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BDYETP 63: Godzilla Revealed, Queen on Display, Stern Gets Connected, Lyman Lands, INDISC Returns, WCS Review

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 38m·analyzed·Oct 15, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Stern hires Disney exec, Godzilla revealed with price shock, subscription DLC model announced, Queen/Metroid projects advance.

Summary

Buffalo Pinball hosts discuss major pinball industry news including Stern's new president Seth Davis (from Disney+/ESPN+), the reveal of Keith Elwin's Godzilla pinball with significant price increases ($6,900-$10,500), Stern's new Insider Connected subscription service with paid game features, Pinball Brothers acquiring Highway Pinball's Queen machine (now narrow-body with artistic concerns), Jersey Jack Pinball recruiting Metroid homebrew builder Mark Seedon, and price increases across the industry including Waka LE rising to $11,000.

Key Claims

  • Seth Davis hired as Stern Pinball president; previously worked 21 years at Disney/GE, most recently on ESPN+ and Disney+ executive teams

    high confidence · Official Stern Pinball announcement read on-air

  • Godzilla pinball designed by Keith Elwin with artwork by Jeremy Packer; new MSRP is $6,900 (Pro), $9,000 (Premium), $10,500 (LE)

    high confidence · Direct announcement via pinballnews.com; price figures confirmed by hosts from multiple sources

  • Stern Insider Connected is a subscription service that will include exclusive game features and modes behind paywall in future

    high confidence · Interview with George Gomez quoted directly on-air regarding future exclusive game extensions

  • Godzilla's magnetic building feature has been causing overheating issues on location due to heavy use

    medium confidence · Hosts report hearing this from location operators; not officially confirmed

  • Highway Pinball's Queen machine was converted from wide-body to narrow-body by Pinball Brothers; displayed at 'Queen The Greatest' pop-up shop in London

    high confidence · Hosts verify via pinballnews.com reporting; physical display confirmed

  • Mark Seedon (arcade with five r's) who built Metroid homebrew for 4 years recruited by Jersey Jack Pinball

    high confidence · Hosts cite direct Twitch/community knowledge of builder and JJP recruitment

  • Waka LE price increased from $9,500 at launch to $11,000 (JJP pricing pattern)

    high confidence · Hosts discuss known pricing history; Wizard of Oz comparison cited

  • Pinball Brothers' Alien machines have been experiencing quality issues

    medium confidence · Hosts report hearing this from community; not officially stated

Notable Quotes

  • “Stern just announced Insider Connected. It's a subscription service. We can see where this is going... Software companies are doing this. You know, I use Adobe products all the time. It's all Adobe Creative Cloud now. It's like a bottomless pit of pinball money.”

    Nick Lane @ ~20:00 — Frames subscription service concern in context of SaaS business model expansion into pinball

  • “In the future, we intend to create exclusive game extensions, such as special access to new modes or new rules, and features to increase the all-access connected values.”

    George Gomez (quoted) @ ~21:45 — Official confirmation that Stern plans to monetize game features behind paywall

  • “The new prices are $6,900, $9,000, and $10,500... Oh, God. Wow. I can't even process that.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~38:00 — Host reaction to Godzilla pricing shock; reflects community sentiment on price increases

  • “It looks like a Gottlieb machine from the eighties. That's what they're going for. They nailed it. Yeah. They really did.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~76:00 — Ironic approval of Queen's retro aesthetic despite acknowledging artwork quality issues

  • “They don't want to wait like three years for it to come out. It's called the Jersey Jack Pirates of the Caribbean effect.”

    Nick Lane @ ~84:00 — References JJP's historical lesson on early announcements creating customer frustration; applies to Queen reveal timing

  • “If you're like Gorn or Richie Rich, you would have gotten this as a kid. There you go. But for a home model, it looks solid.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~70:00 — Acknowledges Stern's home Jurassic Park at $4,600 is positioned as luxury gift product, not truly 'affordable'

Entities

Seth DavispersonStern PinballcompanyGodzillagameKeith ElwinpersonInsider ConnectedproductPinball BrotherscompanyQueen (game)

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball hires Disney+ executive as president; clear strategic pivot toward subscription-based recurring revenue model in pinball market

    high · Seth Davis background in ESPN+ and Disney+ combined with immediate announcement of Insider Connected subscription service with George Gomez explicitly stating plans for exclusive game features behind paywall

  • ?

    community_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball recruits Mark Seedon from 4-year homebrew Metroid streaming project; validates homebrew builder pipeline to commercial design

    high · Hosts cite knowledge of Seedon's long-term Metroid project on Twitch and recognize JJP hire as validation of old guard plus new talent approach

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Queen pinball artwork heavily criticized as inconsistent, plain, and Gottlieb-era retro in negative sense; only start button area praised for creativity

    high · Hosts and chat participants express frustration with artwork quality; hosts describe inconsistent artistic styles between band member depictions; side box described as 'just super basic'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern emphasizing minor cosmetic feature (Jurassic Park topper achievements/DLC) and home model 'affordability' branding despite prices remaining premium

    medium · Stern URL labeled 'affordable-home-game' for $4,600 product; hosts sarcastically note affordability claim; topper positioning as content unlock mechanism

  • ?

    community_signal: Mark Seedon transition from 4-year independent homebrew streamer to Jersey Jack Pinball staff designer represents talent migration from community to manufacturer

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.295

0:00
Coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, we've got a heck of a lot to cover. Starting with the reveal of Godzilla. And also, I guess a Queen machine might be coming out. Kevin, what else is going on? We got Lyman going to CGC. That's pretty big. We got more Deep Root stuff to talk about, unfortunately. Unfortunately. And we got a review of World Cup Soccer. All that and more, coming right up. Double Super Jet Pod!
0:30
I need a ramp. I need a loop. I want targets I can hit. I need the scoop. I need a double super jetpack in my life.
0:53
That's right. And now, the Hall & Oates of pinball podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Woo-boom-shakalaka! Do you have some, like, reverb to it? No, I think that's a mistake, but we'll go with it. It kind of sounds like he's in the arena or something. Yeah, how did you do that? I don't know. It's something with how I set up the audio. Good mistake. Are we in an arena, too? No, I think we're good. I tested earlier. All right. What's going on? And it's Thursday, October 14th. That's the date. And that's the show. Thanks for tuning in. That's Nick Lane. That's Kevin Manning. If you're watching on YouTube and you're like, well, the bald guy's an idiot, but the skinny guy has something to say. We have names. Who said that? Who said you're an idiot? Somebody said you're an idiot? Nobody said you're an idiot. No, who said you? Somebody said you're an idiot? No, no, no. Oh, okay. But they call me the bald guy and they call you the skinny guy. The skinny guy's a liar, I heard. Right, right. He's just showing up as his best friend. The skinny guy is Nick. The bald guy is Kevin. yeah yes there you go there you go and uh so if you're listening at home and uh something goes wrong it's because i'm running this on a whole new rig today so stay tuned uh stick around for the dumpster fires i'm looking up yeah because i have to like put the camera up here over the big old monitor that i have now so i gotta work on my camera angles all right what's up what's up how you hit like and subscribe because that how we do this if i follow like and subscribe boy kevin That's right. All right, we're done messing around. Let's get into the partner thing. We want to thank our partners before we get into this. Without them, this would be possible, but it wouldn't be that great, let's be honest. All right, first of all, our premier partner, Penn Stadium. Penn Stadium lights. Go to pennstadium.com. Use coupon code BUFFALOSAFE10%. What is Penn Stadium? Penn Stadium is a lighting kit. I mean, that's a kit's an understatement, but it's a lighting kit, lighting experience, a stadium lighting experience for your pinball machines. You can see it from space. It is controlled by iOS or Android. So many colors, so many options. I love it. I have it on my machines. Kevin's got it on his machines.
game
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Mark Seedonperson
Wakagame
Jurassic Park (home)game
George Gomezperson
Gary Sternperson
Dave Petersonperson
Highway Pinballcompany
Nick Laneperson
Kevin Manningperson
Buffalo Pinballorganization
Jeremy Packerperson
Chicago Gaming Companycompany

high · Hosts identify Seedon's Metroid project and JJP recruitment as validation of homebrew-to-commercial pipeline; framed as 'old guard and new school' collaboration

  • $

    market_signal: Industry-wide escalation beyond sustainability threshold; Stern home model at $4,600 now equals prior generation commercial baseline; three-tier pricing model straining market

    high · Kevin explicitly states 'This is the price of Pro a couple years ago' regarding Jurassic Park home; hosts express inability to process Godzilla pricing; pattern across JJP/Stern/others

  • $

    market_signal: Significant price increases across manufacturers (Godzilla +$700-$1,300, Waka +$1,500, Jurassic Park home $4,600) indicating margin pressure and inflationary cost pass-through

    high · Multiple confirmed price data points from official sources; hosts note scale of increases unprecedented; Godzilla Pro now $6,900 vs. prior generation baseline

  • ?

    product_strategy: Queen machine revealed with zero playable code; extremely early stage for public showcase, suggesting timeline slippage or unconventional reveal strategy

    medium · Hosts note surprise at early reveal in pop-up shop setting; acknowledge risks of Pirates of the Caribbean-style announcement-to-delivery lag; Queen currently non-playable with flashing lights only

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball standing up second production line for Waka rerun after GNR, indicating sustained multi-title production capacity at JJP

    high · Hosts discuss JJP tooling second line; reference pattern of GNR and prior title production runs; Waka price increase suggests confidence in volume

  • ?

    product_concern: Godzilla's magnetic building mechanic reported overheating on location; Pinball Brothers' Alien machines experiencing unspecified issues

    medium · Hosts report hearing overheating complaints from operators requiring heavy-duty fans; acknowledgment that Alien build quality problematic affects community confidence in Pinball Brothers

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Committee of Beer Works in Buffalo rumored to receive Godzilla machine imminently; hosts plan 'bro show' episode contingent on location delivery

    medium · Nick mentions hearing rumor via Buffalo Discord about location receiving Godzilla; planned community event contingent on delivery timing

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community skepticism rising regarding Pinball Brothers execution capability (Queen art quality, Alien issues) despite positive acquisition narrative

    medium · Hosts note artistic concerns with Queen; acknowledge Alien reliability problems; express wait-and-see attitude despite positive recruitment signals

