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Episode 217 - Downer

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·42m 28s·held·Apr 14, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

DPX plans Zidware games; hosts condemn as tainted; ABBA Pinball confirmed; Chicago Gaming delays persist.

Summary

This episode covers Black Knight: Sword of Rage production restart, confirmation of Pinball Brothers' ABBA Pinball with two editions ($10k-$11k), Multimorphic's summer production timeline for The The Princess Bride, Chicago Gaming Company ongoing delays with Pulp Fiction, and a major controversy around DPX (Dutch Pinball sister company) acquiring rights to build unfinished Zidware games (Alice in Wonderland, Magic Girl, Raza). Hosts express strong moral objections to reviving these historically troubled projects, viewing them as exploitative of past victims. Video game segment briefly covers Mike Ybarra's controversial tipping proposal and Yuji Naka's accusatory social media return.

Key Claims

  • Stern is building more Black Knight: Sword of Rage machines after a recent topper run generated enough demand

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discuss Stern's unexpected production decision; Tony notes he was surprised but acknowledges the popular topper may have driven orders

  • Pinball Brothers ABBA Pinball will produce 800 total units: 500 Arrival Limited Edition at $10k, 300 Voyage Collector Edition at $11k

    high confidence · Dennis cites Pinball News article with detailed specifications; layout and art descriptions confirmed from official materials

  • Multimorphic plans to begin The The Princess Bride module production over the summer

    high confidence · Dennis states 'Multimorphic has indicated they are actually planning to begin producing the The The Princess Bride module over the summer,' comparing timeline favorably to other delayed projects

  • DPX has filed trademarks for Magic Girl and Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland Land (Raza), and is rumored to have rights to J-Pop's Alice in Wonderland

    medium confidence · Dennis reports trademark filings have occurred; Alice in Wonderland described as rumor ('I believe' framing); notes these were unfinished Zidware designs

  • Pulp Fiction, once a darling of TPF 2023, is now receiving mixed collector reception for being too basic and retrograde despite strong initial nostalgia appeal

    high confidence · Dennis cites online reader feedback: 'the retroness of the game, it's not a keeper... too basic... meh'; Tony agrees the sound package alone doesn't justify keeping it long-term

  • Original theme pinball games significantly underperform licensed theme games in sales, proven repeatedly

    high confidence · Tony asserts: 'Original themes don't sell. Nobody cares. It's been proven time and time again... mediocre licensed theme' outsells 'amazing original theme'

  • Magic Girl is universally regarded as an unplayable game that required community intervention to reach minimally playable state but remains unfun; Raza prototype was also considered bad

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'essentially unplayable... collectors and members have gotten it to a quote-unquote playable state but that is in no way fun'; 'most people... who have played the prototype Raza said it was bad'

Notable Quotes

  • “There are certain things that should just die, and these fall within that realm. These are games that have time and time again screwed the pinball public... I do not understand how there is any draw for these games with their history.”

    Tony @ ~50:00 — Core moral objection to DPX reviving Zidware games; sets tone for industry ethics discussion

  • “If you feel the need to put pre-order money down on one of these old Zidware titles, give it to the poor, give it to a charity... go out on the street, find the dirtiest drunk you can and give it to him. You're still doing a better thing than giving it to anybody willing to support this.”

    Tony @ ~52:00 — Extreme emotional reaction emphasizing harm principle; reflects deep frustration with community complicity

  • “I actually recorded three completely separate rants for the Instagram about this... they were rough. They were – I wasn't nice... I just can't talk about this right now that's how much of a rant I went on”

    Dennis @ ~56:00 — Dennis's rare loss of composure; indicates severity of industry concern about DPX decision

  • “They are tainted goods.”

    Dennis @ ~58:00 — Defines moral stance on Zidware projects; suggests unredeemable reputation damage

  • “I lean that way personally. I've made that rule for myself about companies for arguably less than this... I think it's tacky, tasteless.”

    Dennis @ ~62:00 — Indicates Dennis may blacklist DPX; establishes precedent for audience accountability

  • “DPX seems like the sort of company that would probably think, you know what? I bet the Trudeau guy probably has a few designs left in him. Let's bring him on board... their view of pinball seems to make me think they think that would be okay.”

    Dennis @ ~60:00 — Critique of DPX's apparent arrogance and tone-deafness to Zidware's harm history

  • “It's just a giant ball of sadness that has done nothing but hurt every single person who has gotten involved.”

