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Episode 122 - Apples and Adapters

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·held·Aug 23, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers discuss September reveals for GNR (JJP) and Raza (Deep Root), game design preferences.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss upcoming pinball news including Jersey Jack Pinball anticipated Guns N' Roses reveal in September, Deep Root's Raza reveal also planned for September, and expectations around production readiness. They debate game features like GI lighting, Wi-Fi code updates, and design philosophy, while also touching on Chicago Gaming's Cactus Canyon remake and Stern's production pipeline.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball will announce/reveal Guns N' Roses in September 2020

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony cite Pinball Show episode 25 discussion with Zach Sharpe; JJP indicated a big announcement in September

  • Guns N' Roses will likely be a standard-body game, not wide-body

    medium confidence · Zach Sharpe from Pinball Show believes it will be standard; Dennis expected wide-body but acknowledges leadership changes at JJP may have shifted philosophy

  • Guns N' Roses collector's edition will feature signatures of all band members

    medium confidence · Zach from Pinball Show had a source indicating this; Dennis mentions hearing it on Pinball Show episode 25

  • Eric Mernier is likely the lead designer for Guns N' Roses, following rotation pattern after Pat Lawler's Wonka

    medium confidence · Dennis speculates based on designer rotation patterns at JJP; notes Wonka was Pat Lawler, Pirates was Eric Mernier

  • Deep Root will reveal Raza in September, with innovations finally shown

    high confidence · Mentioned in This Week in Pinball's July 2020 recap; Dennis covered Deep Root as correspondent for Pinball Network

  • Slash will do voice callouts for Guns N' Roses pinball

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony agree this is essentially a given; Slash is known to be a pinball enthusiast

  • Chicago Gaming Company is working on Cactus Canyon remake and may release it soon

    medium confidence · Dennis expects Cactus Canyon ready to go; notes it's been quite a while since Monster Bash

  • Stern's next cornerstone game will likely release in November or December, not September

    medium confidence · Dennis speculates December based on production backlog from COVID and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles demand; cites Stranger Things December release precedent

Notable Quotes

  • “I want the freaking Wi-Fi update code. I want it now. I want it now. Let's finally have that. Why is this taking everyone forever?”

    Tony @ ~23:20 — Highlights industry frustration with lack of Wi-Fi code update capability across manufacturers (both JJP and Stern); frames it as expected baseline feature in 2020

  • “I am sick and tired of JJP games that turn off all the lights, and then when they're in the 403 Club, I can't see the ball anymore.”

    Dennis @ ~25:45 — Expresses frustration with Wonka's light design philosophy; criticizes design choice to turn off all GI bulbs for effect, argues it makes game unplayable in dark venues

  • “They have been teasing for years. Everything keeps getting changed. Everything keeps getting pushed back. They were supposed to have had a big reveal at TPF two years ago.”

    Dennis @ ~45:30 — Summarizes Deep Root's history of missed deadlines and repeated delays; establishes expectation that Raza must ship immediately after September reveal to maintain credibility

  • “If they don't have something ready to go this year, how much longer can they go on?”

    Tony @ ~46:15 — Questions Deep Root's viability and cash reserves after years of delays; implies company is approaching a credibility/financial breaking point

  • “I don't expect it to do as well as Wonka. No way. There is no way.”

    Dennis @ ~52:00 — Predicts Guns N' Roses will underperform Wonka commercially; both hosts lack enthusiasm for the theme compared to JJP's previous whimsical games

  • “Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, Dialed In, Wonka, it's all really whimsical stuff. As Zach, with his obsession with tone in pinball, was so much whimsy. It's a little too cute for me.”

    Tony @ ~54:30 — Characterizes JJP's design philosophy as overly whimsical/kiddie-focused; suggests Guns N' Roses provides needed tonal shift to grounded, mature themes

  • “Iron Maiden had the much smaller fan following, but it was such a good game and such a good layout that overcame that. It actually overcame the theme. It wasn't about the theme. It was about the game itself.”

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyDeep Root PinballcompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyStern PinballcompanyGuns N' RosesgameRazagame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball experiencing significant production backlog due to COVID-19 disruptions and unexpected demand for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; delays announcement of next cornerstone game to November/December 2020

    medium · Dennis: notes Stern 'far behind they are on producing pins that demand started to build up with over with COVID and the fact that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is doing so well'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Frustration across pinball industry regarding lack of Wi-Fi code update capability; both JJP and Stern criticized for not implementing baseline feature available in consumer electronics since 2000s

    high · Tony: 'Why is this taking everyone forever? Wi-Fi has been around for decades. I don't get it.' Dennis agrees technology is standard and expresses surprise at persistent absence

  • ?

    design_philosophy: JJP's design choice to disable all GI lighting during certain game modes criticized as making games unplayable in dark venue environments; Wonka cited as example

    high · Dennis: 'I am sick and tired of JJP games that turn off all the lights... It's like I need there to be gi and it should always be on.' Notes venues like Pinball Studio (403 Club) cannot accommodate this design.

  • $

    market_signal: Narrative that JJP is pivoting from whimsical/kiddie-focused themes (Wonka, Dialed In, Hobbit) to more grounded, mature themes (Guns N' Roses); tied to leadership changes at company

    medium · Dennis notes JJP games have been 'really whimsical stuff' and too cute; suggests GNR represents needed tonal shift; attributes this to leadership changes rather than founder Jack Guarneri's original philosophy

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.251

0:00
This episode of the Eclectic Gamers Podcast is brought to you by the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Roanoke, Virginia, and by me, he who shall not be named. The Roanoke Pinball Museum is an interactive museum dedicated to the science and history of pinball and its magic within. Their mission is to cultivate curiosity in science, art, and history through pinball while preserving and honoring its role in American culture. The museum is open every day except Monday and pandemic days, and it houses over 65 machines with models from 1932 to 2018. Roanoke Pinball Museum, go play their games, because Harry Potter will never have his own pinball machine.
0:54
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 23rd. This is episode 122. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And we're back, Tony. And we actually have a number of news items this week. Yeah, I mean, it's great. I was kind of surprised when everything came up. It's like, hey, look, there's actual stuff to talk about. We don't have to just kind of fill the air. Yeah, though we are pretty good at filling the air. And I'm not going to say that this is going to be an overly meaty episode of news. There's actually a few items that are relevant and worth discussing in both video games and pinball. But before we do that, we have intros, which everyone loves because they get to skip them. What's been going on, Tony?
1:44
I have been playing games again. I've been playing some more of the hard space, Shipbreaker. They've released a new, what do you call it, patch that has added some stuff to it. So I've been playing some more of that. I've also been doing a combination of reading and audio books, because I do audio books on the way to and from work a lot of times. Yes, yes. I'm doing yard work. And I found a new series that I enjoy quite a lot. and it's an interesting fantasy take because it uses all the normal fantasy tropes but it kind of plays them in a fun way it's a two book series so far the first book was called Kings of the Wild by Nicholas Ames and basically it treats your normal fantasy murder hobo type little group band as like a band I mean they have fans And They specifically Take bards with them to Tell their stories And record it And create songs for them And The first book, Kings of the Wild Is all about a retired band That's getting the band back together And it's hilarious It's well done And I enjoyed it quite a lot The second book in the series follows a different band that's tangentially related to the first band, but it's a younger band, not the old retired band. But it's been really enjoyable, too. I've been pretty happy with both of them so far. I've also been watching a bunch of Amazon Prime and Netflix, some of their movies and TV series and reading some Stephen King I've actually been fairly active the last couple weeks Oh, that's good. Productive. That's what people like Oh, no, no. I didn't say I've been productive I must have been working I have not played anything of note other than continuing my phone games I did watch a lot of Summer Games Done Quick which just concluded earlier today.

Dennis @ ~58:00 — Uses Iron Maiden as case study that strong game design can overcome weak theme popularity; suggests Guns N' Roses success will depend on gameplay quality, not musical appeal

  • “I would be so disappointed and then it'd be so disappointing. I want them to bring out John Cena with the hammer.”

