Welcome to Guinea's Pinball Podcast. So we got some real pinball news today to talk about. We got Dutch Pinball has announced a new division within Dutch Pinball. Now, this is exciting news for many reasons. Now, first and foremost, this company 10 years ago ushered out the big Lebowski, right? And it's been a very tumultuous journey for this company, to say the very least. And a lot of you out there who went in on that game early on got burned. But here we are today. It's a new chapter. A decade later, this company is now in a really good position. They've made every single EA hole. They now are going to reveal two games in 2024, which is really exciting. And let's read the press release that went out about Dutch Pinball today and give our thoughts about what's happening over there and what I think about this new division over in the Netherlands. So Dutch Pinball press release. Building on its respected presence in the pinball industry, Dutch Pinball is pleased to announce the introduction of DPX, short for Dutch Pinball Exclusive. This new sister company marks an extension of Dutch Pinball's existing portfolio, focusing on producing limited editions of high quality pinball machines for collectors. Barry Dyson, founder of Dutch Pinball, in collaboration with Melvin Williams, has initiated DPX to cater to a niche market. DPX represents a commitment to the craft of pinball machine creation, combining the renowned quality of Dutch pinball with a focus on exclusivity, innovation, and craftsmanship. DPX will continue to utilize the proven mechanics and electronics that fans have come to expect from the big Lebowski pinball. However, DPX aims to further refine these technologies, producing no more than 500 units of each title globally to maintain exclusivity. Melvin Williams leads DPX's design and engineering, bringing a fresh perspective to the development of new pinball machines. With a background in enhancing Dutch pinball's technologies, Melvin's role at DPX involves pushing the boundaries of design and functionality, ensuring that each machine offers a unique experience. Strategic expansion. To support the launch of DPX, Dutch Pinball has acquired additional space for securing a building across the street from its current operations. The expansion doubles the production capacity, facilitating the manufacture of both DP and DPX machines more efficiently and allowing for future growth. As DPX prepares to unveil its first title, Dutch Pinball also continues to develop its own range of machines. Further information regarding new releases under the Dutch Pinball brand will be made available towards the end of 2024. Looking ahead, we appreciate the ongoing support from the pinball community and are excited about the opportunities that DPX brings. This new venture allows us to explore new possibilities in pinball design and production, enhancing the collector's experience. For additional updates, stay tuned. We are eager to share the next chapter in our journey with you. Barry and Melvin, Dutch Pinball exclusive. Okay. Now, here's the thing, ladies and gentlemen. They just did what I've been saying a pinball company should do for the last 10 years. And I've said this since I've started my show. We are at the point now with all of these companies, with all of these games, with all of these themes. We are at the point now where this industry is waking up a little bit. It's maturing a little bit. The prices are certainly very mature. But here's the thing. It is okay to make a product that's not for everyone. It is okay to make a product where the aim of that product is purely to be exclusive, is purely to be a collector's item. And the moment you start to think that pinball doesn't have collectors and the things that collectors crave, right? And this isn't me making this up. This isn't like, oh, Kanaid is a selfish, weird dude who just wants rare stuff inside his house. The things collectors want, they want something unique. They want it to be a conversation starter. They don't want to have what everybody else has. And that's the easiest way to think about it. If you're collecting something, and let's say pinball is the thing you collect, you want to have a game that not everybody has. And that's why they only make a certain number of LE machines. That's why they only made 80 Batman SLEs. It's why Jersey Jack has their collector's edition, spooky pinball. Everybody got their version of something that not everybody can have By nature it is limited Now what these pinball companies have all done wrong is they making way too many of everything because to truly have something that not everybody can have, it's not just about the game having plaques and different like stickers the way Stern does and then everybody else. It's about having something where there's not that many in the world and the experience itself is truly limited. So a game like James Bond 60th is an example of that. And you know me and what a horrible way to do it the way they did James Bond 60th, right? It's a barren game. It looks cheap. It looks bad. And then Stern goes and charges you the most amount of money ever. And that's not what people want, especially in pinball. We don't want like this rare high end thing to be barren, right? And it's not just about exclusivity. This is a really important part. If all you do is make something exclusive for exclusive sake, but it's not special. And it doesn't matter if it has beautiful artwork. You have to look no further than a game like Cosmic Carnival. Remember when they made that game, right? They took Dirty Donnie, an artist that had one of the greatest selling pinball machines of all time in Stearns Metallica. They got him to do a really awesome art package for Cosmic Carnival. And guess what? Nobody wanted it because the game wasn't any good. it didn't have any magic it didn't have anything special it's not something that a collector wanted the same with like that team pinball is the mafia game nobody wanted that game as well so there has to be something here right and we know the theme is alice in wonderland we know they're only going to make 500 and we know that they have an uphill battle to climb with this game people you know i am not going to just turn into a blanket show for dutch pinball make no mistake this isn't the easiest game to sell. No matter what you do to this game, it is going to come with some J-pop baggage. It is going to come with some baggage that the artist who's appearing on this game doesn't support the game in Zombie Yeti, and it might not be as easy as they think to sell all 500. Now, all that being said, having seen