    Tony — Encapsulates emotional and financial toll of Zidware projects on collector community

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonStern PinballcompanyPinball BrotherscompanyMultimorphiccompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyDPXcompanyDutch Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern restarting Black Knight: Sword of Rage production after topper run generated unexpected demand; suggests strong secondary market interest in accessories may drive hardware decisions

    high · Dennis confirms Stern building more units; Tony notes surprise but acknowledges topper's appeal as catalyst

  • ?

    announcement: Pinball Brothers officially confirms ABBA Pinball with detailed specifications: 800 total units across two editions ($10k/$11k), three-flipper layout, European market positioning

    high · Dennis cites Pinball News article with full design credits, playfield features, translite variations, and unit cap details

  • ?

    product_launch: Multimorphic confirms summer 2024 production start for Princess Bride P3 module; significantly faster turnaround than Chicago Gaming projects

    high · Dennis: 'Multimorphic has indicated they are actually planning to begin producing the Princess Bride module over the summer'; noted as faster than Pulp Fiction or Cactus Canyon

  • ?

    industry_signal: DPX acquiring rights to build failed Zidware games (Magic Girl, Raza, Alice in Wonderland); triggers major community backlash over moral implications of reviving historically harmful projects; hosts express unprecedented emotional intensity and potential blacklisting

    high · Dennis recorded three deleted Instagram rants; Tony calls it 'terrible,' 'tainted goods,' 'ball of sadness'; Dennis considers blacklisting DPX; both emphasize harm to prior victims

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pulp Fiction experiencing significant collector backlash post-release despite TPF 2023 hype; retrograde design insufficient for long-term retention despite novelty appeal

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.127

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, April 14th. This is episode 217. I am Tony. I am Dennis. I'm tired. So much sepies. Yes. Well, I don't think this is going to be necessarily a particularly long episode, but we do have a couple of interesting news pieces to go over. But anything of note? Anything you've been playing over the last couple of weeks? I got some stuff for my birthday that I've been playing. Oh, yeah. Happy birthday. Thank you. I got some. I forgot what I got you. A little game called Time Wasters. You got me a pitcher.
0:53
I got you a pitcher? A pitcher. Like a water pitcher? Like a water pitcher. Okay. It was on my wish list. That was nice of me. It was very nice. Okay. I use it every day. Yay. I make tea in it or juice or other stuff. It's very nice.
1:08
So, TimeSplitters. TimeSplitters and Deep Rock Galactic Survival are both auto shooters that I got, and I've been playing a lot of those. They're just kind of fun little games I can play While I'm doing other stuff as well But most of this week has been I've been reading a lot Like I've been doing for years You've always been a prolific reader But yeah I, Humble Bundle, last summer Put out a special Humble Bundle special that was the, ooh, I said special multiple times. Allow yourself to introduce yourself. Yes. Their Humble Bundle, they had a Battletech Humble Bundle that was the original, the first 60 of the original Battletech novels. So I picked that up, and I've been working my way through them. I'm almost to 50. I'm on 48, I think, 48 or 49. but just earlier this week like Wednesday, Thursday this week they released a new 70 book set that are the 70 follow on novels from the original 60 there's a couple other things mixed in there, there's some magazines and some short story collections mixed into it but of the stuff that took place later like the original 60 were the ones that I grew up with and read, I think they finished in like the very early 2000s. And all of these other ones are the ones that came out later. So they've got the 70. And then they also have a 71 item bundle that's considerably more expensive than the 70 item bundle, because the one is the 60 items from the original from the bundle that I bought last year. So I'm not going to get that one. But I'm going a follow-up just so i have all of the printed battle tech fiction in ebook format now uh which means i have a lot of reading to go i've actually i am actively here's how crazy it gets i'm currently listening to on audiobook uh a new go-through of the aubrey martin series uh which is victorian or like age of that's like is that like master and commander yes master and commander the movie was based on the Aubrey Martin books. Based off a few of his books, if I recall. Yeah, like three of them or four of them were pulled from to make that one. Okay, so I've not read the books, but I knew the name. Yeah, so I've been listening to that on audiobook. On my Kindle, I've been reading all the Battletech novels. And then on my phone, I've been reading yet another set of novels so that I always have something with me no matter where I'm at I can read. Uh, so I've been kind of going through, but I I've hit the point coming up on 50 battle tech novels read that I've just had to take a break from battle tech. It's like, okay, I'm going to start reading something else for right now. Cause I've been reading another series, uh, that I picked up a number of years ago and haven't read. I only read like the first three books of the series. I haven't picked up any more of them, but I was started rereading those books and they've captured all my attention. So I've been reading them pretty consistently.

  • Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) was an established artist before J-Pop's involvement and does not want these projects to exist

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti)... doesn't want these projects to exist... that part of his life is over'; notes he was known for band posters independently

    • @ ~53:00

  • “I don't like it when people give J-pop credit for discovering Zombie Yeti... he was already an established artist... It's deeply unfair to Jeremy.”

    Dennis @ ~59:00 — Defends artist credit; complicates Zidware narrative by attributing artwork value elsewhere

  • “It'll do well in Europe... given the European just sheer popularity in the European market of ABBA, they do go ahead and get over halfway on their unit count... But I don't think they sell out of either edition.”

    Dennis @ ~24:00 — Market prediction for ABBA Pinball; acknowledges regional licensing advantage but expects incomplete sell-through

  • “I see the disco ball and go, I have that in my Deadpool. I see the helicopter and I go, hey, I've played Raven before... it just feels like it's like a magpie... they've gone and just like grabbed all these little bits of glitter from other successful pinball machines.”

