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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast March 2021

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·2h 9m·analyzed·Apr 1, 2021
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TL;DR

JJP discusses Guns N' Roses success, production capacity, and licensing philosophy in March 2021 retrospective.

Summary

Jonathan Euston (Pinball Magazine) and Martin Leib (Pinball News) conduct a March 2021 retrospective podcast featuring a phone interview with Jack Danger of Jersey Jack Pinball. They discuss Guns N' Roses' award sweep (seven Twippies, Game of the Year), production ramp-up at the new Elk Grove factory (20-25 games/day), EU tariff impacts, and licensing strategy. Jack emphasizes product quality over announcement timing and declines to announce next titles, focusing on Guns N' Roses fulfillment.

Key Claims

  • Guns N' Roses Bill of Materials completed and all drawings finished by January 15, 2020; game ready for reveal at Texas Pinball Show but delayed for additional code development

    high confidence · Jack Danger referencing Eric Meunier's Final Round Pinball Podcast interview about development timeline

  • Jersey Jack produces 20-25 games per day at Elk Grove Village factory; some days production under 25 units, some days over, with sales exceeding daily production capacity

    high confidence · Jack Danger directly answering production capacity question; Ken Cromwell posts factory progress pictures

  • All Guns N' Roses CEs have been built and shipped or in process of shipping; LEs currently on production line

    high confidence · Jack Danger stating production status during interview

  • EU 25% tariff suspension lasted four months starting in March 2021; distributors rushed to order before tariff reimposition

    high confidence · Jack Danger discussing tariff dynamics and distributor response

  • Guns N' Roses won Twippies and Pinball News Game of the Year 2020; awards validated game quality and drove additional sales

    high confidence · Congratulations offered by hosts; Jack confirms awards result in sales impact

  • Secondary market CE Pirates of the Caribbean sold for high price (~$38,000 mentioned as example); CE Guns N' Roses prices similarly elevated

    medium confidence · Jack mentions seeing CE Pirates sale for high price, possibly April Fool's joke context; exact price verification uncertain

  • Jersey Jack prioritizes multi-generational licensed IP with long-term appeal and rich asset libraries over movie tie-in timing

    high confidence · Jack Danger explaining licensing philosophy; references Hobbit complexity and Wizard of Oz classic approach

  • No announcement of next Jersey Jack title in 2021; focus remains on Guns N' Roses production; future timing depends on parts availability and production readiness

Notable Quotes

  • “While we might build 25 games in a day, I can tell you that some days we sell more than 25 games.”

    Jack Danger (Jersey Jack Pinball) @ mid-interview — Demonstrates unprecedented demand; production bottleneck despite high capacity

  • “I get calls almost every day, people looking for Hobbit, people looking for Willy Wonka, people looking for pirates, people looking for Wizard of Oz.”

    Jack Danger @ mid-interview — Highlights sustained demand for past JJP titles; inventory depletion across entire product line

  • “The other one saying how great and how happy they are that they got the game. Really, people now seem to be focused on buying quality and not quantity.”

    Jack Danger @ mid-interview — Market shift observation: buyers consolidating purchases toward premium titles rather than volume acquisitions

  • “You can have a really great game with not a really great theme, and it's still a very good game, and you can have a really great theme with a very bad design playfield and rule set. That's just a waste of a license.”

    Jack Danger @ mid-interview — Core JJP design philosophy: balance between IP and mechanics; explains quality standards

  • “Getting the animation, getting the terabytes of concert footage, getting call-outs from band members, having Slash be an integral part of the design process—without question contributed to make the game be what it is.”

    Jack Danger @ discussing Guns N' Roses — Explains critical role of band cooperation and asset access in game success

  • “We got an amazing amount of phone calls and flurry of emails that you can't believe from our European distributors, all telling us...pleading and begging to please get us games before the tariff goes back on.”

    Jack Danger @ tariff discussion — Illustrates urgency created by EU tariff suspension; distributor pressure during four-month window

  • “It's nice that other people are coming out with games, but Coke doesn't like Pepsi and Pepsi doesn't like Coke. They're both colas, let's say, and they're both drinks, and you respect the customer base, so the customers decide what they want to buy.”

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyJack DangerpersonJonathan EustonpersonMartin LeibpersonGuns N' Roses PinballgameSpooky PinballcompanyDeep Root PinballcompanyEric MeunierpersonKen Cromwell

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack expanding manufacturing capacity; Elk Grove Village factory operational with room for additional assembly lines

    high · Jack discusses single assembly line currently, hints at second line coming: 'I think it's going to be more than that and certainly a second assembly line will come.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Guns N' Roses seven Twippy awards and Pinball News Game of the Year 2020 validate game quality; awards correlated with incremental sales momentum

    medium · Jack confirms awards drive sales: 'He happened to see the Twippies...and he plunked his money down.' Awards described as 'grassroots' validation from player base, not industry self-congratulation.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Jersey Jack positions against competitor intensity through customer-centric rather than head-to-head strategy; respects diverse manufacturer marketplace

    medium · Jack: 'Coke doesn't like Pepsi...customers decide what they want to buy...respect the customer base.' Emphasis on internal quality focus rather than competitor monitoring.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack balances IP quality with gameplay excellence; poor theme + great rules better than great theme + poor design

    high · Jack states: 'You can have a really great game with not a really great theme...You can have a really great theme with a very bad design playfield and rule set. That's just a waste of a license.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jersey Jack prioritizes multi-generational IP with full asset access (video, music, band cooperation) over movie tie-in timing

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.389

0:00
Guns N' Roses scoops up the awards AGAIN! Spooky Pinball expands AGAIN! Deep Root Delays rather AGAIN!
0:21
Hi, my name is Jonathan Euston, I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined here with... I'm Martin Leib and I'm the editor of Pinball News. And Jonathan and I are here to look back at all the events that took place in the month of March 2021. Well, the pinball industry related events, that is. Obviously not every, all other events. Oh, okay. Let's narrow it down to that. Yeah.
0:46
Oh, do we? Well, so today is April 1st. But the news that we are bringing you is actually real, no joke. No, it's all genuine, not made up. Yeah.
1:02
Most of it. Yeah. And we're looking back at the month of March 2020, which is... 2021, I hope. Sorry? 2021, I hope. Oh, sorry.
1:16
Yeah, okay, so... March 2020 was a good month as well, because we had the Texas Bimbo Festival. Oh, no, we didn't. No, we didn't. We didn't have that this year either. No, no, no. We should have been in the United States by now But we're not Anyway, so we're looking back at March 2021 Yes, thanks for the correction And, well Usually we say like Oh, it's been quite a busy month This month, not so much No, no new game launches or anything like that But lots of little bits and pieces That you may have missed out on and we will summarize them for you and bring you up to date. Right, okay. Hold on, hold on. You hear what I'm hearing. Oh, really? Right now? Right now. Okay. For those not familiar with our podcast, in the background we hear ringing my phone and that ringtone tells me that Gary Flower is calling in. Gary is the one trying to get on our show. so he doesn't manage to get on for some odd reason but this time since it's April Fool's and what do you call it that Thursday before Easter and what have you, I'm feeling in a pretty good mood, let's get Gary on the phone, shall we? Right now Hello Gary Hello, can you hear me? Hello Gary Yes, we can hear you Oh, it's so wonderful. I can barely hear you guys. You can barely hear him? Hold on. He sounds a bit odd to me. It does. It doesn't sound quite right.

high confidence · Jack Danger declining to commit to 2022 announcement, stating focus on forward momentum not backward planning

Jack Danger @ discussing competitor dynamics — JJP positioning on competitive landscape; customer choice over head-to-head competition

  • “You never know. We might have that license for the 100th anniversary. Yeah, I mean, how long do you need before you know it's a classic title?”

    Jack Danger @ Wizard of Oz discussion — Hints at long-term licensing vision; flexibility in IP development timing

  • “You got me to tell you the next game is Justin Deere.”

    Jack Danger @ closing joke — Playful deflection; no actual next game announcement despite hosts' attempts to extract information

    • person
    Jimperson
    Wizard of Oz Pinballgame
    Hobbit Pinballgame
    Pirates of the Caribbean Pinballgame
    Willy Wonka Pinballgame
    Elk Grove Village Factoryproduct
    European Union Tariffevent
    Twippiesevent
    Texas Pinball Showevent
    Pinball Expoevent
    Final Round Pinball Podcastmedia
    Slashperson
    Fred Youngperson
    Gary Flowerperson
    Chris Smithperson

    high · Jack explains Guns N' Roses success tied to 'terabytes of concert footage, call-outs from band members, having Slash be an integral part of the design process'; explicitly declined licenses where key assets unavailable

  • $

    market_signal: Consumer shift from volume purchasing (5-6 machines/year) to quality consolidation (2-3 premium machines/year)

    medium · Jack observes: 'People now seem to be focused on buying quality and not quantity. They're not buying maybe five or six new pinball machines a year. They're looking to buy two or three, you know, like that, the better ones, the higher-end ones.'

  • $

    market_signal: Guns N' Roses demand vastly exceeds production capacity; 25 games/day production insufficient to meet same-day sales volume

    high · Jack states: 'While we might build 25 games in a day, I can tell you that some days we sell more than 25 games.' Secondary market prices inflating (CE Pirates referenced at ~$38k).

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ken Cromwell maintains public factory communication through production photos; distributor-facing marketing tool

    medium · Jack references: 'Ken Cromwell puts pictures up from the factory, and it's met with a lot of excitement.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Next Jersey Jack title announcement indefinitely postponed; current focus exclusively on Guns N' Roses production fulfillment

    high · When asked about 2021/2022 announcement: 'Could be. Maybe, maybe not.' Jack emphasizes 'going forward, not backwards' and production focus on current title.

