Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 36 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·1h 9m·analyzed·Jun 15, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Electric Bat operators discuss pricing, game curation, Pokemon success, and tournament logistics.

Summary

Electric Bat Cast 36 features hosts Kale and Rachel discussing arcade operations, game pricing strategies, and tournament management. Key topics include replay value settings using dynamic replay on modern Stern games, pricing tiers (50¢ classics, 75¢ WPC-era, $1 or 3-for-2 modern), the logistics of managing a growing game collection, and Pokemon Pinball's strong performance on location with both Pro and Premium models still earning well. The episode also covers upcoming Electric Bat 8th Anniversary Bash tournament (Nov 6-8) and a planned live segment on software updates with Surg.

Key Claims

  • Electric Bat uses dynamic replay on Stern games, which automatically adjusts replay threshold as player skill increases, preventing easy free credits

    high confidence · Host (Kale) explaining replay value strategy in response to Discord question from Evolving Scott

  • Electric Bat prices modern Stern games at $1 or 3-for-2 credits, finding the 3-for-2 option generates higher overall earnings than straight dollar play

    high confidence · Host (Kale) discussing pricing strategy; Congo case study showed 75¢ pricing outearned $1 pricing

  • Pokemon Pinball Pro and Premium are both still earning very well on location and demand may increase with future Stern Insider Connected app enhancements like a Pokedex catalog feature

    high confidence · Host discussion in response to Gutter Ghoul Discord question about Pokemon's continued performance

  • Game Plan boards are repairable and repro boards are available; Electric Bat prefers not to repair them due to time investment tracking down uncommon components

    high confidence · Host (Kale) response to Gutter Ghoul question; Bob Kennedy from Atomic Age Modern confirmed repro boards exist in Discord

  • Electric Bat is hesitant to remove Pokémon (Pro) from the floor despite space constraints because both Pro and Premium models are still earning well and serve different player preferences

    high confidence · Host discussion about incoming Transformers game and floor space decisions

  • Electric Bat reduces tournament round times by removing rubbers on outlanes for slow games (Jaws, James Bond, Godzilla) and adjusting ball save difficulty on others (Jurassic Park)

    high confidence · Host (Kale) response to Janssen's tournament operations question

  • Stern is releasing approximately 4 games per year, approaching a point where Electric Bat may need to remove some Sterns to maintain an eclectic mix of classics, mids, and moderns

    high confidence · Host (Kale) discussing future game curation challenges with Stern's production pace

Notable Quotes

  • “Think about this as hospitality, not about how to grab, you know, 14 more cents out of every customer.”

    Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ pricing strategy discussion — Encapsulates Electric Bat's philosophy of operator-side customer retention and player experience over maximum revenue extraction

  • “If I had a choice between a Venom for $4,000 and a Pokemon for, let's say, $5,600, Pokemon all day long. All day long.”

    Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ Pokemon vs Venom discussion — Strong endorsement of Pokemon's earning potential and IP appeal vs mature Venom code; signals operator preference for games with development upside

  • “Pokemon is still a game that's doing very well and will continue to do well for a while... people are making very big mistakes when they speak about it as though it's finished.”

    Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ Pokemon future potential discussion — Pushes back against naysayers about Pokemon; expresses confidence in future code updates driving continued operator revenue and player engagement

  • “We do not want to have a Sterncade.”

    Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ game curation discussion — Articulates Electric Bat's commitment to game diversity despite Stern's high volume output; reflects growing tension in operator community about modern game saturation

  • “You have to like the person you're married to.”

    Rachel (Electric Bat co-owner) @ working with spouse discussion — Core advice for couples considering joint business ventures; reflects on high operational intensity of arcade ownership

  • “Imagine meeting somebody. The very first thing that you have to do is navigate airports, hotels, setting up shows, unpacking and setting up 60 pinball machines, and then working 16-hour days.”

    Rachel (Electric Bat co-owner) @ relationship origin discussion — Describes extreme stress-test of their marriage before wedding; unique pinball industry context of traveling shows

  • “If you can get any Stern Pro in good condition for $4,000, just get it.”

Entities

Electric Bat ArcadevenueKalepersonRachelpersonPokemon PinballgameVenomgameTransformersgame

Signals

  • ?

    operational_signal: 3-for-2 pricing on modern Stern games generates higher overall earnings than straight $1 pricing despite equivalent cost, demonstrating behavioral economics impact on play frequency and operator revenue

    high · Congo case study: dollar play for 1+ years underperformed 75¢ pricing; hosts theorize psychological pricing effect drives more plays despite negligible quarter difference for patrons

  • ?

    operational_signal: Electric Bat facing critical storage capacity (14-15 games in back office, additional games at home) due to Stern's ~4 games/year production pace; beginning to sell off machines including single-copy titles

    high · Hosts discuss selling Judge Dredd, bringing Pokemon Pro home, hesitancy to remove Pokemon Pro despite space constraints, explicit concern about future Stern saturation

  • $

    market_signal: Venom Pro secondary market price ~$4,000; operator guidance suggests $3,000 is attractive purchase point, $4,000 requires careful consideration, payback period approximately 1 year on location

    high · Host explicitly quotes: 'I think, yeah, three grand for sure I would pick it up. Four grand. That's when you – I would think about that.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Game Plan era boards are scarce and difficult to source parts for; repro boards now available through third parties but repair remains time-consuming and undesirable for operators

    high · Gutter Ghoul question about Andromeda board situation; host confirms boards repairable but reluctant to pursue repairs due to component tracking; Bob Kennedy confirms repro boards exist

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.209

0:00
They would have to enjoy it. They would be forced to enjoy it. If we accidentally went live, like I hit the wrong button. Did you hit the wrong button? I don't know. Is that you telling me you hit the wrong button? You would enjoy it.
0:18
Are you telling me I would enjoy it or are you asking me? I think you'd have a good time with it. We should go live sometime. Let's have people vote. Do they want to see a live? You know, a long time ago, I was like, because I was under the impression that you needed a thousand subs on YouTube in order to go live on YouTube. And I don't think that was true. I was given bad information. I didn't do my due diligence. There we go.
0:48
And so I was like, if we get a thousand subs, we will go live on the Yucca Taproom stage. I remember that. And we never did that. We should do it. We're at like 1.8 subs. We could just go live here. Yeah. It'd be fun to do it on the stage, though. With guests. Okay. Maybe whenever someone comes to town. Let us know. Join our Discord and let us know what you want to do. Mike Vinicor would be the perfect person for the Echo Taproom stage. We will wait. You know, he's coming. He usually comes in the fall. He waits for it to not be 115. It's hot right now. And it's humid because it is monsoon season. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've rambled enough. Welcome to the Electric Batcast. We are back from the low desert of the great American Southwest.
1:36
Tell people what's coming up at the bat. Do you know what's coming up at the bat? I know that we have a big tournament scheduled. November 6th, 7th, and 8th is the Electric Bat 8th Anniversary Bash. Can you give the people some details about that, Rachel? Sure. Friday, November 6th is going to be our Classics qualifying and finals. Saturday the 7th will be the main qualifying.

