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Pinball Brothers - Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2024 - Pinball News

Pinball News (Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2024)·video·51m 9s·held·Nov 5, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Pinball Brothers details structure, ABBA design/rules, future pipeline at TPO 2024.

Summary

Christian Stolberg and Daniel Janson of Pinball Brothers presented at Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2024, discussing the company's structure (HQ in Sweden, factory in Italy via Euro Pinball Corp), their dual-brand strategy (Pinball Brothers for new titles, EPC for remakes), and detailed game design for ABBA—their latest release featuring 19 songs, five song modes, and a narrative-driven quest around the "Medallion of Power" inspired by ABBA Voyage Arena in London. They outlined plans for at least one new title annually (three in two years) plus one remake, and revealed an unannounced licensed title coming March/April 2025.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Brothers headquarters is in Ergå, Sweden, and factory is in Bergamo, Italy (via Euro Pinball Corp partnership).

    high confidence · Christian Stolberg, Pinball Brothers shareholder and commercial lead

  • ABBA was not approached by Pinball Brothers; ABBA's Ludvig Andersson (Benny Andersson's son) called them to propose a pinball machine.

    high confidence · Daniel Janson, Pinball Brothers CEO

  • ABBA contains 19 selectable songs with no rules attached, plus 5 song modes (Ring Ring, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Money Money Money, SOS) and over 20 total songs in the game.

    high confidence · Daniel Janson describing ABBA rule design

  • Pinball Brothers is releasing an unannounced licensed title in March/April 2025, which they describe as a 'super strong title.'

    high confidence · Daniel Janson and Christian Stolberg

  • Pinball Brothers plans at least one new title per year, aiming for three new titles within two years, plus one remake per year.

    high confidence · Daniel Janson at TPO 2024

  • Pinball Brothers will not develop original/proprietary titles; they focus exclusively on licensed global or niche IP.

    high confidence · Daniel Janson responding to question about original content strategy

  • The development team is based in Sweden; prototyping occurs there, with team members in the US including Kelly Masarowski (animation) and Joe Schober (programming).

    high confidence · Daniel Janson on global development structure

  • ABBA is exclusive outside the Voyage Arena for using animated content from the Voyage Arena show; this is a major differentiator between Arrival (standard) and Voyage (collector) editions.

    high confidence · Christian Stolberg detailing licensing and exclusivity

  • A major update for ABBA is planned before Christmas 2024, after which the planned scope will be complete, but updates will continue.

Notable Quotes

  • “We are a global company and every week we have ongoing discussions in every time zone so to speak. We are selling quite a lot to Australia... but we have a lot of conversation with Los Angeles, where we talk a lot with Disney, we could talk to Warner, we could talk to Universal.”

    Christian Stolberg @ early in presentation — Highlights Pinball Brothers' global licensing strategy and major IP partnerships

  • “It was actually Ludvig Andersson, the son of Benny Andersson in ABBA, who he called me basically and asked if we could do a pinball machine based on ABBA because he thought that ABBA should have a pinball machine.”

    Daniel Janson @ ABBA discussion — Key story about how ABBA partnership originated—band approached them, not vice versa

  • “When you produce a machine these days, the code is not... We always have code updates... the old way to do it was that you did the game and then that was it. I think everybody realized with new technique it's not the same way.”

    Daniel Janson @ code update discussion — Reflects industry shift toward ongoing software support vs. finished products

  • “We are already working with the next title that will be released somewhere in March, April. Which we cannot share today.”

    Daniel Janson @ future pipeline discussion — Confirms unannounced 2025 release in development

  • “ABBA is extremely happy, I can tell you. They are super happy. They are playing the game on a daily basis... And also the record company, Klar Music and Universal, they also have games and they love them.”

    Christian Stolberg @ ABBA reception discussion — Indicates strong band and licensing partner satisfaction with the game

  • “We would like to somehow share the nostalgic part, the good part from the past and trying to bring it into the future. So something like vintage for the future.”

    Christian Stolberg @ opening/brand philosophy — Articulates Pinball Brothers' design philosophy and branding approach

  • “We will go for, honestly, very strong titles and global titles. Sometimes we might consider a niche title also, just to differentiate. But we will not make up our own.”

