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DPP #13 "Weekend Speculation! Plus we hit 600 listens!! Get some free swag!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·18m 48s·analyzed·Feb 5, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

DPP #13: 600-listen milestone; speculation on Q1 game releases and Texas Pinball Festival announcements.

Summary

Don celebrates hitting 600 listens (117 unique listeners) one month into Don's Pinball Podcast, discussing upcoming game releases and speculation about which titles might appear at Texas Pinball Festival. He covers Multimorphic P3 modular machines, Scott Denise's new project, and rumors about Elvira, Scooby-Doo (Spooky), JJP8 (possibly Godfather), American Pinball's space-themed game, Stern Venom, and Pulp Fiction, ranking their likelihood of appearing at the festival. Don also promotes free merchandise (stickers, t-shirts, and Drumstick Rush mod mounts) and explains his new support page.

Key Claims

  • Multimorphic is producing 400 units per week

    low confidence · Don speculates about production capacity but acknowledges uncertainty; stated as aspirational rather than confirmed fact

  • Elvira production schedule listed March as a target date

    medium confidence · Don references obtaining a production schedule 13 episodes ago and corroborates with Mad Pinball distributor who confirmed people on waitlist

  • Spooky Pinball has 30-45 playfield units ready for Scooby-Doo assembly

    medium confidence · Don cites distributor conversations and social media observations; specific count suggests insider information

  • Scott Denise is lead production designer/coordinator on new Multimorphic module

    high confidence · Don references Denise appearing on Pinball Party podcast discussing the project; appears to be official announcement

  • Venom was planned for San Diego Comic-Con launch with Ozzy Osbourne and Todd McFarlane

    medium confidence · Don reports this as rumor; cites the event as planned launch venue that didn't happen

  • Don's Pinball Podcast reached 600 listens with 117 unique listeners in 7 days after one month

    high confidence · Host directly states these statistics; verifiable metric

Notable Quotes

  • “This is like the worst parts of virtual pinball mixed with the worst parts of traditional pinball.”

    Don @ ~15:00 — Don's initial negative assessment of Multimorphic P3 experience, later revised as he acknowledges room for improvement

  • “subtract one month, add one year, and maybe it'll be up there at your door”

    Don @ ~22:00 — Humorous but pointed critique of production delays affecting Multimorphic ordering timeline

  • “It's one thing to have an interesting prototype. That's a second thing to actually put it together and get it to market. A third thing is to have this thing churning out 400 units a week.”

    Don @ ~12:00 — Frameworks Multimorphic's achievement in commercial execution vs. prototype stage

  • “I looked at the horizon with my special perspective and crystal balls that I keep around me”

    Don @ ~30:00 — Don's self-aware humorous framing of his speculation section

  • “Spooky is known as saying you know maybe if you have the option maybe wait for a build later in the build cycle when some of the bugs are worked out”

    Don @ ~25:00 — Describes Spooky's known manufacturing philosophy and quality control approach

Entities

DonpersonScott DenisepersonMultimorphiccompanySpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball appears to have Scooby-Doo production well-advanced with distributed play-testing planned

    medium · 30-45 playfield units observed in social media posts; toppers installed; legs deferred; trusted distributor play-testing model described

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Initial skepticism about Multimorphic P3 design has softened; Don now considers ordering after hearing about Scott Denise involvement

    high · Don recounts first impression as negative (worst of both worlds), then revises assessment as platform matures; explicitly states reconsidering purchase decision

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival positioned as key proving ground for Q1 game releases; multiple titles could debut or appear playable

    high · Don structures speculation section explicitly around likelihood of games appearing at festival; references pre-festival 'March Madness' period

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Comic-Con venue hosted Stern Ozzy Osbourne and Todd McFarlane appearance for Venom launch coordination

    medium · Don references planned Comic-Con reveal event with specific celebrities; suggests strategic IP partnership intended for launch marketing

  • $

    market_signal: Multimorphic production capacity aspirations vs. reality; 11-12 month lead time acknowledged as problematic for consumer ordering

    high · Don discusses adding one year to order date; references production scaling challenges; contrasts achieved output against stated manufacturing goals

