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Episode 216 - DPX PX Px px

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 7m·analyzed·Mar 31, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Post-TPF recovery, game count analysis, and barbecue sauce debate.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss post-TPF illness and recovery, listener emails about TPF attendance and game counts, and a disagreement about Kansas City barbecue sauce styles. They address claims that TPF 2024 had fewer games than 2023 despite organizers claiming 500+ total games, analyze vendor distribution changes, and recommend barbecue sauces to a New England listener who found Gates sauce too taco-seasoning-like.

Key Claims

  • TPF 2024 had 159 fewer machines versus 2023, a 66% drop in exhibitor-provided games

    high confidence · Chris C. email with Wayback Machine data showing vendor games consistent at 140-142 across years, but total exhibitor games dropped significantly

  • TPF organizers claimed over 500 games were present in 2024

    high confidence · Chris C. reported receiving official TPF email claiming '500 games,' approximately 2X the number in 2023

  • Moving TPF to coincide with spring break may have impacted attendance negatively

    medium confidence · David P. email noting 2024 TPF moved to last weekend of Dallas-Fort Worth spring break, affecting families and workers

  • Gates Original barbecue sauce is ketchup-based, not vinegar-based like traditional East Coast sauce

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discussion comparing Kansas City tomato-based vs. East Coast vinegar-based sauce styles

  • There were fewer broken-down games at TPF 2024 compared to prior years

    medium confidence · Dennis observation that very few games were turned off and only a couple were unplayable due to technical issues

Notable Quotes

  • “Quit trying to make Expo a thing. All right? It's dead. It's done. We're done with it.”

    Dennis @ mid-episode — Strong dismissal of Expo venue despite listener feedback that recent improvements have made it better; illustrates Dennis's frustration with the location and logistics

  • “This shark, I got to be honest. This is the most 3D printed shark to ever 3D print a 3D print. I mean, the edges on that shark are rough.”

    Tony @ early segment — Humorous critique of listener's 3D-printed Jaws replica for Godzilla machine; references Jaws 3D quality comparison

  • “If your favorite barbecue sauce is Sweet Baby Ray's, you're wrong. It is not. You just haven't had any actual barbecue sauce.”

    Dennis @ barbecue segment — Strong opinion on mass-market barbecue sauce quality; sets up regional sauce preference discussion

  • “We've become the Ron Hallett juniors of pinball... we've been at the hobby long enough that there are very few games other than the new things that we have never played before”

    Dennis @ TPF discussion — Self-aware observation about their veteran status in the pinball community and how it shapes their TPF experience

  • “Did it feel that there were more games, especially like two times the number that there were last year? No. Yeah. And there's no way.”

    Dennis and Tony @ TPF analysis — Direct contradiction of organizers' claimed 500-game count; hosts felt fewer games despite official messaging

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonDavid P.personChris C.personDoug M.personTexas Pinball Festival (TPF)eventPinball ExpoeventGodzillagame

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: TPF spring break scheduling change impacting attendance; moved to coincide with Dallas-Fort Worth school spring break week

    medium · David P. noted 2024 TPF moved to last weekend of spring break, making it difficult for workers and families to attend; affected his ability to get time off work

  • ?

    event_signal: TPF 2024 game count discrepancy: organizers claimed 500+ games but listener data analysis and host observations suggest actual decline in total machines despite consistent vendor counts

    high · Chris C. provided Wayback Machine data showing 140-142 vendor games across years but 159-game drop in exhibitor games (66% decline). Dennis and Tony both stated it felt like fewer games despite official 500+ claim.

  • $

    market_signal: TPF organizers' claim of 500+ games may constitute misleading marketing if count includes arcade/non-pinball machines or inflates actual playable pinball availability

    medium · Official TPF email claimed 500 games (2X prior year), but listener data analysis and host observations contradict significant growth narrative

  • ?

    product_concern: Improved game maintenance and functionality at TPF 2024; fewer broken/non-functional machines compared to prior years

    medium · Dennis observed 'very few games that were turned off' and 'only a couple of games where I wasn't able to play because something was wrong,' suggesting improvement in show logistics

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Dennis maintains strong negative sentiment toward Pinball Expo as venue despite recent improvements reported by listeners

