Episode 1008: "Dutch is at the Crossroads"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·30m 28s·analyzed·Oct 10, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Dutch Pinball's Alice faces manufacturing credibility test; Kaneda warns company must prove execution or lose industry confidence.

Summary

Kaneda discusses Stern's Uncanny X-Men, Jersey Jack's Avatar, and Spooky's upcoming Metallica Remastered, but focuses primarily on Dutch Pinball's Alice in Wonderland being at a critical crossroads. He praises designer Melvin's 8-month development achievement but criticizes Dutch Pinball manufacturing readiness, marketing presentation, and ability to deliver on promises, emphasizing that January 2025 production is make-or-break for the company's credibility.

Key Claims

Stern's Uncanny X-Men is phenomenal and one of Stern's best shooting games ever
high confidence · Kaneda's opening assessment of recent releases
Jersey Jack's Avatar is stunning visually but the code needs more energy and better gameplay mechanics
high confidence · Kaneda's direct experience and critical feedback on Avatar
Metallica Remastered is coming out next week but getting no attention
medium confidence · Kaneda speculating on Stern's release timing strategy
Dutch Pinball's Alice is sold out or close to selling out despite poor marketing
high confidence · Kaneda's observation of sales despite weak presentation
Melvin self-funded Alice R&D without taking pre-orders, unlike other manufacturers
high confidence · Kaneda contrasting Dutch Pinball's financing approach with Haggis, Jersey Jack, and Spooky
Dutch Pinball can only make 10 games per week and needs 50 weeks of production to meet their January 2025 delivery promise
high confidence · Kaneda's mathematical analysis of production capacity and timeline
Melvin publicly promised all customers will get their game in 2025 or get their money back
high confidence · Kaneda referencing Melvin's on-record statement
Dutch Pinball has only made one game in 11 years of existence, while Spooky made 11, Jersey Jack made 10, and Stern made 50
high confidence · Kaneda comparing production track records across manufacturers
Dutch Pinball's streaming and marketing presentation quality is significantly below professional standards
high confidence · Kaneda's critique of video footage and lighting during Alice reveal
January 2025 is the critical deadline for Dutch Pinball to prove credibility; failure will trigger refund requests and loss of confidence

Notable Quotes

“The game is out. Now that the fanfare is over. Now that the reveal has happened and we're going to talk about the stream. We're going to talk about all this stuff. Now that all is said and done. I think now the real work begins.”
Kaneda @ early in show — Sets the tone that marketing hype doesn't matter; execution is what counts
“There is no profit to be made here. There's no flip here, gang. I'm not stupid. You make profit on themes people want.”
Kaneda @ mid-show — Addresses criticism that he's promoting Alice for profit; clarifies his skepticism about secondary market appeal
“We're living in a post-Haggis world. We're living in a post-Jersey Jack world. We're living in a post-Spooky world, a post-Heighway world. We are living in a world in which words mean nothing.”
Kaneda @ mid-show — Context for why manufacturer promises now carry zero default credibility due to past delays
“Manufacturing only starts when the line is turned on and a game is done at the end of the day. Until that happens, production has not begun.”
Kaneda @ mid-show — Defines concrete benchmark for production vs. empty promises about 'manufacturing has begun'
“January is gonna be everything. And I mean that like if January comes and there are not games on the line making their way to customers, you are gonna start to see the confidence unravel like never before.”
Kaneda @ late show — Stakes out January 2025 as the moment of truth for Dutch Pinball's survival as a credible manufacturer
“It's time. It's time to be the company you want to be. All those black shirts, beautiful factory, you gotta now deliver with actions.”
Kaneda @ late show — Direct challenge to Dutch Pinball leadership; brand image means nothing without execution
“I think what Melvin did is nothing short of a miracle, making this game in 8 months. But it's not 11 years ago. It's now.”
Kaneda @ late show — Acknowledges Melvin's design achievement while rejecting excuses for manufacturing and marketing failures

Entities

KanedapersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyDutch Pinballcompany Melvinperson Barry

