Don't believe what is right or wrong for me Cause when the world takes me away You are still the end that I need I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said Good morning everybody! It is 5 o'clock in the morning and I first and foremost want to say thank you to each and every one of you. I meant it when I said it yesterday in a note to everybody. I'm super happy to have your support. As I do this show, it's what, February 20th of 2025. I can't believe I'm still doing a podcast about pinball. I want to give a shout out to the biggest contributors of the show, Arcade Time. The only guy that's giving 100 bucks a month to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Thank you so much, Andrew G., Chris at RC Arcades, Dan Jansen and Pete Rosen. They round out the top subscribers at $50 a month. Next show, I'll call out all the people at $30 a month. I might do something special coming up where I do live hangouts with everybody who's $30 and more. But you know, that's not going to be a separate show. Don't worry. You're still going to get Canada's Pinball Podcast even if you just are spending $5 a month, but it's 5 a.m. It is 5 a.m. And sometimes I just wake up. I don't know about you, but I wake up a little bit restless. I'm always a little bit worried about keeping everything going. Got two little boys. I've got a wife, got a mortgage. I've got an adulthood mind. I'm worried about my job at times. My company just got acquired. And you know, this is a nice little distraction pinball from everything else happening in the world. And I think for a lot of us, no matter where you come from, no matter how much money you have, no matter where you are in life, I think what makes pinball so much fun for each and every one of us is it brings us together over a common ground. And I want to talk a little bit on this episode just about what's going on in the hobby, but I want to also talk about what I'm noticing more and more. And I want to talk about how people are reacting to some of these games. And maybe it's just a few trolls here and there, and maybe the trolls do talk louder than everybody else. But as I was looking at the response to the X-Men code update, the game went from .89 to .90. And you know there's been a lot of people looking at this game wondering if after all of these months, after all of these months, Stern Pinball was going to drop a humongous code update that was going to revolutionize this game. And then you look at the laundry list of things they added to the new code, but most of them are just polishes and fixes of issues. There's not really a lot added to the game. There's a new juggernaut mode, the way you play juggernaut. But for the most part, there's really just a couple of things that are going to change gameplay. A lot of other stuff is just bugs and scoring balancing and stuff like that. And I think it's clear that this game is not going to be deep like other Stern machines. And if you want a game that's got a lot going on and has multiple layers to discover, I don't think X-Men is ever going to be that game. And is that a bad thing? You know, I saw people cry about Pirates of the Caribbean Final Wizard Mode. For like six years, people were crying. And then you ask people, have you seen the other five wizard modes to get to the final one? Because you're never going to get to the final one if you haven't gotten to the other one. You're never going to get there. And yet you've spent six years complaining that you need it somehow. Like the game is not complete until you get a final wizard mode that you will never see. imagine playing Lord of the Rings and Valinor was never in there are you really feeling like you're playing an incomplete game but I think the vitriol around X-Men is kind of fascinating to me because when I step back and think about X-Men as a game and all these owners who have it and all these owners who are having issues with auto plunging who might not be satisfied with the code The one question I have for everybody out there, why did you buy X-Men before you played it? If you start the questioning there, why did you buy this game before you played it? It didn't sell out. There was no reason to order it week one. Even if you liked Foo Fighters and you're a fan of Jack Danger, what made you feel like you had to buy it right away the thing with pinball and with stern pinball in general everybody over the last i would say four years when you look at stern pinball launches they have hits and they have misses every game is not consistently good every game has different levels of code every game brings you different levels of theme popularity different levels of mechanical magic. Some games are more barren than others, right? It's like you got a game like Godzilla, you put it next to a game like John Wick. Radically different games. And people's love affair with a game doesn't necessarily mean because there's more stuff in it. I would say there's a lot of stuff in Venom, but that game didn't take off. But what I'm noticing about the response to what Stern does, and obviously Stern being the biggest company with the most amount of launches every single year, they're obviously going to