Acting on your best behavior, turn your back on Mother Nature, everybody wants to rule the world. Welcome everybody, happy Monday morning. It feels like a month ago that we saw Dungeon Crawler Carl, Ender's Game, and Bon Jovi Pinball. But it's only been a week and a lot of people are wondering what is going to happen with the Bon Jovi number tomorrow. Are we going to hear that the game is sold out? Sold through does not mean sold out, but they might have no more to sell. We've got dealers saying there's only 50 left. You might as well order from me. All of this is just never been done before. We're going to talk about that. But I want to just zoom out a little bit and then we'll get into the weeds of the current stuff because the reason people are reacting the way they are reacting around Bon Jovi, Multimorphic, Stern Pinball, Sonic, everything. I think something is hanging over everything this year in pinball. If we were to step back and just think about from January until now, I think the main issue with this entire hobby, and there's not really an issue, right? Everything is fun. Everyone's going to have a good time jumping on a machine, especially when you know you're not going to buy it. You will have more fun walking up to pinball machines that you know your money is safe from buying it. I've never understood why we have to be so compelled to order something instantly. Or if we don't, we have to go then attack it endlessly on the Internet. Now, I think a lot of people, you know, you heard my little rant, maybe, maybe you didn't. But I've been very positive on Bon Jovi. Look at my Facebook posts. I have said from the very beginning that a rock and roll act this big will sell 700 units eventually. Will it happen in 48 hours? No. In seven days? No. And the only reason I feel like there's this rush to buy them all is because of the reserve program that is a little silly and a little wonky. We're going to get to that. But I think the reason why we're all looking at this stuff, ask ourselves a question. And let's ask ourselves that. Why do we care so much if this game sells out or not? Why do we care so much if, you know, they're being honest about the number? Why? Because I'll tell you why. We all have been maybe abused children over the last four to five years because we've witnessed so many pinball machines lose so much value that it's only natural that the buying population of new and new players, Box Pinball would be looking at every single launch through the lens of what's the value. And I mean the monetary value. Every game is fun. You have to admit that almost every single game, if you walk up to it, you're going to have fun. Like I would have fun playing Ender's game. I'll have fun playing Dungeon Crawler Carl. I'll have fun playing Bon Jovi Pokemon. I'll have fun playing Transformers. All these games, they're fun. But do I want to buy it? Do I need to buy it? And if I do buy it, what do I think the market will be on the game if I want to move on from it in a year or in six months? So for about a decade, you didn't lose on anything. Now, all of a sudden, it's been bonkers. But the real reason is not even the resale value. That's not the real thing happening in pinball this year. And I'm going to make a statement here and you can maybe agree with it or disagree, but that's the fun part of this show. The main thing happening in pinball with all of these companies, the most amount of pinball companies ever, the highest price pinball has ever been, the most knowledge of what people want, the most exposure to great games and mechs and flow and art and themes. Anyone making a pinball machine today has a plethora of examples that try to top. Competition makes everything better. But here's the thing. I think the main thing happening in pinball with all of this competition, with all of these years of amazing masterpiece games, I think the thing I'm noticing about this year is it's been a bit of a letdown. I don think there been a masterpiece game that come out this year There is not a universal hit if you will that everybody is in love with that is getting praise left and right that has raised the bar in the pinball world in any way shape or form And that's the thing that really is impacting this hobby more than anything is that there's a lot out there, but a lot of it feels like it's missing the mark and it's close, but it's just not there. And we've had games that went all the way and some games take a while to go all the way. And that's unfortunate. We know that games like Pokemon are waiting for that big code drop. Same with Sonic. A lot of these games, Dune was the same way when it launched. These games come out and they don't have much and there's potential, but they don't go all the way. And so when you look at the games of this year, nothing has really blown everybody away. Nothing has really held that much value. The only game that's held value and gone up and then some has been a game called Winchester's Mystery House. Now, you could argue that that might be the masterpiece of the year. I would argue, I don't know. I don't know. It's 525 units of a game. Is that what is driving the enthusiasm for the value? And it's a little bit of both, right? If it was a dog of a game like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is, yeah, those games aren't holding any value because the game's not good. And it's about the same number of units there as Winchester. So there is a very great game in Winchester. Problem is when there's only 525 and only 300 have been made, the majority of people have just never experienced it. That's why there's so much demand to get to it. The reason the price is like 18 to 20,000, think about it, because we've got this craving and