Episode 833: "A New Pinball Company / Game Today?"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·16m 24s·analyzed·Aug 15, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Kaneda speculates on mystery pinball company launch amid market skepticism.

Summary

Kaneda speculates about an unannounced new pinball company and game potentially launching on August 15th based on industry rumors. He expresses skepticism about the manufacturing feasibility of new entrants, critiques recent Stern releases (James Bond 60th, Godfather, Venom) as failures or disappointing sales, and argues that the market is only receptive to companies that can deliver games immediately with high quality and original IP rather than remakes. He predicts a market contraction in 2024 as collectors become more selective with purchases.

Key Claims

A new pinball company is planning to announce/release a new game on August 15th, 2023
medium confidence · Kaneda, citing 'one of my most reliable sources' early in the episode
James Bond 60th was priced at $19,900 at launch and is now selling for ~$13,000, representing a $9,000+ loss for buyers
medium confidence · Kaneda discussing secondary market pricing; claims based on distributor pricing intel and recent listings
Stern's bill of materials on James Bond 60th is less than $5,000 per machine
low confidence · Kaneda's estimate; not independently verified
Venom, Godfather, and Godfather LE games are commercial failures with poor sales
medium confidence · Kaneda discussing market performance; Godfather LE cited as selling for $10.50 open-box vs $12 new
Of approximately 15 companies calling themselves pinball companies, only ~4 execute consistently on an annual basis
low confidence · Kaneda's opinion/estimate based on industry observation
A mystery company has been leaving cryptic clues (flipper and lightning bolts imagery) at pinball shows
low confidence · Kaneda referencing unconfirmed industry gossip/rumors
Keith Elwin's Jaws game is coming in fall 2023 and will create a buying freeze across the market
medium confidence · Kaneda predicting market behavior based on known JJP title pipeline
Dutch Pinball is the only boutique company that has elevated to compete with larger manufacturers
medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion on manufacturer quality and market positioning

Notable Quotes

“The one company that you really want another of is Dutch Pinball, but if they do it right. That is, in my mind, the only company that's been a boutique company that really elevated and made a game that can hold its own against what the other companies with the huge resources are putting into the pinball landscape.”
Kaneda @ ~15:00 — Core thesis on what a new manufacturer should aspire to; frames Dutch Pinball as the gold standard for boutique competition
“The only way this will work is if this company can take your money and send you a game right now. We don't want another haggis situation where you say, hey, we're going to do this. We're going to ship games in just two months and we're going to be done by the end of the year. And that was two years ago.”
Kaneda @ ~18:00 — Sets expectation for new entrants: must ship immediately, not pre-order model; references Haggis Pinball delivery failure as cautionary tale
“Stern's bill of materials is probably less than $5,000 on that machine. I guarantee you it is less than $5,000 on that machine. And now all of a sudden they want to charge you $20,000 and then they want to hide from that cost. And we're onto them.”
Kaneda @ ~28:00 — Aggressive critique of Stern pricing strategy and perceived margin exploitation on James Bond 60th
“We are no longer going to be buying two to three games a year. You are going to be selective. You are going to buy a game only if you really want it. That means an entire year might go by and you might not buy anything new in box.”
Kaneda @ ~37:00 — Market prediction: identifies incoming contraction in collector spending patterns for 2024
“Nine out of 10 times, it's a failure. It's a boondoggle. It's all this like bait and switch marketing and then nothing comes to fruition. And then you spend years waiting for the game you paid for.”
Kaneda @ ~35:00 — Summarizes track record of new pinball companies; establishes 90% failure rate as industry norm
“I love this hobby because every time someone tries to do something new, Kaneda is your watchdog. He's your consumer advocate. I am on your side.”
Kaneda — Self-positioning as industry skeptic/watchdog; frames role as protective consumer voice

Entities

KanedapersonBrendapersonStern PinballcompanyDutch Pinballcompany Jersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyHomePincompany

Signals

?
rumor_hype: Kaneda reports hearing from reliable sources that a new pinball company is announcing a game on August 15th, 2023. Mystery company possibly leaving cryptic flipper/lightning bolt clues at shows. High uncertainty about identity, theme, and viability.
medium · I'm getting this from one of my most reliable sources that today is the day...Is this going to be that mystery game? You know, that company that's been leaving all those weird cryptic clues around all the pinball shows with like a flipper and lightning bolts coming from it.
$
market_signal: James Bond 60th launched at $19,900 (Stern MSRP ~$22k with tax) now selling secondary market for ~$13,000, representing $9k+ loss in less than one year. Described as 'biggest lead balloon release in pinball history.' Collectors losing confidence in Stern pricing.
high · We just saw someone list it for sale for $12,999...if you bought it on day one from Stern, are you sitting down? Stern with tax was $22,000. So you just lost $9,000 on a game in less than a year.
?
product_concern: Multiple Stern games criticized for lazy or cheap design: Venom uses flat 3D-printed parts and mechanics (Doppelganger pop-up with swinging targets) described as poor design; James Bond 60th lacks iconic playfield features; all criticized as overpriced relative to execution.
high · cheap 3D printed parts...You're telling me that that is a great design?...nothing iconic happening in that game...You know, Stern's bill of materials is probably less than $5,000 on that machine.
~
sentiment_shift: Market sentiment shift toward caution and selectivity. Collectors increasingly unwilling to pre-order or buy based on hype alone. Secondary market losses creating buyer hesitation. Predicted contraction: buyers will be selective and may skip entire years of new releases.
high · We are no longer going to be buying two to three games a year. You are going to be selective...an entire year might go by and you might not buy anything new in box...if you go to sell your used game and you try to get close to what you have into it, you're not going to get anywhere near that.