    • 2:58
    It's dangerous. Once you get it on one machine, though, just be prepared to open your wallet and go take out a loan for more of them. But that's Penn Stadium. Premier Partner. I want to give them a huge shout-out. Other partners are – let's go from – we're going to do this differently. We're going to go Titan Pinball. Titan Pinball for your silicone rings. And also, I'm hyping this up Everybody, if you're looking to replace your pinballs in your pinball machines You've got to replace them You know, after every couple hundred plays Or when they start to look nicked or damaged or rusted Titan Pinball, man Titan Pinball is where I got mine And I love it So check out Titan Pinball for their pinballs You can sell a pinball mat, too And a mat Just do it all Just dump a lot of money there Can't go wrong We love you. All right, pinballmix.com. If you want a custom music soundtrack for your pinball machine, head over to pinballmix.com. Again, coupon code BUFFALO will save you 10% and also give you an Easter egg. Comet Pinball makes LEDs. LEDs and, you know, the hell with incandescents, right? Am I right? Throw them right in the trash. Throw them in the trash. Customize your pinball machine. Head over to cometpinball. Tilt cycle, tiltcycle.com. All right, so listen. You've got your comfy mat, okay? You've got your shiny new pinballs. You've got your custom mix going.
    4:18
    You've got a pretty sweet, you've got a, you've got it going. Then you look around your game room, and your game room is complete shit. All right? Do you have anything cool on the wall? No? Okay, well, go to stillcycle.com, and you can get a custom, original artwork, upcycled art from Pimmel Machines from Dan Burfield. Stillcycle.com. We love you, Dan. All right, Committee of Beer Works, Committee of Beer Works, my favorite brewery. Kevin's favorite brewery in Buffalo, New York. They also happen to have Pimmel Machines there. operated by Buffalo Pinball and Arcade Company. Boom. I heard a rumor that they're getting a Godzilla. I can't say where I heard that, but I heard that. People are saying it. PinballRaffle.org. This is PinballEDU. Head over to PinballRaffle.org. Buy a raffle ticket. Have a chance to win a pinball machine. A 1 in 250 chance to win a pinball machine. Almost each and every month you can do so. And you're also given a charity. I think it's 1 in 300 now. 1 in 300? All of the price increases. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Well, inflation. You know, it happens. Inflation means less chance to win.
    5:20
    Jersey Jack Pinball, making the most beautiful pinball machines on the planet. The most recent is Guns N' Roses. Kevin's got a heck of a collection. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's all right. Pinside.com. I love Pinside.com. I just had them change my name today. Oh, yeah? So Nick Buffalo Pinball. Oh. Yeah. Norah Gusfan. Rip Gusfan. Yeah. We're retiring. You're on brand now. We're retiring it. I appreciate it. There you go. Pinside.com. That is the premier place to go to engage in forums, look at pinball ratings, sell, buy. It is the only place I go for the pinball community, really. I'll be honest. Tilt Forums is good, too, but Pinside is my brand better. Tilt Forums is like when you're learning something. Or if you want to play in a tournament or something. Yeah, this is super nerdy. So good, but nerdy. It's true. Flippin' Out Pinball. FlippinOutPinball.com. My boy, Zach Menne. It's your boy. Best customer service in pinball, period.
    6:14
    You know what? For you guys, I got to test a sponsor out. So I purchased a game from Zach, and I put him through the goddamn paces, and he held up like a champ. I mean, we've heard Nick's experiences with new inbox. Yeah. So you're getting into some shit there. He has been through the gauntlet, and he delivered. I highly, highly recommend when you're getting a new game, flipping out pinball, 100% all the way. All right, themodcouplepinball.com for your modding needs. and uh let's get to the show let's do it all right and we we got some news coming up so let's have tim tell us about the news here's the tip it's the latest pinball news so hot it's on fire it's pinball news all right well let's kick it off there's some brand new news that happened today and did i put the mics over here i did look at it we got mics and we got the website so stern Stern Pinball announces a hiring of a new president. So they announced today that they hired Seth A. Davis as president. He's 43, if you wanted to know. That's cute. Interesting that they put his age in there. I saw that. I was like, is this a dating site or, like, what's going on here?
    7:19
    Is he, like, long box on the beach and horseback riding? Yeah. What's his sign? Gary Stern, founder of Stern Pinball, will continue to serve as the chairman and CEO of the company. Dave Peterson will continue to serve as vice chairman and EVP of the company. As president, Seth will join the company's leadership team and be accountable for future performance of the company and its extended enterprise. You will report to Gary.
    7:41
    So prior to joining Stern, Seth spent a combined 21 years at the Walt Disney Company and General Electric. Served in a wide variety of functions, increasingly senior levels.
    7:53
    Here we go. This is the part that matters. Immediately prior to joining Stern Pinball, Seth served on the executive team responsible for the highly successful subscription-based streaming services ESPN Plus and Disney Plus. Earlier in his career, he served in Disney corporate financial planning, blah, blah, blah. So he comes from subscription services at Disney, Disney Plus, Disney. Stern just announced Insider Connected. It's a subscription service.
    8:21
    We can see where this is going. You know, they're trying to get onto that monthly subscription-based model where you're trying to pull in that ongoing revenue over and over again. Who can blame them, right? Software companies are doing this. You know, I use Adobe products all the time. It's all Adobe Creative Cloud now. It's like a bottomless pit of pinball money. So you might as well get directly connected to the pinball owner's credit card and a phone and some buttons to just throw more money at it. What can they incorporate from a subscription service, Kevin? because it's not obvious to me, right?
    8:56
    I mean, well, let's see. That's not saying they will, but I think Kevin's on to something. There we go.
    9:04
    That's the wrong website. We want to go over here. So this is from an interview with George Gomez. And he says, our existing Insider All Access loyalty program also joins the system. All Access Connected is a subscription version of the service experience It's focused on providing additional player features along with behind-the-scenes development stuff, early access, special events, and quests. In the future, we intend to create exclusive game extensions, such as special access to new modes or new rules, and features to increase the all-access connected values.
    9:37
    Interesting. So, they're going to put certain game features behind a paywall. Yeah. We'll see how this unfolds. Yeah. You know, after you spend, what, now for a pro, it's $6,000 something. I can't even keep up. $6,400 maybe shipped. Yep. You got to then pay more. I mean, at some point, yeah. I don't know. We'll see. I don't want to get it down. I don't want to go so far down a road where we're complaining and speculating about things that may never happen. Yeah. You essentially said it there. But you got to look at it on the flip side, too. It's like how much relative to you spent 10 grand on a machine is $40 a year that much. And that's what it is right now. It's really not. But should you have to spend additional money on top of what you're, well, it's kind of like the next step after they added that goat mode to the topper on Jurassic Park. So there's, when you got the Jurassic Park topper, it unlocked a special goat frenzy mode. Oh, that's stupid. Whatever. So I read today or somebody posted in the Buffalo Discord. Yeah, it was in the Buffalo Discord that there's going to be – so now they have achievements for games. There's going to be achievements that you can only unlock if you have the topper.
    11:00
    They're really pushing. Yeah, I mean, if you're chasing achievements and you're buying a topper to chase the achievements, then you deserve to lose your money. You know, something about a fool getting his money to party him or something. I don't know. Yeah. Whatever. Listen, we got our topper expert in the chat, I think, somewhere. So we'll hear from him later how he feels about that. But, yeah, okay. Listen, I'm just jealous that I'm not at the point in my life where I can just be like, yeah, $1,000 topper. Why not? Let's go. Well, listen, $1,000 in my pocket. I might as well get a topper for this thing that's really flex. Throw it out there. Buy like 10 of them. Boom. Drop 10 grand on toppers. For all my machines. Yeah. Instead of buying another machine. What a world. to get decoration for the Topper. What a world. People are starving. You got a fucking Topper on your fucking expensive toy. Yeah. All right. Really living the life. All right. You know, I thought it was calm today. We got Nick going. I thought I was tired. It didn't take much. All we had to do was imagine Topper DLC. Imagine what fires me up and where I find the energy. Man. All right. Okay, so that's it. We got a new president at CERN.
    12:03
    So what do you think Gary's going to do now that this guy's heading up the company as president? Drink vodka and hang out. Chill. He's going to live a life. He might as well chill. Yeah, he deserves to. He'll probably be a figurehead. I mean, Jack Winery is basically that at JJP too, right? He certainly was a hero. He kept the lights on in pinball when nobody else was. He's a hero. Yep. Kick back. Take it easy. It seems like he's been kind of doing that lately anyways. It seems like Gomez has been kind of running the ship.
    12:31
    I think I'm sure they mentioned some of the other executive team on here too. Where's Gomez fall in the hierarchy now? I forget what his title is. Is he... He's like vice president for game design or something like that. Gotcha. Okay. So he's reporting to South. Yeah. Yep. So there you go. Thanks for dropping that hot news. Kevin, you're 43. I am. You could have gotten a job at Stern. That's what I thought. I was like, I could have been president of Stern Pinball. You didn't know this. You've been a lifelong gamer. What the hell? I just didn't work at Disney and established Disney Plus and stuff. I really missed opportunities. I could help them fix their spelling on their announcements and stuff. They need that. They need some help. That's where I'm coming in. On their games announcements. All right. There you go, Stern. We love you. We love you, Stern. I promise. Okay. Next up, Godzilla. So they announced this basically right after our stream last month, our podcast. But, yeah, there's a new pinball machine. Everybody kind of had a feeling it was going to be Godzilla, but it's the latest machine from Keith Elwin.
    13:30
    Surprise, surprise. It comes in three feature levels, pro, premium, LE. So, yeah. Artwork by Jeremy Packer. Looks really good, even though people on the internet freaked out about the art i think it looks really cool they freaked out about the art yeah because he looks like a watermelon he looks like a watermelon it's too colorful this and that he does kind of look like well i mean it's it's busier artwork i mean it's cool yeah i think the camera looks awesome i'm surprised they freaked out they forgot about everything yeah i'm like i think it's i think it's beautiful um but i guess people who really like godzilla just expected to have these muted tones and okay like the old movies because it's based on the old movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not a Godzilla fan or anything, so I wouldn't know. I'm not either, so I just think it looks really cool, yeah. If you're a purist for the theme, I can appreciate it. No, I can appreciate that argument then. So this is the Pro.
    14:22
    It's got Godzilla on there, Godzilla all over the place. So these pictures look less saturated. Yeah. So I don't know if it's the photography they use. It's one of those things where you're going to have to see it in person to really determine. 100%. But here's the play field. um a really cool layout yeah the artwork is again that style artwork and i've talked about before is is almost too busy for my tastes i can't even it's it's hard to even make out the features in the game you know like where where shots are where things are um there is that style and artwork where it kind of shows you where shots are and this doesn't really do that i feel like he scaled it back a little bit on this because you can see some of the lanes and stuff now for compared to like Deadpool where it's just like all art. At least here you can see it's scaled back on some of these shots. It is very busy down at the bottom. He's awesome. Don't get me wrong. You want to hang up a post or something, it's great. I think it's a little too busy for pinball. What the hell do I know, Nick? I'm just saying though. I'm just saying. There's a happy medium.
    15:25
    It looks cool. Layout wise, really neat. The premium and LE have some really cool features. Let's get down here. This is the Pro. Nobody wants to see this. All right. The building is static on the Pro, but it moves on the premium LE. So one of the really neat things is this magnet that grabs. It's like a Newton ball magnet. So it'll grab the ball and set it up for upper flipper shots. It can kind of, like, flip it around and do all this cool stuff. But I've been hearing reports that it's been overheating on location because it gets used so much. Yeah. So, because they're being selling a lot of fans for that. Like, they have it for flippers, too. They better have, like, a lot of Mylar around there, right? Yeah, I have no idea. Because that's going to wear out that area super quick.
