Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, April 13th. This is episode 243. I am Tony. I am Dennis. We're in person. Yay! I'm better. We'll see. about that, but I feel better. Though our remote recordings went pretty well, I think. Episode feedback has been good. That's a positive. I do want to also, I think I meant to do this on the last episode. I have to double check, because I said, I told someone that it was I inadvertently left off a thank you to a Patreon person, but Tim L. has joined our Patreon, so thank you very much, Tim. Thank you. I do appreciate that. What have you been doing lately? I have been reading a lot, like a lot, a lot. I've had several days that have been very stressful at work and a lot of stuff going on. And I come home and I just sit down and read for a while because it's one of those things that I will sit in my rocking chair in the backyard and throw the stick for the dog and she will chase it. And I will sit there and read, throw the stick and read and throw the stick. Yeah, it's cute. It's very Midwestern of you. It is. It's so, all I need is like a church warden pipe and a straw hat to make it like almost too Midwestern. Or a corn cob pipe would probably work. Maybe. That'd probably be a little better. It's a little old timey. It's a little. That's a little like a Blue Bell Petridge Farm. Pepperidge Farm, not Petridge. Petridge Farm. Yes. Okay. But yeah, No, that's what I've done. I've also played some Brotato. Yes. And heard wonderful feedback from so many listeners and so many friends. We might have some feedback to share later in the episode, too. Who have joined in the happiness and the joy that is Brotato. Yes. You've corrupted many. That's unfortunate. I feel like this is like watching a plague spread. Maybe. Or an invasion of the body snatchers. And once your body has been snatched, you're good with it. Right. It doesn't hurt. It's okay. Let yourself be snatched. Yay. Donald Sutherland, just let yourself. It's okay. Yeah. It's all good. All right. Well, I haven't played much gaming-wise. I've been doing a lot of stuff. Work's been busy as well for me. So the main thing is I did start Furry Zelda. Tunic. Do you remember Tunic when it was being advertised? It's like you're a Fox Zelda going around doing Fox Zelda things. Basically, yeah. so um that was apparently in game pass core core core which is uh which i do have so yeah so i did i did pick that up it's hard um i've only played it a little bit uh and i did want to go ahead and share a couple of a listener uh well one listener feedback thing here before we actually jump into our section so derrick k wrote into us because we talked a little bit about uh with patreon we you know we did the sci-fi thing when we were in texas and yeah we've talked about not not for every episode or anything but but doing more of that just to give you guys something where it's it's a side thing so no one's going to lament that it wasn't the main episode right now or if anything they'll probably be happy that we didn't go so off topic for so long but so derek wrote in with some suggestions stuff but his email says hello i had no idea you folks used to play world of warcraft and i used to play as well i played on a few trial accounts before burning crusade but it It wasn't until my foreman at a job invited me to his guild that I actually paid to play. We used to raid Tuesday and Thursday nights. I played from Pandaria to near the end of Legion. Your story of idiots standing in fire and running a dungeon for a mount brought back memories. Tony played EVE Online, and I did as well, from the Dominion era to the start of Incarna. Oh, I was stopped well before that. It was at the end of the B.O.B. war, and I was part of a 0.0 renter alliance in the north and later in the south. I have crazy memories, especially of Call to Arms happening, and you would have to form a fleet on Vent, and it was super organized. All at like 5 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, and you would zoom off to a random bookmarking space and log off in the system before leaving for work. A few stern pinball employees actually play Helldivers 2 and other games. So, yes, video games are big amongst even the creators of these companies. It might make a good Patreon episode or regular episode to talk about World of Warcraft, etc. Best regards, Derek. It's a good idea. Yeah. Thank you, Derek. And I don't know any of that stuff you said about Eve, but Tony was just nodding with, like, the Jack Nicholson nod. I understood every single bit of it. But, yeah, no, I was never that highly involved. I spent most of my time in small stealth blops and the like, just either in my stealth bomber or in my logistics or my blockade runner. I mean, I ran three accounts simultaneously, so I could do all of them at once. Right. Yeah. Like normal people do. Yeah. Normal stuff. Normal. It's perfectly normal to be running three accounts on a game. while you're playing with two other humans and somehow you've got 15 ships out between the three of you. Well, we will get into video games because there is a lot of news, but not quite yet. We've got to jump into pinball first because we have an order that we like to follow. Before going into some updates, and this is going to be one of those weird episodes where we're on the deep breath before the plunge, or as Tony would probably describe it, The usual, where EGP comes out just before all the big announcements. So we're stuck going to be last to give you anything of note. We're just right on the cusp. We're right there. But I want to touch on it. We had a couple of emails come in regarding Texas Pinball Festival, which is, of course, what we kind of debriefed on last time. So Scott V. wrote in and said, I was in Dallas during TPF, and I still didn't attend the show. I've never been to a pinball show, but my first will likely be Chicago. Chicago is the center of the pinball universe, and it offers some tours of manufacturers, etc. If TPF still had the Twippies Live previous rendition, I would have definitely attended. I'm glad you got to experience all those new games at TPF in the wood. Say it, Dennis. Get well, Scott. That's a watch reference that I think I brought up here before about how they like to say in the metal. And it's just for whatever reason, it's a pet peeve. It just kind of pisses me off to hear it like that. I'm like, no, in person or in the flesh. We're people. I'm not a robot. I'm not one of the robots. Can you imagine a pinball machine made out of flesh? Imagine a living pinball machine. You had to water it, and then you forgot because you put it in the store. It's like your Tamagotchi. It's like your Tamagotchi. You come back, and it's just dead. I was thinking of reference to an upcoming rumored title, Chair Dogs. Chair Dog. We didn't feed our Chair Dog pinball machine. it would be very sad it would be very very sad so anyway um playing fetch with your pinball i mean so yes yeah sitting out there reading playing fetch with a pinball machine with your car and cop pipe and you're seeing your slings out there just sitting there like toss a sling as a stick go get your sling boy go get your thing so um anyway um i mean chicago it's a big event and And I've heard that it has a great deal of