Kale and Rachel met 2 weeks before marriage and their first experience together was traveling and setting up 60 pinball machines at shows before wedding

high confidence · Host (Rachel) describing their relationship origin story in response to Janet's question about working with spouse

  • Cleanliness and pitch (leg leveler adjustment) are the two main factors affecting pinball game speed; Electric Bat keeps games clean but not waxed (on modern games with clear coat) for predictable ball action

    high confidence · Host (Kale) response to Eric H email question about optimizing game speed

  • Electric Bat is at critical capacity for storing off-rotation games (14-15 in back office) and has started bringing games home and selling some to manage inventory

    high confidence · Host (Kale) discussing storage constraints and recent sales (Judge Dredd, Led Zeppelin (Pro))

    • Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ Venom Pro valuation discussion — Provides operator guidance on secondary market pricing and ROI expectations for Pro-tier Stern games

  • “I might take a game that we only have one copy of and remove it from the floor in order to keep both copies of Pokemon on the floor.”

    Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ game rotation decision discussion — Demonstrates operator confidence in Pokemon's revenue performance and willingness to sacrifice single-copy games for duplicates

  • “It's purely psychological... the quarter is not meaningful, but it is psychological.”

    Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ pricing psychology discussion — Explains behavioral economics behind 3-for-2 pricing outperforming $1 pricing despite equivalent cost perception

  • “Give them that time off... You both take some time off. Figure out how to structure that because your free time is so very important.”

    Kale (Electric Bat co-owner) @ working with spouse advice — Practical operational wisdom: arcade businesses require 7-day staffing, so couples must intentionally rotate days off to prevent burnout

    • Stern Pinball
    company
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Mark Pearsonperson
    Surgperson
    Bob Kennedyperson
    Electric Bat 8th Anniversary Bashevent
    Jawsgame
    James Bondgame
    Godzillagame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Lord of the Ringsgame
    Judge Dreddgame
    Led Zeppelin (Pro)game
    Joker Pokergame
    Andromedagame
    Deadpoolgame
    Star Wars Fall of the Empiregame
    [name withheld pending review]company

    gameplay_signal: Long-playing games (Jaws, James Bond, Godzilla, Lord of the Rings) require specific tournament adjustments (outlane rubber removal, ball save difficulty increases) to manage round times; practice is industry standard

    high · Electric Bat modifies settings for tournaments then reverts to factory defaults; reference to software tool (Tilt Forms or MatchPlay) providing tournament optimization suggestions

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Despite initial community skepticism about Pokemon Pinball's sustainability, operator confidence in game is rising based on sustained dual-machine (Pro + Premium) earnings performance and anticipated code updates

    high · Host explicitly rejects naysayers: 'people are making very big mistakes when they speak about it as though it's finished'; hesitant to remove Pro despite space constraints; notes potential for Pokedex-like feature

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern Insider Connected app may receive Pokedex-style catalog/browser feature allowing players to log in and browse collected Pokemon, potentially driving increased play frequency and social engagement

    medium · Host speculation: 'if they can figure out how to work in some type of catalog in the Stern Insider Connected app... this is going to create a lot of talk... people are going to play it and try to collect it themselves'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Electric Bat's tournament-optimized setups (steeper pitch, cleaner playfields) differ from home collections; pitch and cleanliness identified as primary speed factors; faster action reduces outlane drains favoring skilled play

    high · Eric H feedback: Electric Bat games noticeably faster than home copies; Retro Ralph adopted similar pitch after visiting; hosts explain 4-inch leg levelers plus playfield cleanliness/wax decisions

  • ?

    community_signal: Electric Bat cultivating community through Discord engagement, willingness to share operational practices, and transparent discussion of business decisions; strong emphasis on helping new operators/couples entering industry

    high · Repeated Discord prompts, invitation to couples like Janet to share journey, generous mailbag responses, direct outreach to help with arcade startups

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Stern producing approximately 4 games per year; pace creating inventory management challenges for operators trying to maintain diverse game mix and avoid single-manufacturer saturation

    high · Host: 'the Sterns... they're not going to stop making them, and they're going to do like almost four a year. So you do the math, there's going to be a point where we're going to have to get rid of some of these Sterns'

  • ?

    event_signal: Electric Bat 8th Anniversary Bash scheduled Nov 6-8 with multi-format tournament structure (Classics Friday, main qualifying Saturday, finals + consolation Sunday); entry limited to ~120-132 participants; details forthcoming

    high · Rachel confirms: 'Friday, November 6th is going to be our Classics qualifying and finals. Saturday the 7th will be the main qualifying. And Sunday is going to be main finals as well as a consolation pace match play tournament.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Electric Bat Cast planning live segment with Surg focused on historical software update timelines; Surg compiled dataset and built website tracking update progression (e.g., Simpsons Pinball Party to v1.0 timeline) to counter speculation

    high · Kale: 'Surg and I are going to do a live... we're going to talk about updates, software updates on pinball machines, and we're going to look at it historically... He compiled some data and even built a website where you can follow along'