    Tony @ ~62:30 — Humorous exchange expressing desire to see Deep Root's 'indestructible' playfield claims demonstrated via hammer test; reflects skepticism about durability claims

    • Cactus Canyon
    game
    Slashperson
    Eric Mernierperson
    Pat Lawlerperson
    Keith Johnsonperson
    Jack Guarneriperson
    Tonyperson
    Dennisperson
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Pinball Showorganization
    Pinball Networkorganization
    This Week in Pinball (TWIP)organization
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Pinball Studio (403 Club)organization

    leak_detection: Guns N' Roses confirmed as next Jersey Jack game; details about collector's edition band member signatures and designer attribution (Eric Mernier) circulating through Pinball Show episode 25

    high · Dennis and Tony cite Pinball Show episode 25 discussion with Zach Sharpe; information describes unannounced details (signatures, designer) through unofficial/pre-reveal channels

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Data East Guns N' Roses machine (1992) features design element with ramps shaped as G and R; Dennis expects Jersey Jack to incorporate homage to this classic through similar playfield design element

    low · Dennis predicts JJP will include 'something in the shape of a G and an R on the playfield' as homage; notes Slash's involvement in original Data East game suggests band may welcome integration

  • $

    market_signal: Concern that Guns N' Roses will underperform commercially compared to Wonka; both hosts lack enthusiasm for theme and question its market appeal versus Wonka's proven success

    medium · Dennis: 'I don't expect it to do as well as Wonka. No way. There is no way.' Both acknowledge theme doesn't appeal to them; Tony notes Wonka represented safer kiddie-zone positioning

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Designer rotation pattern at JJP suggests Eric Mernier designing Guns N' Roses after Pat Lawler's Wonka; Keith Johnson potentially continuing as lead programmer

    medium · Dennis reconstructs designer rotation: Lawler (Wonka) → Mernier (GNR); notes Mernier did Pirates previously; assumes Johnson based on non-involvement in Wonka

  • ?

    product_strategy: Deep Root Pinball facing severe credibility crisis after years of missed deadlines and repeated prototype iterations; September reveal functions as final deadline before question of company viability arises

    high · Dennis: 'They have been teasing for years. Everything keeps getting changed. Everything keeps getting pushed back.' Missed TPF reveals (2 years ago, 2019, 2020 canceled); Tony asks 'how much longer can they go on?'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Chicago Gaming Company committed to releasing Cactus Canyon remake soon after Monster Bash; also developing original licensed game expected in 2021 (not 2020)

    medium · Dennis: 'it's been quite a while since Monster Bash. I think they're basically ready to go with Cactus Canyon.' Expects original game next year, not this year.

  • ?

    business_signal: September timing chosen by JJP and Deep Root appears deliberate to avoid direct competition with Stern's anticipated cornerstone announcement (November/December); suggests coordinated market positioning

    medium · Dennis speculates September is 'safe' because 'I don't expect Stern to reveal their next cornerstone in September'; notes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles production backlog pushes Stern's release to later months