  • ?

    business_signal: EU tariff suspension (March-July 2021, four months) creates urgency for European distributor orders; JJP implements accelerated shipping to Europe

    high · Jack describes 'amazing amount of phone calls and flurry of emails' from European distributors pleading for games before tariff reinstatement; JJP prioritizing European shipments within suspension window

    • 3:01
    No. Gary, stop pranking us. Are you coming to Japan with me to the Olympics? Which sport are you competing in, Gary? If you're buying the tickets, we'll support you.
    3:15
    I'm competing in the high jump. You are competing in the high jump Are you sure it's not the Paralympics? I'm going to get high and I'm going to jump That doesn't sound like the Gary we know and love No It's Jersey Jack How are you old man? How nice of you to call in You got it there for a second Let me tell you something We got another guy over here I don't know who's here right now.
    3:50
    Oh, my goodness. Hold on. Do we have two Garys on the phone now? It's a matter of a thousand voices. I think both Garys just went for a drink. Hold on. Let me call Fred Young and tell him there's competition coming.
    4:11
    Fred Young taught me. Fred Young taught me how to do something I have to share it with you Is that Darth Vader? He has This is an exclusive You only hear on the Pimble Magazine and Pimble News Podcast I didn't know if it was Smell breathing or it was Darth Vader, I couldn't tell I thought for a moment you had a really bad cold But no, it's I'm just happy it's nothing serious I had a I had to push Fred Young out of the elevator at 3 o'clock in the morning because he was going upstairs with us and we said, no, you're not coming upstairs, but you're getting out here and we're going up to bed. Have a nice night.
    4:55
    One thing Fred can do well, one of the many things Fred can do is talk. You know, you see him leaning against the wall downstairs in the lobby at 2 in the morning and it's like a tractor beam. You don't want to go over to him. On the other hand, he's always got so much to tell you. Giggity, giggity, giggity, giggity.
    5:23
    He's doing, he's doing, he's doing. For those not familiar with Fred, he's a voice artist who's worked on many games, many pinball games. I love games. Punchy the Clown or Punchy the Clown. Including Punchy the Clown. and yeah he's a regular at Pinball Expo he's a regular and yeah he's a huge character in every sense and we love him yeah absolutely I'm just telling you guys I'm not editing anything of this out if you don't edit any of this out I'll never come on your show again In that case, we'll have to get the real Gary next time.
    6:11
    Oh, well. We'll have to get whatever real Gary you want. I mean, you know. Anyway, Jack. Both of them just skipped down the aisle way down to go get vodka and tonics. Oh, that's mean. So they're both gone. Both gone. Okay, well, it's great to have you on the show, Gary. Yes. Gary. How's that help? And you too, Jack. How's everything at Jersey Jack Pinball? Everything's great. Congratulations on winning seven Twippies, including Game of the Year, and also winning the... I should have Martin say this. Go on. Well, okay.
    6:50
    Never mind that minor achievement. Of course, you won the Pinball News Game of the Year Award for 2020, as voted for by Pinball News readers. So congratulations on that as well. Wow. That's great. And on behalf of the group, I hope we pass the audition, really. It's a wonderful thing. It's a team effort. Everybody is really proud of the game and all the work they've done. And thank you. Thank you on behalf of the whole company, really. It's a wonderful thing. It's great to have the hit game. and there's a lot of things that go around to everybody. Right. Now, I think it was last week, Eric Meunier was a guest on the Final Round Pinball Podcast, which I found to be a very interesting interview. One of the things he mentioned was that Guns N' Roses was basically ready by the end of 2019 Bill of Materials completed and all the drawings done January 15th 2020 and the game was supposed to be revealed at the Texas Pinball Show and I know how often we had you on our show in that period I'm sorry I didn't mention any of that.
    8:24
    No, I can... Well, I get it, but it took quite a while before the game actually got revealed, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because the coders had so much more time to work on lighting and other rules and all that kind of stuff.
    8:43
    Right, plus we wanted to have a few hundred games in stock when we announced the game, so we could ship games immediately. That was very important. Right. Well, I assume those were gone in like two days.
    8:56
    They were gone in two seconds, I think. Yeah, and then you had to ramp up production. And in the meantime, you also moved the factory.
    9:07
    Now, if I may get serious for just a second. So the new factory in Elk Grove Village, may I ask how many games are they able to build in a week or a month because obviously there's hundreds of people maybe even thousands waiting on a game and everybody's trying to do the math like when will my game be up yeah I mean some days it's 20 some days it's 25 22 23 it depends on what's going on no secret that COVID has affected every company on earth, and that affects people coming to work and hiring people, training people, retaining people. But we have some good people, and we've had some good luck. So we continue to ramp up every day. More games get packed, and, you know, Ken Cromwell puts pictures up from the factory, and it's met with a lot of excitement. And it's really all good. I mean, it's what we would call a good problem to have. I know it's a problem, but it's a good problem to have. While we might build 25 games in a day, I can tell you that some days we sell more than 25 games. So it's fine with me. We have an amazing game made by an amazing team and an amazing company that I'm very proud of. And just keep rolling them along. Would you say it's a difficult balancing act to work between promoting the game, showing all these videos and basically showing how excited all the people are who got the game and are playing it on location, and at the same time knowing that there's all these people who are waiting for the game and so eager to get it, and yet they can't get it yet, and it's going to be a little while before they do. So they're sort of saying, as you say, where's my game? And here you are saying how wonderful the game is.
    11:26
    It's a cheat, isn't it? Well, I get it. You know, for me personally, and Jim especially, and a few other people that were with us all in the beginning, we lived through it with Wizard of Oz, certainly when people waited and waited and waited, and, you know, we didn't have a factory, we didn't have all the parts, we didn't have all the money, you know, it was frustrating and took a very long time. We've grown up in the last 10 years, and now we're in a different position. Yes, there's still some weight, but what I have noticed, and I talk to hundreds of customers in a month, sometimes it seems I speak with 100 customers in a week easily, you know, 99 of them looking for their games. but, you know, the other one saying how great and how happy they are that they got the game. Really, people now seem to be focused on buying quality and not quantity. They're not buying maybe five or six new pinball machines a year. They're looking to buy two or three, you know, like that, the better ones, the higher-end ones. Certainly, Jersey Jack games seem to get bolted to the floor, and they don't go anywhere. So the people realize, thank goodness for them, you know, loyal customers that love what we do. They're willing to wait. You know, I was talking to a customer yesterday who I know for 20 years, back from pinball sales.com days, and he just ordered a Guns N' Roses LE. I don't know what he waited for, but he just ordered a Guns N' Roses LE. and he called me up and he says, you know, for old time's sake, what do you think? You think I'll have the game by this date or that date or the other? And I said, you know, you'll have the game as soon as possible. Everybody's in a queue and we're going in order and we're shipping games around the world. You know, it's nice that Europe dropped the tariff for a little while. So, you know, we're getting games out to Europe to try to help the European customers out. We're getting games out to Australia. We're getting games out to the United States, Canada, all the places where everybody wants our games. So I'm really proud of that, and I'm really happy that we're able to do it. And every day, to me, from where I see and I talk to, it seems to be forward momentum. It's good progress. Right. now so you mentioned how many games are being built currently at the Elk Grove factory is there still room to grow to get more people in and build more games or is that maximum capacity no that's not maximum I think it's going to be more than that and certainly a second assembly line will come and And we'll just continue more and more. I mean, I think from where we are and a very lucky place to be, people want our games. I mean, I would really have a problem if we designed something and put it out there and nobody wanted it. And I think that's a lot bigger problem to have. So we've been blessed from the beginning that people want our games. I mean, you know, I get calls almost every day, people looking for Hobbit. people looking for Willy Wonka, people looking for pirates, people looking for Wizard of Oz. Sounds like you don't need a second line, you need a second factory.
    15:05
    Our distributors, if we look and do a channel check, really, I don't think there's many distributors that have any stock of our games. They don't have them. There's nothing in the channel. I know of this property that recently became available in Lakewood, New Jersey.
    15:28
    Yeah. You know, I think... It could be something to build like a... I'll tell you something. That's why in a car, even in those cars in the UK, the rearview mirror is a lot smaller than the windshield because we don't drive backwards, we drive forwards, right? Well, in the UK, I wouldn't be so sure of that. I mean, they drive on the wrong side of the road, so I might as well drive backwards, too. You know, I don't know. They get to the roundabout, and I want to tap out. I don't think I could drive the car, you know. I remember being in France one of the many times when we were going around in a circle at L'Arc de Triomphe, and my wife said to the cab driver, taxi driver, So if there's an accident, who's responsible? And the cab driver explained, if you're inside a certain line closer to the center and you get in an accident, it's nobody's fault. Everybody just drives themselves.
    16:34
    Sounds like a demolition dog. It's fun to drive in different parts of the world. But our French friends are ready to go on lockdown again. So hopefully they'll be out there driving soon. So do you know which particular models of Guns N' Roses are on the line at the moment? LEs right now. LEs are on the line. Are all the CEs made? Yes, all the CEs have been built, and I believe shipped or in the process of shipping, containers are loading and things like that. Hopefully they don't have to go through the Suez Canal or anything like that. And you mentioned just now about the suspension of the 25% tariff the EU imposed on pinball and other games. That suspension started in March and lasts for four months at the moment. Is there a kind of a rush on to get games to Europe within that four-month window in case that suspension doesn't continue?
    17:35
    We were fortunate. We were focusing on building those games, and then, you know, I spoke with my congressman, and he was able to negotiate a peace and get that thing taken out of there, and that's an April Fool's joke. I thought it might be. Yeah. Chris Smith is a great guy, but I don't think he had anything to do with it. And so, you know, we got an amazing amount of phone calls and flurry of e-mails that you can't believe from our European distributors, all telling us what we found out basically at the same time they did, and pleading and begging to please get us games before the tariff goes back on. You know, I'm a positive, optimistic person, so I hope maybe the tariff never goes back. Maybe it'll be gone and we won't have to worry about it. But we're doing our best, really, to get everybody their games. I mean, we can't make everything a priority, right? Because then nothing's a priority.
    18:45
    But we're working our hardest to get everything. So were there many games stored that were destined for Europe that buyers basically or distributors said, like, okay, I'd like to order 20, but please store them for now. Build them, store them, and as soon as the tariff is gone, then ship them? No, you know what happened?
    19:08
    Here's what happened, and it's not an April Fool's joke. In the beginning, everybody was shocked because of the way it happened. It was just certainly these things nobody consults with people like us to give us a warning. But everybody found out that we were lumped in with this tariff having to do with airplanes that none of us have anything to do with. And then the initial shock wore off, and a lot of the customers, you know, I talked to all the distributors involved, and so did Jim. And I made a silly comment to them. I said, I get that it's very expensive, 25%, and I'm not making light of the extra money, but why don't you talk to your customers? Because it's their money. They may want the game.
    19:51
    Regardless. Even with the 25%. And some of the distributors were, like, saying to me things like, you're crazy, and I don't know. You don't know any April Fools? I know we know that we can ask that question. And they asked the question, and pretty much everybody wanted their games. Everybody wanted the games. So within a quick turnaround of about a week or so, distributors came back to us and said, well, listen, you know, we want all the games. We're not canceling anything. Just build them when they're in the queue, and we'll take them. And we just kept on track. We didn't move anybody out. We didn't say, well, I guess we could put them to the end of the line because they're in trouble and they have this 25% tariff or anything. We just kept everything as it was, luckily, and it seemed to work out.