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.056

0:00
All right, are we going to go ahead and record an episode tonight? Oh, we are? All right, well, DJ, why don't you go ahead and wicka, wicka, wicka, wicka, spin that!
0:12
By that, of course, I mean spin that intro music, because we're going to get turnt up on episode 13 of Don's Pinball Podcast. Welcome, everybody! It's the weekend, and I'm creeping up on you to make your corona drinking a little more pleasurable. If you're into drinking, if not, get yourself an ice cream smoothie. I hear the kids are all into them. I got some news today that we're going to drop a lot of speculation and some comments on how the show is going, including feedback. Let's get to it.
0:45
Man, I am one month into this podcast experience and I had no intentions or expectations on how this was going to go. I'm here to say that one month in I have just hit, are you ready for this? 600 listens with over 117 unique listeners just in the last 7 days man this has been fantastic and incredibly, incredibly humbling and a testament to the power of social media I've been going around onto the Facebook groups that I've been members of for a year and I just post under my Don's Pinball Podcast title there and participate the same way I have been, and people have been reaching out like crazy. I'm also still offering the free Drumstick Rush Mod mounts, and I actually went in there and posted under the Stern Rush hobbyist group on Facebook, and I'm getting inundated with people. People are starting to receive these here shortly. If you've ordered them, which, again, they're free of charge, go ahead and put them in, try them out. Let me know what you think. I'm still in the test and adjust phase. I can switch things up here. If you've got ideas for future mods, I'm heavily into the modding. So let's go ahead and do that. Also of note, I have my own stickers now. I got my first proofs back from my graphic that I had designed. And man, they came out fantastically. So I have 3-inch vinyl stickers with my cool art and just says Don Pinball Podcast on there. I have posted photos of them on the Facebook page at Don's Pinball Podcast. So go ahead and go on there. Take a look at them. And I'm running it on some t-shirts too. I got my first proof back from that, and I got a nice beefy tee. It's tagless with a big old graphic right on the front, which is totes my style. So if you'd like to get on those, I'm going to go ahead and do another order, mostly extra larges. If you're interested, go ahead and shoot me an email, donspinballpodcast at gmail.com. Let me know what your size is. I'm thinking $20. Can you Venmo me $20? There's another option now too. Yes, I've gotten high tech and fancy. I've got a tip jar, a support page. I have a link to that on Don's Pinball Podcast. It's anchor.fm backslash Don's Pinball Podcast backslash support. It's so wordy. But if you go to the Anchor site or even the Spotify site, there's a support button there. Go ahead and kick your boy 99 cents. If you enjoy the mods, if you enjoy the stickers or just the content and you got an extra $5, let me hold it, man. Heck, let's see what happens.
Mad Pinball
company
Scooby-Doogame
Multimorphic P3product
Weird Algame
Venomgame
Pulp Fictiongame
Elviragame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Kanedaperson
Jasonperson
Pinball Partymedia
Saturday Morning Spectacularmedia
Don's Pinball Podcastmedia
$

market_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball JJP8 announcement potentially delayed intentionally to maximize sales of competing titles before reveal

medium · Kaneda (Saturday Morning Spectacular) made strategic marketing point that Don references; theme park comparison used as analogy for announcement timing strategy

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Scott Denise confirmed as lead production designer on new Multimorphic P3 module

    high · Referenced as appearing on Pinball Party podcast discussing project; Don describes excitement about pedigree (Earthshaker, Total Nuclear Annihilation, Weird Al, Rick and Morty)

  • ?

    product_strategy: Multiple Stern titles in pipeline with uncertain release timing: Venom (delayed from Comic-Con), Pulp Fiction (conflicting specs), Elvira (March target rumored)

    medium · Don consolidates rumors from multiple sources; Elvira production schedule leak; Venom Comic-Con miss confirmed; Pulp Fiction specs contested

  • ?

    rumor_hype: American Pinball space-themed game timing unpredictable despite apparent readiness; company described as having unclear release strategy

    low · Don states inability to identify pattern; suggests game could launch at festival or via guerrilla tactics or delayed until summer; characterizes as 'solid maybe'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Multimorphic P3 mechanical compromises noted: non-traditional flipper architecture, need for extra buttons, wire form swapping between modules

    high · Don details technical limitations: tertiary spanning arms instead of coils/flippers, mechanical interlocks, module-specific wire forms, extra buttons for flipper variations

