. I don't remember what we were. We were playing cards in a bar. Man, you are really getting loose nowadays. And it was some weird game I had never heard of, Shithead. Oh. Okay, that was the name of the card game. I guess the official name is like three up, three down, but anyway, I had to be taught how to play it, and I continued to lose. Anyway, so someone brought up something about, I'm assuming it was about a tongue, and I finally just at the table said, has anyone here seen Kung Pao? And the woman on my left just goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yes. And the other woman across from me goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. The guy who kept winning was just like, what are you guys talking about? Like, it's Kung Pao. Tonguey. We got to talk about tonguey now. You're like, it's weird the winner's here. That's right. He won all, like, we played four or five hands. And he also beat me at pinball and he beat me at skeeball. Wow. Because we went to another bar playing all this other stuff. And all of us just kept losing to this one guy who said he never played any of this stuff. Joseph won!
    43:33
    And I lost on South Park. kettlebells? Because the game wasn't working right. That's what I'm going to blame. Half the switches were dead. Hang out of here!
    43:42
    You couldn't even make the toilet shot. The flippers were so weak. And I finally realized too late that if you shot the Kenny shot, you could just shake the machine and it would give you the instant 10 million. Oh, it registered? Yeah. I started doing that. Trying to avoid the Cartman hole. It's too late.
    44:00
    But anyway. So, that's Venom. Why don't we? Yay! Why don't we get that as a pinball machine? That would be great. Rumored on this game, Brian Eddy on design. He is previously from Stern Pinball, done Stranger Things and Mandalorian. Also rumored as part of the team, Dwight Sullivan on programming, lead programmer. And we heard this last week, you guys have to go to the Flippin' Out with Friends stream with Joel Engelberth on Flippin' Out Pinballs, probably YouTube for the VOD. They were doing a With friends It was Hottie and Sean From Pride Pinball And George Fisher They were chatting about Venom And in pops in Dwight Sullivan And for that matter Raymond Davidson was in there But what was fun is Dwight Sullivan said Hey, shout out to Ray Day Who's part of the Venom team Wow, that was more than a nugget That was like a drumlet That was a whole strip Not just a nug A whole strip A breath Let's just hope that Venom doesn't have any weird decisions on production or we'll never hear the end of it.
    45:02
    It's not being discontinued. It's already canceled. I code my own airport modes. I hope it does have an airport mode for Joel's sake. Yay!
    45:16
    Zombie Yeti on artwork. That's a killer team there. I just hope that it isn't too red for Greg. No, that's your victory game.
    45:27
    The victory is less red than Deadpool. I don't know, man. Victory is pretty red. Deadpool is dripping in red. Oh, shit. Okay, no price changes from Stern Pinball, this new cornerstone. That's good to hear. Don't worry. It ain't January yet. No. It is. No, no price changes.
    45:47
    Pro is $69.99, premium $96.99, and LE is $12,999. Location pros, like I said, we're going out late August. LEs mid-September and premiums late September, which makes me wonder. You know, we knew that there was a hole in September. It's being filled by the LEs and premiums. We knew there was a move in August. Why announce in July? I'm still kind of, I guess because of the Comic-Con thing. It's still a big gap. That's the only thing I can think of, yeah. It's a big gap for Stern, but compared to, I mean, if they look at their competition, is it really? Oh, it's speedy. Yeah. I mean, look at Centaur, just as a cross-comparison. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's absolutely true. So, late August, after the move, we'll start seeing that. Interestingly enough, the second run of Pro and Premium production has yet to be determined, and it's going to depend on the opening order numbers from the initial runs. I think, because I think this theme is going to do very well for sure, that this is that hole that you think is another game. I think it's this. I could see it. I really could see it. And also on that stream, Flippin' Out with Friends, Dwight Selvin indicated that he did, in fact, grow up with the Venom comic books. And he's an avid fan of that genre and series. So he's kind of a big fan of Venom. All right. Let me give a suggestion because I know Joel often streams on your Flippin' Out YouTube channel. Joel should get Dwight and Hottie together, and I want them to, like, have, like, a Venom trivia off. Oh. Yeah, yeah, right. Yes, indeed. Absolutely. Whose clothes will be black and your clothes are red?
    47:25
    One of them will be carnage at the end and one will be the true venom. That would be awesome, actually. And I think Dwight would be up for it because he is very much a game-oriented type of person. As long as you have to put the rules on a board game, he'd be down. He'd be in.
    47:39
    I'm just giving you free content here. I think they'd both be up for it. I really do. Also on the stream, Dwight said, Dwight was like praising the layout, the art, the sound and audio, the animations. Okay, yeah, of course he was. But he couldn't get over it. He's like, the animations are phenomenal, the artwork on there. Just wait. You're going to love it. He also said that the action button on Venom is going to do something different than all previous games.
    48:05
    What do you think that means? I don't know. I'm just glad it doesn't have anything to do with multipliers. Yeah, yeah, but, I mean, the only thing that immediately popped into my head is they haven't used the action button yet to flip a flipper. Mmm.
    48:19
    Flip, flip. Have they ever used an action button for a mechanism? A magnet they have. Yeah, magnets. Yeah, like Black Knight, but... A moving mechanism. Hmm. A diverter, maybe? Yeah, they have. They have on Rush, I believe. Oh, on the premium, yeah. That's right.
    48:40
    Okay. Then I wonder what this might be. It might be... It can't be an add-a-shot, then. No. Can't be a... Can't be to lock in certain targets because Star Wars did that.
    48:55
    Can't be to destroy a spring TIE fighter because it's also Star Wars. I wonder what the hell. I'm trying to think just pinball-wise what that could be then. Do you think it's a timing thing? I always wanted something with the action button to be a timing thing. As you're taking a shot, you have to hit it in order for something to happen, like at the right time. I mean, that would be different. It would be different. Almost like, think of Duke Caboom, that ramp only coming up if you hit the center button. Right, right. I see what you're saying, yeah. Or possibly, have they done something yet with it, like firing a post save or something?
    49:36
    Maybe bringing back something like that, maybe a little space shuttle action between the flippers that you can hit that button and do something? Well, we know that Brian Eddy really liked on the shadow using the side flipper buttons, additional set of flipper buttons to divert ramps. So maybe it's a Brian Eddy thing. Who knows? We're going to find out tomorrow. They also talked about the upcoming topper for Venom. And we know that Dwight did the Mandalorian topper, and he crushed it. He said him and the team have big plans for the Venom topper as well, and they're aiming to surpass that of the Mandalorian topper and subsequently the Black Knight topper. So they're going all out. It's a 3D sculpt with a hologram that moves. What if they brought back the whole Black Knight mechanism but for Venom with a flappy tongue?
    50:25
    Yay, yay, yay. And it adds the Council multiball. The Council? Yeah. I just wanted to be that lady on Kingpin.
    50:36
    I don't know what's going to happen. This is going to be interesting, though. Venom is coming. Now, do you think this is going to be a big seller without saying it, just based on the theme alone and now the info that we have, the team that is the Venom team? Yes. Yes, Zach, it will be a big seller. Okay. All right. Well, I didn't know because I don't think Venom is like this unbelievable. This isn't the license that's like, holy shit, the second coming. I mean. It's stronger than a rug. You don't think of him as an A-list Marvel character, so I could see where you're coming from at that. But here's the thing that I think happens with people, even if they're not maybe necessarily the biggest Venom fans specifically, is because it's Venom who's either, depending on your interpretation or your era, you're looking at a villain or an anti-hero, it's got this dark edginess to it that people are getting a little tired of the kiddified pinball game. They're going to be like, Venom's going to be more edgy. He's going to be darker. Yeah, they're a little Newmaned out. And they're like, no, we want a little edge. We want a little edgelord in our pinball. Yeah, it's symbiote me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    51:56
    God, we're into the pennyverse now. Did you see Stern stole that from us? What is that all about? They can at least contract us out before they do that. Jeez, you solve it. That's a lot of nuts. I love that you can still reference that old-ass movie.
    52:18
    I think we're going to have to give this one a shout-out to Zach Sharp. I think this is a Zach Sharp doing.
    52:25
    And I'm just great because I love Zach. We're friends. And I'm going to bust the pinballs here and say, Zach, We gave you the correct terminology in the use of penny verse. And then you go and butcher it. He forgot to buy a vowel. Yeah, he went pen verse. Now, the only, see, I'm really finicky about these things because universe, universe, you're trying to mimic that. So you go penny verse, penny verse, and then also. Or they were pulling from spider verse, which is also three syllables. That's right. Thank you. And then if you really want to do the next level stuff in Australia, they refer to pinball machines as pennies. So penny first, penny first. Yeah. No, you had layers to it. It was very clever, Zach. It was very clever. Come on, Sharp. We have to show well for us Zacks out there. Maybe he just didn't. He's like, damn it, we've got to get rid of the I because those idiots over at TPS went penny first. No, no. They should have known. They should have just embraced it.
    53:27
    The decision making, I don't know. Do you think Venom is as strong, less strong, or stronger than the theme Godzilla for pinball relevancy right now? Oh, stronger as a theme. I agree. I mean, that's the big, not joke, but that's the big, I guess, surprise that everyone had around Godzilla is, depending who you ask, it's like a C-tier to an F-tier license. Especially Poho Godzilla. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was not based on anything modern. It was the whole first era of Toho Godzilla. So very old, very campy. A lot of people had a high degree of familiarity with it, but it wasn't current to anyone. And a lot of people in America don't have nostalgia for it. So that just went to show where a license and theme means a lot. But if you have a really good game, it can overcome that. It has to be a good game. Do you think that Venom is more relevant and worthy of Penble licensing right now than Rush?
    54:28
    Yes. I do, too. I do. And I also think Venom, the nice thing is because they're not as beloved as Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool, I think there will be less, why isn't this the movie version, than there was when Deadpool came out as a comic. One hundred percent. So that's a strength, too, for going with this. People are less fond of the Sony package of the modern Venom movies then I don't think they'll be all hung up on it like they were with... I mean, a lot of people, it really was a problem, a sticking point with Deadpool. I could see the argument, I don't know if I'd believe it, but I can see the argument that Venom as a comic book theme for pinball may be more desired, sought after, relevant than even Avengers once we found out it was based on a comic book rather than the films.
    55:15
    I'd say maybe. Definitely Avengers same problem as Deadpool. Maybe more so because Avengers is a movie that was, I mean, that made so much money. I could see the Avengers. If they did it as a film, it's no question. But them doing it as a comic, I still think Venom gets the edge here because it is so iconic. Comic is so iconic to pinball. Like, it just works so well, almost as well as, like, a band theme. It's comic-based theming inside the mechanics of a pinball machine. I don't know why.
    55:43
    Like, peas and taters. Well, and another thing to factor in, though, is like Avengers, again, I'm not a comic book person, but my understanding is like Avengers as a comic, like it doesn't have the strength of a lot of the solo character comic series. There's more like these ensemble cast things, and so it's not focused on anyone's favorite. It's all just this blend. And most people would argue that they wish it was into the Spider-Verse, whether that's the film or another amazing Spider-Man comic theming for Pinball Machine. Yeah, I think a lot of that is driven by the two Spider-Verse movies are just seen as better films than the Venom movies, and that's what's driving that. But I'm glad I'm— Plus, Spider-Man is a more beloved character than Venom is. Sure, but I am actually—I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I like the nostalgia and the artwork of Spider-Man and Venom, But I'm glad it's comic book Venom over another Spider-Man.