    20:47
    Right, because obviously the buyers, they would have had their contract with the distributors, not with you directly. So if they have a contract for a delivery of a game at a certain price, there needs to be that conversation between the distributor and the customer as to whether they're willing to effectively break that contract and put the price up. Yeah, there were German customers, French customers that know me for many years that just called me direct and said, you know, my distributor, I told my distributor I want my gain and I don't care about the extra 25%. I have nothing. Basically, several of them said to me, I have nothing to do. I'm at home. I want my gain. So I don't care about the extra 25%. and I told my distributor that and if my distributor doesn't want to take the whole container, I'll fly my game over. And I don't, you know, I mean, you can just imagine some of the conversations. You can't believe them. But, you know, when people want a pinball machine, don't get in their way. Just don't get out of the way. Just get them the game. Right. So, speaking of people wanting pinball machines, we mentioned earlier Guns N' Roses is a tremendous hit game I would say no pun intended but I think we had like two award shows and of course the Pinball News Game of the Year award do these awards result in additional sales they do So it's validation if there are people, let's say, on the fence or thinking about it. Here, I told you the other day, a 20-year customer from pinballsales.com just ordered an alley guns and roses. He happened to see the Twippies. He happened to see Slash and the whole acceptance video. And he knew as much about the game as I do. He did his research. He read everything, and he plunked his money down, and he wants a game. So I think the reason for it's nice to have the industry celebrate things that are great, and it's nice to have the people that appreciate them and play them and buy them celebrate the things they like. So those kind of awards that come from grassroots, it's not just a group of people that make things patting themselves on the back. saying, okay, let's have an award show or something like that. It's really genuine and touching, and it's very cool. It's nice to see the industry continue to grow and grow together.
    23:40
    Well, even though you're still going to be busy building Guns N' Roses games for a long time yet, and it's a big success, at the very start of this, Jonathan was talking about the release schedule for the announcement. of the game. What kind of factors go into deciding when you announce your next game? Is it when you're ready? Is it strictly when you're ready? Do other factors, you know, if another company is going to release a game around the same time, or is a show coming up? What are the factors that determine when your next title is going to be announced? I think in the old days it was about a show, a physical show. So, you know, we've got to get ready for Pinball Expo. We've got to get ready for Texas Pinball Festival, something like that. It's pretty cool.
    24:34
    COVID's taught us, unfortunately, a lot of lessons. A lot of them are bad lessons, and some of them are good lessons.
    24:42
    You can make your own event, and you can create your own splash if what you're releasing is sufficient to make the splash in the pool. and we really don't look at what other people are doing. We really can't count on what other people are doing.
    25:00
    It's nice that other people are coming out with games, but Coke doesn't like Pepsi and Pepsi doesn't like Coke. They're both colas, let's say, and they're both drinks, and you respect the customer base, so the customers decide what they want to buy, and certainly customers are free to do that based on what's presented to them in the marketplace.
    25:27
    And I think timing for us is when we have all of our parts, when everything's worked out for us, when we have games in boxes, and when we're ready to ship games, we make an announcement and here you go. We're off to the races. Okay. So that brings up the question, keeping in mind that there's hundreds, if not thousands, of backorders for Guns N' Roses, are we likely to see the next Jersey Jack pinball title this year? Or is it like, oh, we're busy building Guns N' Roses. It will be somewhere in 2022.
    26:10
    Could be. Maybe, maybe not. We'll have to see how it goes. how we're building, and I think we could build the game for a long time. Even after we announce another game, it would probably be something that we continue to build. I could see that. You're going to need a second line, because on one line you'll be building Guns N' Roses for the next five years. Yeah. You know, it's great we never need a business advisor, because we have thousands of them all over the world that are telling us how to run a company all the time. I'm not telling you how to run it I'm only teasing you but it's a great thing everybody plays along and it's good to have everybody play along and it's good to have good problems to play along with not that I'm sitting with a building with a thousand games that I can't sell so this is a lot better problem to have I'd rather have this one I can't blame you for that, no of course But it could also be, I mean, I'm ignoring all the rumors about what the next title may or may not be. But obviously, if that's a licensed game, there's also contract obligations. Usually there's a certain term in which you have to take the game into production and so on, or maybe it's tying in with something. and having such a hit game as Guns N' Roses prior to that could be a problem because you simply don't get to get the game into production in the time frame that you would like it to be.
    27:52
    I see what you're saying, but, you know, I've heard about this in all the years I've been in the industry about games tying into a movie release or tying into something in a theater or something like that. and I never saw it matter. I remember operating games in a movie theater in Brooklyn, and we had a game that was directly tied into the movie that was showing, and basically it made the same money with the movie, without the movie. It didn't really matter. It wasn't that important. You know, I go for licenses since I do the licensing. I go for licenses that are multigenerational, that last a long time, that appeal to everybody on Earth, children, women, men, older people, younger people. That's what I'm looking for. things that we can bite into the story and have a lot of assets to be able to make the greatest game we can possibly make. So, you know, I think about all those things, but I think we've been able to navigate them for the most part pretty well. I mean, look, with Hobbit, if you go back just quickly, you know, it was only going to be two movies, and then in the middle of us having license, it became three movies. So, you know, there are certain things under our control and there are certain things not under our control like other companies do And you do your best to navigate those things Okay On that point, would you say it's actually better to be producing a game sometime after the... If it's a movie, say Sometime after the movie is out so you know exactly what all the assets are You know when you can get them and you won't end up with situations like you had with The Hobbit, where the two movies become the three, and if you designed a game based around two movies, you then have to redesign all the rules and the inserts and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I think The Hobbit taught us that lesson for sure.
    30:13
    That's why other people have done games not based on the latest movie, but based on a classic movie, because they knew what it was. You know, when we did Wizard of Oz, it was a 70-plus-year-old. I was going to say, you took an awful lot of time before you were taking up that, making that pinball machine. I mean. Yeah. Could be, maybe. Over 70 years. What took you so long? Oh, well, yeah. I mean, you know, we might have that license for the 100th anniversary. You never know.
    30:47
    Yeah, I mean, how long do you need before you know it's a classic title? and it's something that you as a company would be interested in making a game based on you don't want something that's just a one hit, one flash in the pan type movie because we've seen how that worked in the past where people made games based on movies which turned out to be duds basically look, I think we all know that the 800 pound gorilla in the room is that you can have a really great game with not a really great theme, and it's still a very good game, and you can have a really great theme with a very bad design play field and rule set. That's just a waste of a license. So we try to put all our passion into every aspect of our games every time because we want it to be the best we can possibly make it. And that's where the customer base, the player base, votes and gives you these kind of awards. It's affirmation of the work that all the people in the company are doing, really. And we give that thank you back in creating the game that makes everybody smile and everybody happy. So it's our pleasure to do that. It's our honor to do that. I would say one of the key things that made Guns N Roses such a success is the unparalleled I think tie and buy by the band and the assets that you're able to utilise in the development of the game, the video assets, the call-outs, the music. How important is it to you when you're looking at licences as to what assets you can get and whether you can get cooperation from the key people involved in that license.
    32:53
    And if I may add to that, has that changed since Guns N' Roses? Well, I don't think it's changed. I always try to go for what I can get. Certain things that we want and we can't get everything, I'll say, okay, we got most of what we need to make something really great.
    33:18
    You know, I've passed on many licenses in these last few years because certain things are not available or, you know, not that they're easier to get or harder to get. It's just period not available. I mean, you can't pay a celebrity, you know, $100,000 to be part of something It just doesn't work for our product. We're not going to be able to pass it along, and I don't want to set that precedent. In music, typically, everybody knows there's different licensing. You can license a few seconds of a song, or you can license the whole song. There's a difference in what you pay for the license fee. I felt with Guns N' Roses that I certainly wanted the whole length of the song. I didn't want to play 10 seconds or 20 seconds of a song. Getting the animation, getting the terabytes of concert footage, getting call-outs from band members, having Splash be an integral part of the design process, all those things certainly, you know, without question contributed to make the game be what it is. I mean, there's no question about it. With other games like Pirates of the Caribbean, where we had basically almost nothing, our team brilliantly, in their genius, found a way to make an amazing game that's in very high demand, where I saw the other day, you know, a new in-box, CE Guns N' Roses sold for $38,000. CE Pirates, you mean? CE Pirates, yeah, sorry. Maybe like an April Fool's kind of thing.
    35:12
    Or maybe by next week it will sell for $38,000. Who knows? Then why aren't you selling the game? $38,000 by Christmas for sure. What?
    35:22
    So why aren't you making more of them then? Not the CUs particularly, but more pirates. Pirates? Yeah, pirates. Because we're making Guns N' Roses right now. You know, so that's what's in the oven, and that's what we're baking right now. So could we make more? Maybe. You know, I don't know that we will or we won't. It really has not been a point of discussion right now. We're, again, going forward, not backwards. You might need a third line.
    35:56
    People ask us, you know, they're looking for Wizard of Oz. They're looking for Willy Wonka. They're looking for, you know, all of that. I get people asking for Hobbit. So, you know, it's kind of funny how things go, and sometimes what you don't have is what everybody wants. It's kind of a crazy thing. Surely people want it. Why are you not able to build it on a, you know, if you've got the space? Okay, you're building Guns N' Roses flat out, but if you could get more staff, get more manufacturing capabilities, and the demand is there, and those people presumably aren't going to be buying the roses, that's not the type of game that they want. They want a Wizard of Oz, they want a Hobbit, whatever. Are you going to leave them just standing there and saying, well, sorry, we can't do it?
    36:50
    Maybe, maybe. It seems to be the same. It actually depends how big is the demand. There is the limit to everything, and, you know, there is a time frame to do things, and we'll see. You know, I never say never. I've said that many years before Justin Bieber had a hit song, but, you know, I never say never, which is what drove me to start a pinball company to start with. That wasn't something on my bucket list or something that I wanted to do for many, many years. It was just something that happened. So some things need to be planned and some things need to be happening through the marketplace and through, you know, organic ways that they happen. So planning for things, it's great, but sometimes the greatest plans don't go the way expect them to go. So it's certainly, at this point in time, certainly better to build what's right in front of us guns and roses. Let's build them. Let's get them out. Let's make everybody happy. And then let's move on to more and more and more of what we're doing. Right. Now, speaking of, since you mentioned Justin Bieber, I think that would be a perfect time to announce a Justin Bieber pinball machine. You know, you got it out of me today. you know I you got me to tell you the next game is Justin Deere you got me you heard it here on the pinball news and pinball magazine pincast you got me and then he's like I've got my credit card out right now tell me where I send the money take that offline you know in the April fools too bad it would be such a hit game do you know him?