    Dennis @ ~28:00 — Critique of ABBA Pinball's derivative playfield features despite popular IP; expresses creative fatigue with music pin design

    • ABBA Pinball
    game
    The Princess Bridegame
    Black Knight: Sword of Ragegame
    Pulp Fictiongame
    Magic Girlgame
    Retro Atomic Zombie Adventurelandgame
    [name withheld pending review]game
    John Popadiukperson
    Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti)person
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Deadpoolgame
    Ravengame
    Guns N' Rosesgame
    Mike Ybarraperson
    Yuji Nakaperson

    high · Dennis cites online feedback: 'not a keeper... too basic... meh'; Tony confirms difficulty doesn't overcome design limitations; sound package alone insufficient justification for collection space

  • $

    market_signal: Licensed IP significantly outperforms original themes in pinball sales; repeated industry pattern demonstrates collector/operator preference for recognized IP over novel designs

    high · Tony: 'Original themes don't sell... It's been proven time and time again... mediocre licensed theme' beats 'amazing original theme'; Dennis acknowledges this reality shapes industry strategy

  • ?

    collector_signal: ABBA Pinball's 800-unit cap (500+300) structured as limited editions despite moderate enthusiasm; pricing strategy ($10k/$11k spread minimal) targets exclusivity buyers rather than gameplay enthusiasts

    medium · Dennis: 'all it is is you're paying for the exclusivity'; notes similar wristwatch industry pattern of markup without quality differential

  • ?

    design_innovation: ABBA Pinball employs derivative playfield features (disco ball from Deadpool, helicopter from Raven, symbol from Guns N' Roses) without novel mechanical integration; reflects broader music pin fatigue

    medium · Dennis criticizes as 'magpie' design approach; notes no music pin has captured his interest since Metallica/AC/DC; questions what makes ABBA special given feature borrowing

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Community debate over J-Pop's role in discovering artist Jeremy Packer; Dennis argues Zombie Yeti was established band poster artist prior to Zidware, complicating narrative of J-Pop's creative vision

    medium · Dennis: 'he was already an established artist... It's deeply unfair to Jeremy... he was known for doing band posters'; notes artist reportedly opposes Zidware revival

  • ?

    content_signal: Dennis deleted three prepared Instagram rants criticizing DPX Zidware decision for being too harsh; rare instance of self-moderation despite personal commitment to transparency; indicates community toxicity concerns

    high · Dennis: 'I recorded three completely separate rants... they were rough... I just can't talk about this right now'; suggests emotional intensity exceeded platform appropriateness

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: ABBA Pinball licensing deal secured by Pinball Brothers; European IP licensing strategy aligns with expected regional market strength; suggests favorable licensing terms for music properties

    medium · Dennis and Tony predict strong European sales driven by ABBA cultural dominance; expect >400 unit sell-through but not full 800-unit cap

