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Episode 203 - Dream Unity

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 22m·analyzed·Oct 1, 2023
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TL;DR

American Pinball's American Dream contest had a winner held up by licensing; GTF attempts soft relaunch at Expo.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss their recent work and personal experiences, including a new job orientation Q&A, then pivot to pinball industry news. They analyze an interview with David Fix of American Pinball covering the American Dream homebrew contest (which had a winner, but licensing issues prevent announcement) and Galactic Tank Force soft relaunch at Expo with cast appearances. They debate whether GTF's marketing strategy of bringing live-action cast members will move units, skeptically comparing it to successful celebrity appearances like Cassandra Peterson (Elvira) and John Rhys-Davies.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball's American Dream contest did have a winner selected, but the winner and IP have not been announced because American Pinball is attempting to secure the license for the homebrew game before production

    high confidence · David Fix stated in interview on Pinball Innovators and Makers podcast that a winner was chosen and knows they won, but licensing negotiations are ongoing before public announcement

  • Galactic Tank Force is doing a 'soft reboot' at Expo 2025 with the live-action backbox cast appearing to sign autographs and walk around the show

    high confidence · Dennis directly states GTF is having a soft reboot with cast appearances and a seminar scheduled

  • GTF targets were getting bent in production, requiring a brace that was tested extensively but production versions differed from test versions

    medium confidence · Dennis references David Fix being 'fairly defensive' about target testing in the interview, noting the production version wasn't the same as the prototype

  • Josh Sharp indicated Pulp Fiction's reveal timing was driven by licensing requirements, explaining the six-month delay before production started

    medium confidence · Dennis states he read that Josh Sharp 'helped develop the Pulp Fiction game' and 'indicate that there was a licensure requirement' for the timing of the reveal

  • Original theme pinball games will never outsell licensed IP games in the current market

    medium confidence · Tony's stated opinion based on observed market trends, presented as established fact about theme performance

Notable Quotes

  • “we did actually pick a winner. The winner knows who won. They know they won. The thing is, is because after they took the developer, Ryan, who had the Sonic spinball game, and then they couldn't get the Sonic license because some other pinball company came in and took it. They haven't revealed who the winner is because they're trying to secure the license of the winner's title”

    Dennis (summarizing David Fix) @ ~28:00 — Clarifies the American Dream contest status—it did happen, but licensing complications prevent announcement

  • “I just don't, I'm sure that whichever game it was, it's going to be a big enough license that with their get or their attempt to get, especially they're like we'd like to get the license there's already a game made but we need the license to actually sell it isn't gonna isn't gonna fly”

    Tony @ ~50:00 — Skepticism about whether American Pinball can successfully license the winning homebrew game for production

  • “It's not like having John Rhys-Davies come to TPF. And one of the greatest things, if Jeff Patterson came up with this for the Twippies, absolutely brilliant. It was the most epic thing ever was to get him to come up there and go, jackpot, won.”

    Dennis @ ~41:00 — Contrasts meaningless celebrity appearances with genuinely impactful ones; uses John Rhys-Davies as the benchmark for effective celeb draw

  • “Nobody knows these people. And no offense to them. I'm not judging their performance in the game or anything like that. But it's not a draw. Right? It's not like having John Rhys-Davies come to TPF.”

    Dennis @ ~40:00 — Core critique of GTF's cast announcement strategy—questions whether unknown actors will drive sales or interest

  • “Are we really at the point of desperation that to try and move units, the best we can come up with is, well, let's just get all of our cast to be there. To do what?”

    Tony @ ~42:00 — Expresses doubt about GTF's marketing approach and questions its effectiveness at moving product

  • “Cassandra Peterson is a big exception. Yeah, that's a huge exception because of the pinball tie and the outside ties.”

    Tony, Dennis — Acknowledges Elvira as unique case where celebrity appearance drives attendance because of strong pinball historical connection

Entities

David FixpersonAmerican PinballcompanyGalactic Tank ForcegameDennispersonTonypersonPulp FictiongameSonic SpinballgameJosh Sharpperson

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: GTF received polarized reception at TPF; opinion split between those who loved and hated the game; soft relaunch unlikely to change this polarization

    medium · Tony: 'I know there was a lot of talk, and it was very... People either loved it or hated it at TPF. I don't think that's going to change.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: American Pinball positioning GTF as unique/different approach but hosts skeptical this translates to sales advantage or customer interest

    medium · David Fix described trying to do something 'unusual' and 'different way'; Tony responds: 'what's the payoff? Like, why would I care about that?'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: American Dream contest had winner selected but announcement blocked by inability to secure IP license; Sonic Spinball was lost to competing pinball manufacturer

    high · David Fix stated winner was chosen but licensing negotiations ongoing; Ryan's Sonic Spinball license acquired by another company before American Pinball could move forward

  • $

    market_signal: Original-theme pinball games demonstrably underperform licensed IP in current market; American Pinball's strategy of pursuing licensing for homebrew contest winner reflects market reality

    high · Tony: 'it really does not matter just how good an original theme is in this day and age an original theme will never outsell a license right'

  • $

    market_signal: GTF attempting cast-appearance marketing strategy at Expo; hosts question effectiveness compared to genuine celebrity draws like Cassandra Peterson or John Rhys-Davies

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.249

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, October 1st. This is episode 203. My name is Tony. My name is Dennis. Tony, we're back in person. I did not get the vid. You did not have the vid. Nope. That's good. There was no sickness, no – No, I was fine. No horribleness. But I figured let's not – I let Tony know ahead of time because I got notified of an exposure. I don't know what event it was. And then Tony, of course, was getting ready to go back to work. So it's been a couple weeks. So what's been going on since you've returned from your vacation? It's been so insanely hectic. We've had, I don't know, nine interviews, and I think we have four more interviews scheduled this upcoming week, and we've had all sorts of stuff going on.
1:09
Some days when you go to work, you sit down and you do a bunch of normal work-related stuff, and you do your job, and you go around, and you walk out, and you're like, wow, I feel real accomplished. But we've had so much stuff going on, and I've been so buried in meetings since I came back that there are days where I'm not leaving work until, you know, I'm spending 10 and 12 hours at work working on stuff before I leave just to get all my normal stuff done because so much of my day has been taken up by meetings as we're dealing with all of these other little emergencies and what I want to call them. an unexpected speed up of the timelines that had been laid out for the last like decade. Like we were looking at some plant work and some expansions that we were looking at doing in the mid thirties that due to sudden increases of industry in the area have to be pushed up to sometime in the next five years. So stuff that we were saying, Hey, we've got a decade before we got to start getting real deep into this. We're now real deep into it. So things have been hectic.
2:20
So I've been just go, go, go, go, go. Oh, yeah. Come home, like just read and relax like Baldur's Gate. I've played a little bit of Baldur's Gate since vacation ended, but I played over 30 hours of Baldur's Gate during vacation, and I've played maybe six hours since. F that. and I've completed and I've caught up and I've fixed a lot of the issues that I've had and I'm doing pretty good on it. But at this point, by the time I get home, I don't want to do anything that is necessarily that involved.
@ ~45:00

  • “We've seen it proven time and time again that it really does not matter just how good an original theme is in this day and age an original theme will never outsell a license right”

    Tony @ ~49:00 — States thesis that pinball market fundamentally favors licensed IP over original themes

    • Cassandra Petersonperson
    John Rhys-Daviesperson
    Multimorphiccompany
    Final Resistancegame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Cactus Canyongame
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Pinball Innovators and Makers Podcastmedia
    Expoevent
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Ryanperson

    high · Dennis and Tony extensively critique the logic of bringing unknown live-action cast to sign autographs as insufficient draw compared to recognizable celebrities

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pulp Fiction delayed 6+ months post-reveal due to licensing requirements; Cactus Canyon experiencing continued massive delays, also suspected licensing cause

    high · Josh Sharp indicated licensure requirement drove reveal timing; delays perfectly aligned with licensing process timelines

  • ?

    product_concern: GTF targets bending in production despite extensive prototype testing; required production brace fix

    medium · David Fix described defensive explanation of target durability issue; paralleled with similar issues on Demogorgon (Stranger Things) and Rush scoop iterations

  • ?