Topics

Unannounced new pinball company/game announcement expected August 15thprimaryManufacturing challenges and viability for new pinball companiesprimaryStern Pinball pricing strategy and secondary market collapse (James Bond 60th)primaryRecent game failures: Venom, Godfather, Godfather LE commercial performanceprimaryCollector market contraction and buying behavior shifts in 2024primaryTrack record of new pinball manufacturers (90% failure rate)secondaryDutch Pinball as gold standard for boutique manufacturerssecondaryKeith Elwin's Jaws as anticipated market catalystsecondary

Sentiment

negative(-0.65)— Kaneda is frustrated and skeptical throughout. Positive moments only when discussing Dutch Pinball, future releases (Jaws, Elton John), and personal life (Brenda's birthday). Heavy criticism of Stern, American Pinball, and failed manufacturers. Warns against 'bait and switch marketing' and predicts market contraction. Tone is protective/watchdog-like rather than celebratory.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.049

A new pinball company is going to release a new game today on Brenda's birthday. I don't believe it. Hit the drums. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Here we are, Tuesday, August 15th, and I'm hearing that today a new pinball company is going to throw their hat into the ring with a new game. I'm also hearing this game is going to blow us away. Oh yeah, we haven't heard that before. Now look, this raises so many freaking questions. I don't even know where to begin. I mean, question number one, who's going to make this game? Every time we see a new pinball company throw their hat into the ring, it's the manufacturing where they stumble. So who's going to make this game? Is it going to be Pedretti Gaming over in Europe? Is it going to be someone in the United States? Now, the only way I could see this even working, like in any possibility, is if they're going to do a really low number of games, a la like Dutch pinball, like maybe 50 games a freaking month. But we know large scale manufacturing is impossible in pinball. And if I'm hearing this is going to be a take my money now kind of game, well, what happens if they get a few hundred orders? What happens if they get a few thousand orders? How are they going to make these freaking things? And so look, do we think this is going to happen? I'm getting this from one of my most reliable sources that today is the day. Who's it going to be? Is this going to be that mystery game? You know, that company that's been leaving all those weird cryptic clues around all the pinball shows with like a flipper and lightning bolts coming from it. And something amazing is coming soon in the world of pinball. August 15th is a perfect time to release a game. let's talk about that for a minute is now even a good time to come out with a new pinball company and a new pinball game well if you kind of look at the market it's not really that bad of a time none of the pulp fictions are being made venom is like a sales dud right now godfather and galactic tank force are on like life support i mean it doesn't matter if like the american pinball crew wants to now go on podcasts after people haven't been buying this game for three months they're not going to change people's minds. It's not going to work. We've played the game. We've seen the air balls. We know the game is about ice cream and tanks and whatnot and cheap 3D printed parts. They're not going to win people over with that sales pitch. It's too late. They had three years to get the game right, but you're not here to hear me rag on Galactic Tank Force again. So look, that game has been a failure. Godfather's been a failure. Venom is not lighting the sales charts on fire. So it's not really a bad time to show what you got, because if you wait too long and you get into that window of Keith Elwin's next game, because right now we all know what's going to happen when we get into like fall of 2023, everything's going to slide into that black hole vortex as we wait for Keith Elwin's jaws and everyone's going to hold their money in their wallets until they see that game. So who is making this game? I mean, the amount of questions goes so far beyond just who's manufacturing it. What is the theme? Do they have money to get a real licensed contemporary theme people want? Is it going to be a remake of something that came out a while ago? Is this possibly going to be when we hear that Twilight Zone is coming back or Big Bang Bar? I'll say right now, if it's one of those two games, I get they will sell a handful of them, maybe a couple hundred, but I won't be excited because we've seen those games. Those games have been out for like 20 plus years, 25, 30 years. So I think everybody here, what we really want, let's be honest, everybody stare in the mirror, be like, Kaneda, you're the best 60 bucks a year I can spend on this show. You know, freaking Neil McCrae, friend of the show. He's on my Facebook page every day The man bought three James Bond 60th editions three of them The man has like items from outer space that cost tens of thousands of dollars I think hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even a million dollars. And he won't subscribe to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Neil, I love you. People are going to say I talked about you and I did. 60 bucks a year, man. That's like just a couple gallons of gas in the cars you're pushing, my friend. All right, but let's get back to that staring in the mirror. So if you stare in the mirror and you say to yourself, what do we really want in the world of pinball? Who, if anyone's going to start a pinball company today, who do we want them to mirror but mirror in a way that does it right? Do you want another spooky pinball? No, you don't. Do you want another home