    • 3:14
    All right. So that's been fantastic. The stickers are a hit. I want to mail them out to folks. So if you want one, go ahead and request them. I'll throw them in the envelope. send them out to you. Put one in your refrigerator, one on your bathtub, and then take one and wherever you play pinball and throw me up on the sticker wall. Maybe somewhere people can hear about this. And if you've got comments, man, send them to me. It's been fantastic. Okay.
    3:36
    What haven't I talked about yet? That's in the news. I believe that would be multi-morphic P3 or P3 multi-morphic, whichever way they figured out to call this device is the hybrid half virtual pinball machine, half traditional pinball machine smushed together with unchangeable units of various complexity, retailing about $3,000 per unit, plus the machine itself is around $10,000 or $11,000. Throw it together, it was going to cost me $13,000 for Weird Al. So that's what I know about it. Now, I've played Weird Al. I've played Lucy Lightfoot. I've played Heist. I played, I don't know, some kind of space racing game or something at Texas Pinball Festival. I went to Expo and played some Weird Al, so I finally got some time on one of those. And it's fun what a brilliant idea brought to market even so I mean that's like next level It's one thing to have an interesting prototype. That's you know for some brilliance It's a second thing to actually put it together and get it to market I guess a third thing is to have this thing churning out 400 units a week and going out all over the world You know so they not quite there yet But we right at this you know between level two and level three with multi here And I was a little dejaded when I first saw this machine I was pretty new in pinball about six months or so that when I went to Texas Pinball Festival last year, and when I played one, my first initial takeaway was like, this is like the worst parts of virtual pinball mixed with the worst parts of traditional pinball. And that was a little harsh. Okay. What I mean by that is the screen that I was playing on the games, they must have been, I showed up on Saturday, so I'm sure they got played all the heck on Friday, and the screen was a little dirty. Other than that, you know, the best thing, I mean, the best thing about virtual pinball is the variety. You know, it's having a thousand games right there and easily flip through them. This is, you know, three quarters, almost, what, five seventeenths of virtual pinball space there. and it really just kind of goes graphically along with whatever game module is in there. So you've got that big virtual screen and so far, and it's probably because it's early in the technology, but so far it's really limited to just whatever game module you have in there in the back quarter or back third of the play field. So that's what I meant about the limitations. If this was a virtual machine, I wouldn't have ramps or actual flippers, but I would have 999 other happy haunts to play, right? So with regards to the mechanical part of it, because you have that huge screen right there, you obviously can't have coils and flippers and flipper stops and things going through a digital screen. Well, you could, but that would cost more. So there's, you know, kind of like tertiary spanning arms, plastic arms to the flippers. And so there's like mechanical interlocks and interchanges or whatever the technical term there is. Plus, when you switch out these modules, You got to flip out the wire forms because maybe they're different lengths. And then you have extra buttons for the extra flippers. And I don't know, maybe that was a technical issue that they had to do that. You couldn't put the upper and lower flippers on traditional leaf springs like you can with most modern games. So that's why I said it didn't quite measure up to a traditional pinball experience. And it also didn't quite measure up to what I expect from virtual pinball. But it was a new product in a new space. And whenever this happens, there's a lot of room for improvement. Five years from now, this can be a completely different device. There may even be somebody else in the field, and the competition will drive innovation. But there are some silver linings to all this. Our boy, Scott Denisey, right? The man, the dude that made, what was it, Earthshaker Aftershock? I mean, we all played that when we were kids. Plus, Total Nuclear Annihilation, baller game, of which I have a virtual version of. It kicks, too, at that base. He is now lead production designer, coordinator, program lead on a new module for Multimorphic, of which we know crickets about. He hasn't released any information about it other than he is working on it. The dude makes awesome music. And as a quick aside, does anybody know Scott Denise? I sent him an email to his production site, seeing if he wanted to do a little commission work and make a little 30-second intro for me, maybe. I throw him a text is all I'm saying. I send him an email. But I'm excited for what this guy brings because he's not just music. I mean, I was listening to Jason's Pinball Party podcast. You know that guy? Listen to him. He's dropping great content, and he's also a little newer. He's big into the music space and software space. So, like, things I can't wrap my mind around, this guy's in. Well, Scotty Boy, I hope he doesn't mind me calling him that. Sorry, sir. He was on his Pinball Party podcast this week. I just started listening to it about two-thirds of the way through, and man, they are discussing some high-level music, music