    product_strategy: GTF soft relaunch planned for Expo 2025 including cast appearances, autographs, seminars; appears timed to regain attention after being drowned out by Foo Fighters/Multimorphic announcements

    high · Dennis states GTF is doing soft reboot with cast present, seminars scheduled; Tony notes timing makes sense to push visibility after six-month gap

    • 3:00
    Because like Baldur's Gate, it's a ton of fun, but it's not something that I can like sit down and watch videos and do at the same time. and it requires me to have a lot more involvement. So I'm holding it for when I'm not exhausted at the end of the day. Otherwise, I've just been reading or like watching videos and playing something that does not require nearly as much attention to it and then passing out by like 8 o'clock Friday night. Friday night, I came home from work. We had dinner and then I woke up at 11.45. that night because I'd apparently fallen asleep at like 6.15.
    3:43
    That's how tired I was. I was like, I'm just going to sit here on the couch after dinner and I'm going to read my book for a little bit. And then I fell asleep like instantly. So I was up like half the night and then went back to sleep at like 3 a.m. and woke back up at like 6.30 because I was just like, okay, this is. So it's been a hectic couple of weeks. but I know yours probably hasn't been much better since you're still settling into the new job and everything yeah it I mean it's the first week was probably the the most confusing which isn't too surprising and mostly training wise actually had a couple of interesting things well kind of podcast related so on Friday we had an all staff meeting because this the department's very large so this doesn't happen all the time so they get basically everyone is available together and go over some stuff and the very end of it was 20 minutes of q a with me which they didn't do that to any of the other new hires i don't i mean i like they had a list of their like a slideshow a carousel of here are all the new people since like the last staff meeting so i'm there but there are other people in that list but they are not q and a don't think i'm q and a but how many of them were your level of well well i guess zero but they got interesting careers at the very least probably more interesting lives than me so anyway um and during that and that went pretty well uh there are a couple of well one was outside it's like kind of like a you know i'm trying to think and getting these questions i i some of them were submitted ahead of time and i was given a list of a few but then it was live like name like someone asked me oh this one was so they they uh they said it was a two-part question it was really like a five-stage question about barbecue and wanted me to build basically a platter but i had to use a different place for everything oh fun question yeah it was actually uh other than when you're in front of 100 people trying to trying to remember the names of everything and what you what you like and all of that It was clever, though. I will definitely concede that. Sausage from K&M.
    5:55
    Pulled pork from Jack Stack. Grandma sauce from Zarda. Let's see. That's three. This is tough. See? It was. Ribs from Arthur Bryant. and all of the side goodness from slaps. Okay. So the way I thought they were phrasing it that way initially, and then for me they kind of pivoted it to like a main and then sides. So the way I ended up doing it was I went with my meat, specifically burnt ends from Joe's. Good call. Cornbread from the rub. Good. I went with the onion rings from Jack Stack. Very good. And then the last one, he said I had to pick one more because I was like – I was starting to blank at that point. So I went ahead and – because I don't do a lot of sides. I went ahead and did beans from Gates, but honestly, I don't know if that's the right answer or not. Though I like their sauce, so I could have just as easily tried to say I want the sauce from there. And I don't eat coleslaw, so that ruled out what I might have otherwise thought of. but and then oh i wanted a drink as well but i usually just have water or diet pop so i don't like i don't have like a favorite tea place because i hate tea so anyway so there's like that uh no only a couple a couple blunders only one in front of the group i don't know if anyone caught it have any of them listen now because they the podcast don't worry this is gonna get the podcast they find out about the podcast of course uh is uh i i made a reference to not uh there's like a vacation question so i made a reference not liking sand because it's gritty and gets everywhere but I named that it was The Phantom Menace, which of course is not true. That was Attack of the Clones. Yes. So I got that one wrong. Did you get called on it? No, but I'm calling myself now. Good move. At least you're admitting. Well, and I dogged Phantom Menace, which is an inferior movie to Attack of the Clones. It is. It's still like the worst of the prequels. But even though there's sand in it, and that's probably where Anakin hates sand, that's not where he makes the famous line when he's hitting on Padme. uh and the other thing actually afterwards uh because oh i got all these questions about not all these good i got a question about taylor swift and a question about beyonce and their fan groups and i don't know their music like i know i know some of beyonce's music but i would struggle to like name a song and taylor swift i don't even know what she sounds like quite frankly um i know what she looks like because i saw her at the chief's game but but anyway so i'm you know i mentioned uh you know but i do like a like a big eclectic range of music like dad rock uh you You know, EDM like like Daft Punk, for example, and and blues. You know, I like Chicago style blues after this wasn't in front of everyone. Afterwards, a couple of people came up to me. They want to know who my favorite blues harpist was. I'm just like, you're a total blank. I don't know musician names very well. Like even Led Zeppelin. I could tell you like Plant Page, Bonham and then the fourth guy. I don't even know that band. That's more than me. And I've never been good with musician names ever. so I just said Muddy Waters now Muddy Waters wasn't a harpist I think he could play harp but he was known for the guitar which is what I associate Chicago Blues with is the electric guitar but I couldn't remember afterwards I was like who's Muddy Waters band's harpist I had to look it up afterwards well he had like 10 I should have said Little Walter though who was one of his actually but Little Walter is actually now in my playlist because I had gone and watched him before on YouTube but I couldn't have named any. Oh my gosh. I just like the music guys. I just don't, I don't know these things. I, um, I've never been strong with that, but so the podcasts. So I ran into one of your, uh, people, one of your colleagues at one of my events who knew you. Cause I, they, they described what they did and I thought they might know Tony. I'm going to, I actually asked you, I sent you a text and, um, and, uh, found out that you knew them. And so I brought it up and they brought up that they knew you did a podcast. Yes. And everybody, everybody does, because that's always what interesting thing about you is like I co-host a podcast. That's the. So I say pinball a lot because it's such an unusual hobby compared to so many other hobbies. Right. And of course, I threw in the you know, I thought I do a lot and, you know, I'm not so much anymore. But but, you know, play competitively, do repairs, host a couple of podcasts. So there was there was questions about the podcasts. So one of them was was a pre-fed question. And they wanted to know, like, how does the conversation go on the podcast? I'm like, well, because there are two, that's very different. That's a very different strategy. So I actually talked more about the pinball show there because that one's built on conflict. You know, that's what all style is. And so I did, like, an example of how I would trash one of Zach's opinions on a game he's trying to sell, which went over very, very well because, of course, it was quite entertaining. Or I tried to make it as such. And then we talked a little bit about the tabletop. Because that came up about like, well, what does eclectic gamers do? And it's like, well, we do pinball and we do video games and that you build out a lot of the video game segment stuff that we're going to get into today. And I generally find the news topics for the pinball side. And we used to do the tabletop side.
    11:11
    I had someone ask me what my high score was on Microsoft pinball, which I'm assuming they meant Space Cadet. Right. I've never played it. Really? I have no. If I did, I have no memory of it, much less a high score. I know I've played it. I have no idea what my high school was. I remember. I know I've played it. But so many of you listeners, I'd love to know. Feel free to. You can either email to eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com, or you can comment on, say, our Facebook post for this. Like, did you – like, was that your pinball introduction? Because I have, like, run into people on, say, Pinside, for example, who that was their – like, Space Cadet was their introduction to pinball. And I remember Minesweeper with Microsoft Windows, but I don't remember the pinball game. But lots of people do. Oh, yeah. So I was like, no, I just don't. I don't have a – I started to name some of the other video game pinball things I played, like Pinball Arcade and stuff. I don't think they were impressed by those. Only Space Cadet, which sadly I just didn't have. So I had that whole weird Q&A thing, which they wanted to do. Speaking of the podcast, I want to thank Derek Kay for joining our Patreon at the basic tier. Tony and I actually before this episode were discussing Patreon like add ons if we should do something different. And we kind of wondered, is there an appetite for something? I don't know, maybe at a new, you know, slightly higher tier or something. But one of the things we do at the pinball show, for example, is once a month for our middle tier and above, we do a like an online like a Zoom or Google Hangouts discussion with people where we just talk about stuff in the hobby. Right. You know, there was an appetite for that. That's something some of you all would like to see because we wouldn't we wouldn't mind growing the Patreon some because it's been pretty flat in terms of its upper 40s membership for a while now. So maybe we just need to add some better incentives sort of thing. So I'm not going to belabor it. Just email in eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com if that is of interest to you. Couple of other items. Going back to my catch up on stuff I've been doing. Much like you, Tony, I've just been so exhausted. I've not done a very good job of playing during the week, but I think I've actually done better on the weekends than I had been. I think I just need a break after the learning all the new stuff that it went comes to the weekend. It's like it's it's not just going to be, oh, yeah, let's get weeklies done in Overwatch, too. So I've made a lot of progress in Resident Evil 2 remake. I'm now, as of this morning, I'm in the hospital. For people who have played the game, I'm in the hospital as Carlos. That's where I'm at. So that means I've fought the Nemesis like 20,000 times at this point. So far. Halfway there. Will he ever die? I don't know. Tune in and find out. And then I've made more progress on the second game in the Phoenix Wright trilogy. I don't know if I'm going to get through all of them or not. I need to start like playing with the TV on mute because the music's starting to piss me off you have to take notes so you remember your stuff no I I'm going back to it consistently enough that I'm remembering but I'll tell you what I like the courtroom part and I hate the outside investigation part I just I I'm not into it it's I I get it like the games would be super short it was just the courtroom thing but there's just so much on the investigation side and it's so tedious.