have the most opinions coming their way. Spooky Pinball makes one game. One game, right? Evil Dead. One game. You're not going to see another game in three months. You're not going to see like a radically different conversation happening around that brand and their products in three, four months. One game up until December, and then they're going to release Beetlejuice, and then they're going to have another good year of good vibes with their company. Stern Pinball, they do one good thing over here, then four months later, they might have a huge miss. Like Jaws came out, I think Jaws had like more mediocre response. The shark didn't eat the ball was the conversation. I think for the most part, people have been very satisfied with the Jaws game by Keith Elwin. But then you followed it up with John Wick, a huge, huge disappointment. And then you followed it up with X-Men, which has been a release with a lot of issues. and we've already moved on to Dungeons and Dragons. And by the time Dungeons and Dragons code even matures to be more of the game that they want it to be, we're going to get King Kong and it just doesn't stop. And I think the lesson learned, and this is a lesson that people just never learn in pinball. If you buy right away, if you order a game on week one that you've never played, It doesn't matter who's making it. It doesn't matter where it comes from. If that game has issues at this point the only person you should blame is standing in front of the mirror It your fault It on you And if you're buying right away, and I don't understand how anybody is ordering these things right away when there's no FOMO for a lot of these themes at these prices, why would you do it? Because when you do do it, you actually are giving these manufacturers a license to release games incomplete, to release games and bring them to market in a way that maybe is rushed. Maybe they didn't take the time to find all of the mechanical issues on X-Men. Maybe they didn't have the time to really make the code what they wanted it to be. And so what's interesting about pinball now though, more so than ever before, we used to be able to absorb some of these games that were a little bit more shallow, maybe a little bit more for the casual player. it was easier for us to absorb these games in a world in which prices were significantly less. Because if you went in on a game and you played it and it wasn't the second coming of pinball, you know, games like Ninja Turtles or games like Aerosmith, you know, the games I'm talking about, they came out, even games like Guardians of the Galaxy, right? They came out, they didn't really win everybody over. They weren't winning twippies for best pinball game of the year. You went in on one. It might not have been what you expected. You had faith in stern pinball. All right, you had some fun. And then you moved the game on. And you moved it on for probably somewhere close to what you paid for the game. But those days are long gone. And so now you have a whole new environment where the early adopters, think about this, what was the X-Men number? Like 816 or something like that. Some number from the comics. So you had over 800 people bought in X-Men LE. I'm not sure they sold out all of them, but let's say over 700 people bought in X-Men LE the first week it was revealed and not a single one of those people played the game. Not only that, they wrote a check for $13,000 on a game that they never played. And now that Stern is making the LE games first, you know, a lot of money is coming through the door. And those people who spend the most amount of money are typically the most discerning customers. They are the biggest fanboys of pinball. Remember, a pro version of X-Men, which you could argue you're not losing that much, right? Some sentinel hands flicking the ball and the head goes up and down. You're not losing that much. Like the actual moments and the experience, most of it is coming through the software. Same exact game for half the price. If you buy a pro, you're getting like 85 to 90% of the same exact pinball experience for 50% less money. So now that we've got LE buyers first and they're spending this much money on a game they've never played, all of a sudden the entire game has changed for Stern Pinball. Remember, they used to make like the pros first, pros and premiums first, and then they would get to the LE. They would catch any issues before they made the now look you know me i still think people who pay the most amount of money should get on the plane first how do you catch issues then before you start making the le's okay we need to go back a little bit to proper testing of these machines you can't tell me that stern pinball built with final production parts like five to ten x-men le test rigs and have them set up for a month or two and banged on them before they put games in a box for customers. They're not doing that. Like they're skipping that quality control test. Back in the old days, right? Before the internet, before the FOMO, they would put the damn game in arcades and let people bang on it for a while. Heck, they would put Whitewoods in arcades, let people bang on the game. The designers would