    16:11
    The building, let's see if we can get to the building on the premium alley. There's a lot of pictures here.
    16:18
    Here's the premium, okay. We're looking at pinballnews.com, by the way. Shout out to Pinball News. here's the so you got the the bridge that that collapses on the premium le which is really neat yeah you've got um the the building the building reminds me of a reverse time expander on uh on doctor who so it starts up tall and collapses over time and it'll release the balls for multi-ball really cool um there's shots that kind of crisscross through the building um there's also this jump ramp into the Mechagodzilla down here. So some really neat features that you don't get on the premium LE, or that you don't get on the pro, that I think is pushing people to make that jump. Yeah, it seems like a premium all day, but then again, the price increase is just like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's where I was going next. So there is a significant price jump on this. We talked about it last month, but it actually ended up being more. since we were speculating $600 on pros and $1,000 on premium LEs because that's what CoinTicker had put on their website. But certain price increases went up $700 on the pros, $1,200 on premiums, and $1,300 on LEs. So the new MSRP is $6,200, $7,800, and $9,200 respectively. So pretty significant jumps. No, sorry, that was Mando. That was Mando. The new prices are $6,900, $9,000, and $10,500. Oh, God. Wow. I can't even process that. Yeah. So, whoopsies. Yeah. Is this a review? This is just us talking about the game. I appreciate that question. Yes. Thank you, Chris. Not a review. You didn't get the disclaimer. This is talking about news. Yes. We have not played this game. We're just talking about it. This game came out. Chris just saved us. Man. Somebody was typing furiously on YouTube, and they're just like, oh.
    18:14
    Backing off. The people who type on YouTube don't actually listen to what we say, though. They hear what they want to hear, and then they proceed. Not everybody. The stupid comments that we get. Exactly. Well, that's the Internet. Welcome to the Internet, everybody. I know. This ain't my first rodeo. Anything else we want to say about Godzilla? Like you said earlier, we should have access to one play pretty soon. Yeah. I'm waiting to hear when it ships, but I heard Community Beer Works is getting one. So we'll be doing a bro show on it. Oh, yeah. Bro show. Soon-ish. In the next couple weeks. We had a request on Instagram. for us. We take requests. We also had a request for Avengers. That's why I was asking Nick about that. I was like, that's a good idea. We should play that.
    18:55
    Insider Connected, we kind of talked about the cost and the paid features, so we can skip back to that. Stern announced,
    19:05
    wrapping up our Stern news, there's a new pinball machine, sort of. Did we talk about Connected, too? Did we talk about it last time? Yeah, we talked about it last time. That's why I didn't really want to give him too much. That's fine. That's cool.
    19:18
    But, yeah, you can scan stuff and put your high scores up and all that. All right. They announced a new home model pinball machine. It's Jurassic Park.
    19:27
    I like the URL, sternpinball.com slash affordable-home-game. Because after those prices increase, you certainly need an affordable home version. um so but this is um you know in the vein of star wars and spider-man and spider was spider-man the first one oh no it was uh transformers and avengers were the first two but they had that really weird janky cabinet you can see your chats kevin you get gorn says i can see your chats oh the tabs i think he's saying i don't who cares gorn or chats i don't know what are you talking about that's corin corin's messing up the stream all right he's talking to he's talking to uh brian die um uh so yeah this is a this is a home model pinball machine forty six hundred dollars i think is the the home model um what a deal yeah real steel video that's so affordable it's like the price of Pro a couple years ago. It's got a jump ramp. That's pretty cool. It's got a dinosaur head. There it is. The ball comes out of it. You shoot underneath it. It does a bunch of stuff. Yeah. But it's going to have really basic rules, right? That's always the drawback to these home games is that. I mean, I guess the people buying this game just have no clue. Like, this is what they get. Like, I want a pinball machine for my home. This is the one I get. Yeah. Right? And then like, oh. I think it taxed that at best. That it's a Christmas gift for rich kids. It really is. Really, he nailed it. So if you're like Gorn or Richie Rich, you would have gotten this as a kid. There you go. But for a home model, it looks solid. There's some significant features in here. But again, it's like this is what you would pay for a full-size commercial machine a few years ago. That's sad. It's really not that affordable. I'm just kind of, you know, this is the world. And can I just say, pet peeve time, look at how many Jurassic Park logos. Should I go to the bathroom while you talk about this? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, visible, 8. And if you get the topper, it'll be 9. So there you go.
    21:36
    It actually doesn't say the name of the game on it, though. What's the Jurassic Park? It's got the logo. Yeah. It's got the logo, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, plus it's on the sign back there, Jurassic Park. So if you want a Jurassic Park for your home, I would say get the Keith Elwin one because that's really good. and it's going to last you a long time, but this is an option, too. Nobody listening to this podcast is going to buy this. No. If you do, you're going to get it used for whatever, for cheap down the line. So there you go.
    22:09
    Okay. There you go. That's the pin. All right, so that's all your Stern news. Where are we going next? We're going to Queen next.
    22:17
    Gorn's asking for his pick on Gorn Day. Every day is like T's Gorn a little bit day. Come on. uh so this was kind of sort of unexpected and sort of expected so there was we knew that there was a queen machine in development from highway pinball when they shut down they were working on queen they had done alien and uh full throttle they were also working on a playboy game uh which of course they were um and they were working on this queen so we knew there were there was a possibility of a queen machine out there from highway and now that highway has been um taken over by pinball brothers um really not a huge surprise but it was unexpectedly unveiled at this pop-up shop out in in london called queen the greatest the shop is dedicated to merchandise and memorabilia from the band queen again we're going from pinballnews.com thank you pinball news so they he actually he lives in england so he went out there and visited the place so you can go in there's all this queen merch and then like in the basement of the place they have this queen pinball machine that you can't play it's just sitting there uh it lights up and it plays videos on the back glass of the band in concert so it seems to be based on that one of their iconic um concerts and so that's what it's kind of centered around all the imagery and stuff is from that concert and all the god the footage bad artist is bad i'm sorry i can't even like I'm trying to like hold back. Yeah. That's the, uh, that's the consensus. It's like somebody needs to redo this art. So yeah, you can see your demo machine gameplay is disabled.
    23:53
    Uh, God, it just, it looks like a Gottlieb machine from the eighties. That's what they're going for. They nailed it. Yeah. They really did. This is like the only part I really think is cool around the start button. That is cool. I agree.
    24:06
    It's weird. I don't know what that is, but I like it. Yeah. It's weird. It's like, why was the creativity there? like in every place else it kind of sucks i don't know yeah yeah it's really i don't know that's is it the colors i mean what is it what is it about a cat that's so bad it is it's pretty plain like there not a lot going on around it and it kind of like this weird like photo realistic slash line art style that i don know Yeah He looks weird Yeah They almost look like a caricature Like caricature-ish, yeah. Yeah. Well, Freddie Mercury doesn't, but that one you just showed, it's, like, inconsistent.
    24:49
    Yeah, yeah. And then the side box. Side box is just super, like. Yeah, really basic. They just took those other layouts and made them orange. There you go. And that's your art. So the layout of the game looks okay. So this was originally a wide-body game, but now it's a narrow-body. So I don't remember. It's probably for the best. I don't remember. I don't want it to be like a situation with Houdini where the shots are super tight because they were like, squish it in. It doesn't look that way, though. I would have to compare the two to see what they changed and modified from that. But it did have that original shot of the middle kind of thing. Oh, you saw the wide-body one? Yeah, they had put out some pictures of it. Or there's a future pinball build of the pinball, the highway pinball version. Oh, okay.
    25:39
    But, yeah. So it's an interesting layout. Again, it's like coming out of rules, build quality, all that stuff. I've been hearing the aliens that have been coming out from Pinball Brothers have been having issues. Surprise, surprise. so again it's like let's see what they can come up with here and we'll go from there but as far as it stands right now it's got a long way to go there's like no code on it just flashes lights and plays music so it's going to be a while so it's kind of surprising that they would show this already it's really weird it's a very unusual way to reveal a machine yeah I mean it's got people talking about it and people are definitely decided that they're going to buy this game well yeah Yeah, people are – I could see the benefit of getting it in front of Queen fans in a shop like this who are going to lose their minds when they see it. But it's like you want to be able to fulfill that order while they're hyped about it and they want it now. They don't want to wait like three years for it to come out. It's called the Jersey Jack Pirates of the Caribbean effect. Exactly. You do not want to do that. And that's why – you know, it's so funny because even Chicago Gaming, so they announced Cactus Canyon, what was it, like a month or so ago now. and people are already getting impatient they're like well they said it was going to be four weeks and then it would be shipping and where are they and that's why kind of these companies they learn the good ones learn their lesson and they stop announcing so early they yeah um they wait well like between they got better between jjp got better between uh pirates and what and hobbit or no waka pirates and waka and then but then they still had to wait of a couple months so then when gnr came out they're like all right we're gonna have 100 of these ready to go on day one and it still wasn't nearly enough but at least they had something there to satisfy those orders so um you want you want to grab those sales when you can and cash them out as soon as you can because people people if they wait a year they'll be like well i changed my mind i want to go buy this other thing instead because i played that game now and i'm not that excited about it anymore so you got to go on it so that's queen and all right so let's let's jump over to let's see if this works can we do this oh it works so over at jersey jack pinball mark seedon from uh you know him on twitch as the arcade with five r's um he's been building the metroid pinball machine for the past i don't know like four years it's been a long time he's been working on it but he's been live streaming it this whole time and he got recruited by jjp so how awesome is that so it's a i think that's a it's a good picture that that shows they got like the old school the old guard and the new school coming in and uh and taking over and learning some things from some of the greatest of all time look at that full team of designers i know amazing yeah they got they got four people so they're really they want to keep these guys busy they're gonna have to crank up their uh yeah how are they gonna do that so they do have a second line running now with okay with waka with uh so ideally you know you got to think they're kind of tooling that up getting it going so they can get multiple lines going at one time.
    28:40
    So they're going to be rerunning Waka, but it's also got a price increase. It's an $11,000 game now for a Waka LE, which at launch was $9,500. So that's a $1,500 increase for Waka, which for GTP, not a real surprise because they've done this with Wizard of Oz. Did GNR go up in price? GNR went up shortly after launch. No, I know. Okay, so it's a little 10.5. Yeah. Okay. Someone was telling me different, but I didn't hear that. As far as I know, they haven't increased it again. Yeah, okay.
    29:14
    But that's not to say going forward that prices won't be more in line with that $11,000 price, which would stink. Because who wants price increases? Not me.
    29:27
    But, so yeah, they're... Oh, the point I was getting at, so we saw that with like the Yellow Brick Road Wizard of Oz. that came out for like about that price. So they kind of got a reputation for doing this. But again, it's like there was demand for this game. Prices have gone up. Prices are going up across the board. So they're meeting some of that demand. So there you go. The other big news from JJP is they're adding achievements.
    29:54