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.201

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, March 31st. This is episode 216. My name's Tony. I'm Dennis. We just missed that April 1st record date. We have had so many plans, so many dreams. One of these days it will happen.
0:36
It will be wonderful. Yeah, it will be just amazing. Someday. So, all right, we're back from TPF. We did our TPF episode just before we left Texas. So the big important post-TPF question, how was the con crud? Not too bad, though. I definitely started to feel under the weather when we were driving back. So I could feel one side of my throat was getting irritated. And I thought, well, you know, it could be from the dry air in the hotel. It could be allergies. It could be some sort of illness. I think it was probably a cold or some sort of con crud. COVID tests were negative. And it never, like, there was no fever. There was no sneezing. There was no real coughing. It was just this sinus drainage for a week or three or four days. The next day, Monday, I took that day off as well. That was the worst day. And then after that, I got some throat lozenges and some Dayquil, which didn't do anything. And then Nyquil, which gives me weird dreams and stuff with Nyquil. I don't like taking Nyquil. It makes me feel weird even after it. It's like that Willy Wonka sequence where you're running through the tunnel. I can't usually remember what they are until a few minutes later I lose it. I know I didn't have any like night terrors this time, but I don't like dark, like just like horrific things. I would. But so absurd that I would wake up and I'd go.
2:02
That was strangely horrific. And then I fall back asleep. So I don't know. So I have really scary. Yeah, but but it's more like because of how it makes me feel like I get in that weird state where I'm not exactly sure if I'm asleep or almost asleep or what. It's hard to explain. And the next day, my brain feels fuzzy anyway. Like everything just feels off for about 12 hours after taking it. So I don't like taking it, but it works better for falling asleep with a cold than DayQuil does. Because there's one more chemical in there.
Jaws
game
Joelperson
Ron Hallettperson
Gates Barbecuecompany
Jack Stack Barbecuecompany
K&M Barbecuecompany
Zachperson

high · Dennis explicitly stated 'Quit trying to make Expo a thing... It's dead. It's done.' despite acknowledging fixes to broken games and seminar fees

  • ?

    venue_signal: TPF 2024 redesigned booth layout and game distribution across multiple spaces rather than single ballroom

    medium · Dennis noted fewer small vendor booths, more organized navigation, games spread to multiple rooms including arcade area outside main space, reducing congestion