Entities

Pinball BrotherscompanyEuro Pinball Corp (EPC)companyChristian StolbergpersonDaniel JansonpersonKelly MasarowskipersonJoe SchoberpersonLudvig Anderssonperson[name withheld pending review]person

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Brothers operates globally with teams across Sweden, US, Australia, and Italy; maintains active licensing partnerships with major studios (Disney, Warner, Universal) and band representatives.

    high · Christian Stolberg stated: 'We are a global company and every week we have ongoing discussions in every time zone' with explicit mention of conversations with Disney, Warner, Universal, and operations in LA and Australia.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball Brothers explicitly aims to balance new titles and remakes to smooth revenue flow and avoid feast-famine cycles, learning from mistakes of simultaneous releases.

    high · Christian Stolberg: 'We have been looking into this and trying to make this more of an even curve' and 'We released Funhaus at the same time as ABBA. And that is something we need to learn about. It should be more like one new title and then the remake.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: ABBA design philosophy emphasizes storytelling alongside music/rules; the Medallion of Power quest narrative is inspired by exclusive Voyage Arena content and aims to provide both casual song-play and deep strategic gameplay paths.

    high · Daniel Jansson: 'If you want to make a deep dive and you want a quest to complete, there is one for you. You can step up to the game, play a couple of ABBA songs, have a good time and that's it. But if you want to make a deep dive...there is one for you.'

  • ?

    code_update: Pinball Brothers commits to ongoing code updates beyond initial release scope; ABBA planned for major pre-Christmas 2024 update, after which planned scope is complete but updates will continue based on feedback.

    high · Daniel Jansson: 'We are making a new, we are planning a new update, quite a big one, before Christmas' and 'after that update...the entire scope that was planned for the game is in the game. But that doesn't mean that the updates will stop.'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.153

0:00
This is a Pinball News Production. Okay, shall we get going? Good to see everybody. I'm very pleased to be at TPO. My name is Christian Stolberg. I'm one of the shareholders of Pinball Brothers and I'm also responsible for commercials and work quite a lot with the production that we have down in Italy.
0:38
Yeah, and my name is Daniel Jansson and I'm CEO and I'm also part of the development team. So I work a lot with game development also on a daily basis.
0:52
And basically I'm here and we are here to talk to you. And of course, we have something to share with you, hopefully, but I'm sure you have something to share with us as well. So if you have any questions at all, please interrupt, because we would like to have a conversation with you, basically. And just to start with, this is, sorry? No, it's fine. If you look at the picture or on the screen at the moment, this was one of the jobs that we started with this year. We changed our website and to give a rough feeling about where we would like to be, be we would like to somehow share the nostalgic part, the good part from the past and trying to bring it into the future. So something like vintage for the future. So that's why we have chosen this kind of screen, these guys standing in front of the game hall. I think we could take the next picture. This is a, because there are a lot of people that does not really know how everything is hanging together regarding us. I think you are aware of Pimble Brothers, but we're also working, and Pimble Brothers are doing new themes all the time, and I think you know that we've done Queen, and we've done Alien, and now we have released ABBA. So that's new titles. And we will come back to ABBA since that's the new thing for us being here this time. But what not so many people know is that we are also behind the remakes of Funhaus.

high confidence · Daniel Janson on ABBA software roadmap

  • Funhouse is in full production, with two versions available; it was made via Euro Pinball Corp (EPC), not Pinball Brothers directly.

    high confidence · Christian Stolberg clarifying branding and production split

    • Daniel Janson @ licensing strategy discussion — Clarifies commitment to licensed IP only, no original content

  • “The big task, the sort of the end goal of the game is to piece this medallion of power together in the game. And that will lead you to the final wizard mode of the game. And the end goal of the game is to make ABBA into immortal avatars.”

    Daniel Janson @ ABBA rule design discussion — Explains the narrative-driven quest structure and final wizard mode of ABBA

    • ABBA
    game
    Funhouse (remake)game
    Queengame
    [name withheld pending review]game
    Predatorgame
    ABBA Voyage Arenaevent
    Pinball News (Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2024)event
    PBUSAcompany
    Klar Music and Universalcompany
    Voyage (ABBA pinball edition)game
    Arrival (ABBA pinball edition)game
    Brian Allenperson
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Pinball Brothers secured exclusive rights (outside Voyage Arena) to use animated content from ABBA Voyage Arena in their Voyage collector edition, creating differentiation vs. standard version.

    high · Christian Stolberg: 'We are allowed to use this as the only exclusive, I would say, in the world, except for Voyager Arena' regarding animated medallion challenge sequences from Voyage.

  • ?

    machine_intel: Pinball Brothers confirmed work on an unannounced licensed title coming March/April 2025; described as 'super strong title' with complex licensing involved.

    high · Daniel Jansson: 'We are already working with the next title that will be released somewhere in March, April. Which we cannot share today' and earlier 'we feel this will be good.'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Pinball Brothers managing simultaneous production at Italy facility (Funhouse in full production, Alien being built), with deliberate staggering of new vs. remake releases to maintain steady output and supply.

    high · Christian Stolberg: 'We have a factory going on for full at the moment' and 'we have plenty of games going on'; balancing Funhouse remake with ABBA and Alien new titles.