    14:32
    But I like the sort of ditzyness of the whole thing. It's all so campy that I do like that part. But maybe it's extra annoying because this case revolves around a circus. So I'm dealing with carnies. Well, yeah. And we know your fear of carnies. Which is making it hard. And finally, Steam Codes. So we've had more requests for Steam Codes. I've responded to all of those thus far. There's one Steam Code left. there's one. So reach out to us if you do not have a pending review to do, and there are like eight of you that do. But if you don't, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. I will give you a free Steam code. I have no idea what it is. You send in a very short review just via email, just a few lines, and we will read it on the air. And that is the quid pro quo for the code.
    15:25
    So Tommy, we're done with introductions. Let us begin with pinball as we always do. Why don't we ever switch those? We have switched them. Okay.
    15:34
    Hmm. I was just thinking about that. I don't want to think about it anymore, though, because I'd rather get through the episode. We've switched them when there was one of the... Oh. I'm trying to think when it was. It was when there was video game news that we wanted to get because of what was going on, but the main core of the show was going to be like TPF or something like that. Okay. Yeah, because normally we'll just do an entire... unless there's something Okay, we must have had something desperately important to cover there. Yeah, there was one I vaguely remember from a couple of years ago. Okay. Well, all right. Whatever. Who cares? People love consistency. At least I do. So let's start with an interview on the Pinball Innovators and Makers podcast. I think the last time we discussed that podcast was actually when we talked about the interview that that host did with the makers of the Overwatch homebrew pinball machine. But on episode 13, and I do have a link in the show notes to that episode so you can go and listen to it, he did an interview with Mr. David Fix of American Pinball.
    16:37
    Now, because of the name of the show would imply, the focus was very much on the things related to homebrew and American Pinball. So you might recall, Tony, when we were at Expo, I can't remember. Yeah, yeah. The year we were at Expo. So that was 2021 or two? 2021.
    17:02
    2021. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Yeah. No, it had to be. Yeah. Because 20, TPF in 20 was canceled. TPF in 21 was canceled. And then we went in October of 21 to Expo. And then because we're just a few months later at TPF. Thank you. Right. Plus it fits with this. I should have been able to just to math that together because of this timeline. So that was the year that Expo had the American Dream contest announced. That was where American Pinball said we're launching the American Dream. Because they had that whole homebrew section. That's where I finally got to play the Metroid game and such. And a Castlevania game, I think, was there too. Speaking of the Netflix show. And so they had this American Dream thing where American Pinball said there was going to be this contest. And a homebrew game was going to be selected. and that was going to become a production pin for the winner of the American Dream contest. Well, in 2022, which we weren't at Expo, one of the things, and I vaguely remembered reading about this in the American Pinball thread, I believe it was, on Pinside, there was never a winner announced of the American Dream. So a lot of people thought they just didn't do it. That was my thought. That's the obvious one. This is like, given everything else that's been going on with American Pinball, Would we really be shocked? They were just like, yeah, this ain't ever going to happen. And it's just going away. But according to the interview, if I'm summarizing it accurately, David Fix has said, no, they did actually pick a winner. The winner knows who won. They know they won. The thing is, is because after they took the developer, Ryan, who had the Sonic spinball game, and then they couldn't get the Sonic license because some other pinball company came in and took it. They haven't revealed who the winner is because they're trying to secure the license of the winner's title so that they can turn the homebrew with the license into the production game.
    18:59
    But there was a winner and that they plan to keep doing this. We'll get to that in a moment. Another thing, though, was noted, whereas the show really did keep the focus quite a bit on homebrew, which would make sense. There was a little bit of discussion about GTF. And I think it was either on the last episode, I think it was maybe the episode before, we talked about how Multimorphic was relaunching the Final Resistance game for the P3, which wasn't, I think, too shocking to either of us because the P3 had that game at Texas, which makes sense given their location is in Texas, but they weren't able to build them yet. and so when they finally got to the point where they could build the module they kind of relaunch like they got buffalo to stream it again and they kind of you know they put out interviews and kind of like they hadn't launched it and they relaunched it they you know it's like we got to relaunch it which i mean because they were totally drowned out in march oh yeah all the other stuff completely foo fighters and all the rest of it well similar situation for galactic tank force now galactic Tank Force has been building games since Texas. Maybe not very many or very quickly, but they're basically doing what I think David Fix called a soft reboot. So GTF, there's going to be a seminar about GTF at Expo. Apparently, the arrangement is that the cast, the live-action cast of the GTF back box is going to be there, like signing autographs, walking around at Expo and all of that. So all right I given you all the context and I talking too much What are your thoughts on these elements out of the there are a lot of other pieces that people should go and listen to the interview If they really want to hear David fix talk about American pinball and stuff that he into But those are the two pieces the American dream contest and GTF that I thought would be useful to our listeners.
    20:54
    I think I'm going to start with the GTF, the, a soft relaunch of GTF makes sense. It's been six months. There's not that many out there. And this is a really big show to kind of push it again, and tried to push the popularity up. I know there was a lot of talk, and it was very... People either loved it or hated it at TPF. I don't think that's going to change. I think it's going to be the exact same way. I don't think this is a world-beating game. But they need something, because quite frankly, that drop on top of Pulp Fiction and Foo Fighters, They were drowned out just as bad as Multimorphic was because it was, at least in my mind, demonstrably the lesser of all of the releases.
    21:47
    Yeah, doing a push at Expo makes a lot of sense. And in fact, I won't be surprised if Pulp Fiction ends up needing to do a soft boot relaunch too. It will. Given that it wasn't remotely near ready for production. Right. And I'm continuing to hear massive delays in just production in general on Cactus Canyons still from Chicago. I don't understand why. I mean, I understand that more likely than not it had to do with licensing that they were even at TPF. It's the only thing that makes sense. That was, and in fact, I believe I read Josh Sharp, who helped develop the Pulp Fiction game, indicate that there was a licensure requirement. Yeah. Is why they had to do the reveal when they did. Because it makes no sense to do a big reveal. And then not push games for six plus months. It aligns with the reason that you stated. So in the case of GTF, and David in the interview, Mr. Fix, he noted something about that they're trying to be unusual. They're trying to do something a different way. I think this was describing bringing the cast to the – may I quote Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park? Nobody cares. These are not – it's not – this isn't John Wick and you're bringing in – like, we see this with video games. Right. Where it's like, hey, look, we got, like, Hollywood A-list celebs that are tied to doing some voice work in our product. So we're going to bring in Keanu because people love Keanu Reeves. It's – nobody knows these people. And no offense to them. I'm not judging their performance in the game or anything like that. But it's not a draw. Right. It's not like having John Rhys-Davies come to TPF. And one of the greatest things, if Jeff Patterson came up with this for the Twippies, absolutely brilliant. It was the most epic thing ever was to get him to come up there and go, jackpot, won. It was so cool. But he's a winner. John Rhys-Davies is a winner. People are like, yeah, dude, I know you from Sliders. It's John Rhys-Davies. I paid my money to get my picture and a signature and blah, blah, blah, because it's John Rhys-Davies. Have you ever done that before with anyone? See? It's John Rhys-Davies. It's that level. Yeah. And I'm not saying that American Pinball should have gotten John Rhys-Davies for the – I mean, it would have helped. But probably wouldn't have helped all that much on sales of the game. So let's be realistic. But this throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks approach, like if you're at the – are we really at the point we as American Pinball? which we are not at, but let us continue. Are we really at the point of desperation that to try and move units, the best we can come up with is, well, let's just get all of our cast to be there. To do what? Like, what's the payoff? Like, why would... I don't own Galactic Tank Force. I played it at TPF. It wasn't in my top half of games that I played that were new in my judgment. What does bringing the cast to a show that let's pretend I was going to be there. Like, why would I care about that? Like, what wins me? Are they going to tell me something about the game that's going to make me want to give you thousands of dollars? Yeah, and I don't know because, like you said, if they had like a big name, not even a big name, if they had like a medium name, that would be something. But, I mean, what's the biggest name they have? It's – she played Sonya Blade. Wasn't that it? Yeah. I think she plays the evil villainess in the game. I can't remember her name off the top of my head. We don't know the plot to the game because we don't own the game. Right. But, I mean, that's different. Still, that's not an everyday name person. It's not like they're bringing, like, Sir Patrick Stewart or somebody like that to the show. Here's the vibe that I have from it. It's the logic. It's the comic con logic of, oh, yeah, we'll get these people and they'll be able to sign autographs and stuff.