    • 2:02
    And Sunday is going to be main finals as well as a consolation pace match play tournament. So you'll play in several tournaments. It is our eighth annual anniversary bash. Mark Pearson runs that for us. And it is a fantastic time. Lots of people fly in. Details will be available on our website soon as well as tickets. It will have a limited entry. I think we're limiting it to like 132 people or somewhere around there, 120. Yeah, I was going to ask. So there's a limit and all of this information will be available as soon as we compile all of it. Follow our social media. Yeah. Or join our discord. If you want to join our discord, head over to electricbatarcade.com. Click the podcast link. I think it's just electricbatarcade.com slash podcast. And there is a link to join our discord. Yeah. What else we have going on? This week is the sixth and final week of League, which means finals is Wednesday. So I believe you are going to go live Wednesday night if people want to watch on. Is that going to be on Twitch or YouTube? We only stream pinball tournaments on Twitch. OK, that's where we found a home. That's where the people are. And I think that's a good idea. That will be on twitch.tv slash Electric Bat Arcade. Wednesday night. And Surg is returning. Oh, that's wonderful. And what's cool is today is Sunday, Monday, which is the following day.
    3:47
    Traditionally comes after Sunday. Surg and I are going to do a live. I'll post about it on our social media.
    3:55
    About updates. We're going to talk about updates, software updates on pinball machines, and we're going to look at it historically.
    4:07
    Oh, that's cool. Right. That's very cool. I'm going to tune into that. Yeah. He compiled some data and even built a website where you can follow along with all of this information. So I can look up if I want to see what Simpsons Pinball Party did. I can know how long that took to get to 1.0. Isn't that amazing? It is incredible. People like to know that kind of information and people always like to guess about it or say, like, remember how it used to be a certain way. And then you find out it. You can find out the actual info. We love it.
    4:46
    OK, that was what's coming up at the bat. We have the earnings report. I've got that for May for May. And then we have the mailbag. So let's get into the mailbag. Don't forget, EBA150 is the free shipping code for Marco Specialties. Type that in so they know you heard it on here. And if you spend $150 or more, which is easy with these pinball parts, especially if you're operating like we are, you're going to get some free shipping. You're going to save, what, $10, $20, depending on where you are? Yeah, $10, $12. We have to mention Stellar Mods. Yes. They sent us a very cool mod for the Stern Star Wars Fall of the Empire. Tell me about that, Rachel. Well, it was Jabba the Hutt, and you put it in front of the whirlpool. Yeah, almost like on top of it on front. Right. And he lights up and he talks. His mouth moves and his belly goes up and down. It's this animated Jabba the Hutt thing whenever you hit that shot. And I actually forgot in a tournament that the objective was for me to win. And I just kept trying to make Jabba talk.
    6:08
    It was maybe not the best tournament strategy, but it was cool. It's a good time. It was a good time. So thank you, Stellar Mods, like sent us that mod to check it out. Thank you so much, guys. We love it. We did a little video. We did an unboxing video, and it's very cool, and the people are digging it. I'm not a huge mod person, and this one was really exciting to me. It's a beautiful sculpt. Yeah.
    6:32
    We can't forget. You mentioned Jabba. He's one of the Hutts. Yeah. We can't forget Salacious Crumb. He's there.
    6:42
    Salacious Crumb. Let's get into the mailbag. This is from Evolving Scott via Discord. That's our friend overseas. Yes. I think he's in the UK. Okay. Because he's talking about pounds. Yeah. Is that what that little symbol there? Is that a pound? That's a pound. Okay.
    7:05
    Evolving Scott asks, what do you set as your replay score on machines? Do you leave it at factory setting or do you increase it to mean it's near impossible to get? We're starting to get some regulars who come in and play for an hour but only end up paying for a few games as they get so many free credits. I understand a numerical value depends on the exact game, but do you put it up near the high score five number? Do you aim to limit it to best 5% of players getting it? As an example, I just increased Deadpool from factory to 300 million. We only have seven machines, so our regular players get quite good quite quickly on them. Also, do you do straight $1 per credit or do you have $2 for three credits? How do you make that decision and does it change with the age of the machines?
    8:10
    We have ours at one pound for one play or two pounds for three credits. But I'm considering changing to straight up one for one. None of our other arcade games have extra credits and they don't cost anywhere anywhere as near as much to maintain. That's always a good point. I'm aware you have some older games that are on 75 cents per game, but wondered if you have a formula slash guideline to all of this madness. We do. That's a big question. Let's unpack it. All right. So let's start with replay values. Yes. We have that set to dynamic replay. So as people play. Is that stock on a Stern? Yes. Okay. So you just don't do anything? I don't touch anything on the replay. It will automatically increase as if you have really good players, it makes it harder and harder for them to get a replay. So that's how we do that. And we just leave that. We just leave it alone. Yeah. On our classics. Now to – and I can imagine Scott listening to this going, but what about those players that can just sit on a game? We kind of just let that happen. Well, and they are making their own replay score harder. So it's not like – if you set it to a hard $300 million and you've got someone that can get $300 million over and over, number one, kudos to that person. That's an incredible score in Deadpool. Number two, they're just going to keep getting that free credit. But if you have it on dynamic, then it makes it harder and harder. They will not they will eventually not be getting a bunch of free credits on our classics. We do have it set to a hard. Usually on the classics, we have it set to a free credit for a rollover.
    10:03
    That's that's kind of standard in the arcade. Pricing pricing, we have 50 cents on classic games. So that's the early solid states. Once you get into the WPC era or System 11s, we have that at 75 cents per play. Then the modern games we have on dollar play or three for two, with the exception of like if we have a Jersey Jack game in there, those were always on straight dollar. Spookies are on straight dollar. Just the games that cost a lot more and worse. And we don't have a barrels game right now, but if we do have a barrels game, I would imagine that would be a straight dollar play. That would be straight. So I guess what I should say is Sterns are three for two.
    10:53
    Yes. And we find that that works very well. You will get a lot of people that will put two dollars in to play three games instead of one dollar in to play one game. So I believe that our overall earnings are greater with the three for two. And I personally enjoy playing. If I'm going to another arcade, I'm happy to see a three for two. And that's always our rule of thumb at the bat. Is this what I would like to see?
    11:23
    Bravo. So that's how we do it. You did a little experiment with Congo. We did. And so Congo, when it originally came in, that was Mark's game, and he had that at straight dollar. It was a very nice copy of the game, and he put it on dollar play. We had it on dollar play for a year or maybe more. Yeah, it was a while. And then we kept getting requests. Like this one, it was out of alignment with the other ones. All of the other games of that era are 75 cents. Why not this one? It's a little bit weird. We put it on 75 cents. It made more. So people will play more. Now you're this is a psychological thing. But who because, you know, these are not poor people that can't afford the extra quarter. Right. It's purely psychological. Yes. These are people that will that a quarter is. Yes. The quarter is not meaningful, but it is psychological. And you do get questions about, well, but my game is getting that much more wear and tear. I would say it's negligible in terms of the money that you're bringing in and the happiness of your patrons, like your long-term holding on to customers, your customer retention, and just excitement about your arcade in general, like the feels. Yes. And it's all about the feels. It is all about the feels. Think about this as hospitality, not about how to grab, you know, 14 more cents out of every customer. And that truly is our driving ethos. It's just what would I like if I was the customer and not the owner? How would I enjoy this? And every way that we can make that possible, we do.
    13:11