    • 4:14
    And I was a little surprised. They did actually break $2.3 million in money raised for Doctors Without Borders. And we've mentioned Games Done Quick before. They typically do two events a year, Awesome Games Done Quick in the early winter, usually January, and then Summer Games Done Quick, which is usually done around this sort of July-August period. And Awesome Games Done Quick is for the Prevent Cancer Society, and Summer Games Done Quick is for Doctors Without Borders. and it's speed running. They speed run video games 24-7. The reason why I was surprised that the dollar amount was just that the entire event was done online this year. And I, you know, it's just like, is it going to work well or not? I mean, most people who are donating are watching online. So in theory, that shouldn't be a barrier. But the challenge of getting all these streamers connected, dealing with their technological issues while they're remote, a lot of them in other countries, was obviously a big hurdle that normally they just deal with in a live studio. And there were a lot of technical issues, especially in the first half of the week with them just trying to, like they fell way behind on their schedule. They finally caught back up, but it was, but overall it went really well. Good. I'd wondered how well it would handle being online only. Yeah, I mean, there were just, you get weird hiccups, like sometimes they couldn't hear the people, the staff because they'd get disconnected from Discord. So other than that though, not much, a little bit of Overwatch League. They finally are wrapping up the end of the regular season with their catch-up game, so I've kind of sort of watched those, but I've been trying to watch the speed running, but now that that's done, I'll be able to move on with probably just more work, let's be quite honest. I'm thinking maybe next month taking a couple days off just to finally have a break. Plus, I'm getting close to that vacation cap, so it's like, I don't know when I will reach cap. October or November, I think, because I'm just not using anything. Right, and I understand that. I've got some couple floating holidays that have to be burned, and I'm taking one. I'm basically stretching the Labor Day weekend into a four-day weekend instead of a three-day weekend. That's actually pretty good. Maybe I'll do that. That's a pretty good idea. But, yeah, because I've got a floating holiday that needs to be used before it goes away. I'm not near capping my vacation out. I won't cap my vacation out until, like, June next year.
    6:37
    That's good. Yeah, it's just one of those. This, my newer, I probably shouldn't call it the new job because I've been in it for like a year and a half now. But it's just like the cap is tighter than I used to have. So I just have to be a little more mindful of it. Right. But that's OK. Speaking of OK, though, we have, as we mentioned at the start, we do have news. So we'll go into pinball. And I want to open with Jersey Jack pinball. So this is something that was noted on the pinball shows episode number 25. I have a link to it in the show notes. But it's a is Jersey Jack pinball launching in September? And it sounds like that they are. Jersey Jack indicated that there would be a big announcement in September. I suppose it's conceivable that it could be something else like what we talked about a few months ago when they teased that some big innovations were coming. I don't know those big innovations were going to be coming separate from a new pinball machine. But regardless, I know in the discussion on the pinball show, Zach Many thinks that this is the Guns N' Roses reveal. That's the big news for September. So obviously, we have all known that Guns N' Roses is the next Jersey Jack. If anyone had any doubt slash ruined that like back in December. I guess in terms of just some thoughts I know you're not a huge like the theme isn't like the creme de la creme for you. Yeah, no, the theme doesn't really do anything for me Right, and I'm in a similar boat. I guess so what do you do, let me ask first, do you think that it will drop in September? Do you think J.J.P. will launch it next month? This is J.J.P. I think what will happen is they'll give us lots and lots of information and pictures and stuff, and then they'll come in October at the earliest. Okay, so you think that they're still not going to actually be able to ship them when they show up? Hmm. I, you know, I don't know. I'm going to say I think that they'll ship them pretty quick. I'm going to give them the two weeks. Two weeks. Yeah. And I know that's somewhat dangerous because I've never met that before. But given I had heard reports that they were shutting or modifying or transitioning the line, which I'm assuming is to GNR from Wonka. And I heard that a few weeks ago that I want to think that they must have been building them. I could be wrong. I don't know. I heard Wonka's just got shipped to Australia. So maybe the line hadn't been shifted yet. But yeah. OK. So, I mean, I won't be unfortunately I won't be surprised if no, the game's not ready. But the thing that confounds it for me and confuses me a bit is obviously they moved the factory. So they're based in Chicago now, and I don't know how disruptive that all was. I don't know how disruptive COVID all was. I know both of those things are disruptive by their very nature. So it's just the cloak has been pulled pretty tight around JJP, so it's difficult to know what's been going on on the manufacturing front. So, okay, so those are our thoughts about the game happening. We both agree, though, that it will be the GNR reveal in September. Oh, yeah. Do you have any thoughts about who's working on the game?
    10:02
    No, not really, because it's hard for me to judge their kind of rotation, because they keep kind of sliding games forward and backward in rotations. I mean... Because, I mean, we were expecting Toy Story last year. Yeah. Yeah, I was at least, yeah. I was too. Well, I mean, they said they were going to have two games out pretty quick last year. And we saw how that went. Right. Well, based off of that, I'm going to go ahead. And I do think that Eric Menier, who did Pirates, is the one doing Guns N' Roses. that would be the most rotation-y rotation because Wonka was Pat Lawler and I had heard that Pat Lawler was Toy Story so that would mean you have an Eric-Pat pattern which would make sense I would also assume that because he wasn't Kiefer or Keith Johnson was not the lead programmer for Wonka that I would assume he is for Guns N' Roses but again I'm just following the pattern I'm making up One of the things that kind of surprised me was I have always assumed that Guns N' Roses will be a wide-body game. In the discussion on that episode 25 of the Pinball Show, which I did co-host, Zach many thinks it's standard. Really? Yeah.
    11:28
    Now, I know Pat Lawler doesn't like wide-bodies. I always assumed that the reason why Dialed In and Wonka are standards was simply because Jersey Jack Pinball yielded to what Pat wanted. Even though I had always felt the company philosophy was we need to do wide bodies because wide bodies mean you have more stuff and more stuff means you're better. More stuff also makes it more expensive. It does. But, you know, that bloat, if you will, was like part of the corporate philosophy or that was always my interpretation. However, I have also heard that with the changes in leadership that have been going on at Jersey Jack Pinball, the company has taken a lot of different positions than what the founder, Jack Guarneri, established when he set up Jersey Jack. And so one of those things can be we're not doing wide bodies anymore. I don't think that would be a bad thing for them. My dislike of wide bodies conceptually due to their inferior geometry by definition is well known. So I won't harp on that. So I agree with you. I would like to see Jersey Jack abandon wide bodies entirely and never return to them again. I just assumed, though, that even if there was a corporate philosophy shift, that Guns and Roses had been in development for so long that it was going to be a wide. So I'm still going to be I will be surprised if it's a standard. I still have not been able to wrap my mind that they that that it's going to be a standard with. But yeah, I just. But if it is. Right. If it is, that's not a bad thing. I just honestly would have expected it to be a wide body. Everything I've ever thought was that it would be a wide body. I mean, I would really like to see what Eric can do with a standard because there were some things he did with Pirates conceptually that I liked, but what are the best Jersey Jack pinball games? In my opinion, it's Dialed In and Wonka, and those are not wide. They are standard. You're right. They are their best games. So there's some of that. I guess setting aside width and setting aside the fact that neither of us are particularly enthused about the theme, what would you like to see them do on GNR? I'll throw one out. I want the freaking Wi-Fi update code. I want it now. I want it now. Let's finally have that. Why is this taking everyone forever? Wi-Fi has been around for decades. I don't get it. So I want this game to ship with the ability for, at the very least, for Jersey Jack Pinball owners of GNR to be able to update their code through the Wi-Fi. That would be nice. I don't think there's any reason at this point for this still to be. I still don't understand why Stern doesn't have it out either, quite frankly. I think that would be a very nice addition. I don't know if that's the kind of thing that you would consider with the big change special thing.
    14:27
    They've indicated, I believe, they've indicated that it's going to be more than just that, that that's not innovative, really. And I agree, it's not. I mean, my TV updates with the Wi-Fi. Yeah.
    14:40
    I'm sorry. I'm not impressed by this. It's just I don't have to take out the Translight every single time I want to do a code update. I know I'm a little lazy, but you know what? It's 2020. So that's something I'd like to see. Is there something that you would like to be surprised by? I mean, it could be more game-specific than that. I mean, that was fairly on the back end. Well, that's the thing. With my lack of interest in this game theme, anything, I mean, it's not like I can have something that's going to be super specific that jumps out to me because it's a theme that I just have no interest in. I'll give you one. I'll give you one that won't happen, but I wish it would. I want Guns N' Roses to have always on GI. I am sick and tired of JJP games that turn off all the lights, and then when they're in the 403 Club, I can't see the ball anymore. It's like Wonka has this incredible, awesome light show, but everything is a is a color controlled uh independently assignable bulb and they turn them all off it's like i need there to be gi and it should always be on if you want to let it be color changing and controllable fine fine but at least keep the lights on some lights need to just always be on i you need to be able to see a little something i know i'm being a little like am i there we have lights and they we didn't turn them off when people were trying to play I know I'm being a little fuddy-duddy on that, but I'm like, come on. I get it. It's like, oh, look at this. You can blind people all you want. Use flashers for that. Call Dwight Sullivan. He'll give you some tips. Don't turn off every single bulb ever, except when the game's off. It just pisses me off to no end. If you play in a dark environment, it's ridiculous. You're basically mandating Penn Stadiums, and I can't just go and install Penn Stadiums on a location pen. Yeah. I mean, they probably would. Yeah, absolutely. Dennis Gibbous. Yeah, Dennis Bias in Penn Stadium. Heck yeah, do it. Do it now. I just, as cool as independently controllable bulbs are and GI and letting it change to give you moods, I just never turn it all off. Never turn it all off. I just think it's wrong. It just, I mean, there's a reason why those games feel dark. It's because they are. Oh man, now I want to see a grim, dark Wonka game. Wonka does this Wonka's all like hey look Look at the kaleidoscope of colors And you do certain things and it's like all the lights went away And I'm like did I break it? No this is what they wanted to do to me And it makes me sad Because I mean you remember where we had Wonka At 403, 403 is not a well lit location It's very dark in there So it's just like And when I'm not streaming It was like did the machine just shut off? Did it just Right and I mean I usually have the lights on when I play pinball because I'm streaming. When I'm not streaming, I play with the lights off, and games that don't have good GI just bug me, and turning off GI means not good GI. It's like the definition. So, that's something I want. I don't expect to see it, but I want. Yeah, it's not something I think they'll do. They'll be all about the light show, which will include I think big periods of darkness. I think there's points in time where darkness could actually be good, but I don't think it's any time while the ball is in play.