this game and looking at the underside of the game that we're seeing today, I don't know how you're not a little bit excited. It's a very clean looking game. You've got some magnets in it. You've got some subways. You've got an upper playfield. You've got a lot of coils going to something. It's going to have that sort of weird, whimsical J-pop Alice in Wonderland vibes going on in this game. Now, what this game doesn't have is a Zidware cabinet, which I think made those J-pop games stand out in a unique way. It's also not going to have the screen underneath the glass. So it's not going to have that like crazy, weird, mad scientist vibes of that J-pop game. Now, that being said, having seen this game in a normal cabinet, it takes a little while to get used to it, but it still is gorgeous. It still is beautiful. Now, I think what's interesting about this is you look at the buildings, right? It's across the street from Dutch Pinball on the roof. I don't know if that's actually on the roof or it's Photoshop. It looks like it's on the roof. One says DP and one says DPX. And so you've got these two buildings and right now they're finishing up production on the big Lebowski. Here's the question I have because Alice in Wonderland is coming out pretty soon. How fast can they make all 500 games? I don't know. Remember Dutch Pinball isn't stern. They're not making four or 500 games a week or even a month and I don't even know if they're making that many a year. So how fast are they going to get these games out? And so if you have Alice in Wonderland being made at DPX across the street from Dutch and then Dutch Pinball unveils Back to the Future at the end of this year, they're going to get like 18,000 orders for Back to the Future. So how are they going to make all of these games? Will some of the Back to the Future production also take place at DPX? The other question I had was, will they just build all the Alice's in both places, right? I mean, they're literally right across the street from each other. And so will they go full steam ahead on building all of these Alice in Wonderland games? Now, here's another interesting thing to think about as this company is positioning itself as solely for collectors, right? It's not for operators. So that leads us to believe these are going to be expensive. And everyone is wondering, what's the price? Is it going to be $13? Is it going to be $15? Is it going to be $20? I don't know the price. If I knew the price, I would tell you. I'm trying to get a teaser image for each and every one of you, because as I told Barry, it is the Canada Club or the Canadians, as we're now saying. I bet a very good portion of these games are going to sell to my community and to my audience. My audience definitely over-indexes as collectors. I don't think tournament players get any value listening to Canada's Pinball Podcast. So I am trying to get something for each and every one of you. If I had to take a guess, how much will Alice in Wonderland cost if they are only making $500? I think this game is going to be between $13,000 and $15,000. Even though it's limited and it's exclusive, I don't think they're going to go crazy like James Bond's 60th. And if you want to make something that is for collectors the reason you have to price it right is you don want collectors to lose money And that is the most important part of being a collector Nobody wants to lose money by buying a game on day one In fact, the smart thing to do for this company, I know this sounds counterintuitive and I know this pinball world has gotten really stupid where the companies got greedy and they don't wanna leave a single dollar on the table. But if I were them and I really wanna do it right, I would price this game around the big Lebowski, maybe say $13,000 or $13,500 and let it go up in price on the secondary market. That's how you build a brand that is worth collecting. If you go the opposite and you try to price it as high as you possibly can and you don't sell out and there's not as much interest because you're going to significantly lower the people that want this game or the demand for the game if you go crazy with the price. And so if I'm Barry and I'm listening to Canada's Pinball Podcast right now and I'm Melvin over there, I know you want to create something special. I know you want to make something sought after by the pinball collectors. But the best way to go about it, the best way to do this is price it right where you're making a good profit and there are way more than 500 people fighting to get through that door to get one. That is how you do it right. My fear is, with all of the pinball companies these days, is they're trying to find the price ceiling on every single item. Toppers are $2,000. A cheap Stern machine is $13,000. A pretty empty Elton John is $15,000. They've all pushed their products as close to the ceiling as they possibly can. And what has happened? Every single game loses money. Every single collector that's buying new in-box is getting burned now. I mean, I'm seeing these games go up for sale and it's like the only time games have gone up in value is when they were priced right. And these are not the right prices. And you could say, well, this is just the new reality. But if that's the case and every single new in box game equals a lot of money lost, then you destroy the collector nature of the hobby. You got to pass on the value to the owner. You can't just try to get as much possible in house. because if they do price this game at like $20,000, they're not gonna have 500 people beating down the door. And then here's what's gonna happen is the value of that game on the secondhand market is gonna slide south. People are not in at 20K. And let's say they don't wanna spend more than 15. And so then you've got a problem. Now, everyone who bought that game for 20 grand is gonna feel like you burned them. And now they lost $5,000 because they believed in something and they believed in what you valued the game at. And so that is my advice to Dutch. Price this thing right. Make there be way more than 500 people trying to get one and you will have a very successful, exclusive branch of your company for a long time. And you've also got to prove that it's worth it. And that's the ultimate thing, right? You have to prove that these games are going to be worth it. That the game is going to be great. We don't know if the game is great. We're seeing the J-pop foam core. We don't know, right? It can be beautiful, but if it's not fun, if it's not challenging, if it doesn't have the most important thing, which are those pinball moments that