    25:59
    You don't. First of all, a lot of comic cons bring a list people, which helps it. But the other thing is there's volume. So it's not just, oh, yeah, here are the five people of Galactic Tank Force. It's here are people from all of these different sci fi shows and fantasy shows together. and even if a lot of them aren't known outside of the one show that kind of made them popular with a certain segment of the population there's a lot of them so you like can go and be like oh yeah i'll get to nerd out and do all that it's like but this is there's no these five people are only unified by galactic tank force right i just i don't get it it feels a little bit like looking at texas where you know every year texas would like let's get john reese davies and let's get Elvira. Things like that. And it's kind of like, yeah, when they're that big you can get two and it's fine. But most people aren't going to the show just because they're there either. It's just like a nice little bonus. Except for Elvira because that line was insane. Yes, but she's so tied to pinball. She is.
    27:01
    Cassandra Peterson is a big exception. Yeah, that's a huge exception because of the pinball tie and the outside ties. But the idea of like, I like the seminar and things i that makes sense you know yeah definitely definitely push on it especially since you don't charge you have to pay a second ticket entry fee for seminars anymore i the problem the problem with is obviously you need to get the game it shows because it's an unlicensed theme people need to play it and they need to like their experience and they need to feel like it's worth the investment or the outlay i should say i don't treat it like an investment so so those are the challenges that they they have and uh i again this isn't and i imagine you haven't heard this interview it only came out really recently no i haven't so in it david fix talks at length about not super long time but a little bit at length about the whole target issue because the targets at the tank were getting bent and they you know they had to make a brace and he you know he's fairly defensive about how they did test it and it was fine and they did a lot of testing and it just you know then it the production version wasn't the same as their product or whatever i so i i believe him on that we've seen this all the time with the demogorgon on stranger things remember it i'm sure it passed all of stern's tests and then they went out in the wild and no one could get the ball in the thing's mouth and then it's just they had to reprogram how they worked and and let's not forget scoop gate with rush and like the four different iterations of airbag protectors that had to put around that scoop uh you know there's that this stuff happens i i totally i totally believe that they tested it and it tested fine and i guess i kind of get him being defensive the thing is it doesn't normally like most of the time these fixes aren't six months later and that doesn't explain why the game like they didn't hold the game production off because they were going to put out a brace did they it was like why are there not more of these games out there right well and that's the thing is i just think that we have seen it proven time and time again that it really does not matter just how good an original theme is in this day and age an original theme will never outsell a license right and and david fix did talk a bit not in the that context but he talked a lot about licensing because of the whole american dream contest. So let me pivot a little bit back to that point.
    29:36
    So did they tell, was there really a winner and were they told, sure. I believe that. Sure. But do you think that that person's game ever gets made by American Pinball? I don't think they can get the license.
    29:49
    I don't think, I just don't, I'm sure that whichever game it was, it's going to be a big enough license that with their get or their attempt to get, especially they're like we'd like to get the license there's already a game made but we need the license to actually sell it isn't gonna isn't gonna fly yeah i mean maybe if it's something very small license but like like you talked about when we were there if it's something like a metroid or a castlevania just like just like the uh with the sonic spin but i think those licenses are too big for somebody like american to be able to get especially in that type of situation where they walk up and say hey this is already made. It was made by a fan and we want to do it.
    30:35
    So it's possible if it's a smaller license, I just, I don't know. I don't know what, what license it would be. That would be small enough to work. Yeah. I, I guess I, I sort of, in terms of the announcement or the lack of announcement, I get the logic because at least as it's been presented, David Fix has very much been like, we got burned on Sonic. Like, we should have had that. We got burned because someone stole it because they knew we were bringing Ryan on board sort of thing. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea. The issue for me is, well, I still think it's weird that they never came out and said, oh, yeah, we picked an American Dream winner. I guess the thought would be, are they worried like Stern's going to come in and just look at, well, what was every single homebrewing game at Expo? Let's buy all the licenses. Which Stern could totally do. They could still do it now. Right. So what does it solve? I mean, you could have just preemptively gone and said, yeah, we're just going to try and get every single one of those licenses that was at Expo anyway. I'm not sure it really protects anything, but there's been a lot about how American pinball has been running, especially in the David Fix era, that does not make any sense to me. I don't think this happens not because they can't get the license, though I think that's an excellent point that you raised, Tony. I have to go back to what I've discussed with you I think at every kind of like end-of-year thing we usually have. I don't see American Pinball lasting. I don't think they ever – maybe they make a game from Ryan, but I don't think that they ever make another homebrewers game into reality. It's still – It seems rough. Let's not forget – and again, I was mowing while I was listening, so sometimes even though my mower is much quieter now that it's electric, there was a part where David Fix was talking a bit about the license thing and him and licenses because he was kind of talking about the importance and all of that. And I'm like, dude, I've me and Pepperidge Farm remember back. What was it a year or two years ago at this point where he was going out on every single interview possible? And this was his first interview since GTF came out for him. Excuse me, at least on a podcast. But talking about how the key was to get games on location so people could play them. So then they would go buy them. And that licenses didn't matter. And he, what, double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple down on non-licensed games as being the right strategy, even though it doesn't work for anyone else. Everyone else who does non-licensed games is teeny tiny, and everyone who is successful has licenses.
    33:22
    Like, the philosophy was ridiculous. And so that – your point about getting the license, I don't know if he truly believed that non-licensed was actually a winning strategy because Pinside said it was because it's not. Or he just doesn't know how to get licenses because it's – but I don't think he ever – I think this is his first manufacturing job too. So I just don't think – Can you hear? Pinball is easy. well he talked a lot about how hard pinball was but there was a whole bunch of this again listen to the interview there's a whole bunch of others like he's he sounds very passionate about pinball i believe that he is but he's like talking about you know he's getting questions about what what do you look for with people like to bring them in and they're like well we really you know i'm looking for people that are really passionate about pinball and that they know it's going to be difficult and they're willing to you know put in the hours and put in the time and i'm I'm just like, you just got to give 110%. You got to get out there. You got to do your best. You got to trust your teammates. You got to give 110%. That's the license we need. You're saying all the boilerplate, stereotypical, what sounds really good on a podcast. Here's everything that sounds good. You got to try hard. You got to believe in yourself. This is shonen jump anime. We'll just sacrifice our own life force energy, and we'll be able to overcome any obstacle. I think this company is going to fold.
    34:46
    Eventually. I it's been carried. I understand why they brought David Fix in because it wasn't doing great beforehand. But is it doing great now? I don't think ever since he's come in, they've put out two games. Legends of Valhalla completely designed by another outside entity initially. And then GTF Galactic Tank Force, which I had already heard, came in with Dennis Nordman already designed. and look at the gap between all of this and the speed of all of it. I swear they're still selling more Houdinis and Hot Wheels. And I don't know if I go so far as to say Oktoberfest, but we'll throw it in. Sure. We'll throw it into the triple balser pack and say that stuff's outperforming the stuff that came in in the fix era.