Signals

?
product_launch: Dutch Pinball's Alice in Wonderland is sold out or near sold out but the game is not yet on the production line; Kaneda warns that January 2025 is the critical moment to begin actual production
high · The game is not on the line... Why did you reveal the game if the game is not on the line?... if January comes and there are not games on the line making their way to customers, you are gonna start to see the confidence unravel
?
business_signal: Dutch Pinball claims 10 games/week production capacity, but Kaneda's math shows they need 50 weeks of non-stop production to meet 2025 delivery promise, which doesn't account for Dutch holidays or European work culture
high · They said they can make 10 games a week... 10 games a week. There are 52 weeks in the year... The Dutch take off the entire month of August in Europe
~
sentiment_shift: Post-Haggis/Jersey Jack/Spooky era has eroded manufacturer credibility; words mean nothing, only actions and delivered games count
high · We're living in a post-Haggis world... We are living in a world in which words mean nothing... Manufacturing doesn't begin because you finally start to get some parts in
?
content_signal: Dutch Pinball's streaming and marketing presentation quality is poor despite beautiful game; Kaneda contrasts this with Jersey Jack's professional video approach and Spooky's Zach Menny featurette
high · super dark lighting or crappy cell phone footage moving around the game... Mark Seiden didn't have to like shoot his own game. He didn't have to do all this marketing... he had a $100,000 video crafted around his game
?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.091

0:00

Not a continual supermarket content, but a regularfits webcast, as well due to cranks and leva. Hi there, welcome to the Stern pinball podcast. I'm your host Kaneda. It's been an interesting week. We've got Stern Pinball's Uncanny X-Men, a phenomenal game. One of Stern Pinball's best shooting games ever. The code is getting better. That game is going to be just fine. If you have one, you know what I'm talking about. If you go to Expo and you play it, you're going to feel this way about the game. We've got Jersey Jack Pinball's Avatar. A little bit of a different story there. Beautiful game. Maybe the most The pinball machine you will ever walk up to, I mean this, when you see the CE of this game in person and you see that topper and you see that beautiful art package and just the overall like details and presentation of avatar, I'm telling you right now, when you walk up to it, it's going to make you want to own the game. It's that stunning. Then you play the game and I think they've got some work to do. I think they need to code in a little bit more energy, a little bit I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling it. I don't want a diner menu of how to collect song notes. I want to play these epic battles and I want to feel something and that can be done with the software and I think Jersey Jack is going to hear the feedback and now the onus is on them to make that game wake up a little bit to make it the game. It can be and the things they've done. They've done really well. It is absolutely a stunning stunning game. And then we've got what? We're waiting for the next Spooky. We're waiting for Metallica Remastered which nobody is talking about this week. I mean the game's coming out next week apparently. I don't know. Is Stern gonna hold it back? Are they gonna try to get more X-Men sales? It seems like it's really close to X-Men to get this game out the door. But you know Stern, they gotta keep that big bohemoth going and Metallica Remastered, I think is gonna get a lot of newbies excited. The old guard of pinball probably either owns a Metallica or had one and I'm not so sure it's gonna see like gargantuan sales but I think it's gonna do just fine. I think we might see, it might not be Spike3 but maybe we see the larger screen on this game. I don't know. I think they're still gonna hold back Spike3 for King Kong. It just makes total marketing sense. Everything about us is getting bigger. No one else in the pinball world's got anything on King Kong. You know, they're gonna have this larger than life monster game. What better time than to put a bigger King Kong sized screen into the Stern platform? Everything's gonna be backwards compatible with Spike2. And so, you know, it's gonna be a really interesting time. Dungeons and Dragons, not much hype for that game. We've got Evil Dead from Spooky and what else we got going on? We've got Princess Bride from P3. People are gonna be playing that and then we've got these Pulp Fictions, which look again I know I'm hard on Pulp Fiction gang. It's because I'm just tired of the wait. It's almost gonna be two years now since the game was revealed and still there's no ETA on when people are gonna get their games and I'm just over it. I don't think people want to wait that long. Now, that brings me to the topic of today's show and that is Dutch Pinball is at a crossroads. And I want to focus on this right now because it's been a little bit of a whirlwind two weeks for me seeing this game, talking to Melvin, realizing what's going on behind the scenes, people calling me a shill, people saying I'm going to flip this game for money. Let me just tell you this right now. I'm not flipping in Alice in Wonderland spot for a profit. I'll tell you why. There is no profit to be made here. There's no flip here, gang. I'm not stupid. You make money on themes people want. If I had one of 88 Back to the Future SLEs, yeah, then I would try to get two and flip one for like a 10G profit. But this is never going to be a game where you're going to have this like I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please subscribe to my channel and turn on the notification Bell. I will be back with more videos like this one. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I will see you in the next one. Bye!