  • ?

    design_innovation: ABBA represents deliberate aesthetic departure for pinball industry—minimalist, clean artwork approach vs. industry norm of dense detail; required confidence to deviate from collector expectations.

    high · Christian Stolberg: 'We needed to be quite brave in this, because everybody knows about pinball. It's a lot of details and it's a lot of things happening...this other approach should be...quite clean, the picture, and the logo should be very easy to recognize.'

  • ?

    product_launch: ABBA released with two editions (Arrival standard, Voyage collector); strong internal reception from ABBA band members, Universal/Klar Music, and Voyage Arena partners; gameplay supports both casual and competitive depth.

    high · Christian Stolberg: 'ABBA is extremely happy...They are playing the game on a daily basis...And also the record company, Klar Music and Universal, they also have games and they love them.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball Brothers actively soliciting feedback at TPO 2024 and positioning themselves as learning from market feedback and adjusting strategy (e.g., release cadence lessons).

    medium · Daniel Jansson: 'We always want feedback from everybody, what you want to see in the game' and public admission of learning from simultaneous ABBA/Funhouse release mistake.

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Brothers navigates complex multi-property licensing (especially Alien with dual films, ABBA with exclusive Voyage Arena rights, upcoming unannounced title); smaller scale vs. Stern but managing major IP partnerships.

    high · Audience member noted 'licensing hell' for Alien dual films; Christian Stolberg explained 'we are looking for a title that we like and talking to them and then negotiate' with companies like Disney, Warner, Universal.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: ABBA's minimalist artistic direction initially risked market rejection but has been well-received; signals potential industry willingness to embrace aesthetic diversity beyond traditional dense-detail pinball artwork.

    medium · Christian Stolberg: 'we didn't know really how the market would react. But so far we feel it has gone well' despite 'challenging for the pinball industry' aesthetic shift.