    Excellent answer. Thank you. I love that. Thank you. You know, we don't dry run this. We certainly don't. We go in and, man, that is a good one. I think we covered – that was it for old Scott. If not, he's in the Discord a lot. Let's chat some more. Ask more questions. This is from a boy, MN. And I finally got it right. It's MN. Right? Minnesota. It's not New Mexico. That's right. But they are equally wonderful places.
    13:46
    Right? Wouldn't you say? Yes. In this great nation of ours. MN Retro Gamer via Discord. New games keep coming out. Boy, do they. That's true.
    13:59
    They rule. They do rule. All these games are great. I presumed you keep buying them for your patrons to play. We sure do. What happens with the games you take out? What happens? Well, sometimes. It's getting a little crazy. It's getting worse and worse. You know, this was a great problem to have at the beginning, and now we're getting to a critical mass in the back. So we usually just move them in the back. We can hold maybe 14, 15 games back there. That's squeezing them. That's squeezed pretty tightly. And that just so people can get an idea of what it's like back in our office and office like workshop, you mean games like set up? Like if we soldiered the games, broke them down, took the legs off, we could fit way more. Yes, but we don't want to do that. Sometimes we should do just like a quick little video of like here's the back room with a bat. Absolutely. Because it holds all kinds of cool stuff, weird stuff, probably some garbage. Tools, boxes. Yeah, just, yeah, a lot of stuff. So they go into the back along with the broken games, things that we want to spend some time on. And now we are to the point where we're out of space. We started bringing some home. We don't really have any more room at home for any extras. I see room for one more game. We could cram one more game. Yeah, we could definitely cram one more game in here. So we may bring one more home. But we are at the point where we are selling some of them. Right now we have a Judge Dredd that we're going to let go of. Yeah, we might bring Pokemon Pro home.
    15:51
    Yeah, why not? Yeah, so we're at the point where now we need to start selling off some games. And we've already we've we've trickled that like we we sold our Led Zeppelin Pro to a friend of ours who put it on location. Yeah. And that's great. We love seeing these things on the streets. Yeah. And that was kind of why it was it was a lot easier to let that one go because we knew it was still going to be in the public and the family. Yeah. And with friends. So that's what happens to him. Yeah, but man, the next couple of years, we're going to, and I've always, we do not want to have a Sterncade. Right, so the Sterns? Right, they're not going to stop making them, and they're going to do like almost four a year. So you do the math, there's going to be a point where we're going to have to get rid of some of these Sterns because we pride ourselves in the Electric Bat Arcade of having an eclectic mix of games. Of classics, mids, and moderns. And that is kind of a weird thing for people to think about that if I've got a Stern that's still making me six times as much money as a classic but I'm going to get rid of the Stern. Right. But again, these are the games I'd like to see. These are the games we'd like to see, yep.
    17:14
    Follow-up from MN, Retro Gamer. Remember he got an option to get a Venom Pro for Okay I know in the past Venom has done well but how is it doing on location now Should I grab it or should I save for a Pokemon Pro instead?
    17:40
    I always, I kind of say like if you can get any Stern Pro in good condition for $4,000, just get it. But this question was specific. Yeah. So it's asking me, do I spend $4K on a Venom Pro, which I think is about what those are going for now. I don't think that's just like an incredible, like, I've got to jump on that. Yeah. Or a Pokemon, save for a Pokemon. Do you mind if I interrupt? Go for it. What would be the price on a Venom Pro that you would jump on? $3,000?
    18:12
    Assuming that I didn't already have one? Assuming you didn't already have one. I think, yeah, three grand for sure I would pick it up. Four grand. That's when you – I would think about that. Yeah. Because it does earn it four grand, it's going to pay for itself in not too long. So it's not – I think it's a cool game. It looks cool. The rules are cool. Some people – Especially the pro. I don't – I can't speak on the premium too much. There's more working – more moving parts than I want to – More things to fix. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
    18:44
    Venom does okay for us. It doesn't – it's not a top earner by any means, but it's not at the very bottom either. Right. So like it's earning okay for us.
    18:58
    I don't know how it would do for you in your location. It just depends on who your patrons are. But if I had a choice between a Venom for $4,000 and a Pokemon for, let's say, $55,600, Pokemon all day long. All day long. I like that. I think Pokemon number one, Venom is done. Venom is coded. We're not going to see any, like, we know where it's going to be, and it's right here, right now. Pokemon still has potential for a lot of great improvements, and I know that there's been some struggles to, like, Get those to us quickly, but I do believe that they are coming. Oh, for sure. And I think that Pokemon, just because of the IP, think about people that get excited when they see Pokemon somewhere and people that get excited when they see Venom somewhere. They're not even in the same bell curve. There's no comparison. Pokemon is the way to go on those. Get a Pokemon. We may have a Pokemon Pro available soon-ish, but Minnesota's a little far away.
    20:08
    That would be a good reason for him to make a road trip. And until then, you're going to store it in our house. That's right. He can come pick it up here. Yeah.
    20:17
    Cool. Thank you, MN Retro Gamer. Let's go on to, you know, it would not be an electric bat cast without a question from Gutter Ghoul. Ladies and gentlemen, Gutter Ghoul via Discord. He's got some questions.
    20:36
    Look at this. This is germane to the topic. Pokemon is doing amazing with two machines. But do you think having that second machine? Oh, I guess we should preface this with if people are catching this for the first time. We have a Pokemon Pro and Pokemon Premium on the floor right now.
    20:56
    But do you think having that second machine allowed more plays to occur? If there was only one machine and thus limiting simultaneous play, would that have put a throttle on its earnings? And this is in reference to the last earnings report, which was the first earnings report with Pokemon, correct? It was the first earnings report with two full months of Premium and Pro. Mm-hmm.
    21:22
    Yes, it would have throttled that because there were people on both of them a lot. Mm-hmm. We are still seeing people on both of them a lot. So Pokemon is still earning. You're going to hear about it in the earnings report. Both games are still earning well. I'm actually hesitant to take the pro off the floor when Transformers comes in in a week or two. I was about to bring that up because the only reason we're talking about moving the Pokemon Pro is because Transformers is coming in and space is limited. Right. And so like which game does it make sense to move off the floor? And I'm not sure that it's Pokemon Pro. So I might take a game that we only have one copy of and remove it from the floor in order to keep both copies of Pokemon on the floor. Because some people prefer the pro, some people prefer the premium, and sometimes there's people on both. And they are both still earning very well. It is a just a fantastic game for operating. Yes. So and I have a feel. Well, I mean, this always happens when code matures. You get more players returning to the games. So that's going to happen. But if they can figure out how to work at work in some type of catalog in the Stern Insider Connected app. Mm-hmm.
    22:48
    And you mean like a Pokedex? Right. But they might not be able to call it that. Right, right. There's all kind of licensing issues where people can actually see what they've captured in the game here. Or maybe it might be on the display. Like they could log in and actually see. Scroll through your guys. I mean, it's already there. You just can't like peruse it. Right. There's no way to browse it. And once that is updated, I think you're going to get more people playing because, you know, this is going to create a lot of talk. Hey, look at this rare Pokemon I collected. Yeah. Oh, that's going to make people go play it and try to collect it themselves. And what if on certain days the same way or like with the John Wick Limited, maybe you can get like foil legendary. Yes, the shiny Pokemon. Yeah, like I can see all of that happening and there just being a very big demand. I think that the potential for this is still huge. I think people are making very big mistakes when they speak about it as though it's finished or like, oh, it's not whatever naysaying they do. So this this is still a game that's doing very well and will continue to do well for a while, which is one reason I kind of don't want to bring the pro home is if we do have to take it off the floor. I imagine it's going to go back on the floor at some point whenever these updates happen and I don't want to have to haul it back. Yeah, for sure. Especially this time of year. We might just put that one in the office. Thank you so much. Oh, he has one more question. You mentioned the game plan boards for Andromeda being hard to find and you were ecstatic for the extras. When we purchased Andromeda, there was a whole box with a whole set of game plan. I think there was even extra Transformers. It was like all the electronics were in there. That was amazing. That's what he's talking about. Is the situation so dire where if something broke on the boards, the game would be done-zo? Are these boards just not repairable for one reason or another? Is there no appetite to have a Pascal-esque board for game plan games? These boards are repairable. They're repairable. And Bob Kennedy from Atomic Age Modern posted in our Discord after that, I believe, a link to game plan repro boards. So there are repro boards available, and these boards are repairable. We work on boards all the time.