    Achievements. It's the new hotness in pinball. They're all across the board. They just added. So they started with Wonka a couple weeks ago. They added achievements to that. via scorebit then on tuesday of this week they did a code update for guns and roses and that has achievements now via scorebit and then just today they added them to dialed in so that's three of their six game fleet uh is up to date with with their achievements on the scorebit platform so i have a theory because i streamed both uh guns and roses and dialed in on monday that I should stream the Pirates of the Caribbean and Hobbit next week, and then we'll get achievements for both of those. Thank you, Kevin. Real quick. I'll do that for you guys.
    30:38
    It's very exciting. So let's talk about that for a minute. So you played your first game of Scorbit, Guns N' Roses. I did. Tell us about your experience going through that.
    30:50
    Yeah, it was fun. You had to, like, unlock your location because it's private for me, but I signed up, and after I had to use weird symbols in my password, I got in, and it connected to the game fine. I didn't have any issues or trouble. So it was all right. I mean, it gave me achievements. It's cool. I'll take it. I think what you were telling me after the fact bothers me, and that's like when they update the game code, if you look at the global high scores, that's like irrelevant now because that's old game code so this should be wiped every time the game updates right because it's you're playing a totally different game i mean like every game is different in the house so we're already trying to combat that a little bit we accept that but the version of the game that you're playing makes a big difference if the the mode the mode scoring is different or the rules are different they've added mode so So, yeah, it's just totally irrelevant every time that there's an updated code. So scorebit has to clear those scores every time that happens. And until that does happen, then those scores are meaningless to me. It makes the whole thing meaningless. Yeah, there's so many inherent issues with global leaderboards on pinball. Like we've said before, every game is set up different. You don't know if it's a three-ball, five-ball, glass-off. you know, is combating some of that with their, their weighing achievements more heavily. If you do them on location, because in theory you're going to be playing with the glass on. Although if Nick Lane, this is game on a location and he's setting it up, he could take the glass off and all day, do it if you want. So I could, we accept that. I mean, it's not, it is what it is with that, but at least what there seems that they can control. Right. And what you need to control is wiping the, the scoreboard, the global leader scoreboard every time. that the code gets updated. That's just what needs to happen. Goran mentioned my name shows up on the scoreboard. That was cool. Yeah, I like it. I mean, like, yeah, let's have these features in games. It's cool, my book.
    32:59
    But, yeah, you've got to tweak things like that. You've got to at least update the scoreboard. Even though I know the scoreboard should be with an asterisk to begin with, but that is even worse than, like, you know, oh, somebody took the glass off, in my opinion. Yeah. Because you can control for that. It's nice that they have a local game leaderboard, so it'll show just high scores on this particular game, which is way more relevant to me. High scores for me, globally, is just a record of good games.
    33:28
    One thing that's... You need to log in. The one thing, if you don't log in, I think it gives you a little bit of time after the game to log in and claim the score, but if you don't proactively score a bit in your game before you start, and then you have a really good game, it's like, can you claim that score? I think you can, but I don't know. Yeah, it wasn't – I mean, just as long as you get in the habit of recording your scores beforehand or logging beforehand, the login process was easy enough. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. Once you have it set up, it's pretty straightforward. Some of the menus and stuff are not that intuitive. But to me, the achievements are way more interesting than the high scoreboard.
    34:08
    From a personal level, it'd be nice if it was easier to see because like buried deep in the menus you can get to the list of what all the achievements are on the game and then it'd be like oh cool i want to try and go for that one or i want to try and do that because as it is right now it's just like you play the game like you would normally play and then a little thing goes off and goes ding uh yeah when you do stuff that it's like cool i was gonna do that anyways yep i could see it being drawing attention to features you didn't realize were happening it doesn't show what the achievements could be in score bit itself right it does but they're like super buried so that they need to like bring those up higher in the uh okay in the in the ui well we'll see how stern does it i mean now that there's another thing out there you know it will hopefully make it so both people have to be competitive right yeah get a better product yeah it is it is good that there's uh competing products so they they push each other like we've seen stern and jersey jack and all the other companies pushing it up um new january best game started in pinball it is really cool nick didn't really get the experience because he was looking at his score a bit. I was like, check that out. I missed it. But, yeah, it's really good. JJP choreography is next-level stuff.
    35:16
    Yeah, so to me personally, achievements are more interesting than high-score global leaderboards because if I want to know the high scores on my game, I can just look at the high scores on the game. You know what I mean? But it's an interesting way to kind of track your scores as you go and to do the achievements. It just gives you another layer of things to do. in your home pinball machine, which it's cool. I'll bring it on for free on a JJP game all day. For $300 on a Stern game in my house. Do we know how much did it cost? People are – I don't know if they've set a definitive price, but the speculation is between $200 and $300. Okay, but that's just speculation, so I just want to clear that up. We don't know how much it is going to be. Yeah. Somebody will correct me in chat if I'm wrong. I'm guessing that's right. Or in the YouTube comments. Tell me how wrong I am. Well, it'll be interesting to see how Stern Connected is when they release stuff for operators, right? And, you know, if we can use Stern Connected to engage our players for the location game and give away, like, prizes. Like, I can see being able to do high score contests way easier. I mean, we used to do the selfie league and it was a pain in the ass. You know, you have to take a picture and then somebody has to upload it. right i mean there's so many steps it's just exhausting right so now with the stern connected well if we can do monthly tournaments like tournaments i put that in quotes like high score competitions on the game and like you know community bear works and give away gift certificates and things like that that could be fun that could be a good time there you go sarah finchette says on stern website msrp is 6199 and then with a stern insider connected equipment it's 64.99 so there's your 300 bucks yeah well yeah that would logically that makes So we'll see. But to be fair, score a bit if it's not a JJP game is going to cost you that much too. Oh, yeah. So they're on par with each other, which either one, I was like, I don't see the value in my house for that. Yeah, I just, you know, like I said, I don't, I'm not looking to throw away money right now. We can jump over to, so this is from that interview with George Gomez. How do operators use Insider Connected to drive location play? The operator version of the system is called Insider Connected Pro. Their naming system is ridiculous, by the way. And it will have a distinctly different user interface, and naturally it will focus on Pro Tools for operating pinball machines. It allows operators to address their customers directly and present them with incentives to engage with the games and the location. For example, an operator can issue challenge quests to the community. So basically that's what PinQuest was trying to do before this. If a player chooses to take on those challenges and complete them, the operator can reward the player directly. For example, an operator can issue a challenge quest that says, play four consecutive nights on any two connected machines at these locations and get X reward. Be assigned Translate, free plays, popcorn or cheeseburgers, whatever they can legally give as rewards. This allows the operator to create quests focused on their locations. CERN can also use a similar tool set to draw attention around to a specific title or create an event around a group of games anywhere in the world. Obviously, what this does is drive traffic and revenue, increasing the operator's value to the location. Yeah, so I like the idea. We'll see how it plays out. and I'm happy to report back. Yeah, for sure. You know, we try things, you know. So, yeah, I could see it, like you were saying, we did like that pin duos format where you would play at two locations during that month. Yeah. And this is like an extended version of that where you could set up, you know, let's say at Masuda Chow's and CBW, go play these games this month and win whatever, free credits. Yeah. We'll see how it plays out. Interesting. So let's go. So we did that. Oh, next is Lyman Sheets and Josh Sharp are partnering with CGC. I know Skip says because operators love giving stuff away. I don't think it's the operators. I think it's the venue that would want to – would give stuff away. Yeah. I think it's more of them. As an operator, I'd be working with the – I wouldn't be us necessarily giving stuff away. I'd be working with the venue to say, hey, do you want to do this promotion where – Like a Masuda Shows t-shirt, which is a win because it's advertising for them too. Yeah, because it drives traffic. When somebody goes to these places, they're going to get probably a beer, and they might get food, and they make an event out of it. So they just want people coming in the door, where we don't make that much money necessarily on the machines, or they don't care about the money going into the machines. They just want people in the door. So they'll be motivated to do it from that perspective. Nice.
    39:46
    All right. So Lyman, it's funny because we talked last month about Lyman leaving Stern. Well, it didn't take him long to – well, I guess it kind of did because he left back in January, but it didn't seem long to us because we just found out last month that he's partnering with Chicago Gaming Company along with Josh Sharp to work on Cactus Canyon Remake. So together they're going to develop, they're contracted to develop new and enhanced software for Cactus Canyon Remake. So, you know, the history. We know Lyman and Josh, and this is not much of an announcement there as far as details of what they're actually going to do. Some speculation has been that they're going to release Cactus Canyon as is, and then the Lyman update will come later at an additional cost, which would be, I don't know. But, you know, CGC has done stuff like this in the past where they've later added additional features like the, I think, of the Medieval Madness with the dots, the enhanced graphics, the color DMD, they added that further down the line for an additional fee. So it's something they could do. Um, I will say that Lyman being involved with Cactus Canyon piques my interest because Lyman's awesome. And Cactus Canyon is an interesting layout that I haven't played a bazillion times. So it all comes down to the value proposition, right? Is it going to be enough code there enough for me to do, uh, beyond, you know, the nineties rule set medieval madness attack from Mars style, uh, rules that would, that would keep you, keep you busy. well I know we talked about Kansas Canyon last month and I was like well I really don't care about a 20 year old game with 20 year old rules is it more than 20 years now? a little over 20 years, 25-ish but now this is different right? yeah Lyman with all his collective wisdom and knowledge over the years it would be interesting to see what he does with that game there's an original theme with potentially rules from this modern era. Could be really, really good. What do you think Josh Sharp is doing there? Is he going to do their books? Is he running the Excel over there? I have no idea.
    41:57
    That's what he does for Raw Thrills. He's a CFO, right? He's going to be doing the Jay Fairbrother over there.
    42:06
    That's cool. Josh, obviously a very good and skilled competitive player. He would bring all his knowledge to that project as well. Scott Denise, he's really good at coming up with real ideas. We've got two competitive players. doing rules. So, yeah. Probably be really good. And he can balance your books. So, it's a win-win. Speaking of Josh and rule ideas, we got to talk to him about Big Buck Hunter. What happened there?
    42:28
    Oh, I thought you meant the... I'm like, this one? No, no. Big Buck Hunter pinball. All right. Well, maybe... That's a Rothwell's game. Did Lyman do the code on that? Yeah. Well, he was credited because it was him and Lonnie there at the time. So, yeah. They're all... Well, there's some... There's some interesting things in that game that you can tell, like, somebody thought differently. yeah there's problems in there but there's also interesting things in there yeah where it wasn't just like erotic copy and paste yeah it was hit the hit the buck eight bazillion times to get to the wizard those are like the head scratcher and then it has like cool things we're like i don't how do we get talking about this but then there's cool things of like increasing like the elk value by hitting the ramp more to build it up and then uh so increasing the jackpot values and then locking um hitting it back in the shooter to double it for a few seconds so there's there's thing's in there it's good it's got its ins and outs there's thought thought went into that game i love it good thing they made like 30 of them all right uh what's that game going for these days they never change his hands because i didn't make that many probably minimum 4500 yeah i would mine is probably worth at least five thousand i can i'm sure you get five thousand for mine yeah yours is super nice yeah it was owned by josh sharp boom oh i'll get a certificate We get authenticity. Nick Lane and Josh Sharp. He's super famous. You got the A-list pinball person, and then I'll be C. Maybe I'm C on a good day. Maybe B on a good day. If you're modeling pinball t-shirts for Comet, then you're a B-list, I think. BBH Strat Talk.
