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Pinball Industry News: June 2018 Re-cap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 34m·analyzed·Jun 2, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

June 2018: CPR goes digital, Cointaker buys Laserific, Stern updates games, Dogscore joins Stern.

Summary

This June 2018 podcast discusses major industry developments: Classic Playfield Reproductions transitions to digital printing technology enabling custom productions and reviving their back catalog; Cointaker acquires Laserific to diversify beyond declining LED aftermarket sales; Stern releases significant code updates including a major Hobbit revision by Keith Elwin, and welcomes Dogscore from Chicago Gaming as director of export sales; Chicago Gaming's third game announcement remains delayed despite multiple show windows; American Pinball moves to a larger facility and secures Italian distribution through Double Pinball.

Key Claims

  • Classic Playfield Reproductions purchased a digital printer and is transitioning from silkscreen to digital printing production

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston and Martin Ayer confirm the investment and new location move, discussing the technical shift in production methodology

  • Digital printing enables CPR to produce as few as one-off items and access their entire back catalog of designs

    high confidence · Martin Ayer explains the flexibility: 'they can do 50 play fields and then they can do two of something else and then... 200 of whatever'

  • Pinball Arcade lost the Bally Williams license, likely due to renewal cost or Scientific Games decision

    medium confidence · Jonathan notes they were 'told that they were not to be renewed' but is uncertain whether Scientific Games or Planetary withdrew rights

  • Stern released a massive code update to The Hobbit featuring major Beast Frenzy mode restructuring and ring button logic changes

    high confidence · Jonathan describes Keith Elwin's work: 'huge update' with multi-level progression replacing pop-up spam mechanic, released in preview form same day as podcast

  • Dogscore (formerly Chicago Gaming) has joined Stern as director of export sales and is touring European distributors with Gary Stern

    high confidence · Martin confirms: 'Gary Stern and Dogscore are doing a European tour where they're visiting basically all Stern's major distributors'

  • Chicago Gaming's third game (rumored to be Monster Bash) remains unannounced despite multiple expected reveal windows

    medium confidence · Jonathan notes delays from Texas Pinball Festival (March), Midwest Gaming Classic (April), and June shows due to Doug Duber's perfectionism requirements

  • American Pinball is moving to a factory three times larger than their current location

    high confidence · Jonathan reports this was announced at Northwest Pinball and Arcade show; relates to game two development (rumored Oktoberfest)

  • Cointaker acquired Laserific due to Joe's health reasons and seeks to diversify beyond declining LED aftermarket sales

Notable Quotes

  • “they can do 50 play fields and then they can do two of something else and then and they can do 15 of something else and 200 of whatever. So it gives them all the freedom to go around with production as they please and basically as they sell.”

    Martin Ayer @ ~5:00 — Explains the core competitive advantage of CPR's digital printing transition: flexibility and on-demand production versus batch-based silkscreen constraints

  • “I do hope they've got that nailed down. Unfortunately, it happens.”

    Martin Ayer @ ~10:00 — Warns about licensing renewal risk in CPR's new business model, foreshadowing the Pinball Arcade license loss discussed immediately after

  • “it's a huge update and I think a lot of people are going to be very pleased with what Keith's come up with”

    Jonathan Houston @ ~19:00 — Expresses confidence in The Hobbit code update quality despite only reading release notes, indicating high community anticipation

  • “15 minutes to discuss nothing”

    Martin Ayer @ ~45:00 — Meta-commentary on extended Chicago Gaming discussion without concrete news; reflects frustration with repeated announcement delays

  • “Stern is on top of the update game, which I think is a good thing for pinball in general.”

    Jonathan Houston @ ~22:00 — Acknowledges Stern's code update frequency as industry-leading, contrasting with past complaints about lack of updates

  • “they're close and as soon as all the everything comes together and is up to par with the level that Dubbo wants it to be then the game will be announced”

    Jonathan Houston @ ~42:00 — Attributes Chicago Gaming delays to Doug Duber's perfectionism rather than production issues, managing expectations for imminent announcement

  • “Gary might be liking to stay home a little bit more and enjoying his free time”

    Jonathan Houston @ ~33:00 — References official press release positioning Dogscore's role as allowing Gary Stern to reduce travel commitments

Entities

Jonathan HoustonpersonMartin AyerpersonClassic Playfield ReproductionscompanyCointakercompanyLaserificcompanyStern PinballcompanyKeith ElwinpersonGary Sternperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: CPR faces licensing renewal risk with new digital printing business model dependent on long-term IP agreements

    medium · Martin Ayer: 'I do hope they've got that licensing deal nailed down for a good amount of time... they wouldn't want them to spend a whole amount of money and make a big investment... and then suddenly discover that their licensing deal... comes up for renewal one year in'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: American Pinball moving to 3x larger facility while announcing distributed manufacturing approach (container shipping optimization across European markets)

    medium · Jonathan reports factory expansion announcement; hosts discuss container-based import consolidation across European distributors as cost optimization strategy

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Pinball Arcade lost Bally Williams license, creating uncertainty about digital pinball distribution rights and licensing costs

    medium · Jonathan: 'they were told that they were not to be renewed' but uncertainty about whether Scientific Games or Planetary withdrew rights; Martin notes this as precedent for licensing risk

  • $

    market_signal: Exclusive distribution agreements in Europe (Stern with Technoplay, similar to Williams practice) limit competitor market access

    high · Martin: 'Stern Pinball is being distributed by Technoplay, and they basically have forbidden Technoplay to carry any other brands, which is a practice that Williams also used to do back in the 90s'

  • $

    market_signal: Cointaker acquires Laserific to diversify beyond declining LED aftermarket sales as new games ship with pre-installed LEDs

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.282

0:00
classic playfield reproductions goes digital coin taker buys laserific multiple code updates from jjp and stern hello and welcome to pinball magazine and pinball news's free monthly audio podcast My name is Jonathan Houston. And I'm Martin Ayer. And we're here to discuss the pinball industry news of the past month, which would be June 2018. And what an exciting month June was. Well, yeah, in many ways, but not so much in pinball, I'd say. Well, I don't know. It was a very good month for pinball shows. I would say that with some great events happening around the world. but we can come to those a bit later.
0:58
Let's start with our main headlines then for the month of June with some recent news actually, which I don't know if you want to pick up on Classic Playfield Reproduction's announcement on, I think it was on Pinside, it may have been elsewhere, about their change in business model, which really means a change in their production methods. Yes, they are going digital. digital they bought a digital printer which apparently was quite an investment um i think they even moved to a new location but i'm not sure about that i may have read that but i'm don't quote me on that oh too bad it's already an audio but um so anyway but but they're changing their entire business model and the big change is that But in previous runs of whether it was back glasses, playfield plastic sets or playfields, the method that they were using was often silkscreen printing, which means that they had to do one color at a time, let it dry and then do another color. and all the time they could only be working on one project at the time. So they would have to either pre-sell a bunch of items and then make as many as they need and then sell them off and then they would be sold out again. Or they'd have some in stock, but as soon as they are sold out and you need at least another 100 orders to... To make it worthwhile going through all that process again, setting everything up. aligning all the screens and yeah yeah and with the new printer basically they can do as little as one item of each and move in between projects and everything so let's say they need 50 play fields of this they can do 50 play fields and then they can do two of something else and then and they can do 15 of something else and 200 of whatever.

high confidence · Martin explains the acquisition context and the finite market for LED replacements as new games ship with LEDs pre-installed

  • Stern plans to announce a new game in August, widely expected to be Deadpool by George Gomez

    medium confidence · Jonathan mentions hearing 'August is when Stern are going to be announcing their next game after Iron Maiden' and Martin confirms 'It's going to be Deadpool'

  • Iron Maiden code reached version 1.0, indicating feature-complete status with post-release updates planned for bug fixes and enhancements

    high confidence · Jonathan confirms version numbering convention; Martin notes Stern aims to reach 1.0 'as early as possible, and obviously preferably before production'

  • “I've heard some people in management say that he's going to outlive each and every one of them.”