    25:23
    It was just when we talk like that, we would rather not. Yeah, it's not. Let's talk about like the hours in a day and what I want to do and what I don't want to do. And tracking, usually whenever you're repairing boards, the components that would be on an Andromeda on a game plan board are not ones that we have in-house. So it's going to be a matter of tracking things down, ordering them, get it like there's just a lot of downtime there, a lot of waiting. And it's it's that's the part that we don't really want to do. Sure. Yep. Cool. We are moving on from Janssen's via Discord. Now, if you're listening right now, don't go anywhere because we still have the earnings report coming up. Like I would do that. Yeah. Janssen's has a podcast question. What do you do to reduce the round time between tournaments? At my local tournament, they generally match slower and faster playing games in a round, but Avengers, King Kong, and Lord of the Rings always take forever to finish.
    26:29
    Well, that's great that they're doing short playing games and long playing games in separate rounds. We do that. So long playing games, there's a couple of games that we take rubbers off the outlanes for. We do that on Jaws. We do that on James Bond.
    26:50
    Godzilla. Godzilla for sure. Other games like Jurassic Park, we make the outlane ball save hard instead of factory default is medium. So we change all of these just for tournaments. We put it all right back to regular after tournaments. Now, I remember somebody talking about, and we don't use, maybe John Schaupel was talking about this. I can't remember if it's Tilt Forms or if it's in Match Play. There's some software application that tells you, gives you suggestions for tournament settings as far as software goes. Yeah. Do you know where that is? I can't remember off the top of my head either, but I bet it's... Yeah, maybe on Pintips or something. Yeah, yeah.
    27:39
    Cool, yeah, but basically it's just removing some rubbers, maybe making a game a little steeper for the tournament.
    27:47
    Those games that play long, we do adjust them. Yes. It doesn't always work. Yeah, every once in a while. You can have a runaway game, but this helps with that. Definitely. Yep.
    28:01
    Oh, this is a good one. I've been waiting to get into this question. Our friend Janet on Instagram asked it a while back and I said we would touch on it on the Electric Batcast. And here we are. So we're pretty close to applying to lease a space here in Fremont to open an arcade with a beer wall and a glorified snack shack food offerings. We're married. I'm very interested in how you two function and how this has strained or enhanced your relationship. Any do's or don'ts you'd be willing to share? Your sunrise hike this morning gave me the courage to ask. Oh, I actually I have. That's the first I've heard that question. Sometimes I see him. Are you kidding me? No, I had no idea that was good. Honestly, we're very lucky to have found each other. We are, I think it's very rare a couple hangs out with each other this much. 24 hours a day. We're never apart. Very, very rarely.
    29:12
    Yeah. So that's, I think that's the first thing. You have to like the person you're married to. Janet, do you like your husband?
    29:23
    I think some other tips, though, I think it helps that there are things that I know that you are better at and there are things that I know that I am better at. And so we each have our own like, well, if there's anything that's about people or social anything, I defer to Kale. He knows this. And then you close your eyes and cross your fingers. Then I close my eyes and lock the door and just like, oh, I hope this works. And if it's about numbers or anything kind of math wise, it comes my way. So I think that tech stuff, we're kind of in some, there are some things you're, you know, we share that.
    30:11
    You are way better at the electronics part of it. And I wouldn't say I'm way better, but I'm better with like the mechanical stuff. Yeah, you're better at envisioning things spatially. But it's always fun. Like yesterday when we were both working on Joker Poker, it's fun when – and it just happens. We don't plan this out, but we both kind of tackle problems on the game at the same time. And it's fun because it's like I'll back off and then you get in and you might see something that I didn't see. And then we tag team it. Yeah, yeah. And yes, that is true. And I don't know how we can give advice to other people other than like the person, like being with that person. Yeah, going into it, you have to think about it because you're probably going to be around this person all the time.
    31:13
    But one thing we do do, and we don't do it all the time because we really love doing this and we love doing it together, but we will give each other a day off. Like, you know, I'll go into the arcade and work a full day so you have a full day off to do whatever you want. Yeah, and that's not an issue of us being together or not being together. That's because the arcade needs one of us there seven days a week. Essentially seven days a week we're there, and otherwise we would just be working 365 days a year. But it is nice to have that time off, and it's a nice thing to do for somebody else. Yeah. Give them that time off. But as far as like do's and don'ts, make sure you're not working yourself to death. Give yourself time off. You both both take some time off. You know, go enjoy a night together. Take a whole damn day off. Enjoy a day. Figure out how to structure that because your free time is so very important. And especially when you're starting a business, your free time is almost non-existent. Yeah. But make sure you make you time or they time.
    32:29
    Any other tips? I think you covered it. Yeah. Good luck with that. I can't wait to hear how you guys do, Janet. I am very excited about that. I'm interested in anybody that's listening that works with their spouse, just how that works. Yeah. I mean, you and I, we started our relationship on the road together. So we were like, when, you know, people that don't know. I saw there was a trial run. It was very brief. For people that don't know, Kale and I got married about two weeks after we met.
    33:05
    But the two weeks leading up to that was us traveling together. So imagine meeting somebody. The very first thing that you have to do is like, OK, we're navigating airports, hotels, setting up shows, unpacking and setting up 60 pinball machines, And then working 16-hour days and finding like just our entrance into our relationship was about as hardcore of testing as what you can do. There was no like, hey, let's go have coffee. It's like, hey, not only are we living together in hotels, we are like on like just road life. Boots on the ground. Yeah. We're lucky. It just happened. The simulation took care of us. Thank you, simulation. Lined us up. Very cool. Let's head on to and Janet, please, as you're doing this, we really want to hear more. Join the discord. I think it's the best place. And you can if you don't want to, you know, post for everybody, you can DM us and and and whatever. But we want to we want to see how you're going. And we want to give you some tips. And we want to help you out. We want this to be successful. From Eric H via email. I'm a huge fan of the podcast and I hope to visit soon. Eric H., I hope you do visit soon. Let us know. When I watch video of tournaments hosted at the bat, your games seem faster than my copy of the same one. Can you give me some tips on how to optimize speed? Yeah, four-inch leg levelers. No, don't go that far.
    34:43
    I mean okay there are two main things that are going to affect speed Your pitch, and so people know your pitch is the raising up the leg levelers on the back legs to make your game steeper. The second thing is how clean your play field is and or if you wax it. Um, we usually don't wax some of the, you know, the modern games that have the nice clear coat finish. We usually don't wax those games because you'll get these unpredictable, the ball will start to slide instead of roll and you'll get some unpredictable action. Um, but keeping a, a play field like that with a, with a nice clear coat, keeping it very clean will make it faster. Yes. What else you got? Wrap it up. Yeah, that's keep them very clean. We do keep them. We do those things. I agree. Yeah. Keep it clean. And they're not pitched insanely steep. They're comfortably playing. But I will tell you this, like Retro Ralph, when he started playing at the bat, he noticed our games were much steeper than his at home.