    43:58
    Our viewers plummets down to like five people. This is what they come for. After five years of doing this, it all comes back to BBH eventually. That's right. You learn one thing. Okay. What else have we got? Kelts is shipping. That's cool, right? Where is it? Good job. They shipped a game. They've shipped like 20 of them. Okay. 20 more than Deep Root shipped. That's right. They shipped them to Australia first, and now they're starting to ship internationally. 20 more than Punny Factory shipped.
    44:28
    Gamma Goat, Ian Harrow is getting one. Oh, shit. He said his is shipping soon, so it's coming to Canada. Let's go visit Ian. Get some poutine and smoke weed and whatever else they do up there. I don't know. Watch hockey. Go see the Blue Jays. Yeah. That's what you do. That's what they do up there. That's everything. All right.
    44:47
    That's all the things in Canada. All right. Is it time? I think it's time. It's time to go over here, and we're going to talk about everybody's favorite topic, deep root pinball. So, I don't think this is going to get as into it as we did last time. So, it was quite a... I think you got to do the clip notes, because we can't read any more, too much more. Yeah. Well, this is the clip notes. That's why I came to this. Okay, fair enough.
    45:11
    So this is from a filing seven days ago. Plaintiff's response to defendant Robert J. Mueller's brief regarding use of funds subject to asset freeze. So Robert Mueller, he's Mr. Deep Root. He induced hundreds of people to invest more than $60 million into his, quote-unquote, safe investment funds, including scores of investors who put their life savings under his control. He appears to have spent nearly every penny. While his investors, many of whom worked their entire lives for the money they entrusted to Mueller, are scrambling to figure out how to pay their bills and survive, Mueller, who has yet to obtain gainful employment, asks the court to let him squander $8,500 a month out of what little remains of the money with which he was entrusted so that his lifestyle can continue uninterrupted. Mueller also asked the court to let him use at least $87,000 of investor funds for legal representation in a hypothetical criminal action that may or may not occur at some unknown point in the future. The Securities and Exchange Commission opposes his request in its entirety. Since filing the complaint, the SEC has learned that Mueller has raised at least $7.2 million after being served with SEC investigative subpoenas in October 2020 without an apparent disclosure to investors of the SEC's investigation. Notably, this included more than $155,000 raised from investors after June 25th, 2021, the date on which Mueller was notified by the SEC staff that they were going to recommend the commission that had filed his securities fraud action against him and his companies. Again, Mueller took these funds without any apparent disclosure of this development to investors. And nearly all of the $7.2 million has been spent, indicating that in the face of an SEC investigation, Mueller has no compunction about rapidly depleting investor assets and will continue to do so unless restrained. The SEC reserves the rights to amend the complaint to reflect these newly discovered facts. Mueller has spent nearly all of the more than $60 million he raised from investors and appears to have less than $400,000 in cash available to satisfy any potential judgment. So in the face of ripping off hundreds of people for their money, wasting $60 million, he's got less than $400,000 left and he's asking to spend that on his personal expenses including rent to his dad and all this crap it's like what a terrible human being this guy is the only thing you can do to someone like that is seriously lock them up because they're monsters straight up sociopaths and they can't be walking around you just can't let them interact with people you've got to lock them up After getting caught for this and doing this and all that He's still in like a Looney Tune land, okay Yeah, I don't know, what else can we say We've been talking, four years we've been calling This guy out and just like Just Absurd, ridiculous, scam, garbage Whatever, still tired of it Super tired of it So that's the latest with Deaver Just when you thought he was getting You were going to hear the last of him He's getting investigated by the SEC.
    48:21
    Keeps popping his head back up. No, look what a jerk I am. They're trying to spend what little money is left of this that I haven't wasted already.
    48:29
    The phrase no shame. There you go. It's a quintessential example of no shame. After all that, he's like, I still want more. I still have some of the money I stole, like $9,000. It's just a little bit. I have to maintain my lifestyle. It's like $9,000 a month. I'm not even asking for much. I probably had like three more weddings. What's the problem? What's the big deal? Oh, my God. No guilt. No regard for like any of the people that he ripped off. It's just terrible. We're never going to see that box, are we? The Deep Root box. The pin crate thing. Pin crate. We're never going to see it. Whatever that is All his how many innovations did he have on his pinball machine Oh God There so many innovations His octo assembly Octo assembly Fucking bullshit All that that he took from us that we never see the light of day All that that he took from somebody who's worked, many people have worked a lifetime. That's what this fucking idiot spent it on? Jesus Christ. You saw somebody as a group of investors or people or, I don't know, are going to try to put out Magic Girl? Yeah. Well, they took the, like, 16 Magic Girls. They made, like, 16, and they took, like, four of them and actually finished the game because it was just, like, a bunch of parts thrown in a box. So now it actually has rules and the mechs work. I started watching that video. I didn't watch the whole thing. So are they actually going to try to make it? I watched enough of it, and I was just like, fuck it. It's not even a good game. It's not like this is a game where people are like, well, you know, despite all this, There's something really special here And this game, hopefully we'll see the lighting day I don't think anybody's like This is a great game that we gotta bring to market It never was really fully fleshed out anyways Just burn it The whole thing is just tainted It's just like, burn it Use your time, energy, talents, and resources For something else Not this J-pop, Robert Mueller garbage But the art, Nick The art is so Oh, it's such a beautiful game Oh yeah, the art Then buy the playfield Buy a poster You don't have to use precious resources Into the magic girl It's a joke dude It's a joke Yeah I saw the video Oh the art is so beautiful Fucking buy a painting I don't know Buy a Dan Burfield piece It seems a lot of work These are people who like Look at a pinball machine and buy it for the art Like There's like 100 years of beautiful pinball machines out there you can buy and play buy one of those where there's a lot of good things about the machine not just the art right like there's the artistry and the game design and the engineering that went into a actually functioning i i don't know listen people are gonna do what people want just roll our eyes and i i don't know man it's almost crazy well it's super crazy i can't blame somebody who wanted who bought that game if they have the skill to like make it work why not go for it but it's just yeah there's this adoration for this game for for some reason it has this like mythical status that you know somebody's just gonna come along and be like oh well those guys can do it now i'm gonna do it we're gonna make magic girl happen for real this time yeah for real it's easy it's easy i've heard yeah that thing's like cursed oh god i know it's cursed don't touch that what do you what do you put like cursed objects you just burn it you seal it like a tomb somewhere and people find it 400 years later and like, what is this? Bury it in the desert like all those old Atari ET cartridges. Yeah. Bury it in a concrete tomb. Yeah, I agree. Put it there. That's where that game belongs. That's where it belongs. All right. Well, on that note, let's talk about another new pinball company.
    52:10
    I did not know this. Oh, I knew that. I always like when I can hit Nick with something. Ballarama.
    52:16
    Your inner hero will be thrilled with a new challenge. ballerama is like bringing excitement making games for generations to come okay that's ambitious but cool uh we're creating innovative pinball games and enjoy being part of a thriving pinball community ballerama offers a place where pinball enthusiasts can feel they belong and we want you to have a part in developing our innovative games i was looking for a place where i can belong so thank you ballerama you've you've filled a niche in the market and uh Do you really want a company that's like, we need our fans to make our games? Wait, did I miss something? Well, we want you to have a part in developing our innovative games. What does that mean? I don't know.
    52:59
    Are they hiring people? Meet the team. Why now? Yeah, why now? Exactly. We'll get to meet the team. Good question. You guys answered this? Okay, I can't wait to hear what it is. Let's go with why now first. There we go. I'm waking up. We want to be part of the expanding pinball industry. But not only that, we want to take pinball places it's never been yet. It's been a lot of places, including jail. Which we just talked about. We want to change the landscape. Our mission is to give back to the pinball community that has welcomed us with open arms. Have they? With Ian's engineering expertise and Barbara's eye for impactful design, we think our innovative product... How many times have they said innovative so far? Well, if we're that innovative, does it have 200 innovations in it? I don't know. We'll excite and challenge the rest and then stand the test of time. Who's Ian and Barbara? We're going to meet them? We're going to meet them. What are we offering? I hope they're nice people. I'm sorry for being skeptical. But Ian and Barba, if you watch the show, you understand why I'm going to be a little skeptical. Okay, so let's proceed. We're a little skeptical of new pinball companies. Yeah, a little bit. You've got to show it before we'll buy it. I want more pinball machines. Don't get me wrong.
    54:01
    Radical Game Designs. That's what they're offering. New and exciting designs that every pinball enthusiast will be wrapped to get their hands on. Be wrapped. I'm wrapped. You think that's Stock art Or what Yeah that's I don't I'm not so Okay Industry first Let's go through the hyperbole Yeah It's all we've had so far Industry first features Why reinvent the wheel When there are already Perfectly good machines already Pinball players are always Looking for new challenges And Ian as an engineer Can innovate to take Pinball further Globally there is currently A stream of new game development Riding the stream Ballorama pinball Brings even more life With some cool New never before It's like right out of the Deep Root playbook. Some cool mess. I just never thought like riding the stream is a good idea. Have you ever rode the stream? No. I'm not going to pass on that. I haven't either. And I'm not going to start riding any stream. Ride streams at your own danger down there. Alright. Games with awesome feel. Innovation is cool but it's not enough if a game doesn't play well. How does it feel? Our pinball games are fast, precise, organized with rule sets that include tantalizingly obscure top level goals. Once you've played them.
    55:09
    They're talking about games. They haven't produced any games yet. I picked up on that, too. These are games that don't exist yet. I picked up. Listen, I'm going to say this again. Kevin and I will work pro bono if you're bringing a pinball company to market. I think you get maybe 15 minutes of our time pro bono. This is the valuable feedback.
    55:26
    We're actually doing this in a public forum. We're doing it for free right now. We can put this out there. We can help you avoid this. Here's the pitch. Let me stop you right there where you said games. Games.
    55:36
    What games are we talking about? Yeah, all right. The games with awesome feel, those are the ones Okay, alright, what else do we have? They're solid and robust, yes, yes It's not all about the design and how it looks But how reliable is it? To keep our games operating and players playing Our machines are designed and built with reliability of mind They act like their machines exist around here It's amazing A game that just works, goes hand in hand With one that plays freely I don't know what that means either Words, just like throwing words together A game that just works goes hand in hand with one that plays freely.
    56:14
    Nail together pinball machines. Sick. That's a good comment. I don't know. Look at it. They're nailing them together. Nailing them together. Well, they're not gluing them. No hot glue in this game. They're using nails.
    56:27
    Ballerama pinball machines are ready for some hardcore playing. They will definitely stand the test of time. Okay.
    56:33