    35:31
    Probably. There's got to be a reason for it. And American Pinball hasn't figured it out. And they've got talent there. That's another thing that came up in the interview is he said, one of the other things we could really use is we need another engineer, another mechanical engineer. And then he said, so we haven't been able to find one. If any of you out there are interested in, reach out to us, reach out to us. It doesn't instill confidence to me that you're at the point where you're asking on a podcast for engineers to apply. Because here's what I think. If you haven't found an engineer and you need more, you either A, aren't looking very hard in reality, B, don't pay well, or C, have a really bad reputation as being not a good place to work. Or a combination of all of them. Sure. Then I'll be in play. But those are the three factors that I view. So it doesn't speak highly if you can't – you're based in Chicago. There are plenty of engineers. We just saw the – JJP take another employee from Stern. You can get pinball people because they're all right there You don't have the excuse of distance where spooky or multimorphic might struggle to find a certain type of person Because they're just not based in a mecca for pinball Right I just don't think they know what they're doing But I mean it's a buyer's market for engineers right now They are We're having issues Everywhere we look Like our engineers, they've been getting headhunt letters and stuff constantly from companies. No, I completely, completely believe and understand when he says that they don't have as many engineers as they want. But it's a private business. They've got plenty of ways they could fix that. It's generally called money, but you don't want to put any into it. So you talk about 110%. I think you didn't actually say 110%. But that's where instead you start talking about passion and believing in pinball and stuff. You want people to give up money.
    37:36
    But this is how pilots for years got exploited. Right. Well, and see, that's the thing that working for a municipality is very open, is a lot of us know that we could make more money in the private sector than we do working for a municipality. but part of our joys and love of our job is that whole giving back to the community that is working for the municipality. And you don't get that with a pinball company. But that does remind me, we did have someone email and they did not want their email read aloud. So I won't do it. And I won't say who sent it in, but they, they were responding to one of our older episodes, the one where I talked about not being the best at pinball. And it was one of those, You just got to believe, Dennis, you just got to – don't sell yourself short. But they also talked about – and you could be a pilot too. There are like waivers and stuff. Let me clarify. The pilot thing and colorblindness was an example. I'm not colorblind. And I never tried to be a pilot. So I've played Flight Simulator. That's about it. So that was just – that was an analogy. I wasn't meaning to say that I wanted to be a pilot, but I couldn't be because I'm colorblind. Give up all of your years and years and years of experience and go become a pilot. I have plenty of family members who were pilots, and they all crashed, too. That is for the Eclectic Crash, Dennis' Family Crashes Planes podcast, which hopefully will never be made. Moving on to the second pinball topic, Nap Arcade. Link in the show notes to this article so you can read up on it. This is actually tied to another TPN podcast interview as well. But for this little bit, you probably find it easier to read the article is about HomePin. You know, HomePin was Spinal Tap. Oh, yeah. That's great. Yes. OK, well, we're not going to talk about Spinal Tap. HomePin is planning to be at Expo this month. HomePin is planning to reveal a game. and as is the quote from nap which i will re-quote as a quote is pinball for non-pinball people described as a sub-five thousand dollar game what are your thoughts this is not the first time we've heard this whole pinball for non-pinball people oh it's a huge part of mike's uh mike the owner of home pins philosophy right but I don't understand the idea. What kind of people are you targeting? What can you do? What special thing are you trying to find that will draw the interest of non-pinball people and make people want to spend the money and then have that in their house? You know what could work? Space Cadet. That's a good point. And there was some company. I don't know if it was a company. Be generous. There was someone who was trying to figure out how to make a space cadet, like a physical space cadet. But space cadet can't – like you have to make certain sacrifices, I guess. However, again, I haven't played it. Yes, because it was a video that had stuff that could not happen. It wasn't physically possible. Yes. The thing here – that's a fair point. And I'm going to speculate again because we heard a while ago that I thought HomePen has – because, again, they claim that it's going to be licensed. That's one key. People want to stick it in their house. Mike's always about, I just want – I can't do an Australian. accent uh mate i just want mates to get together i'm like turning into sky oi governor i'm giving a roll she's gone yeah i don't know what's happening but this is my australian accent and anyway uh about he always often talked about like mates getting together at the pub just batting the ball around not don care about score don care about Batting the ball around I not sure this is a real person the way that he I think this is a made-up person.
    41:39
    Because even those that are just like casual players going to a bar and playing, it's about who's going to win even if it's just for fun. It's about who's going to win. So anyway. Me and my mates, we just get together. We bat the ball around a little bit. This is the one where I'm assuming he's got Animal House. That's what I think. I think he's got the Animal House license, which, again, I don't know. People, yay, they know it. Sure, whatever. Okay. Sub-5,000. I mean, I still think, and I've talked about this not so much recently, but it's always confused me a bit, more than a bit, that as pinball has grown in popularity, we have not seen any serious contender, not serious contender, to put pressure on the bottom end of the scale coming in with games which are simpler, shallower, but full-sized, full-featured pinball to compete against the Stern Pro. We've seen gasps of it. Mike with Home Pin, Thunderbirds was priced under the Stern Pro at the time.
    42:39
    The Punny Factory from Pinball Adventures, I believe, is basically priced at about the same as it would – it gets weird with shipping and stuff because they're out of Canada. But they've tried to position close to that. But most end up smacking themselves somewhere between the Stern Pro and the JJP LE in pricing. We're talking like Stern Pro is $7,000 MSRP, and JJP LE is $12,000. That's between those two posts. That's where most new pinball is at this point. So I like – I've always liked – again, kind of like what Gottlieb Premier tried to do with the street-level games, something where – not street-level today, like not in terms of the structures and stuff, but rather, okay, yeah, it's not going to be the same amount of depth that Stern is going to give you, but you're going to save $2,000. Like I think there's a market for that. I thought there is for a long time. I don't think there's a market for a ton of them, but I think that it would be interesting to see someone try and do that. So there's that, but not – like we've already seen how Mike does games. Like it's going to be really bad. Right. Like rule – like this always – to me, as much as he argues it, it's hard for me not to feel like that it's almost motivated and this is unfair. but it's my feeling almost like a motivation of laziness in the sense like i don't want to come up with balanced rules i don't want to have to come up with code updates i want to have to come up with a structure that makes sense i just want it to run and so let me fabricate a buyer that meets the criteria for someone who doesn't know anything about pinball but wants to buy one and will be happy even if it doesn't do anything that any other normal pinball machine does let's not forget with Spinal Tap that it has a screen just to play clips from the movie and they're not in any way integrated contextually to the gameplay it's just displaying random clips like you put randomizer on a picture frame, a digital picture frame that's what it's like it's weird, it's just weird so here are my thoughts you mentioned the thing about you mentioned all your points regarding the decision and who will buy it and all that. Here's where I'm confused. Why is he doing this at Expo? Why would you go to Pinball Expo to unveil a pinball game for non-pinball people?
    45:07
    Like, wouldn't some other convention make more sense? CES. Sure. That's where I would drop something like that would be CES. Or there's got to be some like leisure, like home leisure event sort of stuff. Right. But a pinball show for a game that basically Mike seems to be saying pinball people are going to hate.
    45:31
    Oh, this is not a good idea. This isn't made for pinball people. We just got done talking about American pinball making some decisions that I don't think make any sense. But honestly, this makes zero sense. Home pin making pinball makes zero sense. I hear they make good parts. So that's how they exist. So just do that. Why are we still making pinball games for non-pinball people and then taking them to pinball people shows. I don't know. See, I agree with you. It makes no sense to go, well, this is for non-pinball. Let's be honest. Pinball people have to like it or else you're never going to sell any to begin with. Then he's not going to sell any. So you've got to make it likable by pinball people or a license that is just so attractive that people want it just to have. Sure. But I don't know. It is one of those things to me that is.
    46:26