    36:14
    And he started pitching his at home more like the ones at the bat because I think the ones at the bat are more set up as like tournament players like, fast action, and you don't get so much out lane drains, right? Right. So I could see where like, you know, maybe some homeowners, they might not even know and they might set them up just completely flat, which is. Right. So I'm looking at our games at home. We have a Godzilla and a Dungeons and Dragons right here and our back leg levelers. There's about a half an inch of thread showing above the nut. And that's not very steep. Yeah. And it's fun. It's playable. Our D&D is about twice that, would you say? Yeah, well, three-eighths of an inch over there. So they're not like super steep. These are the same way they're set up at the bat. They're fun, but they're not flat. Right, right. Hope that helped out. Eric H., thank you for the question. Where are we? This is from DH. I've already gone through these. D.H. via Discord. Thank you for the question, D.H. He has a question for a future Batcast. And the way time works, this is the future Batcast. You hear folks talk about flipper fade at shows, talking about big pinball conventions, and the inability to hit particular shots when the flipper coils are in use for too long. In your opinion, is this a thing? If so, how does the bat or players deal with this during big, long tournaments? Well, this isn't something I even have to have an opinion on because it is a thing. Yeah. Right. The coils, they heat up. They all of a sudden they're less efficient. Yes. So yes, flip or fade is a thing. It does not happen to us at tournaments because we're not our tournaments.
    38:19
    Two hours, a couple of hours long, and you're not playing the same game over and over, you know, our rounds alternate. So if you're playing a certain game in one round, then it's not being played the next round. And now there may be whenever a game comes out and it's brand new and it's just getting played, you know, 20 hours straight. By the end of the day, there's I'm sure there's some flipper fade, but I haven't found it to be.
    38:46
    Super noticeable on the new Sterns, right? Have you? No, not at all. Which is something that they so maybe Stern has somehow engineered flipper fade out of the equation. Mm-hmm.
    38:59
    But thinking back on it, I can't, which is weird because I said it's definitely a thing. But with the new Sterns, it may not be a thing. Yeah, they on the software side and, you know, they use an EOS switch. They have optimized these thermal issues. Yeah, there is no better flipper feel like Stern Pinball still. It doesn't exist, and I don't think it ever will. Yeah, they have the market cornered on flippers. So it's not really something that we have to deal with at a show or if somebody was playing, I don't know, if it was a TNA or something like that for a long time. No EOS switches on a TNA. No EOS. Yeah. And EOS is important. And whenever you get those little notifications or you see that your EOS has broken off or a wire came off, that's an important thing to fix. So even though your flippers are still working and you're not burning up your coils on a new stern, fix those EOS switches. Make sure that they're functioning properly because it is going to help with what's going to prevent this. Right. It helps with the thermal issues. Yes. Overheating. Yeah. Yeah. And that shows, you know, we've worked a lot of shows. We've talked to a lot of people, you know, at shows.
    40:26
    I think I think the whole flip or fade thing is a little overhyped. You'll you'll see it is a real thing, but it does not make it usually does not make a game unplayable. Mm-mm. Yeah, like, well, it's not that the ramp is unhittable. It's that you have to make a better shot to hit the ramp. And you may have to adjust your timing if you don't have the full power of a freshly turned on game. Yes.
    40:55
    Thank you, DH. That was a cool question. Yeah. Let's move on. This is a great question for Rachel Bess from Joe Ashley via Discord. I have a question for the next Batcast I don't recall having been answered before. I have a chip in the paint on my modern Stern down to the bare playfield. Does Rachel, with all of her infinite knowledge of the arts, recommend using the normal Stern touch-up kits found online, or have you discovered a better clear coat to use? Also, which paint have you found to be best for simple fill-in touch-up situations of a single color?
    41:40
    You do have some experience in all this. Yeah, both on the fine art side and the actual retouching or complete redoing of pinball machines, which before I opened up Electric Bat, I did do a lot of restoration work. I don't do that anymore and not even on our machines. But there are some tips that I can give you. The number one most important thing is never, ever, ever let a Sharpie touch your playfield. A Sharpie is dissolved by solvents, alcohol, anything that you're going to it's going to come in contact with. It's going to bleed and spread and be very ugly. And your color is not going to like just for 100 different reasons. Do not put a Sharpie anywhere near your playfield. Number two, use an acrylic-based paint. A lot of times we get these games that have been touched up in the past, classics, where you can tell people have used enamel paint and it sort of looks like it's bumpy and the color isn't going to quite match. It's an oil-based paint. Right. Acrylic is going to be your friend here. And one interesting thing is whenever I started like very, very beginning, started working on play fields as a professional artist, I have a lot of like high end, like a whole art studio full of high end paint. Right. This is the high pigment, low binder. So it's a thick paint with a lot of pigment.
    43:16
    You don't want to use that on a play field because you are going to get texture with your brush. So what you end up wanting to use, I think the best paint you can use is airbrush paint like Createx makes some, C-R-E-A-T-E-X. So use an airbrush or just use airbrush paint? You can just use airbrush paint if you don't have an airbrush because it's already at a viscosity that is going to self-level. It's thin. And anything you want to do on a play field, you want to do multiple thin layers instead of one thick layer. That's always a great rule of thumb both because it's easier but also because as things dry and especially if you're not in Arizona, then this is a much bigger problem where you have a higher humidity. Indeed, the stuff on the bottom is going to stay wet and the stuff on the top is going to dry. You can you're going to have a difference in hardnesses. You can end up with cracking. There's all different issues that can come up by having too thick of paint. If you have thick paint, it's going to hold your brush mark. It's going to make ridges, bumps, all kinds of things that you don't want. So multiple thin layers of an acrylic based paint. I think I saw online at some point that people are using like Tamiya, like model paints too. And because those also have, it's the same as any, as an airbrush paint. These are made to have, be pigment rich, have a lot of intense color. But even just the like $1.29 cheap paint at Michael's or whatever craft store you have can work because those have so many different colors. If you're not in a good mind for color mixing, you have a lot of availability there. A very important tip I will give about color mixing or color picking out is that with acrylic paints, they're always going to dry darker than when they're wet. So if you have a perfect match when it's wet, it's going to dry not that way. So you will want to do a little test on some paper and hold that up next to it. It's also because acrylic paints, depending on the pigment, are going to be any paint. Depending on the pigment, it's going to be more or less transparent. So if you don't have an opaque paint pigment, and this is not anything that you can control. This is just something like yellows, reds are generally very transparent.
    45:53
    Oranges, if you're trying to lay one of those colors on top of a darker color, Like let's say you've got some kind of like just black marks on the play field from years of that. It's not going to cover that. So you're going to want to sand that off or paint on top of white to get those colors to be luminescent. And same with the fluorescent paint. So even if you have a fluorescent paint. Almost like a primer. Like a primer.
    46:20