improvements. Some people are really into the tours. I have not done factory tours. I've not been particularly compelled. There have been a couple instances where I've had employees mention to me about just having us come and do a private tour. But anytime I've been anywhere, it's never actually manifested. And I'm far too lazy to actually try and make it happen for my end. I feel like it's kind of presumptuous and uppity in a way to be like, hey, I'm so important. Give me a private tour. I just don't feel like that's my place to demand such things. And having worked in manufacturing in the past, it's like, okay, it's a tour of a place where they build stuff. Yeah, I just – I don't know. I don't know. I think it would probably be cool to do one, but I don't know. Like Stern would be interesting just because they're so large to sort of see some of it. I want to see the Gottlieb Press. That's probably what I want, but that's about it. Don't, I guess this was just my opinion, Scott. I don't expect it to be back at it, but don't. The Twippies live, it's tough for me. There were good ones and there were not so good ones. It's not as fun as maybe it sounds on paper. Maybe for the first time it would be, but it's so long. Even the good ones were long, and even the ones that were really good that didn't have me cringing by the end, I was glad it was over. Yeah, it's like any award show that I've seen, like Oscars or Golden Globes. It's really long. If you're not up for something, I don't really see how easy it would be to stay excited. And they just have had – again, it varies by year, but there's just been so many categories. Anyway, I'm not here to rant about Twippies. I would not use that as a factor personally to decide whether or not to go to TPF because it's – other than if you want to have a place where it's kind of easy to find a bunch of people who do stuff in pinball and then talk to them like after the awards show. Right. Like one year after the Twippies, we all just sort of hung out. It was not a good year for like the awards show, but afterwards a whole bunch of like podcasters and streamers and stuff. We were just standing out in the hall like chit-chatting for an hour. Yeah, that was great. We had pizza delivered to the hall. Yes. Yeah, so you see – Somebody had pizza delivered to us. Right, yeah. I think it was the Loser Kids had to arrange for the pizza. So it's like – that's the sort of thing that's fun to me. It's not – the awards show itself was not. But, hey, everyone has their own preferences. I think that's the thing is running into and talking to people and getting to know people. And that's part of why I like going back to places is because you get to know people and you get to see them, you know, people that you might talk to a bunch of times throughout the year, but you only see in person at an event. Right. Right. Well, uh, David P also wrote in to give his, uh, Texas pinball festival thoughts to us. And he wrote gentlemen, excellent post TPF podcast as always. And thanks again for the Patreon podcast. Very enjoyable. Once again, TPF was scheduled on the tail end weekend of spring break for most of the Dallas Fort Worth school districts. I continue to believe this is a mistake and is a likely is likely a contributor to reduced attendance at tpf many people are likely out of town with their kids on vacation this also was the case in 2024 also i wonder if the softening of the pinball market has translated to decreased enthusiasm for going to pinball festivals in general who knows thanks david well thank you david for writing in with your thoughts i i've known about the spring break issue and before i don't know see here's the thing it used to be it used to feel to me like Like on the Saturday in particular, that was a day where I assumed a bunch of locals were just showing up and having fun for a few hours with their kids. Because you see a lot of teens and stuff going around and playing games and little kids. And I just didn't see as much of that. There wasn't as much of that. This go-around. And again, on the weekend, I suppose it doesn't really matter if it's spring break or not. If they were out of town because of the spring break, that definitely would be a cause for not being there because they are not around, so they can't show up. I don't know. The softening of the pinball market, I have wondered. Uh, if some people were holding off because they're not looking to buy and they use the show as the way to get that hands on, like my rule of thumb, for example, as Tony knows, and many listeners know is I don't buy a new inbox pinball machine unless I played the game first to know if I really like it. And so if others are like me, and I'm sure some are, that would be a good show, a good opportunity to try and play stuff. There wasn't a lot of new stuff there. I mean, so we went over all the games we had played, but most of the games we had played for the first time had been out for months. Right. I mean, the newest games were probably the Merlin's Arcade and Dungeons & Dragons. And Dungeons & Dragons still had been like two months old at that point. Well, and Portal. And Portal. That's quite right. Which was like announced. Yes. Yes. Portal was maybe the newest. I don't know. Because the announcement for Merlin's Arcade had just come out. It just didn't come out with much fanfare. but yeah good point yeah that was a brand new brand speaking new one which is why those two i think got a lot of attention um yeah no it's hard to say but i think that's i think there's a multitude of factors uh but they're just also and something we sort of touched on as well when we uh there wasn't a there wasn't like an external draw like there's no cassandra peterson to sign right like they just didn't they're not they're making it just more pinball and honestly if it means i can walk around easier that's great from my perspective but like for the long-term health of the show right yeah because there was no big like you said there was no draw there was no like pinball guest or or famous person with even minor pinball ties they had the live music that they've done the last couple years and a magician yes and i guess you could say that magic has a tie-in to pinball. It does. It does, except I don't recall seeing a pinball magic or theater of magic or any magic thing, pinball machine. There may have been a Houdini or two. That's about it. I will say that I do think that they need to move it up or back. I would be fine. Move it a week or two up or a week or two back. I just get tired of it directly interfering with my wife's birthday. Yes, no. Yeah, you have a personal reason for it. I actually have a major in-state work conference that likes to happen basically the Tuesday. Technically, it starts the Monday after the show, and so it makes for a really hard life experience. I think first week of April would be better. Yeah, first week of April. That'd be great. So moving on from our emails, as I already noted, here we are in the calm before the storm. This is another thing that could have had a factor with TPF, though, is, yes, there were some new reveals, but they're all, and I don't mean this to sound mean, but I don't think anyone would really debate it, that none of it was the good expected