go visit the games at the arcades and see what issues were happening, see where wear and tear was occurring, and they would make changes before the final production version of the game. Nowadays, it's all about the FOMO. We can't possibly let anybody know what we're working on. Even though everybody knows it's King Kong, we're not going to let people know it's King Kong. Everybody knows that it's Harry Potter next, but we're not going to put it out there for testing. We're not going to reveal anything to get some feedback. We're going to keep everything a secret, a highly guarded secret. Okay, fine. The risk of doing that is that you're not going to catch issues. You're not going to get any feedback that can make the game better. It's funny when I think about Jersey Jack and the only time they ever asked for feedback, they got good feedback. Remember when Jack showed everybody the Hobbit playfield artwork and everyone was like, yeah, this sucks. And guess what? They made it better. But nowadays, it's like we can't do that. We can't let anybody in on what these games are going to be that we know better than all of you. The problem is this. You need all these people's money and these people have good ideas. They're very opinionated and they would give you a lot of great feedback and thinking for free. For free. Before I give you my $13,000, I would happily help you make this the game it can be. Now look, I'm not asking for these pinball manufacturers to crowdsource ideas for games. And I understand why they need to keep everything a secret. I do. It is the smarter marketing approach. But I just think they need to test these things more internally before they go in a box. But the real issue has always been the customer. It really has been. Remember, these things were arcade devices meant to go on location. They were never meant to go in your home. An operator doesn't care that X-Men's auto plunger isn't working because 99% of people that will walk up to that game on location because it's a brand new shiny pinball machine and everybody wants to play the latest on location, nobody would even realize the problem. 99% of people on location who are playing X-Men are not looking for super deep code. They just want to bang on the new machine and they're going to put a bunch of money in it. And by the time they get tired of it, they're going to move on to the next game, Dungeons and Dragons. They're going to move on to Evil Dead. That is what these games were meant for. They were never meant to be in your home, to be lugged up your stairs, for you to buy three machines that cost the same amount as college tuition does for the year. That was never what pinball was supposed to be. And it's interesting, right? Because pinball has completely changed. Now the majority of pinball machine is going into people homes and I still to this day think that these companies must love and hate that at the same time They never had a deal with people whining about dimples, whining about wear around a scoop. Go look at every single Bally Williams game. You used to walk up to a game and there could be broken plastics. There could be wear around the scoop. The shooter lanes could be pitch black and you jumped onto an Adams family. And when that multiball started, you had so much fun. And then you got the game home and you became an OCD loser and you put play field protectors on it. You put felt on the legs. every single inch of that game you're trying to keep perfect, you're trying to keep clean, and then you wake up and you realize your OCD collector nature has consumed your ability to really fully enjoy what these things are all about. And we're all the same. You spend $13,000 on something, of course you want to keep it perfect. Of course you don't want it to break. Of course you want it to have deep code. Of course you want to get your money's worth. You know, I feel like we'd all be better off when we bring a game into our home. We should actually put it on a dollar per play. I mean it. Think about it. Imagine if when you brought a game home, you put it on a dollar per play and you actually put money in every time you played the game. I think that would be the best, most objective way to realize what you've done. Honey, you bought a $13,000 machine when you've already got 10 and you're not happy with it and you didn't even play it? Why did you even buy it? Why do you even need it? What is going on? And so I really do wonder why so many of us who have been in this hobby so long are still rushing after these things because they sparkle and they light up. I want to encourage everybody as we go into 2025 and even as I think about the themes of 2025, yes, Harry Potter, yes, King Kong, totems coming back maybe it's dune from barrels maybe it's gi joe maybe there's going to be a sonic game super mario brothers pokemon whatever it is whatever it is the reality we all know this the reality now is that it's very very unlikely that anything coming out at these amount of games with this much saturation in the hobby, there is way more supply than demand all throughout pinball. I really don't think there's going to be many moments throughout this year, gang, where you