    I still don't understand why he's not just buying licenses and re-theming the same layout over and over. Build up one good one. Like, take Thunderbirds, fix what complaints there were, because between Thunderbirds and Spinal Tap, Thunderbirds seems to be the more popular game. Which is scary. Some of that may be that the license is more beloved by more people. some of that may be the motivation of people who initially got in on home pin because they wanted to support an australian manufacturer even though he doesn't build in australia and uh some of it may be that i i would say having not played spinal tap and only looked at it and same for thunderbirds because it wasn't working when it was that tpf the year i saw it the thunderbirds layout looked more interesting to me than the spinal tap layout but anyway doesn't matter my point just being like shrek family guy it just get one get your basic rules actually you know and then go to the trouble of actually like having the scoring make sense but then just re-theme it and re-theme it because if this is the non-pinball person they're only going to buy one game anyway so that way you just keep reaching oh i got the i got the animal house crowd and i got the spinal tap crowd and i got the thunderbirds crowd and now let's go get make labyrinth and And we'll get the labyrinth crowd. That's a classic pinball thing. And just reuse the layout. Why go to all this effort to develop a new game, especially when you clearly don't want to develop anything? Yeah. Just master one layout or make iterative tweaks to improve what complaint. If you feel like if you actually care for once and want to fix some complaints, just make some tweaks in between runs to make it like, yeah, the labyrinth game is better than the animal's game because we fixed the center. and all of that, but it's like, just do that. I mean, it would make sense. What he's doing, like doing this from the ground up every time, doesn't make any sense to me because it's like it's ending up with a game that collectors feel is garbage, like from a play standpoint. And he gets defensive about it. That it's not meant to be played, basically. Not like in a serious way. Okay, well, why are you making a different layout each time if it's all just about the theme? I mean, theme is huge. He gets that. And kudos to him. He at least understands that. But he's making this way harder than it has to be if that's all he really wants. I just don't. I don't get it. I don't understand this hobby anymore, Tony. I mean, I don't understand this portion of the hobby. But theme is good. Theme is important. We've all seen that.
    49:07
    But, yeah, the game still has to be fun to play. It has to be both. It either has to have a really good theme and be at least all right to play or be really fun to play with an okay theme. Because if it's really fun to play, but the theme is just garbage and the machine looks like garbage, you're still not going to get the plays. And even if it looks amazing, but the gameplay is garbage, you're not going to get the interest. Those are good points.
    49:38
    Last pinball topic of the pinball section is Multimorphics P3. New game, new downloadable game, Dungeon Door Defender. Alliterative. I always love that. Uses the heist module, 200 bucks, and it is actually tower defense genre. I have not seen gameplay of it. I know they straight, I've just not gone and found it. So, I mean, again, this is in that vein of what I call that fun creativity that I think makes sense, that I like to see out of the P3 system. is to sort of – we've seen Nick Baldrige do this. Taking video game genres and seeing like how can you pinball-fy them, I think it's a really interesting experiment. And at $200, in the world of pinball, exceedingly approachable if you happen to already have the heist module, which I mean heist I think is one of the strongest games, if not the strongest game in terms of modular-based ones that I've played on the P3. I'd need more time. Like it and Weird Al for me were close. I had Heist ahead of Weird Al, but I don't have much time on either of them. And then with Final Resistance, which I really liked, I don't know. I probably put Final Resistance ahead of Heist, more so because I like that the screen doesn't look like a phone game on Final Resistance. But that was just a strategic choice by Scott Denisey. But anyway, so there's this. I don't know. Have you got any thoughts on it? I mean, tower defense games are cool, and anything that lets you reuse the modules you already have. gives you some interesting things to do with the system. It pairs towards the system's strengths. Yeah. Again, and I think we've both said this before, when a new downloadable game comes out, it's great if you own the heist module. I don't think they sell more modules because this exists, but it's a way to get money if you do, out of people that do own the module.
    51:27
    And hey, it could be a lot of fun, but I haven't witnessed it, so I have no opinion to share on that. That's it for Pinball, Tony. So what have we got in video games? Video games. Well, first, Brett wrote in and apparently wanted me to talk a bit more about the EVE Online franchise. Yeah, the email sort of went into some stuff about, you know, like, you know, we'd been talking about franchises, and they knew you had played EVE Online and were just curious. I did play EVE Online.
    51:58
    It's been a number of years. It's been A4 years. I mean, yeah, basically. I don't think I've played EVE Online since, it's been at least a decade since I last played EVE Online,
    52:12
    which isn't a big surprise to me, just because of the time sink that it is, like all MMOs. I do a keep up about once or twice a year. I'll check up just to see how things are. Like I know that they just re-put up the statue in Iceland. for those who didn't know for EVE Online they have, there's actually a statue on display in Iceland that has the name of every player character carved into it. I have four names on that Why? It's a thing they did. They're based out of Iceland Oh, I mean, that part I kind of deduced. But that is a thing they did a number of years ago and everybody who was active at the time had their names put onto that obelisk. And I've got four names on it from my four characters who were active at the time when they had done it. But it had come down for a while. Now it's back up with more names added to it.
    53:15
    But EVE Online is one of those games that is just insanely detailed lore-wise, but you don't have to pay any attention to the lore at all to play.
    53:32
    I wasn't big into the lore when I was initially playing. I know, talking to franchising, that they've kicked out some side games, and there's a new one that's supposed to be just coming out, I think.
    53:45
    I'm not positive what it is. I just heard about it coming out. I haven't actually paid that much attention to it. But I remember they kicked out Valkyrie at one point, which was one of the very first games for VR where you were like a fighter pilot type in the Eve universe, and there was supposed to be an FPS being put together franchise-wise. And I know they've made some major changes with how the entire universe works and the overall rules compared to where it was when I played. but Eve was one of those games that was just always buried in your mind when you were playing it because it was so rich and so immersive and it was the only game that I've ever seen that did a seriously good job of having the entire economy and everything based around the players and the way the players worked and the way the players could build stuff and the entire universe was built around the players in a way where it felt like what you did actually mattered. It's not like World of Warcraft where there's little changes, but the cities remain the same and everybody. There was a completely different type of feel when you were playing Eve. And I wasn't even like the really hardcore, hardcore Eve players who were deep in null space and being part of any of the big groups. I didn't even get deeply involved in that. I just played on the edges of that stuff, and it was deeply involved.
    55:22
    I've talked about it in the past. I spent a lot of time just mining and truck driving in EVE. I spent a lot of time sneaking around because that was my favorite thing to do in EVE, was to fly around in a stealthy ship or a stealthy cargo ship doing really dangerous runs and or griefing players because, quite frankly, that's what I would do. I was so mean, but I would, I would, me and my group of friends would float around in stealth bombers and wait for people to be in vulnerable positions while they were doing stuff like mining or hauling. And we would drop out and we would engage them and we'd see what we could do. And then we'd run away because that's how we played.
    56:06
    And that's a super common thing. And it's even, they get way larger and way nastier than any of this stuff we ever did. But that's a game that just requires so much time and so much attention.
    56:18
    It has, of every MMORPG I've ever taken part in or even ever heard about, it's the only one I think that has the kind of effect on your everyday life. You can read stories about people spending years of real time building and social engineering their way into stuff. You read stories about people who literally have alerts that cause them to literally call out of work and leave in the middle of the day because something's going on and they have to go home and do something on Eve.
    56:54
    It's just amazing at the way that it insinuates itself into the actual players' lives and how much it builds onto their everyday needs. It's why I quit. It wasn't a lack of enjoyment. I love that game. It's still one of my favorite games of all time But it requires a time commitment That I just don't have I don't have that kind of time commitment To spend anymore for almost anything Because to playing EVE The way I was playing EVE Back before I had kids Back even when my kids were young I couldn't spend the kind of time I needed to And Dennis knows I was playing Warcraft at the same time. And it got to the point where I didn't have enough time to play Warcraft, let alone EVE. And then I played some more EVE just because my work schedule at the time allowed me to do it easier because I worked overnights.
    57:53
    But it is definitely one of those things that is a very special point in video gaming. It definitely has its own place and its own mark. In its own way I think it has made as much of a mark on video gaming As Mario or Metroid or Halo Just because of what it's done and how differently it has done it And how well it has actually worked And its player base is down much lower Much, much, much lower than it used to be And who knows how much longer it can last But I do know that it is a very special thing compared to most every other game I've seen out there. It's just so different from the other MMOs. So, yeah, no, it's a very special series to me. I just don't have that kind of time.
    58:47