engineering, software, programming, and stories about him taking Earthshaker and reworking the entire thing. The mind you need to have a hobby like that. I've got my 3D printer working, and I think that's master level for me. so for this guy to be like controlling a brand new uh module i think we're gonna have something that's gonna rival weird out of which he also apparently worked on so that's great dude scott keep killing it man i can't wait to hear more about that and i think it was just his pedigree of um the games that he's made that i've played and the and what i've seen of his work that he does um especially with rick and morty also um this actually got me thinking for the first time I should go get on that waiting list to pick up a multimorphic. Maybe I started sketching out some area in my downstairs where maybe I could put this machine. So the only thing is if you want to go on this get your orders in now Production delays I mean isn that the problem of the decade here for us so far We about 11 months 12 months away If you want a machine and you order it today, subtract one month, add one year, and maybe it'll be up there at your door. So, oh, man, that stings. Would the best way to get one of these and maybe scoop it up at a convention? I don't know. They haven't released numbers. I'm not sure how many of these machines that they're making every week, but that's the real stumbling block. But I mean, there's a lot of time between now and then things are getting better. The jobs report was amazing. Maybe they've got a lot of new hires there in Texas at their production facility. Who knows? Hey, I would love to come there and tour or multimorphic. If you want to get the word out, invite your boy. I'll swing on by. There's a Bucky's down there near Austin. Let's do it. Okay. Uh, what other speculation do we have? Cover Jason, the pinball party, friend of the show. Well, friend of the show. I emailed him. He emailed me back. It was touching, man. I appreciate that. There is this other rumor going around about Elvira's. Are they being produced? Are they not being produced? As I covered, oh, man, way back there 13 shows ago. I think I got my hands on a production schedule, and it looked like March, Elvira was listed there. I talked to a distributor with Mad Pinball, and he said he had people on the list. I tried to join it. He said it's full. I'll put your name down if someone drops out. But there's people with money on the line waiting for their games. and I guess we're going to find out soon. All right, going into the next segment of the year, we're heading into Pinball March Madness. It's Pin March Madness. It's going to be nuts. A lot of games are just over that horizon, but we can see kind of the glow, the light pollution coming off the field if we look off into that distance. And so between now and Texas Pinball Festival, we might have more news and games covering us, though we won't be able to bring it. It'll be a landslide of fantastic Flippy games.
    11:16
    So, and by then we're going to know, you know, is Elvira in production? Because, I mean, you know, Stern can just turn the whole production facility on and these things will be flowing out just like Wonka bars. So I think between now and then we'll know. Right now it could go either way. I could see it where, just like before, you know, they're coming out soon, but we're not announcing a date. We don't know. They don't come out. And then someone may decide, you know what? Flip that switch. They're ready to go. One week goes by and 400 of the machines come out or something. So I looked at the horizon with my special perspective and crystal balls that I keep around me. And I've come up with of the five or so games that are rumored to maybe be dropping. How likely are we able to see them at Texas Pinball Festival? So first off, most likely it's got to be Scooby Scooby Doo from our boys at Spooky in Wisconsin. They are currently I mean, they're well on the way to making these machines. They keep putting up social media posts of, you know, they had a designer and his dog on there, DJ. And I believe that's the name of the designer.
    12:20
    But behind them, they had the same kind of array of about 30 to 45 machines with play fields in them ready to be bolted in, it looks like. Toppers are on top. Only thing that's missing is the legs. They don't even go on the machines, though. They go in the box. So these things could be ready to go fairly quickly. and from what I understand they like to go to local distributors local locations for play testing right Spooky is known as being saying you know maybe if you have the option maybe wait for a build later in the build cycle when some of the bugs are worked out so the idea is they get them to trusted local folks so we can start play testing these things in a real environment identify issues and then later in the production these issues can be resolved so your boy happened to have met a couple of distributors and so they have told me uh they're promised low numbers they're promised to have the machines on location fairly quickly they don't have a date yet though so no shipping date probably yet because i'm sure they'd be bragging and hopefully inviting me for an unboxing right so those should be coming out soon so for sure that'll give my stamp of approval of any of these games very very likely to be playable at texas pinball festival what's up next i guess would we say JJP8? Now, I heard, I listened to the Standard Morning Spectacular with Kaneda today, as I do, and he mentioned, he made a good point that