need to pull the trigger right away. I know I said previously, Harry Potter's going to be a day one sellout of the CE and it's going to go up in value and people are going to offer 20 grand for one. I still think that's going to happen. I don't think that price is going to hold for very long, but there will be that initial wave of FOMO and they will sell those CEs so fast. But I also do think that Harry Potter isn't Star Wars. It isn't Back to the Future for this demographic. So we'll see, right? Because even if you're a diehard Harry Potter fan and you enjoyed the books and the movies, are those people really collecting Harry Potter memorabilia that cost $15,000? I mean, this is the part that I just keep getting like stuck on. Where did we go wrong? You're going to make a thousand of something that costs 15 grand? It's just crazy. And maybe it is because it's 530 in the morning. But when I think about where my money is going, and I think about the money I've made and I think about how hard I work for money and I think about how long it takes to save up money sometimes and I think about how easy it is to spend like huge amounts of money on pinball and you might get a product that's incomplete. See, the thing is this, gang, I sleep like a baby at night not worried about X-Men code. I sleep like a baby at night not worried about auto plungers. I'm not waiting every Sunday for a new dungeon map. I'm pretty content with Guns N' Roses. You know, I know it's not the greatest pin, but I have fun playing Guns N' Roses when I'm in the mood to play pinball. And when I'm playing Guns N' Roses, I'm not like, oh man, I wish I had three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten machines. And if you have that many machines, I'm happy for you. Everyone's going to fill your space and your life with things that make you happy. I hope you have the things that make you happy. In my personal life, I've just noticed a diminishing return on happiness the more of something I get. I mean that. I'm not happier when I have more watches or more Neo Geo games or more cars or more insurance payments or more this, more that, more space. It doesn't make me happier. What makes me very happy is less. Less headaches, less bills, less worries at work, less incomplete tasks I need to do, less enemies, less stress. We sometimes think that if we just have more money, that that is going to lessen all of the other things that are eating away at our peace of mind. And that's where I find myself in this hobby, is I find myself as an observer of a really interesting category that has gone through radical changes over the last 10 years. Some of them happened quickly. Some of them we've been gaslit. I really do think we've been gaslit when it comes to the pricing of modern pins, the removal of a lot of mechanical magic, and a lot of it now is software. Now, the fun in pinball is the best it's ever been. I mean that. If you are a pinball fan and you want to have fun in pinball, there has never been a better time in the history of the world to have pinball fun. The variety of games that are out there. Everything is available. Sure, the prices are what they are, but man, how many other industries absolutely collapsed? If you were someone who loved jukeboxes, you know what I'm saying? Like this thing has survived in a way nobody could have imagined. I mean, it was almost dead in 2004, 2002. I mean, dead. Like there was like one game saved Stern Pinball. And if it went away, it would have gone away probably forever. There probably never would have been enough momentum and center of gravity to keep Pinball alive. Now we've got 13 freaking companies. We've got more company making games now than ever before. We've got more variety now than ever before. We've got games that provide more replay value, more to do, more to explore in a game than ever before in the history of pinball. And maybe what keeps this hobby going and I mean this is that we never really satisfied We always think that there is just some game around the corner that going to excite us even more And that a good thing right If we were just content with everything we had, then we never would be dreaming about the possibilities of what's around the corner in pinball. It is unfortunate that I don't think the price equals the fun. I don't think we're getting our money's worth. I don't. But I do empathize with the manufacturers that the cost of making these games is definitely much more expensive. What's going to happen with tariffs? You got to remember, too, it's like if you have tariffs on China, where do you think a lot of pinball parts come from? It's also like with inflation, Stern's going to have to pay their employees more. I've noticed that about the world. It's like the cost of everything has gone up significantly, but wages are not keeping up with any of that. I mean, I deal with that personally. My company hands out like 1% to 2% raises a year and it's like inflation is 7% a year. So you're getting basically like a 6% pay cut every year in terms of how far your money goes. But in the end, people, you know what I always ground myself with? Really, if you have your health, you have your wealth, if you