One, two, one, two, testing one, two. And what's up everybody? Welcome to the Watch Bill once again. We are pinball as you know. Myself, Mr. Bradlee Ching, over there in Denmark. We love to celebrate everything in pinball. And occasionally we get blessed with the gentle faith of a kind soul. And this week, we've got Mr. David David Van Es, boxed himself, barrels of fun here with us. Just launched the earth-shattering Winchester Mystery House. Some say it's a castle, but it's more of a house. He's going to join us. We're going to talk. Jacob, how are you doing? David, how are you doing? Go ahead and talk. I'm doing awesome. There we go. I like how you use the word castle. because now that Winchester is out there, you'll see from us next. Maybe I'll do Barrels of Fun, The Great Pyramids of Giza. I have no idea. But original IPs are back, I feel like. Yeah, man. Sorry you dropped out there a little bit, Internet Connection. You're back now. Look, I literally told you what the next game is. How awesome is that? Damn it, I know, I know. We can keep going. I can pop that little snippet out like it never happened. It's perfect. It's so good, it's raw I'm so happy we're doing this We have got the president of the company President of B. Farris of Fun Mr. David David Van Es I'm so happy I'm so excited about this This is awesome because we just had an Expo, pinball expo show And David David Van Es was just A man there I mean B. Farris of Fun The whole show was all about B. Farris of Fun Because all of a sudden Persephone They released Winchester And no one knew about it Persephone How could you keep this game This secret Because normally everybody knows What's going on a year from now But nobody knew How did you do it What's your secret There's no secret I mean this is how we launched Labyrinth And I mean talk about The best second year anniversary Public second year anniversary because we were a company prior to this. But it's going back to what we always wanted to do as the foundation of this company, which is what I missed as a collector. Like, everyone kind of knows what everyone is doing. Companies are sometimes intentionally or unintentionally a slew leaking information out there to see the hype for a machine. And what I missed as a collector was the opportunity to have that day when Stern would drop a game like Tron or Rolling Stones. These are games I remember coming out. We had no idea. And we were on RPG and stuff like that. And there was nothing more awesome. It's Christmas Day, you know, and you get to see something you totally didn't expect. You get with your friends. You talk about this could be it. What shot did that do? What did that toy do? Like the excitement of that is what we always wanted each game launch we did be. We want it to be unexpected. We want people to analyze it. We want people to think of the possibilities that could be in this game, you know. But doing something like Winchester is very risky because a lot of people say they want original IPs, including myself, but track record shows they do not do well. And just with my experience, a lot of people harken back to the great games of Metal Evil Madness, Attack from Mars. Whitewater, you know, all Theater of Magic, you go through all those IPs, but a lot of the reasons they are successful now or people admire those now, it's not because they're original things, it's that they've had 20 years playing them and they've learned to love them because if Whitewater came out today, well that's actually a bad example because that game is just jam packed that's the other part of it people forget about, yeah and so like if theater magic came out today because that doesn't really have a lot of features i love theater of magic it's one of my all-time favorites i mean i'm a big magic person don't get me wrong okay but people would i don't think people gravitate towards it you know but it's over the time of falling in love with the game it gains traction and it becomes exciting and people fall in love with it and i mean with winchester it's just we did not want this to sell out. We just, I mean, we didn't extend it to sell it as quickly as it did. I have banners that I can't use now that has a QR code. It says buy Winchester. Like, it just was. We don't want people flipping games. This is why we don't. I know there's some podcasters that will jump on me. Of course you want day one sellouts. I want people to play it. Why do you think all our marketing was come and play the game at Expo. Come and experience it. You know? Did you sell out before Expo? We sold out before Expo. Wow. Yeah, that was wild. Was this a 24-hour sellout? I mean... It probably was sold out within 24 hours, but by 3 p.m. on Tuesday, the demand just couldn't stop. Like, we already called it, but, like... So, everyone wants to celebrate. My team wants to celebrate, and rightly so. But the amount of Negative emails And I love them, don't get me wrong I read all my emails Of the amount of people that missed out This opportunity Is blowing my mind Because I disappointed people And that's the last thing I want to do Is disappoint people Because I want people to experience it Yeah, I mean I watched the gameplay video Of this game And I feel like this We're going to go into it But I feel like this game is so good, and I mean it, this game looks so good, that I feel bad that only 525 collectors are going to ever have this game. How is your company politics? I mean, could you make a, you know, anniversary edition something, 500 more? No? Is that on the record? No way? That is on the record. It's like, I probably shouldn't be a manufacturer because I'm a collector at heart, okay? I build games. I sell games that in three to four years after we've launched the game, good luck trying to find it, because when they get into the home of collectors, hopefully they'll fall in love with it, and I'll never move from the collection. So that is always what I intended me and Brian wanted to do. How did you come up with the number 525? Why did you, I mean, why not 700? Why that low number? Well, the original number was 666. Okay. In fact, we actually ordered 700 toys for this game. Yeah. Because we were set on doing 666. But I had a very good friend marketer that has a lot of experience in many aspects, and it comes down to the same thing as giving a piece of the house away with the game. He goes, there are people that when they will buy this game, but you put 666 on this game, you will lose sales, period. Because a number to me, I try to make sure it ties into the game. You know, we've gone from 1,100 to 1,000 units. They were kind of set by the market, the pinball market, of what they deemed limited edition, okay? So when it came to game three, I wanted to do a number. First of all, it's an original IP, So I had no idea how this was going to be received. So I knew it had to be a lot less than $1,000. So 666 is in perfect tie to the IP. And the licensor had no issue with that. But talking to my marketer, hearing about putting a piece of the house into the game, all these little nuances, it didn't make sense. And I already ordered the toys. So you've got to remember, the toys need to be ordered at least nine months before we even think about doing this game. So basically, I'm going to have a lot of scrap toys because when I started looking at numbers, what was the next number that made sense? And 525 is the address of the house, 525 Winchester Boulevard. So that, to me, made more sense, and I always just, you know, I'll eat the cost of what those toys are that we have overage on, and it will be what it will be. Maybe what I should do is sell those other houses and let people deco it for them and let them do their own artwork on it. I think there's a couple of approaches here. I love the idea of having a piece of the house in the game. I love the significance of the 666. Was there a thought about doing maybe like an extra 100 of these included in the launch that would include that for people that would want that but still have the bulk of the games for people that didn't want to be cursed? I will, we have demand. If we wanted to go to 606, we could definitely do it. But I said 525. That's it. I don't like show games. I don't like, I just like, I just don't want to water down what me as a collector. I don't, I get too emotional. Again, I shouldn't be a manufacturer. It's about the intent of what we want to do as a company. It's about building pride in our product and doing the best we can for our customers. You don't... Because we wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you guys. Like, literally, we are economically in one of the worst times. If you're a manufacturer in the world, no matter where you are, it is horrible. Absolutely horrible. Yeah. But what Winchester and I'll even say Beetlejuice has proven, that if you make the right game, it doesn't matter. Like, it's been the market, the industry has been extremely soft. And I can tell you, if you make the right product with the right amount of passion and the right number, people will come. And I am so, and my whole team is so grateful that they spoke with their money. And Winchester, good luck getting one. In fact, I literally had a distributor message me yesterday, wow, you just sold a pre-order for $3,500 over the deposit. Now, just so you know, we don't condone that. Like if you're a direct customer, we do not let you flip a game. It has to go to the original purchaser. What the distributor does, that's not our business. But if you bought a game, you're committed to it. That's the whole point of it. Okay, nice. David David Van Es, where is that name from? It sounds a bit Dutch. Are you from Europe? No. My father is a Dutchman. So he came to Australia where I was born when he was 12 years old. So he grew up in South Australia, Adelaide, and that's my hometown, which I'll get to go to the Australian Pinball Expo next year, July 3rd or 4th. A little plug for them. I can't believe I actually get to do the first Pinball Expo in my hometown with my company. That's true. No, I'm Australian with Dutch heritage. Okay, perfect. So when we have guests over here, we usually ask them, how did you come into pinball? What was your first experience? How did it all start for you? So can you tell our audience how did it start for you? Well, Donnie, how many times have I told this story at this point? Probably too many, but go ahead. I want to hear about the film school again. About 40% of our listeners are from Europe, so new listeners, new people. Let's share the love. So my love was I was in my backyard and I was digging a hole and there was something magical there. No, that's not it. So literally I fell in love with pinball, not because I played it at a local pizza shop, which was Terminator 2 and Judge Dredd next to each other. That's when I became aware of what pinball was, but I didn't play it because I was a huge Terminator 2 fan. I saw it in the theaters so far. Yes. So what happened was my father, who is an entrepreneur himself, wanted to basically entrap me into doing service for him for his company. So he enticed me by saying, hey, David, if you come and help me, I will put money towards any type of business adventure that you want to do. And, of course, I loved video games and so forth. So I was like, I want to get an arcade machine, because that's when Teenage Ninja Turtles was coming out. That's when we were having lock-in sessions at arcade centers, because they became babysitters in the 90s. In the 90s, our parents would take us to what was then an Australia time zone. They would pay five bucks. They would lock us in there from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., you know, and we would just play as many games as possible. So I became infatuated with Teenage Ninja Turtles, Simpsons. You know, Turbo, what was that? Chase HQ, which is what I really love. Like, here in the back of those cars, that was so awesome with the little light on top. Turbo, another thing. Oh, just awesome. You're bringing back my childhood of memories. So he wanted to encourage me to do something. So we went for the newspaper, and I was just going to get a cocktail video game to put in a local pizza bar. And off in the corner was a Data East Star Wars. And I was a big Star Wars person. I didn't know what a pinball was. I've seen it, but I didn't know. But I was attracted to Star Wars. And there, like I go over there, it has a Death Star, it has an R2-D2. And I'm like, I want this. Not because I knew pinball. In fact, putting pinball on location was a bad idea, but I didn't give a shit. It was Star Wars. And my dad comes over, oh, you're looking at this? Yeah. And I asked the guy how much it was. and I think it was $800 at the time. And my dad goes, I said, I want this. And dad goes, well, you don't have the money for that because he thought I was going to buy this cocktail for like $400. So he had $200, right? So he thought I had $200 and he had $200, we were going to buy this cocktail, which I ended up buying the following two weeks. I pulled out $400. He didn't even realize I was working for my grandma and she was paying me as well. So we went home with that battery Star Wars. And, dude, playing that machine, I was Skywalker. Like, when I shot that Death Star, like, that was the magic trick. That's what drew me into pinball. Yeah. You know, the entertainment side of it. Oh, I love this. So that's when I got, so I put that on location, and then I got a Phantom of the Opera. And, again, I'm buying gang pinball machines, not because it makes financial sense, but it was horror related. Phantom of the Opera. I love that movie. So I bought a Phantom of the Opera. And then I bought a Twilight Zone. And then I bought a Doctor Who. Because these are all my piece. Not because they were doing well on location. It's like I want these in my house. I want to connect to these licenses. Theme is everything. 100%. So that's how I got into pinball. So I was routing them when I was a teenager. Then I realized I had to grow up. and then I went into film and TV because that's a really smart choice. Did that for 25 years. What did you do with film and TV? So in film and TV, you can't really specialize anymore. You've got to be a jack-of-all-trades. So my background was more post-production, so everything from editing and editing visual effects, just anything post-related, and producing and occasionally directing. So documentaries, TV shows, infomercials, that type of stuff. Anything to make a buck. Wow. Amazing. Right, Tony? Did you know all this? Yes. Yes. Yeah, I've been over it several times. Oh, you did? Yeah. This is a well-documented story. Wow. Well, it's new for me. I'm loving it. Wow, man. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so this is your second year in pinball, right? And this is your third game. Yeah. Yeah. So can we expect from now on that you'll come out with two games a year? We, again, we will drop games when the games are ready to rock and roll. Now, some people would say Dune was a little bit shaky, but I think Dune was launched in a time cycle that I don't think we'll ever see again. When you go up against Elwynn and the king of IPs, Harry Potter, this is like, it is what it is. Like, I had so many people that were concerned about it, and it's just like, these are elements out of my control. We had our plan six months in advance, so it was kind of like, we just got to roll the dice where they roll. So our motto is, and what we want to do, is release games when they're ready to rock and roll. Is it one game a year, two games a year, four games a year? We'll see. Also, I don't want to flood the market. I want to make sure we look after our customer base. I want to make sure we have fun doing it and do it correctly. We're learning. Trust me, we're learning. Yeah, so I did have a question about, like, this launch specifically because, of course, you know, this took everybody off-nose. I mean, when Labyrinth came out, we had an idea that there was a mystery pinball company out there. There was some hype bubbling. I went to Electric Bat and found one of your stickers, like, way before your announcement. So that was clever. There's a story behind that Donnie Weren't you there like the week before I was or something? Literally A couple of days before that And the reason I was there I was taking the very first game To test it over at In San Francisco So that was literally The first game number one Was literally at the electric bat When I dropped that sticker off Oh that's so funny That's something I would do So, like, just drop my swag everywhere and see if people care. But this release, right, you know, came up for Expo. Now, I know there's a development cycle for these games that's multiple months and years long. So, it's hard to hit a fixed target because anything can happen, you know, during that development. So, like, did you guys, was this just penciled in, like, if we can be ready for Expo, let's do it? Or, you know, six months ago, were you like, dude, we're on track. Let's just drop this and blow everybody's minds. again we just want to blow everyone's blow everyone's minds like it comes down to how can we get maximum exposure for this IP because there is a very small window of excitement that you get and your first sales are always the strongest of what you want to aim for so you want to make sure you've got all guns focused in that one spot what we learned from doing so Labyrinth is exactly how we intended to launch a game winchester is identical to that dune i can tell you that launch was i will say we bought into the the pinball industry fomo a little bit because people were reaching out to us wanting to help us you know so we started thinking like well maybe we can do it more traditional like how other pinball companies are doing it like invite a media day do all this type of stuff um so we thought well, hey, if this is what people want, we should follow what everyone else does. And honestly, that didn't work how we intended it to work at all. You know, trying to do it more traditional. A, the theme leaked, which we don't know exactly how that happened. Oh, sorry about that. I was peeking in through the windows. Yeah, well, but then there was also a very negative campaign towards the IP. What? I love Dune. I love Dune. Market research, and I'll get probably crap from this, market research shows that if you look at just the demographics of Dune, it's actually a bullseye for the pinball industry, for the pinball buying community. It is male, 45 to 55. It's exactly where the pinball demographic is. what surprised me on the media day is 60% of the media people that turned up including Donnie had not seen the films and we were like holy shit I probably shouldn't be cursing but I was like this is weird this is labyrinth, no one wanted labyrinth no one wanted Winchester now that we have the data but Dune, if you look it on paper is far superior to both those IPs but when the cat is out of the bag before the game even launches it is very very hard to get that traction back and then what what out of expo the whole thing what shocked me the most which it shouldn't have because i know dune's an amazing game the amount of people playing dune for the first time because we didn't launch out of the show we did this without a show so people are I'm only starting to experience it in bulk now probably for the last two months because we're over 300 games shipped, okay? At 300 million? Yeah, already out the door. Yeah, okay. But what is amazing is it was not just new people playing it for the first time and experiencing the world under glass, but it was the new people coming back over and over again. It's like I didn't care about Dune, but this game has something, And they kept coming back. And even all my distributors, like these sales from Expo, and I think Winchester obviously helped, but I was amazed of the repeat players on Dune the whole weekend, and it just kept getting more and more. So talking, going back to launches, I think, and also a very soft market with giant IPs everywhere, I think that's also what worked towards Winchester. People didn't expect something they had no idea about, and they had to go down the rabbit hole to find out what it is. And as collectors, you know we all love going down the rabbit hole. So, you know, it was just the perfect opportunity and timing of an amazing designer, an IP that has a story that is very compelling and it's real, and barrels doing what it does, making the best world under glass we possibly can. I just didn't expect all three of them to hit. Wow. I actually want to ask you about coding of Dune, but before I do that, I have a question to Donnie, because, Don, you played, you were one of the immediate people that played Dune just around the launch date. Absolutely. Thanks for the invite. That was awesome. Yeah. Cool, man. So did you play Dune at Expo with the newest code? No, just because lines made it difficult I was able to get I tried to prioritize Winchester Being that that was the new one I did play in Austria when there was finally call out code Which wasn't available there at launch So I mean, the game's definitely improved And you know I'm an N of 1 here But like, when I saw Dune Of course I went to the main mechanism that was there The worm And then I know there's that harvester back there But you don't really interact with So I walked away with like, you know, okay, there's a lot of brown and there's like one giant mech, but I wasn't immediately seeing the rest of the gameplay that was in there. But I can tell you with Winchester, with the reveal there, I mean, I saw Brad Brad Albright's art, I saw that platter that spins around, I saw that magnet door that would then drop the ball below the play field, I saw the seance room, I saw the peppers go, and then it all came together in like a haunted house theme that, yes, it connected to something, but it was Brad's art and back glass and like a bunch of giant fun-to-play mechanisms that I couldn't work out in my head just by looking at what they do and how they work. And that, like, brought me right in there. And then you've got the perfect storm of, you know, Carl designing the game and, like, you know, what he's known for and everything, the fact we weren't expecting it, you know, the fact that we had money in our pockets from Star Wars that ended up staying there after the game came out. So I'm sure you've done, like, a post-release analysis of all this stuff. But for me, like, that was the two things I saw different with Dune. I know the gameplay elements are in there, that pain box, and there's things to discover. But just walking up it didn't have that What is that, what is that, what is that How do I interact with these Wow Well the reason I'm asking is actually I'm a huge fan of Dune If you look here On YouTube This is the original box for the Amiga Commodore Amiga Dune 1 Oh that's what I played the living crap out of dude You played Dune 2 The first strategy game For the Amiga For me David, when I heard when this leaked, I was so happy. So when Dune came out, I'm going to be a bit harsh here, I reviewed it and I was so excited. I don't know if you watched my video, but I was so excited and I saw that it was not approved on the screen. Yeah, and we didn't have the call-outs. And I was, I mean, it wasn't the best experience for me at that time, at the launch. I felt like this game got launched a bit too fast, right? So we were at someplace, live video, and David Lannes, he wrote there, Cengiz, I cannot wait for you to play Dune. Check out the new code. David wrote that. And I was like, okay, let me see what's going on. A couple of months have passed by. So I search on a Dune video on YouTube And I see Carl D'Python Anghelo I don't see other people play pinball usually But I see Carl D'Python Anghelo Made a brand new video With the updated code And I watch his stream Oh my god We have got full assets now We have got great music, callouts Animations But the coolest part The way you do the live show on Dune and how easy the code blinking inserts are done. It's just mind-blowing the code update you have done on that game. I was just sold. It's so good. I mean, congratulations with Dune. So, after that, we heard about Winchester and you choose Carl D'Python Anghelo as the designer of this game. We want to hear, how did that happen? Did you watch his videos and call them like, Carl, design some games for us? What happened? No, I mean, if you're into pinball, you know who Carl is. Like, he is an ambassador for pinball that has done it. It's just like Bowen Kerins. Like, there are people out in this hobby that do it because they love it so much and they want to express it in some form, right? So if you're looking for tutorials, it used to be Bowen Kerins, and then he still does it as well. and Carl came in and created this whole string rig like he really took it to another level so as we're doing Labyrinth and he bought a Labyrinth like I was scared to know that he bought a Labyrinth because he's such a good player so if anyone's going to find a problem with my game it's going to be Carl so I was terrified and he was one of the first ones he's in under the game 50 Like, he's one of the early games. And he streamed it, and the dude just kept playing it and kept playing it and kept playing it. I'm like, okay, this game can't be too bad if Carl's enjoying it. Now, I will tell you, I design Labyrinth with a lot of high-end players, and my only, well, there's always regrets on something, but with Labyrinth, we made that game for, I didn't intend to make it for pinball players, but the day that we let kids play it publicly and I realized they're getting their ass handed to them, I was like, oh, this is not good because they can't experience it that well. They literally go up there and those outlanes, which we didn't make adjustable because I didn't even think about it at the time, is because everyone that's playing it knows how to nudge. They know how to keep things going. But if you're a kid walking up to Labyrinth, it's a kid-friendly game. It's fun. and the ball just kicks him in the face. Like, literally, it's just like, get out of here. So seeing him play and experience it was amazing. And I reached out, said, thank you, this is all good. We keep developing our games. And then I, because I use the fast boards in our games, I'm on Fast Slack, I see his name pop up in the Fast Slack. I'm like, huh, he's in the homebrew community. What's this all about, right? And so that's in the back of my head. Because we've seen what amazing players can do. Look at Elwin. I mean, he is the GOAT of pinball, okay? So that's in the back of my head. And then I go and visit Shane down at Ace Kogi where Kyle plays a lot. It's his league down there. And Shane goes, you know, Carl's working on a Whitewood, right? I'm like, oh, I've got a feeling that was the case. You should really check it out. Like, you should reach out to him and just talk to him. So I reached out and said, hey, like, I really appreciate what you're doing with Labyrinth and streaming it for us. Would you be interested in any form of working with us? Like, just be involved. I didn't know what it was going to be. I don't know what his intent is. I don't want to drag people into my company if they don't want to be here. Like, if he just wanted to do roles, that would be awesome. If he just wanted to be an ambassador and just stream my games, good or bad, that's fantastic. Anything I can do to help empower other people, that's my job as a CEO of the company. And he's like, yeah, I'd love to help out. And I said, well, I'd love to see your whiteboard. Let's figure that out. And so we actually went out to Winchester. So we had to deliver a labyrinth to Henson. So during this trip, we decided we were going to hit Winchester because we already had a deal with Winchester. Go to do Winchester, do a tour of that with the team. So we had a mechanical engineer, Paul, Eric, Dakota. We had a bunch of people with us doing the whole tour. We get to Los Angeles. We deliver a labyrinth, and we meet up with Carl. And he shows us his whitewood, which is really great. has an IP that he's theming it to that I said, well, if I can get it, let me figure it out. And he was interested, right? And he got involved with the rules with Dune and Phil. He got involved and he wanted, you know, he was talking about layouts and whatever. I said, well, Kyle, if you're interested in designing, here are the IPs that we have. Like this is all pre Labyrinth Like these are the codes the IPs we have And he saw Winchester and he like dude I want Winchester Like I know Winchester It a haunted house I want to do Winchester That was it. And then he just went to work on it. Wow. Well, Don is also designing games. Look at the background. I can't wait to see what he's going to come up with. I'm sure the flippers are going to be on the backside of the place or not in front of us. I know. I'm going to build a little cot underneath so you can map it. I'm finding this stuff. No. Oh, God, that was terrible. Yeah, making a reverse play field is just – I'm glad we got that idea out of the way so it never has to be done again because nothing about that was fun. John, you played Winchester. I did, yeah. What do you think about it? I rubbed my hands all over it. So, yeah, I was in a four-player game with some other people there during kind of vendor time at the show. So I got to – it was quiet. I was able to actually hear what was going on, and I was able to, you know, trigger a multiball. I was able to play with the platter. I was able to see what the magnets do. I was able to hit all the ramp shots. I was able to see, like, that moment when the magnet gets grabbed and the peppers go and the spider webs come out and grab it. And I'm like, if there could just be, like, ten of those moments in there with different things, I got to