    Martin Ayer @ ~35:00 — Industry lore about Gary Stern's durability and continued relevance; emphasizes his long-term commitment to company

  • “Stern Pinball is being distributed by Technoplay, and they basically have forbidden Technoplay to carry any other brands, which is a practice that Williams also used to do back in the 90s”

    Martin Ayer @ ~55:00 — Reveals exclusive distribution agreements limiting competitor access to major European markets; historical context showing industry precedent

  • “the holiday season is traditionally for home buyers the bigger time and for operators whereas in the Northern Hemisphere, it's more of a spring release”

    Martin Ayer @ ~48:00 — Explains seasonal market dynamics affecting game release timing strategies across home and commercial segments

    • Dogscore
    person
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Doug Duberperson
    American Pinballcompany
    Joe Bolzerperson
    George Kuglerperson
    Double Pinballcompany
    Planetarycompany
    Scientific Gamescompany
    Pinball Arcadeproduct
    The Hobbitgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Star Warsgame
    Guardians of the Galaxygame
    Deadpoolgame
    Monster Bashgame
    Oktoberfestgame

    high · Martin: 'with all the manufacturers now using LEDs in their games as they come out of the factory There's no aftermarket replacement for those... the actual market is a lot smaller now than it was in the past'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dogscore transitions from Chicago Gaming to Stern Pinball as director of export sales, touring European distributors

    high · Martin: 'Gary Stern and Dogscore are doing a European tour where they're visiting basically all Stern's major distributors in Germany, Belgium, the UK... they're all over Europe'

  • ?

    announcement: Stern expected to announce Deadpool game in August 2018, designed by George Gomez, with playfield image leaked

    medium · Jonathan: 'I think I heard somewhere that August is when Stern are going to be announcing their next game after Iron Maiden'; Martin confirms 'It's going to be Deadpool... The George Gomez game'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Chicago Gaming game three announcement delayed multiple quarters (March, April, June show windows) due to perfectionism requirements

    high · Jonathan: 'meant to be announced at Texas Pinball Festival in March then... Midwest Gaming Classic in April... then... one of the shows in June and hasn't been' due to 'Doug Duber wants to make sure absolutely sure that the games are 100 complete'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern delivers major mid-lifecycle code update to The Hobbit addressing community concerns about Beast Frenzy mode design

    high · Jonathan describes 'massive release' with 'major changes to quite a few of the features' and 'a whole bunch of new features'; details multi-level progression system replacing spam mechanic

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Chicago Gaming game three widely speculated to be Monster Bash remake, but no official confirmation despite repeated announcement windows

    medium · Jonathan: 'Chicago Gaming... there's no news... still no game number three announced by Chicago Gaming widely predicted to be Monster Bash but not a slam dunk'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern maintaining aggressive code update schedule across multiple games (Hobbit, Star Wars, Guardians, Iron Maiden, Batman) suggesting commitment to post-release support

    high · Jonathan: 'it's good to see that Stern is keeping these updates coming... Stern is on top of the update game, which I think is a good thing for pinball in general'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Classic Playfield Reproductions transitions from silkscreen to digital printing, enabling on-demand production, custom designs, and revival of back catalog

    high · Both hosts confirm investment in digital printer, move to new facility, and detailed discussion of production flexibility advantages