pin? No, you don't. Do you want another Jersey Jack pinball? No, you don't. The one company that you really want another of is Dutch Pinball, but if they do it right. That is, in my mind, the only company that's been a boutique company that really elevated and made a game that can hold its own against what the other companies with the huge resources are putting into the pinball landscape. But look, Big Lebowski came out a decade ago. And look, I'm excited for Barry's next game. But if we're going to see a new pinball company, I don't want to see them remake old games. I want them to come out with something new, something magical, something that's going to wow us. But then the questions just keep flooding back. Like who's going to code this game and make it great? It's not easy to code your first game and make it a magical pinball software experience. Who's going to design the game? Like which designers are available to make a new game for a new company? Is it going to be a brand new designer? Is it going to be someone we haven't heard of before? Now who's going to do the artwork in this game? Is it going to be a new artist? You know, there's a lot of artists out there in the world. it's not like we can only get stuff from Yeti and Franchi there are many people out there with the skill with the pen and so look who's going to do it and then who's going to manufacture these games do they have a line up and running if they reveal a game today and they don't have like games on the line or games in boxes people are going to laugh at them so look if there is going to be a reveal today I really hope for the sake of this company so we don't laugh them out of the room They already have games made because there is no point anymore in 2023 of revealing your intentions to make a pinball machine. We have seen this rodeo so many times. Oh, yeah, we're going to do this. We're going to remake Kingpin. We're going to do Predator. We're going to do this. And we're going to turn all of you into investors and Kickstarters, not into buyers of a product. The only way this will work is if this company can take your money and send you a game right now. We don't want another haggis situation where you say, hey, we're going to do this. We're going to ship games in just two months and we're going to be done by the end of the year. And that was two years ago. And now they're telling people the containers fall. Oh, come on. Are you serious? We have a company that could not fill a container for freaking two years. Now Damien is telling people the container is full. So let me ask him a question then. So if the containers fall and the container can hold 40 or 50 machines, Damien, how about this? take a picture of 40 Fathom Machines in boxes in your warehouse. I challenge you to do that. He's not going to do it. He doesn't have a container full. He's just telling people that, oh, you can't get on this container because it's full. Now you got to pay the 1800 bucks to ship the game to you. This is the one place where we're not going to fall for it. We're not going to fall for it, people. I love this hobby because every time someone tries to do something new, Kaneda is your watchdog. He's your consumer advocate. I am on your side. Look, I want more magical pinball out there. I do. I want more worlds under glass. I do. I don't want RPG games like Venom. I know Venom is fun to shoot, but it's not worth the money. Everybody knows that. You know that. Look at what's happening with James Bond 60th. Let's talk about this for a minute. When that game came out, other content creators were saying Stern priced it right at $19,900. You know why they said that Because distributors were buying that game from Stern for So all of those distros who were Win Schilling that game they thought they were going to make profit on every single one they sold What has happened now? We just saw someone list it for sale for $12,999. So $13,000. So if you bought it on day one from Stern, are you sitting down? Stern with tax was $22,000. So you just lost $9,000 on a game in less than a year. This is the biggest lead balloon release in the history of pinball. And I'm so tired of all the Stern fanboys who are super rich, who are justifying the gameplay, equaling the cost of this game. At what point does the data speak volumes? And now you know what their new thing is? After they're seeing this game plummet like a lead balloon, now they're all saying, well, you know, it's just right now. Like, way do more people play it. this is going to be the most sought after game ever. And then in the same sentence, they're like, I love this game so much, but I'm willing to sell it to you for a tremendous loss. Oh yeah, sure. Sure you do. Look, I get the game shoots well. There's no screen. There's nothing iconic happening in that game. You're telling me you want to rip spinners for $20,000 because all of our eyes work. Like we've all woken up in 2023. Anyone can look down at that James Bond 60th and you know exactly what's going on with that game. You know, Stern's bill of materials is probably less than $5,000 on that machine. I guarantee you it is less than $5,000 on that machine. And now all of a sudden they want to charge you $20,000 and then they want to hide from that cost. And we're onto them. We're all onto them. So many more people are waiting and seeing you're waiting this stuff out. I mean, look what's happening with these Godfather LEs. It's like these people are delusional. Now you have people who opened up the game, they bought it before playing it, and now they're trying to sell in open deli for like $11.50. $11.50. When brand new, the game is $12. But here's the problem. You can march into a dealer today and offer them $10.50 on the table and they will take it. Because they will take whatever they can get just to move that game on. So the climate is there for a new game and a new pinball company to do something that's going to wow us. The problem is this. 90% of the time, what has happened? Have we been wowed? Have we been impressed? Have those companies delivered the goods? No. Nine out of 10 times, it's a failure. It's a boondoggle. It's all this like bait and switch marketing and then nothing comes to fruition. And then you spend years waiting for the game you paid for. Years go by. The communication from the company is so jovial when they launch. And then when you want to know where your product is, it's radio silent. I mean, we've all seen this movie so many times. There are about 15 companies right now that are legitimately calling themselves pinball companies. 