    56:43
    As an enthusiast, I am. Just because it's different. We've got Spider-Man. You know, we... Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I've said this for years about Back to the Future. Oh, come on.
    56:53
    Tobey Maguire didn't have a potato face. Potato! What's to yours? You go that way. I'll go home. That $1 download's coming soon enough, Dennis. We are both in TriggerQuiz. I swim a little high I swim a little low It's been I don't Can't for me Been through the crisis No no no Neo Who's the one that Runs away crying That's what he was Going to put on that burn For not using penny Versus stern Some neosporin Zach Sharf's got his Hands on his head Right now No Why See that one was Interviewed by Joel Engel birth on Flippin' Out with Friends this last week as well. I'm going to give Joel some credit here. To some? I haven't seen this interview because I just figured it would be all about Deadpool, so I skipped it.
    57:51
    Wow. How'd that feel, Joel? Sting a little bit there? Man. No, no, no. Neo. Did he ever bring up Deadpool in the interview? He didn't.
    58:02
    I don't think he did. I don't think he did but he brought up a lot of stuff I'm going to give credit to Joel Engelberg and say that not only has he been on fire lately this interview was the best pinball interview of the year thus far for me. Okay, I will have to watch it then because I think that is a tall order against Dr. John's interview with Mike from Homeworld. Oh yeah, that was just grossing. Which is my favorite interview of all time Okay, I can see that. You're not going to get that here, thankfully But this was just because, and I'll tell you why, because it showcased the goat of pinball, Keith Elwin. It showcased him in a way that the public has not seen before. We know Keith is very stoic, very reserved, almost like he doesn't show emotion, doesn't emote very much. That's not a good thing. You've turned him into a Terminator, but go on. You know what? In many ways on video, when he's playing at tournaments and stuff, that's what he is. He doesn't have to be the center of attention. He's just a key to everyone.
    59:10
    On this interview, they did a video format, and he was bubbly the whole time. He was charismatic. He was having fun. He was smiling. He was laughing. It made him the most lovable person that I've seen in a long time in pinball. It was awesome to see how genuinely happy Keith Elwin appeared. I don't know why, but he was just genuinely bubbly. It was awesome to see. He talked about a lot of things. We're going to brush through some of them. You've got to go back for it. You've got to watch this. You've got to watch it. Talking about design, the philosophy, I love this. Keith Elwin said regarding the philosophy of design, quote, if you don't hook them early, you're never going to hook them. And what he's talking about here is why is Godzilla so successful? Why does it work for so many people? And he said it's so important that you've got to have something to hook everyone in. He talked about turning his competitive brain off at times and watching his family and friends and just people like Logan Arcade, watching what pulled them into certain games. And he said that is crucial. That's why he does the layouts, he does the toys, mechs that he does. If you don't hook them early, you're just simply never going to hook them. I found that very interesting. He also said, you've got to make clear paths to many wizard modes and to moments. I love that Keith Elwin here, being known as maybe arguably the greatest competitive pinball player of all time, he is smart enough to know that there are things called pinball moments. And he, I mean, he voiced that. Having a clear reachable path to a sustainable reachable mini wizard mode is very important It just shows his brilliance here He talks about the Godzilla code Intentionally releasing that code I thought you'd find this interesting Dennis Intentionally releasing it very immature He explained that by doing so He and the team could watch how people would play it and they could evolve the rules and code based on the feedback that they were receiving.
    61:21
    The example he gave was inserting things like Saucer Attack Multiball into what people seemed to feel like a dead spot was in the game. So they inserted Saucer Attack Multiball. So can you imagine intentionally releasing code, what he said, very immature?
    61:40
    Yeah, I assume that's what's happening with Scooby-Doo. Oh. Man, shots fired. What? We just, yeah. That's not cool, bro. That's to shape the direction that the game's going to go.
    61:57
    Rather than forever. Not like it. I thought it was funny. I thought it was funny, too. He also talked about the problem with 90s codes, relying on multiball for finding those points. He likes this. Very true. He said he likes staying away from big points in the multiball unless, this is for the more high advanced player, unless that player preps beforehand for said multiball. Then he likes making it very advantageous, but you've got to work and properly prep before you throw that meat on the grill.
    62:29
    That's an interesting one because I'm not sure they found a good balance here yet, or maybe this isn't really the designer's fault, but there seem to be a lot of people that they find out about that, They find about the, I don't know what we'd call it, the stack maybe, you know, stack to properly, you know, max out your multiball. And the problem is, be it because that gets out there through the Internet and the guides and everything else, but it's like everyone, including average players, starts to think that's how they are supposed to play it. Oh, it's true. Then they can't achieve that. They can't do the stack, and they get mad at the game over it. Yeah, I can see that. And he talked about that's why he doesn't like stacking a lot of multi-balls in his games. He said he spoke with Lyman, he was recollecting, spoke with Lyman a lot in the past about that. Gave the example of the Walking Dead, how Lyman figured out that it was essential that people not be able to stack, like, prison and, well, Walker multi-balls. Oh, gosh, it would be so easy to get into both if you could do it. He said initially that's why, that's the feedback he gave Lyman, because Lyman reached out to him being, you know, the great that he was, reached out to him saying, you know, where do I need to focus on this code? And Keith Elwin's saying, like, okay, we've got three multiballs here, but I just try to stack them all. Or I just try to stack Prison and Well Walker, and that's where the points are at. So Lyman went back and said, all right, we've got to get rid of that stack. Then Joel brought up, like, okay, all this modern stuff. Do you not love the classic games? You talk about Frontier. You talk about all of these things. Keith said, no, don't get me wrong. I love the, you know, do the thing classic games. I love them, but I just don't want to play them all the time. He said his focus as a designer is more towards the home game and creating a product for continual repeat consumption. He said do the thing. Classic games are awesome, especially in tournaments or when you're on location and you're putting some coins in. But he said if the game that you're creating is at home, he doesn't want to play those all the time. It gets boring. Yeah, I think that path is pretty obvious for manufacturers at this stage, and I think all of them are pretty much trying. This is actually where I run into as a potential buyer. I can't justify buying a 90 Williams game, as shallow as it is, for the same or more money than a modern Stern. It doesn't make any sense to me. If I buy a classic game because it was $1,500, then it makes sense that I ended up with a more shallow game, but not for $7,000. I completely agree. And the reason that I own them is because once you get up to the size of a collection, then you don't play them as much. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So that's why I have them. A person who only has space for like three games, I in particular completely understand why they end up with all moderns because the depth is necessary if they don't want to constantly move games in and out. Once you can, you know, if you've got like a half dozen, it's easy to start saying, I'm going to have a classic or two in the list. Joel was asking, what makes Godzilla so damn, like, why do people just love this thing so much? And, you know, throughout the interview, they talked about some things that may lead to, he's very humble, so he doesn't want to say anything about him, but he also attributed the licensor freedom with a lot of the success and positive reactions to Godzilla games. So they were just unbelievable to work with. They were a game for a lot of things. And then Joel had to bring up mods and toppers, which I was so happy he did. It's always weird hearing designers because, you know, they're just like, whatever, I don't care. But he talked about the Godzilla topper. It was actually designed by Keith Elwin, the team, and the licensor. So Elwin does have his hands in the design of these toppers. When discussing, like, price and desirability and then hashtag plume life and integration, he said it's tough because they designed that thing back in 2020, like before the pandemic. So he's like, it's hard to gauge where toppers are going to be three years from now. Speaking of that topper, he gave a shout-out to Brett, the lamp guy. That's what he called him. Brett, the lamp guy, and Rick Nagel, rest of the coding team for that topper coding. He said it was quite extensive, actually. Yeah, I've heard that coding for lighting is probably one of the more difficult, because of the syncing for people. That's maybe one of the more underappreciated programming aspects of modern games. And not to point at the newly released James Bond topper and licensing for why they put it on the 60th Anaconda Cup. But he said, like, for example, licensors do matter when it comes to accessories like toppers because Iron Maiden, that licensor could not choose between the two designs and the Aces High or the Egyptian topper. So they just they requested both be made. So they said, all right, we'll make both. A lot of people wanted to know, Keith, what's up with this challenge mode only being available DLC like on the topper? And he spoke to that. Joel asked it. And he said, the exclusive topper mode will stay that way. You're not going to see that on IC. Oh, wow. He said the only reason that previous topper modes were then allowed to hit the IC users was because those titles did not initially come with Insider Connected. So to me, Dennis, it sounded like he was saying that it was more of an incentive to sell the Insider Connected modules to increase that user base. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, clearly their future hinges more on IC integration than it does on if you chose to get a topper. So since those games didn't come with it, they wanted people to get those in their games for future use, and now that every game comes with the IC, he said you're not going to see that. The challenge is one that people are raving about, by the way, on the Godzilla topper. You're not going to see that on IC. The only way you're going to see that is with that topper. Joel asked about just thoughts on pinball mods in general. Alan said he thinks some mods are actually really cool. Some are gaudy, just over the top is what he said, or unnecessary for him. As long as it's not impeding the visual of the ball in play, that's a big no-no for him. I found it interesting that when tasked with creating, this is a big one. Nobody's talking about it. Initially, when tasked with creating a classic-style retro pinball machine for James Bond in their 60th anniversary edition, which was very much being pushed by that licensor, Stern Pinball was considering, this was before Keith Elwin signed on to do it, the team at Stern Pinball was considering re-skinning Stern Electronics Quicksilver or Galaxy. That tells me, Dennis, that even though Keith Elwin stepped in and said, no, I'll make it, it's fine. And that tells me that we may, in fact, see not only a re-theme of the classics Quicksilver and Galaxy in the future, but those are the ones that we will likely see upcoming. That's a big one.
    69:24
    Yeah, I suppose so. And you know what? For my money, give me the layout of Galaxy over Quicksilver. Is that crazy? Well, if we're talking a reskin, I would say no, not necessarily crazy. If we're talking remakes, then Quicksilver should be remade over Galaxy. Yeah. It's simply for money. It's not for making money. I agree with that. And the only way I would say Galaxy is if you add – I don't think that game's got a spinner. Yeah, it does. It's got a spinner up the gut. I'd want another spinner, maybe to the left. It doesn't have much flow in Galaxy, though. I don't know. But Quicksilver with that bank in the – no. Did you know that Keith Elwin finished designing the game that hasn't even come out yet before he even started on Bond 60th? I didn't, but I'm not surprised. He's always indicated he's pretty quote-unquote far ahead when it comes to where people – and I think a lot of that is – and maybe because I don't want to understate his skill, but I get the sense that people hear this and they just think he's so fast. And I think just most hobbyists completely underestimate how much time it takes to do a design. Yeah, maybe everybody else is slow. And we'll talk about that here upcoming when it comes to code, too. I mean, I just think production is the bottleneck, not – and I think it's been that way before there were supply chain issues. Well, think about coding, too. I think coding and programming is a bottleneck as well. It can be, but the teams are – you know, you could say, well, the games are so much deeper now. But the teams are bigger, too. They're larger, yeah. I mean, because we do have to remember, like, a whole production cycle. What was the life cycle at Williams back in the 90s? It was about a year. Mm-hmm. But Premiere was doing it in three months.