    38:51
    Justin Bieber? I know his music oh ok well if you know him maybe you know we can figure something out I can pull a little you know I'm in the music business I can pull a few strings and if you're interested just let me know and I'll see what I can do for you ok I'll get back to you next April 1st ok Okay, fair enough, fair enough. So in, you know, really in 21 days, three weeks from today, somebody's having a birthday. Yeah, your daughter, Jen. My daughter, Jen, and a good friend of mine also. Yeah.
    39:31
    Jonathan, it's your birthday April 22nd, right? Yeah. Three weeks from today? Yeah. You know what's the worst part?
    39:39
    What could be the worst part of your birthday? 50. 50? Come on, that's good. What's the alternative? I've got socks older than 50 years old.
    39:58
    Well, 50 is the new 30, so I'm not complaining. I like that. That's good. And what's... well, we won't go there.
    40:09
    Well, you've seen 50, so you know what it's like. And if I look at you and I see how energetic and vibrant you are, I'd love to be like that at your age.
    40:24
    I'm not saying that you're old, but you're older than me. I'm not that much older than you. No, but still. But it's the same like with Wayne Nygans. The guy is 102 and he's still going. Are you still hawking him to do articles, or did you leave the poor guy alone?
    40:47
    No, I call him occasionally. I'm actually trying to get him to design a new game. You're going to kill the guy. Did you leave him alone?
    40:57
    I got the feeling he likes it when I call, so as long as I still get that feeling, I'm going to keep on calling him. I think he's probably just being nice.
    41:09
    Maybe. he probably says oh he probably looks at the caller ID and it says Jonathan and he says oh and it's praying in the ass to call me again he doesn't have to answer before he's still trying to work out how to do the call blocking feature on his phone maybe you can talk to Gary Flower and figure it out I wonder if Gary calls him as well Gary Flower oh And we end where we came in.
    41:42
    Well, thank you very much indeed, Jack. Thank you for being on our pincast again. I love you guys. I'm only sorry, you know, this is April now, so... Yeah, we're not in France. Where do we usually wind up in April, right? Where do we wind up? I know. L'Eau Cherepoix in France. We end up in the basement drinking champagne out of plastic glasses. And eating chocolate. eating crepes with Nutella oh it's so good I miss that so much and the mayor oh the mayor happy hour happy drinking happy hour noon Saturday hard liquor on the table what is that stuff Ricard I don't drink much but I'll have to go to the liquor store buy some of that stuff What do you mix that with again, Martin? Water. Yeah, just water. Yeah. Just water. So it's like bleach, right? You just mix it with some water.
    42:47
    It's medicinal, I'm sure. But all you need to do to re-correct it is to find a cupboard somewhere, put some chairs in there and turn out the light and find yourself a plastic cup and just sit in there. And then we need Frank Michel. We need him Oh Frank Hell yeah That's right You know I wonder how he's doing With his movie theatre Probably not so good In a town of 2300 people Yeah Sadly so Yeah Under luck now You know Three people a day And cycle through a year When everybody in the town Can see the movie Yeah I'm sure He'll bounce back As indeed We will And Yeah And we look forward to Seeing you again in person very soon. Well, thank you, and we're all looking forward to seeing everybody in person very soon. Thank you very much, and I can't wait until I hug Gary Flower again, wherever that is. Well, we're looking at hopefully being able to attend Pinball Expo, if that will take place as a live event. I talked to Rob Burke the other day, and he's very excited. He has a new venue. He's all excited about everything and he's looking forward to it. He said to me, tell your factory to build a whole day of production and I'd like to see those games on the floor of Pinball Expo. And I said, okay, we'll work on that. I said, maybe you could come to Chicago and start putting them together yourself too.
    44:24
    So you asked me for my references in the music industry. If you can reach out to a certain Joe Biden, and tell them to lift the ban on flying, actually, into America, because currently we can't, that would be a first step.
    44:42
    Yeah. It'll ease up. You know what's going to happen? I don't know if you gentlemen got your vaccines yet, did you? I have. I got my first one.
    44:53
    And the first one, did you get? How about you, Jonathan? No, nothing. No, nothing is scheduled. You know, it's weird, like, a lot of vaccines are made in Belgium right next to you. So it's funny. Even in the Netherlands, and they're being exported right away. Yeah. Well, you know, I think probably what will happen, you don't have to be genius to figure it out, is that there will be some kind of app that's universal for the world that everybody will have to put their information in and verify that they have received the vaccines. and then they'll be able to go to stadiums and travel and go to concerts and all that kind of thing because I understand there are a lot of people that still don't want to get a vaccine because it's in the experimental stage and there's people that are worried about different things about it. But, you know, it's a way forward out of this. And, of course, we know there's a lot that we don't know how long it lasts for. You need to boost the shot and all that kind of stuff. but you know all the people on pinball they can figure everything out so I would have given this whole thing to all the people in pinball they would have came up with that vaccine we already cured it would have been done if they gave it to pinball people it would have been done already while we're at it give us cancer too we'll cure that along the way as well yeah I believe in the pinball community and thank you again on behalf of the company for their wonderful award. You're very welcome. Oh, on behalf of the readers. I mean, I can say that. They voted for you as Game of the Year. And, of course, all those amazing Twippies for the various different categories and Game of the Year. So, yeah, it's an amazing game. And I say you should be proud of it. I'm sure you certainly are. and it just goes to show that you keep growing the company and you keep growing the product.
    47:02
    And I think personally I'd say it's the best game that I've seen. Well, that means a lot. That means a lot coming from you. Well, unfortunately I have only seen it because I haven't played it. Because I can't get to play one. But hopefully before too long. And then, as Jonathan said, hopefully by October we'll all be able to come over and join you in Chicago for Pinball Expo. And after that, put the Midwest Gaming Classic. Yeah, yeah. Go talk to Phil Palmer. He's got some of them. I'm sure you can get together with him and he can direct you where to play. Well, soon, hopefully, yes. That's right, yeah. Okay. Well, thanks again, Jack, for joining us. Thank you, guys. Gary, Gary, you want to say goodbye, Gary? Yeah, bye, Gary. Goodbye, Gary.
    47:58
    Anyway, thanks, Jack. And we hope to have you back on our show very soon. Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it very much, guys. Thanks very much, Jack, again. Again!
    48:11
    Very interesting update on what's going on at the Jersey Jack Pimple business there in the factory. Yeah, it's always nice to have Jack come on. to the show.
    48:22
    Good prank, I suppose. April Fool's trying to call in as Gary Flower. Well, we'll see if we can get Gary on soon.
    48:33
    Yeah. Well, we always try, but for some reason, you know, it's not in the stars, I suppose. I'm not sure what to make of it, but God knows we're trying. Yes, nobody can say we're not trying. That's true. Okay, so we looked at what Jersey Jack Pinball were doing there with making the LE Games for Guns N' Roses and talking about the European Union's 25% tariff, which, as Jack said, has been suspended for four months, through till the middle of July, I think, or the start of July at least. So that obviously affects all the manufacturers, not just Jersey Jack. so hopefully there'll be a hopefully for us at least in Europe there'll be a flood of new games coming into the country now that is temporarily suspended right so yeah we didn't actually mention any of the new code because there's been a lot of new code for Jersey Jack games in March oh well we don't want to go into it in too much detail do we because it gets a bit boring so we just mentioned that Guns N' Roses being their newest game and still in development there were actually four updates. Yeah, so if I understand this correctly, they put out an update, and they put out an update to correct the mistakes that they, or the errors that they made in the previous update, only to be followed by another update to correct...
    50:03
    Yeah, it's an ongoing process, shall we say. Probably the biggest thing that they did was, in both Guns N' Roses and Willy Wonka, was they managed to break the Wi-Fi updating. That was done in version 1.15, 1.16, and 1.17 versions of the code. 1.15 was last month, as in February. But it wasn't until 1.18 that they fixed it. But if you've got any of the older versions of code, you can't update it via Wi-Fi. You have to actually download it onto a USB stick in the old-fashioned way and update to 1.18 or 1.19, which is the current version. So let's tell them. Yeah, from then onwards, you can use the Wi-Fi again to update. So they did that on Guns N' Roses and Willy Wonka on version 1.34. That broke the Wi-Fi update. So 1.35 is the current one, which fixes it again. But if you did install 1.34 You will need to use the memory stick To update it again Lots of changes As you would expect The two most recent games Guns and Roses Some changes to code Rules I should say And there seem to be a number of crashes That can occur in various situations But they are gradually being ironed out Willy Wonka is more mature And they are sort of doing more rule tweaks and finessing the way the game plays a bit more, I think. So, nothing earth-shattering on that, but some nice additions and extra scoring opportunities on both those games and I think I'm just going to leave it at that, really, as far as code goes. Okay, well, let's go next door, I would say. Stern thing, Paul. Yeah, again, no new game releases, but there has been a new product release, or a couple of product releases, one of which is a new topper. Now, this seems to be the big cash cow in the pinball industry, and certainly for Stern.
    52:20
    It's much to my surprise, that one thing. Yeah, I know. Yeah, something which affects gameplay not in the least. But if you can't change what's happening on the playfield, you can change what's happening on top of the bat box. And for Stranger Things, there is now... And what's happening in your wallet. Well, yeah, it's certainly changed your bank balance, that's for sure.
    52:40
    Stranger Things has got a topper now, which doesn't have any actual physical movement on it, but it brings back the sort of infinity mirror lighting effects that we used to see on the old Bally games. Yeah. Which was always very good. Yeah, it looked great. And they've done a miniaturised version of that and put it in a bat box topper unit. and it looks nice, but it has some good, obviously, RGB LEDs these days, so it's not just a single colour, and it does have a nice infinity effect. It has modes that react to the gameplay, and it has a nicer track mode as well, but does it affect how the game plays? No, not in the least. But it looks nice, it's pretty, and it's $650, basically. What? $9.99, which compared to some of the toppers that have been out there is relatively cheap.
    53:44
    But up to Elvira, all toppers were under $500, if I'm not mistaken. And you put out one $1,000 topper, and the next one is $6.50. Well, there was Star Wars, of course, which was legendary.
    54:01
    Yeah, but the delay that it took to launch it. Yeah, and the price as well. but yes so in the scheme of things $649.99 is I suppose mid-range should we say but it's already called a highway robbery well be careful how we use that that phrase these days but it's already sold out as is these things as a way of these things did they announce how many they would be making? no but it's not available to buy on the Stern's shop you may be able to buy it from a distributor it may sound a little bit harsh but in all fairness Stranger Things wasn't that popular of a game it wasn't it didn't receive great critical acclaim when it first came out it's getting a bit of later love I think once people start to understand the rules more but that could indicate that they maybe only did like 50 top or so there's no wonder if that's the case that they sold out because well there's not that many games to put them on and so the less you make the easier you the quicker you sell out I guess so but you probably want to make you always want to have some in stock even if it's only like one or two left well yeah you know what these stockers do on eBay these days well exactly yeah but that's not money for Stern is it that's money for the people who buy them early and sell them if I was Stern I would fuck them and say hey they're sold out and then sell them one by one on eBay.
    55:34
    That's a thought, yeah. Anyway, it exists. It's out there. You can't buy it from Stern. You can probably buy it from Distributor. You can probably, as you say, buy it on eBay. Or you can make one yourself.