wake up in a good mood, don't let pinball put you in a bad mood and that's the last thing i want to say on this episode is as i see some of these people on these like vitriolic missions to attack a game like x-men and these are people that never owned it they're never going to own it and they're in these threads like leading these crusades to destroy like anyone's happiness around this game like it's one thing to joke about it and I do find it funny like I do think everyone who paid $13,000 for an X-Men Elite the reason I do think you're a sucker and I don't mean this in a mean spirited way so don't get mad or cancel your subscription the reason I do think you're a sucker for doing that is you know if you've simply been alive for the last three years that every single Stern Elite that starts out at $13,000 is going to be worth $10,000 in just six months unless it's made by Keith Elwin. There has been no other example of any other game that's brand new, not a remastered Metallica, okay, brand new game that we've never had before. Unless Keith Elwin has made it, every single Stern LE is $10,000 or less within a year. Every single one. There hasn't been a single one that has done the opposite of what I just said. So when X-Men comes out, a theme that wasn't really popular to begin with, this is why this game is never going to recover. It doesn't matter what they do to the code. It was a theme that nobody really wanted to begin with. It had mechanical issues. It had software issues. and then the price plummeted. The stock has gone down. There's no confidence in it. It's now like a $9,000 LE, and it's gonna keep going south. Where do you think the price is gonna go when the code doesn't become super deep? Where do you think the price is gonna go when King Kong comes out? You think it's gonna go up or down? Follow my logic here. Truthfully, almost all Stern LEs now are gonna slide down to 8,500 over time because there's 1,000 of them too. They're just not even rare. That's the reason why I say, like, don't be a sucker. Like, don't be a sucker. You didn't need to go in day one. Why do you want to lose like $3,000 to $4,000? Why? Why do you want to do that? Is it worth it? And I'm not saying don't get an X-Men LE, but just listen to Kaneda. Be smart. Don't be a sucker. And if you want an X-Men LE, go get one for $9,000 in six months. And by the time you wait six months, you'll see if the code is where you want it to be. And if it's not, then you just don't get it. And hey, then don't rush towards the next LE. The same thing is going to happen with D&D LEs. D&D LE is a $9,000 game in six months. And what I love about the market and what the secondhand market is doing, everybody, it's just showing Stern and Jersey Jack and everybody out there, you don't have a $12,000 to $15,000 product. Nobody does. This hobby, the max that a game really will hold any value at is $10,000. Really, unless you have something super special, super rare, The COVID days are over. And even then, it's like if you're going to make a thousand of something, it's really going to have a hard time unless it's Keith Elwin, unless it's a juggernaut theme like Harry Potter, or unless you limit the amount and do crazy stuff to an already amazing game like Metallica. But man, it's fun watching it. It's fun watching this hobby. it's fun following and living vicariously through these people who run in right away and then spend months like pounding sand and in reality they're only mad at themselves because this is not a drug you don't suffer from an ailment and this is the medicine nobody made you buy it so you can't really be mad at the companies even if they release a product that's incomplete they didn't lie to you and tell you it was code 1.0 and it wasn't done. I mean, they're very transparent about where they are in a game on day one and you took the risk and so you really have nobody else to blame. Look, we're about to get the next game from Barrels of Fun before we see Harry Potter. I don't think any new game is going to be a TPF. You know, the twippies are this weekend, everybody. I think what I might do is be on Facebook Live watching the Twippies with each and every one of you. I'm going to watch it via YouTube. And so if you want to hang out with Kaneda, I think I might start that party right after the kids go down. So maybe around like 730. It's going to be me and Brenda watching the Twippies drinking sake because that's our date night and we're going to order some food and maybe we can all hang out together and see if I'm still able to say I'm the world's favorite pinball podcast. I don't know. I always get nervous. We'll see. We know the organizers don't necessarily want Kenita to win, but if anybody else wins, I will congratulate them. I mean, six years in a row. I never thought when I first picked up the mic this show would achieve that. And it's thanks to each and every one of you. Thank you for the support. Let's watch the Twippies and celebrate the best of what's in pinball. Have a great day. We'll talk to you soon. Come and leave a light on for me. I'll be there before you close the door. I'll be all the love that you need. Come and leave a light on for me.