stuff. The good expected stuff, like people have known Elwynn's next game is coming. People have known Harry Potter is coming. People have been wanting to see what the new Barrels of Fun game is. Like, the big stuff, no. It wasn't, like, that D&D has been as exciting and as popular as it has. It been more of a surprise to people than anything than anything else Right So let go ahead and cover what coming and some of that stuff is going to come out really really really soon we believe So first is Stern. They did, and I have a link in the show notes to it, they did drop the teaser trailer for King Kong Myth of Terror Island. So this is that Elwynn expected title. Because it's the teaser, you basically see nothing other than there's like a gong bash toy, which kind of reminded me of the bell in ACDC. If it always makes a gong sound, it has to make a gong sound like every time. It's the Kong gong. It's the Kong gong, yes. Now, here's the thing. Here's a question I wanted to ask you. In Godzilla, even though it wasn't really related to any of the Godzilla movies, especially in the Toho era, when you started Godzilla Multiball, initially, they finally let you pick your song, but it would be the Blue Oyster Cult. Of course. Godzilla song. Is T-Rex's Bang-a-Gong Get It On going to be the multiball song for this? I think it would be the best one for the Kong-Gong. That's right. If the Kong-Gong activates multiball, it's got to be Bang-a-Gong. Will, on the screen, it show King Kong wearing a hubcap Diamond Star Halo? No. Okay. I would maybe add that while the song is playing, but it's up to you. Maybe that's too fun. I don't know. All right. um there's not a lot else to say other than the uh the the reveal is expected on tuesday as you noted tuesday uh april 15th 2025 so just after this show of course um uh pricing is unchanged so that has been indicated as well so that will be a comfort to a lot of people uh for obvious reasons because it's been a little while since stern did a price increase and elwynn games are always extremely popular with collectors because they tend to be very good designs with good rules. Yeah. No, I mean, completely understandable. And, and I think Kong plays well because who doesn't want to Kong, Kong next to their Godzilla. Now I have also seen indication. It's not as formally announced, but barrels of fun. They are expected before our next episode, though. I'm not saying on Tuesday, the 15th, right? to reveal their second game. We saw the Barrels people at Texas Pinball Festival. They were sitting there with a few labyrinths without much to do, and the assumption, understanding, belief is that they had hoped to reveal by TPF time and weren't ready. It just wasn't there. All rumors continue to indicate Dune. I don't know the movie or the book or surely not the movie that isn't the newest movie, but hey i don't know that i'd be the best i don't i don't know i will kill him yes yes i don't know sting is going to be involved it would be funny if it was the new movie but they still got sting to do like the regular commentary call outs i don't know i think it's yeah we could but we can do what we barrels can do what they want um i believe there was a distributor that inadvertently had posted something about dune pinball online that i saw as well i think maybe nap arcade had a reference to this so anyway i don't have any links on this but but bottom line is the the understanding is everyone thinks it's dune so obviously dune is a very popular story um and the latest movies dueling in part one part two did very well so the important question here dennis is when you activate sandworm multiball or or or wadib multiball or whatever multiball uh does it play Weapon of Choice where it talks about you gotta walk without rhythm. And of course the voiceover has to be done by Walken because Walken was dancing in the Weapon of Choice video from Fatboy Slim. And he is the emperor. And he's the emperor. No, I don't know. Here's the thing. I think everyone is like the worm. Shai Halud has to eat the ball. Of course. This is pinball. Anything has to eat the ball now. They're like children with their... Y'all are like children with your simplistic desires of what exactly you want. The most paint-by-number expectations. Let me give you an alternative. What if the sandworm doesn't eat the ball? What if you ball lock on top of the sandworm like the writers? The Fremen writers. Would that not be really cool? You know what would be interesting? Because there is so much, even in the new movie, of knife fighting that there is a mode that activates where gates drop down to block the ramps as you're shooting, and your goal is to stab the guy you're fighting. So you have to hit the ramp or hit your shot when the gates open. Oh, interesting. So it would be like he's blocking with the knife. Right. I was going to propose maybe there's a key shot, like maybe in front of one of the ramps or something, where a crisp knife pops up, and once the knife is revealed, blood must be shed before it can be sheathed again, if I remember the rules properly. So you have to stab the person. So then there's a lit shot you have to hit so that the blade tasted blood. Otherwise, you can't access the shot anymore. That works a little better. That's not terrible. Yeah. And just, you know what, just floating it out there. I mean, if it's based on the original Dune movie, which would be perfectly acceptable, there needs to be the point where when you get to the wizard mode, a little thing opens up on the front and just a little bit of cocaine comes out and you could just go ahead and just just just just take a quick snort i want i want uh you look barrels this is what i want again if you can't if you can't or don't want to or pricing or whatever with sting i totally understand it get a sound alike not for sting the little girl i get it people are like what is he talking about the Muad'Dib sister. Look, she wasn't in the new Dune movies other than as a fetus. However, in the book and in the first movie, she played a prominent role. I just want her creepy child voice saying things like, My brother comes. Come closer to me, Baron. Come closer to me. Yeah. Abomination. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. So anyway, I'm excited. What if there was a gomjabar on the thing where you have to put one hand in and your hand gets locked in the machine while you play with just the other hand? It would be like a $50,000 game with your version, mostly because of the price of Coke. But I'm just saying. It's just like, holy cow. And the topper is one of them onythopters, and its wings flap when you're in multiball. and blows in your face like Whirlwind, which is the best hopper ever. Makes total sense. It is just the obvious way to go. And to be fair, I would be okay with voiceovers by Kyle McLaughlin. McLaughlin, however he says it. Because it just makes sense. He can still sound like a young Paul Atreides. He was 112 when he played Paul Atreides originally in the 80s. No, that's a fair point. He looks the same now as he did when he played 16-year-old Paul Atreides. Well, barrels may want to save him for when they do the Twin Peaks pinball, which honestly feels like it's up someone's alley. I don't know if it's theirs. It's someone's. All right, so anyway, so there is that. And then third, all right, so Jersey Jack pinball. they told this last week distributors that they can start promoting Harry Potter so you're seeing sites and offers coming up for people to lock in pre-orders and such there was an image shared for this where you see part of the front plate of the pinball machine and that the handle for the shooter rod is a golden snitch we haven't seen anything else so there's basically nothing that's been shown I have not heard that by our next episode, Jersey Jack's going to share anything whatsoever. This seems, again, just like when Jack at Texas announced, don't spend your money, Harry Potter's coming, we have everything, 10 years in the making, millions of dollars. This still feels to me like they are driven by this fear that people are going to lock up money with Elwynn and Stern, or possibly less of a threat, but nonetheless, if it looks as good as World Under Glass' Labyrinth was, that they'll lock up money with Dune. Right. And they're trying to make sure people save money for Harry Potter. What has been indicated is there will be three levels this time. Okay, we're going back to the three levels. They're bringing in an arcade level under $10,000. I think it's been confirmed now to be $9,999. Okay, so it's $10,000. Exactly. I had a little mini discussion. I don't even call it a debate. I had a little mini discussion with Zach about that. I don't know if that part was recorded when we did TPS or not, but he and I talked about that. the other two tiers are the same price as has been 12 000 and 15 000 but purportedly no caps on any number so there is no limit on the collector editions okay that's the rumor at least i don't know if that's if you're going to try it this is the game to try exactly this version from what i have heard mechanically layout wise no different than the other two trim levels but there's no art it's a white one well if they do i mean my my thinking no my understanding actually is even the art is going to be the same as this $12,000 level. So now I'm starting to wonder if they, so in the past, what they did, not like with GNR and stuff when they started making the three levels, but the standard edition actually had compromises mechanically, was like when you go back to like the dialed ins and stuff, it was things like no color changing GI. The GI was white. They had less light bulbs in it, things like that. So I'm assuming that might be the case. But I raised the question with Zach if he thinks that this arcade edition, because it saves you $2,000, but mechanically and artistically, if it's going to be the same as the $12,000 game, do you think a lot of people just buy the $10,000 version? Right. Historically, people didn't. The standard editions from JJP were always the worst performing models. But typically they were missing stuff. In the latter years, yes. If you were to go back to like Woz and Hobbit, whenever they – see, I don't remember when they came out with the standards either. exactly but um yeah i don't know it's it's curious it drives me nuts when something is nine dollars and 99 cents and somebody says it's nine bucks it's a psychological basic it's ten dollars this is where i've wondered i don't know if i i think i've raised it with zach before may have been a while ago which which for those that don't know the pinball show which i do with zach many distributor flipping out pinball um is because he's a psychologist by training and i've wondered if this is like when doing sales if it just feels like baby's first psychology because they just like use the most rudimentary tools right it's like a caveman's tools to bluntly manipulate people psychologically into buying things so i've wondered if he finds it a little beneath him given he worked with much more challenging mental uh aspects to try and get people into a place where they're in a positive space versus oh look marketing where you're just like crudely trick people into spending money like i don't know it's it's it's not interesting enough for me me to really explore i guess if we run out of topics for patreon we can do that one but um okay so those are the three companies that have noteworthy news i will real quick one last thing what one last what now this didn't work out so well for jersey jack several years ago when they were doing the long when they were they were playing the long tees and it's coming and here's the harry potter this time right but still at the same time he's a wizard to to start dropping it and not have anything to show for weeks and or months i don't think it actually helps your numbers any it's not going to matter you're right this is harry potter it's going to sell harry potter is probably going to outsell uh with the non-pinball crowd more than most anything i can think of i still i still feel that the non-pinball crowd is very limited at ten thousand dollars but that's valid but i may be wrong and i do think it does better than a number of their other games the non-pinball crowd regardless of the pricing so i suppose and ultimately i do agree with you um i think for me the big issue is if all of this is the case you've got a ten thousand dollar version you got a ce collector's edition that has no limit right you don't even have the 5 000 unit limit on the le or whatever they're called i don't think they're calling it the le they're calling something else again but the wizard's edition i think is what they're calling it um like you're a pinball wizard like i get it and i'm not saying it's the wrong decision all right i am going to say non-limited ces is the wrong decision i think you're right because now where's the pressure to get the game immediately maybe it's smart because now what you've told me let's say let's say i'm the whale for once i'm the i'm the pinball whale but you know what market stuff going on right now i'm not feeling the best that that i i possibly could now maybe i'm not the proper time so i'm probably like a beluga whale i'm not like a blue whale where i'm big enough that look this came up on the i know you don't listen to the pinball show so on the last pinball show and i we had a little debate about tariffs okay and the impact on pinball specifically and one of zach's the way he presented it one of his perspectives was basically that this is how i took it at the time at least was people who buy pinball machines have already planned for the economic impact of the tariffs and will be able to and should continue to buy all of the games and i disagreed that that would be how people uh and they're even rich people with their discretionary money would work universally now a blue whale yes yes but a little beluga whale like me no like sure i can still afford pinball machines like let's say my belugaliness meant I didn't lose my job or lose all of my income, but if I'm making less money than I was, I don't think I as a mere beluga would maintain my same spending habit. My point being, I would buy fewer pinball machines. That's right. But I'd still buy, but I wouldn't buy like again as a whale. I would normally buy all three of these games on release. Here's where, again, I'm not, we'll talk a little bit about tariffs in a little bit, but here's my, I guess my query is, Do you think that