    • 3:11
    So it gives them all the freedom to go around with production as they please and basically as they sell. And it also means that they have now their entire back catalog available again to be produced. So if you're looking for a plastic set that ran 12 years ago, you might get one now. I guess at some point they'll need to have some screens which they'll need to digitise the artwork for. But also the exciting thing I thought from this was the possibility of doing custom designs for playfield plastics and backglasses. In fact, because it's all digital, so if you can send in your file, I'm not sure they'll necessarily send you their original for you to modify if you want to change a particular colour or a particular feature in the artwork. but if you have that artwork and you want to send it into them, I'm sure they would be able to just print a one-off or a two-off version or a very short run of those and to your own particular design which is something which could never have been done before. You have to get all the screens made and that's an incredibly expensive and time-consuming process which made that kind of custom project impractical in the past. Right. So I am curious whether they would make some files available, especially when we're talking about play field files, where you're working with inserts and that kind of stuff. It would be helpful if they would be able to, let's say you want to do a different theme on taxi. It would help if you would get like the correct dimensions and basically a blank with no artwork file of the taxi play field. So, you know, like, OK, this is where the inserts are. and where I have to place mine, because else you might end up with your own version of the playfield, and then the inserts turn out to be misaligned. So that's not something that you would want. Absolutely.
    5:14
    It seems to me that's something they can easily figure out if the occasion arises. The only thing which struck me as possible danger in all this, I mean, obviously they spent a lot of money, as you said, on buying the equipment and setting up their new digital suite. was I just hope they got the licensing deal nailed down for a good amount of time for all the products they're reproducing, because you wouldn't want them to spend a whole amount of money and make a big investment, sort of create a business plan that has this worked out over a three, five-year time span and then suddenly discover that their licensing deal with whoever they do their licensing with comes up for renewal one year in, And, you know, they're basically held over a barrel because whoever owns the license can say to them, well, no, we want to massively increase the cost this time around. So I do hope they've got that nailed down. And it's interesting that you mentioned that. Unfortunately, it happens.
    6:14
    Sorry. It's interesting that you mentioned that because obviously we just saw the pinball arcade lose the Bally Williams license. Yes. Do we know who they lost them to? Did they lose them to anybody or are they just too expensive now?
    6:31
    I don't know whether they lost them to anybody. All I know is that they were told that they were not to be renewed. And I'm not sure whether Scientific Games that owns Williams have any plans to do anything with those titles themselves. I also don't know whether they were told this by either Scientific Games or by Planetary. Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
    6:59
    I think I read somewhere that it might actually have been a call from Scientific Games, but again, don't quote me on that. Yes, well, we'll look into that and try and find out exactly who it is who's withdrawn those rights and whether they have any plan to do anything else with them. Maybe they're going to relicense them to somebody else. Well, there were rumors that another party might show up with the same titles.
    7:27
    I'm not sure. So this is just a sidetrack to indicate that it is possible that licensors redraw their license and that might put some people in jeopardy. It will obviously be interesting to see what the pinball arcade will continue to do. but let's not get distracted too much and let's get back to classic playfield reproductions. Yes, absolutely. And I think we've pretty much covered all the advantages, all the things they can do now but certainly the future looks good for them if they have got the licenses and it's also very good for the collector community, all the possibilities that opens up. So kudos to them for taking that massive step and making the investment and really doing what, I guess they kind of had to do it at this stage once the technology reached the level where digital printing was as good as, if not better, than silkscreen printing. And although I don't know quite how that works for mirrored items. Maybe they will still have to silkscreen the mirrored layer and then digitally print on top. Actually, I was wondering sort of the same thing, but more for fluorized colors, because I don't think that those are standard colors in a digital printer. There are some play fields that use these fluorized colors that really light up in the backlight. And I think Party Zone is one of them that had at least those type of colors. and I can think of several electromechanical games that had them you would think if it's available as an ink then it should be available to be digitally printed as well as screened well they will probably know the technical details and I'm not sure whether you can fill up the printer with I think it holds 8 different colors if you want to so if you would be able to add a fluorized color in one of those slots and then assign that well, if it does, okay well, let's just see, but there's plenty of play fields that don't have any fluorized color, so they're good to go Absolutely, exciting times What I think is also very helpful in the sense that obviously they have been working with all these artists that have been creating this or recreating this artwork um while they might now be using original films from planetary if provided still if you're an artist and you worked on a project for god knows how long and at some they do one run and that's it it's always nice to see that they are now able to print just one or two if somebody needs them and basically all your hard work gets make someone else happy again. Yeah, and it's available for reproduction at any time, rather than having to build up a good-sized pre-order to make it worthwhile. Yeah, good point. Yeah, so then let's move on to our second headline, Cointaker buying Laserific. Yeah, indeed. So I guess it's due to health reasons by Joe, who owns Laserific, or owned Laserific up until this point, but he has sold it to Chris and Melissa at Cointaker. Right. And this is not the first purchase of a company that Cointaker have done because they also bought the SideMirrors.
    11:21
    Oh, SideMirrors. Yes. so I guess Chris and Melissa are on a roll when it comes to getting their hands into various modding markets I would say well I think they've realised as I think most LED sellers have that there's a finite market for replacement LEDs with all the manufacturers now using LEDs in their games as they come out of the factory There's no aftermarket replacement for those, and there won't be going forward. So they're just looking at legacy games. And after the big rush to replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs of various types, over the past few years, that's tailed off somewhat. And pretty much those who've got LEDs or want LEDs have got them. And the actual market is a lot smaller now than it was in the past. It'll be ongoing, of course. but it's going to dwindle over time, and they're looking for other alternative income sources, which makes perfect sense for them. Obviously, they're sellers of games as well. I was going to say, it's not all LEDs with Cointech. They do a lot more. Absolutely, but they've also had a few issues with some of the companies that they've represented in recent times. I'm sure you can imagine some of those. Right.
    12:47
    So, yeah, it certainly makes sense to diversify, and they go to the shows, they have a big stand there, they need to have a good range of products to sell and LEDs on their own is basically not going to cut it these days. So, yeah, it makes perfect sense for them to expand into those other markets. Right. And, well, obviously, I, and I'm quite sure you as well, wish Cointaker best of luck with representing Laserific products. what I understood is that they will be receiving a training from Joe the crew at Cointaker to make sure that they make proper quality products and such and after that Joe is slowing it down a little bit so and hopefully that will be good for Joe as well absolutely I'm guessing that there's also probably a number of artists who he works with or has worked with in the past to produce the artwork that goes into the various products that they sell. So hopefully Chris and Melissa will also be able to work with them and bring their quality products forward and produce some new ones as well for new games that come out. Right.
    14:08
    This could be a very short episode because we're already down to our third headline by now. Well, we are down to our third headline, but we've got a lot of other things to talk about besides the headline. So let's move on to that third headline, which is about code updates from Stern. And just today, in fact, on the date of this podcast, there's been a fairly massive release, if such a thing can be said, for The Hobbit, which has made major changes to quite a few of the features in it and added a whole bunch of new features, which is very exciting. I know a lot of people have been quite critical of the way The Hobbit has, it's not fair to say it's been sidelined in favour of more recent games, but the focus has kind of shifted and work has been going on in the background. And today it's been fairly clear exactly how much work's been going on in the background. I think this is probably Keith's project.
    15:07
    And he's made big changes to the Beast Frenzy mode, which was one of the main sticking points of the game I think for a number of owners basically as soon as you hit all four of the pop-up beasts you go into beast frenzy and it kind of gets in the way of you doing anything else at that point because these beasts are popping up all over the place and you're into a multi-ball and it's very hard to progress any further through the game while that's happening so that's all been changed now there were adjustments before to make it harder So you had to sort of like them multiple times before they went into multiple. But now it's gone into different levels. So it's not just sort of just keep hitting everything all the time. You have to complete certain levels. I haven't played it with the new code because it's only just been released literally a couple of hours ago in preview form. It's not even in release form.
    16:02
    But from reading the documentation on what he's done, it looks very exciting. And he's had it there and back again in wizard mode. there have been a lot of changes to the way the ring button works some things which kind of interacted with others that kind of got in the way of enjoying the game being moved out of the way so you can do one thing at a time or you can choose exactly how you want to do it basically it's a huge update and I think a lot of people are going to be very pleased with what Keith's come up with on that so that's The Hobbit Do you want to look at some of the other code from Stern? Well, Stern updated, let's see, Star Wars is now at 1.04. Guardians of the Galaxy is at 1.02. Iron Maiden is at 1.01.
    16:53
    I'm trying to see if they did other code updates. I think Batman was May 31st, so that was actually the end of May. But still, that's not at 1.0 yet, but it's at 0.92.
    17:12