you can't wait to get to over and over again. It needs that. It can't just be a pretty box of lights. That's not going to cut it. It's not going to cut it. And I really look forward to seeing where this game goes. I look forward to the conversation around it. And they've got work to do, people. Believe me, they've got work to do to drum up hype and excitement for this game. even on pin side, there's only one page of conversation, right? They've just lifted the play field on Dutch pinball's second game. The company that puts more into their games than everybody else. I know they've only made one game, but the big Lebowski still to this day runs circles around the other companies and what we're getting in pinball. And it's just embarrassing what we're spending on other products that have barely nothing compared to the big Lebowski. And I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about innovations. I'm talking about a world under glass. Alice in Wonderland, again, is going to be a hard sell because it doesn't have that sort of fandom, right? It doesn't have that community, especially for grown men, right? Would you tell people, like, oh, I'm a grown dude, and I'm going to go buy Alice in Wonderland. And they're like, what? Huh? What's going on here? Now, when you look at the artwork, it's like Alice in Wonderland. She's looking real nice. Like, she's a 10 out of 10. and all the women in this game are very voluptuous and have perfect bodies. So it's going to be a very sexy Alice in Wonderland. It's going to give Elvira a run for the money on cleavage, that is for sure. So look, exciting day. This game is supposed to come out sometime in May, June. So we're going to see it really soon. I mean, it's pretty much done, it looks like. I mean that game looks like it production ready And I in the same boat as all of you I need to see more You know I told you to call Melissa and get on the list And you might as well You might as well call Melissa at Cointaker because why not be on the list in case you want one It's not going to cost you anything. Still wait to see the game. But I would hate for some of you to miss out because you didn't listen to Canada. Because don't forget, people, this is $500 for a global pinball community. And for the people in Europe who have to spend all this crazy money on machines, I bet a lot of those European collectors are going to gobble up half of these easily. So I could see 250 going to Europe, maybe 50 going to Australia. And for a U.S. pinball market and all of you out there who just want something different in your lineup, well, now you're going to get it. This was a really smart move. And I think Stern and Jersey Jack and everybody else out there, they should have thought of how to do something like this. Because I think when you brand a different division and you do it right, it makes sense. Stern never did it right. They never did the SLE thing right. They made one and then they never made another. It was like all over the place. Jersey Jack, a thousand CEs doesn't work. A thousand Stern LEs doesn't work. Spooky calls their games collector's editions and they make the most of those editions. Like that's not rare or collectible. So I really do applaud these guys from a marketing standpoint, but you know what? It'll only get you so far. The game needs to be great. The game needs to be worth it, and they have to price it right to get more people through the door. Everybody, thank you for being a member of the Canada Club. We are near the end of the month. I hope all of you are feeling like you're getting your value. I want to know what you feel about Alice in Wonderland. Obviously, in the comments section of this podcast, drop your thoughts in. Make sure you get to the app where the chat is happening. I've got some good news. The Patreon chat will soon open up on the computer. So you can join the Canada chat on a computer if you don't want to do it on the app on your phone. So all good stuff happening there. I want to give my condolences to Mr. Bond, who after all of his memes and all of his making fun of Stern for their stupid prices, he caves and buys a Jaws LE, giving money to Seth Davis as he makes fun of Seth Davis every day for ripping us off. And I just want to encourage each and every one of you don't end up like Bond. If you have convictions, stick to them. You know, if you have a point of view, stick to that point of view. Don't cave, right? Don't cave. And the reason why I don't want any of you to cave is like, we're all going to be laughing our asses off when Jaws LEs are worth $10,000 in a year. And Bond is like, you know, I should have listened to my own memes. Everybody, wait and see. Be patient. There's so much pinball. And the last point I'll say is this. Someone said this. They're like, it's a horrible time to announce something like this with Dutch pinball, considering the state of the pinball market. And as someone who just bought a home and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the listing price to get a house, which is what you need to do in my area of the country, don't ever underestimate the amount of wealthy people, especially in this hobby, it's never a bad time for them. For these rich collectors, and you know who you are, you have a lot more money than me. For rich people, there's never a bad time for them to get what they want. And to them, $15,000 or $20,000 is nothing. There are 20 million millionaires in America alone. And I've seen some of your game rooms. And if you've got a quarter million dollars in pinball machines, you must be doing something right, let alone the expensive stereo equipment and the square footage of your game rooms, you know who you are, right? You know, and some of you might live in areas where the homes only cost $400,000. I'm envious of you because that's what you got to pay over sticker to get homes in my area of the country. Everybody have a great day. We'll talk to you soon. Wait a minute. Don't go just yet. I just got a note from Barry over at Dutch Pinball and I have some exclusive information on the pricing of Alice in Wonderland. He said, everyone is talking about a super expensive game, but can you share that it will be fully loaded, a topper, shaker, the best anti-reflective glass. All of this will go to you, the consumer, the pinball collector for under $15,000. So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a Canada exclusive on the price of Alice in Wonderland. make sure when you take this information to pin side and all you other pinball content creators who don't say my name anymore make sure you say it kaneda later No!