by not limiting Harry Potter and you know it going to be available and on the line for years do you say well I buying limited edition King Kong because that going to be hard to get Yeah And it an Elwynn so it probably going to get more expensive used I probably buy the limited edition of Dune because I love sand More sand, please. And I'll wait six months, a year, year and a half to buy Harry Potter later. Do you think that they sabotaged immediate sales by making this in no way FOMO driven? Because you're not going to miss out. You can buy any version you want whenever. I think they might have. That's my question, and that's where I'm wondering. I think there's a very serious chance that they might have. So I see it in two perspectives. One is they just cost themselves all of it with everything Jack was saying, like a TPF and stuff. All the FOMO went right out of the balloon the moment you said, oh, don't worry. You can get any trim level you want whenever because there's nothing limited. And it's Harry Potter. You know it's not going to be like Rush where after a year and a half they vault the thing and quit building it. Right. But on the flip side, I could see this as a smart play because by doing that, there'll be a longer tail on the sales. And because of the popularity of Harry Potter, why – if you think it's going to outperform Guns N' Roses at the 12,000 unit, why limit yourself to 5,000? Why not sell six? and so now like ultimately they could generate more income because they haven't put those arbitrary caps especially since they chose to hold the pricing line for all the games so this does give them the potential to make more money than they otherwise would have if the ce has this incredible topper incredible light show above and beyond everything else why only sell a thousand of them when you could sell 1500 so i see it that way too yeah i don't know which is right i have i I don't know. But what to me it would mean as a beluga, in my example of me being beluga, is Harry Potter is no longer a day one buy because I know I have time now for any version I want. That panic is gone. The FOMO is gone. And my FOMO now shifts to King Kong. And I don't have to pick between the two because I can get Harry Potter later. I mean, that's a valid point. and with the release schedules that we're seeing on pinball machines, you would be well-placed, even if you just delayed six months or a year. But write into EclecticGamersPodcast.gmail.com and let us know, like, what do you think of that, just strategically? I mean, I guess we'll find out. If they end up announcing, we'll see on the sales, right? I'm sure it'll do. I mean, there are plenty of people that only wanted Harry Potter and don't care about King Kong. Harry Potter is a better theme. so but i'd be curious to know like which like if you were if you were running a pinball company in today's market what do you think is the right answer do you think the right answer is to use the fomo or is the right answer to open yourself up to sell as many as possible and not like not force people to compete over a certain number of trim models and let the used market make all that or a second-hand market make all that extra profit because they're flipping the things right see it took the air out of that which i like strategically i kind of like some of these choices i just don't know that it was i don't know i don't know if it's the right choice it's such an evergreen title i think they may be right here i think this might actually be the smartest play even if it costs them immediate sales right and you know because eventually they're going to kick out other special editions of it like they did the like they have other stuff in the past eventually you're going to get your gryffindor edition or your your your ravenclaw edition All right. Last pinball topic was tariff impact. Now, I don't want to do the way that the discussion went with Zach because I didn't like that discussion. I got angry. So because – Angry Dennis. Yes. I got – I felt like I was talking to a brick wall. Flip the table. Verbally, I may have flipped the table. Dennis, smash. Because it was very difficult for me to – I felt like it wasn't being examined. Here's the thing. It's tough to talk about tariffs because, again, we have – there's a mix of listeners with a mix of political ideologies. And some people are conflating whether or not you think the tariffs are a good idea, like politically, with what tariffs do mathematically. And I felt Zach wasn't going into the political part of it, but he also seemed to be oblivious to the economic ramifications because of how – I think he – it's tough. I know I'm kind of rambling. Here's my point. There's the impact directly on pinball with tariffs. Right. But then there's also because tariffs impact everything as they've been proposed, how it affects everyone in terms of their income, their job security, all the rest of it. And broadly speaking, economists, be they identifying as progressive, conservative or centrist, generally all agree how tariffs work. It's not really a debated thing because there's plenty of evidence because there's been a lot of countries that have done these things before. So we have good evidence on how they function, but it's so interconnected. It can be really hard to fully see all the ramifications. My discussion here, I just want to keep focused on what companies, pinball companies have said about tariffs. Now, where things currently stand, here's the problem. There's total chaos because whether you like tariffs or don't, the rules keep changing day by day and it's getting really annoying forever. Like business owners all the way. Again, wristwatch hobby, that's a hobby where the U.S. is not a strong producer of watches. A lot of the watches are imported. I have heard from dealers, like people who own their own companies selling watches, where they had pending orders like from China, which all of a sudden they just had to pay this huge tariff on. And then an order three days later all of a sudden was lower than what they expected because they kept changing. So just for landscape, at the time of this recording, my understanding is China still has, with some carve-outs, a very high tariff applied. the reciprocal tariffs were canceled are paused for the other countries but that does not include the across the board 10 tariffs that apply to almost all nations other than china so there are tariffs in place right now right so i'm using this for that context here's what these various companies have said the one american company i saw a notation from was barrels of fun they have indicated that they're going to try and hold pricing but that the tariffs do impact their costs. The reasons most likely being that some of their supply chain is surely imported. Either it's the metals themselves, if they're like folding their own legs or whatever, or if they're ordering screws from China or whatnot. We don't know what the percentage of reliance on imports are, but as the importer or whoever the importer they're buying from, they will most likely have to face that tariff because the foreign nation doesn't pay the tariff. When we impose a tariff, It's a cost on us to bring the goods in. Yeah. That's how it works. So they've said they're