    But it's good to see that Stern is keeping these updates coming. I mean, we've seen times in the past where people were begging for updates and nothing was happening, or it seemed that nothing was happening, let's put it like that. So, yeah, Stern is on top of the update game, which I think is a good thing for pinball in general. Indeed, and Iron Maiden reached 1.0 as well a little while ago, so that's a fully featured release according to the numbering convention. I think Stern would say that anything, that when it reaches 1.0.0, that is now a feature-complete game in that it contains everything that the company intends to put into it. But after that point, it will be bug fixes and enhancements to various features based on player feedback.
    18:12
    But their aim is to get to version 1.0 on every game as early as possible, and obviously preferably before production. but that's probably a step too far for most companies, I think, and even Stern.
    18:28
    But the fact that they get to 1.0 fairly soon after is a good sign. It means people know what the game is and where it's going, what the designers have in mind for it. And if anything else comes out after that, then that's all a nice bonus. Right. So we do have to note that Iron Maiden, of course, is made by a rookie team who did not have any links to other games that they also had to be working on. So they could dedicate their time completely to Iron Maiden, which probably is one of the reasons why they are already at 1.0 point, whatever it is.
    19:08
    That's true. Although I guess once the game is on the production line, I'm sure they have another second game. lined up and ready to go and they are focusing on, not focusing, then certainly working on developing that game number two straight away. Right. I haven't seen any indications that Keith was already working on that, but then again, it's Stern, so they wouldn't be shouting that from the rooftops either.
    19:34
    Yeah, absolutely. I think, as a by-the-by, I think I heard somewhere that August is when Stern are going to be announcing their next game after Iron Maiden. Right, so that's going to be Deadpool.
    19:51
    We expect it to be, yes. Yes. The George Gomez game. Yes, as far as we know. And I think we, well, the image of the playfield, we discussed that before, and that has been publicly leaked in the meantime as well. I think I reported that in my monthly newsletter last month where I actually shared the image as well. So I think by now everybody has seen that.
    20:22
    I think you're right. While we're on the subject of Stern, there has been released, let's call it an Iron Maiden promotional video. I wouldn't call it a making of because it's really not telling you how they made the game. It's not even telling you that the game originally was designed to be Archer. It's just telling, it's all focusing on hyping the Iron Maiden game, which is fine, and I can understand that, but I wouldn't call it a making-of video.
    20:54
    But Stern released that, and it's worth to take a look. You can find it on their Facebook page. It is interesting. I think it shows you some of the people in the team, and quite a few of them are people that you may not have heard of before. Right. That's what happens when you have a rookie team. Yep, not rookies anymore. Well, and last month, Pimple Magazine had the scoop that Dogscore, who was working at Chicago Gaming, was going to be working for Stern. And not only did we have the scoop, but it turned out to be true. And Dog has started working at Stern. And I can tell you right now that, to my surprise, they are not hesitating introducing Dog to the European distributors. In fact, right now, this week, Gary Stern and Dogscore are doing a European tour where they're visiting basically all Stern's major distributors in Germany, Belgium, the UK, I think. They're going to France. They're going to Italy. they're all over Europe basically introducing Doug Scorn who is probably going to be replacing Gary Stern as their go-to contact or at least when it comes to European trade shows that Gary might stop attending those and that they will be talking to Doug Scorn instead. Yeah, Doug's in charge, I don't know if he's in charge but he's jointly in charge with Gary of export sales, isn't he? Yes, he's director of export sales. So it makes sense that he would go to these foreign shows.
    22:47
    And as Gary indicated, or as the press release indicated, Gary might be liking to stay home a little bit more and enjoying his free time.
    23:00
    Although the press release was very pointed in saying that he's not retiring and he and Doug will be working together rather than Doug replacing him. Right. Well, I can see that happening as well in the sense that Gary might be focusing more on the domestic U.S. market. He will still be at the company and there's probably plenty of work for him to do over there. So Doug will be focusing on the export stuff and still teaming up with Gary wherever necessary So I don think we see Gary Stern retiring any soon if ever at all
    23:40
    No, I think he'll continue at the company until they have to carry him out, I think. Yeah, I've heard some people in management say that he's going to outlive each and every one of them. Well, he's looking pretty good on it at the moment. I was going to say that's a compliment for Gary's health. Yeah, absolutely. I guess the vodka and the craft beer is good at preserving him.
    24:08
    Well, people, if you want to grow at least 72 years old, that's your recipe or your diet or whatever you want to call it.
    24:17
    Yes. not that we issue health advice and consult your doctor before embarking on anything like that right so from dogscore who previously worked at Chicago Gaming it's a small bridge to actually discuss Chicago Gaming and basically there's no news yes still no game number three announced by Chicago Gaming widely predicted to be Monster Bash but not a slam dunk it was meant to be announced at the Texas Pinball Festival in March then was expected to be announced at Midwest Gaming Classic in was that April?
    25:06
    then was expected to be announced at one of the shows in June and hasn't been all apparently because Doug Duber wants to make sure absolutely sure that the games are 100 complete um everything is working perfectly so that they are ready for sale the moment they are announced um being a perfectionist in that regard um obviously in the interim doug scores left who was one of the people who spearheaded the whole remake program um creating a new line for the company and um whether that's had an impact on delaying the announcement, whether they need to appoint a replacement for Doug, somebody who's going to be out there selling the game to distributors as well as the home market, I don't know. But it's surprising that even at this point the game's not been announced. But you could see that maybe with a title like that, they might now choose to wait until later in the year and head more towards the Christmas and the holiday markets when it would be a great time to have those kind of titles in the home where the tips and family are coming around and you want to open up your home game room and there's a brand new game or even give it as a gift for that well-off. Well, all manufacturers will be targeting for the holiday season, so I wouldn't wait for that, but that's just my thinking. the rumor that I keep hearing is that they're close and as soon as all the everything comes together and is up to par with the level that Dubbo wants it to be then the game will be announced and it shouldn't be that much longer but let's hope I won't be eating those words in a couple of minutes yes well I think there are plenty of other games out there now and maybe the summer time is maybe not the time when people are looking to buy games for their home game room when they're looking to be more outside enjoying the summer, certainly in the northern hemisphere, maybe not in the south so much but the holiday season is traditionally for home buyers the bigger time and for operators whereas in the Northern Hemisphere, it's more of a spring release. So operators can get the games into arcades and seaside locations and places that people go on vacation and play them, whereas the summer is a bit of a dead time, really, as far as game sales go. People spend their money on their vacations, and when they come back, they haven't got much money there, so there's not a lot of sales going at that time. And by October, November, getting on towards Christmas and New Year, people have got their money back and they're looking to buy things. So it makes sense at that time. Maybe it'll be an Expo reveal. Maybe Rob Burks had a word with Doug and got him to do an exclusive reveal at Expo. Who knows? Well, I don't know how much longer they can keep running Attack from Mars. obviously pinball is not the only product that they're making because they're also a church of cabinets so it's not that those people working on the production line of pinball don't have anything else to do, they're easily directed into a different department if necessary but with well this is obviously looking at it from an operator's point of view if they would come out with a game like a month of Bash operators still might want to be tempted to get a game as soon as possible and put it on location because they might still get one, two, three more months of holiday revenue as soon as the game becomes available so but then there would be targeting at operators mostly because like you said the home users might give it a few more months and then order. Yeah, I think so. But then again, there's also always a great rush, is there? But there will be the limited edition, which is obviously going to sell out instantly if people like the title and what access come with the game. So in that sense,
    29:45
    once they start production, they can start building those games and the more less limited games will come off the line later anyway. True, but again, we don't know exactly what's going on at the company in terms of other projects that they're working on. They might be making a really big run of cabinets and be making games for, I don't know, like Raw Thrills or something like that, which might take up all their development time at the moment. They might not have enough staff or resources, or don't want to employ more people in order just to make their third game. So maybe they're planning it perfectly as far as their production schedules go.
    30:31
    Anyway, the upshot is there's no particular news this time, and we will see the game when they decide to announce it. And it took you 15 minutes to discuss all that? Yeah, 15 minutes to discuss nothing.
    30:48
    Okay. So, Dan, let's continue with other smaller or boutique manufacturers. American Pinball. Well, they're working on the layout of game number two, which is widely rumored to be Oktoberfest. Yeah, which we've discussed in the past, so whether that's a wise title or not. Right. designer Joe Bolzer answered a few questions at the Northwest Pinball and Arcade show in a seminar I think by now what I understood the white wood is mostly complete and George Kugler who is the programmer at American Pinball is now starting to implement and the first code and that kind of stuff.
    31:48
    So they're working on that. And I think they might go for an Expo reveal, but if the game isn't ready, then they might not.
    31:59
    No, it was originally thought when talking about Expo for this year, there might even be a factory tour of American Pinball. I don't know whether that's going to happen or not. I haven't heard any further details of that. It could be a nice surprise if Rob is able to announce that at some point. But it's down to the state of the development of the game and whether they're in a position to show anything at that point or not, because obviously they have a lot of stuff in development inside the factory. They're not going to want to have a bunch of outsiders wandering around taking pictures. Particularly when they don't. And it's not a huge factory there, and they are moving to a bigger factory, which was one of the announcements at the Northwest show. They're moving to a factory that's three times the size of the current one. So maybe that would be another reason not to do a factory tour because maybe they'll be moving. Well, or you give everybody something to carry and then... And see what arrives at the other one and how much goes in the back of... All right, yeah, that might not be a good idea.