probably if this is actually Godfather and it's just kind of an off-the-wall, unexpected theme, maybe break the news early, but they may not want to do that until the last minute because if you're on the fence and you've got $12,000, maybe there's a chance you'll finally go on a Toy Story 4, and if you knew another game was right around the corner, Maybe you hold your ducats close to your chest all right I see theme parks do this with new ride announcements It can be very obvious what new ride is coming but they will not advertise it because they don want people to cancel their summer vacation plans in anticipation of a winter or next summer, you know, new extravaganza or show or ride to open. So they're probably doing the similar strategy where we have our new game that's going to come out. Let's not release anything until it is ready. That way we could maximize and squeeze out those few other little purchases that may be coming by. Um, so I would say, uh, likely not as likely as Scooby-Doo, but probably, uh, I would expect to see something at Texas Pinball Festival for that. The next one gets a little weird. This is American Pinball's Galactic Tank Space Battle Force Ultra Extravenanza Cybertron Initiative game, right? Um, so, and that's only because this company seems to, um, like be ready and waiting and then just kind of hemming and hawing on when they're going to pull the trigger on this thing. So just like Stern with Elvira, they maybe have everything all ready to go and are just waiting for the right moment, waiting for a change in the wind. Maybe like Barry Poppins, when you need it most, that's when it'll be there. So I would give this a solid maybe. I mean, they could have plans today that they are definitely going to release it at Texas Pinball Festival to big fanfare and extravaganza. And then the wind may blow across their body one way, and then they throw it on location to use guerrilla tactics a week before. Who knows? They may wait until summer for all that matters. This is a company that I can't find an identifiable pattern for. But I would put that as the next most likely game to see. Now going further afield, we get to choice number four. I put that as Venom. Stern's Venom, strongly rumored to be out. strongly rumored to have supposed to have been coming out at the San Diego comic convention when they were there with Ozzy Osbourne and Todd McFarlane that seemed like the best launch event and there they were with empty hands probably production delays supply line issues COVID issues corporate issues tissues for the issues who knows could have been anyone or a combination of those it was not released but that gives the programmers time to get that code where it needs to be so Unlike Bond, which seemed to be rushed a bit to meet a deadline, this Venom may come out and be pretty close to full code, or at least just this nice beefy code that we can dig into. So I would say there's probably a good chance, but again, who knows? They're a company that probably has this thing all lined up and ready to flip into production at a moment's notice, and will that moment be March? It's getting to be a crowded field. Maybe they're waiting to see which way other people are going. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. So that's why I'm not completely sure that we're going to be walking into a big Venom display on that red carpet that they put out. But man, would that be amazing. The final one I'm calling Pulp Fiction just because of all the rumors I've been hearing about it. But again, who really knows with this game? It was rumored to be a single play field game like the Bond 60th. Now it's rumored to have a ramp. Could it have just one big huge ramp? Could it have a ramp to an upper play field? That's kind of what they meant. Absolutely nobody that's not directly involved in the game really knows. Um, so this is another wild card. I think if it showed up, I wouldn't be completely surprised, but then I'm not really expecting to see it. Um, after that, anything else who knows, uh, is, is there still that, uh, spinal tap machine people are dragging around? I'm sure there'll be a fathom out on the field. So there's going to be a lot of fun stuff there. I got to reach out and see if my boy from rec room world is going to bring that great ultra VP out. Go check that out. He was there last year. Um, so, you know, as far as a virtual pinball machine goes, try it out. I mean, it's fun, especially like in the lineup I have at my home. I love the machine. Did a whole episode about it. I called it episode nine. That's my speculation for today and for Saturday. So keep your feet on the gas, everybody. Wicky, wicky, wicky. Love this hip hop beat. I'm all about this hip hop beat. Do you want stickers? Do you want t-shirts? Do you need an email address? It's Don's pinball podcast at gmail.com. Let me know what you want, what size. I'm collecting money for the t-shirts. I'll email you. I'll kind of invoice you and let you know. I still got to order the bad boys. Hey, DJ, I am not done. You bring that beat back.
    18:24
    So get yourself some stickers. Get yourself some free mods. No one else is doing that, and I'm doing it for now. I still have a supply. When they're gone, maybe there'll be a price tag on them. But for right now, if you've got any of the trim levels of Rush or you just want to put these things on your knuckles and run around your neighborhood, let me know. DonSpinballPodcast at gmail.com. Go to the Facebook page and hit follow. I'll be dropping some information there. Look for the stickers. Later.