going to try and hold the line, but they might need to raise prices because of this. They're going to have to see. It's going to depend on the tariff rate and how long the tariff is applied, obviously. Right. Because it's just math, guys. It's just math. Dutch Pinball. Now, the other two that I've heard from are foreign companies. So Dutch Pinball has said what they're doing is they're in the process of building the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the DPX game. They're stalling on sending the games to the U.S. buyers in the hopes to wait out the tariff situation so that the importers don't have to pay the tariff. Now, it could backfire on them, but that's the current strategy. So they're shipping like to the EU countries right now, and they're going to stall on the American ones in the hopes that stability is restored and no one who's importing is going to have to eat that. Because, again, they'll ship it like if you ordered it direct from them, what's going to happen? I'll tell you this from my my own buying of watches is FedEx. Let's say you use FedEx for a or whoever is bringing it. I've always ordered watches with FedEx. the shipper overseas they're going to send you the duties and customs thing and they're going to tell you how much they're going to you're going to pay before they release that game to you you will pay it directly as the buyer dutch ain't paying that yep so they're trying to help you out here but it's a gamble because we don't know what's going to look like it as time advances and at some stage they need to sell these games so that they get the rest of their money well i mean the people who have pre-orders in i'm sure are going to be chomping at the bit sure especially if they've With money put down. And I've had, again, I'm going to use because they're so foreign made comparatively to pinball and watches. I've seen people have been like, oh, they totally like they've had. There are people that they preorder watches all the time, like micro brands. And so they're always expensive watches. But they're like stuff is arriving now. And they're like, holy crap, I didn't even think about this. And I just got hit with this huge tariff on a watch I bought a year ago. But they just shipped it because they finally built it. And they're just like, I won't say freaking out. but they're up i mean it's hundreds of dollars right more this evaporated money it's not like the watch is now more valuable just evaporated so they're upset of course because it kind of like what was i supposed to do cancel this thing i waited a year for right well that's a question you have to ask yourself financially i can't answer that for you but uh the last one i saw information from is pedretti uh so pedretti gaming announced their plan is they're going to try and absorb the tariffs um and this was noted uh with the current state where the only tariff right now for them is that 10% across the board. So they think if it's just that, they can absorb it out of their profit line. But if reciprocals go back, it'll be reevaluated. Yeah. I'm sure even absorbing 10% will hurt. I mean, they're able to absorb that. Because again, I think for them, the whole game would be that cost to ship it over because it's all seen as... I don't know if they get to carve up each part or how they do it. You know, that's where the complication happens. So it's like if the duty on steel is 10 percent more, the final product that you buy, if you buy something that's made with that foreign steel, isn't going to be 10 percent. It'll be lower because that that raw component is only part of the cost factor. But if the entire thing like a watch is coming over from China and China made the watch, it's 100 percent Chinese. So the product itself actually goes up 132 or 84, whatever the percent. Whatever it is this week. So anyway, so that's the current state of it. So the biggest thing here I would just note is, I mean, tariffs don't make from pinball perspective. There's no need for tariffs just in the vacuum of pinball because we have an American based industry that isn't threatened by a foreign industry. All the foreign pinball manufacturers are exceedingly small fry. It's like Home Pin, Dutch Pinball, Pedretti. These are not serious competitors to the U.S. industry. So my point is from an industry – because one of the historic values to tariffs is protectionist, to protect existing industry. But pinball doesn't need that protection. What this will do is most people will only entertain American-made pinball machines. machines and i don't know if these foreign companies will be able to survive as pinball companies without being able to sell to the u.s market because tony even if you're a beluga are you ready to just evaporate 25 more money into something which the value won't go up 25 the moment those tariffs go away that that value of that tariff is evaporated from the value of the product right so and again the income line isn't even like you would just pay that straight up to the government in a lot of cases if you direct purchase so i don't see long term if it's high tariffs like the reciprocals come back into play i don't know how these companies thrive i don't think they make enough selling outside of the u.s to endure that's my impression i would assume that is a good impression to have but i just don't know it's all a guess but hey you could just keep buying everything and spend like uh you know spend like yolo yeah that was the uh that was the counter argument i faced on tps was yellow yeah uh most whales got there by not doing that kind of thing i think the problem where i was kind of getting frustrated was it seemed like there was the impression that everyone who buys pinball is a whale right because it's a luxury good don't get me i mean it is it's expensive and new in box pinball i know middle class people who scrimp and save to buy a pinball machine they don't buy them every year and i anyway anyway that's not this is not the place for the debate but that's why i got so frustrated let's go to video games which is something we will not get frustrated with um i do want to note we did have an email come in from christy thank you chris who wrote the email body said guys what's the best game to play on vacation he included an image i didn't even bother sharing the image to you because you would recognize the image and the name the email subject was What's Brotato, Precious? He's right. Brotato is the best. I streamed Brotato on my birthday on our Discord. I saw you announce that you were doing it. You've been doing these secret streams for a while now. Yeah, every now and then. I call them secret streams. That's because I don't stream them anywhere except on the Discord. I don't know why you don't stream them on Twitch. We have the EGP Twitch channel. We do, and I should. But I need to reinstall and set OBS back to normal. that's a fair enough reason where that is not where where would that's not like a two minute set i literally just hit the button in discord and it streams on discord so well thank you chris for sharing the image and and at least he added the word precious so that was nice good lord of the rings reference so good so good well is the switch to any good i don't know i have what do you mean i thought you caught up with all the nintendo news i just don't know if it's any good That got tariff impacted, too. Are you touching on that? I haven't read through all your notes. Yeah, they're delaying the pre-orders in the U.S. and now Canada. What? What did those maple syrup lovers do? It's because they ship together. Oh, okay. Because it ships together to a facility in the U.S. Oh, so when it gets imported to the U.S., they have to pay it then. Yeah. So they are having to figure out. That's why I've noticed. I've had friends from Canada been contacting me lately. Some of them are like, why do something? Like, I'm the tariff guy. Like, I can do stuff about tariffs. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I tripped and I accidentally created tariffs. No, that is not. I don't have anything to do with tariffs. I'm sorry. The tariff people don't listen to me. That's not how it works in the United States. But I didn't realize it was probably driven by Switch 2 rage because they're going to be pissed. Because I know a lot of U.S. buyers who are gamers are just like pissed. And that's before even getting into whether or not the thing's going to cost more, because I'm already mad at how expensive this thing is. Yeah, it is. Hey, speaking of, there you go. There we go. Look, I've set them all up. These ducks are ready to be knocked over or bowling pitch or whatever we knock over They did confirm the price right in the middle of where we thought it was Don hit ducks guys Don hit ducks I realized I was advocating duck violence There no need to be violent to ducks No Now geese Yes. They fight back, so it's okay. And you notice which ones fight the hardest? Canadian geese. I'm starting to see a pattern here. Well, you know, the Geneva Convention exists because of Canadians. I'm just saying. But they did confirm the price right in the middle, smack dab at the middle of where we thought it's going to be right at 450 dollars yay so uh the shocking thing i think most people are seeing is that uh most of the early announcement video games are 80 dollars yes i mean this has been debated for years now as you know tony games being 60 dollars just like when will inflation finally touch those because when we were kids it was like a nintendo game would be like 50 right which is like 100 and something yeah so i mean it's this i feel is at some stage this is not the i think the thought is well the economy of scales have gotten better and better because they're not making physical media as much and more and more gamers exist but at some point i do think the pressure to you have to adjust for inflation at some point i i think this i i think video games are like the most inflation-proof thing we've seen in our lives. And I think we've started to see the side effect. I'm not a fan of advocating for higher prices, but I just need to point out, it's gotten to the point where there are a lot of companies where if the game isn't a smash hit, the developers fail and go away. Right. It's gotten really dire. There's no padding. Yeah, it is. Games will be good. They'll be well-rated. We'll sell all right. Yeah. But, oh, it wasn't a smash hit. They didn't sell a million or five million copies day one. Close the company. And that's where you're starting to see all these other auxiliary income streams, loot crates, games as a service. You're selling, okay, we got a hit. Now let's make new seasons of it, like hero shooters and stuff, the Marvel Rivals approach and all that. Because once it's working, why take the risk? Just keep making money with what is popular. Right. Now, the problem is, I don't know if just by raising the prices, if we will go back to the old ways. I don't think we will. But if anyone would, it would be Nintendo, because they have been more resistant to adopting those more predatory styles of purchasing. They have typically been that way. They've also said Because there was some confusion originally And they've come out and said that Two of the versions Or two of the launch titles Are going to be the Switch 2 editions Of Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild And Tears of the Kingdom Are going to be two Those are also going to be $80 a pop That's a little harder But there was a bit of fluff There was some questions asked that a marketing person answered maybe not the best way possible that made it sound like the game was just going to release with the Switch 1 version of those games, and then you would have to download the upgrade to upgrade everything to match the capabilities of the Switch 2. And they've now come out and said that, no, no, you will be able to install that cartridge and play the Switch 2 version with no downloads straight out. but yeah they are launching june 5th so six months so they can build stocks up for christmas they are launching a bundle that is the switch to plus mario kart for five hundred dollars so that saves you thirty dollars on mario kart right there they have claimed that it is an example of variable pricing that reflects the breadth and depth of the gameplay for the pricing for Mario Kart at $80 and that they have not set a benchmark at Switch 2 games being $80 but all of the big Switch 2 games that launch are $80 but it's not a benchmark it's just The Legend of Zelda and Mario Kart It's not needed to be a benchmark, but I think it's going to be used as one. That's just me. I did notice an interesting thing is they are using an LCD screen instead of an OLED display. Did they use the OLED for Switch One? They did use the OLED for the mid-generation upgrade of the Switch One. I wonder why. Is it a battery hog? they're claiming that lcd technology has improved and that they were able to get the kind of sharpness and everything they wanted off of a cheaper lcd instead of the oled the console isn't cheaper but okay i know people are going to agree with that but all right i'm guessing that they probably if they'd gone with an oled instead it probably would have been over 500 and they didn't want to cross the line. That's just my personal opinion. They did announce a number of launch titles. Mario Kart, obviously, we've talked about the two Legends of Zelda. They are putting out a tutorial game for the Switch 2 to teach you how to use the Switch 2. It will cost you $10. It doesn't come with the game. They say it's fun. My sister sent me a message about making fun They claim that it is so much fun, and they put so much time and effort into designing it that they couldn't just give it away with this thing. So if you want the tutorial to learn how to play your Switch 2, it's $10. Give me money. Money. It's not a benchmark. It's not a benchmark. They're not expecting all tutorials for all games to be $10 more. Hey, try the demo for this game, $10. but it's a demo $10 you put a lot of work in this vertical slice right and then when I buy the full game will that make it $10 cheaper no $80 physical edition $90 they are putting out GameCube classics like Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, F-Zero GX and Soul Calibur 2 that's a Tony favorite That is one of my favorite Soul Calibers right there. So that is perfectly acceptable. I'm not buying a Switch 2. You're not? I'm not. But think of the children. I will think of the children. The children will probably