    • 2:47
    So that's also us. So that should be good to know. But we are trying to separate this with a certain different brand, so to say. So we have one brand that is Pinball Brothers working with new titles, the new games. And then we have the remakes that is being done by EPC, our factory, that is located down in Italy. So if you look at the map, I don't know if you can see it, the headquarter for Pinball Brothers is in Sweden, up in a city called Ergå. and our factory is based down in Italy, in Bergamo, where we are doing the remakes and at the moment we are actually building Alien at the moment also, so we have plenty of games going on and to put it this way, one thing that people do not talk that much about is that, how should I say, It's a challenge in this business to have a flow that is quite even. It's a little bit like this all the time. You need to do new releases all the time. And when you do the new releases, everybody's waiting for the games. And then it becomes nothing. And then a new title becomes. So we have been looking into this and trying to make this more of an even curve. And that's also why we try to balance between the remakes like Funhaus at the moment and ABBA. So, we have a factory going on for full at the moment. But, of course, that also leads to a problem that we sometimes have to wait for the game a little bit because people want their new games immediately. But we're trying to get more of an even surface. And I think that's a way to act that is good for everybody because it's not good to have these kind of peaks all the time. So, but going back to Daniel, would you like to fill in? Yes, I just wanted to say that the development team is based in Sweden. The prototyping is taking place there. But we also have sort of a global team. So we actually have people in the US. Some of you may know that. We have guys like Kelly Masarowski who works on animation. and Joe Schober for programming and others. So it's a global effort, but it's run from Sweden, you could say.
    5:25
    Yeah, and perhaps, I don't know if it might be interesting for you that we're really a global company, and every week we have ongoing discussions in every time zone, so to speak. We are selling quite a lot to Australia, which is a certain different, totally different time zone, but we have a lot of conversation with Los Angeles, where we talk a lot with Disney, we could talk to Warner, we could talk to Universal, and we have our own people also in this country. So basically, we have the headquarter in Sweden, but I would say that we are working globally, and I think it works today to do that with the Teams and Zoom connections. But it's always important also to meet like we do right now.
    6:20
    And then I just should mention perhaps that we have a hub also, of course, in North America, which is the biggest market for us and important to have a hub there. And that's PBUSA. So that's how we are set up at the moment. Any questions regarding that? Have you heard about Funhouse? Did you know that we were doing Funhouse? You heard about Funhouse, but you didn't know it was us.
    6:48
    Okay, we managed to fool you there. You're doing a remake of Funhouse? Sorry? You're remaking Funhouse? Yes. You could buy it. Yes, I remember something from the original. Originally, Pat Dollar intended to put in a mechanical clock in the playfield, but it was removed for costs to be replaced with lights. Are you considering putting up a regional but common block idea in the game?
    7:14
    Unfortunately not. But I appreciate your question. Yeah. No, no, I mean, Phalas is now what it is, and it's ongoing. We got two versions, don't we? Yeah, that's correct.
    7:30
    And we are in full production, but there will come probably new remakes. We cannot share right now which one it would be, but it would be new remakes. And it would be also perhaps I should say that the way we look at new titles is approximately, we will do at least one new title every year. And I would say I think the aim will be to do three new titles within two years. So it's a little bit faster than one title a year. And on top of that I would say one remake. So that's the rough plan. So as you then understand, we are already working with the next title that will be released somewhere in March, April. Which we cannot share today, but... Okay, next picture. Sorry, yeah? Do you have a license? Or do you have a title license to your own property? No, no, that's a title that we work together with a licensed company. So it's a title you will... Yeah, it's not something that we have made up, but we think we have, honestly, a super strong title. But you always do, but this time we feel this will be good. I'm curious, is Glimmer Brothers only going to focus on licensed film machines, or will there also be titles based on original content? We will not do in that case, what do you mean, original, something that we make up ourselves. Yes, something like a generic fantasy game or something. No, that will not be our strategy. We will go for, honestly, very strong titles and global titles. Sometimes we might consider a niche title also, just to differentiate. But we will not make up our own. On the other hand, we will do the remix. So that will be, how should I say, the balance between new titles and remakes.
    9:46
    So I have a question for the people. When you want to ask something, please raise your hand and I come over to you. Then all the people can understand your question. Thank you for that. I think we've got one question. Yeah. Hi. I'm Mike. There's a big range of pinball machines. And Funnels is not System 11. It's all right. So the question is, when you do remakes, it's more all pinball machines or till what date? It's all right. machines or to what? Why? If it is older, if you mean if you base it. System 11 or WPC 95 like a... Yeah, I get the question. It's a good one because Funhaus is obviously in that breaking point between System 11 and WPC. But we can't really say, but you could expect some WPC games for sure. I guess that's not a huge surprise. Another question from this side. Will we also make conversion kits for existing machines or have this Spices machine twice? I don't know, maybe I have to make Twilight Zone or something in a new version. We have also, like Bob from Dutch Pinball, we have conversion kits for an existing game. You mean like the 2.0 kits for Whirlwind and Funhouse before, or Embryo Pinbot? No, right now we are focusing on games, so full games. Yeah, but I mean, we are making plans for a long time ahead. We intend to stay here for a very long time. And so you never know what happens, but it's not in the plans right now. I'm a bit confused about your WP's hearing mix. Will they be made as extra cabinets, as conversion kits for racing cabinets, or both as an option for you? No, it's full games that is being planned and considered. So no conversion? No, not for the moment. But as I said, it could happen in the future perhaps, but not right now. How do you arrange the licensing? Because to me Pinball Brothers is quite new. quite new, I only knew Stern Pinball, one of the big names. Pinball Brothers is like new to me. How do you arrange like a big license like the Alien franchise And especially with two movies in the same cabinet That seems to me like licensing hell Yeah it very difficult It tough but it not impossible