    • 4:37
    And then I'm going to segue back into stuff. But, yeah, between audiobooks, Kindles, and my phone, I'm currently going through three totally different series of, like, very, I mean, early 1800s, Age of Sail, Victorian, feudal, space-stompy robots, and then a very space opera, man-of-action space opera type series is what I've been reading in three separate things so far. So, yeah, it's been fun.
    5:14
    Well, I'm not really reading anything at this particular moment. I haven't been playing a lot of games. It's because, as you know, it was over the last week in particular, watches and wonders 2024 which my other hobby being wristwatches for those that don't know just uh the easiest way to describe it is watches and wonders is e3 for watches but like they actually do it like they avoid like they avoid all the leaks and stuff and most of the swatch group is probably the biggest luxury uh conglomerate that does not participate in watches and wonders but all the other big ones are there rolex is there patek philippe is there you know Allang and Zona is there. Even Grand Seiko is out there. It's not all Swiss and German manufacturers. So I actually took stock yesterday. And since Tuesday, which is when it started, I have put out eight YouTube videos about watches that have been coming out. And then I did my – usually I do a Saturday live stream, which was about Watches and Wonders. And then Friday, you participated with me and three other people on a panel, which I'll have a link in the show notes to that. If people, since it's got both of us on there, I'll go ahead and throw in the link about us talking about just thoughts on particular releases that people just felt like wanting to spend some time on. We took 90 minutes. Actually, the way it was flowing, there was so much discussion and debate, especially about some of Rolex's decisions, that I actually didn't pick any of the watches. I was just like, I'm going to stop. I'm not going to pick any myself so that I can just cycle through you other four because there's so much content and discussion. I'm like, let's just let you guys who aren't usually on go. And so that's why Saturday I just started pulling up stuff I wanted to talk about instead. I had like three more watches picked out to talk about that we never got to. But I was like – I had people that were like, we're not really going over 90 minutes, right? Because sometimes I have a bad habit of saying, yeah, my time estimate on this is going to be two hours and then three hours later. Or more. Well, I'm not always good at estimating. I remember the one that started at 8 and we logged off at like almost midnight. Yeah. So sometimes my estimates are bad. So I've tried to be better about it. And this one I kept deliberately free form. It didn't have people pre-send me their selections so that I could just say, well, all right, it looks like we're going to have to cut it off here 90 minutes in. But I did end us on time, so I was pleased with that. speaking of being pleased i think the listeners as much as they enjoy hearing about nautical victorian era ships and what weird poor decisions tutor made this year in the watch realm i think they want to hear about pinball and video games and as usual we're going to start with pinball and so we have just actually we were just hot off the press tony just gave me the last updates for some elements of the pinball section that he wanted to talk about now i'm going to start was something he didn't want to talk about. In fact, not that you had an opinion on it. I just didn't know anyone cared at all about Black Knight Sword of Rage, but apparently Stern is building more of them now for some reason. They must have some orders have come in, enough that they want to put together a small stock to have set to the side.
    8:25
    It's probably, did they announce that it was their final Sword of Rage run? Not that I was aware of. I would assume it's their final Sword of Rage run. But I think I shouldn't be – I'm not surprised in and of itself. They did, not all that long ago, end up building a run of toppers for it, and it does have like one of the coolest toppers to ever be created. So I could see where that perhaps spurred enough interest to go ahead and – honestly, I just figured there were enough unwanted ones floating around to use that if you bought a new topper, you'd just buy a used one. But I guess there was enough demand. So I was just a little surprised by it. What I wasn't surprised about is something we talked about last episode, Tony, and that was the rumored, now confirmed, Pinball Brothers release of ABBA Pinball.
    9:16
    You know ABBA. It'll do well in Europe. That's what we were thinking, is it may do well. So I do have a link in the show notes to Pinball News. They have a detailed article about this game release. But in terms of some quick summary information, this game was designed by, and I'm going to apologize preemptively for mispronouncing names, because I'm not familiar with most of these individuals. The game was designed by Alexander Spohr. The sound was done by, well, obviously it's got Abba's music, but the sound design was done by Olaf Gustafsson. Video animation work was done by Kelly Mazeroski. And art was done by Andreas Benwick. There are two versions of the game. One is the Arrival Limited Edition. That's capped at a maximum of 500 units and is $10,000. and the other is the Voyage Collector Edition, which is capped at 300 units and is $11,000. So not a big price spread between the two models. In terms of some of the game features, this is true for both of the editions. It's three flip, excuse me, fleet, no, I will get this right. It is a three flipper. It is a three flip, one, two, we will talk about that one in a little while. Three flipper game. It has a couple spinners. It's got the super spinner. It's got a disco spinner. It's got a couple of controlled gates on it. It got a 180 VUK vertical up kicker It got a couple of three drop target banks It got another I believe it a separate Vuk for the helicopter And the helicopter blade is motorized So it goes, Vuk, yeah, it is.
    10:46
    I don't have to edit that because you were very careful. So good job. And so I've thrown in for our internal notes a picture of the layout so you can kind of see what it looks like. And then, of course, the Arrival Edition is the one with the band in white outfits doing, I don't know, they're standing there. I don't, I don't. It's Abba things. I'm just, I don't like it. I'm just going to be really blunt. Like, I don't like that art package. The more limited version, the Voyage one, is a lot cooler with the heads looking like they were. Do you remember that Star Trek where God, what does God need with a star? That's what they look like. What does God need? With the starship. That's what this look was. This is a Star Trek. What is that, five? This is a Star Trek five. That was five. This is a Star Trek five back glass. So, all right. We talked a little bit about the theme last time on our last episode. What do you think about what you've seen here?