    71:05
    Victory. Checkpoint one. Yes. Checkpoint two. I've played that at a show once, I think, and I enjoyed it. I played the video game version on Pinball Arcade. That's what I put on my list. Thank you for calling it video game version. Appreciate that. What was it called? The Pinball Arcade, I think, had it. Oh, you'll like it, too. Keith Elwin talked about he thinks modern games oftentimes fall into the trap of returning the ball back to the flipper safely. A lot. Oh, my gosh. He's so right. Let me tell you. This is why, where you got to the thing where we were talking earlier about classic games and his part in the interview about do the thing and how fun those are in tournaments. I'm almost at the point now where I'll just say I hate modern games in tournaments. They play too long. People know how to keep the shot safe because every good shot is rewarded with safety to the flipper, and it's so annoying. He said it creates boring experiences. You have to play forever. He's trying to move away from that. You have to balance because if you've got deep games, if they're not easy, how will anyone, like the layouts aren't forgiving, how will anyone ever get to the end of them? Absolutely. So you've got to balance that with, great, let's go up and let's have a, you know. Remember, that's the big complaint of Lord of the Rings was, well, you play the game for 40 minutes. Well, nowadays, it's not uncommon for people that are only of slightly above average skill to play a stern for 20. Oh, yeah, especially. I'm not going to knock Elwin here, but especially games like, for me, Godzilla. Godzilla is a longer player. It is. What's his most brutal game? I would say probably Avengers. but... No, I don't... See, Avengers plays more friendly to me than like a Jurassic Park. Okay. But I don't think Iron Man... I've heard others have that game. I don't think they're short game either. For me, Avengers is the shortest followed by Jurassic Park.
    72:58
    Then Maiden and then Godzilla the longest. But he talked about that and he said that's what he tried to do with Bond 60th. He tried to eliminate that you know, quickly, safely, right back to the flipper. And then they went on to discuss that in further detail, Joel asking him, well, how do you balance quick-playing games that are just objectively more fun to play socially with people versus these modern games that are fantastic in single-player depth experiences, but they make it stale with a group? In other words, finding a way to have depth and approachability in moments, but also doing so in a way that is shorter gameplay and socially fun to play. Elwin responded, quote, hopefully you'll see in my next game.
    73:41
    Well, it's always, I mean, it's a give-take. It's a push-pull. It's tough. It is tough. And talking about the design of Bond 60, he said he started design-wise on that play field, he started with a figure-eight shot, which I don't know if anybody picked up on this. He said that shot is modified from another game from him. But if you think about it, that's a yet-to-be-released game because he is not, there's nothing like that. So he says it's basically a little tighter than the one that he will see later. But he wanted like a centaur-like upper playfield 2-pop area. And originally the game had no playfield display, but the displays are actually needed for service menu and insider-connected integration. That's why you see it in the playfield itself. But a figure 8. So we may see a figure 8 type of shot coming on a yet-to-be-released game. And talking about Bond 60th, he said, theme appropriate, everything's dangerous, you're a spy, come on. Any mechs that he wished were more affordable to use in a pinball machine, he said, quote, it's a toss-up between drop targets and magnets. I'm surprised you didn't say Optus spinners. It made my day when he said magnets, because we don't use magnets enough in games. Comp people hate magnets. They cause too much chaos. They want that control safety to the flipper. I love them. You can make them do fun control things, too. I'm still calling out Spooky because I think they're the first ones that are going to be able to do it. They almost did it with Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle, where they had the magnet in between the flippers to catch the ball and throw it back up. Brilliant. Oh, the idea they stole from Goldeneye.
    75:18
    Okay, but you didn't get crotch wear, and it actually looked like that. Well, that's because of modern accoutrements. Yes, it was Goldeneye. Clear coat. But what I want to see Spooky do, or Sterner, or anybody, same mechanism down there, same magnet core, but make that the action button ball save because it physically is right there. So make that where you can physically ball save in between the flippers physically and manually. I love that. Do it.
    75:48
    All right. He talked about when he's bored, he designs mechanisms. That was funny. And he said, you'll love this, Dennis. Oh, you're going to eat this shit up on this next game. He said, quote, my next game, non-symmetrical in lanes. And one of them is quite different than the other. Oh.
    76:06
    What do you think about the Italian bottom? And he said, no, look, yeah, it's boring. Well, well, well, does this mean that the non-symmetrical doesn't necessarily mean it's not an Italian bottom, though? Very true. But the topic that wrote this quote. He could do a 3-2, I mean. The topic that entered into this was, what do you think about Italian bottoms? Do you ever see that being different in the future? And he said, my next game, his response was, has non-symmetrical in lanes, and one of them is quite different than the other, I guess. Okay.
    76:40
    Size-wise, maybe with sling. I mean, you know what I would like? I would like one side to have the potential for scissor flipper. Oh, yes. Come on. You're all like, who needs my magnets back? I'm glad it's half scissors. Stupid. No. And he will, too, because he's into that fucking old school shit.
    76:58
    What? He said he had to play this. Lack of control You got to let people lose the ball They not being brain You got to use your brain You got to use your big brain for something No flipper areas should be controllable safe It should not be So you want an Italian bottom because that's what Italian bottoms are all about. It's like you have in lanes and it's wrapping up. I would argue that if I ever designed a pinball team or I had control over people designing, I would get rid of the whole three bumpers and must things. I would say Italian bottom. This objectively feels great, and we don't want to change the steering of our sports car. Do not fucking change this. That's where Steve Ritchie is the poster child of it, where he's flat out said, I do not redesign the lower portion of my play field at all because this is what people enjoy to shoot. They want that familiarity. Somewhat deviation in between, but as long as it's the Italian bottom. Because the Keith Elwin pulling the swings further apart, that's fine. But just keep it symmetrical down there. I want scissors, Keith. Keith, if you're listening. I don't think you are, but if you're listening. I would even do away with a fathom roll-in. Let people get scissored. I hate that shit. Let them fight with scissors.
    78:09
    Keith said he had to plead his case to get rid of the whole three-pop bumper cluster thing that Gary was so adamant about. That's now a thing of the past. Well, a lot of designers there are now not doing the three. That's now a thing of the past. Jack Danger's recent game had no pop bumpers. Of course, Gary's not in the same position he was, so that could be it, too. Yeah, I love the swing at, because Elwin's still bold. He's still ballsy. He took a swing. He said when playing other people's games as they're, you know, in progress games at the factory whenever they've got whitewoods and stuff, he said most people are cool with you playing them and giving feedback. He said, like, Dwight, Dwight will encourage people to come into his office, play the game, give feedback. You know, he's very, very much collaborative like that. But he said there's other people, he referenced Steve Ritchie, that would get angry if people would play his in-game progress game. Do you think that that's because Steve came from Williams when the teams were cutthroat?
    79:07
    I very much believe that to be the case, and I very much believe that the reason that Steve Ritchie probably excelled in such an environment is because personality-wise he has that too.
    79:19
    Okay, I can see that. It's a ballsy, competitive, you know, it's me or the field kind of thing. They talked about tournaments at the very end because Joel's smart and knew he'd lose people. That's why we're going to talk about it at the end of this segment. Keith likes tournaments. He said, what do you think about new tournament play? Whoppers, IFPA, like you're not competing as much, but you still. He said, I like tournaments still, but his preference are competitions that have finals, Formal finals, where you're almost bracket-like. You go up to the stage whenever, those kind of things. He said it's tough to keep up on all the new rule sets of games, though. On the new games, that's his biggest downfall in competing nowadays. He gave the example of Foo Fighters. When he went up to, he had no clue what he was doing. He didn't place value on the venue of competitive Pimble like he used to. So he just doesn't spend a majority of his time in the interview on this. It's just not his job anymore as much. What do you think about that? Keith, that one getting all soft, going pinball moments on us. I love it. Oh, there's not anyone who's into that pinball moment. That's just some hubbub you've tried to stir up. Oh, Elwood knows where that money's at. Point chaser moment maker conflict. We're the money makers over here, Keith. Everyone appreciates moments. Some people don't like points, and some people go as far as Mike from HomePen, who don't think points should exist in pinball, even though they've existed since the start of modern and not even practically modern pinball. Well, we're going, we don't need rules.
    80:51
    So I'm not, but Steve's, or excuse me, Keith's taken such a step back already from turn, I mean, I thought it was obvious. He plays occasionally, and that's it. So I think his actions already spoke more than any words would about what he thought of competitive pinball. He even gave it to the code guy and discussed the difficulty of rules design. He said that, in and of itself, programming, even just coming up with rules and having balanced rule sets, is much more difficult for him than designing play fields. Well, sure, because balancing is all in the rules.
    81:22
    As long as the shots can be made, which we've seen some companies even to this day that sometimes struggle with that, as long as all the shots are accessible, the play field is quote-unquote balanced. It's the rules that determine where you'll shoot on it or not. Now, you could still have a fundamentally unfun layout if those shots are clunky or something, but that's not the same as balancing. And that being said, you can always fix balance if it's bad in theory, whereas a bad play field is bad forever.
    81:52
    Whenever Keith Elwin has 15 minutes to play, his go-to is James Bondable's 760th Anniversary Edition.
    82:01
    Boom. Because anything else would play too long. And other news straight down the middle to the top ten video that we were talking about last episode. I told you guys to be on the lookout for this one. Top ten pinball machines, greatest pinball machines of all time. How do you even compile that? Well, Greg and I from straight down the middle felt that we couldn't give any preferential treatment to what we thought was the best, so we had to call upon the pin gods. The pin gods being, you guys know the pin gods. Anytime you've got a save that you shouldn't have, anytime the code kind of glitched and it popped another ball out. The pin gods are overlooking all pinball machines in all existence, creation, playability. The pin gods are there to oversee all. And they told us what the top ten greatest pinball machines of all time were. And the consensus from YouTube people, because YouTube people will even bash demigod. They don't give a shit. YouTube armchair quarterbacks, commenters, they're ruthless. And the consensus was that we went too modern with our choices. The consumers wanted to see, I thought this, if you guys haven't seen this video, you got to check it out because I think we make a damn good case against, you know, a lot of the older games. But the YouTube consumers, they were commenting that they wanted to see more 90s Bally Williams games, especially the number one game that everybody brought up. You guys are on crack for not having this in the top 10 greatest demo machines of all time was Twilight Zone.