hear what's going on. Let me smash ghosts. Let me do whatever. Like, this is it. I dig this. You know, I like what Barrels did, you know, bringing the screen idea back and doing it better with, you know, now it's LED, it extends the viewpoint from the player's perspective of the game world that's in there. I love the little guys on Labyrinth you can see running back and forth there. I love this guy back there on Dune where you can, like, you know, interact with those little orthonicopters that are back there. But, like, this brings the screen even more forward, and then you have some area behind it to interact with. So now we're interacting with the screen more than just, you know, smashing, you know, visual depictions on there. Like it appears three dimensional now And so like I don't know how you don't Design every game with one of these going forward Because that's so fun Exactly I mean first time I saw Dune At the left side they have this Harvester That explodes and that explosion comes Out on the display On the play field My son was like it's like on Circus Voltaire Why doesn't all the companies Has a screen back there It's so cool And now we saw this trailer together First of all that screen In the house at the background My son was like whoa And then we saw the turntable And that was A day after he played Harry Potter with the diverting Stairs So my son was like everybody should do this And the day after we see this big turntable At the back Right side He was like this is so cool And we reversed and we watched it again I don't know how many shots you can do in there, but all games should have something like that. I just love it. It's so cleverly designed. On top of that, the way the game is designed, how you feed the upper right and upper left flipper, it's just so intelligently designed by Carl D'Python Anghelo. I just want to congratulate him on his first game. If you dissect it and look into what this guy has done, well this guy has over 20 years I don't know how long but he has played so many games to the nth degree there's got to be some carnal knowledge and feeling like when I have people design games there is a technical aspect to it and Kyle crushed it on all levels you've got to understand Kyle did not know SolidWorks before he started with us and he did that whole thing in SolidWorks like like he it's insane what he did realistically in the time frame he did but he also designs from the gut like he knows and this is no different to going back to my editing there's a very technical skill level of using the software to create something but when i edit so i know my technical craft i can edit i can use the software but when i'm editing i've got to watch the footage and my edits are going to be based on my gut feeling like my emotional intent and i think carl inherently has that gut feeling so when he's designing something there's a technical aspect to it but there's that gut feeling of that doesn't feel right that doesn't know like that's that's this experience like if you do a thousand hours on something you should be an expert at it you should have a knowledge base on it right yeah and that's what i look like again barrels exists because there's extremely passionate people that don't have an outlet, right? And I want to hire the best people to do every part of that. So it's just, yeah, I can't express my gratitude towards Carl of his ability to just execute. This is just the start. I know. I think that's one of the most exciting things about this. It isn't just that the game itself looks fun. I mean, just like art literally looks fun. The layout looks fun. But, like, we got a new designer out of nowhere that's somebody, you know, from the community. And we're all thinking, like, is this another Elwin? Is this the first of, like, a string of hits? Like, because this is a guy that gets pinball on a different level than somebody that's just like, all right, let's find a way to cram eight shots in here, and then we'll put three toys and, like, one diverter, and then there we go. You know, so, you know. In how we trust, man. Yeah, so if we empower a dude like this, you know, with the capabilities of a full company, like, what can we bring? Especially if it's stoked with IP. I mean, like having pinball shots that do different things, but like there's something visual about it is what really helps. Like when that tower falls in the back right of the game, falls over, and then that's the diverter. That's so much more satisfying than just a metal ball guide piece that just lifts out of the way or like a little metal flap that lifts up. Like there's a big physical thing that happens. I mean, part of the reason that Godzilla drew me into it was that giant building that functions as a diverter, but it's just so huge and moving. And, you know, even as a new player, like, I didn't know about that Godzilla game. I went to TPF and walked by it, and I'm like, oh, I guess I should play this, you know, a new Godzilla game. And then the building starts moving, and I'm like, holy crap, this is incredible. Like, that's what I want to see, you know. Games like Godfather looked great, but they had all those diverters and everything, but it didn't feel like there was anything really, like, connecting you to it. It was just little flaps moving around, you know. And I know Dune has a lot of those diverters But they're kind of hidden in the mountain there This, it's all front and center, I can see it And maybe I'm just a visual, tactile guy But like, that's what got me Coddled When I saw the reveal in this game Well, I think the big difference is Dune is I mean, all our games are going to have depth to them But Dune is I didn't pin the Phrases, it's a pinball Cinematic experience, it's something that you're going to see the big feature and stuff. And I will tell you, William, as a mech, man, we bought off more than we could chew. Like, putting that mech together, I mean, you know, that thing has two separate linear step motors and a magnet. It can eat the ball from the top, from the bottom. It drops the ball off into the wire form. And it also rotates, which was, like, wasn't necessary, but it was like we wanted to do it because of the coolness factor. Like, it makes it more organic. Dune is a very immersive experience, all our games are but Dune, if you know the movies and how truthful we're staying to it, with the prophecy modes the harvester attacks, like I'm literally right now playing Fa'id's birthday on our game that's the next mini wizard mode and like, where we have the white LEDs turning on and off to create black and white sequences and you've got to, you know you're celebrating Fa'id's birthday You know, like these, we're definitely going to have a menu at the beginning because a lot of the stuff people are not going to see. So we've got to make sure people can experience it. I love that. But Dune is very, a subtle but immersive experience. And the deeper you get into it, the more you get washed over with. With Winchester, it's in your face. It has to be all there because people don't know what it is. You know, so you've got to, you know, it's a haunted house. So you've got to experience that. You've got to experience the earthquake. We've got to figure that out. And a lot of, I challenge my team, I had a meeting yesterday for game five and four, is I really want a game, oh, here's a first for you guys, for your listeners. Let's go. And it probably won't happen, but I want the next game to be only two flippers. Because every time I see people play our games, because 90% of people playing our games are not professional pinball players and have not played pinball. So every time I see them play, those upper flippers are not being used at all. At all. So I got a lot of high-end players that are like, well, can we add a flipper up here to create more shots? I'm like, is a 12-year-old going to experience the game properly if we put that there? I want to give an example. We just got Star Wars with two flippers and fan layout. So does that work like a huge success, a good thing to do in 2025? I'm just asking you guys. I want to challenge my voice. I want to challenge my team. Like, I just like, what can we do to create the same experiences but with two flippers? And I'm not saying there's going to be only two flippers in this game. They may thematically need additional ones. But, A, it has to be fun, it has to be approachable, and are we telling the best story? That's all it comes down to. In fact, when I got dragged into the meeting yesterday, they were terrified I was just going to crap on everything that they were showing me, right? Because they were doing some stuff that was different. And as I told them, it's like, my only restrictions is, A, can we meet our deadlines? B, is this approachable for everyone? I'm never going to shoot down your idea, but is it feasible and is it fun? And I challenge you because we've done three Flipper Games. We've done a four Flipper Game now. But how can we make a More approachable game for people Who have never played pinball before And leave it on two flippers Well I think even if you had a game with six flippers There should still be A robust gameplay experience that's there With just the two If somebody goes up there and doesn't even realize That there's extra flippers or something They can still get a good experience with what's there Without necessarily putting a hard limit And maybe There's other ways to interact with a ball That's player controlled that's not a flipper too you know yep oh great yeah and that's how you're going to think about it that's again we are a collector company we make collectibles we're making experiences it's not just pinball we are making experiences for you to share with your family and friends that's what makes pinball special like pinball is a gathering spot for people to come and have unique experiences and And that's fundamentally what we're trying to do as a company is celebrate the game but have opportunities to be with each other at the same time. David, I want to ask, have you been talking about making different tiers like pro premium? No, no. Nope. One game, everything in it. One game, everything in it. We will do accessories like alternative back glasses, but everything that we add on is not a part of the gameplay. It can enhance the experience, but it doesn't fundamentally change the game. Again, when I started the company back with Brian and I was doing the business plan for it, what was I missing? What did I feel like the industry was missing? As a hobbyist, as a collector, what was it missing? Someone who's a huge fan of certain IPs, I don't want to choose a premium or pro. I want the best version of it. So, when I buy one of these other ones, I honestly, emotionally, feel like I'm losing, and I don't want to feel like that, right? How do I reward people for doing that? Well, I want to make a collectible product at a premium price. So, I want to make sure whatever you get from me, you feel like you're getting a collectible product, but at a very reasonable price. You know, like by the time you look at our model, by the time you add on all the accessories to other companies' games, you're going to find that we're probably one of the best values in the industry because I don't want my collectors to have to worry about putting stuff in their game. And honestly, a lot of the people that are customers are first-time pinball buyers. They have no idea how to install a shaking motor or install, you know, little trinkets and things that people add to their games to make it feel more special. Like I want them not to have to worry about putting Art blades on the side because have you ever Installed art blades dude that sucks You know I mean I remember my first time putting them on And yeah that was daunting as all hell I mean so I can imagine You said Alternative You said alternative Don was it you that Talked about the alternative Back class on Dune That it was so much cooler Was that you that said it Oh no I haven't seen an alternative backlash yet Oh It was at the show man It was at the show It was at the show Oh man Let's see if we can get a picture of it Yeah Let's have it on video I heard people love the alternative backlash Yeah I was surprised Like really A lot of people were like This is amazing Let's see if I got it Don't get together Winchester I've got some leads out there. You know, I mean, of course, it's like the hottest ticket in town currently. So we'll see what shakes out. But, yeah. I hear rumors that we were going to expand, and that is not true. Right. Yeah, I for sure do not do that, you know. Let me see. Wow. Is that mirrored? It looks like there's a mirror. Yeah, that is a real mirror. I swear I didn't even notice. But I'm not the most observing guy when I'm at a show. I'm just running around. But, yeah, that looks awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So you need to help Don with getting this game. So, yeah. So let's talk about that real quick just so we cover it. You know, one of the greatest things about your launch as a company with Labyrinth was – My bad. Hello? Yeah, I can talk. No, go ahead. I can talk. My name was Kaneda. How you doing, Kaneda? Sorry. Hey, buddy. All right, he can listen in. I'll put him on speaker. When Labrador launched, you had games in boxes. Not many, but there were some that were, like, ready to go, and then you were in production. So is there going to be a lag time now until we start seeing Winchesters coming out, or are they already, like, cranking? Where are we at there, man? So with the games going to the show, one thing when you take games to the show, they really get tested. Like, you know, they get played. We had, I'm trying to think what the number was. We had an insane amount of numbers playing on this game. Let's see if it's still here. Oh, yeah, I'd love to see what this was. Because you had, like, at some point, a two-hour line consistently throughout the entirety of the show. I know, because I kept coming by there, you know, and I tried to sneak in early and get a game on it when I could. And even when I came, like, by the end of the show, that last day, the vendor time even had, like, at least a 30, 45-minute wait, you know, before the general public got there. We had a total of 2,995 plays over four games in three days. Wow. Did they hold up? So we had one slap break on the game. It was just the going to the sales table. That broke. The other ones all held up. So we think it got jammed, and when it got jammed, it constantly got beat on one side. we had a ball trap under the left upper flipper that we totally didn't expect and just little things that needed to be tweaked but they are all, so all those games have been reworked, reshot well not really worked, just gone through did our analysis on them and they're already shipped so game 1 to 4 are already out in the world right now, there should be a game out on location at Ace Yogi by the end of this