    11:45
    You mentioned again that you think it'll do well in Europe. I mean. I think it'll do all right. It'll be fine. They're making a grand total of what, 800? yeah they will probably sell most of them yeah i uh you know pricing doesn't seem necessary for what you get doesn't seem necessarily ridiculous in today's market uh the game like i like the playfield art just fine yeah the toys and stuff look okay uh the layout looks fairly accommodating in terms of i think it's familiar enough that people won't you remember playing queen and it didn't like half of it kind of felt fun and half of it was kind of meh i think this is probably a little better overall judging from the images yeah we'll just have to see i don't i mean i'm not it's maybe i'm just getting jaded a lot of these music pens anymore feel like they're not going like super insane fun i i can't think of the last time i found or played a music pen that really grabbed me as much as like Metallica or ACDC.
    12:56
    It's not just you. I don't feel an urge to play this. Right. And I like ABBA. Yeah, I do too. I look at it and I'm just like, if we see it at a show, we'll play it out of obligation. Yeah. But looking at it, nothing about it makes me want to play it. I see the disco ball and go, I have that in my Deadpool. I see the helicopter and I go, hey, I've played Raven before. It had a helicopter. I see the symbol and I'm like, oh, that's something that Guns N' Roses did. It just feels like it's like a magpie, you know, the bird. They've gone and just like grabbed all these little bits of glitter from other successful pinball machines and dropped it into a very popular band. And but I so I think because I'm going to lean towards what you've said, Tony, and say, given the European just sheer popularity in the European market of ABBA, that they do go ahead and get over halfway on their unit count, the 800 unit count. But I don't think they sell out of either edition.
    14:03
    And hopefully it's enough of a success for them that they feel OK with it. But I don't I don't having not watched gameplay of this, I don't feel like saying anything further about it. Right. I don't know. Because we just don't know. Yeah, I just I don't feel anything when I look at it. But other than I was nice to remember Star Trek five, perhaps the worst Star Trek movie of the original cast. Would you let's die? Let's you know what? This is a more interesting topic. And those that can't see and you can't because you're not here. Tony's got the face He's really putting in the thought Am I saying this? Is it really the worst one? I'll say I think as a movie it is It's not the most boring Star Trek the motion picture is the most boring Because nothing happens When they try and deal with Viger But As a movie You're right But the Star Trek 5 With Spock and the half brother and the whole... The scene I like about it is the mountain climbing scene at the start. That's the one thing I like about that movie. I like... Because I like the boots. The flying boots.
    15:16
    I like when Scotty goes, I know this ship like the back of my hand. He turns around and walks into a stanchion and knocks himself unconscious. They made me sad. Scotty's supposed to be brilliant. He's not the Gimli of Star Trek. No, he's not.
    15:32
    He's also the one who's still alive somehow in the next generation. Well, I mean, it was covered in episode how, but... Yes, very much so. Okay, that was a fun digression. The next thing, Multimorphic. We already talked about Wuv. True, Wuv. So, Princess Bride. It was fun. We played it at TPF. So, Multimorphic has indicated they are actually planning to begin producing the Princess Bride module over the summer. okay so it again kind of like final resistance it it wasn't ready to for for shipping to the public as of the texas show makes sense to get it at the texas show it's still faster turnaround than pulp fiction or cactus canyon absolutely absolutely we could go on and on about chicago gaming and their inability it's does it ever feel to you tony like chicago gaming is kind of like I don't feel like building today. Yeah. I build when I want.
    16:30
    I just build when I want. You'll wait. You know my quality. People still buy. They do. That's the thing. It's pinball. Pinball people will still buy. I mean, they are – you punch them in the face and they'll still – oh, thank you so much. But as another kind of aside, another digression, I've been reading online a number of people who it's – Pulp Fiction was one of the most darling games of Texas Pinball Festival 2023. Right. Now that it's getting out there, I've seen a lot of people that they're just like, the retroness of the game, it's not a keeper. They're not feeling that it's going to last in the collection. It's too basic. You get the nostalgia hit from the initial play, and then it's like, meh. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's a particularly easy game. I remember when I played it, it totally kicked my butt. But the, yeah, it's just people are like, I don't know, when they're getting used to all the LCD screens and stuff and then seeing this very throwback style game and it's just not, it's like, eh, okay. You got the sound package, but how much space do you want to give to a sound package? I think we're starting to get into the point where the nostalgia for things is powerful, but the reality is not. It's just like the continuous clamor for, oh, we need original themes. You don't have to have movies and stuff. You don't have to have licensed themes. Original themes, original themes, original themes. Original themes don't sell. Nobody cares. It's been proven time and time again. They can kick out an amazing original theme, and it won't sell half as much as a mediocre licensed theme. And it's the same thing with this nostalgia throw. Oh, all this stuff is all the fancy and the LCDs, and I just want an old-school game that kind of, you know what, then buy an old game because more likely than not, when you get a brand-new game kicked out in the old style, this is where it's going to end up. It's going to end up with people going, well, that was interesting, And now I'm done with it unless you hit that magic point where it's one of those very rare games that just absolutely blows everybody's socks off.
    18:52