    Well, I'm sure Brett thanks you for the detailed feedback about the EVE Online franchise. And thankfully, I don't think we have any other MMO discussions that we have to worry about for this episode.
    59:01
    No, everything else here is pretty cut and dried. Just very dried. Very dried. Epic Games is laying off 830 people. The Fortnite business space is not making the money it used to.
    59:18
    The CEO of Epic Games, Tom Sweeney, sent an email out to all staff stating that they've been spending way more money than they earn investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite. they're doing a lot of creator uh developed content for fortnight which has big profit sharing so fortnight's profits are down because they've been working that's like that's why they've had you know dragon ball z characters and a transformer transformers characters and even i mean they've even had uh kelsey or from uh brandon sanderson's misborn series at one point was a character do Do you think they are considering Animal House?
    59:59
    I mean, no. Okay. That's a nostalgia thing that's for something that has nostalgia for the people, so that would be pinball.
    60:09
    Nostalgia for Fortnite is not going to be anywhere near as old. Yeah, they stuck Transformers in, so I'm just trying to help. So we'll see where that goes. But across the board, we've been seeing a lot of layoffs lately. we've talked about it multiple times this year about layoffs across the board in video gaming Embracer definitely they laid off another 20 some odd people at a group that they literally bought a year ago and now they're like we're going to go ahead and lay off like 28 people after having just bought you guys so Microsoft Blizzard is back in the news we've actually gone a while without really talking about that There's not been anything since the FTC lost their appeals.
    60:56
    The CMA has provisionally approved the merger with the revised deal, which was the Ubisoft giving streaming, cloud streaming rights. So we're done. It's done. Yeah, it sounds done, except for... What? Well, the FTC decided that. No, that's done. They decided that they wanted to appeal again. So now they're doing a federal level appeal. Oh, again? There's no again? Yeah, they're appealing the appeal loss of something. It's a little weird. But what's really weird is the deal is set to close on October 18th. The appeals court that the FTC is going back to doesn't set again until December.
    61:39
    So their appeal is not even going to get heard again until two months after the merger has been completed. they stated that they still believe the deal is a threat to competition and they're concentrating on the federal appeals process so we'll see if they can come back in and unravel the merger if they get support at that level but in all honesty I don think they going to get the support at that level well given that they didn have the success at the state level or wherever they tried it Yeah at their earlier levels It is a different process but I just the rules of evidence I don think are that different So I'm not – I just don't know what they're – I know they're mad that they didn't win. Yeah, I think they're basically hoping to get a different judge. Oh, okay. Well, I mean they should have a different judge with the federal appeal process, but I don't know. It's kind of a – I think I saw this somewhere online. It's kind of a pity we didn't see them fight this hard on some stuff that actually impacted, like, everyone's life. Right. Like the telecoms or – Well, they got too much money from the telecoms to do that. Here they're just doing whatever they got all the money from Sony to do.
    62:53
    But interesting enough, there was a major leak of Microsoft documents. We'd seen a Sony leak a while ago, so now it's time for the other shoe to drop. That the FTC quickly came out and said, well, we didn't leak these documents. Sure, they didn't. Supposedly, Microsoft uploaded the documents to the court system, and the court system did not correctly flag the confidential documents and posted everything, even the stuff that was supposed to have been flagged confidential. Okay, so these weren't all meant to go public as part of the normal public disclosure process. Some of these were listed as confidential. so that information included leaks about upcoming games uh talked about a new system release in 28 talked about a new all digital version of the current xbox series coming out i don't think any of those things are particularly surprising no uh it did include an email chain from 2020 where phil spencer talked about nintendo as the prime asset for gaming uh and their most likely path to consumer relevance if they purchased Nintendo. Now that's interesting. I mean... Do it. Yeah, I can understand them saying Nintendo would be the best group for them to purchase. Sure. I don't think it'll ever happen. I think Nintendo would fight hard against it, but 100%, if they purchased Nintendo and left Nintendo alone, just let all the cross-promotion and the cross-work stuff, let them bring Mario games and Metroid games to Xbox, but continue to use Nintendo to basically build portable personal gaming devices for them. Because at this point, I don't see Nintendo leaving the personal gaming sphere like they have. This whole joining of the Game Boy series and their console series, I think, is a done deal. Yeah, I think it's, well, it's just worked so well for them. To have a handheld device readily and easily configurable to use on a full-size television while issuing having the cutting-edge specs that the hardcore gaming systems do. Yeah. And they're making tons of money doing it this way. So it works. So it's been great. They don't have to worry about like a DS line versus a console line. It's all merged together. And they've clearly found that there are plenty of people who are willing to spend a lot of money and buy those systems and don't need it to be able to offer the best bleeding edge 4K graphics and stuff. That it can be underpowered, I guess, would be a way you could describe it, versus what Sony's doing, for example. Right. They found their niche. And it doesn't hurt that, in all honesty, I think Nintendo has the best name recognition of first-party games. Oh, sure. Well, they've been at it the longest. Yes. They have the stable, and it makes the most sense for them. But yeah, no, a grab, that would be the ultimate grab. He's not wrong.
    65:54
    I wonder what CMA would think of that. I'm sure they'd hate it. Here's the thing is if Xbox gobbled up Nintendo, I would have more agreement with Sony's fight against it than Xbox gobbling up Activision Blizzard. I would have a lot more sympathy with the FTC's concerns about competition because to me that's more akin to, again, the telecom example when Sprint and T-Mobile merged. And so then there were three, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. But then here it's just two. Right. It's Xbox versus Sony. Yeah. That would be a totally different animal. I would be very much more sympathetic to their concerns with that merger. Yes. I'd really be curious what they would have to do to win over those groups because I do think it would pose a major – I mean, because it's such a large hardware manufacturer. I know most of the debate here that they've ended up hinging on has been on the cloud space, but that's because in the hardware side of things, Xbox still stays third. Right. It's not been – because Activision is just software. Right. So everything holds, basically. Yeah. But, I mean, that was a few years ago. Maybe Xbox and Microsoft have given up on that dream. Or perhaps it's buried deep in the vaults. It's just waiting. It's waiting for the chance. Except at the utmost end of need. It's waiting for Nintendo to kick out their next Wii U.
    67:28
    Do it. I've got the Nazgul. There are nine of them. Killed the horses, the most expensive horses. They were beautiful. They were the most expensive and beautiful horses. And that Elrond, not a nice guy, Elrond. Some in the water. Drowned them hard.
    67:47
    Drowned them wet. Not a good way to go, I hear. Brennan Lee Mulligan. One of the funniest guys alive. That guy's hilarious. Definitely, if you get a chance to watch any of the Game Changer or any of the Dropout TV stuff with Brennan Lee Mulligan, I recommend it.
    68:05
    Capcom at the Tokyo Game Show. speaking of acquisitions from microsoft at the tokyo game show capcom ceo said that they would gracefully decline any acquisition request from microsoft oh that was in the leaks too wasn't it that they were thinking about well no this was actually in this was he said this at tokyo game show like last week because i before the whole activity before mario before microsoft was picking up all these companies years ago i think on this podcast i often said you want to get into the especially into the japanese gaming market microsoft should be looking at buying capcom it's vulnerable it has a good stable of ip though and it honestly could especially at that time could have been this is before we've seen all those really neat remakes like the re2 when i'm playing but um they really could have used new management so i always thought capcom was such a good vulnerable company to try and get into, but okay. I know. Yeah, no, their CEO is full on. Like, no, we, we would politely decline the offer. So it'd have to be, so they'd be, they'd be declining. Uh, also at the Tokyo game show, uh, he said that he feels that game prices are too low because why you gotta make the fans mad. Development costs are a hundred times higher than what they were in the famicom era.
    69:26
    To be fair, This is a very good point. When you look at it, because I leverage this against so many other things like why pinball machines have to keep going up by these percentages. Video games haven't done it. Right. Video games, when we were growing up, a NES game cartridge was like $50. And now the standard forever has been, like since 2000, has been $60. Correct. But there has been inflation, higher salaries, everything else. And it's like they've clearly funded it on the growth of the industry. But at some point, you've got everyone you're going to get in gaming, and you've got to make the money somewhere. Right, and it doesn't help with the saturation in so many independent studios out there, especially on the PC side of things. There are still lots of very good games at the $20 and $30 price points. Yeah. No, not everything needs to be AAA priced. But it's really I think what's really telling where we're seeing the strains of this is it it feels like and I'm not looked at an analysis of this. So I may be incorrect. This is more gut. But my gut is telling me that it seems nowadays more so than, say, 20 years ago, if a major studio has a bomb, it sinks them.