    83:29
    Agree or disagree, Dennis? Greatest of all time? Twilight Zone? Twilight Zone, absolutely not. I actually hate Twilight Zone. I don't think it's fun. I like it, but it's hard to put a wide body in top ten greatest of all time, period. And hate's probably a strong word for me, too, for that matter. It's okay. But, you know, that game didn't do well when it came out. If it was truly a great, it would have. Yeah, and then they also said Indiana Jones, a pinball adventure. I'm like, well, personally, I love that game. we try to have a well-rounded theming, playability, rule it's got to have it all I did see this video good job on it, it was entertaining good I would say yeah, but the but for me is, and as you just sort of acknowledged it, my only real problem with it, I thought your picks were fine given the parameters you set A very large number of consumers agreed with the list, which was surprising to me. Well, no, it wasn't. Well, and anyone who had seen other straight down the middle videos would be able to have easily identified that you guys did not just pick the games you all personally love. Because, yeah, Indiana Jones would have probably been on the list, for example, in that case. My fundamental issue is fundamentalism. And, again, it's a fun topic, so I don't get hung up on those things. But you were so loosey-goosey with the definition of the top ten, like how, you know, the pinball gods. There's no criteria. It's like you didn't involve any sort of metric. So in a way, you perfectly, of course, shielded yourself because you could say it was whatever you wanted it to be. But on the flip side, no one could really, like I couldn't grasp what the judging criteria was either. Some people accused us of not being criteria. Right. So it's sort of like, okay, are these all games where it's like someone says this is – like the best I could describe it is what games are in their list. And I would say every single game they've named, it's someone's favorite game out of all other games. That would be the best I could possibly come up with. I didn't think of that. That's true. That's how it felt to me. Whereas I think some people, especially those that wanted you to go older than 90s, they were looking at 10, like, most impactful machines of all time. You know, that's where, like, the Addams Family would come in or something like Gold Garbage. Humpty Dumpty, and I was like, you're missing the point here. Yeah, like Humpty Dumpty. Okay, and it's very iconic and important in the history of pinball. Humpty Dumpty is not a fun game, though. No. So in that regard, I – I like that the argument that you made, though, that would be maybe a consensus on so many groups of people saying this is my favorite. Because I think subconsciously I might have skewed that way, thinking what are people's just not only sales, but like just well-rounded – What do people love to death? So in terms of what you listed, again, I could easily see all the games on the list that you put on there. If I were to critique it, which I'm going to now. Hopefully, yeah. So my main one would be where you pick two WMS games, but they're very similar layouts, Medieval and Attack. And so, well, hats off to you for putting Attack on top because it is easily the better game off of rules alone. Absolutely, yeah. So that was right. So I agreed with that. I just thought, if you're doing two 90s Williams, maybe don't do the two Brian Eddies. But they are both really, really popular, so I can see why you were there. And then I think the one that was probably your most controversial pick was Ghostbusters in the West. That's probably the one you had the most blowback on. They did. It's such a flawed layout, it is a little weird to be on there.
    87:05
    It's like, people go gangbusters for it because the immersion is so awesome. And so, again, I could see why it's on there. Immersion, artwork, gaming, integration, sales. It's probably the weakest game by a country mile on your list. It pretty much has everything. One could argue the layout, but besides the layout, it has in aces every single thing else. Everything. Even down to sales, because sales were fucking phenomenal on this game. Sure. So, again, I understood every single, like, there was, you couldn't point at, in my view, You couldn't point at any game on the list, not say that it was top in some way. People didn't like the Star Trek pick, and I thought that Metallica were ones maybe I wouldn't have in my top ten. But I thought more objectively, well-rounded-wise, those are great pinball machines.
    87:57
    I'm not a huge – for me, Metallica is a bit of a woodchopper, so it wouldn't be my personal bet. But I'll tell you, there are a lot of people who absolutely love how the rules integration is with that game and how Sparky was integrated as well. Artwork. And in declaring my own bias, since I do happen to own Star Trek, I think Star Trek is the greatest flow game as a layout that's ever been created. So just, again, in terms of top, if you want a flow experience, there's – I saw – I know someone left a comment somewhere saying that they thought, you know, Next Gen was a better version of Star Trek. They're incorrect. They are incorrect. The layout is significantly inferior. Absolutely. In fact, Steve Ritchie himself acknowledges that those slings are too high on that game, and it really ruins the experience. Yes. So you were correct in not picking Next Gen over regular Star Trek. There are a couple things over Stern Star Trek, but no. Overall, the better game is the Stern Star Trek.
    88:51
    It's better. Other than in call-outs, it's better, like, in every way. I would say Mechanisms is tough. Oh, because I didn't even think about judging it on mechs. But you know the LE version with this late? I mean, a lot of people say that Star Trek Stern LE was the last truly great LE that they made. I can see that argument. Where it felt like it was really above the premium. Over the top, yeah. Yeah. I think overall, I was happy with the way the video turned out. It's hell. We're at 10,000 views in a week or so. Very good. Very good video. And I knew it would generate this kind of discussion, 300 comments, since we did the last podcast. I knew it would do well, but I found it really important to try to look past my own preference. We still got people that said we made the list just because we're selling those games.
    89:44
    But a lot of the games on the list are no longer in production. Exactly. I think only three of them, of the ten were. So, actually, Tony from EGP messaged me and said, did Zach put in just games he's selling in that list? He hadn't seen the video. I said, actually, it's less than half. Yeah, and that's what everybody was like. No, they said it was sponsored by Stern Pinball. Sadly, it wasn't. I'll take the money, though. But, no. Now, I'm going to assume you, because I didn't go and read all the comments. I'm going to assume you probably did get a lot of blowback. Not so much that necessarily, I wasn't surprised that the 90s Bally Williams fans, because even though they're now finally a minority of the hobby, they're loud. I figured you'd get more pushback on the fact that of all the moderans, it's only Stern. No J.J.P., no Spooky, no... It wasn't as much. It was more retaliation against the quality of Stern Pinball. It was weird. What I found with this video more than any listener was that the group, the population of pinball video content consumption on YouTube is much different than it is a podcast or even Pinside or even Facebook. These individuals were very nostalgic-based. They really gravitated towards 90s Bally Williams, maybe because the video form of a YouTube is more prone to be consumed by more old-school pinball guys, if you will. So I found it very interesting that a lot of them pushed stern quality sucks, Bally Williams is weird as hell, man. Like that was the feeling from such a large number of comments.
    91:17
    Like, you ain't going to beat my 80s. You ain't going to beat my 90s. Adam's saying, Adam's family's the greatest. It's almost like they weren't into the modern pinball rule sets or anything. Okay. Maybe it's kind of like when you look at top ten solid state games on IPDB versus Pinside, which are very different lists. Very possible. So a lot of fun. And at the end of all this, to put a bow on it, the funniest comment that we received on that video was by, at The Watcher 2584, I've got to give him credit, because they said, quote, never trust a guy that doesn't shave his neck.
    91:51
    Neck beards. Very video game insult there. And in that video, Greg and I were a bit long in the beard. So, yeah, we did have some neck hair going on. I had Chino appointment the next week. What are you going to do? This is a reminder for those of you who haven't seen the video straight down the middle, go ahead, like, follow, subscribe to Straight Down the Middle. And you never know, you sharing that YouTube video from Straight Down the Middle, the top ten greatest pinball machines of all time, you never know when randomly they're just going to do some giveaways for those who share. You never know. Just like the pinball show, Dennis, sharing is caring. Who knows when we might provide a giveaway or two for one of these listeners who, I don't know, share the next mid-week link to the Venom discussion. Who knows is all I'm saying. Who knows? All you've got to do is share it. You see it pop up, you don't have to listen to it. You don't even have to be a follower. You don't even have to be a club member. All you've got to do is share the link to the video. And who knows? Maybe we'll do a giveaway. Maybe we'll give away a Haggis pinball machine Maybe a Centaur revisit No, we're not going to do that But did you see that released and announced on July 4th of all days? I did To the states What do you think that's all about? Haggis pinball releases, Centaur revisited July 5th over in Australia But July 4th evening in America All I know, Zach, is that it ruined a whole lot of content we had recorded It did, it really did Yeah, it did I'm sitting here trying to light off fireworks, getting emails from Marty and Damon like, hey, we're about to go live. I'm like, wait, I've eaten my hot dogs, but I've got a whole table full of fireworks here. What they came up with was a very limited number of games that they're going to be producing over in Australia. Two different models for Centaur Revisited, the Beast Edition and the Oblivion Edition.
    93:55
    I struggle so much to say Oblivion still. I get it. I mean, it's clever. It is very funny. But just, oh. There's only 50 of them. Come on. Now, if you guys have not heard the Eclectic Gamers podcast, they went over this recent release. I can't recommend it because they were pretty silly about it. Because you sell them? I can't recommend going to listen to that, but we'll rehash some of it here, I assure you. No. So, monetarily speaking, the price of these games is in Australian dollars, $15,000 and $25,000 respectively, between Beast and Oblivion. That comes up, I mean, it's whatever the market is in the conversion currency right now. Like right this second, that would come up U.S. dollars, $10,258 for a Beast edition. And for the Oblivion right now, it's $17,097, about $17,000, plus shipping and import tax. and breaking all that stuff. That's a pricey pinball machine, Dennis. I'm surprised they didn't price it higher. Really?
    95:02
    No, it's sarcasm. It's really high. Well, that's why I didn't know which way you were going, because I would argue, as I will here soon, that it's not as high as we think. Well, I know math, and so it's as high as exactly I think it is. Other than, of course, ultimately I don't know what the final conversion rate will be. Yes, it's true. It does come right now to place an order. You have to place a non-refundable deposit, which people don't like. Zach, do you remember you and Pepperidge Farm? Pepperidge Farm. Do you remember when we used to joke about $10,000 by Christmas? Member barriers. Yes. And it's, man, that would be nice if it was only $10,000 by Christmas. Yes. At the deal of the week. Christmas has come early. Yeah. It's expensive. But non-refundable deposits, that makes people, I think, probably even more upset than even the price of these games. I'm not surprised, though, that this part does not surprise me, that companies, I mean, more and more might move to this because, you know, I know some distros in the industry, Zach. And I'm going to tell you something. Oh, yes. I was absolutely, I shouldn't be, but I was shocked at the number of people who just sort of back out and don't even think about the repercussions of the decision. I agree. Yes. And maybe it flows from, like, the pandemic era where it was like nothing was ever in stock, so you'd be like, oh, if I back out, you know, someone, it's just going to go. It's just going to be sold. And it's just like, I just imagine these distros around America with their warehouses, like, bursting at the seams. Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah. You've got flu fighters. and well, we don't have too many girls. Yeah, well, our best at the scenes with, Toy Stories. Yeah, Toy Stories and, and Munsters. There's still Munsters.