    Well, I think you have some good points, but let me let me spin it a little bit for you because I have a question on this. So obviously we understand the idea of the nostalgia with the theme of the license because it's built up this. People love the show. People love the movie. People love the band and all of that. What about, though, applying that to concepts that people claim to have liked for pinball that never actually became commercially available pinball machines? And that's where DPX comes in. This is my last pinball topic for us. So we talked about DPX, which is the new sister company of Dutch pinball, and how they're going to be doing these like smaller run Cayenne collector style games or that's the general vibe. Well, information has come out. There's already been a rumor going around that they have the rights to do J-Pop's Alice in Wonderland, the third planned game of the Zidware empire that never got much past sketches and foam core, but I believe did have a few payments come in. but separate from that confirmation that I believe trademark filings have happened by DPX for them to do magic girl and, and retro atomic zombie adventure land, AKA Raza, which we will call it Raza from here on out. Cause I can't say that mouthful continuously. I will need more drinks, Tony, the nostalgia for the J pops promises that were not kept for those that don't know as a brief recap, I already told you about Alice in Wonderland, but magic girl, was a game that was the first game that was supposed to be built he never built it as zidware and then the people who originally bought it he was able to get american pinball to bring him on to build a version of houdini basically he was given a bunch of parts to go ahead and make the magic girls he did it was a game that was essentially unplayable my understanding as collectors and members of the community have gotten it to a quote-unquote playable state but that is in no way fun. And then Raza as a concept moved on to being over at Deep Root. They were going to do Raza and I believe that was part of Robert Mueller's plan to make people whole by giving them Raza games. And while prototypes were made, it never got to the commercial state. It never went out And while not universally agreed upon whereas I think Magic Girl is universally agreed to be a terrible game by and large most people I have heard from who have played the prototype Raza said it was bad
    21:22
    Tony, how does this do? What do you think of this? Shame. Shame? Shame. There are certain things that should just die, and these fall within that realm. These are games that have time and time again screwed the pinball public. People have put money into them. People have put hopes and dreams and thoughts, and they just keep getting hurt.
    21:51
    I mean, this is one of those things that I feel like will never leave pinball. It's a bad penny that keeps turning up. It's a terrible thing. I do not understand how there is any draw for these games with their history. What part of this history makes you want to be involved in this game? What part of their history would make you want to even think about giving your money to anybody for this? And I'm not just talking about pre-orders. because if you, 100% honest, if you feel the need to put pre-order money down on one of these old Zidware titles, give it to the poor, give it to a charity, give it to me, I don't care, no matter where you get, you know what, go out on the street, find the dirtiest drunk you can and give it to him. You're still doing a better thing than giving it to anybody willing to support this at this point. I mean, it's just terrible. I consider it a blight on pinball at this point, not just that people are still trying to get these games made, but that people still think there's something special about this. I don't understand it. It is just a giant ball of sadness that has done nothing but hurt every single person who has gotten involved. How many times have these people thought that, oh, maybe they'll be made whole? How many times have people thought, well, maybe there's the chance for the thing that I got robbed of years ago? How many?
    23:38
    No. Let them die. It is over. We don't need them in pinball. I was so sad when I heard about this. I actually recorded three completely separate rants for the Instagram about this. I didn't know you had. I haven't posted any of them, and I deleted them all because, I'll be frank, Like, even for me being as open and truthful and 100% my thoughts on the Instagram as I tend to be, they were rough. They were – I wasn't nice. Okay.
    24:26
    I was very, very not nice to the point that when I rewatched them to decide if I was going to post them on each one, I was like, no, let's tone this down. no let's tone this down no I just can't talk about this right now that's how much of a rant I went on this is nothing compared to what this is not a rant this is you being direct this is just no I don't just stop hurting people stop doing this and I don't know why anybody thinks these titles are worth their time, effort, or money given their history. It doesn't matter how amazing they seem. Given the history that led to it, they are tainted. There's nothing good that can come from this at this point. They're tainted goods.
    25:22
    That's a good way to put it. The phrase I believe I used or similar on the pinball show for episode 150 that I do over with Zach is I talked about that everyone on these will have to make a moral judgment, but that I morally could not buy these titles. To me, it would be inappropriate to buy these titles. And that's separate from the fact that DPX is, I feel, exceedingly arrogant to decide that this is an appropriate role for them, that they, you know, they earned the right to do this because they spent nine years making people whole on Big Lebowski. So now that there's such winners, here, let's go ahead and let's turn out a bunch of Zidware stuff. Now, I don't buy into the, like the, you know, the superstition side where people are like, it's impossible to, and that's where the arrogance sort of comes in. I almost feel like there's this thought of, these are games that are impossible for people to make. It'd be like, you know, you couldn't make Dune in the old days. It was too hard. Like that cinematic vision couldn't be done. We didn't have the technology and now we do. And so now Dune is awesome because we have the technology to do it. You know, the things that were unfilmable and these are unbuildable. No, they're not unbuildable. They're just, they're bad.
    26:44