    18:09
    personally, I think some darkness, especially with like a music pin, black everything out with just maybe a light or two here or there at ball launch, especially on a ball one launch, kind of plays into that whole band theme thing. But, yeah, for the most part, give me lights. I don't want to flip around blindly hoping that I catch the darn ball. Another thing that, here's something I expect to see on GNR. I want, not want, I really don't care if they do this or not, but I do think that they'll do some sort of homage-style thing to the Data East Jurassic Park. Oh my god, no. Wow, that would be weird as crap.
    18:52
    The Data East Guns N' Roses. Now, I don't know if you've ever played the Data East Guns N' Roses, but one of the interesting things that they did is the left and right ramps are in the shape of a G and an R. I'm not going to say that Jersey Jack Will actually shape the ramps as a G and an R As well but I do think there will be something In the shape of a G and an R on the play field And I'm going to call that an homage to Data East Okay That's one of those things It's like yeah I can see Where it might be a I don't see where them doing an homage would hurt I can see them doing it But I'm saying I expect to see it I think they will do it Give in do as you're said I mean, if they don't do it, I don't care. I don't think they owe that game anything. But I'm just, yeah. That was like the one thing that I hear a lot of people say about the GNR from Daddy East was, oh, yeah, people don't notice it. And it's like, that's really cool. They integrated the band initials in such a cool way onto the play field.
    19:53
    And I think that, I don't know if GNR likes to have their G and their R integrated into stuff. but it made me think maybe they do because Slash was involved in that game's development so I could see something like in the shape of a GNR but I won't go so far as to say the ramps because I think Eric's going to want to do his own thing and not defer to Daddy Easton. I mean I'm sure there will be a GNR somewhere on the machine it just makes sense. I'm saying on the playfield. Okay. I'm pretty sure that I think you're right. I think it'll be there as well. I want to be right so I'm glad that you're in agreement. The question is, do you think that the call-outs are going to be the obvious type of call-outs you would expect for a GNR pen? What do you mean by the obvious?
    20:47
    Let me rephrase Do you think Slash will do them Yes I do Okay Yeah I think Given has a problem with that I think it pretty much a given I not saying it something I want I just think that pretty much going to be a given on it And I've heard for, I think it might be also episode 25. I don't promise on this, but it was a discussion that Zach and I had on the pinball show. But Zach, one of the pinball show, the correspondent that covers Jersey Jack, I believe, in his news summary, did indicate that they had a source that indicated, like, the collector's edition will have all the signatures of all the band members. So Slash, Axl, the rest. Oh, that's cool. There's some involvement with the band in the game. Interesting. Given that Slash is such a pinhead, I think I've always just taken it as a – it's such a given I wasn't even going to bring it up, that Slash would do the call-outs. Just kind of the – there's no assumption. It just is what it is. I mean, I could see maybe him not being, like, the main narrator, maybe just having him do certain custom, like if they didn't want to give him 40 pages of script or something, I could see that, but I think he's going to be involved in saying some stuff, like the multiballs or something.
    21:56
    Does a pinball machine typically have 40 pages of script for the callouts? No, I don't know. Nowadays, I mean, as expensive as these are, as bloated as the code is, sure, why not? I mean, maybe like 16-point font or something. A double-spaced Courier New. One line per page. Multiball madness Oh wait that was two pages He had to turn it over Multiball madness Well let's move on from Jersey Jack To another September Deep Root So they announced that they're going to Through Twip TV's July 2020 Pinball recap and I have a link to that in the show notes If people want to go and watch that YouTube video It was mentioned that Deep Root is going to do their reveal in September. So, we haven't talked about Deep Root in much depth for quite a long time, Tony. No, we haven't. It has been a company that has unfortunately been plagued by delays.
    22:58
    What do you think overall about the reveal? I guess, what do you expect to see out of the reveal? And I'll shape this a little more. Do you think that this reveal is only Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, Raza, the game that we saw the prototypes of back at the end of last year. The one we saw the prototypes of where they were continually saying, now this is just a prototype, and this is probably going to change, and this is the wrong cabinet, and these are the wrong this, and this is the wrong graphics, and this is the wrong. So it's like basically it's like we just made a machine that's totally not the machine that it will eventually be. Yeah, I think that's all it's going to be. Okay. I agree, though I do think that all of that prototype stuff will be finished. We'll see. The innovations that they're talking about will finally be shown.
    23:49
    Oh, I think you're right. I definitely think that's what it will be. But it's going to completely be, I will be very surprised and honestly, pleasantly surprised if they show us more than just a done Raza. Well, I mean, I could – while I only expect to see the finished Raza, I wouldn't be too surprised if they at least do some tease stuff with some of their other upcoming ones. I would think most of that will probably be art if they show anything. But I don't lean towards it happening. I think it will all be focused on Raza. My understanding is it will be a fairly small event. The Pinball Network, which is obviously I'm involved with over with doing the pinball show.
    24:36
    One of the there is we we do have a correspondent that covers Deep Root. They are going to the reveal. My understanding is a fairly small group that's been invited to this to this reveal because their reveal plans, of course, have been compromised by COVID. So the original large event around Texas Pinball Festival was unable to happen for for that reason. in terms of the game Raza do you think that it'll be ready to ship when they show it I think it better be I'm going to do the same thing I think if it's not ready to ship they shouldn't be showing it I essentially agree I'm going to say the same thing I said with JJP I think that within two weeks of like it'll be ready to order and they'll be shipped within two weeks I'm going to do the two weeks again give them that two week period that buffer ideally I would hope they would have some boxed and ready to go I would hope so I think with them supposed to have had the release all the big announcements and everything at TPF and their initial showing at the end of last year like we already spoke about if they don't have it done and ready to ship or even better to have it done and already at some distributors, then they messed up. I mean, there's not a nice way to put it. They have been teasing for years.
    26:08
    Everything keeps getting changed. Everything keeps getting pushed back. They were supposed to have had a big reveal at TPF two years ago. They were supposed to have it in 19, I mean. And it didn't happen. And then they were supposed to have the big one in 20, and 20 got canceled. Not their fault. but if they don't have something ready to go this year, how much longer can they go on? That depends on their cash, cash reserves. But I think it's a very fair question. I, I agree in the sense that I don't, I don't see the point in doing the reveal in September if they're not actually ready. Like at this point you've, you've missed so many deadlines. Why, why do it in September if you're still not ready? Why not wait till October or November? Right. So yeah, That's why I think that they're going to be ready to ship the Razzas, at least in the sense that even though they still have to actually assemble them, that everything's ready to go. And that's why they're doing the reveal, because otherwise there's no reason to have this as an arbitrary deadline. You missed all the more important arbitrary deadlines that you set for yourself. So given that, I just think it only makes – I mean, because in some ways, is September even the best month? I mean, we're just picking from a PR standpoint. If JJP is launching GNR in September, my non-PR training brain says, wouldn't Deep Root rather have done it in a different month to not be starved for oxygen from JJP? Oh, you would think. I don't think that's what's factored into it. That's why I think it's, no, they're ready to go. They need, they want income for all their hard work. So if they're ready in September, reveal in September. That being said, September is probably safe in the sense that I don't expect Stern to reveal their next cornerstone in September, given how far behind they are on producing pins that demand started to build up with over with COVID and the fact that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is doing so well for Stern. I think that Stern's third cornerstone is going to come this year, but not in September. So it's a good month to avoid the 800-pound gorilla. So, what do you think on Stern? You thinking November? Or December. Kind of like Stranger Things was December. I'm thinking December. November, I wouldn't be too shocked, though, if Cactus Canyon continued drops from Chicago Gaming. Because, remember, it's been quite a while since Monster Bash. I think they're basically ready to go with Cactus Canyon. I wouldn't be surprised. So, and then they've been, my reports are they've also been working on their licensed original game. Like, they're making their own game. But I don't expect that this year. But I do expect it next. So, I don't think we'll see a remake after Cactus Canyon. I think the next game after that will actually be a new game. So,
    29:00