    They update their code. we will always be innovating and updating game code to make our pinball landscape more enjoyable exciting and addictive well ian's doing the engineering and barb's doing what we're gonna find out we haven't gotten to the who's doing the code i don't know frank we haven't met the team yet we're getting there i mean it's frank it's frank jimmy jimmy or frank is doing code uh they have reliable spares what what happens if there is wear and tear it is a pinball machine after all and after hours and years of playing your machine you may need some tlc we will provide you with the spares you need you'll be playing so they're anticipating it's robust let me boil this you know these 50 words down to one word spare parts they have spare parts they have spare parts yeah but i thought that's robust yeah it's robust though kevin but they're gonna give you they're anticipating that thing's gonna break left and right and they're giving you spares yeah okay it's and they have lifetime support we are so like lifetime of what lifetime of machine determined by you or my lifetime or your lifetime. Define the lifetime, please. We are not a set and forget business. Our customers will always feel supported. Wow.
    57:43
    All right. Ready? Ready to meet the team? All right. Here we go. It's Ian. He's the CEO and the technical manager.
    57:52
    Then we have Barb. There's Barb. She's the artistic design manager. She's going to be doing art. Barb's in the art.
    57:59
    Oh, Heidi. Then we have Heidi, assistant art. She helps with the art. She helps Barb. And then we have Natalie, who does marketing PR. Natalie. Looks like Natalie... I'm taking issue with the marketing. That's the whole team. That's the team.
    58:21
    Goddamn, Ian. You got a lot of work to do. Ian's got some work. You got two people doing art. Natalie's going to tell you how awesome your games are. nobody doing anything else who's going to design the game that's the team that's your team who's going to design the game who's going to do the rules who's going to do the uh uh uh LCD animations and stuff who's going to do the sound what else is on here that's it that's the whole website they said they have games oh you can join the wait list don't put us on there Kevin I'm going to put us on there they have let's have a chat I'm going to put Skip Natty on there oh we can have a zoom session Oh shit Can we Alright here's Here's what I want I got an idea I would like Rudy To have a Zoom session With them And I want Rudy To record it Okay Alright can we make that happen We can contact them They're in Australia by the way They have a Facebook page Meet the team Features Yeah we did all the things And they have an Instagram Let's I'm going to check out their Instagram What Wait We can't see anything Alright It's just a bunch of nonsense Yeah there you go Ballarama pinball They have 515 Wait 292 followers They're following 515 Ballarama That follow rate is not good It's not good Did you get that new Ballarama game?
    59:49
    I heard it's robust It's robust And they have spares Yeah That robust game came with a lot of spares They have lots of art too For life Yeah There you go. All right. Listen, prove us wrong. Make us, you know, we're jerks. All right, we're jerks, but silence the critics. First they laugh at you, right? Right, Bala Rama? Skeptic. First they laugh at you. All right. Some healthy skepticism here. We've been through this song and dance over and over again. Super healthy skepticism. All right. So here's something. I'm so glad that there's a new pinball company, though. Yeah, I'm so glad. You know, I was a little bummed. Deep Roots is finally gone. But that was a little tired, a little played out in four years. But now we've got Ballarama. Jumping right in the Philadelphia. Right in the hopper. Let's follow that very closely. All right? Thank you. All right. Thank you, Ballarama. You want to talk about something that exists? Australia's the hotbed of pinball, apparently. I know. The home pin started there, and then they went to China. You know what's a good idea, Kevin? Starting a pinball company when there's worldwide supply shortages after a pandemic. That's seeing CPI index shoot up to the highs that we saw in 2008 right before the recession hit. I think that's a great time to have a pinball company start. What do you think? Let's fire it up. Fire it up. Yep. JJP, Stern. Yeah. When you have delays. When you live on, you know, when you live way out in Australia. Yeah. Good luck. It's fine. Shipping and all that stuff is super cheap, I heard. The ports are in California. Easy. Stuff they can't unload because nobody will do it. I think we should start a company now, too. There we go. Buffalo Pinball Manufacturing Company. There you go.
    61:16
    Rolls off the tongue. You could do marketing. I could. I could do sales. No. Yeah. There you go. Sales and marketing. Then we need, like, an engineer, and then we got the full team, right? Oh, and an artist. Yeah, we got Matt Taylor is our engineer. There you go. All right. Who could do art?
    61:32
    Oh, I don't know. Jay can do music because he can sing some Dave Matthews and stuff. That sounds like a winner to me. It does. Well, we've got more of a robust team than the ball realm does, so I'm just saying. We got it. We got it going on. All right. Let's talk about something that exists. It's new code for old games. I love this. So Soren on Pinside, make a new code for Theater of Magic and Mousing Around. So there's a lot of new features.
    62:02
    So Mousing Around, the summary is, new feature adjustment adding run modes to the target bank and center ramp and bug fixes. Improvements, detail changes. Improvements are limits to the repeat shot play of the center ramp returning to the same flipper. Oh, that's cool. So you can't just, like, spam the center ramp. reward for controlling a streak of shots to make the ramp without hitting the other shots okay i don't know that game well enough to know the ins and outs of the rules and and how that impacts the play but it sounds like a good thing uh theater of magic they fixed a defect in the trunk control that would cause it to stop working mid-game four new feature adjustments to aid fine tuning score balancing and mode difficulty strategic basement awards and competition play that's cool in competition play that's multi-ball has not started as compensation during ball search the revision 1.4 each tiger saw mode motor control is ported to this revision and the display omits buy-in scores when buying is how much does it cost to buy that i don't know it's like 20 bucks or something okay let me see uh buy it now let's see it's exciting yeah like 19 to 40 bucks depending on what you need. Okay. Yeah.
    63:13
    Nice way to, so that's cool, you know, not only is it fixing old bugs, there's bugs in old games and making things better for tournaments. You know, a lot of times they're scoring exploits in these old games that, I don't think it all goes to Soren because he has a, this is an officially licensed code from, so I'm sure, what's it, Planetary probably gets a cut of that. Okay. And then Matt's Basement Arcade is the one burning the ROM, so they probably get a cut of that and then Soren probably gets a cut of it too. So I'm sure they divvy it all up. Everybody gets their piece and they're doing it the right way. Fantastic. So good job. Look at that. We need more of that in pinball. People getting it done, doing it the right way. Good job, Soren.
    63:57
    What's next? Oh, another thing that exists. It never drains in Southern California. Pinball's coming back, baby.
    64:05
    And so February 3rd to 6th, 2022, to indisc is coming to uh the riverside convention center in downtown riverside california in conjunction with the riverside game labs festival of fights i want i meant to look that up to see what that was i don't know if it's like a fighting game tournament or something like that um but it always seems like a good idea to pair a big pinball event with another event to kind of that way if you're in the tournament and you want to do something else you can go do it it's not just like all tournament all the time um especially if you're flying cross country to do all this so You know, Carl runs a great tournament out there. In the absence of Papa and Pinnberg, I think this is going to be one that really fills the void a little bit. And honestly, going to California in the middle of February sounds pretty good to me. You know, get the heck out of Buffalo for a while in the middle of winter. So maybe, maybe. How do you feel about traveling and tournaments and stuff like that at this point in the way the world is right now? Yeah, I mean, you know my situation.
    65:08
    Martha's not super comfortable with things COVID-related, so I'm kind of following that lead, right? Yeah. So, yeah, hopping on. I guess I've had friends that have traveled,
    65:24
    and my buddy Joe Mann is just like, yeah, airplane flying is not fun. Flying is not fun. So, yeah. But then again, people are pent up, and they want to do big pinball tournaments, So I'm sure they'll be fine at the tournament in terms of turnout. I just don't think I'm going to hop on a plane just yet. Yeah. Not itching to do it. I mean, airplane travel is not fun to begin with. And then you add another layer of stuff. So, yeah. But like locals things, you know, I'll drive to stuff, go to stuff. Yeah. I will say that after, so I went to the Ohio show after our last podcast. That was like my first event in 18 plus months. I was trying to remember what even was the last event I went to before the pandemic hit. And it was like, it was a lot. Like, I felt very overwhelmed after that. You know, being pent up in your house for a year and a half. And then just like being around all these people. I'm an introvert kind of guy. So it's like, whoo. I was like, this is a lot. And then most people didn't have masks on. And I was wearing mine the whole time. And this is like, that's when the Delta variant was really kicking up. I'm like, did I make a bad decision? am I gonna regret coming out to this and it ended up being fine like I didn't get sick, nobody got sick it was good, the tournament was really fun it was a fun event good to see people hang out a little bit but yeah it's like that mental like mind shift of holy crap I'm around all these people now yeah I mean it's tough because you always have COVID floating in the air figuratively and you know actually speaking potentially right so like there's that like layer onto something where you're like, you know, you're just taking up space in your mind. Right. Yep. Um, so it's, it's, it's weird. It's, it's, you, you want to come back and you gotta be careful. It's just a times, times are weird, but I'm, I'm glad that we're able to get back in person. Right. And it's just like smart about it and hopefully we can continue doing so. Yeah. All right. Last, uh, last news update from our friends at multi Morvic. They're going to be at pinball expo. So I know a lot of folks have been looking to play the P three, so you're going to be able to play heist and sorcerer's apprentice in person there if you want to check it out for yourself i think was playing some uh lexi lightspeed earlier and uh in sorcerer's apprentice they're adding more than 50 new call outs from community input oh they have been recorded and are being tested and they're mostly insults from the sorcerer so okay that's what you want in that game sure yeah more more sorcerer trash dog which i can appreciate uh locally we had our first league night since the pandemic hit and that was it was a lot that was also a lot i don't know if you felt the same way after that it was like that was well it was uh it was a long day because we did the playoffs in the afternoon and then i didn't leave your house till like nine so like the last game i played was wonka and i think i got like 53 000 on it or something stupid like i was just i was just done yeah you know it's just a long day yeah same here but it was awesome to see everybody everybody kept their masks on yeah everybody's really cool uh very respectful we had a lot of new players and they seem to have a good time and you got a good league. It was really nice to be back playing pinball with people. It was really nice. I absolutely love league. I like hosting.
    68:35
    It's fun. We're wearing masks during league. It's up to the host, but I think that's a good idea. People came up to me like, it's just really weird to be in a room full of so many people. It's weird for a lot of people. And, yeah, it is weird. It is weird. And I will gladly wear a mask and play pinball. That's what I got to do to play pinball, right? Like safely and not get super sick. And if we can keep this going, then great. I'm all about that. Yeah. I mean, it's something to look forward to in the winter when, you know, things in Buffalo get really, you know, you end up being cooped up in the house a lot of time, you know, like we have been. But in Buffalo, it's kind of like a winter tradition. you get that cabin fever going so it's good to get out and see everybody hang out play some pinball with friends like you said we've got a great group um it's it's easily my favorite thing that we do in pinball yeah the league it's 100 percent 100 it's sold out every year yeah super fast it's it's the best thing to do it's competitive but it's not like over the top with people losing their minds you know what i mean so it's like fun casual competitive um just a good time so uh thank you to everybody who comes out to our league and makes a good time and yeah everybody who hosts and we got some new host i'm looking forward to playing in new collections it's always exciting yes go back to mark's house yes all that good stuff all right all right let's do some game room updates why don't you kick it off uh nothing nothing i've got zero no you haven't done another game room uh dude i've been i've been just worn down going back to work like i've been exhausted yeah just readjusting and stuff uh i've not done like any i've not done much pinball no to be honest yeah what about video games you've been playing uh back from blood right oh yeah ben well I always play Hunt Showdown. Hunt Showdown is my bread and butter. I picked up playing disc golf at the end of August. I don't think I talked about that last podcast. I've been playing a lot of disc golf, like going out two or three times a week.