    55:49
    Yeah, it might be more fun as well. Yeah. Other things from Stern. There's also not exactly the same price range. In fact, almost a hundredth of the price. You can buy some Rampage collectible sticker packs featuring the art of Brian Holderman. Yeah, and then I'm thinking, like, did Brian Holderman ever do a Primo art package?
    56:17
    May have contributed, but... Not as a lead artist, I would say. No, not as a lead, no. Some of the Stern titles have had multiple artists, as we know. I'm trying to think Which was the last Probably Star Wars I think it was probably Had like six artists working on it So I don't know where they used it Anyway, so a bunch of stickers Woohoo Yeah, six vinyl stickers Are they six year olds?
    56:44
    You can stick them on your lunchbox You can stick them on your briefcase You can stick them on your car Whatever Bumper sticker Six of them From three to four inches in size and they cost $6.99.
    56:59
    So if that's your thing, you can get them from the CERN shop. It probably costs more to get them actually sent to you than you buy them. You do get bragging credits that you actually ordered something in the CERN shop because most people think, wow, that's really expensive.
    57:17
    Yeah. Well, it's interesting you mention that because one of the things I was looking at when I was on the CERN shop, looking at the price of these various, at the topper and stickers was I noticed that they got the board set available for the Spike 2 system so you can buy all the individual component parts and they fry up so easily well that's what I thought I remember when they started dying the people were saying oh you have to spend $300 and buy a new node board so I was looking up there and you can actually buy the node board the main node board for $99 which, okay, you shouldn't have to buy a new Notebook if it's under warranty, but it's not anywhere near as expensive as maybe people have been making out and the Notebook that goes in the cabinet was only $70 only which seemed quite reasonable and all the power boards and LED boards and various other as a soundboard I think and you can buy the entire Spike 2 CPU board as well for like $300 or $350 so it's not massively expensive you might tend to think that those sort of things being only available from one source, i.e. Stern that they might sort of price gouge on it, but no, not at all I was pleasantly surprised that something from the Stern shop was very reasonably priced, considering so if you do need to stock up on a spare node board or two, they're not going to break the bank and available from the Stern shop and probably through your distributors. Okay. Well, that's good to know. I don't have any certain games that need any noteboards to be replaced. Not yet?
    59:05
    Well, yeah, if you put it like that, it's just a matter of time. Yeah, well, it's a matter of time before everybody buys them. In the near future. People buy them up and stick them on eBay like toppers.
    59:18
    Okay. You could do a topper made out of noteboards. Right. So, I'm looking at the I see Stern had a heads-up for Pinball Invitational. They did. They had the final of the Marvel Avengers Infinity Quest Stern Heads-Up Pinball Invitational, as you just said. It featured, I think, eight local players, i.e. ones who lived in Illinois and close to Chicago, all taking place in head-to-head challenges. not really my sort of thing I have to admit you know it's an invitational so it's like hand-picked as to exactly who's on there but I actually found it quite interesting it was surprisingly swift you think the tournament thing was going to go on forever but this was a series of challenges you know like start a multi-ball or start a mode which only involved like five shots to a captive ball but it's whoever could do it quickest or whoever could get the most number or get the required number of spins on the Doctor Strange spinner and then knock the ball underneath in order to start the mode. Now, whoever did that first won the challenge. So the first one I saw was like, I think, it was over in like 15 seconds from the start of the game. So it wasn't really drawn out, but it did look, I have to say, congratulations to everyone involved. It looked absolutely amazing. The presentation, excellent graphics. It was Tim Sexton, Jack Danger Moto Harney In there as well, all representing And Really nicely done Clearly a lot of effort went into it A great studio that they put themselves into I guess it was a virtual studio But it looked really good And it was won by Anna Neal Who won herself a Brand new Stern pinball machine So congratulations to Anna So hold on So, you invite eight people to do this heads-up challenge, the invitational thing, and the winner gets a pinball machine. Yeah. I mean, usually, it takes tournaments with hundreds of people to win a pinball machine. And this is eight people hand-picked, like, hey, you want to win a pinball machine? Come over and let's play some pinball, and you win one. Yeah, you have to fancy your odds if you're one of those people. I'd like to be invited the next time. Well, you have to move to Illinois in that case.
    61:49
    But hopefully over time they'll expand this out and get more people involved. But if you want to watch it, and it's not hugely long, it's only about 40, 45 minutes or something like that, It's available on the Marvel Instagram feed, which is, unsurprisingly, instagram.com slash marvel. And you can watch all the games there. And, yeah, it's entertaining, I was surprised. I was not really one for watching tournament pinball in that way online, because it's, you know, especially when it's pre-recorded and there's a certain sense of suspense taken out of it. But no, all credit to the production team. They're an excellent job and entertaining. Right. Okay. So, now, before we move on to the code updates for Stern Games, I'm not sure whether we discussed it last month, but Steve Ritchie commented, I think, on Facebook, where he acknowledged that there are some spinner issues with the electric magic mechanism on the premium and limited edition Led Zeppelin games.
    63:03
    And their customer support, the technical guys there, are working towards a solution for that. From what I understood, there's two types of problems. one of the problems could be that or might be that the electromagnetic device could lower during multiball and it would still be possible to shoot the ball into the spinner but as the ball would actually because the mechanism was lowered you actually shoot straight into the wire form bending it making sure that the spinner isn't spinning anymore yes that's right the idea obviously with the spinner is that you shoot under the pivot point so that it spins, but if the whole mechanism is sinking into the playfield at the time, you could shoot it and hit the spinner higher up, and as you said, you could bend the wire form and distort the spinner and stop it spinning. Right, and the other issue apparently is that the, I think, well, the post that the spinner is pivoted on, I suppose that's the correct terminology, are too tight to the spinner, making it very difficult to spin. It needs more room. Yeah, that's right.
    64:24
    Obviously, that can be done by bending them mechanically. But if you buy a, how much is that game? You expect the spinner to work properly, right? So, and I tried to get it confirmed, but I couldn't find anybody to confirm it. but it appears that Stern actually quit production of Let's Apple It for the time being in order to solve that and are focusing on backlog games that still have to be delivered like Avengers and Turtles and so on.
    65:04
    And obviously, once this issue has been fixed, they will pick up the production of Led Zeppelin again. Right, okay. Well, premium models, I suppose the limited edition games are already all manufactured, but even then I don't know for sure. Well, we did mention about the potential issues with the electric magic last month, but this month, as part of the code updates, they have actually implemented some of the things that we were talking about or suggesting might be useful in the most recent Led Zeppelin code update. What a nice bridge. Yeah, I know. Almost electric magic. there's some settings there which you can change when the device moves so there's an option to only move it when the balls are locked so there's no ball actually in play on the playfield which is one of the options that we were talking about last time and the other option we were talking about was only move it when the ball is further away further up the playfield in the pop bumpers or something like that And that's also another option now, what they call move-on-far shots. So it only moves when a ramp or an orbit or an eject shot is made. And the board is known to be away from the flippers. So there is also the option to not do any of that and just do whatever it did before, but then you run the risk of damaging it. So that's in version. It must be challenging for certain programmers to come up with solutions like that because obviously while there might be a lot of repetition in the programming of pinball, this is something that we have never seen before. Yeah, I mean, it's a software solution to, I guess, what's a hardware issue, isn't it? They're trying to prevent damage to the game through the use of software.
    66:56
    Well, that's happening. The latest code update is version 0.98, if I'm not mistaken. I have to say, to my surprise they're actually approaching 1.0 and I thought they would yeah we're not there yet the game wasn't sort of rushed out I don't think although it was brought out on the normal schedule but I get the feeling they had a little more time to work on this but even so, this latest update 0.98 as you mentioned from the 9th of March that has a huge number of adjustments and new features and display animations and rules.
    67:37
    There's a lot in there, far too much to talk about at the moment, even new expression lighting modes that they put in. So there's a lot of work still going into this game, even though, as you say, it's very close to version one. But it's not there yet. But if you haven't got this version in your game, then you certainly should have, because it's definitely worthwhile doing the update. Right. Okay. So there was also an update for Elvira's House of Horrors.
    68:09
    Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's the past version, one a while ago, onto 1.02 at the moment, which, again, it's mainly sort of little tweaks and things. There's, you know, the turret on top of the house can spin. Well, that's got some extra features now. So it turns at the start of the game and when you lock a ball in the garage. And basically there's a few other mode tweaks in there, but really nothing huge. And some bug fixes, of course, as there are in every game update. So version 1.02, yep, definitely worth having again.
    68:52
    It isn't a fix like we talked about earlier to something which broke earlier, I don't think. Or if it is, it's only minor. So, yeah, Alvarez House of Horrors, again, a game which didn't get a huge amount of love when it first came out, getting a good appreciation with the pricing of the game, I suppose. Well, that too, but also, I think the rules.
    69:16
    Well, yeah, they were, obviously, the game was delayed for years, and then it still felt like it had rushed code. Yeah. But it has improved a lot since it was launched, so there's no denying that it's becoming a fun game.
    69:39
    Yeah. I was watching a stream, I actually had to laugh, so there is the humour in there that I was missing at first. Ah, right, yes, that was one of your early criticisms of the game, wasn't it? that all the games, you expect a lot more double entendres in there and innuendo.
    69:59
    Well, if it's an Elvira game, yes. Yeah, absolutely. That's a valid point. So, I think that wraps up our news from Stern. Now, let's head over to Taiwan, because in the last Pincast that we recorded, you hinted about some news coming from Homepin. Yeah, and I couldn't share it in the meantime. I did already announce it in my Pinball Magazine newsletter, to which anybody can subscribe for free on pinball-magazine.com. I shared a couple of pictures. I had spoken to Mike Kalinowski of Homepin, and he told me that he had manufactured four Porsche-themed pinball machines.
    70:52
    Right. And these games were intended for car trade shows and they're basically a marketing tool to harvest email addresses. pinball isn't known that much in China but it's a cool looking device and this was only for use in China was it? yes and at these card shows they're not commercially for sale or anything the layout surprisingly is identical to the layout of Firepower, a Steve Ritchie game from I think 1981 I say from the top of my head Sounds about right. Yeah.
    71:37
    Well, it's not completely identical, I think. Firepower has four pump bumpers and this one has three.
    71:45
    And I think that's about the difference. All right, yeah. But you still got balls and start a multi-ball on it. Yes, you can. And the main objective of the game is to... There's two free targets, drop target banks, and the left one spells Tay and the other spells Can, which is a Porsche model, the Tay Can, if I'm not mistaken. Let me double-check if I've said that correctly. I would not be in a position to help you with that not being their target audience oh I thought because you did read my newsletters no well obviously I read that but that was a while ago that was a couple of weeks now they're mid-month aren't they they're not the start of the month or the end of the month yeah yeah I'm very unprofessional about that good idea So, no, yeah, it spells T-A-Y-C-A-N on the drop target, and then there's three stand-up targets on the right of the playfield, and those represent various forms of hybrid energy, solar power or wind power, and that kind of stuff.
    73:10