    given that, yeah, we'll see how it goes. But, yeah, that's where given that, I think avoiding Stern's the... Like, if you need to avoid someone, avoid Stern. I don't know how Guns N' Roses is going to do for JJP. I don't expect it to do as well as Wonka. No way. There is no way. It's so different than the theme. I think this is fine. I don't think JJP should stay in the kiddie zone where it feels like everything that they've been picking until GNR was designed for people that only have five-year-olds in the house. Okay. Yeah, I can see that, actually. It's all super, super safe. And I'm not saying go out there and be edgy. I'm not saying go out there and stick a bunch of profanity in your games, but it's like, Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, Dialed In, Wonka, it's all really whimsical stuff.
    29:55
    As Zach, with his obsession with tone in pinball, was so much whimsy. It's a little too cute for me. I would like to see something maybe a little more grounded. And TNR is more grounded, but the thing is, it fits every definition of what we expect to see out of a pinball manufacturer for a music pin. It has been banned that got its name in the 70s and 80s. Right. I mean, here's the thing is, the one that surprises me has always been Iron Maiden, because if anything Iron Maiden had the much smaller fan following, but... I agree. Because it was such a good game and such a good layout that overcame, That actually overcame the theme. It wasn't about the theme. It was about the game itself. Indeed. But imagine how many more sales they could have had if they had an attractive theme.
    30:50
    Oh, it would have been huge. I've just anecdotally heard so many people who love that game, but they won't own it. They don't like the art. They don't like the music. They don't want to have to use pin browser or whatever and change the music out. They don't want to have to go to the trouble. and there's like and especially now it's like why don't i just buy jurassic park from elwynn instead i still get an elwynn layout with elwynn rules with a much more palatable theme yeah plus i personally think jurassic park is a better shooting game than iron maiden but that's just my opinion not everyone agrees with that what do you want to see out of the other so let's we both agree are as raza so like maybe on some what is there an innovation you've had in mind that you'd like to see them do? You know, I'd like to see them have the Wi-Fi. Maybe they can have the Wi-Fi first. They can have the Wi-Fi. I can't say Wi-Fi first. The multi-morphic people will email me incessantly. Let me pull that back. Not first, but if they can have the Wi-Fi and they're super magical, indestructible, hit it with the hammer playfields. Oh, I do. I want them to hammer test that. Oh, they so need to hammer test it on this thing. I would be so disappointed and then it'd be so disappointing. I want them to bring out John Cena with the hammer.
    32:16
    Oh, like they could afford John Cena at this point. Well, I just figure maybe he's not busy and he could just swing by. But John Cena's not busy. Well, with COVID he might be not that busy. Maybe he's buddies with Robert. I don't know. People know people, you know. Maybe they can find a John Cena impersonator or – All right, fine. They can call Mark Silk. He likes pinball. Mark Silk can fly over and he can hit it with a hammer. And he can do an impression of John Cena with his voice. There. I've solved it. I've solved it for you, Deep Root. How about if they grab like French Stewart? I can see that I haven't thought about Prince Stewart in years Nobody has But Third Rock from the Sun Was so fun It was fun And when did Third Rock from the Sun end? I don't remember Like 20 years ago? Yeah, it was like sometime after I went through puberty But before I was done with college I'm not sure quite, that's sort of a blur But somewhere in there 2001 Okay So, yeah, almost 20 years. He's wrapping up college, yeah. Oh, wow. So, I'm sure he's available. Okay, well. All right, French Stewart, if you can't get John or Mark. That's my personal recommendation. You know, I don't know what to expect out of the innovations thing. I mean, they've talked so much over the years about all of the innovations.
    33:56
    And I can't even remember all of the innovations. They've talked about their quad production and whatever it was and Playfield the Ocho. Octo Assembly. and all the crazy stuff. I want to see them put out a game that's, A, fun, which from everything I've heard that Raza last year wasn't. I've heard they made tweets.
    34:29
    Well, yeah, I mean, who knows? Because the way they talked about every single item on that machine being like pre-alpha prototype really leans that towards being, hey, look, we threw together a box of lights that kind of shoots here, love us. But I'd like it to be fun to shoot and have good call-outs and actually be enjoyable. And I think the reality is, is we'll probably get, I doubt we'll get any of those things. at this point I doubt we'll get any of those things yeah I uh I just I mean here's a and this is I wish I liked J-pop layouts more than I do but and I know there will be some some modifications to what we saw with Raza just unfortunately for me unfortunately I'm just not interested in Raza so I really want to see Deep Root stuff but it's like I want to see John Norris I want to see Dennis Nordman. I want to see what Robert's game's like. I want to see Barry's game. It's like, so unfortunately I can't, I don't think I'm capable of getting excited about Raza because I know what the layout looks like and I just am not impressed by it. But I am curious, like I want to see like maybe some of the innovations regarding the serviceability. If they've got something like that where it's a lot easier to work on the play fields.
    35:59
    You know, I don't know if they're doing something maybe where some other games in the past have done where you don't necessarily have to pull the glass, but it lifts. You know, just things that just make, you know, quality of life stuff that just makes it easier. That would be nice. Yeah, I would like some stuff like that. And I'm like you. I mean, I don't, I think this whole rehabilitation of J-pop thing is one of the things that I dislike about the whole Deep Root situation. but it is what it is yeah i mean i i think it ultimately strategically i think it was a mistake but i you know i don't know i still see like on pin side i see people that they i mean there was someone i remember i don't remember their handle i remember that they listed their location as being not in the united states but that was like they want they they'll buy anything j-pop They just want something new from J-Pop. And so maybe there is a built-in sale base. I mean, his games rank pretty high. It's just even though I've liked a number of his games, I don't love any of them. So setting aside his issues with Zidware and everything, he's not one of my top designers. He's just not. And I'm not, especially after seeing Raza, it reminds me a little bit about Brian Eddy and Stranger Things. And while I wasn't shocked by it, I look at it and I go, this looks an awful lot like Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness for me to be impressed by. And I look at Rahaza and I see a lot of the same old tricks. And I guess it's good for the fans because it's like, he's doing the stuff. He's doing the thing. He's doing the thing, man. He's doing the thing. Yay. He's doing the thing. But for me, I don't know. I just want to, you know, it's like, I just want to see something, see something different. That's kind of like why with John Norris, for example, it's like, okay, he's got a lot of games I can look back from Premiere to see. But they were like poor. They gave no time. They didn't have a budget. And that's where it's been. I want to see what John Norris could do with money.
    38:05
    Like everyone else who's with this company came from a manufacturer that had money. But John didn't. And I want to see what he could do when he actually is given something more than a three-month development cycle. It's like it would be given the actual here. Here, here's the check. Right. Here's some time. Do it right. Do it your way.
    38:27
    Make the game you want to make type thing. Yeah. And I have no idea what, like, his bill of materials he's been permitted to use and such are. But I do know one thing. They gave him time. They sure gave him time. Yeah. He's been able. And it's just something like, I think he had some really interesting ideas with Premiere that are hampered because of how Premiere did their parallel development. And so I just, that's where, see, it's something new. I can see, with him, I can see something new. Like with Nordman and J-Pop and Osler, I think I'm going to see what I've seen from them before. Yeah, I can see that. So it's like John Norris and Robert, who was doing his Fire and Brimstone game, I have no idea. He might have a knack for designing. so it's an enigma and that's what excites me I want to see the enigma stuff as cool as, the thing is I like Nordman designs better than J-pop designs so I was really blown away by Elvira House of Horrors so I could see maybe wanting to buy his game but Raza doesn't do it for me just not my cup of tea not really oh go ahead I said no it doesn't really It has I mean the theme is just What it is We've seen the video clip and everything I like that it's a silly theme I do like a return of silly themes But if it's not It doesn't that alone Doesn't bring enough Unless it is fun to play Shoots well Yeah Right but I don't buy games around their theme. So, I mean, that I watched Walking Dead is nice, having a Walking Dead, but that's not why I own the game sort of thing. So, anyway. Last pinball topic. The Sterns almost, I'm saying question mark, ready to release their video output adapter for Spike 2 machines. So, this is covered in depth in the pinball show's episode 26. which just dropped today, I think, the day we're recording. So I have a link to it in the show notes for people that want to go. It's near the front of the episode.
    40:50
    So what happened is that discussion revolves around what Zach Minney, who is owner-operator of Flippin' Out Pinball, which is a distributor,
    41:01
    regarding what Stern is currently referring to as pre-production samples of the video output adapter. So for those that aren't familiar, Spike 2 is the board system that powers the LCD games of Stern Pinball. So ever since Aerosmith. And that main LCD display operates on an LVDS. It's an LVDS LCD. LVDS stands for low voltage differential signaling. So people, streamers in particular, have been wanting an easy way to direct capture that digital feed. so that when they're streaming, they don't just have to point a camcorder or a webcam at the LCD, but instead can get a nice clear picture directly outputted from the pinball machine So and by that we mean captured via HDMI because that what most commercial devices are using So this isn't new, like this concept isn't new. Jack Danger, who operates Deadflip, the professional streamer, he's been doing direct capture out of Spike 2 for quite a while, I think over a year at this point. And there are ways to put together a direct capture system, Buffalo Pinball, I know, several months ago at this point, released a guide on how to construct one and hook it up into a Stern pinball machine. So that's what some people that have been really dedicated when you do direct do who want to do direct capture have done. So anyway, my understanding is in the nutshell stuff that's covered in the in the TPS episode. So a customer contacted Zach saying that Stern has the video adapter available. So Zach calls the Stern parts division and they say, yeah, yeah, we got the video output adapters ready. They're packaged and ready to go. Do you want any? Zach ordered 30 of them. He got them. He put them up for sale on his Flippin' Out website for about $40 plus shipping. and I think he put out a video walking through the install. They come with instructions, but showing the install. So he sent out those 30 RAs spoken for. He either already sold them or he just decided out of generosity to give them to people that were streaming under the TPN label. So he even is sending me one, even though it's like, I don't have it yet, but he shipped me one. Hopefully the UPS, hopefully the U, I don't know if he shipped it USPS, but hopefully their mail sorting machines don't screw me over on my part.