hungry community that wants to get to something great. And most of these games that have come out this year, a lot of good stuff, a lot of stuff in the middle, but a lot of stuff missing the mark. And I think that is why we are seeing, you know, people willing to spend $20,000 on a $12,000 game because they want to get to something special. They want to get to something great. And this is the thing about pinball this year. I think a lot of it has missed the mark. And so when we look at Pokemon, it missed the mark on the code. You could also argue that there's not much in it mechanically. Hey, Transformers, we know the issue there with Optimus. Have you seen that new Optimus someone designed that moves around and fires his gun? He looks a little weird, man. He looks a little drunk, like a drunk Kaneda moving around firing that pistol. It's a little clunky. I don't like it. I don't like it. It's called Transformers. We don't need Optimus with a big rifle next to Megatron with a big rifle. That's not how we remember him. That's not the iconic movement everybody wanted. It's a bad fix in my honest opinion. It's a good effort if you made that thing, but it's just not what people want it. You know, then we got games. Let's see what else we got. Sonic the Hedgehog, right? It's a very interesting design choice, the upper playfield. It's very big. It's one of the biggest flipper gaps up there. There's almost more flow and combos up there than there is on the lower playfield. But I don't think it hit with the Steve Ritchie sort of anticipation of it being one of his greatest games ever. It's also Sonic is hard as a character. He doesn't talk. He doesn't talk like there's there's a challenge. I don't think most of us have a emotional connection, if you will, to Sonic Generations. Our connection is to the 16 bit Sonic. So just on the way the game is delivered, it might have missed the mark on some of our nostalgia and what we connect with with Sonic. You know, Beetlejuice has been rolling off the line and is a beautiful pin. And it gets a little bit of a divisive sort of response because of the way the game shoots. And does it get a little bit old over time and the lack of call outs? And so, you know, we're in this little bit of a precarious spot. I just saw Beetlejuice for sale today. Butter cabinet and topper everything 14-5. You know, that means that's MSRP, baby. There ain't no Beetlejuice going up in value and they've still got hundreds more to make. So you know what that means? Beetlejuice is going to be selling for below MSRP. So this is just the new pinball world we are living in. We want to feel what we used to feel when games were 6,500, 500 LEs and the games were great. I mean, those were the golden ages of pinball. And that's why it's hard for me, maybe personally, to see some of what the content creators that are new, how they react to this hobby because they never knew what it was like. They don understand why we talk a lot about this because the new reality is you should only buy something you absolutely love something that checks all the boxes for you and then you be happy And owning a ton of games new in box or buying a ton of new games a year really does make no sense unless you an operator When people say this game will be fun on location, that's what it's supposed to be, people. You know what I'm saying? These things have coin doors for a reason. All of these things should be fun on location. You shouldn't have to feel this desire to own every single thing that comes out, nor should we have to review these games as if it has to be purchased. It is a weird thing going on, right? Absolutely weird thing in this hobby that you have to evaluate this stuff and move quickly. And that's just the case on what? How many games, think about this year, did you have to move quickly on to get and that you can't get? Now, trust me when I say this, when they make 525 Winchesters, they're not going to be $18,000 anymore. And barrels of fun eventually will get to another theme that has more mainstream appeal. And if they do G.I. Joe, that will send the Winchester prices down. If they do Masters of the Universe, same thing. So that is just how I'm looking at it on this rainy Monday morning in Connecticut, that this is a great hobby, but this has been a little bit of an underwhelming year. I don't think anybody has hit it out of the park. I think most of these games are coming close, but close is not good enough. And I think the Giant over there at Stern Pinball has been maybe the most disappointing company of the year, which leads me to believe that the Giant will wake up with Fallout and Keith Elwin, that the greatest designer in modern pinball is going to come back and hit a home run. I hope he does. I hope he does for all of our sakes. I hope he makes an LE that is unique enough and special enough. I hope Seth Davis stops doing the mistake. I think he should put a topper on the LE. If Stern just did that one move, every LE, I think there's going to be 750 fallout LEs. Everyone should have an exclusive Vault-Tec topper. Stern, you just can't not do this. It's like you know what you need to do to make that LE mean something again. And you got to go all the way. You know, LEs need to have unique things from top to bottom. That's what you get from other companies. And this whole notion that we're going to let everybody buy the same exact stuff. All the accessory kits are going to make every game look the same. It's destroying what made LEs so much fun and so special. So I hope they do that. And they're not going to do it because this is what Stern's been like lately. They just don't listen to anything we want and they just keep doing the same things and they expect different