week Nice. So Carl and Shaw will be down there hovering over the baby. Because all these games are our babies. Like, we want the best for our family. And when they go out into the world, it's absolutely terrifying. But I was so proud of how Winchester held up. So production is starting. They are starting to go out the door slowly, because you remember we're still shipping Dune as well. And then we want to make sure that they are in a good condition and that they do what they need to do. But, yeah, they are heading out. Again, this year with vendors, it's been extraordinarily difficult. We were coming out of COVID and we thought that was hard. With the crisis that we're facing right now, it's unbelievable. I mean, I will put it this way. It has literally changed how we're doing manufacturing now. So I will say this, and I'm on the record now saying it, is game four and five will be mainly produced in the USA now because I just can't deal with the unknowns of what's going to happen. It doesn't mean I'm getting stuff just from China. I get stuff from all over the world. And you've got to remember, there's only one person paying the tariffs, and that's me. And everything I put into this company is put back into the company. So when I lose over six figures in two months due to tariffs, that's coming out of supporting the company. Like literally I've got 30 employees. That's 30 families that I am supporting and wanting to, you know, to champion. And it makes it really, really difficult when you get bills that you did not anticipate at all. It's difficult, you know. But I'm going to stay true to my word. I'm going to crush this the best I possibly can. And it seems like the community wants it Yeah Don and I love pinball We're positive here But if there's something Don and I don't like It's a game lunch And then we have to wait eight months To get the games Then we get cranky, right Donny? So you know there is a Winchester In the air right now heading to Europe Nice Oh, to where? It's getting over to Stefan At RS Pinball So he will have a game next week. Beautiful name. It's amazing. So, again, in the ideal world, how I always wanted to do this, and I haven't successfully done it yet, I want games in Australia and Europe at the exact same time as the USA. Why not? That honestly is my ultimate goal. Yeah. Airplanes exist. Air freight exists. Why shouldn't that happen? Because everything else, like when you're working with 18 individual parts, 30 different employees, lease, and just people. It's difficult to time. It really is. Don, you didn't know anything about Winchester, right? I didn't know anything. I got my ear to the dirty underbelly of this community, too. I hear things all the time. I'm largely fantastical, but yeah, I didn't even hear a peep of this. I was expecting maybe a game of TPF was a little speculative. They even did a show about it. And, you know, just looking at, you know, kind of dunes, where they're at, they're rolling out, when could you realistically be ready for another show launch. And, yeah, all eyes were on TPF for me. And then, you know, a couple days before Expo, I'm getting text messages like, what the heck is this ladies' house game? And I'm like, what are those people talking about? And then I rolled over and found the trailer. I was like, are you kidding me? You're doing a Winchester Mystery House pinball machine? Like this place from San Jose that I've driven by on the 101 like a ton of times and I see the billboards. I think if that thing leaked, I don't think it would have been received as well because people would be like, what the hell? Like, seriously, what is this? This makes zero sense. It was really important that this came out without people knowing it because anything that leaks, people judge. I mean, Dune, again, I'll go back to Dune. Like, when Dune leaked and then people just rallied against the IP, how it's boring, like, it's like, why would you do it? But, like, people make up things in their head what they think it is about knowing what it is. So the whole point in going back to what is fun about pinball, when a game launches and you have no idea what it is, your imagination just sparks and you get so excited about it. But if you leak a game too early, and I'm in two camps on this, and you guys maybe can help me figure this out. But, like, the reason you don't drop IPs right now traditionally in the industry is the reality is your imaginations can make way cooler pinball machines than financially companies can make. Yeah. So if I give you nine months head start, like, it is very, very dangerous because you're going to make a game that we cannot match. I even say this to people that make homebrew. if you want that theme made into a commercial game and you make a homebrew of it it makes it four times harder to go and get that game for a production now because your game is always a good example Nightmare Before Christmas that homebrew is amazing right well I'm not going to talk about the difficulty of just obtaining that license but if you if I have to make a Nightmare Before Christmas game if it's not as cool as what Mark did, you're not going to get the sales. Like, you're just not, you know, and it's really, really difficult. So I'm in two minds. Instead of leaking it, what if I said, here comes X title for 2027? Just get it out there. Like, stop the speculation and go, here it is. Would that work? I don't know. Well, like the video game model of, like, you know, here's a game we're working on that's coming out next year, but here's little snippets, here's some behind-the-scenes stuff, building some hype. Like, we see that with animated films that are in production. You know, we see that with, you know, theme park rides and things. Although it's a lot harder to hide a roller coaster construction than, you know, a white wood in a back room, you know. So, I don't know. You can never put that genie back in the barn when that cat is out of the flaming cow bag. Yeah. I think that's how the analogy goes. I mean, personally, Don and I, we know what's happening behind the doors. But I must say, this was a great surprise. Just coming with a storm, brand new game, bam, out of the door. We saw the trailer. We saw the gameplay video. It's just so well designed. Everything was just so well done. And the day after it was sold out, I love this model. We didn't expect anything. And bam, it just, I called Don and Don was like, whoa, this is so awesome. I mean, I love this. But it's just so hard not to leak I mean, it's a company that leaks Right, Donnie? And then, you know, like, what are you leaking? Or what are you, like, advertising ahead of time? Just that you have a game coming out in Q3 or something? That's one way to do it Here's our theme Okay, that's cool We're still going to be completely surprised For Star Wars Fall of the Empire I didn't look at any of the leaked images the day before or anything So, like, I knew, of course, that theme was being used but I didn't know the layout until it was, like, right in front of me. And so I love that excitement. And, you know, leading up to it, I'm like, look, I haven't seen it by now. I want to be surprised. This is fun, you know. But for this one, it was just perfect. It was perfect. And I don't know if there's one correct answer. It probably depends on, you know, each individual game, what the market's doing that month, you know. Yep. But, yeah, this was, like, a perfect time. So I'm glad everything was ready for this release. well and you gotta remember every pinball company it's not like every pinball company has a game that is ready to go like just like oh we're just waiting for the perfect time this date looks great let's just drop it there like every game comes to market when everything is aligned correctly there are so many people to please even with winchester who is all our licenses are amazing but winchester literally really believe in what we were going to do and, you know, we very seldom got any pushback. But, again, you have so many moving things. It's like when a game launches is when the game needs to go. It's not like Harry Potter or us or, you know, King Kong did it because we were trying to one-up each other. It was literally we were all on the same roster at the same time, and that wasn't intentional. That was, you know, there was probably delays on our end, you know, or there were delays. You know, there was situations at each company that made them all come together at that time. And we all buy from very similar vendors too. So that's the other thing is, like, you may have a game ready to go, but if you're not ready to put it on the line, like, we're not a company that, you know, wait for pre-orders and then order our parts. I already bought the parts. So the question is, how long does it take to get here? And then you add on top of that customs now that if you've got anything coming from overseas now, you can easily add two weeks on top of it just sitting in customs because there's multiple paperwork. Like a good example, I have imported this one part multiple times. Every time we get hit customs, they ask for the same paperwork, but I have to modify it to match the day. But it literally gets held up in customs for three, minimum three days because depending on what person's on that shift, you know, it's like, How come you guys can't keep this in your paperwork file? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Like, we literally now print off the paperwork, put it on the package. Guess what? They still don't look at the paperwork. Like, we still have to go through the process of, like, can you please submit this paperwork? Like, nothing that we do the best with the resources that we have. It's amazing that we get to make this incredible stuff. Like, these are playable pieces of art. and it's amazing how they exist. Like, theoretically, like, what it takes to pull this together is no different than filmmaking. It shouldn't exist. But, man, when it works, there's no greater high than that. Wow. I have two questions left in my mind. This is the first one. How hard was it to work with the license holder? Did they come in and say, no, this doesn't work, you have to take this out? how was the experience with Winchester licensing guys? Again, I was talking to the licensor about other IPs, and they had Winchester pop up on their radar. And I knew Winchester because I'm into the supernatural. I mean, gosh, I mean, stuff like that. It is one of those things of they really wanted a pinball machine. They think it's very unique. and that's one of our pitches when we go to talk to licenses. Like, we're probably not going to make you a lot of money, but you're not going to get a cooler licensed product than a pinball machine. It's going to be the cornerstone of your IPs. You're going to say, look at all these T-shirts we did, and we got to do this pinball machine, you know. Alice Cooper really said it good when we did Nightmare Castle. It was like, you know you're famous when you're on a pest dispenser and you have your own pinball machine. 100%. Street cred, you know? So Winchester understood they wanted street cred with a pinball machine. Just when it came to me, it's just like, I know people want a haunted house game, but for me to make it work, it has to be, you have to have all the other things land at the same time. So that's storytelling, the physical game, that's really satisfying. You had, again, like original IPs, it has to have everything work. So when we set up the deal was this is not a traditional agreement. This is not you've got three years to make this, and if you don't do it, you can't make it. I told them, I want to sign this IP, but you've got to allow us to develop it in its own time. So if it comes out in five years, two years, how quickly it comes together, it only gets released when it's ready to go, like when we feel it's a compelling product. And they were like, perfect. Like, if you will sign the agreement, we will go with that. And there were things that they changed, you know, things that we couldn't do or say and that, but they allowed us to create our own story in that world. Wow. And as a partnership, that is a true partnership. There are licenses I've turned down that just is just a style guide, but we can't make a compelling story. So I would rather do small rounds of intense storytelling under glass and just knock these out of the park again, watch out for pyramids of geese that are coming from barrels of fun down the road. Again, it's like every license that we have, there's always restrictions, there's always problems, but that's when the best product is made. Like when you have challenges, that's when you get creative and that's when you figure out creative solutions, and that's what makes exciting storytelling and pinball. Born out of adversity is the creative package. I love the idea of just a small run of something. If there was 800 of these released, maybe you wouldn't have sold all 525, but the fact that it was tight like that, this cool theme, evergloss decals on the side of the cabinet, which feel incredible, by the way. I couldn't walk by a cabinet of the show without just rubbing my hand up and down it. So sorry to whoever got those shows and all my fingerprints all over them, but I couldn't stay off of it. Yeah, I dig what you're doing. Okay. Just love doing it, man. I just like, again, I just like connecting with people. I love hearing the stories. It's not easy. It's difficult. But when I have people come up to me and they're playing it for the first time and hearing their stories, not just them playing our games, but hearing the games they connected to. I guess that's more about me, how I connected to Daddy Star Wars back when I first played it. I want to know other people's stories about that because that informs me that I'm connecting in the right way with my family. Like everyone that is out there playing pinball is an extended family, and I want to know what moves them and how I can make them feel something. That's the reason I got into filmmaking. Like, when I watched Evil Dead with my friend when I was 12 years old, we were watching Evil Dead, and he was the toughest person I've ever known. And it comes to the scene where the pencil goes into the ankle, and, like, that happened. He didn't flinch. But when they cut back to the shot when they start doing this, He literally just stood up and walked out of the room, right? And I'm like, what just happened? Like, the toughest person I've ever known in my life just left the room because he was unnerved. And from that point onwards, that's why I wanted to get into filmmaking because it's like I want to make people feel. Like when I go to a movie I will cry I will laugh I will be extremely emotional because that the fun of it And you get to do that in a community environment in a movie theater That why going to a movie theater is so important to me But creating people feel something is so tribal, so connecting. And it's the same thing with pinball. Like when I go and I'm going to these shows, it's not just to sell games. I want to connect with the people. I want to make them feel something. Like, I want them, isn't that cool? Like, you may not like it, you may not care, but isn't that cool? Yeah. You know, like, when I saw Beetlejuice come out with the, you know, the spooky speak, it's like, that's cool, and I can't wait to experience it. You know what I mean? Every pinball machine is made for people to enjoy. We're not doing this, I mean, obviously we have to make money out of it, but we're doing it because we love it, you know? and, like, what can we do to get people to connect? Like, you may not buy a Labyrinth, you may not buy a Dune, you may not get a Winchester, but one day we're going to get an IP, a game that is going to speak to you, and you're going to want it. 100%. Nice. David, I love it. I got the perfect idea for a shooter rod for Winchester. I'm sure you guys thought of it, so I just can't wait to see what it is because there's, like, one idea that's just perfect. I can't wait to see what you guys came up with. Well, you better tell me because maybe I can change it. Why don't we do this offline? Listen, this has to be an antique doorknob to reach down and, like, open the door to the house. Boom. Unless you do, like, an ornate cabinet pole or something. But it's got, yeah, that would be, like, that would be my. No, maybe that's low-hanging fruit. Maybe you've got, like, a rocking chair or something. I don't know. You're going to blow my mind. I'd do, like, a cracker barrel. Oh, my God. You're going to sit there in a chair. What? All right. Now that you're making themes strictly for me, if you could get to work on Cracker Barrel, or if that's like your next release, that'd be amazing. Or House on the Rock. No, Six Flags. Six Flags coming soon. Oh, no. No, because half the ramps are going to be down, and they're not going to be working. Then you have to wait 15 minutes in the shooter lane before you can plunge. Toxic IP. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, the game's going to close early. No, no, it can't. It just drains out. Sorry, all attractions closed. Is there a reason you have that Tales from the Crypt creature in the background? Is that the upcoming game? Look at that. More Data East garbage. He's the ambassador. Oh, Tales from the Crypt. That's the copper I want. Come on. So this is actually pulled from the original mold from the TV series So a friend of mine has the original mold I was talking to him to do sculpts for our games And he ghosted me, this was during COVID He ghosted me for like 12 months And I arrived home, Valentine's 23 three, okay, and there's this box on the thing, and I was like, oh, that's weird, and my son picks it up, and he goes, you can open it, and he opens it up, and this is literally laying in front of him, and he literally freaks out, and what turned out to be is my friend felt so bad that he ghosted me, he's like, because he knows I'm a huge Crypt Keeper guy, he goes, here, Dave, like, I apologize for ghosting you, but he's your Crypt Keeper, so he and my friends I would love to do this again that was another pimple machine I bought back in the 90s because it's Tales from the Crypt like this was like there's so many episodes like I have the DVDs and actually if you're really a nerd I think it's series 7 that the DVD that they output was actually corrupt and you actually had to send in to get a new version of it which I didn't do But um Crypt Keeper, Tarleton the Crypt Demon Knight, Demon Knight would be an amazing Pinball machine, I love Demon Knight Um You know, Vadella of Blood not so much But I think he would be Amazing Oh my god I actually have the Dead Ace game Like next room I love it, do you know which episode that got directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, he directed one of those shows. I know it, but I don't know which one. He directed the episode. I know the one because it was him in the opening with the workout shirt. This is nerdy stuff. I love it. Keep going, you guys. I can't remember what the episode is. Okay, I have my last questions. Okay, questions, sorry. My last question, okay. Because, yeah, Shots on Layout, Carl D'Python Anghelo, I'm loving it The art, all the blue ghosty stuff I'm loving it But for me 50% of the enjoyment is audio This game I don't know if you have been talking about it with others But The music fits the Haunted House theme It's so well done And audio is just so important for me The music is amazing Call outs We have these nervous guys call out But the other guy that, you know, shows multiple dead boys and the music in the different six modes, who the hell did make the audio package of this game? It's pretty good. I mean, it's so good. It's Dirty Pool, Jeff Dodson. So he really fell deep into the pool because he worked on, he came, he bought a dune, He was a huge Dune fan. He jumped in, bought a Dune, fell in love with it, but he was like, dude, we need to fix the audio on it. I'm like, dude, it's pinball. And he goes, no, I need to fix the audio on it. I was like, go for it. If you want to do that, let's see how that is. So he rebalanced, recorded new sound effects for Dune, and he nailed it. And then Adrian Disch actually did all the custom music for that game. And then basically Jeff remastered everything. Wow. And so after he had that experience, he's like, well, I would love to get more involved, David. Like, how can we do this? Like, get more involved. And I already knew what was in the pipe. And I'm like, I don't know if you want to, like, it's, the next one's different. Like, most pinball machines you license, you know, needle drops, You get the publishing rights, you get the mastering rights, like you get music with it. So like doing this more of a mastering job, like it's sound effects, you know, not to take away from it, but the next game needed original music, period. Like this is a whole separate beast. And he goes, dude, I write music for a living. Like it doesn't scare me. I'm like, okay, let's explore this. and when he found out about it, and you saw it in the making of it, he goes, Winchester? What is that? Manchester? Like, what is the deal? But then when he saw the layout with Carl and stuff like that, they're relatively close to each other. It's like, oh, I totally get it. Totally get it. And then he just does what Jeff does, and he totally crushes it. Wow. What's his last name? What's his full name? Dodson. Dodson. Jeff Dodson. Shout out. It's just incredible. I love it. I absolutely love it. I hope he will work on your upcoming games also. Wow. Audio package is so special. People don't just, people are talking about codes and blah, blah, blah. Audio, man, it's 50% of the enjoyment. Don't forget it. Wow. Yeah, so well done. So well done. I love it. Well, pinball is not just one thing. It's a combination of sight and sound, you know, and feel. Like, it's a combination. How do you get all those to work together? I'll take it back to the analogy of filmmaking because that's my background, is no one makes a bad film. A film is a product of the environment that it was created in due to problems and so forth. So, again, it's a combination of all the teams working their best they can to make a single product that hopefully everyone enjoys. And that, again, goes back to my mantra of hiring the best people I can to make the best product I can. We just hope it resonates with the customer base. Wow. Did you say that? Oh, I was just saying. You want to say something? I was just saying that's fantastic, and I don't want to hold our guy up here too long. I'm sure he's got meetings and stuff. But, yeah, do you have any kind of final thoughts here for us? Me? I can't wait for people to play it. I know games will be going out to locations, so people will get to find it. We will bring them to shows. So our model is if we will always bring our games to the shows if we have them in our stock. The games that, like, so for example, Winchester's when we go to do the shows from here until, you know, the end of 2026. If there is a show in a certain town, we will reach out to that town, whoever has games on orders. That's the only way you get to skip the line. So everything is first come, first serve. So, for example, if we're going to Pimble at the Beach and we've got customers down there, we would reach out to our distributors down there and go, we can bump up, we can get two games down to Pimble at the Beach. Contact your people if they want it. Because we obviously will give them a discount for that because I don't want people skipping the line. Like, we will, like, it's going to get in the area. If they don't want it, then we will find the next person that's in that line that can get that, that is willing to take that game. Oh, great. Because it will get played a lot. I'm glad you mentioned that because the Southern Wisconsin Pinball Show is coming up in my basement here pretty soon, and we sure would love to have a show game there. Can we get a media pass? Who do I need to interview to get a media pass? You're talking to them, and I got one left. So it's so fortunate that you came by when you did. But you've got to act quickly. Just let me know the terminal and go pick it up, and I'll even set the game up for you. It'll be great. Sounds good. David, Mr. David David Van Es It was just so amazing to have you here Thank you for joining the WAP team This is my first talk with you You come as a very passionate And very I feel like you have a lot of empathy A lot of passion And also a lot of Like horror movie Spooky guy in you I'm getting those kind of vibes I'm not sure yet But I hope you will join us another time. Absolutely. Happy to. Happy to. And I will put this out there. Dennis Creasle was talking about his dream theme, and it happens to be one of my dream themes. So if I ever can do an Event Horizon pinball machine, I am 100% doing it because I think you want to talk about, like, a movie was pitched as a haunted house in outer space. So, man, if I could get Sam Neill, you know, like, dude, Event Horizon is such an amazing movie. That's an amazing movie. Do everything from the 90s, and I'm on board. I love it. All right. Well, guys, I appreciate it. And I have been listening to you from the get-go. Wow. I appreciate how passionate you guys are. It doesn't mean you're always right, and I'm not always right. But at the end of the day, we love pinball. It's what brings us together. And let's keep making cool stuff, because if we're not making cool stuff, what are we doing? Like, really. Wow. Absolutely. What a great way to end it. All right, thanks so much, David David Van Es, from the barrels of the fun. Probably the top of the barrel is where I'd say you're from, that cream that rises on the top. Yeah, if you want to get at them, go to the website. Not that you can buy a Winchester, but you can still get your Dune, probably direct purchase, I would imagine. And then we should be getting, I'm going to tease you a little bit, we should be getting some accessories released as well soon. All right, I want to see that Dune topper. I know it's baking in there. All right. Oh, we were watching episode number... We are pinball69gmail.com. That's it. We are pinball69gmail.com. This was episode number 48 with barrels of fun. It was a barrel of laughs. It was a barrel of belly hugs, I think. More as we hear it. I don't know. Jenga, thanks for joining. Thanks for coming, dude. Where's my horn? I ain't got one horn. Seriously. Seriously. There's some hoes in this house. There's some hoes in this house. There's some hoes in this house. Hell yeah. You know what? Let's not do Patreon. Let's just talk 10 minutes extra. Yeah. Just to put after this show. Okay. Just say what we feel about David David Van Es, and then we can jump into spooky stuff. I love that. David David Van Es is a real piece of work. That's what I'm getting at. Welcome to the post-show for WAP, episode number 48. Extra hour Here with Don and the Jankos That was fun David's cool Oh my god David David Van Es This is the first time I talk with the man What a nice guy man Full of passion Full of empathy And you know what Yeah we recorded like one hour and ten minutes with him But we have to cut Like almost an extra hour Yeah Yeah He shed the beans. A lot of cool stuff he gave us. Wow, man. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff off the record there that was very exciting for the future of the company. So in the future, just pinball in general. I mean, I love when he takes, like, a risk and just packs a game full of fun stuff. We know we wouldn't see that from, you know, the largest manufacturer of pinball. They wouldn't have been able to, you know, come up with it. Well, they could come up with it, but they wouldn't have put it into production. This game's loaded, man. There's so much in here. Yeah, yeah. It's so cool he just sold out man In 24 hours And now everybody that has a deposit Feels really good about it Everybody that's ordered one can't wait to get their game And it's not going to take Two years you know These things are going to be in production here soon And then They'll probably roll out like eventually 40-50 a month What did he say One distro did sell for like 3,000 over sticker Oh, we're going to see a lot of that. Yeah, yeah, some back-market deals going on. But he said that they did about 300 Dunes, and Dune came out in April, probably started shipping in May. So in about six months, 300 games, that's 50 games a month. And so I think we'll have an eight- to ten-month build here to get the majority of the Winchesters out, and then they'll be ready for another game. So I'm excited. Absolutely, man, absolutely. Again, congratulations to Barrows of Farm. And, wow, man, just, they just, I mean, we just got some e-mails. And I was like, Winchester, what is this? What's going on? I didn't open the mail. And I'm like, five hours later, just puffed up on my YouTube. This was like, bam, what a game. Jengen, what's happening in pinball right now? I mean, like five months ago, it was like Stern. We're waiting for Stern releases. We knew Spooky's going to have something at some point. But it was still like the Stern show, right? Harry Potter had come out, but it was still, we're waiting for Pokemon. Kong's going to be amazing. And then, like, all of a sudden we're in this world where it's like, Barrels of Fun is, like, top of the pile. Harry Potter's killing it. Spooky is doing unprecedented things with the launch and release and sell out before things are even announced. And everybody's looking over at Stern like, we don't really care anymore. Walking Dead is supposed to come out today. And I don't know anybody that's like, okay, I'll take a look at the trailer. But, you know, I don't Let's just dissect it What the hell is happening? October 29, 2025 At Stern It's like you said on our last show