    Does this mean this is an electric car, then? Quite possibly, yes. Or at least hybrid, maybe. Yeah. So, but anyway, four prototypes for trade shows. And the cabinet artwork is very, very basic. It's just the black cabinets with the Porsche name, the logo of Porsche on it. And that's about it. The funny thing was, Mike had already told me that he was building these, but at that time it was off the record. and then last month he shared a photo on his Facebook of belly transformers they are building.
    73:55
    And there was a Porsche cabinet in the background and hardly anybody noticed it. But for me that was the cue to reach out and ask about it.
    74:07
    Right. I can't share it, but I have seen video footage of the game. it's very basic it has a blue dot matrix display if you hit the drop targets the ones that spell out taken and the letters light up on the display it's really really basic coding and there's an LCD as well is there that is that part of the game do you think or is that just yeah it's mostly used to display commercials and stuff like that. I think the LCD is mostly used for the progress that you make on shooting the drop targets and the scores. Right. But it's a marketing tool to harvest email addresses, so it doesn't have to be a deep game. It's not going to be used for home use. The idea is that people line up, play a game, walk away and get spent for the rest of their life. Yeah, you obviously don't want people's playing that game for an hour they want to have a quick one minute, two minute game put their email contact details in and get the hell out of there I think you probably have to leave your email contacts before you can play the game, so that's how I would do it just to confirm the Porsche Taycan is indeed an electric sports car right, ok and well other news from Homepin and you saw that as well today they announced yesterday that Homepin shipped their first made in Taiwan pinball machine yeah indeed yeah as a landmark for them they've been setting up their factory for over a year in order to produce them and as you said been producing other products but hadn't actually been manufacturing any pinballs until now and yesterday they announced that they had. No indication of exactly which model it was, whether it was the Thunderbirds game, whether it was something new.
    76:19
    Don't think China Zombies is going into production. Is it? Or is it? Much about it. I think now that they moved to Taiwan, and Taiwan is not really considering themselves a state of China, although China... Yes, exactly So Not sure whether that game is actually Going to see Production, although I have seen some video footage of it And it, the play field Looked like, could be fun You know, but Oh well When you spoke to Mike, did you get the impression that all four Of those Porsche games had already been made Or could this be Yeah, they were already Done Oh, okay. So this wasn't... this first game that was produced there wouldn't have been one of those Porsche games.
    77:14
    I wouldn't be able to tell. I'd probably have to check. I mean, it seems odd to me to ship it like that to a trade show, but then again, you don't know. Well, if they'd been setting up the place for a year, then... No, they didn't build those Porsche games a year ago. so they must have built them in Taiwan yes so it kind of makes sense that they must have shipped them from Taiwan so maybe this is one of those I was zooming in on the picture that was on the Facebook page for Homepin trying to work out what it was that was in the game it's in Chinese but it's all wrapped up as well but it did seem to say at the top of the shipping label like a model number and it looked to me like it said P7 but it could have been P1 or it could have been something else entirely which could have been Porsche one of the Porsche models I don't know it could have been Bundaberg could have been yeah it could have been but I don't know we don't know but we might find out eventually maybe we get Mike on and ask him yeah well it would be fun to have Mike on it's always a good laugh with him absolutely so anyway I think that's all the news from Homepin, unless you have anything else? No, I think that's it, yes. Okay, well, moving on then, let's come, I was going to say, come back to Europe, but in a way it's also in the US, because we're now going to look at Pinball Brothers, and the Alien game that they're remaking in a new updated version, with some changes to the playfield, and the back box as well, and the cabinet, and it's being made by Pedretti in Italy and the first model from Pedretti has been sent over to Cointaker in the US for them to basically give their opinion on it and make any suggestions for changes that need to be made to it before it goes into mass production.
    79:19
    Now the super awesome pinball show did a six minute video from Cointaker showing the prototype game and pointing out the differences from the original, as well as showing a little bit of the gameplay. Not a huge amount. It was not that clear as to exactly what the gameplay differences are. But it seemed to play well, as you would hope.
    79:45
    The cabinet does look a lot more, shall we say, conventional and plain than the Highway Pinball version. But the Highway Pinball version was radically different in the way that it had the sort of modular look. Yeah, the slot-in illuminated side panels, the button boxes, the back box was a completely different shape. Yeah, everything to make it look less attractive. Yeah. Well, it's familiar, anyway.
    80:16
    And now it looks a lot more like a standard game. So, yeah, it's a wide body, that being said. But the lights on it look very nice. It's obviously got a smaller display than the previous games, and I think that may be probably the only negative about the game, because the rest of it seems to work very well, and hopefully it's going to be reliable, more reliable than that. I was going to say, first-time pinball manufacturer, where you want to... You're not jumping to conclusions after two minutes of gameplay or something? No, absolutely not. But they know, they've got the experience of what failed on the previous version of it and where the weak points were, and you would hope that they would have addressed those now.
    81:09
    But that's up for Cointaker to basically hammer the game and pass their recommendations back to Pinball Brothers to make any adjustments that need to be done before we start shipping. Shall we see if we can get a feedback from Cointech of what they think of the game and not what they say because they have to sell them but what they actually think of it. Which could still be good. Don't get me wrong, but, you know.
    81:38
    Yeah, I mean, I'm guessing that Pinball Brothers are going to act on whatever Cointech tell them. If they say something needs changing, they'll try and change it if they can.
    81:52
    Although Cointake are not the only distributor of Pimple Brothers games. It makes me wonder whether there are distributors in Europe that actually get a game on a test, so to speak, to give it a couple of plays and see what they think about it. Well, I did see a post in the UK from Pinball Bazaar, who are the distributors for Pinball Brothers' Alien game in the UK, and they said that they were expecting to get a game very, very shortly.
    82:24
    So, yeah, maybe they're... When are you coming over? Well, I'm not allowed at the moment, unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions, but hopefully that won't be too much longer. No, no, maybe at a show that's coming up in a couple of months' time, we might see that game. I think we're taking, one of the people going there is taking an original Alien as well. So it would be interesting if they could put the original and the new version side by side, and then the people can do the comparison themselves. Right. Okay. Well, let's see how that goes. Hmm. Okay, so I think that's all the news from Pimble Brothers. I haven't got anything else from them.
    83:08
    Okay, so we move on. Well, we've got some news from American Pinball as well this month. They've been working with the IFPA to collect some game audit information because obviously there's quite a few owners of their Houdini, Oktoberfest and Hot Wheels machines out there, and American Pinball would like to know how those games are performing and what shots and modes and features people are able to activate or not able to activate in order to improve their future games. And they teamed up with the IFPA in order to get that kind of information. I don't quite know whether there's anything further into that, whether that's going to lead to some collaboration between the two on competitive pinball. But if you have one of the Oktoberfest, Houdini or Hot Wheels games, and would like to help the companies and IFPA out, then you can submit your audit information to ifpa at gmail.com. You just need to go into the menus, plug a USB stick in, it will then download the information onto that, and you can email it to the IFPA, and they will pass it on to American Pinball. I'm just curious how much how interesting that data is because I suppose most of the collectors or home users that bought a Houdini are probably people that have a bunch of games and if it's not your favorite game then you maybe turn it on once every six months so there's not going to be that much data to share Well, maybe, but it'll show what people are able to start. If they only play 20 games on it, then you can see what was achieved in those 20 games.
    85:08
    Hopefully, if they've got someone who's played 200 games, they can see whether they're still getting the same features started all the time and a whole bunch of features never get completed or activated, in which case they can put that towards future software and hardware development. you know, sort of shots that are so tight that it's virtually pointless having them because nobody ever makes them, then that should help with the development.
    85:38
    Right. So any new hires? No, actually, no. Usually we did have a whole string of new appointments there, but no, we haven't had that. what we have got is we've got some new playfield prints of the Houdini playfield they are we were talking about prints earlier and these are also the premium luster photo paper prints they are 18 inches by 24 inches it's the artwork from Jeff Bush and American people say it will make a wonderful decoration for your game room or living space. So, 24 inches, 2 foot, you know, about 65 centimetres. And the cost is $35 for that, if you would like one of those. Then go to the American Pinball website and you can order them there. Right. So, it's not all... Not real size. No, it's a reduced size version, so much more amenable to putting in a frame I thought than an actual playfield shape one Are these being sold by American Pimble? They are, they're being sold by American Pimble Other media that they produce as well they've got seven tutorial videos which you can find on their Facebook page which teach you how to play Hot Wheels and some of the more detailed rules of the game, how to start Multiball, how to start various features. So, well produced, and they're probably on other places as well. They're probably on Instagram and maybe on YouTube, but certainly on the American Pinball Facebook page, that's where I was watching them, and yes, they go there, and just click on the videos tab at the top, and you'll see all seven of them ready to stream.
    87:38
    Okay. I still have to play Hot Wheels, so for now it's no use for me to look them up but as soon as I get the chance to play Hot Wheels I will yeah and you can prime yourself on what to shoot for before you actually get on the game which is very useful well a little bit of news coming from Scott Nisi ah yes he was recently as in last week interviewed on the Flippin' and Mashing podcast which was almost a two hour long interview and trust me with all the respect it was rather I was really waiting to like when does it become interesting and that was right at the end so thank you for wasting two hours I mean they talked about his car and stuff like that so But then finally the question came... For those who are not familiar.
    88:40
    Right. And then finally the question came, what Scott has been working on, on what he could disclose. And two interesting things to take away from that. Scott mentioned that he has not been working on a pinball design since Rick and Morty. and that he has been working on the sound package for the next Multimorphic P3 release. So the next big game that Multimorphic is going to release will have a soundtrack by Scott D'Anesi. Right, okay. And that could be very interesting because the soundtrack for TNA very much synthesized and stuff like that, but that could indicate that Multimorphic might have another winner on their hand.
    89:38
    Yes, it's also interesting that they're working on a new game for the platform. I wonder if it's going to involve a new playfield module as well, but also, as you said, equally telling that he doesn't appear to be working on a spooky game at the moment. Well, on any game, basically. He didn't say anything about Spooky or whatever. He said he hasn't been working on a pinball design. Right. Well, one would have assumed, up until now, that if he was working on a game, it would have been for Spooky, but we know that's not necessarily the case.
    90:12
    Right. So, well, it remains to be seen. I think Spooky already indicated that their next title, isn't it going to be an Eric Preef? Yeah. nuclear game? Yeah, I think so. So there's no rush for Scott to get into a game. No, or anyone else. No. Right. And of course they're doing that collaboration with Chicago Gaming with the Ben Heck game. Yeah, which according to Ben Heck is still going to take a while.
    90:50
    He's still working on it. I think he mentioned on his socials that he's working with the same mechanical engineer that works on Champion's Pub. Oh, right, okay.
    91:05