    96:51
    Just like, right now I'm busting with that, Led Zeppelins. Oh, Godfathers. Led Zeppelin Pros. Jesus. Buy a Led Zeppelin Pro, people. Feed the children is what I feel like saying. Led Zeppelin Pros to feed the children. Shit. Yeah, There's some Godfathers in there, too. You're right. But, yes, nonrefundable deposits, I'm with you. It makes it tough. I think, you know what, if you're going to cancel on a game that I didn't make you put a deposit for, at least fake feeling bad about it. That's all. Like, oh, my God, I know it's put you in a bad. But, yeah, the flippant people, they're like, yeah, I'm not feeling it. I'm like, well, Mother, I ordered it six months ago. What do you mean you're not? I could have sold that six months ago to people that were beating down my freaking door. I gave you the spot. Didn't charge. All right, see? Now you're getting me all wired up on this. Damn, that's right. Yeah, non-refundable deposits. Deal with it, people. I don't know what to tell you. It's just it is what it is. But here's the thing. It's a little different, though, because of how they're doing their distribution channels now over at Haggis Pinball. They released a video after the promo, after some pictures of Damien talking about some of the changes and their goals and stuff. one of which is the consolidation of distribution channels they're going to have. So that is they're going to continue selling direct, but they now have exclusive dealers in different regions. So Canada has an exclusive dealer in nitro pinball. The European dealer is now exclusively RS pinball. Stefan over there. And in the United States, Dennis, flipping out pinball is now the exclusive dealer for Haggis pinball. How about that? Wow. Good thing this came out after the top ten pinball machines. Oh, I've seen Fatal Resistance on my list. Which is a fun game, I might add. Worst wizard of all, is it? Yeah. So, yeah, we are now the official dealers, which is very much appreciated and it's an honor. And I think Damien, if I'm looking inside baseball here, I think Damien and Marty and whoever the team deciding this, pretty smart move too because they have a little bit of consumer uncertainty to match it with a dealer in the states who's known for customer relationships and support and making right by people because a lot of our customers felt like i you know sending a thousand dollars over there but if i'm sending it to you you know i feel a little bit better that's not to say it's not still non-refundable, it's still non-refundable, non-transferable. But I did tell people, and I'll say it here publicly, that people are like, well, if I give you $1,000 non-refundable deposit for the Beast Edition, or I give you $2,500 for the Oblivion Edition, what if Haggis for some reason went belly up? Would our deposits be gone since you've already paid Haggis the non-refundable deposits that you were charged, and I have said publicly, and I'm okay saying it here, we would be happy to eat the loss there, and we would refund those deposits if for some reason something crazy like that happens. I very much doubt that would happen. But, yeah, sure, if for some reason that happened, deposits would be refunded, no questions. That's fine.
    100:11
    See, so a little bit more comfort there, right, Dennis? Yeah, I could see, yeah, let's just say yeah. Okay. Now, sales-wise, I've got to say, I've been impressed with sales thus far. Because, as you were alluding to, kind of an expensive product. Very much so for the Orblivion edition. But sales have been really well. We sold out of our Orblivion edition allotments that we were given. There's only 50 in the world. Right. But we sold out of those, and the majority of our Beast editions are now gone. I think we're down to three or four spots for the Beast edition.
    100:45
    Now, if you go to the website on haggispinball.com and order your own, If you don't want to go through a dealer, they're still showing spots for both. So even the Orb Libyan has not currently sold out as of this recording. Is there a deadline that they are going to cut off sales at? You know, I don't think they've announced that, so I don't know. I just asked because that's what they did with Fathom. The Fathom was a bit different where there was no official limit. I believe they were classics. So, yeah, the Orb Libyan edition, I'm surprised that hasn't sold out immediately because we sold those pretty quick. What I do respect, I respect a lot of things with Haggis Pinball, one of them being they've got a great group over there to deal with. They're true, true pinheads, I assure you. But I like that they could have sold all these direct. They didn't have to have dealers, but they still wanted representatives throughout the world. And the nice thing that they did was, and it shows trust and respect to their partners, is Dennis, I don't think a lot of your listeners know this, They let us dealers, Nitro, RS, Flip and Out, they let us take sales and pre-orders the minute they went live. And remember, they didn't go take orders for a week after their announcement, but they let us get a week head start on sales before they opened up their order banks. I don't even think, like, from a business perspective, that's not beneficial to them, but they were willing to do that for their partners, and that's pretty big to me. I think it's a nice gesture. Some numbers aside, let's talk about Centaur Revisited. The games have, they both, both models have the 1.0 and 2.0, the modern 2.0 code and the original 1.0 code. I will add they got rid of a model. They got rid of a classic edition. They kept that nice LE high edition and like the mermaid edition that they did with Fathom, but Centaur Revisited being called the beast edition. And they actually added an edition called the Orblivion edition, which is limited very rarely to 50 units around the world with additional features that we'll talk about. Both games have full RGB illumination, five-speaker premium audio system with subwoofer. Don't count that out. Mirrored chrome cabinet and play-filled elements. Interactive topper, both editions. Floral red plastic protectors. Under-cabinet lighting. Mirror chrome backlash. Reflecto-cab metallic luminescent cabinet art. Soundtrack with a digital download. Signed and numbered. Centaur revisited comic poster. Here's what I'm pitching to the listeners, Dennis, and I'll also pitch to you and all you people who've got your noses stuck so damn high in the air saying this is overpriced. Okay, well, let's look at it here. $10,000 for a pinball machine.
    103:20
    Without knowing what it is, is your nose still in the air when you hear $10,000 for a brand-new pinball machine? Generally, yes. Really? To me, that's too much. Yeah. For the lowest-end model, yes. Well, we know that probably the most sold Stern pinball machine is the premium, which is right there as well.
    103:36
    I thought the Stern premium is under $10,000. Okay. It's $300 under. All right. It's within the general region of $10,000. Okay. Jersey Jack pinball, $12,000, $2,000 more. Chicago Gaming Company, underpriced, in my opinion, at their LE is, what is that, $9,500. The point being is... $500 less than $10,000. Point being, we're right around the range of all the other pinball machines. But what I would pitch is that I don't know if any of these other companies are putting in the amount of materials and quality that these games have. They just don't. Like the cabinets alone, the premium audio system alone, just the freaking toppers. You get toppers on each one of them. I mean, Scooby-Doo came with a topper. How much was it? $10,000. I don't see why everybody's, like, freaking out. It's not like, well, it's just a standard button. Okay, we're going to go back to that ramp thing again? Really? We can't do that. Two plastic ramps. That's what we're doing. Well, it's a standard game. It's like a classic battle game, so it doesn't have rules. No, bullshit. It does have rules. Not only does it have rules, the last 2.0 code system that they didn't fathom was loved, generally, by everybody. So there's no argument there either. The only argument that I see people saying it costs too much is because it looks like an older-styled game. That's the only argument I see. I don't understand it. Now, I'll be the first to tell you, when it comes to that Orblivion Edition being $17,000, there's your argument. Lean into that one. I'll still counteract it by saying that the Orblivion Edition has a plasma topper. You can get a colored play field and plastics. Custom call-outs. Additional mode and multi-ball that you guys had to have in Tron Legacy on their LE. Interior cabinet art blades. Etch-to-mear side rails. Black pinballs, black drop targets, a vinyl soundtrack. And you guys love the low-hanging fruit of the airbrushed motorcycle helmet and leather jacket, as you should, because if that didn't work out and dialed in, I don't know why they thought it would work out here. Okay, you can push for that. I'm going to lean back and say, well, there's only 50 units made, so you are certainly paying for limited availability there, certainly. I would guess a couple thousand dollars in them only making 50 of those. That's what you're paying, a couple thousand dollars just in the extra certainty there.
    106:14
    Well, I mean, I'm not surprised that you as a seller have taken this position. Totally biased. I'm not going to waste a lot of my time pointing out what I think are fairly obvious things. But, I mean, my counterpoints, and I'm not going to focus on the Oblivion edition. It's 50 units. They're going to use that as the justification for adding a $10,000 Australian price point. Yeah, you know, it is what it is, $16,000. This is like LEs. They're generally overpriced anyway. You're paying for the exclusivity. So, you know, that's a decision that people are going to make. So regarding the Beast unit, my fundamental issues with the pricing that I feel is too high are twofold. One, it's not that the game is an 80s-style game. It's that it is an 80s game. The layout, they did not recreate. They've taken another designer's layout, and they're reusing it. So they don't have that side of the development that they had to master. The layout exists. They were given the plans. So that's part of it, and that's a judgment I do on any remake, is because you didn't have to come up with a layout. The layout you've taken because it's a remake. So that's the idea there. But they didn't make the parts. No, no, they still have to make the parts and stuff. This is not a bill of material argument. I mean, I'm really hoping people aren't going to be saying, well, the bill of materials is why it has to be this way.
    107:34
    My second issue is I think it's safe to say, I think we would be in agreement that the Beast Edition of Centaur Revisited is the equivalent of the Mermaid Edition from Fathom. That that's the tier that it's sort of taken. It's not to be compared to the Classic Edition. With an additional $1,000 upcharge, yes. Yep. So the issue is Fathom is a 2021 game, and the Mermaid Edition was $11,500 Australian. So they've added $3,500 over two years for the same tier game, which in U.S. dollars is about $2,400 additional money. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. What? 3,000 Australian? 3,500 Australian.
    108:20
    It was 11,500 Australian. I thought Fathoms were 9,000 and Centaurs were 10,000 essentially. I'm looking on the pin side search or whatever that says that the mermaid edition was $11,500 Australian not including GST which is what Australians have to pay so this would be the outside price which is lower so $11,500 versus the new price of $15,000 Australian so that's a $3,500 Australian difference which is about a little under $24,000 it's like $20,390 US so they've added $2,400 to what was the price. So it's a significant inflationary increase. So that's what I'm pointing at. What I view as the same tier game. So those are where my issues come from. It's a remake layout, which is what Fathom was, but they've significantly marked up the price. And I don't think it's because of inflation. I think it's for profiteering.
    109:17
    Which is what companies do the same business. Sure. But I feel I'm perfectly within fairness to judge it for that because I'm not an idiot and I'm able to look at what the old price was. Absolutely. I mean, if Stern were to come out with Venom and say the premium is another $2,300 off of Foo Fighters premium, people would be complaining. And that's what this is. Right now I'm looking at time-wise, April 26, 2021, when Fathom was released. I'm looking at Twit Podcast here. They're deep dives. Mermaid Edition was about, USD, it was about $8,900.
    109:52
    So it was about $9,000. And then right now, when I checked, when they released the game, it was right around $10,000. But now it has changed a bit, and like I said, it's $10,258. So my argument would be, yes, I agree that they increased the price around $1,000 to $1,300 from the Fathom Mermaid to the Centaur Beast. That's the difference. I don't see the $2,400. That's the difference that I'm seeing. And if that is, in fact, the difference, then I think one could argue that, yeah, this is a young company that realized, just like Stern did, just like Jersey Jack did, just like Chicago Gaming Company needs to more, honestly. And every other company that you have to increase to be able to stay in business. And what you're putting into these games at $9,000 for Fathom, in my opinion, was just like Cactus Canyon LE. It's selling for $12,000 in the secondary market underpriced. I think it's closer to what it should be now. That would be. But you are correct. I am very much a dealer of these. Now, part of the issue, which is interesting, and it's not Haggis' fault, is I think what happened is back in April of 2021, the conversion rate maybe was not as severe. So the $11,500 Australian Mermaid Edition was only about $8,900 U.S., whereas now it would be, what would $11,500 be in U.S. dollars? Well, I'll just type it in because I've got it loaded up. The only issue is at the release date, but people didn't have to pay until their game was closer to shipping. So I don't know.
    111:33
    The conversion messes things up. It does, but this is interesting to me because the $11,500 is lower now. So the impact should actually, so I actually, if we were still in 2021 pricing, it would be even more so an increase.