results. The real issue is a $13,000 Stern makes no sense. You just don't see the value. You stand over a Stern for 13 and then you go look at a barrels game or a JJP game or a spooky game. And all of a sudden, even a Dutch game, the Stern machine looks the cheapest and is more expensive. It just doesn't work. I don't know why they think they could win on price and volume, but it is what it is. And I think that's why so many people are just like, you know what? I'm good. And then we see these $13,000 Stern machines all slide down to $10,000 within six months. It's happening to everything. It's happening to Pokemon now. I just saw a Pokemon sale for $10,099, so 11 grand. So it's lost $2,000 and it's going to keep heading south. And in the modern world where there's so many games, if you eventually get the code right, it doesn't even matter anymore, right? John Wick could be amazing a year and a half later. Same with James Bond, but they haven't held value. We are in an instant gratification world, a world in which there's so much fragmented content everywhere. It's not just pinball that's become fragmented. It's everywhere. It's music. It's movies. Like the new Spider-Man came out, right? Is everyone going to see it? No. Most of us haven't even got a chance to go see the Odyssey. We're inundated with so much distractions. The news is always terrible. The world's coming to an end. You almost don't even feel like going to the movies like you used to. Everything has just become so doom and gloom. I'm looking at this Rolex. This looks like a beautiful watch. It's a $37,000 watch. On the secondhand market right away, it's $100,000. We talk about pinball market adjustment prices and I'm just like, what am I doing? What am I doing? I got a house to pay off. I've got two kids to put through school. I've got Brenda's 40th birthday in two weeks. What am I doing? What am I? This is not going to make me any happier. This is not going to make me any different This is not going to make any part of my life better And the flex that this might provide it not going to mean anything In fact it probably just make me more stressed out Why did you buy this when you should be busy over here providing for this? And we've got an amazing vacation coming up. Brendan and I are going to Japan for two weeks. The in-laws are going to watch the kids again. And it's going to be expensive if you've been to Japan. It's not cheap. Flights aren't cheap. Hotels are not cheap. And the dollar is weak. So it is going to be expensive. And it's going to be another one of these vacations where it's going to be the price of a pinball machine easily. And so that's why it's easy for me not to buy Bon Jovi and not to buy this and not to buy that because I don't need it. And I am earmarking Back to the Future SLE. I've got Beetlejuice number 999 and then Goonies SLE. Like that's enough. That's enough. And if I get an extra one of any of those, we're going to hit the auction block, baby. We're going to hit the auction block and see what we can get on the fair market value for the game. And all of you with deep pockets might have a chance to get one that way. Don't kick and scream at me. I've been doing this for 13 years. Every once in a while, I'm going to get access to more than one of something. And that's the only perk I really get. I don't get a kickback. Yes, it is handing me something at market value. It's much like the Rolex. So that $37,000 Rolex, people with good relationships with the dealers, some people are getting them for $37,000. And they can turn around the next day and sell it for $100,000. That is a $63,000 profit. And you know what? There's nothing any of us can do about it. Life is not fair. These are luxury items. This is what luxury item market can turn into when you've got something people want. The issue with pinball these days is there's not that much that people want that badly. You know, a Pokemon card is made out of cardboard paper, right? You can't even argue that it's the material cost. It's not. There's no weight in gold. It's a piece of paper. And how can a Pokemon card be worth millions? It's just this many people want it. And there's this many in the world. That is why I've been saying that the 85 Goonies SLEs and the 88 in America, the Back to the Future SLEs are going to go nuts. And I just am feeling like the climate of this hobby now where people are just craving something. And if both these games are amazing, the sky's the limit on where the price is going to go on these games. It's going to be really crazy because I think Spooky is going to get the execution done right. They do it right every time now. Dutch is the big question mark. When will you get it? Will they make the SLEs first or not? I think they should. They probably won't. And then you're going to be on the back of the line with the 300 Alice owners who get first dibs on the regular LE of Back to the Future. I heard the game's not even done yet, and it's August. If this game's going to be shown in October, I feel like it needs to be done. I don't know what the holdup is. What is the holdup? Melvin designed Alice. The big Lebowski's been done for 13 years. So you've been developing Back to the Future. I heard it's like over a million and a half dollar development of this game. What's the holdup? It's been in development for years. It's not like you've had to do much of anything else development wise. They've got Jean-Paul DeWin over there. People forget that this thing has all the elements and all the players necessary. Jean-Paul DeWin, Christopher Franchi, all the assets. I can't wait to see it. It's got a 20. It's either a 25 or a 27-inch screen depending on the aspect ratio, but it's a big screen. It's going to look more