    And I forgot to look up who it is. Okay, I'm sure we can manage to do that, or people can do it for themselves, if they so desire. But that particular game was full of interesting mechs, not all of which necessarily work quite as well as you'd hope the skip rope thing in particular seemed to be a little bit problematic shall we say, because the ball kept falling off that one but apparently, from what I understand according to previous comments by Ben Heck his game has at least two other titles in front of it yes, I think that's right, yeah Yeah, so, and, well, while we're speaking on the topic of Chicago Gaming, that's most likely the next long-awaited remake title. Yeah, long-awaited to be... Cactus Canyon. But no confirmation of that. It's just been rumoured. And not confirmed by Chicago Gaming, But I think Dennis Nordman mentioned when he was promoting being hired by American Pinball that he still has a game in the works for Chicago Gaming as well, which he's allowed to finish. That's right, yeah. So it's most likely that Dennis' game is prior to Ben Hex as well, which makes it very unlikely that the Ben Hex spooky game will come out anywhere this year. Yeah, maybe not even next year.
    92:48
    Well, I don't know. I don't know the planned schedule for Chicago Games. Well, if they have a remake, I mean, it's a shame that they stick to having a single production line and don't expand that manufacturing capability, but if they're doing a remake game, that's normally going to take at least six months, if not take up an entire year, and then if Genesis Games is after that, you imagine that's going to take at least six months, if not a year. So between them, that could easily take you into 2022.
    93:20
    Right. Okay. Well, we'll just have to wait and see. Chicago Gaming is very good at sort of staying under the news radar. Yeah. And then, well, I suppose with the new remake, it's like similar to when they did Monster Bash. They didn't want to say anything until they were completely ready to show the product, and then they amazed everybody. Yes. Again, they would do the same thing that they did before and bring out a super LE or a limited edition or a royal version or whatever with some extra bells and whistles, which they've been working on improving the top or the playfield lighting or the display or who knows. Right, so officially no news from Chicago Gaming, but we are very positive they are working on lots of cool stuff. And they will show that to us whenever they are ready, I suppose.
    94:29
    Yeah, indeed. So talking of cool stuff, it's good news. We mentioned Spooky Pinball earlier. It's exciting news in one of our headlines That they are so successful They are expanding their business premises Again? Yeah, exactly Fifth time, they said In a Facebook post They showed a picture of a digger Preparing the ground next to their existing building And saying, here we go again I think they moved already twice, didn't they? They started out working from home and then they had another location and now they're at the current location and they're expanding. They expanded last year and now they're expanding again. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously all good news for them as far as the business goes. Their goal is to increase quality, make more games and get them to you quicker. So, getting more manufacturing capability, which is something they obviously they don't particularly want to be tied up doing one title for well over a year. despite the fact it might be a very successful one it's not great for the buyers who have to wait 12 months, 18 months for their purchase so expanding means they can hire more people to build games and ship games quicker yeah so seems like a win-win really right so congratulations to Spooky we look forward to seeing their place who knows if we get over there in October into November, we might be able to call in on the way and say hello to the team there. Well, speaking of calling in, guess who's calling? Ah, real one? Yes, exactly. Are we sure? Yes. It clearly says Gary Flower calling. Right, let's see if it is.
    96:29
    Okay. Hey, Gary. Hi, Gary. Hey guys, it's Gary Flower, April Fool! Hey, what? Oh, well, short and sweet, I suppose. Yeah, thanks for getting him on the show. Yeah, kind of. Well, yeah.
    96:50
    I'm sure he has got a lot of information to tell us, but not yet. So, yeah, April Fool on us for expecting more, I suppose.
    97:01
    Oh, well, I guess he's entitled to do that. Yeah. I mean... Next time, eh? We make a search of the effort to get more information out of him as well I suppose we have a little fun at his expense occasionally Yeah Oh well it all spent Thank you for calling in Thank you for, yeah, that. Yes. Right. Okay, so, moving down the list of manufacturers with or without any news,
    97:35
    Pimple Adventures. Yeah. No news at the moment. They say they're going to have some news soon, but they're just getting on with their Punny Factory game, as far as I know. I haven't got any updates from them, and I don't know if they haven't published anything.
    97:56
    I forgot to check whether there are any new videos, also because I really don't want to watch them. Yeah, okay. Well, when there is some more obvious news, we'll bring that to you. But another company where I haven't been able to find out any news is Haggett Spinball and their Celtic game. Yeah, it's been awfully quiet there. Yeah, been looking out, been checking all the social media feeds, nothing yet, no more videos. So I guess they're just heads down getting the games built.
    98:31
    Let's hope that's the plan anyway. Let's hope that's the plan and then we'll see how that goes. Well, I hope they go a little better than Suncoast Pinball, who were kind of in the news this month because there was an interesting post on Pinside from Jimmy Lippam, who is obviously working with Multimorphic a lot on their games. And he was involved in helping somebody get a Cosmic Carnival game up and running, which was having problems. But in part of that, he gave sort of interesting background on his involvement in helping Suncoast Pinball with the programming on Cosmic Carnival and some of the events that went on in the background at the company as they were trying to get the game ready for shows and get it into production. That's a good tell. Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's his story to tell, not mine. So he does say there's an awful lot more that he could tell. so maybe in a future show or something, he might be tempted to tell the background story of the Cosmic Carnival game. Bring out the leaker. Yeah, exactly. Get in the bar after the show's closed. I'm sure there'll be a lot more to say. But he does say quite a bit about the challenges that he had. So if you want to read more about that, go to Pinside and have a look in the Suncoast Pinballs thread there, because I think it's the most recent post about Cosmic Carnival, so it should be fairly clear. And it's probably almost the last post in that rather long thread.
    100:09
    So, yeah. Well, it depends, of course, how many people responded since then. Well, yes. I mean, but it's probably on the last page for a while anyway. I'm not going to read out the entire URL because it would be boring as anything. But the post is anything but. So head on over if you want to have a little bit of background about Suncoast Pinball.
    100:30
    Who are still, Suncoast Pinball and Arcade are still in business, of course, because the pinball side went into, both businesses went into Chapter 11 to reorganise in order to make a viable business which involved closing down the pinball side. But the arcade side, which does virtual pinball as well as arcade games, That's still manufacturing away and producing plenty of new games. So I think they did what they needed to do in order to keep the whole business going. But sadly involved ditching the pinball side for now.
    101:06
    Right. Okay. So I think we finished all the manufacturers, but there's also other news. Yeah, quite a bit. Last month we mentioned about the Pinball Hall of Fame. and the fact that they had received an anonymous donation which had made them reach their target to open the new premises to pay the contractors to get the building completed. Well, there has been some new updates from Tim, Tim Arnold, who runs, well, is head of the place, I suppose, although it's strictly owned by the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club. but Tim is the face and really the main man behind it all and in the videos he's been showing us around the new building their electrical system their maintenance areas and of course the gaming area as well where they're setting up the machines which they've either brought over from the existing Hall of Fame or taken from Tim's big hit shed where he stores hundreds of excess games. Now, in the most recent update, he said they were still waiting for their occupancy license so they can actually open. I don't know exactly when it's going to be granted. But when they do, they will be having a party for all those people who donated towards the fundraiser that was on, was it GoFundMe or Kickstarter? I can't remember which one it was. GoFundMe. GoFundMe, yeah. It makes sense. And that Kickstarter, that GoFundMe is over $170,000 by now. And that's before the extra $70,000 was added, or rather the anonymous $79,000. Yeah, so they're doing very well. And, yeah, I can afford to have a good party.
    103:00
    Oh, yeah, definitely. So I'm looking forward to going there. I did see the video. I didn't pay that much attention to what Tim was saying, but I did see that games were being set up, and so I'm happy to see that progress is being made. Obviously, it comes now down to basically inspectors and regulations and whether everything like that is all in order. It's funny, I recall going to the Pinball Hall of Fame a couple of years ago, talking to Tim, where he was explaining to me how much the sprinkler system was costing, and I had a sort of deja vu watching this video where he started discussing how expensive the sprinkler system was that they just installed.
    103:53
    So, yeah, for all your sprinkler related questions, I redirect you to Tim Arnold. Truly good. Well, hopefully it's one of those things that will never be needed because if it ever is it'll be causing a lot of damage to a lot of pimple machines but it does have a very impressive electrical system out the back, I was always paying attention to that and all kinds of backup systems as well in case there's a power failure and they have to do emergency lighting and all that kind of stuff which takes up a huge rack of batteries in order to power everything, or power the lighting anyway so you can see when the money's gone basically, if you look round the back or look at when Tim shows you round the back there's some seriously serious equipment there in order to power all those games right if you have to power 700 games every day for I think it's like at least 12 hours if not longer Yeah. You have to wonder what the power drain would be if everybody on every machine all flipped at exactly the same time. Both flippers.
    105:09
    Yeah, you might not get the ball up. So make sure you don't blow the fuse. That's what I want for the whole building.
    105:17
    But anyway, other news. Yes. Yeah, so those of you who remember the games such as Big Bang Bar, Oh, I do remember. I have one. Yes, I thought you might remember that. Well, the artist on that, Stan Foucault, he has brought out some new artwork pieces. Yeah, limited edition prints. Yeah, related to Big Bang Bar. And he's... I'm looking at them right now. He is selling them on the web, hopefully, not in person. No, he has a webshop on stanfoucault.com. Right, okay. two prints, Big Bang Bar Redux and Happy Hour each selling for $45 ok and they are actual prints are they, they are not decals or anything, they are it says limited edition prints so and I think I have seen them on various expos before where it was also some other similar prints So usually those prints, I recall, are printed on very thick quality paper and vibrant in colors.
    106:38
    Lovely. So I'm looking at the Big Ben Bar Redux print, which is sort of a bar type of scenery. Yeah. well, I suppose everybody has their own take on art presumably it would go well with a Big Bang Bar machine actually, in this case I would probably say it doesn't and the reason for saying that is that the artwork on Big Bang Bar is very stunning because it's line art with very vibrant green and purple colors.
    107:22
    And this print is, in fact, a four-color print. So, basically, you have all the colors available. And it sort of doesn't come... The colors are more muted, are they? It appears to be a cohesive package, so to speak. seems to be like a collage of various aliens in a bar scenery, but it's not a cohesive package to me. The Happy Hour print, on the other hand, is Ray the Bartender.
    107:57
    That looks very nice print. Okay. But everybody has their own taste when it comes to graphic art, So take a look on sanfukowalker.com and see if you're interested in buying any of these prints. And he has other prints for sale as well. He does, indeed. The two kingpin and... He also has an Addams Family, almost like an alternate translight. Yes. We wanted that as well. which is more based on Uncle Fester, I think, rather than Morticia.
    108:40
    Well, anyway, if you get the idea, if you have a look at the Stanfugoka.com website, you can see lots of different art pieces. Right. and well sad news from Christian I forgot his last name Chris Franchi yes that's it thank you they stopped producing the super awesome pinball podcast show actually it was which is a pity because it was a great podcast and I really enjoyed listening to it and I take my hat off to Chris Franchi for all the editing that he did.
    109:21
    Yeah, it must have taken ages to do it. Yeah, you couldn't find anybody saying, like I do, way too often, and I'm trying to reduce it. But no, too bad.
    109:36