    70:33
    So I've actually been going outside, which is cool. I know. The weather in Buffalo has been ridiculously nice, too. It's been pretty nice. So I'm trying to get it in right before we go into the winter. So that's where my focus has been. And then I've been playing Back 4 Blood. It came out a couple days ago. I'm a huge Left 4 Dead fan, so Back 4 Blood's awesome. I'm really enjoying it. So if you want to play some Back 4 Blood, just hit me up, and we'll get into a game together. Yeah, and I played Left 4 Dead back in the day, too, so I'm going to jump in on something. Scribble plays it, too. He's going to play with us. He's going to be a real bro. Oh, nice. Awesome. Oh, and I was playing, there's a VR game that I found for disc golf, too. Oh, shoot. There you go. Except for the wintertime. I feel good about that. It's all coming together. I love it. So I got some cool updates in my game room. So I know Scribble and some other folks were talking about the Neo Geo game over my shoulder here. That's Xenocrasis for the Neo Geo. It has come out on a number of platforms, but I ordered this back in, like, 2018.
    71:29
    And the game was still in development back then. And so it's a brand-new Neo Geo MVS game. It's on MVS, AES, and the Neo Geo CD.
    71:39
    Really, really cool. The sound is freaking awesome on it. I love it. And the gameplay is really cool. it's a tough arcade style shooter but as you play more you can feel yourself getting better and learning the patterns and you make it a little farther every time so you want to keep doing new runs of it and going through it so it's in the style of something like Smash TV room to room and blowing people up or Total Carnage those kind of games with some more modern sensibilities too Control Configuration is a little weird because it's one of those games that It feels like a twin stick shooter, but you hold down the button, it locks you in place, and you can run around and shoot. Or you can use two of the buttons to the side of the fire button to rotate, which is kind of a neat way to do it on a setup like that. So very cool. It was expensive because Neo Geo games are expensive. It was like $200.
    72:32
    But Neo Geo is like the JJP of retro video games. Everybody else is like $60, $70 for a new game. Neo Geo is like, hold my beer. we're going to charge you $200 but they're these massive cartridges and stuff if you want to just play it they're going to be offering the ROM as a purchase so you can play it if you have an SD card or if you want to play it on an emulator or a mister or something like that very cool or it's also out on Switch and Sega Genesis all sorts of stuff like that so there you go I talk about video games and Nick Lane leaves I like it what else I, uh, we're sitting at a brand new, uh, computer desk, um, rig set up. So I've got a 27 inch monitor here, brand new Mac mini, got a side monitor here. Very cool. A little more compact, um, station for our podcast. And I've been working from home, working from home has been an ongoing thing for me now. So I was like, if I'm going to be doing this for a long time, I want to have a comfortable setup. So we going to upgrade the the desk and everything here at the uh in the game room because this is my my home office as well So I pretty good pretty good home office And uh so it seems to be working out so far for the podcast So I like it Um and it gives me even more room for I can squeeze like one more pinball machine in here now. And maybe there, there might be one on the way someday. So, um, good to have that extra space. But honestly, if I, if I buy another game, I'm probably going to be selling something because prices are pretty, pretty crazy. Um, and yeah, I just don't have 10 grand laying around to drop on another pinball machine. So something's going to go out if something comes in. But if some amazing deal pops up and I have to add another game to the room, I've got the space for it now. Other thing I've been playing is Metroid Dread on the Switch, and that game is freaking amazing. Really good.
    74:25
    Why are you looking at my feet? Skip is checking out your feet. Too weird. Skip's got a foot thing. Oh, Jesus. Weird.
    74:32
    Yeah, Metroid Dread, really good. so it's in the classic Metroid side. Have you ever played Metroid games? You weren't like a Nintendo kid were you? They're really good games. I played them all the way back to when I was a kid.
    74:47
    Awful says the arcade. Hard game. That's what all the reviews are saying. It's really cool. It takes me back.
    74:57
    It's a lot more forgiving in a lot of ways than the older Metroid games where if you die in a boss battle starts you right back there you don't have to go all the way back to your save point or if you die in these like me areas there's like these robotic guards that you have to to sneak around and if they kill you it just takes you back to a quick checkpoint so it makes it easy to kind of go back and and try to to get past the the difficult points of the game um but you know it's classic metroid if you love the old school metroid you want to play a new game definitely check it out uh i'm loving it i think it's my second favorite game on the switch number one would be um zelda uh breath of the wild and that number two is going to be metroid dread um it's just it's just that good check it out i'm very happy with it first game in a long time that i've played i'm like i just want to keep going play a little more play a little more and that's the sign of a good good video game somebody should somebody should make a metroid pinball if only somebody was working on that hmm hmm it's a review time it's review time let's go kids where's where's my review there we go Let's go.
    76:05
    I am okay. Looks like this is the least I've gotten waiting for. Are you ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready for your eye exam?
    76:18
    Showtime! All right, it is time for, not that, it's time for World Cup Soccer. World Cup Soccer released by Bally in 1994 it's a design by your boy John Papaduke and Larry DeMar art by Kevin O'Connor software by Larry DeMar and Matt Correal sound by Vince Pontarelli with those epic Tim Kittrow callouts according to Pinside and I think this pricing is a little out of date but it's the pricing reference on Pinside is $3,050 to $3,550 so that seems low for this game in the current market, but last year probably would have been accurate.
    77:00
    So yeah, let's start by talking about the art that you see in the back last. Right now it's got that hand-drawn art. This game looks very 90s to me. It's got the teal and the purple.
    77:12
    It reminds me of a starter jacket. That's the Papa Duke thing, right? He likes purple? Is that his thing? I think so. A lot of his games are purple-y.
    77:21
    But what do you think about the art? That's the impression I get from the art. Look at all that teal and the purple. Yeah, it is. I think that's the best way to describe it. It's very 90s. Yeah. Well, yeah, it is very 90s, but not... Some games are very, very 90s, right? Like neon stuff, right? Like neon green and yellow. This is not that.
    77:45
    It's 90s, but not over the top, I would say. It doesn't look bad. I don't think it looks bad, but it looks it looks it's a little dated it's appropriate of that era like yeah i like it for that yeah you know i was like oh yeah look at it look at those colors i mean the play field like again like like let's talk about play field art i like this art because it's it's functional right like it's not gonna win awards and like oh now over the art but it's it's functional to the gameplay yeah it's not it's not overwhelming it's it's well executed it's nice hand-drawn style art Yeah. Well, I mean, look, I know the market. I know why we get the art we get today on on play fields, because that sells games with like the collectors and stuff. But it's like these are people that I swear to God, they don't really play pinball the way you and I play pinball. And then they don't really get into it because it's not the art isn't it loses some of this functionality. I digress. Yeah. But for a game of, you know, is this 94?
    78:46
    It's a well-executed art package. It's not going to blow your sight. It's not like an all-time classic or anything like that, but it's well done. Well, I mean, when you look at the art on a play field, right, you're also trying to communicate what's going on in the game. Yep. So you don't want it. I mean, pinball can be super confusing as it is to players, even players who know what they're doing. So you want to be able to communicate cleanly. You want to be able to look good but also communicate cleanly. And I think this game does a good job of that. Yeah, I agree with that. I like the Magna Save on the artwork. Yeah. They got a little magnet there. The goalie hitting the magnet. Yeah, it's cool. I like it. The Magna Save itself sucks, but it's integrated to the artwork well. Yeah. And, like, they had the world's first female referee at the World Cup games represented on that game. Which it was – did they really have? Absolutely not. Okay. They didn't start doing that until 2021. In the NFL games. No, but you've got to have a lady in the game, right? Well, yeah, of course, because pinball are a bunch of freaking pervs.
    79:47
    Sound. Sound is really good on this game. The Tim Kisrow goal. That's like one of the things I immediately remember about this game. Yeah, totally. Totally. Like going with that NBA Jams vibe, like nailed it with Tim Kisrow. Yeah. So that's, again, it's like that hits the 90s vibe of what you want in a game like this. It brings you back to that era. And, I mean, Tim Kitzer is pretty timeless. He's still doing pinball voice work and stuff like that. He just did Elvira, I think, the most recently. Oh, okay. He's in my Deadpool game. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yep. So he's still doing it. He's still one of the all-time greats. That's why we have him do our call-outs on this show. Oh, yeah. Because he's great.
    80:28
    So beyond the call-outs, the music, this is a game I play on location a lot, so I don't really recognize it. I know the music. I like the music. It's great in the game. Yeah. Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that enough? Did I give you enough bars? Yeah, because I did... I forgot James had lent me his for like two weeks. I had it. Yeah, great. Like one of the best, like I think from the 90s pins, like the music's really good in it. Yeah, music sound. Thank you. Goran likes my singing.
    80:55
    If you want to harmonize that, he can help you out. Can we get some people to do harmony with it? We can. Thank you. The Buffalo Philharmonic. All right. Toys. Cool toys on this game. Let's go back to the pictures. So you've got the goal, which is – the goal is, like, a great new player, very obvious thing to do. I've seen people play this game and just, like, go for goals all day because it's like, I just want to get it past the goalie. Goalie moves back and forth. He'll jump over to the side if you've got to do a penalty shot. It's got that little scoop kick out over here where you can get your penalty kicks and stuff like that. It's got the big, massive spinning soccer ball that can influence the ball. Um, those are, those are two main, you just, Oh, it's got the little, there's like a magnet up here that'll divert the ball. It's not really a toy, but it's a cool, like, um, yeah. Mechanical feature of the game.
    81:48
    Um, anything else lower? You got the magnet save. I'm a lower love soccer ball. Yeah. I said that. You said, I'm sorry. Uh, you got the, uh, you said the scoop that kicks it in. Yep. So that too. Nick's not listening to me. Not listening. He's reading the chat. I'm reading the chat. Anything good in the chat. They're just talking about my harmonies. Well, that's very important. Yeah.
    82:10
    What else? Other features? Anything else? It's got how many scoops? It's got three scoops. No, four. It's got the TV, and then it's got the two left, right, and then it's got one by the goalie. Yeah, little saucers. So, yeah, it's got a bunch going for it. A lot of cool mechanical features. And big swoopy ramps and stuff like that. Good theme integration. Good theme integration in this game. For a soccer game, you know, you compare this to, like, Striker Extreme, which is a big pile of crap.
    82:37
    This game's crushing it. It has some cool mechs, you might say that. Some cool mechs. Deep Root. We'll never see those cool mechs now. Nope. They were going to be on Food Truck.
    82:49
    Display and lighting. So it's got a dot matrix display, and it's got, you know, it's got 90s lighting. When can we have somebody on? I know we're doing a review. When can we have somebody on who worked at Deep Root to talk to us about the shit show? I don't know. You think Steve would come on if we give him enough time? He's a friend of the show. I hope so. Let's lock that down. All right. Don't tell anybody, though. Shh. All right.
    83:12
    Let's talk about the display and lighting. Oh, this is a review, by the way. I know we did the intro that said it was a review, but this is the review. This is a review. Well, we had the intro, so we're good. We're still just, if you jumped in midpoint, we're doing a review. Okay. What do you think about the lighting and the display on this?
    83:31
    From what I remember, it's been a couple years since I played this game. Standard good lighting. Standard lighting from the 90s, so unremarkable. Fine for the time, nothing bad.
    83:42