    43:37
    But that being said, I don't have a Spike 2 system, so I don't have anything to stream with it right now anyway. But anyway, so that all comes out. But then Stern contacted him because I guess demand was high enough that he put in another order for, I think, another 60 from their parts department. and Stern contacted him and said, oh, we're sorry. Stern management hadn't actually launched the product yet, so the parts department shouldn't have sold him any. So they didn't want him to ship any out. He'd already shipped out that lot of 30, which they were like, okay, that's fine. That's not a big deal. But they wanted him to take down the install video. They wanted him to not list it on the website anymore. Or my understanding is at the very least that Jack Danger was involved in the development of the product in some way. And I guess there was an arrangement between him and Stern. And my supposition is Stern did not do everything that that arrangement was entailing. As in, I heard that maybe they're supposed to be cross-branded and have Deadflip's name on them or something. And that's not the case on these. But I don't know if they actually were a pre-production sample or if someone just forgot something. And these are actually done except for the branding or if there's any more work to be done. My understanding is they fully work. They're not a prototype. They're not made with inferior materials or anything like that.
    45:07
    So anyway, what are your thoughts about the video output adapter concept? I think it's a wonderful concept. I think it's something that will make streaming modern games a lot better, and I think it's something that has been coming and should have been coming for a while.
    45:27
    I find it really strange that somebody could have sent out so many and then suddenly be like, management just, well, no, I don't. Never mind. I do see that as possible happening. I've seen similar stuff happen often enough where they're like, well, we're just about ready. Let's do this and then we'll get started. And then something gets started. It's like, well, I never gave the final go ahead.
    45:51
    Yeah, I mean, it's a big company. In a way, I guess I'm not too shocked that something like that could happen. Do you think anyone besides streamers would really be interested in this?
    46:03
    I don't know why anyone other than streamers would be interested in this. Well, the scenario that Zach brought up was you could, for example, do like a video display topper. Of course, mine immediately went to the toppers. You could, but most of them have screens that are big enough now that why would you? Yeah, I know. I don't know.
    46:27
    Unless there was a way that you could set it up so that it would display. You'd still need a camera to display Playfield. I mean, that's the only thing is I could see is if you were doing something where you were setting it up with a display above the machine, a vertical television above the machine with play field and then using this to also put the backboard above it. That way the people who aren't actually at the machine can still see the ball in play, still see. But you're still going to have to set the whole thing up, a camera rig up to capture the play field. so i don't know do you have any thoughts on like overall demand for i mean i guess some of the larger streamers i could see them maybe wanting like i think my initial thought was well maybe a streamer wants one and then i i guess some of the larger ones might just because of the annoyance of having hooked the stuff up might want one for each of their spike games so i guess some people might actually want a few uh just for convenience which i i understand because i hate moving the tripod and even right even with that us at the where i mean it's like down to a tony like can do this setup stuff by feel at at the uh at kc pinball championship but it still takes like three minutes three to five minutes to set up two games um and yeah you know it gets a little and once you get the everything set and we kind of make sure those are set up so they're easier to maneuver because we know that we're going to be maneuvering them so quickly.
    48:00
    But still, as long as the price is somewhat decent, I can see having two or three of these if you have a lot of games that can utilize them. If you bounce between streams a whole bunch.
    48:15
    Depending upon how quick these are to set up and activate, and activate. I don't know how useful these would be in our situation of running like tournaments and stuff, uh, doing tournament videos, unless you, there's something you can literally just go plug, go without resetting anything. Yeah. I can see where two or three would make sense for most people, uh, if they're really into, uh, streaming or just for ease, I guess it's going to completely depend upon how easy they are to move compared to a normal rig. Yeah, and I haven't looked into that, so I'm not sure. You did bring up price, though, and that's kind of the final area I wanted to explore with this. So, all right, so branding, you know, that was the discussion that happened on TPS. And if there was, so I could, like, I could see Jack being frustrated if he worked on this, some relationship was turned. But to me, the branding, because this is like an internal part that's behind the back box. So like having the logo, for example, I assume isn't necessarily the biggest deal. Maybe it is. I don't – I mean I don't really have a brand, so I don't think of it that way. But maybe there was a financial arrangement. You are a brand, Dennis. I'm an off-brand. You are a brand. I'm the Kroger of podcasts.
    49:34
    And the – but like there's a monetary arrangement that was expected for co-development or something. Again, as part of the discussion, Stern, parts division sold these to Zach. They didn't tell him, though, and this is not unusual for most parts, like common parts that you put into a game, like the boards, the stuff on the playfield. They have a cost to the distributor, and the distributor can set what their own price will be. Zach obviously went just under $40 to build in his profit margin and everything. Now, Tony, I've told you how much Stern charged. Yeah. So I guess as part of a stream that Jack Danger was doing, when someone brought up how much they were being sold on the website at Flippin' Out Pinball, and Jack, I guess, had said, I've not verified. I didn't go back and play this. I heard he had said that he had thought it would be hundreds of dollars. Plural? I'd heard it plural. Okay. But let's just say a hundred. Hey, this is going to be twice as expensive as a capture card so you can stream.
    50:44
    Right, right. So like a used cam capture card is usually about $100, sort of. Right. For a 4K one. Yeah. So, all right. Let me ask first. Given this pullback about them still needing to do, them being stern, still needing to do stuff to this quote unquote pre-production sample. Do you think that the price Goes up when it's Finally released Yeah honestly I think so Yeah yeah I agree I think that it will I think they will If that was the whole thing and that's what happened Then of course it's going to Which is going to make it even worse But there's no way something like this Should be a hundred bucks Let alone Two hundred bucks Yeah, I mean, out of respect for the fact that he was the distributor that got them I would check with Zach before doing this But honestly, if the price lists at $100 I'd be sorely tempted to just go ahead publicly and tell you all how much they actually cost to make Yeah, because that's just hot garbage Yeah, no, I mean, there's markup and then there's gouging and in my judgment, this price point that they were listed at was a sufficient enough markup already. Yeah. Just my interpretation. I mean, I get it. You need a certain amount of money to warrant the time. But I'm just thinking about other, you know, like you compared it to the capture cards and how much a full capture card is. And you still need a capture card for this, by the way. I mean, if it's outputting to HDMI, your computers aren't normally designed didn't put HDMI without a capture card. That's what they're for. So you still need a $100 plus item to get this to work on your computer anyway, right? That's true. I mean, when I'm capturing from my camcorder, I had to buy a capture card. I couldn't just pump the HDMI output from the camcorder, unfortunately, into my laptop. It didn't know how to do it. It didn't know how to handle it. So I had to use a capture card. That doesn't come with this. This does not come with a capture card, unfortunately. See, if it came with a capture card, I could understand a $100 to $200 price point. Anyway, we'll have to wait and see. I asked Zach if he knew when the finalized versions were going to come out, and he has no idea because he thought he had the finalized versions.
    53:08
    I don't know. It's just going to be... I hope this doesn't turn into some weird cash cow bloated thing that targets streamers. But given that there are already options... This is not... I don't want it to sound snotty. but this is not special. Like in a way, like we already knew a way to do this, but like Buffalo already released a way to do this. That is not expensive. So people, that's part of the thing you have to factor in. This isn't like some proprietary thing that someone can't just build another option around because another option is already out there. So this would be more convenient. This is less scary. People aren't worried about snapping pins and stuff with this. Totally get, it makes sense to me why Stern would release a product like this, But don't start thinking you got yourself like a $600 topper here. Because your toppers aren't worth $600 either. By the way. Sorry to say. By the way. They're just not. Yeah. Okay. That's just my opinion.
    54:12
    Video games. Tony, there's been so much drama in video games. At this point, that's about all I push is video game drama. I'll review the games I play because the games I play are very niche. I won't say nobody likes because they're super popular, but I just don't really do the whole review and talk about upcoming games unless it's something huge or drama-filled. I understand. So we're going to start with what I consider the really big drama.
    54:42