    33:07
    Unless you want to get rid of overstock. Well, that's true, yes. So that's American Pinball. Oh, they've also got a new distributor. Yes. Is that correct? Yes. They announced Double Pinball in Italy as their distributor for the Italian market.
    33:27
    I'm not sure whether that's a clever move, but I guess it's their only option at this moment. Stern Pinball is being distributed by Technoplay, and they basically have forbidden Technoplay to carry any other brands, which is a practice that Williams also used to do back in the days, in the 90s and even earlier. So it's not that uncommon to pinball. So basically that leaves other manufacturers looking for who is going to represent my brand in a country like Italy. Well, one of the parties available is Double Pinball, who are also representing Jersey Jack Pinball and Chicago Gaming.
    34:15
    But from what I understood is that they're not ordering any large quantities of games. So, whether being distributed by someone who maybe orders one or two games and then doesn't make any sales, Well, I shouldn't say don't make any sales, but it's not like they're ordering them by a container. At least that's what I understand. They're probably not holding a lot of stock in there. They'll probably order them as and when they get the orders in. Right. Okay. Well, it's a big investment if you want to buy 10 games or so from the company you're representing. Yes. That's probably $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 for that one company and stock that may just be sitting there. And for every model that comes out, it can soon get very expensive. So you can understand that. Well, that means that you need to have a good network of either operators or people representing you that you can pass these games on or sell them. Obviously, that's the whole goal of a distributor. And personally, having lived in Italy myself for two years, I would think that distributing Attack from Mars, the remake version, should not be that difficult in Italy. Because I remember the game was a very good earner on location for operators. and I can see that still being the case with the color display and all that.
    36:02
    So it makes me wonder like, okay, so how come if those quantities aren't there, then it makes me wonder what's up. True. I also wonder whether what happens now is what used to happen is that if your distributor in France needs an attack from Mars, say, and they haven't got what they've sold them all, they can call up their fellow distributors in Belgium or Italy or Spain or whatever and say, have you got any? In which case, if they've got some spare, they can bring the stock over or even deliver it straight from the neighboring distributor and the sale going to the original country. Whether that still happens or not, I don't know. Maybe everybody's a bit more out for themselves these days, but certainly that was something which used to happen. Well, I know there are companies that are actually combining the imports of games for Europe across several distributors. So it's like, obviously, it's most economical to ship games by boat in a container. Yeah, a full container. Preferably a full container, indeed. so if you have 20 games that need to go to Germany and you have 10 that need to go to France 5 that go to Benelux then you want to fill the rest of that container up which is maybe like 8 games or so and make sure something is filling up that container and going over there and end up with a distributor I guess that's something the manufacturer would do really They get on to all their distributors and look at how many machines each one wants and then try and fill a container.
    37:56
    Right. So, well, American Pinball have been expanding in Europe the past few months. They added Speakerbonk's Pinball Paradise in France as well, who did actually show images of the game in France. and so if there is a demand for the game then obviously let them figure it out I think I've also added Pinball Heaven in the UK as a distributor which is I think there's a Houdini or two if not on site yet, very soon will be at Tilt Pinball Cafe in Birmingham which is a sort of showcase for Pimble Heaven, where they had The Hobbit and Pirates of the Caribbean. I've still got Pirates of the Caribbean and The Hobbit there,
    38:52
    obviously from Jersey Jack, and also all the latest Stern games as well. So that's a good place to visit if you want to check out the latest games. Tilt Cafe in Birmingham, right in the centre of the city. Right, okay.
    39:06
    I won't be in Birmingham anytime soon, but still, I'll keep it in mind. You won't be that far away in a couple of months, will you? A couple of weeks it is, actually. Is it really? Yeah.
    39:17
    So I'll tell you about that later after the show. Yeah, okay. No, actually, I'll be going over to the UK twice this month. I can tell you that already.
    39:28
    Exciting times. Apparently, yes. Okay, moving on. Moving on. Home bin. What can we say about home bin? Well, what I've seen on their Facebook page, I haven't talked to Mike, the owner, this month. Usually we end up talking to each other at least once a month, but so far this month not yet, but that's okay. I've seen that they're basically building more and more parts. They started production. I think those games are either finished and they're building parts for another production run or they're still building parts for the games that they are supposed to be building. So I've seen lots of pictures of parts being built. And, well, they're busy, so that's a good thing. You are indeed. And I was fortunate enough to actually play Thunderbirds. I was trying to get to that, yes. At the Northwest Pinball Show, Pinball and Arcade Show, to give it its proper name, on the Tommy Floyd stand there. Nitro Pinball, they had two home pin Thunderbird games important to note that they're called Thunderbirds now and not Thunderbirds are Go I don't know whether there's any significance we can read into that change in title, maybe the Thunderbirds are Go brand is not going anywhere as it were and they've reversed it back to the original Thunderbirds which obviously has a much wider spread over many more years than the more recent Argo programs of shows.
    41:08
    But no, I think it was very interesting to see the game. And obviously on Pinball News, we had a good look inside to see exactly how it was built, inside the back box, inside the cabinet, under the playfield. And you can see all the high-res pictures from our Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show report there.
    41:27
    It was an interesting game to play. Right. I was going to say, any comments on the build quality? Mechanically, everything was rock solid, I would say.
    41:41
    Mechanically engineered almost beyond belief. If you lift the playfield up and you're looking for something to hold the playfield in the upright position, an old Williams-Bally game, you'd get a little, get an arm on the right hand side or other games you'd have like just a little rod which would just hold up one side of the playfield and it would sort of flex and you'd worry about whether it's going to twist and bend and warp open up Homepins Thunderbirds and there's this massive great stainless steel H-frame which supports the playfield on both sides very very certainly, so it's well engineered no question about it and you open the back box and take the the trans light out the speaker panel the speaker display panel doesn't just sort of pivot down there's a massive great hinge on the left hand side and the whole thing swivels over to one side um you know it's um it's solid stuff in there okay um the only thing which which they were kind of lacking in that game was I'd say the center ramp on the game which you shoot multiple times to spell out Thunderbirds no sorry, International Rescue that's right, it's on the back panel each shot adds a letter to it that was a prototype ramp, it wasn't a finished ramp at all and it's interesting it's quite similar to Full Throttle, when that game first came out they had big problems with getting the angle of the ramp just right so the ball didn't fly off it or it didn't go up and hit something and lose all its momentum getting a nice smooth ball travel and flow up the ramp from quite close to the flippers you know where the ball's still got a lot of momentum it's a difficult thing to get right and they were still working on it so the ramps in those both those games were handmade and they weren't the finished product at all okay but the rest of the game was i think pretty much complete, there's still stuff to do in the software no question about it and sounds and sort of feedback to the players but no, very solid, robust game and it's a very well integrated theme, I think it looks very good. Okay so, well, compliments for Home, of to Homepin for at least a mechanical build and there's obviously still some stuff to, left to work on, let's hope that they get to that and that they will have a successful game on their hands. I think so, and it will be shown next at the UK Pinfest in August.
    44:28
    Mike is actually coming over to that show. I'm looking forward to that. I think he's, that's actually, I think another distributor represented, also another manufacturing company represented by Pinball Heaven so I think Mike will be going off to see Phil Palmer from Pinball Heaven first and then he'll be coming to the show and he will be doing a seminar at UK Pinfest that should be fun and have some games there as well for people to play so I think that's the first time that Mike's kind of been in certainly outside Australia and China standing there sort of telling people about his game and answering questions about it so that'll be a nice little time He's been to Vancouver as well last year. Ah, right. Okay. Good point. Yeah, thought about that. And, well, since we're already discussing shows and Vancouver is rather close to Seattle, you've been to the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show. Yeah, as I just said, that's where I played Thunderbirds, and it was another great show. It was a challenging weekend for me because I wanted to go to three shows, and they were all on at the same weekend. The Northwest show was the same weekend as the Rocky Mountain Pinball and Arcade Expo in Denver. And the Southern Fried, I think. And the Southern Fried Green Room show in Atlanta. Yes, three great events. Probably not that big a crossover for people who like to attend a show in the U.S. They'll go to the nearest one. but for us international travellers, we have to make a decision as to which one to go to.
    46:10
    Fortunately, that situation has eased a little bit next year because the Northwest show was forced by the venue's availability to move a week later than they wanted to be. They're normally the very, very first weekend in June, and the last couple of years they've been the second weekend in June. Well, next year they're back to the first weekend, which I think is like the 31st of May, the 1st and 2nd of June, which keeps them a week away from Denver and Atlanta. At least I think those two are still going to be the same weekend all the time. But at least it gives us international visitors a chance to pick two of the three shows, if not all three. But yeah it was a very well very professional presentation they have a huge team of people working for them which I think is really impressive the number of volunteers for that show it like 130 people are working on that show at the end of it they give an award they give a draw for an award for the volunteers and yeah they say they've got this, I think 126 or something like that people that were up for who contributed in some way, shape or form to making the show what it is. And it was really good fun.