Five days ago, together with Teneda You said Kong LE Three months after launch They sell for under $10,000, right? What the hell? It's an Elwin, what's happening? It's an Elwin game, my favorite designer $9,500 for Kong LE And it's not sold for $9,500. It's just standing there for sale for $9,500. This is a $13,000 game three months ago. Right, Tony? That's going on its turn. Now they released Star Wars. Yeah. Dream Team. Yeah. How long time ago? A couple of weeks ago, I would say. Yeah, it hasn't been long. I mean, I got my game here. I'm going to check TenCite real quick while you talk. Yeah. A couple of weeks ago And I don't think that they're sold out And we're hearing that Some distros are trying to sell it for About $11 That was happening at launch That was a launch thing They're probably going to If they want to get rid of them now It's going to have to go for lower And then they're going to take a hit That sucks man But they've got money sitting there What do they do? There are six Star Wars Fall of the Empire LEs On Pinside All listed at $12,999 So these are all distributors Yeah The real deal is something else On the cover prices So that's what's going on with Stern So JJP They're still building Harry Potters They're still selling Harry Potters Have you seen any Harry Potter CE For sale under $13,000 No I haven't either So I think we're still There's still more demand than there is supply yet with Harry Potter. So people are still buying it. People are still now unboxing it. I have friends that say, you know, it finally came. I got my CE. So, you know, once it gets saturated and, like, you know, the new deliveries start to slow down a bit, that's when you'll see the game come up again. But we haven't even hit there yet. They haven't even cut the... But you say that, but look how fast it happened for Stern Games. Yeah, but Stern Games are not J.J.P. games, especially not Harry Potter. Holy shit. And even with, like, even with games like Avatar, even though it goes cheaper, like, the initial demand wasn't that great. Like, the demand for Harry Potter is, like, unprecedented for them. But you know what? Avatar is a sleeper. If you really play that game, the layout on Avatar is amazing. Just give it a chance. That's all I'm feeling. But, yeah, Harry Potter is doing great, right? Yeah. Yeah, I see there was one that sold on Pennside, a CE Harry Potter 14,000. Otherwise, there's two distros posting them for full price and a pre-order spot with a third distro. So it's not saturated. There's not 13 Harry Potter CEs sitting here all just, like, fighting to the bottom. And we may be a year from seeing that. Wow. Okay. Next company, Barrel of Fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so on our one-hour extra talk with David David Van Es, he said that he has very, very few Labyrinths left. Right, Donnie? Yeah. It's like very few, and it's going to be sold out very soon. Yeah, so I was going to say when Labyrinth was announced, they said there will be no more than 1,100. Like they bought parts for 1,100, but because of quality control issues, they're not going to build near that, and I think it'll actually be sub-1000 total games. This guy's selling a Dune, and he says Bitcoin's accepted. What the hell? There's four Dunes listed for $11.60 full price, all from probably distros here. Who's taking Bitcoin? Do you have some Bitcoins? Who could buy them? I had an Old Town Pinball. I guess you could pay in Bitcoin now. That's silly. Nice. I mean, I don't get paying in, well, I mean, if you just want to not pay taxes or something and avoid it. I guess that's the benefit. Because you can just sell your Bitcoin for cash and then just buy a game with cash. So, I don't know. Yeah, and Wisconsin, Winchester, House of Mystery, sold out. We just asked David David Van Es, do you have something? Can you do anything? I asked him, are you making some, you know, 40 extra show games or anything? And he was like, no, I have nothing. No show games, nothing. So, he couldn't help us out. But they are sold out, right, Donnie? Yeah, I want you to be able to play this game, though. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, who doesn't love a haunted house game, right? Yeah. It's so fun, man. And this shots and layout of this game, Cardi Python Anghelo, I cannot wait for his upcoming games, man. It's so much me. Those upper right and left flippers, what you can do. What does that? You shoot up the ramp And a magnet up the ramp Stops the ball What does that do? I just saw that stop with the magnet on the trailer And what happens? Are you talking about that one way little That doorway that goes up stops on the magnet? Yeah The pallet will spin The diverter spins The ball will go up there and get caught on the magnet Then the pallet will spin back And expose a scoop or a subway And then it will release and go back down in there Oh, come on. And that thing pops just like the Harry Potter staircase. It's very fast. It's boom, boom, boom. I love it. I'm excited for that. Yeah, and I haven't even had time to – I mean, I only got, like, one real game on it. I spent a lot of time watching gameplay, but the line was two hours, man. I wasn't going to commit to two hours to get on it again. I went in for vendor hour to play it again, but then, like, a ball was lost somewhere, so they just came over and shut it off, which sucked. But, yeah, like this is a game that you're going to play, and it's going to take a while until you can even figure out all the ball pass, you know. But I was able to – it played, to me, more fair than Labyrinth played. I don't know if you've had a chance to play one of those. Labyrinth was a little bit tight on its shots, not quite Houdini level, but, you know, to start a mode, you had to shoot all the way in the back, and it was a little tight there. So that kept the progression from happening. This game, in my game that I played, I was able to start a multiball I was able to do all the ball paths I was able to interact with just about all the mechanisms In some form And still do like the Pepper's Ghost magnet back there And the light show It was fun, man, it was fun And I want to get a lot more time on it Wow, man Think about being David David Van Es at Expo That's just, as I said earlier That's just big, big energy It must be amazing He was standing at the booth the whole time with the crowd Just like, hey, how you doing? and slap you on the back. Thank you. Oh, you know, we're just happy we made something that people enjoy, you know, but there you go. Yeah, how would you do with the same thing? Yeah, and so it's like think about us now as like, you know, the pinball buying public. Like we've got multiple games right now that are selling out. If we got them, we're really happy. Now it's just we can't wait to get our games. Like that's what I want, you know. I don't want to see a release, and then it's like, meh, I can pick one of those up in a year or whatever. It's not exciting. I don't like it. We're supposed to get Walking Dead today from Stern, and I can't see anybody that's excited about it. I mean, I love Walking Dead. I have loved that game for many, many years, and I'm also excited about updating to Spike 3. Yeah. It's definitely a game that's going to benefit from the remaster because it came out with DMD and now we can do movie clips, but what if it's not movie clips? What if it's comic book and they're just dragging characters around the screen? Don't say that. I'm a little worried about, you know. And then the pro plays better, but it's going to be a premium and an LE probably. I hope they make a pro. Hey, do you think they will make an LE? Because, you know, are you kidding me? Yes, of course they're going to make an LE. That's just extra money that's in there. They'll throw expression lights in there or the expression speakers. What else are they going to put in a powder-coated cabinet rails, and then they're going to charge $3,000 more. It's going to sell. They'll say there's 500, and maybe they sell 120 of them, and then the rest just sit there. This isn't like when Metallica Remastered came out. It was like new art package. Yes, you're using every bit of that screen that we want. The band is up there. It's like, yes, if they do this with Walking Dead with clips from the show and call-outs from stuff, then yes, then we got a good thing going on. But I don't know. I think they can make Ellie this time because no Ellie owners would be angry. They already are. The Metallica Ellie we had on location, the Metallica Ellie was worth $15,000, $16,000. Yeah. And then the remastered came. Now it's worth $8,000. Yeah. But if you look at the Walking Dead LE market right now, they're not for $16,000 right now. They're under $13,000 right now. So I don't think anybody will be angry at that. But I want the pro version, Donnie. Stop seven. The whole game is in there. And I just don't think they will do it. Yeah. So they went back and they did a run of Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro. So that was not a remaster. That was just a re... Going back to kind of like a vault game and bringing it back out again. Do another run, a surprise run. So what we saw with Metallica is they did premium and LE. They did that because they're building one play field. And then, you know, they're having like their two top-level trims. You know, to do a pro, they would have had to do maybe another run of playfields because the playfields may be different or like the builds wouldn't be all identical. Because think about it. If they do a premium LE, going down the line, the build of the play field is the same, you know. And so you throw it into an LE cabinet or you throw it into a premium cabinet, but you're not doing, like, two separate play field builds. It's all the same play field build. Isn't that a bit sad? Yes. That you pay $3,500 more and it's the same play field. Yeah, and all you get are some powder-coated rails that are dirt cheap, and then, you know, maybe they laser cut something on the side of it, and that's all you get. Signature. Same art How did they do Kong with like the same art As the other two versions How did they do Star Wars and don't even do like foil accents on it It's fucking Star Wars Hey I want to ask you I don't care about you know Designer signature or nothing like that But I love that you have got Hulk Hogan's signature On the wrestling game I love that I just want to ask you on Star Wars Elite Do they have something like you know George Gomez signature Or something cool Borg signed it Oh, okay. Yeah, it's Tom. It's Tom. Yeah, I didn't buy an LE. I bought a premium because I'm making it over and getting it out of there. Dude! Yeah. Don's custom pinball machines are ten times better than the LE. I know. We know it! We know it! The armor I got actually has some thought and detail in there, like myself and Cab Custom collaborated on a design idea. We've got Death Star on the side. Shooting a laser up the cabinet. Like, that's what we should have had, man. Did you already sell your Pro Don's custom model Star Wars? Is it sold already? No, no. It's out on – I got a local guy here that rents games for a month, so it's in his home right now. I'm going to order in the powder coat. I think I'll do silver sparkly on it. You don't have a buyer rated for it? Oh, no, I do. Yeah. No, I had a buyer lined up before I bought this thing, and I double-checked. I'm like, you've seen the trailer. Are you sure you want it? Because I And then, you know, honestly I don't even think it's worth it because I'm not playing it that much You know, normally it's fun I just don't care Yeah, I wanted so much more My Steve Ritchie Star Wars is better Honestly Donnie, I listened to one of your Shows on Don's Pinball Podcast It was a show where you talked about You reviewed the Star Wars game the new Star Wars game it was the definition of I was just cringing because I was like Don is being so kind but I could just because I know you're this good it feel like I don't know how I should explain it but I could feel in your voice that you wanted so much more of this theme I wonder what's going There's got to be something going on at CERN right now where, like, you know, people are saying, you know, what are we doing? We need to move forward here. And then there's probably a faction of people that are still stuck in the old model of, like, you know, because it used to be a pinball designer would, like, they would do, like, their design, and they wouldn't let anybody else be involved, and then somebody else would do it. And then we're seeing companies like Barrels and Spooky, and they're like, who's got a great idea? Bring it. Let's make this game the best we can make it and put this out as our company's build, Not like, oh this was this design team Borg, get out of here We don't want none of your ideas on this Elwynn And Elwynn, we don't want any ideas of yours In this Jack Danger game or something Where it should just be like Let's get the best ideas we can And everybody contribute And let's make the best pinball machine that we can make But then I also don't know Maybe they could have made a better Star Wars But maybe they're like We want to sell these many If we build it for this, we can hit our margins And this is the game we want to make So everything's fine, I have no idea But like, I'm not excited anymore No I want to be excited, I want to order a game and be like Call on my distributor, is it ready yet? Have you heard anything? Can I go pick it up? Can I pick it up this weekend? You know, Star Wars Was like, I don't know, let me know when it's available And then I got a call and I'm like, okay, I guess I can go pick it up You know, it was like When I went and picked up Metallica It was like, I can't wait to get there to get Metallica When I picked up Jaws, I was like, when's it available? Can I get it? You know, and then now It's like, yeah, I've got these other shiny games. But you saying this and talking about being one company, I just want to say when Jack Danger designed his first game, Foo Fighters, that felt like he got some help from George Gomez. He got some help from Keith Elwin or inspiration or something. Don't you agree when you play the game? For a first-time designer to have those ball paths how they were and feel as good as they did, there had to be input. And, yes, I love that. And then it's almost like they burnt Jack out or something. I don't know what's happening. Oh, man. I mean, you can see under his eyes those black lines. I mean, he looks so exhausted, so tired. But I love playing his Aisman Ellie. I made a video about it. But, yeah, now he's a media guy. And it's like XMLE came out, and it felt like it wasn't supported by code or gameplay. It was like, we got these cool shots, but it seems like the people that may have helped him get Foo Fighters feeling as good as he did weren there to help with those shots around the Sentinel head to make sure they felt good too Also