    111:53
    Absolutely. So I guess I can't blame that as pulling the rug on them. So who knows? The conversion fluctuates. We can still safely say they've added $3,500 Australian to the price. Yes, I'd agree with that. Which for the Australians is going to be what they probably care about. $3,500, and like I said, the numbers I'm pulling, it might be $500 to $900 cheaper than that. But I could be convinced if the number's in front of me. I just don't have the time to do all their research. I don't know. Anyway, that's just where I'm coming at from my concerns with, I already thought. You didn't like whenever the other companies, JJP, increased their prices significantly. You didn't like when Stern has, over the last five years, increased them significantly. I agree. I mean, Stern most of the time does a fairly incremental increase that I don't grouse too much about because they can hide mostly behind inflation costs. Now, when they did their huge spike when they dropped Insider Connected and then they also added like $2,000 on top on pretty much everything but the pros, that was a gouge. But, hey, if people are wanting to pay it, they can get away with it. I don't think Centaur Revisited sells out. In January of 2022, Stern LEs were $10,500. They're currently $13,000. That was in January 2022. Back in 2021, let's see. I'm interested now. Let's see what the hell. In fact, in January 2021, January 2021, Led Zeppelin LE was selling for $91.99. And the LEs with Stern have seen the highest increases as well, more so than the premium. Which were more than the pros. Okay. Yeah. As percentages, not just raw dollars. Raw dollars isn't surprising, but as percentages, the increases have been – which, again, why not? January 2021, a premium stern was $77.99. It's now $96.99, nearly $2,000, which, coincidentally enough, is similar, if not more than the Haggis Pinball increase. Yes. Yeah. But I feel I've been consistent with my gripes about these sort of price increases. Yes, you always are. You're always consistent with that. And I would agree that, yeah, if that price increase turns you off on this Haggis, then, yeah, that is an argument to be made. I mean, it depends what you want as well. It's just Fathom is a more popular, I would argue, is a more popular game than Centaur. So in a way, it just seems a little weird to me. I get it because time's going by. And I think maybe they felt with all the things. Here's my theory because I don't know. And my interactions with the crew at Haggis have been positive. I don't have anything against Martin and Damien as people. It's just, you know, I don't care for what I've seen on the price increase for what I feel is an overall probably less desirable game. And some of the stuff they've tried to do to, I think, make it feel like they added value, I thought was kind of funny, especially some of the stuff with the Oblivion edition. Yeah, what do you think about that color play field?
    114:51
    Awful. Awful? Like, I don't think they should have done it. You want me to? I wanted to say that. I wanted to think that. I really did. Because the black and white is just iconic. That's centaur. It's almost.
    115:06
    Oh, I'm going to blow back. I'm going to do it. It's almost offensive. Oh, it's almost offensive. Well, because rather than coming, if they had created different art, it would be one thing. But to go in with your Crayola crayon set and shade it Ted Turner style, it just doesn't work for me. That was the joke that I had with Tony on Eclectic Gamers Podcast. It felt like when Ted Turner on the Family Guy episode colorized the moon That what it felt like to me It was fitting And in my defense a lot of people were very critical of Ted Turner colorizing classic movies because that not how they were designed So here a remake and here they went in and they just took a bunch of markers and they shaded it in. It looks better than that. Don't get me wrong. The colorization is well done. It looks better than the CPR. But here's the thing. As much as I make fun of it, they still let you pick if you want the other styles. So ultimately, I don't really care. It would have been a mistake if it wasn't an option. Yeah. It would have been a business mistake if it wasn't an option. I'll just rest on my Jeff Goldblum. You guys were so busy trying to see if you could that you didn't think about if you could.
    116:20
    So, no, for me, it's just like, no, that is not what that art, that whole point of that art package was for it to not be in color. So to me, it's not like Munsters where it made more sense to be like, gosh, we really could use some more sales here. And some people are turned off by the black and white of the premium. Like, that's all Centaur is known for is that black and white art. So I thought it was a weird choice. That's a good argument to not go color there.
    116:47
    I thought you loved it. I mean, you can do what you want. I wanted to not like it. And I think, I don't know which way I would go if I got the Oblivion Edition. I didn't want to like it. I thought it actually looked good. I did not mind, but it's Centaur. It's black and white. See, let's say I ran ahead and got past, which is conceivable, let's say I got past the pricing and I wanted to buy one of these games. I want it to be a remake still. I love that Marty's doing 2.0 code and all that, but I still want it to be Centaur. It's not Centaur when it's colorized, in my opinion. Because that's the one thing. You took its soul out. Yeah. It's like taking the fins off of the sirens in Fathom.
    117:29
    Yeah. You can't turn those mermaids into sirens. Oh. I thought they were sirens. It's wrong. It's morally wrong. I'm glad they made that an option. I thought, and this is starting to turn, I thought that only 50 units made. If you picked a colored play field, it was even going to be more rare than the 50 units. They would have the highest collectability, maybe one of the highest collectible games, pinball of all time, because of how rare a colored edition of the Orblivion revisited game would be. But a couple people changed their mind, and out of our allotment, Dennis, the majority are now going color over black and white. Maybe because they all have the same thought you did. Yeah. It was going to be the rare one, so they're doing it for investment reasons? I could see that. So I would have a hard part if I went Orb Living not to go color just for that reason alone. A flip side argument could be there could very well be people who are buying it who have absolutely no nostalgia or care for the original. I can affirm that. In their instance, if you were to come at it from that angle, the color one wouldn't be like a weird thing. It would just be modern. Well, yeah, because the topper has color, the lighting has color, all of that stuff. But me, as someone who played the original, I just couldn't get behind it. A lot of focus on this company right now. This company is known for a couple of things. Full transparency here. This company is known for delays after delays after delays. Pisses people off, especially when they... But a lot of companies had delays during that period of fathom. Yeah, but let's not joke each other. They missed the delays. They told people, here's a revision of when we're going to do it. They missed their own deadline. They miss their own self-imposed deadlines. Business 101, no, no. Don't miss your own self-imposed deadlines because all you've done is make a deadline you can't keep. They have missed them. That's why this company is always discussed. The company is also always discussed because the quality of materials and their build is, if not the greatest in the industry. These are true collectible pieces of art. They go above and beyond in areas that a lot of high-end collectors don't even notice, much less. They shouldn't even spend the time and money and resources to do it. They are the upper echelon of games. So they're talked about for positive and negative reasons. So much so that a lot of discussion was going into, when am I going to get this game if I order it? I'm just worried to put down money. So Damien was interviewed on the Cary Hardy YouTube channel, listener, and a lot of good information came out of that. You've got to go check that out, Cary Hardy's YouTube channel. I think it was great for both the consumer and for the Haggis Pinball Company to discuss because he answered a lot of those questions, including some of the statistics and general numbers of their company production and otherwise. For example, Haggis Pinball is capable right now of producing on average one game a day. They've got 20 employees, 12 or more are working directly on these games, putting them together. So they're producing about, on average, one game per day. Okay. I would like to ask you a question. Since you distribute for Haggis and for Spooky, what's Spooky's employee count? There's more than 20. What are they up to now? I thought Spooky was like 30, 40 people. But Spooky's weekly build rate is way higher than this. Absolutely. They're getting in debt. Way higher. This shocked me. I did not know it was this low. This is like, I almost said a home brewer. This is so small. It is boutique. Very boutique. Indeed. Truly boutique. One game a day. I did not know it was that. I was saying it's like production delays. I knew about that. But I did not know that that was the rate. And they said they're well over halfway through their Fathom games. And the goal is to be done with all of those Fathom games by the end of this year. That's what he's sticking to. He's saying it's going to be done. That makes it sound to me like they're not planning to increase from the average of one game a day. He acted as if that's their throughput. That's what they can do. But he also said, using the same numbers, he said throughput is not far off, though, with only 20 employees versus other manufacturers might have 300-plus employees. The throughput is not far off from those large manufacturers based on that ratio. He said, but keep in mind, you know, the delays they've had with Australia and the parks and stuff like that and how strict those guidelines were with employment and having people, but also that they're making their own cabinets, they're making their own play fields, their own mechs, their own printing. They're not outsourcing a lot of that stuff. So it's a matter of scale, he claims, more than anything. He wasn't upset about one game a day.
    122:23
    Okay. Because he's thinking for the Centaur Revisited starting in January, he's saying one a day, you're making 300 of them a year. He's good with that. I mean, yeah, I could. In that context, it's not ridiculous. Obviously, we know Spooky often puts an official estimate of a year and a half, though they do generally, to my knowledge, always have beaten that estimate. And I think that's what Dana is saying. He came out to say they have a goal of starting in January 2024 and ending, I think he said, March 2025. I guess that's accounting for some weekend days and stuff not working. But talked about deposit being asked now. He said that honestly just helps plan the run of Centaur because people were accusing them of robbing Peter to pay Paul. That's the only way that they can stay afloat is these deposits. He's like, no, honestly, no, it's just I can assure you that's not correct. He said it's to buy the parts for Centaur so that when January rolls around, we have everything ready. He said there's perfectly good reason why manufacturers no longer make cabinets and mirror back glasses like they did in the early 80s, because it's too detail-oriented. They held a lot nicer back then than they are now, is what he's saying. Too complex. Too nice. Too bulky. I could see that Especially like the Bally 81 With the frame around the back And the big old back glasses I think I could see some of that He also emphasized Sure there was a template on doing remakes Like a Fathom or a Centaur But there was no CAD files given to him Nothing, just mere drawings That's about it They had to find a way to reproduce and design All of them for reproduction in their factory In their factory And with the current available resources they had remanufacture. That could be a good thing for them to push more because as I noted earlier in our financial discussion, my initial assumption is they have all the plans because that's the whole point of a remake. He said all they have is just drawings, nothing in CAD. And he said... Well, obviously it predates CAD, so I understand it not being in computer-aided design, but I assume that they had actual measurements and stuff. I don't know what he means by drawings. I'm hoping they actually at least have sizing and stuff.
    124:39
    But they're still in the review process. He said they're not putting them on a play field. They're putting them on their hybrid play field. So none of those parts that work on the three-quarter, whatever it was for a regular wood play field, it's different because their hybrid play field is thinner, so you have to create parts that work on that play field rather than. It's a good thing for him to stress because people like me are going to think, hey, you're just looking at all this stuff. That should save you time. But he did say there are good things about all this. He said the leap from having nothing to a fathom and tooling every single one of the damn parts was huge, and that took longer than he would have ever expected. He said Centaur development should be quite easier, though, because a lot of that's been figured out. They've figured out how to produce and tool their own drop targets, their own gates, their own. They've got that down now from fathom, and a lot of those parts are used, You know, common parts are used on other things On Centaur As they would fathom So a lot of that's going to be a lot quicker He said the one thing that is a pain in the ass Is that subway system on Centaur though Because they want to be true to it And instead of just doing like an auto launch Multi ball They've got the freaking What is it, they call that spring metal Flap That the ball comes up From a subway in the shooter lane on Centaur So he said there's ongoing tweaks there That thing is a pain in the ass to do Modern flipper mechs and modern ball troughs Take up more space now and footprint Than the vintage 81 counterpart So he said what seems like it would be simple It's just different It's all different I like that in the interview he also said there's a second magnet in the game We all knew that there's a top right magnet As there is the regular Centaur game But Marty has thrown in He said a second magnet Which is a surprise and they didn't want to go into it too much Give it too much away So they still have some secrets here, like an added up post as well. I don't know where that would be. I would think it would hold it maybe for communication of rules or modes, but an up post to that as well. In the Queen's Chamber, smart drops in the Queen's Chamber, unlike the original, so that will carry across players. He also said the centaur is two, three, four times as deep as Fathom. Now, I don't know if he was talking about the rules of centaur being that much more than the original Fathom or if he was saying the new 2.0 Centaur is two to four times deeper than the 2.0 Fathom. Oh, I see what you mean. I don't know which one. Yeah, yeah. He was saying basically Centaur is more of a game code-wise than Fathom was. Okay. Well, you know, that's interesting. I thought they'd be similar. Centaur is a hard layout, so how deep can you really make it before it becomes unapproachably deep? Because you'd never get far enough. Yeah. Anyway, that's just a hypothetical. I also talked about Martin. We know Martin there from Final Round Pinball Podcast. Now a designer there. Lead designer. Lead of design over there. His game, he was making an original game, I think. His game was supposed to be the game after Kelts. But this remake opportunity came along, and he said they'll still do something with Marty's game too. But, yeah, that's Centaur Revisited. Bye-bye-bye. Order now. Or don't. I'm looking forward to it. I don't have a lot of time. Based off my experience, I really enjoyed Fathom when I got a chance to play it. So from a gameplay perspective, I don't expect Marty to drop the ball. I think it will be a fun game with the 2.0 code in particular.