5:21

I'm not survivinging in life through this podcast. I'm not surviving because I'm flipping games. I wish I had it as easy as some of these distros making like $1,500, $2,000 a sale to just drop ship a game. I got to strap on this damn mic every week and tell you guys something that no one else will tell you. And I'm going to do a show right now that you're probably not expecting. And it's all about Dutch pinball. The game is out. Now that the fanfare is over. Now that the reveal has happened and we're going to talk about the stream. We're going to talk about all this stuff. Now that all is said and done. I think now the real work begins. None of that was the real work. The real work now is getting this game made, getting this game to customers, being open and honest about when that's going to happen. Being open and honest about this company. Being open and honest about the Tomop assess the carbonate j cautious the market resident 이것 poland the teeny reflect If you love the orbit shots or not, whether you love the upper playfield or not, it doesn't matter. He had a goal to do that. He did that. And yes, you could nitpick some of his decisions on it but in an eight month period of time, this dude made the game work. Where other pinball manufacturers have failed to get a J-pop game to market, he has almost succeeded. And I use the word almost succeeded because the game is still not available. The game is not on the line. And so yes, all the R&D and the development cost Melvin paid for. He made this happen out of his own pocket, right? He did not take pre dollars to do the R That what Haggis did That what Jay Pop did That what Skit B did So he upfronted all the money and so now he got this game ready to be made And now the job is Barry to make the damn game Remember Melvin is not a manufacturing company. It is Dutch Pinball that needs to do the manufacturing. And in some weird twisted fate thing happening right now is that Melvin is ostensibly using Dutchpinball as a contract manufacturer to make his Alice. And what irony there is because now Barry is the contract manufacturer. And if you know the story behind the Big Lebowski and all of its problems, it's when Barry needed a contract manufacturer to make his Big Lebowski. And so now Barry has a chance to show everybody that he knows how to get it done. He knows how to make two games and two lines and do the switch over and actually have stuff happen on a timeframe that works for customers. And I want to really, really reiterate this. I don't think, and I mean this, and even though I talk to these guys and I love what they've been doing, I still need to see stuff from them that make me feel confident they can get it done. The game is not on the line. So that doesn't make me very confident. It's like, why did you reveal the game if the game is not on the line? Remember, Barrels of Fun recently did a similar thing. They self-financed the R&D of their game, But they did not reveal the game until games were in boxes, until the line was going. Now they did a little bait and switch where they had games made, they revealed the game, they took money and then manufacturing hit a snafu, like there were a lot of delays. And everybody knows this about pinball manufacturing. This is always where, always, where everybody falls down. Cheese around administered himself in Vin段 andatzio at Eggline Parade of the Martini Brandon Blakeyi the K flu partnership, viewers Captihew tasche, Dan CeCou parameters nicer stand in touch with cash four people on Kisly Sheetty histoire nine in color HuuteT filled in a Nas Alisonist tonight if MAT hills The October it's almost november and we know that it's gonna take like a month or two to get a lot of those Specialized parts in-house you're not gonna get those like toppers overnight You're not gonna get those plastic ramps immediately so they better start ordering parts now And I know what you're thinking you're like well Why aren't they ordering parts right now if they took money this week? Formosvoir, Here is a poll. Question number one. Things that people keep me at war there. . People like... Very interesting question, very interesting game really. But the key is not to stick to the opinion, otherwise, when we made that all Ten iemand this will rock. . I believe that it's very trustworthy and I don't even need to do more anymore than this to continue watching. The end of the show. I'll talk to you. This is my realm. And I think I do this show and I think I carry myself as a professional unless I'm drinking and then all bets are off and then I delete everything. But until then, until then, if my job is to help you, A, get people excited about your product, I can do that. If my job is to interview you and get as much truth out there so people can make a decision, I'll do that. Now when it comes to streaming your product and showing people your game, that's on you. Like you gotta make sure A you put your game in the best possible lighting. I mean that both literally and metaphorically. And I think on both fronts, Dutch Pinball has a lot of work to do. And after 11 years in pinball, there's no excuses. Like someone should have a meeting today over there and they should be asking themselves How is it after 11 years of us being in this industry, we don't even know how to stream our own product in a way that looks appealing to customers. If we can't do this right, this is going to start to instill lack of confidence because it shows that we're not taking things seriously and we're not doing things at a professional level. I'm sorry, but like every part of a brand matters and you saw it last night, right? It doesn't matter how beautiful your game is and the game is gorgeous but when the way you're showing it off to everybody is either super dark lighting or Crappy cell phone footage moving around the game that doesn't work That doesn't make people feel good that opens up the door for all the skeptics all the cynics and all the haters tune apa play football harassmaayonen漧 seam,