    Well, hopefully there will be some occasional episodes still coming up. Yeah. But thank you for the 25 episodes that have been produced so far. Yeah, the last one featured an interview with Roger Sharp, someone you are more than familiar with, of course. Yes, and it was actually very nice to hear Roger actually mention Pinball Magazine as one of the top publications when it comes to pinball books and archiving pinball history. Quite right, too. Okay, talking of archiving and pinball history, the Museum of Pinball, based out in California, at Banning, they have announced that they are doing a Museum of Pinball Experience, which is basically they're opening up their pinball collection of over 500 machines to a limited audience, 25% capacity, and it's a special one-off event on April 24th between 10am and 10pm and they say it's a limited play on over 500 machines as I say, limited 25% capacity but there's an entry fee of $150 per adult $85 per child face coverings will be required gloves are encouraged hand sanitizers are available the arcade and video game side won't be open, it's just the pinball experience no refunds, all sales final, so that is April 24th, so if you want to have some kind of celebration and head over to Banning then they will be open for 12 hours on April 24th for the Museum of Pinball Experience ok, well I'd really love to go but I'm afraid that we still can't fly to the US sadly not no at least not yet probably won't be able to fly the 24th of the month either and actually that's my holiday weekend or my birthday weekend and my girlfriend is she basically told me like block your agenda for four days oh perhaps she's taking you over to the Banning the Museum of Pinball yeah I highly doubt that but I'm sure she's taking me somewhere yes indeed well we look forward to hearing all about that next month well not all about it but some about it at least right so I just realised we forgot to discuss one manufacturer of which there is a little bit of news yes your local one I guess yes Dutch Pinball indeed go on then what do you know well last month Rens who is sort of their spokesperson announced that there would be a code update coming out for the Big Lebowski this month or sorry last month actually it has been slightly delayed but I was talking to Barry the owner of the company today and he said like he expects it's going to be released within the next two weeks or so. He's trying to tie it in with a newsletter, announcing it and discussing it and so on. And if he, for some reason, can't tie it in with the newsletter, then it will just be released and it will be a post on Facebook and what have you, and then you can download it somewhere. Have you got any idea what that code update includes? Yes. Oh. Are you allowed to tell us?
    113:36
    A couple of additions to certain modes, the extra ball will finally be available. Right. Apparently it was not possible to get an extra ball in the game, but now you can.
    113:55
    And they're basically gradually working towards a 1.0 version. and what Barry basically told me is basically it's almost 1.0 but the only thing currently missing is the wizard mode as soon as the wizard mode is in they're going to call it 1.0 and then there still will be tweaks and bug fixes if necessary but as soon as the wizard mode is in then it will be 1.0 and I've seen I didn't make a list of all the things that were improved it also includes some new diagnostics and what have you but the owners of the game will be very happy with that update, it looked very promising great, good news yes and in the meantime Barry himself has been full time on I would say parts scouting.
    115:09
    Right. Due to the coronavirus, there's a shortage of all sorts of parts because suppliers can't get certain parts and the Suez Canal was blocked, which also didn't help because I think Barry had an order for pinball legs coming in, which was blocked, and it was... so that's going to be a delay of like three weeks, although the blockade wasn't... was only a couple of days, but apparently it takes... the delays pile up immediately. I have no idea how it works. But, no, there have been some supply chain issues, which means that they have been building Big Lebowski games, but they can't finish them, because they are waiting for certain parts, and as soon as those come in, they can finish the game. So, there are new facilities slowly piling up on games that are still waiting for a couple of missing elements. and once they arrive, then they can start chipping out games again. Right, good. That's about the update, the news from Dutch Pinball. Okay. But there's still a lot of kicking and... Oh, yeah, and producing games and fulfilling those early achievers as well. Yes. Slowly working their way through them. That's a delayed success story. Right, okay. So, any other news? Well, I think we had contact from Tilt Amusements.
    116:59
    Right. And there's some news over there. Yeah, that's true. Troy Smith is the new Director of Sales and Marketing of Tilt Amusements. Yes, I had a little chat with Trent, and he says they're expanding more into operating games now, working with a chain of arcades across the U.S. and supplying games and servicing them. So there's a lot more than just selling games now. So they've teamed up with Troy, and now Troy's in charge of sales and marketing of new games. Congratulations to both. Yeah, absolutely. Another win-win, hopefully. Yeah, and especially in these COVID times, I'm very surprised to see Trend expanding into Bar case Yeah, well I guess there's a lot of pent up demand I mean not everywhere in the US Is closed or Shut down in the same way that is In a lot of Europe And other parts of the US So there's still machines wanted And in fact we've seen Some new locations opening up Fairly recently across the US Some very large ones in fact and once the vaccinations start to get spread out to everyone, then I'm sure it'll all open up and people will, there's a huge pent-up demand really, basically, to get out and play location pinball and drink location drinks. So, a good time to be doing it. Right. Okay.
    118:37
    So, in your notes I noticed you had a summary of the outcome of the Twippy Awards. Are we going to discuss that? I think so. We mentioned it with Jack how Guns N' Roses did so well at the Twippies.
    118:55
    Those of you who didn't catch it or missed out on the list of awards you can go to twippies.com where you can find all the details there.
    119:07
    I think it was a very successful award ceremony. Obviously, the big winner was Guns N' Roses for Jersey Jack Pinball, but there was some love given to games like Avengers and also Rick and Morty. So that did well. They both picked up awards as well.
    119:32
    I don't know what else to say, really. Well, it was kind of surprising to me to see that the awards were basically shared. I think it was like three companies splitting the awards, Stern, JJP and Spooky I don't think Chicago Gaming or American Pinball were nominated or I think American Pinball was mentioned Hot Wheels was there yeah but yeah no awards for them
    120:09
    You probably can wonder whether Chicago Gaming had a new game coming out last year. They were still making Monster Bash, which is seen as a 2019 game.
    120:26
    Which is fair enough, I think. So I did, based on the percentages and the number of votes such percentage equaled, equal, I did a quick math and it appears like close to or over 4,400 people put in their votes, which is quite good I would say yes, I'll be about right just looking at the percentages here, yes, it is best light show, Guns and Roses not really surprised there 42% there in over 2,000 boats. So, yes. Yeah. I agree. I agree with your maths.
    121:13
    Well, thank you. Although some categories were more diverse, shall we say. The boats were spread out more across multiple different... Some surprising winners as well. Yeah. In certain categories. Yeah. But it was good to see that the Virtual Pinball Expo, which we were both part of and reported on with Rob Burke and Dave Fix that was supposedly the best virtual pinball event unsurprisingly I think they put a huge amount of effort into that and justified in winning that one but we won't go through them all because there are quite a lot of them go to trippysub.com and see for yourself who won what absolutely and congratulations to everyone involved in the organisation of that It was a lot of effort, a lot of production effort going into that. And, again, like the Stern Invitational that we were talking about before, a very polished and professional-looking production. So congratulations. And if you're a fan of cameos of people that once, sometime in their lifetime, contributed to a pinball machine or to a theme that was used on a pinball machine, then certainly check it out because there's all sort of cameos from actors from movies or TV shows or what have you announcing categories and the winners.
    122:44
    Okay. Must have been a lot of work to get all those people to collaborate. I'm sure. And contribute.
    122:52
    I suppose that rounds it up for March 2021. I think it does, yeah. I think we covered all the key events in the pinball world, if not the rest of the world in this special March pin cast and well we're looking forward to an exciting month of April as in last year we're not doing what we would normally be doing this time of year no pinball shows still although there is a pinball show happening in Ohio there is indeed, yeah, Pin Brewfest which I'm surprised because I kept expecting that to be cancelled or postponed until later in the year but no, it seems to be going ahead in April as you say so not sure how that's going to pan out when you have a bunch of people with their hands on pinballs and drinking lots of beer but I guess we'll find out but in normal times it would have been a show I'd love to visit but yeah, sadly not allowed to I think it's a new show it's the first time they've held it At least it's a new name I'm not sure who's organising it So it could be a well-known organiser Well, I know One of the organisers used to work with Mike Pacek on the Ohio Pinball Show But then split away To set up this new one With a different partner So I think it's got a lot of Show organising experience Behind it And, you know, to me A combination of beer craft beer and pinball show, well, it's perfect. So hopefully next year we'll be in a position to go over there and experience it for myself. Oh, I was expecting you to say to get drunk.
    124:44
    I don't need to go that far for that. Well, it seems like a good way for you to celebrate your birthday as well. Yeah. So, anyway. So that wraps it up for like I said, March 2021.
    125:02
    Hopefully, we'll be back next month with our recap of April 2021. I think you can count on it. We don't know what's going to happen, but it makes it all the more exciting. Will there be new game launches? Will there be new product launches? Will there be... Will Razza have any more news? I don't think so. Or Deep Root. Oh, we forgot to talk about Deep Root. Oh, what? yeah do we did mention the ip root ah right ok it was a headline that's right because it was late breaking news in fact that's the reason it's not in the notes it's so late that it came in after the notes yes yeah so but we're still recording so we saved the bet for last or well maybe not but as the headline said Rasa delayed again Yeah, no great surprise there. I think anybody was expecting it to be going to production just yet, and indeed it hasn't. It's still in the testing phase, and there still seem to be problems in sourcing some of the parts from the vendors who manufacture them.
    126:13
    Or think they can. Well, yeah, or intend to, or manufacture something. Now, they said that they're not going to do monthly updates, and now they're not going to do... Another update for the next six weeks. Yeah. We can already tell you no news from Deeper Pinball next month. Yeah. Unless something funny happens. Mid-May, they say, that's the plan for the next update. So, yeah, I don't think we're going to be seeing it. Interesting idea that they're kind of looking to address the ongoing delay in the delivery, which was originally slated to be six weeks from the close of orders. But they're now suggesting that they might be able to give some kind of cash back in terms of store credit for people to spend on things in the Deep Roots store whenever that launches and whatever's available there, or to allow people to basically back out of their orders or back out of their deposits or full payments. If the ongoing delay is too much, originally it was non-refundable deposits or down payment or full payments. Now they're not able to deliver the game in the originally intended timescale. They're looking at making that refundable rather than non-refundable. But no news of that yet, just ideas at this stage. So instead of six weeks It turns out to be six months Is that a typo? Well, it was probably an internal Timeline that wasn't intended To be made public Hmm So, we'll see But in the meantime, I'm sure they're doing all they can To move The game along And hope that they get their stuff together And the parking And the games built Because we really want to see what they can do Well, we are seeing, you know, and Jack alluded to this as well when he was on, that the pandemic and various other global issues, including the things like the canal blockage, have resulted in delays to parts being available and fulfilment of them. And it's affecting everyone.
    128:32
    It's just that it's affecting a startup more than a company with an ongoing production schedule. and we will already have lots of parts in stock.
    128:45
    So, yeah, it's a problem and I'm sure we'll see it impacting lots of production, but it's hitting deep root badly at the moment anyway. So, as you say, no more news expected in the April recap, but hopefully in our pincast covering May, we'll have some good news to bring you.
    129:11
    Hopefully, yes. Okay, then let's wrap it up. Again, my name is Jonathan Houston from Pinball Magazine.
    129:22
    And I'm Marcel Mayer from Pinball News, I think. Yes, it's been a long time. We thank you for your attention and we hope you'll be back next month. Okay, until then, have fun. Okay, thanks. Bye-bye.
    129:41
    Thank you.