    128:09
    But, yeah, pricing-wise, it's out of the range I would consider myself. But maybe we'll get one on location. I might get it at a show. That would be a special little treat. Yeah, I'm sure there will be a show. They might have it at the, what's the place Bruce Nightingale runs? They had a thousand there. They probably had a thousand there. Yeah, Rochester Pinball Collective. Yeah, in East Rochester, New York. Industry Boulevard or whatever it is. No, somewhere on Commercial Street, I think. Oh, Commercial Street, yeah. West Commercial Street. Do they have any Pinball Brothers games over at the Rochester Pinball Collective? You know what? I thought at one point they did have Alien, but I don't know that they still do. Man, match for match. I wonder who's better, the Rochester Pinball Collective? Or the Delaware pinball.
    128:52
    Ooh, those fighting words. Hey, I'm just saying. Only one of them's got a Joe Fox. Pinball Brothers, NAB Arcade reporting in, saying that Pinball Brothers are revealing their Game 3 at Chicago Pinball Expo, October 18th through the 21st. We're getting a new game from, they haven't even, oh, damn. Yeah, it's going to start. People are complaining about. I don't know if there are people waiting for Queen. But then again, I guess that's what just happened with Haggis. People are still waiting for Fathom. Fathom, where's my Fathom? Are they saying that to this one? Shit. I'm still waiting. Oh, probably. They probably are. Haven't heard of yet. Another license theme, though, coming from Pinball Brothers.
    129:29
    This company still interests me, so I want to see what they've got going on. The Queen, we'll talk about that a little bit later in the show, but the Queen Rhapsody, we still are waiting for some of the Rhapsody editions. I think Champions Edition is getting ready to roll out. But that company over there, they're becoming a pretty big manufacturing company. They're prepping to become a pretty big manufacturer. How many games a day do they build? Oh, I've just seen it. I don't want to say it. Damn it. They have the capability of building. It was a pretty hefty amount. I thought it was like 150 a month or something. It wasn't bad.
    130:04
    Dang it. Euro Pinball. Because they're like merged with Progetti, right? Yeah, that Euro Pinball Corp thing. Yeah. Man, I just saw it on NAP Arcade, I think. Dang it. Oh, well. Coming soon. There's Jack Pinball. They had, I love, This is the feel-good story of the week. Jersey Jack Pinball just released a behind-the-scenes video. It's called Behind-the-Scenes Recording Speak Softly, Love, with Mark Tremonti and the Frank Sinatra Band. Highly recommend you go checking this out. It was wonderfully produced. It was an awesome story to watch. It was just very well done. I like when high-quality, high-production stuff is done for this industry. It makes us feel like, you know, we're part of the big boys here, and I like that. Also, it had attached to it a wonderful and beautiful charity that is the Take a Chance for Charity. I think that's Down Syndrome Association. So it had purpose as well. And not to mention, so go watch that video. It's the Jersey Jack Pinballs YouTube and social medias and everything like that. Wonderfully done. Nice job, Cromie, on production of that. Plus, they are giving away. Did you know Jersey Jack Pinballs is freaking helping and in collaboration with the Take a Chance for Charity. They're giving away a Godfather 50th anniversary limited edition pinball machine. Who does that? The company's giving away. This is awesome. They've got a link on social media right now. Enter for a chance to win a Godfather 50th anniversary and some of the proceeds helping out that take a chance for charity. That's cool stuff. There's your feel-good story. Let's go back down to the hole.
    131:36
    Also feel-good. Spooky pinball. Code update for Scooby-Doo. You took swipes at it earlier. No. You did. That's one very, very good joke. You have so much in common with Shaggy and Scoob. You like sandwiches, right? I. They like sandwiches. You're scared of g-g-g-g-g-ghosts. Oh, my God. So are they.
    131:59
    In this new code update, Dennis, there's a Shaggy mode now. Boom. And I was going to read this next one. I knew you were going to start laughing. So I'm saying it preemptively. They've got the end of ball bonus that now adds to the score. Go ahead. I'm glad they. Go ahead. They finally figured that part out. God, spooky. I would just love that. That's that cutting-edge leaders in the industry sort of approach the code that I tip my hat to. I wouldn't even have reminded people it's not there. Each player's progress towards Cutler multivolves now. See, that's awesome. And a new based mode music.
    132:35
    They're the only company I know that changes stuff because people bitch and moan too much. Don't forget the time Jersey Jack changed the whole art package to The Hobbit. I like that art package, too.
    132:47
    Jinkies. Now, episode in, episode out, we have what we call the Pinball Show official club membership. Right, Dennis? Yes. Where people can listen to exclusive content. They can jump on our Discord at the $10 level. You get all that for $10 a month. And it does not disappoint, I assure you. For $25 a month, you get additional club features, including picking your own topic, a commemorative decal. You get to hang out on the live monthly Zoom meeting, which is a lot of fun. And I will remind everyone that that is occurring this month, July, on the 19th, this coming Wednesday at 8 p.m. Central. It's going to be a lot of fun. We'll probably be talking a lot of inside baseball as well as the newly announced Venom. Even up to the big baller, shot caller, screaming goat club members at $100 a month, you can get your own official TPS nickname. You can get a shout-out every episode. You can join us for an episode. You can get one-on-one correspondence with the juiciest information in the industry. Keep it secret. Keep it safe. As well as the coveted, not yet to be released, paywall polo. All that can be yours. And the reason I bring it up is this exclusive content this week is actually an IOU. It's a screen share. Well, that's for good reason. For great reason. We know that tomorrow launches a new Cornerstone game for Stern Pinball in Venom, and we are here to not only give you something exclusive, but we're going to give you our first impressions on this game. And we're going to do that exclusively for the Pinball Show Club members. So all you've got to do is go to patreon.com slash thepinballshow and sign up right now. That way, tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow evening or Wednesday, you will get that first impression from Dennis and I on the new Cornerstone game, Venom from Stern Pinball. And keep in mind, people, all these cutesy little media members and podcasters out there, I love their stuff, too. I'm a consumer of their content. But they don't get you the goods like a dealer such as myself would. For whatever reason, there's so much information those dealers are given during those initial pitches from Gary Stern or from Seth Davis that a lot of it, it goes without being discussed. So I will be here to give you even further insight into Venom Now, before all of y'all freak out This is bullshit, man Why aren't you This is bullshit You got 6,000 people listening to every stupid episode You can't tell Chill out We will have this episode released to the general public The following week at some point So it will come But if you guys want the goods And you want it now As I would Sign up today You know what they don't have to sign up for, Dennis? Uh, no. They don't have to sign up for hearing these wonderful thank yous to our Screaming Goat Club members.
    135:41
    And their attached nicknames and sound effects. Thank you, Rodney. Shoot that fucker. Thank you, Steve.
    135:51
    Does it ever get old hearing that? That's probably most people's favorite. Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the snarl of the panther. Thank you, Rob. Rob! Oh, if all of us could only be wizards.
    136:06
    Like the kineticist. That is one of my favorite sound packages you found. It's a good one. It's so cheery. We need more fantasy pinball, incidentally. We've had way too many aliens this year. Where's some medieval fantasy? And shout out to the kineticist. They've been killing it lately. Go to the kineticist blog and the articles. Go to that right now. Well, after this episode. Google it. The kineticist. Oh, the Falcon. I kind of like the Falcon, too. Thank you, Frank. Frank the Tank Falcon. Davey. Davey the Shaker Motor, baby.
    136:40
    The Stern Spike Edition. We might upgrade him to the Spike 3 whenever that comes out. Joe Fox. We wouldn't have a show. Well, we'd have a show, but we wouldn't have the same show without Joe Fox. Thank you, Joe. I've got to go visit Joe this summer, fall. Anybody want me to head to Delaware? the Northeast area. You think I would have people come hang out with me if I was in Pennsylvania and New York? All the states are... Well, that's interesting. You've made Pennsylvania and New York the same spot as Delaware. Isn't that the same place as Maine and Vermont? That's very Midwestern of you. I think they're all the same thing. It's like a big Texas up there, isn't it? You know, it reminds me, like, Jeff G. Ellis has done his World Tours, and they've had some pretty good success. So, yeah, I imagine if you gave people enough notice... Yeah, maybe.
    137:26
    Fox, let's get that together. Pinball people generally just look for any excuse to get together. If you go down to the south, you can visit our very own Bell.
    137:36
    You can see him at Texas Pinball Festival. That's where I hang out with him. And we usually have way too much fun.
    137:42
    We've got stories. Did we send a picture? I think we have a picture in Discord of me and Charlie and John Borg all sticking our middle finger up to the camera, taking a selfie.
    137:54
    No, just a bunch of rebels. all half lit about five years ago. You know what else people don't have to sign up for? They get it for free. They shove it down their throats. You hear it. You know it's coming. Yeah, I know.
    138:09
    Yay, yay, yay! To the market trend! To the Bob Brown Check, number one! Hey, listen. Staying up this week, it has to be, because it's James Bond the Topper. Sold out. Bye, bye, bye. I'm bleeding, making me the winner. Tough luck. It's gone. I think people are angry when toppers fell out. It just makes... Do you? I don't think so. I think you just made this up as a narrative in your head. Because all I want to do is sell them. Sell, sell, sell. Hashtag, I can't. It's too late. It's sold already. Why did I turn into George Bush? Fool me once. Thousand points of light. RGB LEDs. Same on me. Fool me twice. Ain't going to fool me again. Wait, I did the wrong Bush. I did Bush Senior with a thousand points of light reference. Yeah. I'm showing my age. You did, George. Thousand points of light. Not going to do it. Wouldn't be prudent.
    139:05
    Not going to use a paper towel. Going to use the air blower to dry my hands. Ain't going to get a James Bond topper. Quantity's limited. Only 500 already sold out. Read my lips. We're out of toppers forever. Go more toppers.
    139:21
    I'm not a topper shill. No, that's a different question. What is that? That's his next friend. Oh, no. Okay. I did not have sexual relations with that topper. See, we could keep going.