end up with a Switch 2 at some point, but I'm not buying one for myself. My current Switch is somewhere. I haven't played it in years. Other people play it, but I haven't played it in years. No, I've decided that the next time I spend money on a console, it will be a Steam Deck. So I can play Brotato in the car while we're driving to TPF. Oh, yeah. No, you'll probably be tired of Brotato any day now. Could be. I can play something else in the car while we're driving to TPF. No, you'll be done with games by then, I think, probably. Probably. Probably. You just read and throw a stick. In the car. The dog's chasing. It's going to be like National Lampoon. I think the pooch kept up for the first couple miles. Yes. They're also at launch. These are all launch titles. The Deltarune chapters one through four. Split fiction, which has taken the world by storm for that kind of cooperative play type game. It's been huge, very popular. Cyberpunk 2077, Street Fighter VI, Kunitsugami Path of the Goddess, Civ VII. If I want to play a Civ game, I'll just get Steam Deck and play Civ on a Steam Deck. But other people, they want to play Civ VII. Hogwarts Legacy, Bravely Default, Flying Fairy HD Remaster, Yakuza 0 Fortnite, Fast Fusion Hitman, World of Assassination I do love Hitman games Some of these games it's just like I'm going to play Hitman or Cyberpunk on Nintendo It's weird The assassinations will leave pools of sweat little puddles of sweat You're just sleeping There is a streamer that I listen to and watch on occasion that they were talking about the Switch 2 release on a podcast and he voices a character in for one of the side mission little extra mission things in Cyberpunk 2077 and his character has a whole line that goes stuff that goes on because his crotch catches fire and he's like my voice is going to be talking about my crotch catching fire on a Nintendo now. I've hit my biggest goal. Yes. He's achieved his dream many voice actors have had. It is weird to me to see this on a Nintendo though. Nobunga's Ambition Awakening. Survival Kids. Teaching kids how to get ready for the future. Yes. Survival Kids. It's Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma, Arcade Archives 2 Ridge Racer, and Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S. Okay. I've seen some Puyo Puyo Tetris before. It's fun. So these are just launch titles. There's a ton of other titles. This is quite a slate. I think it's a pretty solid slate until you realize that only one of these is a Switch exclusive. Right, right. Well, I mean. Everything else is stuff that's been on other consoles. Some of it for a while now. Some of it is dated, definitely. But there's stuff for it. There's stuff there to start. If you haven't had a console in a while, then you have plenty of things you could get for it. I did read a humorous article. It's like, should I play Breath of the Wild on Switch 2 or should I just wait for the Switch 3 edition? Oh, ouch. That'd be a long one. So I'd say get it for Switch 2. I mean if you've got a Switch Just get on the Switch one But basically It feels like The Nintendo's overall answer To the controversy that fired up over pricing Is just that people will pay it Where else are you going to play Mario Where else are you going to play Zelda It's always been so Always has been And so this is their We'll see how it goes I think that they're well-timed in the console generational life that they're not going to get overly slammed by new PS5s or new Xboxes. I think they're well-positioned for sales that way. I think bringing in more adult titles will open their sales and their ability to do more and sell more to people who wouldn't traditionally go for the Nintendo route because they want to play stuff. But in the end, you're also going to be worrying about some people that still... The Switch 2's graphics are way better than the Switch 1, but they're still not PS5 or the newest... Is it the Series X that's the new Xbox? I don't know. Yeah. Whatever. It's still not up to the latest generations. Right. so that that's a question will they be able to maintain i think given their exclusive catalog that's just what they've been relying on and it's it's been working i mean they haven't been the leader on hardware tech in a long long time but it's still their sales this is not their angle so so i i think i think they'll be fine i'm not worried that nintendo's gonna suddenly go somewhere but i do wonder if the price increase uh reduces sales because again it's one of those things that most houses have a playstation or an xbox but normally if people have switches they've got a couple of them and i wonder if it'll be the same way with the cost of the i mean there are four switches we have four switches yeah but you didn't get them all at once no oh no wow no gosh no but it's built up because it was i had mine and i played it and the girls played it and eventually each girl got one of their own and then eventually my wife got a special animal crossing edition that she plays instead of mine and mine says because i don't play switch anymore but uh originally it was because we were sharing my switch with three four people in the house. I'd say, ah, probably the computer anyway. But I wonder if we'll see less of that. It'll just be the question to see. That's hard to say. I mean, maybe I'll be curious to see how quickly they sell versus Switch One's sales, like charting like first year versus first year. That, I think, would be the most telling piece of information. Oh, well. That's what I got for today. I didn't dive into anything else, though. That was a lot. I will drop you. I'll talk about money. I want to say Star Citizen crossed 800. Oh. I didn't know people were still giving it money. Apparently. Okay. When's it done? Never. Oh, okay. It's a living game. They found the best game. It is. You don't even release the game. No, it's brilliant. You get more and more money and you just keep putting out alphas. Yes. I'll never understand that game. well what I do understand is since we've reached the end of the show people can support us they can also email us though first at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com support can be at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers for as little as a dollar a month and we do deeply appreciate it you can also reach out to us at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast should you want to communicate that way though I will say for a variety of reasons especially if you're submitting things for the show email is far better than facebook facebook is annoying with the messenger to try and copy it over. So anyway, those are my plugs. We're on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers, and there's links to our Discord. Yep, and we have a link to the Discord in the show notes, so you can join that. And that's where Brotato is sometimes streamed by Tony. And we talk about Brotato. Yes, we do. Well, they do. I don't. And I share random stuff I find on YouTube. I sometimes submit GIFs of potatoes doing things to make fun of it, and that's about all I do. But anyway, in a couple of weeks, we should have a lot more pinball news from Stern and probably Barrels of Fun. But until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.