    12:53
    I mean, how we're handling it is like I said, it's quite fun, I think. I really like the situation that we are, of course, a quite small company. But when we're playing with license, we're playing with huge companies like Disney, Warner and stuff. And the way it goes is that we are looking for a title that we like and talking to them and then negotiate. And then normally it could be one or two titles. It could be three titles. It depends. And of course we are also looking on our competitors and competitors and we got a pretty tough, rough picture of how they act and we know there are a lot of rumors going on and since we are working behind the scenes we know that when people think they know they don't know so there's a lot of things that is quite interesting with this but this is also interesting for me, for us to know if we just, do you have any favorites that you would like to see in a pinball game?
    14:08
    Is there anyone who would like to give us any? Adam's Family. Adam's Family, okay. As a remake or a new remake, okay. With better sound. Yeah. Sorry? With better sound. The quality is not so good. And then you would also adjust the artwork or only...
    14:30
    Yeah, artwork is good. Okay. Quality. Did I answer your question? No. Yeah. That's the design of... Do you already start working on the design, for example, like an alien, before you have secured a license? Or do you already have an idea of what this and that is in the cabinet? Yeah.
    14:56
    No, that's also a very good question because this is one part of the complexity with the license. for us we do not start with doing anything in some sense you are not totally clear, you have a contract for the license but there's a lot of questions behind do we get the likeness from the actors, do the actors want to take part, could they not take part what can we use it could be a song in the movie that belongs to someone else could we use that song or could we not So it's, but we do not sort of take a chance and we go for this and then we buy the license. We buy the license and then we do the game.
    15:43
    I think another question about the funhouse. First there was the kit to adjust. Sorry, the? First there was a kit for the funhouse. Yeah. First there was a kid to adjust to make your 2.0 funhouse and then you decided to build the funhouse machine with other artwork. When did that come up?
    16:12
    I think, would you like to say? Yeah, I'm not sure I catch the question completely. You mean how the events, what led to the full game being made? Well, I don't want to go into details too much, but of course you can see a sort of evaluation path, if you like, from doing kids to full games. But obviously Since Pivot Runners has made full games from the beginning, it wasn't a huge step obviously to consider making full games for remakes also. Yeah, but then you decided to put all the artwork on the machine, so that's come up, because it looks really beautiful. Yeah, it's a super package of Brian Allen. It's really gorgeous, in my opinion. So, yeah. But I think that is...
    17:21
    I think we can sort of... In today's pinball world, people want how it was before, to a certain degree, but you also want something new, don't you? I mean, if everything stayed the same, it would be quite boring, I think. So to me personally, I think that is the beauty of this hobby. If you look at, you can take any part of it really. You can take something silly, not silly, but simple, like lighting, lights in the game, the bulbs, the old ones. And then you have the LEDs coming along. And people had a furious debate about you can't put the LEDs into a game because they should look like they used to look before. But LEDs are beautiful, but I also think the old ones are beautiful. And that is the thing with Farnhouse also. The classic one is beautiful. It's a great game. It looks great. But there is also a new one. And I think it's pretty cool that you can make a new one that is liked and accepted in a good way. I don't know if that is an answer to your question. I also think, again, we are a quite small company and we are learning all the time. And the idea is to even out the flow, to have remakes and new titles to make it like this instead of that. That's the idea behind it. But this is also something that has grown along the way. So to be honest, I wouldn't say a mistake, but a bad plan, because we really released Funhaus at the same time as ABBA. And that is something we need to learn about. It should be more like one new title and then the remake. Now it became both at the same time. So what I'm trying to say is we have plans, of course, but it's also something that grows along the way that we realize that this is the way we should do it for the future.
    19:23
    I'm not sure if it's early as a question, but you talk about license. How old do you have a license for Alien Ripple Edition? And I'm asking me if you get new movie sets or something inside, or new code. I don't know if you're still working with David Thiel for the sound. And how long can you change things for the alien? How long is the license here? Or also for other animals? Yeah, it's also a very good question. It's a lovely question. It's always a good one. But all good ones. But it is one of the complicated things because you don't get a license forever, but you can, of course, extend them, make them longer, so to say. So we don't see a stop for Alien, for example. And did you mention updates coming for Queen as well? No, I haven't. We continuously intend to update the games onwards. So there are thoughts and plans for an alien object also. So it's, yeah, we have a lot to do. This year? That is not likely this year. Because this year, I realize now, when we talk, it's not that long. I would say also that it's not a super strong part of our strategy. but somehow I think we can see some kind of connections with Queen and Abba as a title. And Alien is, of course, a complete different title. But we're thinking a little bit in a way that what title could harmonize very well with Alien. So we have some kind of structure. When you produce a machine these days, the code is not... We always have code updates. We used to have when we have the Indiana Jones for millions. They send out the machines, we never get a code update. And now, when is a Pimble software finished?
    21:43