    139:39
    The RGB lights isn't considered full topper. We do not buy topos because they are easy, but because a 40 of them is hard.
    139:52
    Hashtag plume fly. This should have been for our 4th of July episode This is all wasted It's not what you can for You're a machine It's not what you can for Topper James Bond Topper is not having sex with Marilyn Monroe That's all I'm saying Happy birthday Mr. Topper Oh my gosh Right now somewhere Dwight Sullivan is like you know what I don't want to make a topper that's going to outdo If this is the shit that we're going to get, no, not happening.
    140:28
    And to that, Dwight, I personally say to you, all's turning up this week is this fucking song right here. I am a monster.
    140:41
    And I have the power. Yes. No. Sorry, Space Hunt. Oh, my God. That was great. No. I can't wait for the final. Some people may like this song, and I can understand that, but it is not Space Hunt. Oh, it is just, it is punted, the hunt. No, I won't allow it. The French have ever been our allies. I will not allow you to listen to Space Hunt. What did Abe Blasin sound like? I heard his voice was very nasally. All right, guys. It's me.
    141:15
    You're not quite like that, but okay. Sure. Master A Four scores and seven years ago Oh, sorry for Mary Todd Go get my hat You didn't You know my head gets cold
    141:50
    All right. I don't know. All right. Where are you? This song. This song is freaking badass. Move over, Rammstein. I didn't really like this song very much.
    142:13
    I do get the Rammstein vibes, definitely. But it's like if 10GPT did it. No, that is Ramstein. Do a host. All's training up this week. I am such a giver. It's Nicole Mini. Wait, I'm not buying it. You put her in like three episodes ago. Did I really? Yeah, I thought so. Shit, I'm really trying to get Brandon points. Look, numbers don't lie. I only report the facts here. And the fact is, she is training up this week because she saw recently on the social medias, expanding. We are expanding Flippin' Out Pinball. She is taking the lead on these expansion projects. She's the one that's doing all the permits. She's the one that's going down to the city hall presenting things. She's dealing with contractors. She's dealing with septic people because we have to have commercial septic. It's a pain in the ass. Oh, she's the great answer flipping out. She really is. She's an MVP. But not only that, she's also building our team in expansion. We're getting ready to hire a new employee. I can't wait to announce that. She's building our team. And I thought, oh, you're having another baby. No, we're not building another team, thank you.
    143:23
    God, you're spitting shit on me, Dennis. No. Number five is alive. She should say that. That's what number five is for. And then name him John. I'm expanding the team. Found a wonderful new team member we're adding here very soon. We'll announce. All while being the mother of four. That's a job in and of itself. It's five jobs in and of itself. A wife of me. Oh, Jesus. That's actually just, I question her mental capacity of being the wife of myself. And she's the family facilitator, manager. She's billing for flipping out, accounting. She's part shipping. She's even landlord of some rental property that we have. This woman is unbelievable. And the reason I got to think about it, it goes back full circle. It's because of somebody as wonderful as Shelly Sachs. at the beginning of the show, audience, made me think about some of the highlighted, wonderful people I've been able to work with in this industry. And I am lucky to say that not only was Shelly one of them, I get to work alongside Nicole, who is pushing the frontier of our pinball company as a strong, wonderful, badass woman she is. Turning up as Nicole. This company would be nothing without her. Been here 10 years when she finally is tired of my shit and goes to divorce me, she now has a sound clip that the judge will be listening to right now. Hey, judge, be gentle.
    144:48
    Turning down this week is my odds of retaining any part of this company in the future. The Queen Pinball Machine Champions Edition. Objectively, it's trending down because it dropped the price. They haven't even released the damn thing yet. Dennis, it's $89.95. Yeah, what, $300 price decline, I think, roughly.
    145:06
    It's coming August 2021. I mean, objectively, you're right. Yeah, it's trending down. And just in general, trending down this week is pin prices. Get the deals while you can because this is not going to be a continued trend. But right now, inventory is plentiful for a lot of dealers. Not every title, but most every title you can still obtain. Secondary market, you're seeing prices drop as well. It's the summertime, so these things tend to happen. More so now that we're getting parts, resources, stern is just cranking out machines. Everything is going well for the buyer. And when that happens, pin prices continue to trickle down a little bit. So congratulations, everybody. But when it starts getting cold for the Midwest and the North of the United States, you'll see prices start to stabilize, if not raise up a little bit more. So get them all you can because people are swimming and they're not buy, buy, buying as much. But right now, good pin prices. Still the week this week, Dennis and Rick and Morty, Bloodsuckers Edition. Buy, buy, buy! You can get it for flipping out pinball. We just got one in on trade that I listed for $10,699. It's lower than the market. I think those things are going for like $11 or $12 still. $10,699, but I'm going to slash the price for these listeners for a deal of the week. It's a $10,299. Come get yourself. Still a personal favorite of mine. I have one in my collection, and I love it. But you can save money just by being a listener of the Pinball Show. We're so kind. Pinball Bounty, I'm adding again, because you guys still haven't found me a Minty-ass Dolly Parton or Radical or Congo. And there was a nice Congo that just popped up. Still couldn't snag it. But Pinball Bounty, I'm adding Star Trek L.E. to the list. I would like to have me another Star Trek L.E. Well, now it's probably going to be easier to find Minty than these others. I've been dabbling in stans a lot. Adding to my collection, I've added recently, I had The Walking Dead, but I've added Pirates of the Caribbean to my collection. and what was the other one I added? Oh, Spider-Man. If I were to add another Sam, it would probably be Iron Man. It's really the only one I regret not getting. That is a good one. Ass-kicker, but it's a good one. Yes, but I do like its brutality. And whether it's the bounty, whether it's the deals of the week that we provide, the things that we trend down, or even the wonderful woman like Nicole Manning that we trend up, or even this song right here. Oh, my God. This song kicks ass, Dennis. I don't know where you're at. Space. Oh, my. No, it's no space hunt. Space hunt. It's in. It's hard. It's in. It's hard. As always, I'm just here reporting the facts, giving you the juice. And numbers don't lie. Neither do I. On Pinball Market Trends.
    147:46
    Dennis, where can people find you? It's easiest to reach out to me at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com. Stay away from the last episode. Sometimes check those. That's all. What? No. I need the listen. We're lucky to get a thousand listens over there. I need the clicks. Go click on it. We don't make money off the clicks, but click on it anyway.
    148:04
    Alright, go email them over there and be a Patreon subscriber over there as well. You can email us at thepinballshow at gmail.com Make sure to sign up to patreon.com slash thepinballshow if you want that exclusive yummy venom this week. As well as sign up to our Facebook. Subscribe there. TikTok. Discord. We want you in Discord, too. You get in there by signing up to the Patreon club membership. We'd appreciate it. I can't wait for that next $100 Screaming Goat club member. What nickname is it going to be? I've got some that are just so, God, they're ready, Dennis. They're so ready. Thank you to all of our teammates that have hung in there with us. We appreciate the support. I wonder which one we're going to get on first to grill. I mean, to interview. It's too hard to predict because I think it was really going to come down to their ability to kind of align with the recording schedule. which is not the easiest thing in the world to do. No, and their willingness, too, because let's be frank. Yeah, some might not want to be heard. Which I understand. I appreciate people listening regardless. Regardless of their level of support, I always appreciate people taking the time to listen. Yeah, absolutely. Straight down the middle, follow, like, and subscribe to them. The top ten list of the greatest pinball machines ever produced from the pin gods officially themselves. Go check it out and write something shitty and witty in the comments section. They're our sponsor for this show Flippin' Out Pinball When I buy my pinball I buy from Flippin' Out From Toppers or Blank TV I've got it Flippin' Out When I think of pinball I think Flippin' Out When I buy, buy, buy I buy from Flippin' Out I like meths too Maybe you need a more Ramstein style one then Flip. Flip it out. In. Yeah. Out. Flip out. Flip again. Yeah. Product showcase this week is a Foo Fighters Pro. Believe it or not, I think I have some extra spots coming this week. Holy moly. Now, that's a change. So, buy, buy, buy that as well as Avengers Pro. We just got some in stock. Avengers Premiums are coming. Iron Maiden Premium Pro in stock. Jurassic Park Premium in stock. Rush Premium Pro. I don't think I have any other one of those. Godfather LE. Toy Story. Alien. James Bond. What more do you want, Dennis? 60th Anniversary Edition? Oh, fine. Home Editions? I got those, too. Even if you want to dip back into the vault. I still got that Iron Man vault station in the vault.
    150:30
    Cactus Canyon Remake spots for the SE+. Who knows when the fuck those are coming? Mandalorian Premium? New and used. Star Wars Pro. Led Zeppelin Pro. Feed the kids. Please buy those. Oh, gosh. Come on. They've got airport modes. Airport. Damn.
    150:50
    Shit, I've got toppers for it, too. You can pre-order Queen if you want. You can buy a PGA Golden Tee. We got those back in stock, I believe. Shaker motors, headphone kits, dust covers, mats, banners-ish. Flippin' out with friends. Hang out with Joel every Wednesday as he's flippin' out with either friends or with his Pringle-eaten brother.
    151:11
    This is Magic the Gathering. Bro, bro. I like Jared. Tune into that. What happened last week on TPN? Well, only a couple things in the podcast realm. So, Pinball Party Podcast dropped episode 35. That's the one that features Thomas Dodson who talks about branding. Oh, that's right. And not the cattle type. Right, right. No, the more marketing, digital marketing type. Social media. Which could be used, I suppose, for cattle. You don't want to be all, no cattle. Don't want to be that. Hey, save the ice cream.
    151:40
    I hope they have ice cream. What? I hope not. And then we did have Episode 8 of the Pinball Innovators and Makers Podcast, which features an interview this time with Dan Interviews' Nick Baldridge for Amusement Only Games, who's also known for podcasting and his many, many projects. Lately, he's done a lot of development on the P3 system. Always nice hearing from Nick. And that's it for shows since our last episode. I especially love the reels right now. People can find on TPN's Facebook of George Fisher giving a shout-out to Dennis Creasel Oh, that was not nice at all. Tom Bombadil, one of the most intriguing literary characters in Tolkien's universe. Oh, he was smacking the hell up, some Bombadil, this last week. So cruel. So harsh. He had some good takes on flipping out with friends. He and Hottie from Frisco Pinball and George Fisher, who I'm referring to from Don't Panic Flip, both huge Venom fans, comic book series, Both have said that they have LEs on order So you're going to see not only Venom Pinball From the Pinball Network But you're going to see the LEs coming Soon enough From around the TPN content creators Thank you George for organizing And scheduling and directing all of that Stuff in our streaming field TPN this week, look it's new game release You're going to see all the knuckleheads Coming out for this Where you at? Triple Dream You'll see maybe some final round I don't know, do you think Freeplay resurrects itself just for a new pin? Maybe. No. They can't grace us with their presence yet. Where the hell's pinball tapes at? Colligan, where you at? Well, Zach, I think I'll leave you with the words of Master Betty to Venom. The claws are black.
    153:30
    Always practice safe pinball and remember, those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. All right. Woo-hoo.
    153:50
    Chug-a-wag. No. Do I. Do I miss. The finest topper has to go through the hottest fire. They don't know anything.