    47:35
    And I have to admit, I do love going to Seattle these days. It's become a... Being somewhere that was a little bit scary initially by the sort of grungy, slightly dirty feel to the city, or I should say earthy rather than dirty, it's become somewhere that once you get used to it and get really get your into the same mindset it becomes a wonderful city to visit and pinball has just you know exploded there in so many ways with so many great places to play just popping up all the time and everybody there is so enthusiastic and there's so so many good products coming out of there you know from you know skill Shot Zine and Fast Pinball there and of course all the collectors and of course David Teels there and some amazing EM restoration guys and the Seattle Pinball Museum's there and there's a Shorty's and there's just new places popping up all the time and you know just you could go there for two weeks easily and go to a different place every night and still not cover half the places that you really want to visit Right, well it's a good thing then that the next year's show is a week away from the Southern Fright and the... The Rocky Mountain show. Right, exactly, because you might have to spend a few more days in the States and then you might as well spend them in Seattle. well that's not to uh to just say i don't want to spend them in in denver or atlanta as well because they're certainly worth exploring and i'm sure they have a wonderful selection of places i know denver certainly or colorado in general has some amazing pinball locations um and collectors as well so i'd be very keen to go back there and spend time there it's just uh i guess at some point you know we'll probably have to go back to work and uh you know earn some money to pay for these trips right but um but yeah certainly i would certainly recommend anybody interested in people to go to seattle and uh you just can't go wrong there it's it's just you know it's it's a nice size city you can stay a little way out in the center i was saying capitol hill which is um quite an upscale area and but you can walk down to anywhere in in the city in 10-15 minutes or you can get any of the multiple means of transport. I wouldn't recommend driving downtown and then parking because that's always a nightmare. But there's trains, there's subways, there's buses, there's light rail, there's multiple means of getting around in the city. And walking is a great one as well. And there are so many places. You'll stumble across places on your way wherever you're going. Right. It sounds like Quantum City was modeled after C.O.
    50:25
    Well, maybe Emerald City. which is the nickname of Seattle. Right, okay. So, well, great show report also on your website. So if people want to check out more about that show, then please do visit pinballnews.com. Thank you very much. Yes, I was reporting live from it every day, so there's the set-up and then three days of show coverage. And talking of shows, one show we thought we weren't going to get this year after such an amazing event last year was the Dutch Pinball Open which was held in Eindhoven at the Éboulon spaceship-shaped former Philips Museum and the general feeling after that I think was that there was no way that the Dutch Pinball Association I don't understand there was no way the Dutch Pinball Association Sorry, Google seems to have taken over trying to answer a question I wasn't asking.
    51:31
    Yeah, there's no way the Dutch Pimple Association could top that. So they weren't going to do a show this year. But now apparently they are. Well, yeah, but they're not going to top it. No. I'll tell you that. Yeah. So what are they going to do? So, well, I've been a little bit involved on the sidelines. we actually looked at two different dates.
    51:58
    There will be the IAPA Euro show in Amsterdam in September this year and at first we looked at whether it was possible to have the Dutch pinball open the weekend straight after the show because Gary Stern and Jack Guarnieri and a lot of other pinball industry insiders would be attending that event so it would be easier for them to stay an extra few days.
    52:25
    And then it turned out that the location that they wanted to go to was not available for that weekend. So eventually they decided to just stick with the traditional date of the second weekend of November.
    52:45
    And they're going back to the Drunen location, which they used a couple of years ago when Steve Ritchie and Roger Sharp were people who were attending that event, which is actually a nice location. I think they can easily hold like over 100, possibly even 200 games. And it has this nice theater room for all the seminars. Yes, I remember that. That was the automobile museum, the former automobile museum, I should say. Yes, yes. Right, and they moved away from there because the council were going to demolish it, I think, or close it down or do something with it. They have been doing reconstruction work, and one of the reasons that they couldn't use that venue in September is that the reconstruction work isn't done, but it should be done by November. So that was all green lights for them to host the event there for this year. So it's not going to be the Avila 1. it's not going to be 500 games and one of the reasons they decided not to do it was basically most of the volunteers said well this was a great event absolutely nobody disagrees with that but they're not going to do that every year because it was such a big toll on the volunteers I mean some people brought in over 100 games and set them up themselves So you can imagine that's not something you do as a hobby. It was quite astonishing to see that that building does absolutely fill with pinballs on every level.
    54:26
    And kudos to not just the association, but all the people who brought the games as well. I know, as you said, over 100 games from some people.
    54:36
    It really isn't something that is possible to do every year or indeed in any way frequently. So it's understandable. So last year was the, I think, the 30th anniversary of the Dutch Pinball Order 25th. I lost count. I'm not sure. It was some anniversary of the Dutch Pinball Association.
    55:02
    So they might go back there in like five years, hopefully, when there is another lustrum to celebrate. let's hope that will happen you know so but it was absolutely the most amazing location for a pinball show it was and it was almost one of those places where wherever you get your camera out and take a wide shot of the building it's always going to look amazing it's not just the architecture but also just seeing those what was it five levels above the ground floor all packed with pinball machines from no spaces on it at all and it just looked you know it was pinball heaven on every level right to coin a phrase um but yeah okay so this year we've got another show so that's good in in november looking forward to that and um talking of things dutch yes that isn't one of the worst links we've ever done um there's there's some news on a dutch pinball and they sent out a newsletter this week, didn't they, with some details or maybe it was last week, with some details about what's happening with them. Yes. I'm going to have to be very careful with what I say.
    56:28
    I personally was not very happy with that newsletter. Do you want to explain what was in it? they announced the Seattle 7 which is not people from Seattle not 7 people from Seattle if you might think that because it's not apparently it's a phrase that is originating from the Big Lebowski movie and the Seattle 7 have been brainstorming about this idea of doing a GoFundMe campaign to support Dutch Pinball, either in their court case against their former contract manufacturer or production of the games. I'm not so sure that was a clever move to announce that. I knew people were talking about that behind the scenes, but I don't think they were in the position to actually go live with anything. And now they already announced it, and I haven't even looked at Pinsight to see what the responses will be. I need to say and to make clear that this is not an initiative of Dutch Pinball themselves. This is actually a couple of early achievers, people who bought the game that still have faith in Barry and Jaap running the company. And they want to help them to make sure that the games get made and that everybody gets their games and that the game will go into production and become the success it deserves it to be. so it's not an initiative of Dutch Pinball themselves please keep that in mind but that being said so they were announced but they had nothing ready to go which I think is poor strategy I would call it right so there's a group of buyers or pre-orderers who are looking at putting together some funds to get the game made or to get the games released from ARA, either made by Zytec or released from ARA.
    58:38
    But there's no suggestion that other people could join this, or there isn't a GoFundMe page yet, is there, for people to join in on this? Yeah, and the interesting thing is that I think the main objective of the GoFundMe was not to aim at pinball enthusiasts, but more at Big Lebowski fans, fans of the movie, and the franchise, if you want to call it that, because there's obviously a lot of licensed products related to that movie by now.
    59:16
    So the idea would be to get people to either donate money or... Well, there's several ideas what you might be able to do with that.
    59:31
    But I'm not sure whether it's very either ambitious or naive to think that you would be able to get like 50,000 people to cough up even as little as $20, which might be just the price of three coffees in the States. But still, I mean, you need a good incentive for them to do it. And, like I said, when announcing the Seattle 7, I feel, and it's just my opinion, man, to stick with the movie, but I think it should have been announced when there was a campaign ready to go. and that you tie these things together so that there's synergy that helps.
    60:25
    And now it was just basically like an announcement and nothing happens. No, it was more of an idea, wasn't it, floating the idea. But they did have some action together, didn't they? They had a plan together to start selling licensed products, backglow, translights and merchandise and even a prototype game or play field is that right? Yes, they basically created their own webshop so they have been working on that because building a webshop is not something that you do overnight although some programmers might be able to do that but again that was something I was like there were talks with the Seattle 7 that they would be like raffling off maybe Translites and other stuff and I think in my talks I talked to the person who took the initiative in the Seattle 7 and I said like well maybe instead of raffling off Translites why not just offer them to the Lovasky community themselves and before that idea could even be discussed with Dutch Pinball, they launched their own website or a web shop. And so that's no longer an option. I'm a bachelor in communication and this kind of non-communication really doesn't make me happy, let's put it like that.
    62:04
    I'd love to put strategic plans together where you have the synergy that at a certain moment everything comes together and this is just all loose ends like, oh, let's do this, let's do that, and not look at what's happening with what someone else is working on. And that's not something that I'm very supportive of.
    62:26