    So if you have anything that's super bright or fluorescent, make sure that you lay down some white first because you're going to be seeing through. So the color that you put on top and that the way that the light works is going to is what's going to make that end up being bright and match. So that's kind of real short primer, if you will, of this stuff. So thin layers, acrylic paint, paint over, make sure you're painting over a clean surface, which I guess that goes clean it with some alcohol first. And then as far as clear goes. So if you've already got your colors matching, I used to use AutoClear. That's a two-part thing that's super hazardous to your health, incredibly difficult to use. You need like a whole spring. You need a whole rig. And a room. Outside. Yeah. So I would recommend to no one to ever use that. It's just too hazardous. In Joe's situation, it's just a small part of a brand new or newish stern.
    47:30
    Would you clear that? I would want to put a little bit of something over that just to kind of seal it in and bring it up to flush just to keep that chip from wearing away more. And I would use a water-based gloss clear.
    47:50
    And I wouldn't necessarily spray it. You know, anything that comes in a rattle can, you can spray into the lid and then just use a brush and put it on that way. And that's the way I would do it so that way you're not dealing with overspray all over everything and having to mask stuff out. And you can just do it in your house. Put it in the lid outside, bring it in. And some people will use triple thick for that. I don't have experience with triple thick as an acrylic gloss thing that people will sometimes spray on the back of their back glasses too to keep them something from flaking to keep it from flaking more.
    48:29
    An acrylic based gloss would be what I would use of some sort. And I do see that there are some kits online. I don't know what's in those, so I can't recommend it. I looked at what is being sold as a Stern touch-up kit, and the fluid in the cup looks a little yellow to me. So I don't know that I – I just don't know. I don't have experience with that, so I can't speak to that. I haven't seen these touch-up kits, so I can't speak on them. Some people even just use super glue. We would just throw mylar on it. You and I would throw mylar on it, yes. And that's not a bad idea if it's in a high wear area. I mean, it got chipped somehow in the first place. So if it's something coming out of a scoop or dropping down from a habit trail, put Mylar over it after you touch it up. Then you don't have to even worry about the clear.
    49:27
    And that will be a great way to keep it from happening again. There you go. Fantastic answer. Moving right along. This is from our friend Anthony via Instagram. Remember Anthony? He grows avocados. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's our friend Anthony. I like Anthony. He said, I wish I could have joined you and the Waffle Boys for Waffles 4. It's actually Waffles Boys and Girls. Yeah. But a bunch of work stuff got in the way. I hope they drank some water in between all the malorts and waffles. They did. We gave them a lot of water. Yeah. You got to have it. A lot of malorts, too. They're experienced. They've been in the California desert, I'm sure. Uh, my question I had planned to bring to the bat in person is this. Rachel, you are a fine artist. Have you ever thought of making an art package for a pinball machine? Has this offer ever been on the table with any manufacturers? I bet your art could lend to an incredibly unique machine if you were given the opportunity. Thank you, Anthony.
    50:41
    You ever thought about doing that? Well, you did some stuff for like a homebrew, right? I've done some minor things. I've done some stuff on my own homebrew things. What you did on Dracula was phenomenal. Thank you. We need to get that thing back on the floor so people can see it. Okay. Stern Dracula. It's a Stern Dracula, which is a fantastic machine. We found this game in, where was it? That was in Lodi at Golden State. Golden State, and it was, most people would call it roached. Yes. It was in rough condition. And it was the right price. It was the right price. You brought the thing back to life, and there was a lot, I think, in between the slingshots, wouldn't you say, like the art was just missing. Totally gone. And you added it back in but gave your own spin to it. Yeah, and there were some other things on there that were maybe not as, like, angry looking as I wanted them to be. So I kind of just, like, upped, you know, the teeth and the blood and put that. I would say you made it more aggressive. Aggressive. That is a fine choice of words. Yes. But as far as, like, have you been, have any manufacturers contacted you about doing art? Yes. Have you talked? Can you talk about that stuff? You're not under NDA. I not under NDA A long time ago very long time ago I think this was like deep root There were some brief conversations about that. I said no.
    52:25
    And I've, you know, Zombie Yeti and I have chatted a little bit about just what that would look like. But here's the thing. And that would first obviously Stern. And there have been no formal offers. Be clear about that. I do oil painting. I don't do anything digital. And that would be really difficult if they're like, well, we've moved this over an inch. We need you to adjust the art. Well, okay. So now I'm going to do an oil painting again. Like that just absolutely doesn't make sense. And I know that there's things you can do. Like I can paint it by hand. It could be scanned in and made digital. There are ways around this. I don't know that that makes sense for me or for them to use me for something that would just be so difficult to adjust. It would have to be for something where they already knew like this. We don't need approval so we can make the final decisions here. It has to be something that would be dark in the vein of things that I am attracted to for me to even want to do it.
    53:45
    There's just so many factors that would have to come together. It seems very unlikely that it's in anybody's future for me to be doing pinball art. But it also has to do with compensation.
    53:56
    Also compensation. If the amount of work, my paintings are like 8 by 10 for the most part. You can go to Instagram, Rachel Bess Art, and see them, and they're much smaller than you'd think they are. And they the dollar translation from when they're in a gallery. I'm trying to say this without being gauche, but they take a long time. And when they're in a gallery, they sell for a certain amount. And then if the same amount of work was put into pinball, the the dollars aren't there to make that happen. Right. Right. It would be cool. It'd be fun. I would love to see you work on a pinball machine. Yeah. I mean, never say never. I'm not saying never. That's what I say. Yeah. But I just said never. But then you retracted. But then I retract. I said never say never. This is too many levels deep. Cool. I think that's very interesting stuff. And thank you so much for your question, Anthony. Now it is time for the segment of the show everyone has been waiting for. You've been waiting almost an hour for this segment. And what do we have here, Rachel? Thanks for sticking with us to get to the earnings report. Okay. Earnings report for the month of May, 2026. In the number 10 spot, Jaws.
    55:26
    Number nine, Pulp Fiction. People have been asking us, does Pulp Fiction still earn? Boy, howdy. Yeah. Number eight, Metallica Remastered.
    55:38
    Number seven, Godzilla. Wow. What do you think about that? That slid down a good bit. Godzilla's been in the top three or four, certainly five. Yeah. Forever. And just so people know, any of these games in the top ten are making good money. Yes. So it's just because one, just because Jaws is at number ten doesn't mean like it's not doing well. No, because this is out of 65. Right. Right. Yeah. Oh, what? Godzilla. Are we going to find out? Are we going to address like why is it down? It wasn't broken. There was no reason. There's no mechanical reason. They didn't get moved. They need to drop some Godzilla badges. Godzilla badges would be cool. That's what we need. But I think when you hear, you know, what's up above it, you know, this is why. I'm all ears. Number six, Big Buck Hunter Reloaded, shooting game, shooters do well.
    56:41
    Yeah, I mean, I include that just as a point of reference for people that are interested in operating.
    56:49
    That's why video games in there. Number five, Star Wars, Fall of the Empire. People are loving this thing. People are raving about Ray Day's code on this game. I've never heard anybody talk so much about how much they love, like how brilliant the code is. I mean, you hear it kind of in a nostalgic way about Lyman. Lyman did such amazing code, and he did, and that's great.
    57:20