15. How many of them on an annual basis actually execute? Like four of them. And what is going to happen is going to happen brutally fast as we go into 2024. as the prices of everything go up, as more and more of us are being much more cautious with how we spend our money. It doesn't matter how much money you have. What is going to happen, and it's going to happen brutally fast. We are no longer going to be buying two to three games a year. You are going to be selective. You are going to buy a game only if you really want it. That means an entire year might go by and you might not buy anything new in box. And that's freaking okay. You know why it's okay? Because you got a ton of pinball machines you're staring at right now that you haven't even seen the end of. So maybe jump on them and wait for something you really want. We're going to see people do that more and more. Because if you go to sell your used game and you try to get close to what you have into it, you're not going to get anywhere near that and it's going to sit. And you're not going to enjoy that. And you're going to be pissed off. And you might as well just stay happy and keep the game in your home and enjoy it. There was a reason why you bought every game in your collection in the first place Do me a favor people Just think about that for a minute Every single game that you have in your current collection it is there for a reason You had maybe some FOMO when you got it. You had excitement when you unboxed it. But pinball, every game is random. No pinball machine really gets old. It really doesn't because every game is different. The ball will go in different directions every single time. That is why it is kind of strange to me with a product as random as pinball and every game is different and you can approach each game with these modern codes in so many different ways. It is so strange to me that people who are sitting on like 5, 10, 15, 20 games, they feel the urge to get another. Like it's weird to me. I don't know. Is it just that you need to fill the space in your homes. And please, if you fill the space in your homes, don't ever put pinball machines in front of windows. I was just looking at Franchise Batman Game Room. I love it. It reminded me when I was like 16. I had all these Transformer toys in my bedroom. But don't put a shelf filled with toys in front of a window. I don't care if it's a pinball machine or toys filled with Batman or a baby grand piano, you do not put an article of furniture in front of a window if that article of furniture goes above the bottom of the window pane, okay? It is that simple. Can we please have some class in this hobby? All right, wow, we've got Godfathers sitting. Now, the CEs are getting unboxed, and we're going to see more and more of those being unboxed over the next couple of months. And then we're going to get to Elton John. And then we're going to get maybe a Stern vault. And then we're going to get more Stern toppers that people have been waiting for. And then we're going to get Keith Elwin's Jaws. It's a whirlwind head into 2024. I'm so excited. I really am so excited because so much it just feels like this dam is about to burst. It's either going to burst and wash us away in a good way or it's going to wash us away in a bad way. And at these prices, we're all in the same boat. These companies need to deliver. We really are expecting great stuff. And it can't just be in the form of software. It can't just be another fan layout. It can't be mechanisms like Venom has that just look lazy, like when Doppelganger pops out and those three targets are swinging off of Spider-Man's butt or Doppelganger's butt. You're telling me that that is a great design? I mean, seriously. I mean, seriously, what has happened? Like you got to get more creative. Like it can be done. Like you can have finesse. You can pay attention to details. Like you can actually put sculpts in a game. So stuff looks more sculpted and three-dimensional and doesn't look like flat plastics for freaking $13,000 everybody. Oh, I'm really hot wire today. I mean, it's Brenda's birthday. I planned a lot that she does not know about. I love surprising my wife. I mean, the ultimate surprise I could do for Brenda on her birthday would be to buy her a pinball machine, but it wouldn't be a good surprise. So I'm super excited. You know, I'm really curious what's going to happen today, if anything at all. I'm just going to cut this show a little bit short because I'm planning to do another show today based upon the rumor I have coming true. So if you're listening to this right now, let's cross our fingers and hope we have a new pinball company throwing a new game into the ring. It's going to be something fun, unexpected for us to talk about. I hope it's not a remake. I hope it's something original. We don't need more old stuff. We need new stuff that brings new designers and new coders and new artists into pinball. The future of pinball is forward. It is not looking back. Everybody, thank you for your support. We'll be back soon. Kaneda out. Yeah!