the code I don remember who the coder was but it was just not certain standards Yeah it was like hit two white shots and pick a mode And it's like, okay, that's it. John Wick, I guess. Yeah. Next company we're going to talk about is Pinball Brothers. What are they doing right now? Wait, who are they? Pinball what? Swedish, Italian-American owned company. I don't know, man. So what happened, okay? We got Winchester 525. Boom, sellout. Spooky Beetlejuice, not even announced. Boom, sold out. Predator, wide body, loaded, actually fun to play, only 200 games. Nobody cares. Like, why wasn't that, like, an immediate sellout? There's only 200 of them. I'm so sad about it. Yeah. Missed opportunity. Where's your Predator, Cengiz? Where's your Predator? Nowhere to be seen. Yeah. What the fuck is going on? Yeah. I don't know. It's in the jungle. If it bleeds, can you play it? Do you know what? I'm not even sure if I should make an unboxing video when I get it. Yeah. I don't know. Like, where is it? There should be a ton of excitement over this. It's not there. Yeah, me. Yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, you said at the expo they had, like, 40 games left, right? Yeah, yeah. And this was like towards the end or like the second day after people got to play it for a full day at least. I'm like, you know, because I think at the beginning of the show they said there was about 180 to 100 left. And then I think they sold about 40 by the time I talked to them. And then maybe they sold them all out. But I would have expected as soon as people played that just gone. But then, you know, I was like, well, how much? They had three games and one of them was still available from the show. It was their high end one. And they're like, yeah, $14,500 or something. And I'm like, oh, I don't want to pay that much for it. It's still expensive, you know. I mean, I made a little short video clip where I said, I just hope when people play Predator at Expo, they just go Asian and they sell like 1,000 games. You know what? That is what I was looking for. And I was playing it when it was quiet and I heard the fake Arnold call-outs, and they were fine. It didn't take me out of the game, you know. You can't see Dutch's face, but then I'm not looking at the screen while I'm playing, but I can hear, you know, run, get to the shot. Like, it sounded okay. Like, I was into it. It was fun. You got, like, Carl Carl Weathers' voices there. It didn't detract from it. And if I didn't know any better, I probably wouldn't even have noticed until maybe I played for a while that, oh, I don't think that quiet is Arnold. But, you know, it was fine. It was fine. This is not being recorded video, right? This is only audio. Yeah. This is only audio. Yeah. Check out David Vanez. He's sending pictures. Oh, shoot. Oh Let me see Let me just This is not Yeah This part is only He must be sending them to you Because I'm not seeing them Uh Donnie I love David David Van Es Yeah he was a fun guy Yeah I'm looking at the pictures Sorry Okay okay And the last company I want to talk to you about Yeah It was so cool To have him on here man It was fun You know what happened I think it was on your page Something something Or on WAP page I don't remember now You or I We posted something with Winchester and I wrote there Donnie come on get home I want to make a WAP show With this house game That's what I wrote and just under that I saw because I wasn't Friend with David David Van Es on Facebook You got tagged by David David Van Es And I was like what So I opened up and looked, and he was like, yeah, you want to make a show, and you didn't even invite me over? Oh, right. This guy is so cool. I just, oh, I would be honored, David. Yeah, of course, buddy. Well, that's how you do it. Being one with the community, that's what Spooky does. Look at what, look at where we are right now. That's how you, that's how we do it. So I feel like. Who is, who is, who is, who is this guy? Yeah. I feel like Who JJP'd this guy? Definitely with Spooky With Barrels of Fun I feel like they are in on the community as well They have fun with pinball They want to do fun cool stuff They'll engage But the other places feel more like corporate We're going to make this game, we're going to release it We're going to hit our numbers, these are our margins we want These are our Q4 predictions And there's no engagement I don't know if there's anybody at Stern That likes pinball Gary Cern, you ask him, Gary, my God, thank you for all the games that you made. What's your favorite game? And it's like, whatever's on the line, go buy it, ship it. And he'll admit, like, I'm not even good at pinball. And it's like, I don't feel like I could talk pinball with this guy because this is his business, you know. Would he have been just as happy building lawnmowers, you know, or making lawnmowers and farm equipment, you know. I don't feel like we can geek out over old Beta East games or something, you know. Now, I'm sure there's people there that love pinball. I mean, we've met them, you know, Jack Danger, their tech support guys, Kyle. He loves pinball. You know, Ellen loves it and probably doesn't show it very outwardly because he's a little introverted there. But I don't feel like from the company there's like, hi, I'm Jessica. I'm the community organizer for Stern Pinball. Let me come and talk to you guys. Can I come on your show? Come by my booth. Here, have a swag bag. We're doing a contest. Dress up as your favorite CERN pinball character And we're going to give away something I don't feel that Ken Cromwell did it so well at KGP Ken was great I could email him, I could text him I could say hey I'm going to be in town Can I swing by? Sure Don here Do you want a banner to give away? Of course Thank you buddy I love it Pinball is not just location It's niche But it's for the homeowners You have to be one with the community Look at Spooky Luke. They're just on it. And just like David David Van Es. When he reached out like that, I'm like, I love this guy. Look what happened. He just got whopped also. Thank you. Whopped. And our Patreon supporters, I wrote to them. When you were sleeping, Tony, when you were sleeping, I jumped on Patreon. And the first guy that wrote there was Spooky Luke. Nice. So Luke, he writes, I want a whop show. I think minutes feels like thousand days for Spooky because of, you know, next upcoming 14 days. So he writes, I want a WAP show. And the other guys are writing, yeah, come with some WAP stuff. And I'm like, okay, we're going to do this. So I hook up with David Danez. I'm like, can you do this and everything? And he was like, yeah. And then I jumped in and said, guys, patron guys, we're making a show today. And they were like, oh, cool. And one of them wrote I think it was Enzo He wrote like I hope it's with David David Van Es I'm like what the hell How does Enzo know I didn't leak anything either So that's cool They're so cool man Donnie just one thing that really irritates me Right It is Yeah we do these WAP shows But we have guests on And we have a huge list with people That want to I like that we're both wearing the same shirt This is funny Yeah, support Tom's Pinball Podcast Of course But Tony, when we do this When we have guests over We forget to thank our Patreon supporters Plus, we forget to say Buy from Jeff from Mad Pinball Use the code WAP Why do we don't include those two things? When it's you and I, it's always there I don't know I think we get distracted We're trying to defer to the guests And give them the best experience And not make them sit through a Patreon commercial I don't know Our Patreon guys Don't feel left out We love you guys And you're so active in there And also our high level supporters That we always We give the air horn Enzo Ferrari premium level 50 bucks thank you Enzo So Anthony Marua at 50 level premium. I love myself an Anthony Marua. Thank you, Al Rowe. I love him. But what happened? We have our Josh Cox that was also a premium level, and all of a sudden he was like, no, I want to be a limited edition, 100-box level supporter from Josh. Oh, my God. Thank you, Josh. I can't ever get mad from somebody that was like an extreme top-level supporter and then they back down a level. I totally get it, man. I'm just happy they were there to begin with. That was incredible. And yeah, I think the mood that we have And the community that we're building That's the most important and exciting part I love it All that support we're giving The community People are so positive, I'm loving this But also the support we're getting from Matt Pinball Guys, we know Winchester is sold out But you can still get your Dune You can get your Star Wars You can get a lot of games Buy them from Jeff, from Matt Pinball And use the code WAP You will send them a goodie bag You can go right now and get your Walking Dead with Jeff. He's going to have them. Yeah. You can walk in and get it. Go get on the list for the next spooky game right now so you're not in the situation next time. The last company we're going to talk about is spooky. Let's just say two weeks before release. The game has not been released. Nobody has seen this game. Nobody has played it. Well. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah. Of all 999 Gone gone gone Boom Has this Happened for the last 10 years Never No The game has not been launched yet This is crazy And you know And it was the distributors that got out there And they're like just pay me now for this game And then people are like yep here you go So the game could be Absolute dog bananas Like not good and everybody's already got an unrefundable deposit on it. I will put that to rest by saying, the game's good. It's got, I mean, if you think in your head, like, something from Beetlejuice you wanted in there, like, it's, in all likelihood, it's there. You know, it's a very, very fun, satisfying for somebody who's a fan of Beetlejuice. I quote that movie all the time, man. I love it. And, yeah, I dig this game. I want to go play it again. I played it for two hours the other day. And, like, the thing is, we're doing this midnight launch event, which is stupid for a pinball machine. You know, it's not like you can go there and pick up a game at midnight. This is just to put a deposit in. But there's so much enthusiasm over that. Everybody wants to get together and, like, go to the factory and just, like, celebrate Spooky and, like, get a chance to see the game early and get a chance to play it and then know that their deposits are secure. Like, they're all about it. And these people aren't going to even see the game until the party. We're doing We'll show the trailer at my house Before it goes out to everybody else So that'll be the first time Everybody sees this game We'll be on that trailer like in my house Then we're going to walk over to the factory Put down a deposit and play it So you're going to walk from your house To the factory How beautiful is this We're going to carry torches We're going to carry torches in the night I don't know why you said that This is stupid because you cannot pick up the game It doesn't matter you cannot pick up the game It's about the community It's about being a part of this I mean If I lived in Vancouver Then I would just drive down to Yeah If I was just Just a pinball fan I didn't have a show and all that stuff And somebody was doing this event I would drive over and go to it Because that sounds super fun We're planning a bunch of cool stuff for it It's going to be awesome and hopefully it's the first of a lot of cool events that we can do because I got some ideas and I got some spare time and I want to make it happen you're a doctor you have some spare time I love it yeah so switching my jobs up here I did work last night so I'm a little scattered but things are going to get better in the next couple months for sure but dude can you imagine I knew I called it this is going to be a day one sell out they're looking at me and they're like Don come on day one it took two three months for Evil Dead to sell out You know, I'm sure it will be popular, but, you know, we're going to $9.99. It's more games. This might take a couple of weeks, you know. And then myself, Charlie Emery, too, like day one, day one is gone. It's going to sell out. You know what I'm most excited about? This was private talk with the Spooky team, and I was really excited about Evil Dead. And I said, guys, it's so cool with Evil Dead. It's so cool with the support you're getting. And you know selling out And the guys they were like I don't remember if it was Buck or Luke I don't know which one of them but One of them just looked down And he was like Dude Evil Dead is not even The best game we're designing right now The next game is like And I was like what the hell I still remember that line From one of the guys I was like whoa Yeah, there's I mean, there's Games that are even better Yeah Too early Oh my god I see ya But we want to end this show By saying, for six months We said Get your name on the list This game is going to sell out Do this, come on And what's going on right now Like a hundred people is hitting up Donnie saying Donnie do your magic Like a hundred Or maybe more I don't know I feel so bad Hey remember when I gave you a ride here Or hey I'm that guy that bought this from you And you know Of course I want to have Like my own 50 games Distribute and just be like yes you're my homie Here you go here's your deposit You get one you get one I didn't get 50 games I got 20 spots For the midnight release that can only go to people that can travel out to the factory. And for myself, I got one. I got one game I'm able to get. That's like I can't. And I feel so bad because I'm like, yes, you guys are amazing. Everybody's helped me out. You've bought things from me. I'll be growing. And we hang out at shows. And I kiss your babies. And, like, I want to get you a game, but, like, I don't have it. I don't have that kind of pull. You know, it's not my company. I was able to get what I could get. Spooky could have just really reduced their distributors games and kept more for themselves they could have kept a third of them and had 300 games to sell direct they have like 80 games to sell direct plus then the ability to make show games that's it there's just not that many 80 games? why? and then I'm getting 20 so when the website goes live That'll be like When the order banks open I mean those games are gone instantly And that's it Those show games you mentioned They're not for sale for now They have to be used for shows right Yeah so usually what happens is Hey I'm going to be at MGC Who's the distributor there Let me call them early Hey I'll buy one of those show games And then you give them a deposit And then your game is played at the show For 400 plays over a weekend And then you can take it with you So it's a cool way. It used to be that those games were discounted. Not anymore. They're full price now, and they're unboxed. They've