13:37

Spdisciplinary Panene,Paw. Sn challenged the paper linear ис Kalendoxən겠� Bijulhačíz msx medidasayoo, nishivesintérieur transferred punch Yong Kong Clark, Huoboixi, The game is being sold out and the game is close to selling out. So if you just think about that for a minute, this game almost or did sell out with some of the worst marketing I've ever seen. And if that the case if you them the key learning is imagine what could have happened if we maybe waited a little bit longer didn even bother going to Expo and got all of our marketing materials to be much more polished and much more beautiful like the game itself You know, it's hard. You know, I know it's hard, especially for those guys over there. I feel for Melvin a little bit because the guy spent eight months designing this game. It shouldn't only fall on him to do it all. Like Mark Seiden didn't have to like shoot his own game. He didn't have to do all this marketing to make people excited about Avatar. He had a team of people. He had a production company come in. He had a $100,000 video crafted around his game. If it was just up to Mark Seiden to do it all, yeah, it would probably be just what we got this week with Alice. And look, it's a wake-up call for Dutch. They're at a crossroads. But the real important crossroads, people, is not the marketing. It's not. The real important crossroads for Dutch pinball right now, as this company wants to establish confidence that they're a legit player in this boutique space, You know they're coming up to the end of the big Lebowski run. They need to end that and start Alice or start two lines but they need to communicate like what's going on like when is this all happening you know Melvin's out there saying January all right so January what does that mean does that mean you're tooling up in November December and we expect to see games going out to customers in January or does it mean January production begins and Here's the problem, and it's unfortunate for them, but we're living in a post-Haggis world. We're living in a post-J-pop world. We're living in a post-Skit B world, a post-Andrew Highway world. We are living in a world in which words mean nothing. If you say production has begun, like we hear that all the time. We heard that from Damien, like manufacturing has begun and then nobody gets a game for eight months. You know what I'm saying? Like manufacturing doesn't begin because you finally start to get some parts in. Manufacturing only starts when the line is turned on and a game is done at the end of the day. Until that happens, production has not begun. Because it only probably takes 24 hours to get that game down the line and in a box. And so if that's going to happen in January, Dutch Pinball needs to step up. They need to step up and show us that they can do this because the real risk right now is if they don't get anything on the line in January and Melvin's on the record for saying everybody's going to get their game in 2025 or your money back. If I just do the real simple math on this, it doesn't work unless they start production in January. They said they can make 10 games a week and that's on a really good day. Alright, so 10 games a week. There are 52 weeks in the year. That means they need to make 10 games a week for 50 weeks or they're not going to hit their goal. They're going to have to start giving refunds and they're going to be off. And so that to me again makes me nervous because I'm like why would you say that if you can only make 10 games a week? The numbers don't work out. You know and then it's the Netherlands like this is Europe like come on there's more bank holidays and everybody takes off the entire month of August in Europe. So we know that the Dutch are not working 50 weeks a year non-stop in manufacturing. And so I'm a little bit nervous that these things haven't been figured out and you're already taking money. You're already making some promises. You're already putting ETAs in people's heads. And look, now they need to do the work. Now Barry and team, you need to do the work to prove to everybody that you can get this done. Because if you can't get this done, there is going to be zero confidence that you can even come out and say, Ding ding Sage, Tirtullans favorite generic Niticky Milct signature. 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But ultimately here we are and I still don think people know how the game plays and that not good Like I on pin side and wrench is saying like it plays really smooth It really I don believe you I don believe anybody What I believe in is what I can see and hear and feel with my own eyes And if people are watching these streams and they don see any of that like you can just say the game has flow and shoots smooth and all this and then people are watching a stream and it bricking bricking bricking it not going up the ramp So what are you going to come away believing? What you're seeing with your own eyes or what they're writing on pin side and the excuses on how this and that, come on, what at 2 in the morning all of a sudden