    70:41
    And that's true because they really can't afford it. Yeah. And if it doesn't, they're living game to game. It breaks them so bad that they have to do – the layoffs become a mandatory requirement. And I've wondered if that's why we see instances of companies like Rockstar, which are taking forever to turn out new games, because they know it's got to be a 99% Metacritic. It's got – like, we've got to dump hundreds of millions into it because this game is what's going to keep everyone fed for 10 years while we're building up the multimillion dollars that we need to build the next epic experience. And that's why you start seeing games as an experience and the living games with continuing purchases and costs throughout just because they can't afford the losses.
    71:27
    So he's not wrong. As much as I like the pain, the current prices, he's not wrong about this. No, he's not. And I think we're starting to see a change as the more of the really big AAA titles are hitting $70. Yes, launching at $70. But even then, $70 compared to $60 is still not that large of an increase. In all honesty, I'm sure that they'd have a more comfortable margin if they felt like they could sell it for higher. But unless it's a big title, unless it's a Zelda, they don't think they can sell it at higher than $60. Right. So we'll have to see. Hideki Kamiya, the creator of Bayonetta, is leaving Platinum Games, which is the studio he helped co-found in 2006. This does happen from time to time.
    72:16
    There's no real word on exactly why. And even in his statement, he doesn't say why. And he doesn't necessarily say what he's going to do next, though he does say he is going to continue working on games.
    72:30
    But he did talk about it being a hard decision and all of that. So I'm guessing it probably has to do with vision and where he wants to go. Yeah, that would be my guess would be with no context is that he's probably proud of what Platinum Games has achieved, but now Platinum Games is going to want to stay in existing IPs where they know they can make money and he wants to experiment. Yep, which makes the most sense. So we'll see what comes out of that. We know how well at least the first two Bayonetta games really went over and how they were. So we'll see.
    73:08
    Last time we talked about Unity and their insane. Oh, the blowback. The Reddit. It's always full of hate, but it was extra Haiti. It was extra Haiti. Everything was extra Haiti. But they have announced massive changes to their plan. What? Yeah, it's amazing. It's like, whoa, you mean this really poorly thought out cash grab failed? You mean that the ability to choose another developing platform wasn't as inelastic as they seemed to think it was? That there were actually options? They're like, oh, no, we messed up. So it's still not great. but they have announced that they will not be charging the per install fees for developers using Unity Personal or Unity Plus.
    74:02
    They'll only be charging it for Unity Pro and Enterprise. So basically the independent, the little independent and small one- and two-man teams aren't going to fall under these rules. Just the major companies will fall under these rules. and they've also announced what the thresholds are because they talked about thresholds originally. They've announced what the thresholds actually are. So the two key thresholds are making a million dollars in gross revenue in 12 months and reaching a million initial engagements. So once again, that translates to every moderately successful hit of games. They also stated, and what I think is going to be the biggest change from what they had originally stated, is the fees will only be on games made using or updated to the next long-term support version, which will be released next year. So instead of being retroactive to everything that's ever been made on Unity, it will start only with the new version of Unity that goes live next year. What do you think of the theory, I read this somewhere, that they had always planned this to be the iteration and they launched it. They knew it would be so unpopular no matter what that they said everything they did initially to try and make themselves look good with the real plan. So it's new Coke. Yeah. It's the new Coke plan. I believe it. I think it's very believable. But it still seems stupid because people are going to be extra judgy of the final version now because it was so sus in the first place. Right. And they will lose some people, but they're going to lose people no matter what. So the question is, did they just make it in such a way as to try and cushion the impact while getting exactly what they originally wanted? You know, I'm – yeah, I mean the new Coke theory does make sense. I just don't know how many companies, especially with it – if it's about the new long-term support version, how many that are making a million dollars don't just say, let's just go to something else, Unreal or something. Right. I just don't know who sticks with this, unless you're small and don't have to face it. Maybe those stay, but – I don't know. They obviously think some people are still going to stay. Or they're hurting that bad they have to do it. It's that or fold. Yeah. But then they'll fold anyway. Yeah. But at least they tried something. Sure. So I don't know. I do know that their initial rollout and launch seems like they maybe need to work with a better PR team than what they have. Yeah. In fact, this has been so smooth that they should probably get into pinball because that's the level of competence we're seeing.
    76:58
    That is a valid point. that's a very valid point i hope they got lots of passion and can give 110 because that's all we ask for uh my last little thing uh sea of thieves oh the rare game it's been very popular um like any game that has the inability that has pvp that you cannot opt out of uh it's getting more and more toxic and all the complaints revolve around how toxic it is you know i've only i've only I played it once, and these ships dropped out of stealth, wrecked me while I was mining the ocean, and then disappeared into the mists. Yes. I'm kidding. Of course. I've never played it.
    77:42
    They're toxic, just like me. So people like you. People like me. I'm trying to be nice about it. So basically, players like Tony come in and ruin everyone's fun. Except, here's the difference. I did not do it in EVE. I did not do it in new player zones, and I did not do it to new players. We specifically targeted extremely hard to get to extremely dangerous areas and did it. That's how we played. Also, Eve has an entire huge segment of it that is non-PVP. Does Sea of Thieves not? No. There is no non-PVP. I would have thought it at least have some starter zones. You can PVP somebody the second they launch out of the very first starting area. Wow. It is a pirate game. Right.
    78:30
    So what they've done is they finally answered a call that a lot of people have had, and they have created private servers that will allow a single crew of up to four people to explore the world and do everything without having to deal with the PvP problem. Okay.
    78:47
    They're calling those servers Safer Seas, but there are going to be major restrictions capping progression. a whole lot of the features are not accessible.
    78:59
    Like something more than half the features in game are not accessible. And they are like capping payouts to like 30% of the normal payouts for doing anything. Is that to stop people from using it to like power level? Yes. Makes sense. So, and like you can't gain reputation past level 40. And to like hit legendary status, it's like level 50. So it forces you to go to the YAR open servers to do your actual gameplay. Salty Seas is what we'll call the regular version.
    79:35
    But it does allow people to at least get out of the starter gate and get a little bit of experience and stuff under their belt before they start getting just torn apart by the player base. They sound kind of soft for pirates, but whatever. It's how it is. The whole PvP always on everywhere is an issue we've seen in multiple games. A lot of MMOs don't do it in every zone for a reason. That's why I was surprised when you said that there's no such protections. Yeah, no, there's pretty much no. If you're at sea, you are open for PvP stuff. And when you're taking part in big stuff, big missions or whatever they call them, you can be PVP'd and people can show up and wreck everything. So it's just an ongoing toxicity problem. It's a problem I've also heard about in the Star Citizen Alpha, which is made even worse because while there's people playing Star Citizen, there's only a limited number of systems and places that are active in that game as of yet. So everybody's crushed together and griefing is supposed to be pretty bad in big portions of it. The same thing with, oh, what's the name of that game? It's the other space flight game.
    80:57
    Not Starfield. No, this is the. No Man's Sky? No, not No Man's Sky. This one starts with a distant something or other or whatever. I don't remember it. I used to play it. I played it a little bit. We talked about it. They did that giant universe spanning crossing their act of the galaxy. They did that giant man. Everybody got together and flew across the galaxy. I can't remember the name off the top of my head. But I've heard that they – because they have where you can play in – you can flip back and forth between being on a live server and being on a protected server. And people – more and more people are playing on the protected servers because griefing is getting so bad in the actual open PvP areas. Okay.
    81:47
    Well, maybe it helps. People on the Internet and anonymity makes them the worst that they could be. Yes.
    81:55
    But that's all I've got in video games today. Okay. Well, we had a pretty full show, I think. So, people, if you want to reach out to us with ideas and suggestions, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. We're also available at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We did just drop the October babies first before we started recording this episode today. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we will be back in a couple of weeks. There might be some more pinball news out by then as we learn more about possible reveals at Expo. I'm actually hearing that there could be a number of games, as many as six, coming out before the end of the year in pinball. Is that a rumor I see over in that corner? Yes, maybe, but we're not playing the song because that's now gone, except when I choose to revive it.
    82:51
    But anyway, until next time, my name is Dennis. And I've been Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.