    Fortnite has been pulled from the Apple and Android Play stores, their app stores. But Fortnite's huge, Tony. It is huge. But the big issue was that they wanted to, and by they I mean Epic Games, created a new way for them to get the in-game currency to basically your real money transaction stuff. Your pay to win stuff. Exactly. That could bypass the Apple and Google app stores. But that's a violation of their terms. That is exactly a violation of their terms because what are they going to do if they don't get their 30% of whatever's spent on your game? Oh, my God, yeah. Are they both 30%? I know Apple is. Apple's 30% and Google, it depends. It kind of varies. But, yeah, they're both between 20% and 30%. Sheesh I'm in the wrong business So because of that Epic filed suit Against Apple and Google To put them back into the store Because they're basically saying that They're running monopolies And that Saying that they can't do transactions This way Uh Violates The uh it basically makes it more of a monopoly and that there are other apps that do transactions that bypass the app store. After all, when you use your Amazon app to order a bunch of stuff from Amazon, Apple doesn't get 30% of your Amazon order. That's a, that is a good point. So why does it work that way with the video games? So, yeah, I guess my initial thoughts on this is their lawsuit might struggle a little more with Android because Android does have the option for you to use. Like there's an Amazon app store you can install on your phone. Right, and there's the Galaxy app store. And even when Google made their announcement that they were pulling it off of the Google Play Store, They flat out said that they have an open app store thing, or what do you call it? You can install apps without having to use the app store. Right.
    57:17
    And that it was available on these other app stores that were usable by Android, but since it violated their rules, they just weren't going to keep it in the Play Store. Right. So, yeah, so given that, I don't know if Epic can argue the monopoly thing very well with them, whereas with Apple, I think if you're not in the App Store, you're basically screwed. Yeah, because Apple, I mean, no surprise, they do this with everything. They do this with hardware and software. They lock down everything, so it has to be officials. It has to be direct Apple equipment, and it can only go through the Apple App Store. There's no other ways around it. It just has to be in their ecosystem. The walled garden is what we like to say. I did see a similar thing over this weekend, not involving a game, involving WordPress, the free website.
    58:21
    Hey, our Collected Gamers website is on WordPress. my employee my job my employer site is on wordpress and apparently what happened is their app their wordpress app wasn't being updated on the apple app store and the developers reached out to apple and said why why are we not able to update do bug fixes to our app and they said well the problem is that you're not because you need to have an option for people to buy the you know, do the domain registrations and stuff through your app because you sell domains and things. And they, I guess WordPress's response was, but we don't sell them through the app. Like you have to go to the website. We have a section where there was a way through the app, you could actually find the listing and the prices for those. And they offered to block that out of the app. So you couldn't. And Apple said, no, that won't fix it. You have 30 days to develop your app to actually allow people to spend money in it. Because they wanted their 30%. Yes. And then just after, later yesterday, well, last night, I saw Apple released a new statement saying, oh, never mind.
    59:36
    WordPress not allowing sales in the app is acceptable, and we will, like, they phrased it in a, okay, WordPress fixed everything, so it's okay, except WordPress apparently took out the option to buy anything through the app a long, long, long time ago. Like the author's version didn't have the ability to even see that stuff. He checked with someone who had a prior version to try and figure out what date they had pulled that stuff. But it wasn't a new change. So it was something that had been around for a long time. Yeah, no, WordPress had already taken it because they were like, no, this app is meant to be just to do the free website stuff. The only thing that they thought was if you had a paid WordPress plan and installed the app, like your ability to upload more than three gigs was available to you in the app. And they're trying to figure out like, do we have to take that away so you can do anything more than with the free for? It's like you couldn't buy the plan through the app, though the app didn't allow that. You couldn't like go. There wasn't anything in the app to click on to go to the website and buy that stuff.
    60:34
    Huh? But I mean, it was just and how did the WordPress people find out the Twitter release? Apple didn't contact them about their change in decision. No, that doesn't surprise me at all. And it's just, so anyway. Yeah, I think Apple. That's becoming the thing anymore as you find out major things over Twitter that you probably should have been. What do you mean I was fired? Well, Twitter says you're fired. The way Epic is doing this is in some ways a little crass. I mean, they deliberately violated the terms. I get that. They're selling merch for related to this stuff. They had that 1984 Apple commercial mock you style satire ready to go. This was all planned. Definitely. And a lot of people think Epic is kind of scummy too is the thing. But I think Apple – I think the Apple is going to get a little bruised on this one I think. Other than the fact that there are a lot of people that in my very biased opinion mistakenly went into the Apple infrastructure and are now beholden to them because they've chosen iPhones.
    61:42
    This is not going to resonate with most consumers, Apple's position on this. Yeah, it's not. And one of the things that I saw, an update that I saw this morning, was that Apple had put out in their filing for the suit that Epic had approached them about this in June,
    62:10
    about creating a separate store and giving the different ways to come in. And apparently Apple just basically told them, no, so... But I think a part of where Epic has a really good argument against Apple is how the non-gaming apps are treated. You mentioned Amazon. I think Netflix is another example.
    62:29
    Yeah. Yeah because I pretty sure all of those have sign and stuff that is outside and they don get 30 So there an inconsistency there yeah I mean is there a Zoom app Does Apple get 30 of people using Zoom on iPhones I don't know.
    62:49
    I'm sure they'd like to. Well, I'm sure they'd like to get 30% of everything. I'm surprised they haven't tried to get it set up so that if you're on the Apple, inside the Apple system, that you just automatically deposit 30% of your paycheck in Apple. I'm surprised when you buy the Apple phone from Apple, they don't add a 30% Apple charge to it. Granted, it's already so overpriced compared to their competitors in Android. I guess they don't need to do that. Well, I'm guessing they probably already have. They just don't release it. It's built in. It's just there. It's built in to the price.
    63:28
    For those that don't know, Tony and I aren't the biggest Apple supporters anyway. Yeah, no. It's not a fan.
    63:37
    Yeah. Not a fan. I've owned one Apple product in my entire life, and that was enough. That was enough. I didn't need any more. Was it their watch, their smart watch? No. It was a, crap, what did they even? iPod? Yes, it was an iPod. Okay. Yeah, makes sense. Back in the day. one of the very, very first iPods. And that was it.
    64:09
    And I hated iTunes so much that I never went back. You were Zune for life after, baby. You're right. It's all about the Zune. Zune, Zune.
    64:26
    Zoot, Zoot. All right. going on in what is sure to be a disappointment and possibly a deal breaker for a lot of Xbox fanboys Halo Infinite is no longer going to be a launch title unless they delay the Xbox to next year because it has been pushed to 2021 I guess the hairless ugly brutes finally people were like maybe this wasn't just a pre-alpha build or something I don't know. I mean, I think you summarized it well. I fully expect this to impact their sales. I think it will. I think the Xbox Series X will still come out this holiday season. There's absolutely nothing else that I think of that is as compelling as Halo Infinite was to a day one buyer.
    65:22
    So does that mean it permanently damages the sales on the Xbox? No, I don't think that, but I do think there'll be plenty of people that go, well, I don't need it. I don't need to get it for Christmas. I mean, we don't know when it's going to come out in 2021. Maybe I need to get it next Christmas. You know, it's like, so, yeah. Now, do I think they should delay it? Overall, yes. I think that's the right answer.
    65:48
    Though, it is interesting because, yes, there has been criticism of the decision. But as we all know, as those of us who follow video games know, if your name is CD Projekt Red or Rockstar, you get praised when you announce delays. Everyone else gets attacked when they announce delays. But the idea is you do want the best game out there. And I still remember games that I played so many that were rushed through and should have been held back. So I say, yes, do this. that putting out a good... A lot of people... I still haven't even finished... Well, I got stolen in my burglary, but I still haven't finished the story in Halo 5. That is like the most hated story in the history of Halo. Like, the multiplayer is a well-respected thing, but not that campaign. And as far as I got in the campaign, I understand why. And they do not want to make another blunder like that. So they really need Halo Infinite to be an excellent game. So it's just... I think it's very unfortunate that they don't seem to have a launch game now that is going to stir. I mean, okay, nothing's going to rise to the level. Halo is their Mario, so I understand nothing will ever rise to that level. But it would be good for them to announce something. They still have a few months. It would be good for them to announce something besides Forza. Yeah, they need to have something, but I don't know that there's going to be anything. There's not going to be anything that they can announce, And I don't think that there's anything that can get moved up. Nope. I agree. They're just going to get caught. I don't think this is going to be like, hey, we're going to have a terrible Christmas sales year. We're going to have a terrible holiday season and the sales are going to be just completely non-existent. I just think that their sales are going to be lower than they would have been. Yes. I agree. I mean, if I were Microsoft, my recommendation at this point is because I don't think you're going to have like an exclusive that is going to be able to fill the shoes of Halo. You need to just double down on the strategy of that your marketing campaign is you want this system with Game Pass. Yeah. And just emphasize all the free games that you get with a Game Pass subscription that will look great on the system. And we still don't know the pricing yet. So, I mean, obviously, I figured pricing would have been out by now. I'm shocked. But if they're pricing at least $50 under the PlayStation, they already will be giving them some. That will help mitigate the damage of not having the shining star on the hill sort of stuff. Price matters. Right. So we'll see. But, yeah. Anyway, disappointing.
    68:40
    Disappointing. But based upon the trailers and stuff, probably not the worst idea. I agree. Some more Twitch dramas in a slightly different way. An advertising agency representing Burger King went to a bunch of different Twitch streams that used the text-to-speech to read out donation messages. and started donating the cost of Burger King menu items and having the messages related to said menu items.
    69:16
    I saw a video of this. Yeah, and that's the thing. I think that's what makes it even worse is after they did it, they put out a video of them doing it and talking about what great advertising it was and all that stuff. Here is $5 for you to be able to buy a burger, a small fries, and drink at Burger King. Yay! I just, it's so, I understand what they were thinking. And honestly, I can see why they would consider it a good idea.
    69:54