    But like current stuff, people are just like, oh, Ray Day is a genius. He's a real gem. So keep it up, Ray Day. Great job on that code. Really making that game special. Yep. Number four, Pokemon Pro. This is why. Like, why would I want to take it off the floor for something else? And it's like it's making it's making it's paying bills. Number three, Pokemon Premium. How about that? Yeah. So those two are back to back. And that's with base level code. That is with the code. You get, you put some serious code in this and some more fun. These things are number one. And this is why I believe that MN Retro Gamer should save up for the Pokemon. Like it earns so well across generations, but especially it gets an age group playing pinball that wouldn't necessarily. Correct. We see this with a lot of early 20-somethings, late teens, as well as older folks. Number two, pop a shot. Okay, the basketball game. The basketball game. Now, there's some kind of qualifier going on. I mean, there's some kind of crazy thing going on where people are just like putting 20s into this machine. But that started June 1st. Oh. So that is not affected by – these numbers are not affected by that. So we'll see that in the next podcast. Yeah, Papa Shot is really showing how, like when John Wick did those, like anytime you do something with its limited time and special, you make money. So please keep doing that, Papa Shot and Stern. Anybody else that can figure out how to work that into their game, please do it. There's no way you can get a Papa Shot. Where can you get a Papa Shot? Sales at marcospecialties.com. Okay. And in the number one spot, can you guess what that might be? It has to be Beetlejuice. You better believe it's Beetlejuice.
    59:30
    Okay, so Beetlejuice still earning even this month. We're in like record-breaking territory here, and it's on straight dollar, so there is that comparison. Beetlejuice, dollar a game, Pokemon, three for two. And if you add the pro and the premium together, the Pokemons combined made more than Beetlejuice. So if Beetlejuice was in some type of superposition and multiple people could be playing these imaginary copies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what would happen if you had 10 Beetlejuices and 10 Pokemons. I don't know. I suspect Beetlejuice, and if you have them priced equally, too. But here's the thing. They're both fantastic games. They're both earning us a ton of money. And I have a little bit of information about that, too, about why these are significant. So first off, just for comparison, so again, 65 games are in this list.
    60:43
    Now I'm not getting data from all of the classics because it's too much of a pain in the butt, so I just don't. So let's say I have data from the bottom 50 pinball machines. The number one position makes as much as the bottom 10 of those.
    61:05
    So one game is making as much as 15 percent of our and that's not even if it was the actual bottom, maybe 25 percent. So that's how important these top earners are to your bottom line. Right. But here's something else that I did. I was curious to see over time how much our top 10, so the earnings from all of the top 10 games combined, what percentage of our total coin drop that was. Do you have any guesses? I have no idea. I was surprised to see how consistent it was. So again, 10 games is about 15 percent and they are earning about 40 percent of our coin drop. Wow. So 10 games, 40 percent, 15 percent of the games are making 40 percent of the money. And so this is why it's kind of important as an operator, an arcade, some type of location, that you get that Stern Pro as quick as possible. They understand this. They know operators need these games both to make money and then also to make them money. And then thirdly, so we can help iron out anything that arises. Yeah. It is so important to get those new games quick. But here's something that's interesting about this time right now with the Pokemon, Beetlejuice, these games that we're seeing these record-breaking numbers on. And people have asked me, well, is it just because more people are playing pinball? Well, if that were the case, then we would have the percentages would be the same because theoretically they'd be playing all the different games in the arcade. But what we used to see is that the top 10 games would make about 37%. And it was just weirdly consistent across years of data. And in the past three months, we've been up at about 44%. So these new games are getting that much attention. People are so excited about we still have a lot of hype about Star Wars. But Pokemon for sure and having the two copies of Pokemon could be making those numbers interesting. Right. But I think that right now we are in a very golden age of pinball machines coming out. I don't think that the, you know, the pin side world maybe always reflects that. And I think that it's just the numbers are not lying. The data is there. These games are games that people love playing.
    63:56
    100%. And I am very excited. I think we're about to get Transformers Pro. More than meets the eye. We ordered it from our friend Zach over at Flippin' Out. And if you want one to call him, I'm sure he's got some more. I think this pro is going to be an absolute smash success on location. It is good. Yes. I'm going to buy something fancy. Yes. You know, Ralph has played. I've talked to some other people that play the games when they were at Stern and they all rave about the code. Like you were just saying, like people, people notice code. People very much notice code. And now that people know who is doing the code, you know, people know who Ray Day is. They see him on streams. They know him. And Elizabeth Gieske is starting to get out there like that. And I believe that Transformers is going to be a game that people start to. I mean, you and I have known since like this. This woman knows what she's doing. She's had some great input on Jaws. And her mom makes the most amazing cookies. That's true. Her mom makes some fantastic cookies. The whole darn family is just a gem of a family unit.
    65:17
    Her input on Dungeons and Dragons, fantastic. So you and I have been watching, and when we knew that she was on Code for Transformers, we've been excited for a long time because she is somebody that I can really get behind, and I believe in her. And I think that she's doing great things. So I am so excited. And I think that for the casual player, Transformers is going to be the game where they're like, man, this is really, really like the integration on this makes that like the like this feels.
    65:48
    Unbelievable. And I think now people are going to be, oh, I want a geesky game in the same way that they say, oh, I want the next Elwyn. Yes, I love that. You know what they say? Code is the new mechs. Nobody says that. I just said that. I don't know that I've heard that before. I think you're right. Right. Because code, people love playing classics. And I know they do it electric bat. I mean, they can't stop putting quarters in the eight ball. It's not because of the mechs. You know, you know what I'm saying? I think I think I'm on to something. You know what? Take it to Pinside. Code is the new mechs. They're going to make fun of you if you say that, but do it anyway. No, we'll do a shirt. Code is the Numax. I like that because it's true. Yeah.
    66:39
    Great. Also, I want to kudos to Stern for the audits. Oh, yes. Yes. So every first of the month, I go around to all of our pinball machines except some of the classics and look at the audits. I menu dive through every machine, take a picture, do the audits, upload it in a spreadsheet, and it takes a significant amount. Like this is what I'm doing on the first. I know that. And now we can just download the complete audits into a CSV from all of the Insider Connected games. Phenomenal. And so that's like almost half of the games that I'm doing audits on and I don't have to go around, open the coin door, poke through all the menus. Right, right. Thank you so much. This has been a huge time saver for me. And I also get a look at all of the other data because it's not just the coin audits. It's so cool. It's like how many times has the left flipper been activated? Like just everything. It's wonderful. Thank you so much for doing that. That means a lot to me and any other operator that is keeping track of data. Right. And that is, I believe that's just what the pro accounts, what the operators use. So if you have a few Stearns at home, that option might not be available to you. No, you can menu dive through your machine. You have time. It's not your job. Just hang out, hang out, menu dive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    68:04
    Yes. Thank you. That was the number one thing that we requested at the – All the operators wanted that. All the operators. When we had 40 or so of us in a room with Gary, Seth, the whole team, that was what we wanted. And they made it happen. Thank you. Good job, Stern. We love that. Cool. I think that's it. I think so. I think we summed it up. This has been the best show yet. Best show ever. With you, my love.
    68:34
    And on to you. We love doing this stuff together. Yeah. We're going to update you next month. We're going to have a whole earnings report, a whole brand new earnings report.
    68:48
    Send in your questions. Join the Discord. Go to electricbadarcade.com slash podcast. There's a button to join our Discord.
    68:58
    Do you still take questions via email? Do you get some? Absolutely. We do. electricbadarcade at gmail.com. Right on. Well, happy flipping. Go out there, use Pinball Map, find some games on location. Even if it's just one copy in some weird hotel somewhere, go put some money in this thing. We want to see more machines on the street. And we will catch you guys next time. Yes. Happy solstice coming up summer next week. Ladies and gentlemen, the bats are out. Bats out.
    69:33
    That was fun. That was great.