    Display was fine. Again, nothing stands out, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's got some neat DMD animations. You just stand out either because it's really good or bad. Right. It's right in the middle. Okay. So far we've had really good art. Well, above average art, amazing sound, fun toys, just playing lighting. It's kind of right in the middle. All right. Yeah. Gameplay. I think this game kind of stands out when it comes to the gameplay aspect. What do you think? I think it's a really good gameplay. Again, it makes sense for the player can stand up to it. Okay, shoot the goal. Things are going to happen. It's got the goalie trying to block it. The shots feel good. It's really weird. It doesn't strike me as a particularly hard game or a particularly easy game. I've been to the end of it. I've been – I had this in my – I babysat it for like many months.
    84:32
    I've played this game a lot, but this is like going back probably, I don't know, eight years ago maybe. It was a while ago. It's a while ago.
    84:41
    But, I mean, this game can be really brutal when you're playing in a competition. I used to be used in competitions all the time. I remember watching tournaments that were like, you know, I don't even think they were streaming at the time, but they were just on like Papa's YouTube, right? Like when I was getting into pinball and this game was just played so much, you would always see this game. Yeah. And it can be set up right where it's just absolutely brutal. Or you can set up in your home collection fairly, you know, standard and you can get to the end after you played for a while. So I think it's good. Like the layout's really good in there. I like it. Yeah, I like the big swoopy ramps. ramps it's got one of those layouts where it's different and some of the shots are tougher like some of the ramps can be tough if you're not dialing them in if you're not dialed into hitting them because they're in kind of different spots on the flippers than the than the sweet spot but they're not this is the tv scoop can be a nightmare as jay fairbrother uh can talk talk firsthand where i think he missed about 13 times shooting for it we've got a video to prove it and joe saeed just counting all the time just like he was like he's got it and then basically Joe's side was rooting for Jay, he's like, this guy's terrible.
    85:47
    He just gave up. Fucking Jay. Classic early Buffalo Bulls. But yeah, that scoop, it's kind of like in the middle towards the flipper. It doesn't seem like it's hard, but it can drive you nuts trying to hit it, but that's what's cool about it. It's a great tournament game. It's a great tournament game, Scribble. I love this game. I miss talking about it. It's like the one Williams that I would own. If I owned one game from the 90s it might be this game yeah it was funny i was going to the pin side top 100 for inspiration for a review and i was like nah nah i don't want to talk about that i was like oh yeah world cup soccer we should talk about that one skip hates this game scribble scribble's trying to start crapping the chat um yeah so really really good game super fun not ridiculously priced compared to a lot of the other games of the era too no stop hyping it up which helps Oh, sorry, Nick's going to buy one. No, I won't. I mean, maybe one day. But it's theme, right? It's like, ooh, soccer.
    86:50
    It's a great game. It really is. It really is just a great game from the 90s. Yeah. So let's talk about the – And it was really good, too, price-wise because it wasn't crazy. I mean, it was probably – when I got into pinball, it might have been like $1,200 or something. Like you can just pick one of these up. No problem. They made a pretty good amount of them, too, I think. I don't know. I don't have the manufacturing numbers in front of me.
    87:15
    Talk about the gameplay. We talked about that. Let's talk about the rules. From what I remember, the rules were fine. Like I said, I was able to get to the end of the game.
    87:30
    They're good for the 90s, and it is a good tournament game. It works well in tournaments. No obvious exploits that I'm aware of. standard fare from the 90s pretty solid so almost 9,000 of these made so that's a lot yeah that's great and so to have that many made in a theme that people aren't like it's not like T2 where they're like oh I love T2 even though they made a bazillion of those people just love that theme for whatever because it was a movie they liked in the US guess what not a lot of people like soccer so it helps keeps the price down more than Raza or Magic Girl imagine that so yeah one of the things I really like about the rules is like when you get to the end and you're like battling all the cities that's a really cool mode and really cool like pinball moments you're like shooting the goals and trying to advance to the next city so I really like that aspect of this game so really some cool like different thought into the rules on this game it's very well integrated with the theme alright so that brings us to last ability you owned one or had one for a while in your house. Yeah, I was just babysitting it, so I didn't own one, but I had it, and I got to the end. And, you know, this is a game that I think is great if you're just getting into pinball. It's a great game for when you have people over and casuals to enjoy, but it's also a great game to have if you're like a tournament player and you want to have a game in your collection that's like a good tournament machine that represents a game from the 90s. I can see in my life if I have the room more space for games, maybe having one because this is one of my favorite games from the 90s I think that's the last ability any game from the 90s is going to have a difficult battle stacking up to what's coming out now it just is we've upped the ante in terms of what we can do with rules not to mention obviously the LED lighting sound and all that and yet this game is is is pretty damn fun so yeah not every game has to be uh you know hobbit or whatever you know lord of the rings any super deep rules you know you can have games in your collection that are uh you know easier to get to the end but if they're fun enough if it's fun enough for you to do that more than one time then it's going to keep it They keep you coming back, right? Yeah. I've played Tron and Atoms a bazillion times, but I still have fun playing them. And I can get to the end of them relatively easily, but they're games that I like for other reasons. They're nostalgic or I just love the experience of playing them, whatever. So there's room in collections for those. And at a price point like World Cup Soccer is at, even Gorin said they go from almost $4,000 to over $5,000 now, which is a lot. but in the grand scheme of pinball it's on the low end for a DMD or more modern game what I like about this game is it's exciting to play some games are chopping wood some games are cerebral this game is exciting even when you just get the ball on the flipper after hitting that pretty cool skill shot and then scoring a goal and hearing goal! it's pretty exciting when you finally land it into the TV to start multi-ball and you're scoring goals and you're getting past the goalie, that's exciting. It's an exciting game to play, and the presentation of the game helps to make it exciting. So it's just kind of a game that you play, puts a smile on your face. You're not going to be, you know, digging in your heels like, all right, let's tackle World Cup soccer. It's not like that at all. It's just pure fun, and some games really capture that in pinball, and this is one of them. Would you rather have this or the pin?
    91:23
    the pin yeah a certain pinball the pin you know the home pins because they're about the same price World Cup soccer all day long all day all right so let's give it let's put a number on it let's go over here all right why don't you I think you go first this time right yeah I gotta remember how to do this after talking so after talking about this I kind of want one so I know get one I was like yeah room and it's not that expensive. Have you ever streamed this game? I don't know. I think we were going to and then James Thiggett had sold it. I don't think I've ever fucking ever streamed World Cup Soccer. It's crazy. Who's got a World Cup Soccer? Hit me up. So give you the score key. Zero to two is a burn it. Three to five is an expensive nightlight. Six to eight is a solid game. Nine to ten, get your wallets out. I'm going to go first. I'm going to put this at a seven. I think this is a seven.
    92:21
    Right middle. Solid game. Really fun. I would buy it. Yeah, I feel like that's where it belongs. This game is an 8.5. Wow. I take into account that it's 8.5 on the game.
    92:36
    It's an 8.5 because it's just fun. It's just so fun. I love games where I don't just boil it down to... When we do a review, we boil it down to the, okay, guys, art and sound. But at the end of the day, I'm just like, God damn, this game is just fun. It just feels like an eight and a half to me in terms of that. Cool. There you go. That's your review of Valley's World Cup Soccer. Go out and buy one, maybe. All right. And that brings us to the end of yet another Pro-D-Even Talk Pinball. Thanks for joining us, everybody. Don't forget to give us a follow on all the social media channels. We're on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube if you want to catch past shows. We've got five plus years, a million views on our YouTube channel. Thank you, everybody, for watching over the years. You can join us in Discord, discord.gg slash buffalo pinball. You can email us, talkpinball at gmail.com. If you want to leave us a voicemail, we've got that on our Anchor FM page, anchor.fm slash buffalo-pinball. You can support the channel by subscribing to us on Twitch. We've got Amazon Prime. You can throw that to our way every month for a way to support us at no extra charge. You can take the money from Jeff Bezos and give it to us. and then we have PayPal too if you want to give PayPal buffalopayball.gmail.com another way you can support us is by dropping a review on your favorite podcast platform or wherever you consume this content Nick what do you have to say before we toss over to everybody's favorite Topper Talk thanks for tuning in we'll catch you next month all right bye everybody it's Topper Talk with Goran right now Let's all have some fun. This is about plastic on top of your pin. Go and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly fill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Goran. Hello and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Goran, the part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable Topper community. Now, I'm not sure if you've all recently heard, but Chicago Gaming Company announced that Cactus Canyon is going to be their next game. Now, they have not announced exactly what the Topper is, but we do know that it's going to be unique to the limited edition model and it's going to have some sort of gameplay element to it. And I'm looking forward to discussing that in a future episode. With that being said, in honor of Cactus Canyon, I thought we could throw back to the Medieval Madness topper that was released a year or two ago and check that out today. So let's head into the office now. Okay, so here we are looking at the topper for Medieval Madness. Now, to give you a little bit of history, Chicago Gaming Company's first remake game was Medieval Madness Remake, and this was quite a few years ago. So it was basically the game remade with very few changes. But then they rolled out Attack from Mars and Monster Bash remake. There were different editions. The limited editions have toppers and lots of other cool little bells and whistles.
    95:48
    Chicago Gaming decided to rerun Medieval Madness remake, but give it the same treatment that the limited editions of Attack from Mars and Monster Bash got. And with that came the topper, the Royal Edition topper for Medieval Madness Remake. Here it is on the game. But the cool thing is typically with the Chicago Gaming Company toppers is that, you know, they're only available for the limited edition. You can't buy them otherwise. But they actually gave the opportunity to previous buyers of the original remake to upgrade their games to have the toppers and all the other bells and whistles. So they were available for a period of time. Now, to dive into the topper, it's about eight inches tall. It's fully sculpted, full RGB lighting that's interactive with the game. It's really a nice-looking topper. Nothing moves on it.
    96:37
    But, you know, when you look at some of the other toppers, you know, Plexiglas that people are putting out, this is fully 3D. It's got a nice backdrop and has really, really nice lighting. And let's sort of take a closer look at the topper here. Highly detailed. I don't know if it's hand-painted, but it surely looks to be hand-painted. It's got different lighting effects. Here's a few different lighting options here.
    97:00
    And just look at the detail on this topper. They really went all out with it. Now, the cost for the topper alone to upgrade your old remake to have the topper was $599. This is Flippin' Out's website. Now, they're sold out. A lot of other places are sold out. I think when you look at the current topper market and what toppers are costing, this is a great deal. If you have the opportunity to buy one, I highly recommend you pick one up, because I'm not sure if they're ever going to be available again. At the Chicago Gaming Company seminar where they announced a Cactus Canyon, they did mention in 2023, I believe, that they'll be running Medieval Madness Remake, but they mentioned there wouldn't be any more Royal Editions, and that could mean that there won't be any more toppers as well. So if you have the opportunity, pick one up. I think it's a great topper and it really enhances the overall look of the game.
    98:00
    Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Topper Talk with Goran. Tune in to the next podcast for another episode. And as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my Topper Talk.