    Yeah, well, I guess they're trying to just come up with a bunch of ideas at this stage and just trying to keep the show on the road and do whatever they think they can. Right. Everybody's trying to do whatever they can to make sure that the momentum continues and people don't forget about it. And it doesn't just end up being mired in legal wrangling and ends up just going nowhere. So as you say, it's not a coordinated plan. It's a bunch of ideas from various people all doing their own thing. Right. And what might actually surprise some people, I'm actually still very confident that this whole Big Lebowski project could become a success.
    63:12
    The problem right now is Dutch Pinball are waiting. I don't think anybody made any money ever by doing nothing. well i think at this point what needs to be done is the get the production going in china and as soon as that's going um then they will be able to start making money on the games that they sell um i understand that they have to um deliver these 130 or 140 games to people who already pre-ordered but there's a lot of money to be made the only problem is there's this court case that might scare off people and so you need to see like how can you get the production going in China without having the burden of that court case weighing in on your investment I'm sure there are plenty of ways of doing that by selling the assets or transferring the assets from Dutch to a company outside Holland for the purpose of manufacturing the game, which means any court case in Holland would be immaterial to the production of the game in China. Well, I can only hope that behind the scenes Dutch people are working on such a construction. Yeah, absolutely. This is all speculation at this point. Yes. But I do want to say I see lots of commercial possibilities for anybody willing to step up.
    64:54
    Because I think they're going to make money. And I think Dutch Pinball has a lot of potential. Certainly, Barry as a designer has shown that he can design a great game. and I'd like to see nothing more than getting Big Lebowski into production and Barry designing a second game not the second game that they suggested themselves but a complete new game because I think that he certainly has a talent and it would be so great to see that come to fruition Okay, well let's have fingers crossed for that one Another manufacturer who's looking to produce their first game is Phoenix Pinball. Right. Based in France. We discussed them before. We have indeed. We discussed their Olympic Goblin game.
    65:55
    Yes. And you have this crystal ball. Well, it didn't give me any pleasure when I actually read the news. But yes, I did mention on this very podcast a while ago that I thought they might run into problems using the Olympic branding for all using the word Olympic in their title, given how very carefully the International Olympic Committee looks after their assets and their rights to the Olympic branding. and so it came to pass apparently in that they received a letter from the IOC saying you can't use the word Olympic in the title of your game so they have changed it from Olympic Goblin to Goblin Contest Oh my god so I'm not sure whether that's an improvement Well legally it is whether it encapsulates the feel of the game we not entirely clear we're thinking maybe Goblin Games might have been a good way of working your way around Goblin Challenge yeah the alliteration would be good Goblin Games or Goblin Contest sounds a bit weak but that's what they've gone with at the moment and their Facebook page shows the new artwork and I think pretty much all references to Olympics have been taken away, I think there's one photo on the website where the word Olympic has been blurred out from the artwork so you wouldn't know but it's a shame but it's the same game a rose by any other name etc it's hopefully won't damage the sales of the game too much it's a fun simple game and best of luck to Phoenix Pinball in continuing it and bringing it to production and then selling it yeah what's actually surprising is that they stick with the same artwork style which probably has been criticized by many obviously well it's art so I'm not sure whether you can well you can have opinions about that, but discussing them, I'm not sure whether that makes much sense, but still.
    68:29
    They're happy with it, and don't want to completely repackage all the artwork. You can just change the title of it fairly simply. No, but the entire back loss has changed. It's a completely new art package for the back loss.
    68:43
    Oh, okay. I can't remember what the last one looked like, but it's still got the goblin running along holding an Olympic torch. Right, and now in front of some sort of building, and they have these four judges on the playfield, which are now actually mentioned on the back glass as player 1, 2, 3 and 4. So they brought those up to the back glass as well, which weren't there before. I don't recall those.
    69:11
    Yes, an interesting design, but at the end of the day, it's the playfield which really matters and how well the game plays. and I think we enjoyed playing it. It was a simple, easy to understand game with realistic challenges that were quite rewarding to complete. Right. So, well, let's see how they do. But it's interesting to see that you called this and you were correct. Good to know. Every now and again, I do know what I'm talking about. Not very often, but there you go. So that means that the flyers for the Olympic Goblin Game will be worth a lot of money, and I'm so glad I got some. How many packs have you got?
    69:55
    I wasn't that greedy, so I don't have that many, but I do have a few. Now, let's just hope that everybody starts collecting pinball flyers again.
    70:07
    Yes, all forgotten art of pinball flyer collecting. Right, okay. Hold on. Guess what? What? You hear that in the background? I do. Oh no, it's not, is it? Well, you know how we talked about earlier
    70:27
    to give him a certain to give him his own ringtone Yeah absolutely yeah So that what I did Oh wow amazing I actually told him to call because I knew he had some really exciting news to give us Really? Yeah, I mean, it's... I won't say it's earth-chattering, but it's significant, and it's an exclusive for our podcast here. Oh, great. So anyway, I decided to give him the Clash London, calling because Gary, well, from London, okay, he may not live there anymore, but I figured that would be appropriate. I think you're right. So let's see what he has to say. Who's calling now, is he? Yes, let's see what he has to say. Oh, hold on. Yeah, put him on. No, I think he hung up. Oh, man.
    71:24
    You want me to call him again? Oh, he'll call back, I'm sure. What he said was, you really want to hear this news, and he's got it first, and he was willing to share it. Well, we'll hold it over to next month, I'm sure. I'm sure it'll still be exclusive then. Okay, excellent. But at least now you know, so Gary has got his own ringtone. Excellent. Okay, well, I'll listen out for it. Easy for me to recognize if he's calling. Only if I hear the Clash London calling, I know I can take the dog for a walk or something.
    72:02
    Okay. So what else do we have? We have... Well, I have... I wrote a few things down that I didn't share with you yet.
    72:12
    Congratulations to Spooky Pinball. Yes, indeed. For their 100th podcast episode. and not only that oh you got more well they also shipped their first Alice Cooper game as well so it's been an exciting time for them in June so kudos to them I think they shipped a couple of Alice Cooper games by now I think I saw something like number 6 was on the line or something but I thought doing 100 monthly episodes of the podcast is an impressive achievement it is pretty damn impressive congratulations to Charlie KT Bug who's taking it over now of course and Squirrel and everyone behind the podcast and the pinball manufacturing company they've done an amazing job and done it in a very modest and I don't want to say low key but manageable and impressive way. So congratulations to them. Right. And from 100th to another 100th.
    73:30
    Oh, you've been working on this, I can tell. No, well. This month, Wayne Nyans hopes to celebrate his 100th birthday. July 29th is the date. Of course. How could we forget? Well, I certainly couldn't. And obviously, as people know, I have been working on Pimble Magazine number five. And everybody's like, when is it done? When is it done? It's not done yet. But I am over 250 pages already. So which is basically a double up of last month. Then I had about 125.
    74:13
    There's still a lot of distractions with the situation around going on with my landlord, which I won't get into too much but aside from dealing with that I was able to work my way through the way 9th cover story which is now completely done all I need to do is add a couple of photo credits and I have some intentionally left over spaces that I probably will fill up with advertisements small advertisements for Pimble Magazine related products. So is this going to be done by the 29th? Or are you going to be able to present a copy of it to Wave? I will be. So the current plan is I doubt I will be done by the 29th. Well, I doubt it will be printed. I think I will be done with the magazine, but I don't think it will be completely printed. but I will send over a preview copy to Wayne so that he has that at his birthday and I know there's going to be celebrations and a lot of people from the pinball community are planning to come over so at least they can take a look at what hopefully will be available next month fantastic okay well we'll I would say look forward to seeing it then because we won't see it then but at least Wayne and everybody at the party will get to see it at that point. So it'll be a wonderful 100th birthday present if you do present it. The preview will probably be just in black and white.
    75:54
    That's the easiest to do. Doing a full-color copy, that's going to be very expensive. But as it's only a preview, I figured that would be okay. Everybody who is familiar with Pimple Magazine knows that it's a wonderful full-color publication. More like a book from what I've heard. Yeah. And I figured I'd send a preview to Wayne.
    76:22
    And after that, it will only get bigger in the sense that what Wayne will get is not going to be the entire issue, I assume. and so as soon as I can I will send over a box of magazines to Wayne so that he can share them with his family as well. I know his daughters have indicated that they are interested in a copy as well.
    76:47
    Well, let's look at it and see if there's any sort of means for people to send Wayne a birthday card or a birthday greeting for his 100th birthday. I'm sure that would be a wonderful gesture and if there are ways we can get that published Right, well I did something like that last year basically people can send their birthday wish for Wayne Nines to editor at pinball-magazine.com I will bundle all of these and make sure that Wayne gets them Wonderful, okay and if they want to send a birthday card maybe there's a way of doing that as well wherever in the world they are they better hurry because I don't think it would be appreciated by Wayne if I would list or mention his address on the podcast but if it might help to have somebody local in the US too one of the people who are going to his birthday celebration maybe could be a sort of collecting point or maybe they could be sent to I don't know, somewhere like the, and I'm not suggesting this is something that's been organized yet, but maybe the Pinball Museum in Alameda might want to organize something, because I know a couple of people from there are going down to see Wayne. That's probably the best party to collect these birthday wishes. But I'd say since Wayne's birthday is the 29th, and I have no idea how long it takes an American male to send over a card, So I'd say do this before the, I'd say the 15th, something like that.
    78:34