    When? Yeah, it's never finished. But of course, there are a few different things to that. When you plan a game, you obviously have a scope for the game. And if we take ABBA, that we're going to talk a little bit more about in a few minutes, I think, you can see it this way, that we are making a new, we are planning a new update, quite a big one, before Christmas, which isn't far away. But after that update, I would say that all the sort of, the entire scope that was planned for the game is in the game. But that doesn't mean that the updates will stop. We will continue to make updates. There are tweaks, there are bug fixes, there are good ideas coming up. So we always want feedback from everybody, what you want to see in the game. We can't guarantee that we can add everything in the games that everybody wants, of course. But we consider everything. And I think that as long as it makes sense to make updates, we might continue to do it. I would also say, I use this phrase, vintage for the future. I mean, the old way to do it was that you did the game and then that was it. It was a mechanical solution and then you're ready. I think everybody realized with new technique it's not the same way. So I think that's what we mean with taking something into the future. Of course, at a certain level, something is almost done, but we could still update. We could still put new things in the machine.
    23:27
    Yeah. Should we move on? I think we're running out of time, so a very short question. Speaking of Queen, I heard it was supposed to be a white body machine, but it became standard size when released. Why?
    23:44
    Because we wanted to do a standard. It's the simple answer. So, in other words, it's become costs. No, it wasn't.
    23:53
    Why was it? No, it wasn't. To be honest with you, we would have saved costs to stay with the white body, if that makes sense. make sense. If you think about it, it doesn't make sense to change the body of the game. You get a lot of extra cost, actually. But I do understand that those kind of thoughts comes up, because it's quite easy to think so. No, it was nothing about that. It was more about getting a good, making a good game. It's always about making a good game. Of course, you have to look at cost. It would be silly to be standing here and saying that it doesn't matter what the game costs to produce, because it does. But we want to make good games with a lot of stuff in them. And we, yeah, that's the bottom line, I think. Okay, should we then go into ABBA? I'm going to leave this picture up for you. I just want I was going to say... Sorry. I think everybody knows ABBA, it's a quite iconic band, and I would say one of the biggest bands from the 70s. And of course there's a lot of exciting things behind the scenes also regarding ABBA, and we, of course, are in contact with the band quite frequently, and especially one thing is that it was in this case not us approaching them It was actually them approaching us So everything starts I don know if you could just say very short how that happened Yeah, it was actually Ludvig Andersson, the son of Benny Andersson in ABBA, who he called me basically and asked if we could do a pinball machine based on ABBA because he thought that ABBA should have a pinball machine. And I think everybody agrees to that. And we agree to that. And that's why we have a Pimbl machine based on ABBA today. So that's the short story. And also that Ludwig was also taking part in the development of the machine. Yeah, to some extent.
    26:18
    Yeah, with that being said, we can also this is a picture coming from one of the versions that we will talk a little bit about. But the artwork, perhaps you should say something about that. I think it was a request, actually, from Ludwig. And he wanted something. Yeah, he wanted something. He guided us to a Swedish artist named Andreas Benvik, a great artist. And he got the assignment, basically, to do a very ABBA-like artwork. And that is, is it correct to say minimalistic? Yeah, to some extent. I think this is also something that, how should I say, we needed to be quite brave in this, because everybody knows about pinball. It's a lot of details and it's a lot of things happening. And APA has this other approach that should be, how should I say, quite clean, the picture, and the logo should be very easy to recognize, not too much things around. And you know that there are a lot of producers that especially focus on having a lot of details in artworks. So that was one thing that was a little bit challenging for us, and we didn't know really how the market would react. But so far we feel it has gone well, But it was something that I think was a little bit challenging for the pinball industry.
    27:55
    Yeah. But ABBA is extremely happy, I can tell you. They are super happy. They are playing the game on a daily basis, I should say. And also the record company, Klar Music and Universal, they also have games and they love them. So that's great.
    28:18
    And here is the full game, obviously. You have seen it, so it's... But I don't think you've ever seen Arvo themselves play the machine. You haven't. So it's... We have to ask for that. But this is the limited version. So this is the one we call Arrival.
    28:40
    I think we can move on quite. Yeah. But then the big story really is, you know, I don't know if you're aware of ABBA Voyage Arena in London. It's a huge... ABBA is quite special in that sense also that they do not share that much and do not very often do things like, similar things like people machines. They have done, of course, ABBA the movie and they've made also Mamma Mia, I think, the theater. So they've done things and it's been very successful, but they do not often do things like this. So that's a quite extraordinary thing that they did the Voyage Arena. I think everybody was doubtful with that really fly. And I think, I don't know how many years they have been running Voyage Arenas. I think this is the third year. And I think they planned for one year in the beginning. But it's been playing full houses all the time. And one big part of the Voyage Arena is that they spend quite a lot of money to invest in the artwork for Voyage. and there's a special story behind the game which is that the lead person is the Shinoda from Voyage. So that is one thing that I think we are exclusive in the world except for Voyage Arena. It's only us that are allowed to work with that animation that is also our game. So it's also a very big part, major part of our story in the game. And that is also something I forgot to tell you about. And that is that we are also trying to focus not only having a game and trying to win some points. We would like to have a good story how you get those points. And Daniel will go into that. But the big thing right now is that we are allowed to use this as the only exclusive, I would say, in the world, except for Voyager Arena. And that's also one reason behind why we have a differentiation between the next game that comes out, the Voyage game, which is another license that we need to have to be able to work with the Voyage. So this is our collector edition, which is a different approach, of course.