like a JJP than a traditional pinball machine. And so, yeah, I think it's just going to go bonkers. And look, it's August. A lot of you are traveling this month, family vacations. I've been saying this for a while. Just wait until November. November, we're going to be able to see Fallout by then, Goonies, Back to the Future. There's going to be more Winchesters made. All the Bon Jovis will be made. All right, let's talk real quickly about this Bon Jovi Reserve Barrels program. Here's the thing. I think David is sort of not being fully transparent. I think he's making a lot of this up as he goes. I don't care. Who cares? I'm at the point now where like, you know what? I don't care anymore. I've done enough ranting and raving about some of their decisions and how they operate. Who cares anymore? Look, I don't think they're going to sell 700 to customers by tomorrow. I think dealers have inventory. I know Automated has about like 10 games they just ordered without customers. These are not all spoken for. And so what that means is come tomorrow, if these 700 don't have customers attached to them, there should be no reserve club sales, which means there will in total only ever be 700 Bon Jovis in the world. I think that is good for the dealers. It's good for anyone who ordered one. And that's just that. This was a weird program to turn on to a theme that didn't have much excitement. I am finding it a little bit, no, a lot funny how everybody just said this company is going to go out of business. Bon Jovi. Canada is a liar. It's not going to be Bon Jovi. And now all these people are singing the praises of Bon Jovi, the same people that cried about it a week ago. I hope they sell everyone. I hope they move on to their next title. I'm not buying it. And if I'm not buying it, it doesn't mean I have to indict it. I wouldn't have launched it the way they launched it. I wouldn't have done the art the way they did the art. I wouldn't have even chosen Bon Jovi. The fact that David continues to struggle to get a thousand sales in a week in front of a starving community that just wants the right nostalgic theme done right It on him now I mean how many mediocre things is he going to do before somebody takes the reins from him when it comes to the themes And I tried like a year and a half ago. I signed an NDA and he told me two themes he was going to make. And I said, both of those are awesome and they're going to sell tremendously well. And he never made them. So I don't know what else to tell you, man. I didn't know Bon Jovi was coming until a few weeks ago. And it's not the theme I would have chosen. The thing about it is this, too. I see a lot of people jumping on this game and because it has decent flow and sounds good, like that's enough for you to order it, even though you don't love Bon Jovi. And mark my words, this is what happens with music pins. I think a lot of these guys, when they get it home, you're going to order a $13,000 game or $12,000 game after eight plays. Put 800 plays on Bon Jovi and boy, you better love this music because you're going to get tired of it. And it reminds me a lot. I know the flow is better than G&R, but it still reminds me a lot of a jukebox that you play. And over time it just gets exhausting Look all pins get boring over time They just do But but music pins especially if you not a fan of the act I always felt like that just a non But man apparently there now 700 Bon Jovi fanatics in the pinball space or 650 right There 50 left It all silly All of it matters not I hope they sell everyone I don think it going to happen by tomorrow I think 700 is going to be the number If it is not I think David does need to be transparent and let everybody know how many club members or reserve club members are there even How many potential future other sales could there be? And here's the thing. If you signed up for the Reserve Club, you are most likely a fan of barrels and you want to support them. So why didn't you just order it already? You know, it's almost like everyone is speculating on their own purchase and you want to feel like you got one before no others could be had. It's really just all nonsense. All of it. A Rolex going from $37,000 to $100,000 is nonsense. This world is crazy expensive. So many people have so much money, they can just put another zero on anything they do. If I go out to dinner and $300 is a lot for me, they could spend $3,000. That's just the way the world is now. The older I get, the more I feel like I just want simpleness. I want less of this frenzy for this stuff. And I do want to get excited about pinball. But in my honest opinion none of these games so far this year has knocked it out of the park has checked every box has elevated pinball We like celebrating stuff that should have always been in pinball machines Like all pinball machines for this much money should have this amazing sound system that in Bon Jovi The fact that they finally brought like Jeff and Dirty Pool, you know, a sound engineer should be working at all these companies making these games sound amazing. The way he's done the work on the game is incredible. That's how it should be for this much money. It's amazing. We've had so many years of just pedestrian sounding games, and yet we're spending this much money. So that's my hot take on this Monday. There hasn't been a hit game yet this year. We want there to be one. And I think this fall is going to be when all hell breaks loose to get one of those SLEs. Both of them are Christopher Franchi creations. Unbelievable what's about to happen. Happy Monday, everybody. Canada out. The freedom and the friendship, Nothing ever lasts forever, Everybody wants to know. Giddy, Danger, Guns N' Roses, Back to the Future. .