    Magic Girl wasn't a good game. Raza wasn't a good game. Alice in Wonderland, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably not a very good game. People fall in love with the artwork. And he didn't draw that stuff. Zombie Yeti did most of the artwork people love. And as I recall, Jeremy Packer, a.k.a. Zombie Yeti, doesn't want these projects to exist. He's like that part of his life is over. And people still occasionally. And I don't like this. I understand why people do it, but I don't like it when people give J-pop credit for discovering Zombie Yeti. You know, he was already an established artist. It's not like he found him out in the street begging for coffee and was like, let me turn you into a star. You're a star now. We could have found him just like Dirty Dottie was found. Like he was known for doing band posters and stuff. It's like – so that part of the tale always kind of irks me a little bit because I think it's deeply unfair to Jeremy. But it is what it is. On this regard, the decision to go after this stuff seems incredibly tone deaf. DPX seems like the sort of company that would probably think, you know what? I bet the Trudeau guy probably has a few designs left in him. Let's bring him on board to come up with some new stuff once we get done with this or bring him on board to fix this. I'm not saying I've read that they plan to do this. I'm saying that their view of pinball seems to make me think they think that would be okay. Here's the thing. At this point, there's pinball people out there who would buy it. They'd buy it in a heartbeat. Sure. I've thought that for years, that there's some that would just be like, as long as I get mine, I don't care about any of that stuff. Yeah. There's just a – They show it all the time when they say things like, oh, well, I like this because it's entertaining to me even though it's toxic and destructive to the rest of the hobby. And they use that to justify their support. And that slope slides all the way down. It does. It is just – it's terrible. So I haven't decided yet whether I would – I mean I definitely would never buy any of these games. I have not fully decided yet if, for me, if this would mean I would, quote-unquote, blacklist DPX and refuse to buy anything they would ever put out. I lean that way personally. I've made that rule for myself about companies for arguably less than this. So anyway, I think it's tacky, tasteless, and I guess we'll see what ends up happening. Because a lot of it's going to come down on pricing and supply because I think they – I understand the business angle. at least I think I do and that is a hey there's money to be made you really emphasized this I think on the last episode there's money to be made at this top tier of people who want to just have the exclusivity so they're going to just turn out a few of these things that's what Zidware tried to do let's have these overpriced games and you're going to pay overpriced not because they're fun but because they're limited and we see that all the time I see it in wristwatches there are plenty of companies that use that as a strategy Yeah, we're going to turn out $100 of this thing, and they're going to be $1 million a pop. It looks almost like the same thing as the regular base price, but you doubled the cost, and you took an unlimited thing and said it's $100. Yeah. And we see it. And you know the quality is just the same. So all it is is you're paying for the exclusivity. Yep. That's what this is. Anyway, that's all I had for pinball, Tony. What do you got over in video games? You got cheery stuff for us? I have a mixture of entertaining and just terrible stuff. Okay. This is a little bit of a downer episode. I think I'm going to name episode 217 downer. Yeah, it's been kind of a downer a couple weeks. So I don't even have a whole lot in video games.
    30:33
    But I thought I'd open with something I thought was just humorous. The former Blizzard president, Mike Ybarra, put a post out on X that he thought that there should be an option at the end of single-player games, if you've really enjoyed it, to tip the developers because the $70 you paid for that game isn't enough, so now you need to tip a game after you finish playing the game.
    31:06
    Well, I'll tell you what. As long as you use those self-checkout things, you can ask for that tip as much as you want. So just add that little thing where I have to fill out the little self-checkout thing at the end of the game. And then you can ask me, how much would you like to tip? 20%? 30%? 40%? Or custom?
    31:30
    I don't want to go on a rant about those things, but I'm getting really, really. I'm like every other American out there. I am so sick and tired of seeing that. Oh, man. And if you've not done the math behind what their auto things are, you might want to do the math sometime. I saw one that popped up the other day where it like do you want to tip 15 And when I did the math it was 23 because I was like that doesn look like 15 It was 23 Wow Disgusting
    31:58
    Also, I'm not going to pay tips on the taxes. Just letting you know, I don't factor the taxes into my tip. No, I don't either. They pay income taxes on it. It's not a salesable item, so why would you charge those? Anyway.
    32:11
    Okay, so Mike, you're being silly, Mike. Come on. Don't be silly. He's got to do something. He said he's been playing a lot of single-player games since he's retired from Blizzard and just enjoying retirement, I guess.
    32:25
    I'm going to flip these around a little bit to also go with the interesting. We talked last year a couple of times about Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka. Oh, his insider trading. His insider trading. He has returned to social media with his very first social media post since he got arrested originally.
    32:52
    And of course it's fun. Does it say, got to go fast? It doesn't say, got to go fast. Does it say, chili dogs? It's in reference to the Dragon Quest series producer.
    33:05
    Yumiaki is no longer the producer for Dragon Quest. He's been moved to head the entire mobile division for them.
    33:21
    But his post was, I hope he'll be gone soon because he's the kind of person who submitted a memo with lies, with evidence, to the court. So his first social media post was accusing somebody of lying to the court. Oh, perjury. to get him in trouble. Oh, it was all to get Yuji in trouble? Well, I mean, that's the assumption. He was putting evidence into court. False evidence. To see Trixie's resurgence.
    33:52
    But he pled guilty to insider trading. Because he Trixie's us. It freezes us. It's like, yes, I did do the insider trading, but it wasn't necessarily as bad as you think it was. It's a liar memo. Okay, well.
    34:10
    Yuji Naka, I think Yuji Naka is going to be a source for lots of material for us moving forward. We'll see. I think he's finally, I mean, apparently he's out of jail now because he wasn't supposed to be in jail for two and a half years. But apparently he was only in jail for a year. Or you get social media access in jail. Maybe. That's just a good thing. I've got a little secret. When you're in jail, it's usually pretty easy to not insider trade except cigarettes. another interesting thing that popped up that i i'm on the fence about this one is ubisoft has shut down the servers for the open world racing game the crew okay i've heard of the crew i've not played it yeah it's an open world racer but even its single player option because it's an always online game has to be online so when they shut the servers down um people were kind of hoping that somebody would create a workaround to have pirate servers and stuff so they could still play or so that they could play single player.