    Yeah, yeah. Give it plenty of time anyway. That's the main thing. So, and basically send it to the Pacific Pinball Museum. Well, hang on. We haven't actually even organized anything here. Yeah, okay. So this is just something we're stuffed down the throats. That's right. Yeah. Yes. we'll foist it on them and they are now the official collection point whether they like it or not by popular vote, two against zero that's right but yeah, we'll find out and publish details on where and when and what deadlines are after that as soon as we possibly can right ok, speaking of deadlines the, I'm trying to think what's coming up I have nothing here so I was about to round up. I've got a couple of tournaments which I'm organising. This very weekend is the Swasey Pinball Weekend near Cambridge in the UK where I'm running the UK Pinball Cup on the Sunday. It's always a nice, very laid-back, casual weekend held in a pub with about 12 to 14 pinball machines and sort of sitting around, sitting in the garden, drinking beer, playing games, challenging each other every now and again. and just chilling out in the sunshine. And it's meant to be a good weekend for that, so we'll be doing a bit of that. And then a bit later in the 24th, 25th, 26th of August, it's the UK Pin Fest, where I'm helping to organise the UK Pinball Open and UK Pinball Classic tournaments. I'm taking registrations for that at the moment on behalf of Peter Blatmore, who's actually the tournament director. that's available through tournaments.pinballnews.com and if you'd like to come along to that show that's the one where we're going to have Mike from Home Pin there talking about Thunderbirds and we've also got the Kill Bill game from Dennis Zenderpass he's bringing that there and we'll be giving a seminar about it as well so if you'd like to play in the tournament turn on the shop, peoplenews.com there having a quick look at the current status of it, we have about three places left in three of the three places left in two of the slots one place left in another and eight in another, so that's out of 40 in each of them so there are not many places left, so if you want to sign up for the tournaments which we just announced today. Well, our prize package for that is going to be £1,800 in cash. Wow. I might want to practice my pinball skills. That's about €2,000,
    81:33
    $2,500, $2,400 spread amongst the top 16 in each of those with a maximum of 80. So if you take part, you'll have a good chance of winning some cash there as well as trophies. So that's what's keeping me busy at the moment, besides doing the Pinball News articles as well. Right. Which also have been interesting in the past few weeks, but I won't go into those now, because we've been talking for quite a long time, for a month, where we didn't think there was much to talk about. Right. But you did mention you wanted to, you put up this article about the Strong.
    82:12
    Yes, that was an interesting one. there's a whole bunch of archive material from Williams Ballet which was when Williams closed most of it was bought out by Gene Cunningham as part of the Illinois Pinball purchase of basically the Williams assets part completed games and development and a lot of documentation and paperwork from basically a whole history of williams and bally because bally merged with williams took over bally and acquired all that stuff as well um now that was with gene but gene obviously ran into financial problems so that was ended up being mostly sold well in fact the paperwork was sold to james loflin of pimple ink who over the past eight years has been going through it all and or going through some of it There's so much of it, you can't really go through it all, but it's been a real eye-opener for him, looking at exactly how the company was built, the first games they built. There's whole folders of documentation right from game number one all the way through to the point at which they closed in 1999.
    83:29
    And there's interesting little notes in there from the game designers, from the mechanical designers, from the company owners, making suggestions, tweaks, some games in there that were never developed. There's masses and masses of this stuff. And James came to realize there's just too much of it for him to realistically do anything with. It needs to be displayed. It needs to be available for research. And he didn't have the space or the means to do that. So he very generously looked for somewhere to donate it where it could all be made available and could be used in exhibits and really about the only place that was able to take over the whole mass of documentation and the entire archives was the Strong Museum in Rochester, New York, which they have done and they are now working their way through it and will make it available for people who want to research into the history of Williams Pinball and Bally Pinball, in addition to all the great material they have on Stern Pinball as well and Atari and basically all the pinball manufacturers.
    84:47
    So that place is becoming a real sort of treasure trove of the entire history in paperwork of pinball.
    84:58
    So kudos to everybody involved in that. It's coming together really well there. And a lot of it will be made online as well. Some of it will end up in exhibits, either online or physical exhibits. And if you really want to go and research into a particular game, you can make an appointment and go and work your way through their archives and see what they have. Right. Well, they got a lot because I remember that Williams, a couple of years ago, also donated to the Strong. That's right. Scientific games, when they were sort of divesting themselves of virtually the last bits of pinball, they donated a whole bunch of basically the stuff which wasn't in James's possession. I must mention the stuff that James had, which went by Gene. That was very largely the work of Steve Kordek, who devoted his last, I would say, years, but probably decades at Williams in ensuring that all this documentation was preserved and collated and sorted.
    86:06
    And he was the man responsible for making sure that that collection exists these days. So his work continues long after his death, and people will be benefiting from it for decades and centuries, I would hope. So does the Strong have a permanent pinball exhibition?
    86:30
    They do. Yeah, they have at least one permanent history of pinball, pinball playfields exhibit, but they will also hold many others as and when it comes up for rotation. They don't have infinite space, but they will do themed exhibits both physically and online as well. And there's a very interesting one at the moment. And if you read the article on Pinball News, at the end of it, there's a link to an online exhibit they've done with Google about pinball's history. So there's some lovely pictures in there, which really are evocative of the time when they were taken. They show how pinball was enjoyed and the kind of place it had in American society at the time. So I would recommend going and looking at that.
    87:22
    I will certainly. So that's me, John, I think, for this month. How about you? You got anything else you'd like to share with our listeners? I think we covered everything and much more than there actually was to cover.
    87:39
    Actually, I thought it was a pretty slow month, and yet here we are talking for about an hour and a half.
    87:45
    Yeah, funny how we always seem to manage to do that every time. Yeah, we should do radio. Well, try to make some money out of this. Yeah. Oh, well, it's been fun. Thank you for doing this again. Yes, thank you for being here as well. And thank you to our listeners, both of them. And also thank you for the kind words that you've given and the suggestions on ways which we can improve both content and technically, which hopefully try to get the sort of voice levels balanced and reduce background noise and that kind of stuff. from podcast to podcast. So when I was at the Seattle show, quite a few people came out and said they really enjoyed listening to us and the different perspective that we had on it from a European point of view. And yeah, we did have a couple of people also say, you know, it'd be nice if you could get the audio a little crisper and cleaner. So we've taken steps. And Jonathan's the audio guy. And he's made some tweaks and adjustments this time as well. So hopefully it all sounds a little nicer, a little crisper, a little more evenly balanced. Right, okay. So I think there might be one more news item to briefly discuss that was brought up a couple of days ago. Christopher Frenchy, the graphic artist who did Batman 66 and what's the other one?
    89:17
    Guardians of the Galaxy. for CERN Pinball he posted a announcement on Facebook where he basically said that he was leaving Pinball, at least that's the way I read it and he was going to do movies and people have been wondering about what that's all about and I didn't see any other announcements but I do see that he is currently listed as a principal concept artist at Zynga Inc. And if I'm not mistaken, isn't that Joe Kamigow's company? It is, yes.
    90:00
    And Brian Eddy as well, of course, who's working there. Although it's also worth pointing out that post he did on Facebook has since been deleted. okay so um no point going to search for it but um so i should just delete this part and no absolutely not no it's interesting um and not the first time that we thought that he was out of the pinball scene only for him to uh to re-emerge as on the next project right uh but also also in the interest of spreading the love I should mention that he and Ed from Ed Van Der Veen from the Texas Pinball Festival are going to be doing a podcast as well between the two of them so I don't think the first one's out yet but that's coming up isn't it funny that how, ok we're not the first to do a podcast but hardly but it is interesting to see how a good example does got good following that's sort of a translation of a dutch saying but i hope it makes any sense i mean when i started doing these monthly newsletters all of a sudden somebody else figured hey i can do that every week and um so we're not the first to do a podcast but we did get very good um response on our chemistry which I think is interesting. And so it's also interesting to see that Ed and Christopher, who both have a great chemistry together as well, are going to do their own podcast. And I wish them best of luck with that. I can't wait to hear it. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll look forward to it as well. Yeah, so good luck to them with that. But from this particular podcast, I think we kind of covered everything for this month haven't we? I think more than yes and previous month and a bit of the next month is there anything obviously it's now July is there anything coming up that is worth mentioning obviously for the pinball shows there's plenty of shows coming up check the pinball news diary on pinballnews.com that's easy but in terms of new games I don't think anything is happening right now no I don't think anything is happening this month in terms of releases although maybe Chicago Gaming Chicago we never know but that's not it won't be a new game whatever it is they announce but it will be new to us no I think we can pretty much sit back and enjoy the summer and not have to sit in front of our monitors all the time waiting for that email or that message to arrive with the latest release. Probably have a couple of weeks off and then look forward to August really getting busier.
    93:14
    Right, okay. Well, then let's see if the next podcast can be one of less than 30 minutes. Okay, that's the challenge. come on pinball world make sure nothing happens in the next month oh well so um we'll be back at the beginning of uh august with a uh a recap of what happened in this month july of 2018 and my name is jonathan houston and i wish you a very pleasant continuation of your day bye bye from me and from me martin ebb have a great summer or if you're in the southern hemisphere have a great winter and we'll be back again next month thank you bye-bye