    It's a terribly unethical idea, though, in my mind. Why? Because it's, because. Because I thought this was pretty clever, actually. I think the primary reason that I would consider it all the way up to unethical is a lot of these people have, A, management teams. A lot of the big streamers are part of groups of streamers that work together and have a production team. And even the ones that don't, they all have advertising prices and advertising roles. And it would be one thing if the advertising team had come to them and said, hey, we want to do some advertising. This is how we wanted to do it. We thought it would be funny.
    70:41
    And they're like, yeah, that's a great idea. Here are my fees for utilizing my platform for advertising. But that's not what they did. This is basically like if somebody, you laid down and you went to bed and a team showed up out of nowhere and they vinyl wrapped your car as an advertisement for a check into cash place. And you came outside and it's just like, oh, my car is a giant billboard now. So it's something that, I mean, this is something that they do. They probably either have their own thoughts on advertising. They make decisions on advertising based upon their own personal feelings I mean, we have our own internal rules that we utilize for advertising They have, in some situations, they have large already investments in an advertising group They have signed contracts, some of which could be considered, could have non-compete clauses where they're not allowed to shill for a possible competitive company. And they just came in and did it. Okay. And I do understand all of that. But I guess going back to the check into cash vinyl wrap scenario, but is this not the case where it would be if I went to sleep, but I had already put into my stream that, oh, by the way, people, you're allowed to come and vinyl wrap my car Because they're choosing to implement a donation system that does text-to-speech and people are allowed to type in whatever they want.
    72:25
    Except for they're not really allowed to type in whatever they want because most of them have systems in place that will catch and shut it down if there are what would be considered sexual or racist or sexist. store. Yes, that is true. There are rules to it, rules of just general, because that whole thing is designed for a specific interaction with the viewers.
    73:01
    And that's what, it's not made to be an advertising platform. It's made to be for the interaction. They deal with the advertising on the back side of it. Unless when you do the donation, does it say you aren't allowed to type an advertisement in here? unless that's there then it's allowed to be used for anything I mean I've seen plenty of things when you click on like to chat in a channel it says you're not allowed to say anything that's sexual harassment racism bigotry you know they have rules that you signed a non-compete clause on an advertising setup and then you allow a system where people can write essentially anything that they want and you don't have a disclaimer that you're not allowed to self promote or you know promote anything like The name of the person going in was like called Burger King menu deals or something. It was examples I saw. So it was identified. It wasn't – they didn't pretend to be a normal human being. I get it. I get – I think the streamers are mostly mad because someone was able to not pay them thousands of dollars and instead pay them five bucks to promote a sandwich. Well, yeah, sure. But don't you understand they're streamers and they're fully supported by their viewers and not the multi-thousand dollar deals they have on the back end? I mean, I get it, but to me, I feel bad because I feel like I'm siding with Burger King. But it's like their ad agency exploited a system which is designed to trick people into donating more than they otherwise would by getting their message read aloud. Because the streamer is too self-important to read the message aloud themselves. and I've seen that text to speech thing get tricked into saying some really bad things before so I don't I really frown on people using it outright at all I'm not a fan of it I think it's better when the streamer actually takes the time to read it themselves but that's just me so anyway yeah I get it I don't blame them for being mad I'm very skeptical that I don't know where this would be a violation of Twitch's terms of service or not. If it is, then that's on the ad agency. I saw a couple places that say that it could be depending upon exactly how you took some of the wording, which translates into a that's going to involve lawyers to make that decision. Okay. Well, I mean, my suggestion would be that Burger King not continue to use this tactic, but given what has ended up happening, because you don't want to seem like you're just trying to cheap out. I get what they were going for or what I think they were going for. I don't think it was necessarily motivated by Burger King trying to save a bunch of money. I think they just thought this would be a good way to make a viral video that they could go look at us being so clever. We're love us millennials. Yeah. But I think, I think that's exactly the reason they went for it. But I'm like, I mean, with their advertising budget, it's not like they're like, man, we need to save, you know, 1500 bucks. But on the flip side, uh, most of the streams that were, I assume used or targeted. I mean, if they're at the point where they have management and adverse, I don't, I don't want to be negative. I just, I don't have a lot of, I just, I don't, I guess I just don't have a lot of pity for people that get to play video games for a living, whining about wanting more money. I can totally understand that. And that may be that I'm just going in, assuming that all the ones that are complaining make six figures. And they don't because they hit people all over and they hit small streamers, they hit big streamers. So I'm not being totally fair with that, but that's sort of where it's like I get it, but I don't sympathize all that much with their plight. It's like, you still got a $5 donation out of it.
    76:57
    Why don't you go buy yourself some Burger King? We've got a special right now So you can get a Whopper fries And a drink for five bucks I feel bad for the ones that got the Four dollar thing instead of the five dollar one Whoa now that was just cheap Come on at least let them get the Full like five dollar experience The full five dollar Experience Mmm that's one good Burger King Yum yum It's like if Subway did this and they didn't give you enough for a foot long And like six inches up oh come on At least let a guy eat That's all I'm saying You don't think a six inch sub is good enough? Not for me Yeah, me neither But I also haven't been to a Subway Inn No It's kind of gross Years and years and years and years I like Firehouse is good We've been doing Since there's a Planet Sub in town now I've been doing Planet Sub a fair chunk.
    78:01
    I did do I haven't been to a McDonald's or a Burger King in forever. I did do a Hardee's run the other day. I haven't been to Hardee's in a long time.
    78:12
    That was pretty good. But yeah. No. We'll see. One last little thing that's not really drama. It's just interesting continuation of, was it last year's thing or the year before? Supreme, as we know, has already done a Supreme pinball machine. Yeah. It would look great next to your campus queen. It would look amazing next to my campus queen. Now they're doing a Supreme Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet. Whoa, finish him and his wallet. Well, that thing is, it's not even a full-size arcade cabinet. It's a rebrand of one of those arcade one-up Mortal Kombat cabinets, the little ones that they're selling at Walmart and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Those are under $500, right? Yeah, they're like $200. To get it and the Mortal Kombat machine plus the little riser stand so it's tall enough so it can be used by somebody that's not a child is like $360. Okay. Which means, obviously, it's going to be over $1,000 when it says Supreme on it. Do you think it'll be as low as $1,000? You know, I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least $1,500.
    79:34
    I'm going to guess that it's at least $3,000. You think? Well, I'm trying to factor in what their brick markup and stuff is. That's true. The brick markup was just dumb.
    79:46
    I mean, I know how much people ask for on eBay for Supreme pinball machines, but I'm trying to remember what the markup of that was. It was basically the, I mean, they did do a full commercial style cab, even though they used the Spider-Man Home layout and did have the DMD. But yeah, I'm going to say $3,000.
    80:05
    I'm not confident. I didn't run the math enough, but if they're charging $50 for a brick, and what's a normal brick cost less than a dollar? I just, I don't know. Yeah, that's crazy. I have bricks in my yard I'll sell them for a dollar I need to get rid of them There are just so many of them People just throw them through my window to steal from me Yeah That's You know you could write Dennis on them And sell them for like 100 bucks a pop Yeah You could be the new supreme We should EGP brand them Speaking of EGP We're at the end of the EGP episode So I guess it's time to promote We don't have a brick to send you to promote But we can say you can go to eclecticgamers.com To visit our website And you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast At gmail.com Or visit us at facebook.com Slash eclecticgamerspodcast Or available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram As eclectic underscore gamers And we will be back in a couple weeks and hopefully we'll have as much news as we did this time because I thought this made this episode work really well. Yeah, it did. We're so dependent on being able to use topics to drive our discussion. I know. I actually, here's the thing, and if anybody's still listening, tell us what you think. I'd actually had an idea of adding back in a third segment when our news was getting so short that was basically just going to be the intro segment expanded. It was just going to be chatting about random stuff corner just to get some more time up. Yeah, I think, I mean, I know from pinball forums, there's some people that absolutely hate the off-topicness. Most of them, though, just like it being front-loaded. Right. So normally I think that there is more acceptance if we were to stick it at the end. So for those that don't know, obviously, we always do our intro, which can be completely off-topic. We try very hard to keep it under 10 minutes.
    82:11
    It sometimes happens. And it sometimes happens. I think it's only been a couple times we went over 15, and I think I always got complaints when that has happened, which I understand. But it's a discussion, and discussion doesn't always stay completely focused on topics. So it's artificial if you take it away. Right. But, yeah, write in if you have thoughts on that. Because that would let us stretch and do more And talk about the shows we've watched More in depth and movies And just how terrible Project Power was Doing a film and TV podcast Always made a lot of sense I just don't want to pay for another RSS feed Yeah, no, it totally does And finding the time to record A second podcast Well, I would think maybe that would be like A month later Just because, yeah This is so little time.
    83:07
    But it would be awesome because we know more about that stuff than this stuff, quite frankly. We're expert. We're basically directors.
    83:17
    We're basically directors. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, how hard could it be? So. Well, I'm Dennis, and I will say so long for now.
    83:30
    And I'm Tony. See you next time. Talk to you next time. whatevs