been played 400 times. If there's any issues that happen during the show, they've been fixed, so that's kind of the nice thing. The best thing about it is you know when you're getting your game, you can go grab it and take it home with you, and then that's it. You're done. You don't have to wait for shipping or nothing. But I think all those spots, people have already reached out to all the distributors that go to the shows and have probably already put their names on them. So, like, those are gone now, too. It's crazy, man. Yeah. So let's congratulate Barasafon with the absolutely perfect sellout. And let's congratulate your team, Spooky Team. This is stupid. Yeah. Nobody has seen the game and it's sold out. How can you break this record? Nobody has seen the game and people have already planned to purchase plane tickets to fly out to Wisconsin in the middle of November, freezing cold, just to go put a deposit on a game and get a chance to peek at it. Like, that's how much people are excited. It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. The next step on top of all this is if Spooky releases two games a year. If that happens, I mean, then they will be like, I want to say industry leader, But usually you say industry leader With a month of games sold But you know what I mean They're just at the top of the game man I'm so excited about it And you're a part of that team also Oh I love it There's so much good stuff coming too Tell us about them Yeah The problem is There's so many good games in development Stuff like just doing one a year It would take forever to get through them all So I think you may start to see Other releases sprinkled in there Maybe not a thousand games And then six months later another thousand games You know maybe There's a thousand games a year and then there's another Title with like three to five hundred That just gets put out there you know Just for something that's a little more Niche something that you know Maybe won't have the broadest appeal But well you know it'll be The limited part of it will really help You know Can three hundred games make it You know, for R&D and everything Is it worth Right, because, you know, no matter what game Whether you're making $5,000 or $80 You know, it's still, the programming cost Is the same, the artist cost Is the same License Well, license can vary a bit, you know, I mean Obviously, Jaws probably costs more Than if you were doing Third Eye Blind Or something, you know, or like I'm sure you could get Ace of Base cheaper I'm going to say something, and Team Spooky This is not from Dawn This is from my years Taking a homebrew game And making like 300 of them Sounds like a great idea Yeah Yeah, yeah And I think there's still There's still a chance for like Original titles too To be really compelling Look at some games like I don't know Fish Tales, Cactus Canyon Some of the things that we've liked before and then do them in this modern style. You know, look at Winchester Mystery House. Like, what if that was just like, you know, Gertrude's Haunted Castle, but had the same kind of look? You know, it still would have been as compelling of a gameplay type of game, you know? But as long as you can create a story with it and things, I think that can work. The downside to that is if you don't have a license, you don't have assets to start with, so you have to then spend all that money creating all those assets. Oh, yeah. But I think there's licenses that would be less expensive than, you know, a major AAA license, be less restrictive, and you could do 300 to 500 games and drop something that's like, oh, I want to get one of those. You know, these are rare, only going to be this many. Like, let's do it. That's Turbo, rest of the companies. We have Turner Pinball with how many Merlin games? Is that 1,000? I think he did like 500 and 300. or something because there's a top-level edition and a regular edition. Oh. Have they sold out? No, no. But, you know, he's not strictly just a pinball company. He's a tech guy. He's an innovator. He's got some industry-unique ideas that I think are licensable. And so I think his pinball machines are more a showcase of the ideas that he has that can be, you know, used and licensed and make their way into pinball. So I think that the thing with Turner Pinball isn't necessarily like, you know, these games that he's made so far or like his back catalog that he got from Deep Root. I think it's more about the technology that he's putting into his cabinets, his app that he made that connects to the game that allows you to use your phone as a touch screen to interact with the game, keep track of your scores and things. It's the thing that I've seen is the biggest competitor to an Insider Connected that can be adapted to other people's games. But if he's a user-friendly, he shouldn't release 800s of this Merlin game. That sounds like he wants to sell pinball. Right, yeah. So I don't know what his personal goals are, where his break-evens are. I know he's got a lot of assets already, so games that have already been designed, already have concepts, already have art treatments. So I'm sure that's helpful. You know, like Merlin's Arcade, you know, was a game that was already designed, probably already had rules and everything. So you're starting with something that's maybe 50% done. Then it's just about how do we engineer it? How do we build this thing? How do we manufacture it? So I get why he's doing it. You know, is he going to come up with, like, a killer IP suit? Is he going to do Cliffhanger, Stallone? That would be cool. That would be freaking amazing, dude. He may shock us with something Like that next And he's like all of a sudden All eyes are on him Okay next company Who we have Haggis American Pinball They're gone Chicago Gaming Company What are they doing Alright you want an exclusive What about Halo at TPF I love the game on Xbox, but I don't know. Mark Ritchie, raw thrills, play mechanics, design, CGC is building it. Yeah. Are you excited for it? I'm hearing that it may be at Texas. I may have put my name on a list just because I've learned that there's no downside to being on a list, and then when a game comes out, you've got a spot in line just in case you happen to be at a show and maybe there's a show game you can take with you. What distro did you do that at? Jeff at MadPinball.com. Did you use the code WAP? I used my code SloppyWapy. Yeah, W-A-P. We'll get you on the list there. Absolutely should. What a freaking guy, man. I'm seeing more and more people that are just like, independent of me, they're like, oh, yeah, they're recommending Jeff now because they've gone to him. Now they're recommending him to their friends. Jeff's the guy that showed up at the show, and he loves pinball as much or more than I do. That's awesome. We just geek on pinball stuff, and we really just want to have fun with the community. And then, you know, they have a business as well, so, like, you know, that's doing well. But, like, the focus is on we want this to be fun. We want pinball to be awesome. How can we help out? How can we bring a show game? This guy bought, you know, Mad Pinball got a pinball adventures game when that came out just to bring it to locations so people could play it. They're probably the only person on earth that's made money on Punny Factory, like, probably made more than the game cost. just because they were hustling and taking it around. They were one of the first people to get a Ninja Eclipse and take it on location for people to play it and move it to multiple locations just so people can have a chance to play it. They were kind of instrumental in getting Space Hunt and Hexa Pinball Games to the U.S. now. Now there's two distributors for Hexa. There are new games coming out. We can talk about them later. What company were we even on? I'm on Pinball Games here. We were on CGC, buddy. CGC, all right. So they're going to do another 1,000 Merlins. They'll probably all sell out instantly And life goes on or whatever But I'm thinking Halo is going to be soon And I don't know It might be super cool I at least want an opportunity to say yes or no You know and then Of course I want to play it though man You know what made me really happy You know it was late night I was just scrolling on my phone Just scrolling Then on Facebook it says We are pinball has a post And I just opened that post And I can see one of our amazing members Julie Finco She just goes and writes there Just casual Wednesday She just writes Just ordered Harry Potter From Matt Pinball Use WAP on my order info Yeah buddy Yeah that's awesome I'm getting her shirt ready today And it's going out to her And whatever else I mean it's so cool Yeah, this is fun. And we are getting kickbacks. We are getting support from Matt Pimple also. We don't hide nothing. Our Patreon numbers are open. Everything is open. Last week we shared, was it $2,500 or something? We don't hide nothing. It's just open. Right, Donnie? That's it. So we're getting a lot of support, and we want to give back also. And I'm here in Denmark, and I'm hearing great support from Jeff, from buyers, all the way over here. I mean, how can you not, you know, give back to that guy? Jeff, Corbin, the whole team there. Yeah, I mean, there's some unsung people within Mad Pinball, too. They don't get the notoriety that they need, but they all have epic beards. It's amazing. We'll all be at Pinball at the beach. We'll all be at TPF. We'll all be everywhere. It's amazing. Are we missing any companies now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pedretti. Fucking nobody. That's for the next year. I didn't see anybody interested in those little statues. Those little pinball 80s statues that they were selling for $285. Remember, I don't know if, like, was it Pedretti that was making them? It was Planetary Pinball in conjunction with somebody was making those, like, a Ringmaster statue. Oh, yeah, what the heck. What the heck, man. Did you buy that shit? I went by the table. They had them all sitting there. Nobody cared or was even looking at them or playing with them. Oh, that's the Alice Company. I think they made it. Oh, was it? I'm sorry. Yeah, it was Alice Company. All right, so Pedretti, I don't know. They weren't at the show. I didn't see any other games at the show. Nobody cared. Are they doing Toad Inn? Are they not? I don't know. I'll wait to hear something from them. Did they go through all the companies now? Hexa Pinball. Hexa Pinball. Hexa, yeah, they're coming with new games. Yeah, so we're going to see, hopefully we'll see Halo at TPF, and we should see Three Musketeers, La Trobe Musketeer, from Hexa at TPF. And US Distro of Hexa is Jeff. Jeff at Mad Pinball. And then there's one other, it's not Coin Tigger, I think it's Joe at Pinball Star maybe. I forget. There's one other US distributor. But, yeah, the Hexa guys are cool. They have an app called Plunger. It's very simple. It's free to download. It's on the Apple Store. And then you scan your QR code on the game When it comes up and it puts your name on the game And then it records your score For that game on your app So it stays forever So I've got Space Hunt on there They had Plunger on one of the homebrew games For Monsters Incorporated I was able to use Plunger on a homebrew And my homebrew score is in my Plunger app now So it's kind of cool It doesn't have the deep functionality that Turner's bringing But I like that we're seeing more of this Come about So I'm excited for Hexa European company I want to see that European market Grow more and become like it is here You know and I think you know having Companies out there doing it That's fine we'll see what their game is I'm going to send a picture of you To David Van Es And tell him we're still recorded Oh my gosh Let me write to David So that was Hexa Stern Pinball we talked about JJP So JJP is going to have Sonic out In the next year Probably they don't need to Because they could probably make Harry Potter for another year And still be busy But they have a contract with the license That it has to release by a certain time So I think we'll just see them Sonic the Hedgehog will come out And then we won't see another game from them For another year And then maybe it's Batman Maybe it's DC License Maybe it's Ghostbusters I've heard all three of these things Wow Oh we are forgetting We just said the European company DPX Oh, DPX, PX, PX, PX Yeah, they have like two months Or something to build all those 500 Alice Yeah, unless you want to get a guaranteed deposit On Back to the Future in 10 years Then you have to make sure you don't Ask for your deposit back on Alice And then Roz is coming and there's 333 of them and I don't know why you would do this Other than they probably Already paid money for it They probably already put money into designing it. So they're like, if we can at least sell 300 of these things, we'll make some money. It'll keep us busy. Back to the Future is not ready. Tony, if you had a lot of money, would you stick a pin into what Raza has done and John Papadiuk's stuff? No. What's the next thing? Haggis is stealing shit. I don't want that game in my house, man. I wouldn't touch anything that's old. Even when it was at Deep Root, it didn't look like that great of a game to begin with, you know. And, yeah, so you took the scam. You made it into an actual game. Congratulations. I know that was a lot of work. Yeah. You should, you know, you want to get some money back for that work. And maybe there's 300 people that care about it, you know. But I get why they're not doing 500. I get why they're not trying to get 1,000. I want these guys to build their own game. Yes. You know. Yeah. Just their own game with a great theme. Something cool movie from the 80s, 90s. Come on. Come on. Just do DPX, man. Just make it exclusive. Pack it up with everything. Just get Conan the Beaver or something cool. We saw Barrels of Fun do a better DPX than DPX is doing. Because what if DPX did a Winchester Mystery House type game? 500 games. It's loaded. One trim level. Sell out in two days. Boom. There we go. Yeah. Did you hear what David David Van Es said? He said that he listened to WAP from the get-go. Woo! That's 47 episodes! That's awesome. Wow, man. That's a lot of WAPing, man. I didn't know it. I hope we were kind. Wow, Donnie. We're honest. That's it. Come on. Donnie's tired. We have to stop the show. And Patreon people, thank you. And we made a show five days ago. They were like, we want more WAP. More WAP. There it is. There's some hoes in this house. There's some hoes in this house. Hey, Donnie, where can people reach us and buy some T-shirts? We are pinball69 at gmail.com, patreon.com backslash wearepinball, donpinballpodcast at gmail.com. I'll even help you out there. RetroJingo on YouTube, C-E-N-G-O, the man, the go-to, the goat, the amigo, nerd. Yeah, everything 80s, 90s. I love it. All right. Great day, everybody. See you on the next show. Later.