    31:14
    Questions on that? We can change to this one, I guess, because here you have both the games side by side. And they are pretty different from each other. I guess you agree to that. And also, I think you already said, see, we have both games out on there.
    31:37
    So you should play it before you leave. I think we take the next... Are the games mechanically the same? I guess so, right? Yes. Is the artwork that different? Yes.
    31:57
    Yeah. I think this is your table. My section. Okay, prepare for two hours. No, we shouldn't do this too long. But I wanted to share with you a bit,
    32:13
    an overview of the rules in the game, and as Christian touched on, I think, the story, because a music pin is a music pin, most people say, and to some degree that is also true for ABBA, of course. Yeah, we actually have this, the rules flow chart if you want it, we can share it with you on a pretty nice printed paper.
    32:44
    Kristen will hand them out. In the meantime, I can tell you that if you start in that, in that end of it, you can say that ABBA contains 19 songs when you start the game. You have 19 songs to choose from of their iconic catalogue. And those songs are background songs you can say. They have no rules attached to them. So when you go up to the game and you hit the start button and you launch the ball, you can choose any song you feel like. It doesn't really matter for the scores or strategy or anything.
    33:25
    There's more than 20 songs in total in games. There are a few songs that are tied to certain parts of the game and those you can't use as background songs.
    33:39
    On top of that, you have five song modes in the game. We have sort of focused on five songs that we have built rules around. And those are Ring Ring, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Money Money Money and SOS. And just to go into people rules, details, you shoot the song drop targets to the left, lower left in the game and then you light up the scope, the song scope, which is located just below the helicopter and then when you shoot the scope you start one of the song modes basically. And when you have played all the song modes you qualify for the mini wizard mode called voyage and in that mini wizard mode the song on and on and on is used and that is not, You can't hear that song anywhere else in the game. So that is the sort of song part of the game, I could say. See if you move on to the next one. But Christian touched a little bit from the Voyage Arena and the story there. And actually, Shinola, the company behind the animated movies that are part of the show in London, They made a story in two movies about a character called Rora, who is on a quest, if you like, and she finds an ancient medallion, and we have chosen to call that medallion the Medallion of Power. And we have sort of used that story and brought it into the ABBA game. And the big task, the sort of the end goal of the game is to piece this medallion of power together in the game. And that will lead you to the final wizard mode of the game. And the end goal of the game is to make ABBA into immortal avatars. So when you play the game, your goal is to make ABBA immortal. So it's just a tiny little task to do that.
    36:02
    You get the pieces of the medallion by completing four main tasks in the game. And each and every one of these tasks leads up to a challenge, which we call medallion challenge. And I will touch on that very briefly in the next picture. But just to give you an idea, the main tasks are collecting all the band members, you have to collect all the outfits. ABBA was very famous for all the outfits they have back in the day, and you have to collect all those famous outfits. You also have to collect their instruments. And finally, you have to revisit all the tours they did back in the day. They did six big tours. And you are playing them in chronological order. So you play them in Sweden, the northern countries, Europe, and the US, Australia, and Japan. And once you have completed all these tasks, you have collected all the pieces of the medallion. And after that, or not after that, you can do it in parallel, but you also have to play the three multiballs in the game. And that is the Waterloo multiball, the Super Trooper multiball, and the Arrival multiball. And the arrival multiple is the one where you lock the balls into the helicopter. So that is the goal of that. Questions? Easy to follow? One moment. How do you make up the rules for the complete game? So I'm not the best player in the world, and it's very difficult for me to complete all the tasks.
    38:10
    So how do you envision that the average player will complete the game? It a very good question It very hard to make a game that works for everybody Of course you have different settings in the game so you can make it easier and harder That is one way of doing it. You can do both physically, of course you can make some adjustments to post and stuff like that for the outlines for instance. But also in the software you can make it easier. Like in all pinball machines I would say. When you collect band members,
    38:48
    for instance, if you put it on super hard you have to make six shots to complete the band member. If you put it very easy you can start on the fourth step so you just have to make two shots to complete the band member. So there are things to do. There's also another thing which I think has been done for some games also in the past. We are actually planning for having a start menu where you potentially could play the Wizard mode stand alone if you want to experience it. If you have bought the game, you want to see it, you want to play it, but it's really hard to get there. I do understand that. So yeah, when you have played all the multiballs, you have powered the medallion up. And you can move on. Yeah.
    39:49
    But before just touching on the final wizard mode, I just want to revisit the medallion challenges, which are pretty big happening in the game. When you complete one of those main tasks, you will qualify to start the medallion challenge. And believe me, you will not miss when it's available to start. And each and every one of these challenges are based on different parts of that animated movie in the ABBA Voyage Arena. And that is why we have given them names even. So the challenges are called Dragon Walk, Water Skip, Flower Jump and Forest Run. So that is the challenges to complete. And they have different rule sets and they are made up in a... Yeah, they have a challenge of their own, I would say.
    40:59