    35:15
    And Ubisoft instead decided what they were going to do was when they shut the servers down, they also rejected and invalidated everybody's license. Oh, all the players' licenses? All the players' licenses. So the people who already owned the game, like if you owned the game on Steam and you had it installed and you tried to boot it up to play it, it would pop up and tell you that you needed to put in your code. Oh, like the game key. Yeah, you had to put in your game key because your key had been revoked. or if you installed it in other locations or if you if you had it installed on uh another system uh that i remember off the top of my head uh when you booted it up it would boot you to the demo but it would tend to say the game is unavailable so uh they just when they shut it down they shut it down hard yeah i i i don't know So this is tough. Right. See, this is where I was on this one. That's why originally I wasn't going to talk about this, but the more I thought about it, the more I'm thinking it's like, if it requires the servers, even for the single player, and you take the servers offline, then what is the point of letting people still have access to anything? And then there isn't. This just doesn't seem like the right way to do it. It feels like this makes it – I'm wondering if I'm being too sensitive on it. To me, it's making it feel like you took away their buy. Like you don't own the game anymore. Yeah, and that's exactly what it is. How it ends up feeling, which isn't true. But that being said, you can't play it anymore, and you don't want people to get confused and think that they're trying to – like they're getting in and it's not. I mean, I guess my solution would be could they not have a thing where if it tried to – I don't know. Even if they shut the server down, can they not leave a server up that just sends a message saying the game is now shut down or something? Right. Like they put out a patch and it lets people like it because apparently it's too hard or not worth their time to patch it so that it just won't check the servers anymore or change it so that the single player would work. That's probably a lot of work is why. So just something that would instead like in game, it would say the game server has been closed. The single player experience cannot be it cannot be played without the servers. Thank you for your past support. Yeah. And something like that. But not like you need to input the game. All this stuff is like saying you need the game key. And it's like, but I have the game. I'm just wondering if it would confuse people after a couple of years who try and reconnect or something. I know this happened. And it very well could. I don't know. I think the big thing here was I think what they really were going for was they knew there were people who were looking to make mods, especially for Steam and the like, on the background that would let them generate private servers. Right. And they didn't want to allow that. And this 100% makes that a non-allowable thing. True. Okay. Yeah, I don't know how I feel about it. Yeah, it's odd.
    38:27
    So, and the last thing, because like I said, I have very little this week. The last thing is Embracer Group has finished the restructuring. Yeah. They announced that as of March 31st, they were done restructuring. They're not selling anything else. So Gearsoft was the last sale, or Gearbox was the last sale.
    38:50
    They're not selling anything else. During a talk with investors, they did say that they are not looking to begin mergers and acquisitions again at this point, obviously. they're intending to continue forward with the developers they have put out more new and higher quality games before they re-enter uh starting to pick up other places they want to stabilize everything so just for an overall look back uh they've laid off more than 1300 people canceled dozens of games, closed several studios, and sold a whole bunch more. And now they're at the point where they're like, okay, we're finishing restructuring and we're ready to go forward as the new, slimmer, more agile Embracer Group.
    39:46
    So, we'll see. We will. I give it three months before they start buying people. Yeah. I mean, they've ended up that they want to buy more stuff. So I think them and Yuji Naka are going to be our two big things this year for fun stuff to talk about in video games. Yeah, we're finally done with talking about the Blizzard-Microsoft merger. We're done with all that other stuff. I think this is going to be the new reoccurring thing that has stuff that keeps coming up. But this is a short episode. It is. I'm checking right now to see if we had any interesting emails to our EGP email. We don't. So, folks, if you want to reach out to us, give us interesting emails like you did on the last episode. You can email us, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. We're also available at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. And if you want to support the show, you can for as little as a dollar a month at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. Do not forget that if we get up to 100 Patreon members, Tony and I are going to play some – what awful game did we say we were going to both play?
    40:56
    I'd have to go back and listen. We will play some awful game. We will both play it. We'll play an awful game. Yes. I don't remember what it was. It was one where I wasn't sure we could actually play it co-op, but I figured we could just play it and record. It was something you brought up, but it was bad. It was bad. Yeah. But just remember, the Patreon is a much better use of your money than Magic Girl. That's true. Don't give DPX your money. Give us your money instead.
    41:22
    You know why? Because we aren't making promises about evil. We're not taking brokenhearted people and exploiting them for money. We do things like here's a video about Dennis suffering through Gollum. See, we are the ones who suffer, not you. That's the secret. Good point, Tony. We're the ones that suffer. We're also available on Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. There might be a rant there. There might not. Tony uses his judgment to decide if it's too harsh. That one was too harsh. I could not bring myself to post that one. Let's put it this way. If you're on our Discord, there is a moment, a spot on the Discord where that topic came up, and I referred to them as a specific STD of pinball. That is much nicer than what my rants were. And the link to the Discord is in the show notes, so you can click and join through that.
    42:23
    But until two weeks from now, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.