the ball can't get up the ramp? It doesn't work like that. Throw a few whiskies in Canadian, I'll show you how awesome Guns and Roses is at 3 in the morning. It's just the way it is. And I mean this, it's your company. A lot is riding on this and Barry and everybody over there. It's time. It's time to be the company you want to be. All those black shirts, beautiful factory, you gotta now deliver with actions. And I want to make this crystal clear. I think what Melvin did is nothing short of a miracle, making this game in 8 months. I think Dutch Pinball can put out a phenomenal product. I think they're very creative. I think they have all the faculties in the world to create amazing pinball machines. I do. But it's not 11 years ago. It's now. And the industry has evolved. And streaming has evolved. And the level of professionalism has evolved. And we've had failures and we've had successes. And I think this company is still at the crossroads. I am not going to consider one game made over 11 years as a success. It is not. It is not as The success spooky pinball has made like how many games 11 Jersey Jack 10 games right Stern pinball like 50 games in that time period. Heck even Jerry's made like six or seven games in that time period. Jerry, I'm not going to count all your little MIDI games. You know, every time you do this with Jerry's like why I have 17 games. Chris, what are you talking about? I'm not counting cannon lagoon, Jerry. I'm not doing it. But my point is, all these other companies have shown they can do it. You have only made one game. And so yeah, I hope they play this over the loudspeaker. C Bar), pinball at Dutch. Now is your time. You need to prove to everybody you have what it takes. And this is a great example of a moment for you to prove it. Because if you can't do this, you're not going to be able to do Back to the Future. It's not even funny. You might as well sell the company tomorrow and let someone else figure it out. You know what I'm saying, everybody? And I'm always going to be Kaneda. I know this. I hear all the insults. I hear everybody saying this stuff. I'm not going to be a shill. You think I'm going to do this for 10 years? ottentate DJ Kalishvili wife of coherence and interRIше že valuable. 20 years back ASPA and now the IT. Cos界ання In the meantime, we are in the middle of a new era of the internet and we are not used to it. We need to get it done. We haven't seen it before. This is no longer a joke. People are spending a lot of money. You've got millions of dollars at stake. Are you good enough of a company to take that money? Are you professional enough to get it done? Forget all these amateur videos and streams. Yeah, they're garbage but forget it. That all means nothing if you can get the manufacturing together. I would rather have a company do no marketing and have the manufacturing down. Pretty much like what Stern does. Pretty much what CGP does. But that's not what I want to see. I want to see a company that is more of a commercial company than a commercial company. I'd rather have a company do no marketing and have the manufacturing down. Pretty much like what Stern does. Pretty much what CGC does. Spooky Pinball doesn't use tons of marketing. I mean they did the smart thing. They had Zach Manny come in and film a featurette for their next game Evil Dead. That's super smart. So on the day that Evil Dead gets announced, Zach and co are going to have this 20 minute video that's going to make everybody want one. Because he knows how to do it. He's a good marketer. This is his livelihood. He works in pinball and is trying to sell you something and he knows how to do it. This is your livelihood, Barry. It's time. Let me know what your thoughts are. I'm going to follow this company in an objective way. I mean, do not make a mistake. I am not going to sacrifice 11 years of my audience and the reason why you listen to me to just like blindly shell a product. It's not who I am. You know it's not who I am. What I will do is I will create moments of hype and FOMO because Tim Leumni,��abeth Pshirts, signsンダ, dropped it out of command�� bean went louder than a minute as ERIC thanks for the goal out but I'm just gonna just put on my microphone and recordélits at I. To Melvin, the real measure of success in life, it's not how much money you make, it's not how much Gucci you have or super limited edition pinball machines or how big your house is even though you don't use most of the rooms or your car collection. The real measure of success in everybody's life is how many days do you wake up in a good mood. The Robbed everybody right he's not gonna have to pay a dime now for those of you who think that he's gonna get away with it Yes, he's gonna get away with it on that level But Damien Harden and Marty Robbins are never and I mean this they're never gonna wake up in a really good mood For the rest of their lives They will have destroyed their relationship with the hobby they love and they will wake up every day knowing And Last�� dancers 읽long match boa 제가 explicazon datis Eleven e