    Yeah, and just to give you a glimpse of the final wizard mode in the game, which is also based on the second of those animated movies at Voyage. So that's where you finally release the power of the medallion and make Ava immortal. So, I think the main conclusion of this and why we describe this to you is to just give you an idea that ABBA is obviously a beautiful and great music mini, but it's also something else. And if you want to take that path when you play the game, that is up to you. You can step up to the game, play a couple of ABBA songs, have a good time and that's it. But if you want to make a deep dive and you want a quest to complete, there is one for you. That's the bottom line. Okay, I see we got 10 minutes left. Do we have any questions from, that you would like to ask? I have one final thing from us. Yeah, could you? them out.
    42:17
    As much as I love Evers' music, I know it's, like you said, it's music from 40, 50 years ago. Is it wise or risk to produce a game like this for a limited audience? It is, of course. But like I said, we are going, I mean, I think everybody agrees upon that this big thing is a huge thing, to one extent. But it is a little bit like, how should I say, tempting, trying to see if the pinball industry is ready for it. And there are some challenges. But we would like also to be a little bit challenging. We don't, I mean, we have nothing, there's nothing for us to be here to be like everybody else. We would like to be different. We would like to make a difference. And to make a difference, you need to be different. You need to take some chances. And that's what we have done with Abba. And I think, honestly, when we look back to this, I think we will be even more proud that we really dared to do it. And I also think one thing that we are very happy with, with Abba, is it has nothing to do with the theme, but it feels like it's a really reliable machine. It works very well. So I don't know. That's also why I mentioned it. It is a challenge, but we are ready to do that from time to time. But we will also go over this more. We can also read the internet and what everybody wants. So, you understand? Is it answered? Yeah, okay.
    43:59
    Anything else? Is it anything from the organizers? No? All questions answered. Yeah, all questions answered. So... Then I have a final thing. When we play the game more often, then the questions will become more... Yeah. I say the time twice in the morning, so... Yeah, yeah. More often, you'll be the first. We really would like to talk to you and listen to your ideas and... And... and we would love I mean we're a small company but we would focus on building up the community because I think that's honestly one of the big part for why I joined this company is I think we need to build up a community and I think the community also have some kind of responsibility to act, to behave honestly because it's a lot of bashing and everybody's telling that was bad and that was bad And I would like to be more like, we love like J.J.P. and Stern and everybody else. We don't benefit anything from hearing that someone has done something bad. So I think we should try to work together with everybody, trying to make this business as cool as it should be, and not as blaming as it is sometimes. So we would very much like to talk to you and sometimes fulfill your ideas and dreams, but sometimes we would go our own way, like with ABBA perhaps. Maybe one question. Thanks for the presentation. You talked about niche, and as far as I know, B-52 is a pinball, B-52s have been in America, which is very famous, and I would love to see such kind of band. Is that possible? Like what, Tim? B-52s. B-52s? Yeah. Yeah, I know them. That's an even... That's quite popular. the popular and they have a lot of Yeah, yeah. That's really also a big challenge, even the biggest challenge I would say than that. Because I think, I don't know how many remember B-52. I think we need to consider like this, there are some smaller, and sometimes, you know, we are not into this to do thousands of games. If we could do a couple of hundreds, that could be enough. It might be possible. It's not on the table as it is now, but I like the idea because I almost forgot in B-52. I know exactly what band it is. That was a good mix. Yeah, that's great. I think there was one question here. Yeah, it was, you said you looked at the internet to see what people like and what the direction is, but I guess your team was composed of, I don't know, how many people? I assume 15 or something, I don't know. Maybe you can tell how big the team is. But with that team, you know as a team what you want and if you make that, you will always make something that hopefully fits the audience, but it will make your own thing, right? I think I got your question. It's very important for us that everybody who works on something likes what they are doing and are really invested in it, if that makes sense. So it's very important. Even if we listen to the market, obviously, we also have to be dedicated to what we do. So, yeah, sometimes these things align and sometimes they align less. so but yeah yeah i hope i didn't give that impression i'm not meaning that i should we should talk to you and then jump whatever you say so we need to have also a clear view of what we would like to do what i meant more was that i i see in front of me that we could develop things together that you have ideas that we didn't think about and some characters in the i don't know i I don't know how, but I'm just sort of giving my hand. If you would like to take it, take it. And we would love that. Yes, regarding what he said, he was saying, and what you said earlier, before this, I thought it was really great that you did ABBA. And I thought it was because you're from Sweden. But apparently, ABBA asked you. And it wasn't like you had the idea that there would have to be a ABBA machine. So if you look at all the different themes of pinball machines, they are all mostly American. So I was wondering if it wouldn't be a really nice idea not to go to Warner Brothers and Disney only, but maybe to look for something more European or even Scandinavian. Or Canadian like Obama? Yeah, yeah, that's a good, I mean, like I said, we are doing that as well. I think we need to do both somehow. But we need, you're right, I think we need to be different. I think that's what you're saying, you know, we cannot come with the same thing as Stern do or something. Then they could buy Stern. Why should they buy us? So we need to do something different. Thank you very much. I think I have one question over there as well. Last question. You said before I give you my hand. I got some ideas maybe, but maybe it's not for in this room. Maybe just come by my stand. I'm having a bit more coffee tables. I don't know if you've seen them, but just come by and we can share some thoughts. We will come. of course sorry we have a new seminar within I think two minutes I just would like to end this it's been super fun and I really love that you came here I just have one question, we cannot take it here but if any one of you wants, I cannot promise that everybody gets a t-shirt but if you want a t-shirt, please come let's say outside here and then we'll try to sort that out. Thank you very much.