    • 2:42
    And it works better for me than the daytime stuff, which I couldn't feel any effect with the daytime stuff, other than I suppose the acetaminophen in it. But it isn't. Anyway. I don't know. That's amazing. I mean, my wife and oldest daughter are similar, where the NyQuil is like, it's like the old joke about it, putting them in a coma. They'll just sleep forever on that stuff.
    3:05
    Doesn't affect me at all. I mean, I have no issues with it. I don't have any problem waking up or anything when I'm on it. It's just, I don't know. I feel disconcerted is the best way I can describe it. It's just off. Not like a propofol or anything. Not like that. Just off.
    3:25
    I don't know why. Well, I managed to completely dodge the crime. I felt fine the next day. And then I threw my back out. Uh-oh. Oh, no. The next week and a half, moving like I was 85 years old. That's me, 84 years. It got to the point where I was like, I don't really need to take my work computer home today. I'm just going to leave it at work. And that way I don't have to carry my really giant heavy laptop back and forth because my back hurts so bad. Wow. And I, oh, it was, I mean, even today I'm still sore. It's not as bad. I don't need it. I'm not, I'm not at the point where I'm having to take stuff to keep going through the day. I am very glad it happened after TPF because the first couple or three days after it happened, it was like, oh, you walked like 75 feet. You need to either sit down or the pain is just going to keep compounding for a while. That would have been a problem.
    4:32
    But I was, like I said, I was really honestly surprised I dodged the crud because normally I don't. Normally, I'm much like you. I, at the least, have at least a little something, if not something real bad. But I actually dodged it this year. Yeah, I mean, I did my hand sanitizer and all that. And, again, it wasn't, like, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't very bad. Like, I don't. It was just, it was annoying. It made me sound bad, though. And I was supposed to be on Flippin' Out with friends with Joel, who we saw at TPF, to do a post-TPF YouTube on Wednesday. and I told him like Thursday, like Tuesday, I was like, okay, well, uh, yeah, I should be able to do it. I was having the sinus strange, but that was about it. Wednesday morning. I had no voice. It just, it got better in the, it would have like the vocal fry would have been like, I wasn't going to subject the listeners to it, but like, but I had sound, but in the morning, because actually one of the things I have a habit of doing is when I get up and I'm taking a shower, A lot of times I will sing in the shower. I'll put on the MP3 player and I sing along because I'm the only one here. So no one can hear me sing along. So I don't feel so bad about it. But it's just like, I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo. Sorry, it was Radiohead. I couldn't make the sounds. So I was like, I don't think I can do this today.
    5:56
    I don't belong here. You need to own that. It doesn't matter if people are around. Just sing anyway.
    6:04
    So anyway, sound wasn't coming out. So I was like, okay, I better let Joel know. I waited a couple hours to see if the voice came back because I know it can be a hassle. I thought he might have to email you and ask you to come on, and then you won't answer, and he'll be all upset. And I thought I was trying to avoid it. Yeah. But I also wanted to give him enough time to find someone else. So they did. And I took my night quill and fell asleep when they started. I need to make sure people know it's like, hey, you need to send me like a message not on Discord because I only check Discord like once a day. I went back in because a lot of people are now messaging me on Discord and I've set it. So I don't want Discord to alert me when there are posts. So I let it like put a tag to know which channels and stuff have things when I'm in the app. But I went ahead and set it so if I get a private message, it shows up on my – it doesn't make a sound. It just shows up on the top of my task bar basically on the phone. I should do that. So that's what I do with Messenger. My Messenger doesn't make a sound. So I do have to check the phone. My stuff dings. I have too many people sending me stuff at night, and I don't want to mute it. Oh, yeah. Mine goes to do not disturb mode after like 10 p.m. Oh. My phone does if it's on the charger after 9. I have this – once I got this phone, I started doing that. So – but I set the messenger rules on a prior phone. So I haven't changed it. All right. Well, I haven't played anything. So that's all that's been going on. Oh, yeah. I mean, I have played less video games since we got back from TPF than I was playing like per day before TPF. I've played pretty much nothing. I think I fired up two or three different games like roguelikes and played maybe one round in the whole of anything. That's it. I'm just – I'm not – every time I go to fire something up, I'm just like I'm not actually in the mood to play anything. I've done a couple days in the last week of my Overwatch Battle Pass, like two days ago and two days before that, and that's it. So because getting near the end of the season, I need to get my unlocks. Yeah. I think a lot of it's probably been because of my back. I've been laying down more than anything else. But, but the good news is we do have some stuff to talk about. Now, I don't know yet on the video games. The pinball news is pretty light. Tony video games is not super heavy, but we did get a few listener emails. Awesome. So we're going to actually start because that's how I kind of like how I like to do it, which again, write into us at collectivegamerspodcast.gmail.com. I am more than happy to have shows revolving around answering or responding to things from emails. It's definitely more creative than my usual approach of just gathering up some news items for you all to listen to. So the first one, we'll go ahead and move into the pinball segment here. First one that I wanted to address is we had a couple of emails. We'll start with the first one from David P. He wrote in sent an image which you are able to see in our internal notes tony where he wrote shark may not eat ball on jaws but he does on my godzilla thought you might find this amusing thanks again for the work you do on your podcast david well thank you david for writing in and he has a picture and he has a 3d printed jaws uh with a pinball in its mouth on his coin door in the upper left corner of the coin door on godzilla which you know i actually noticed more the what i can only describe as what appears at a distance to be an adorable mecha godzilla keychain for his coin door on that game yeah it looks like a little like chibi godzilla did you see the chibi godzilla minus one i sent you on instagram i i did okay from the official toho account so they're godzilla Minus One's doing so well, they're using it to promote their other stuff. Cheapy Godzilla.
    10:13
    That reminds me, I saw a whole little meme talking about Godzilla and how back in the Showa, there was like this super dramatic Godzilla. And then there was also the silly fun action Godzilla at the same time. Yes, yes. And now we have the same thing. We have the super dramatic Godzilla because we've got Minus One. And then we've got the happy fun action Godzilla, which is all of the American Godzilla. Yes. And then for those that don't know, like there's other things like there's a Godzilla, like baby gods. God, think Muppet babies with with Kaiju. And it's like it's for really young kids. Like, it's weird. It's all they got a whole. I mean, it's a it's a franchise.
    10:54
    So anyway, I do have to say, though, David, I thank you so much for sitting in the picture. But this shark, I got to be honest. This is the most 3D printed shark to ever 3D print a 3D print. I mean, the edges on that shark are rough.
    11:11
    It needs to be sanded down. You need to smooth that shark out. It reminds me of the shark from Jaws 3D.
    11:19
    Jaws 3D. That's how realistic it looks. So anyway, but it does seem fun. I will say, I'm looking at trying to find a way to rearrange and set stuff up so I can get myself a resin printer. I'm thinking, the problem is just I don't have anywhere to put it and safely vent. Oh, that's the venting that's going to be a big problem. The venting is going to be the big problem with my current setup. I've run into the same thing in my consideration to get into smelting.
    11:53
    Yeah, but you've got a pretty good-sized backyard. You could do outdoor smelting. Yeah, but I would probably burn it. You could melt down pop cans, and you'd get all the aluminum you need, and you could start smelting and making stuff out of just cast aluminum. I've done that. I did that in high school. I did aluminum casting. I didn't know that. Interesting. What did you make with it? A license plate. What, are you in prison? Yes. A license plate. A license plate that I still have. It's out in my garage. and some other little silly stuff that I no longer have. Oh, okay. Interesting. Actually, I had never considered smelting. I just decided to say it because it sounded fun.
    12:33
    Smelting. Speaking of, David P. also sent us a separate email that I wanted to move into next. It's about TPF. So very, very relevant here. He writes, Dennis and Tony, I've started, I don't know why I gave him a different voice this time. I started listening to your post. TPF episode. Haven't finished it yet. I also noticed that attendance seemed lower than last year. I wasn't aware of the blizzards. However, they moved TPF earlier in March this year, such that it was during the last weekend of spring break for most Dallas-Fort Worth schools. I suspect this may have impacted attendance, as long as people may have been out of town on vacation with their families. I'm not a fan of moving it to coincide with spring break because it's very difficult for me to get time off during that week at my job. I was fortunate enough to get the Friday off this year, so it was moot this year, but if they keep it on the spring break week, I may not be as lucky in the future. Thanks again for all your efforts you guys put in your podcast. It is always the first and often the only pinball podcast I listen to. Now, he said DFW, but I've translated that to Dallas, Fort Worth, because I think that's right. I hadn't thought about that, but that's actually a really good point.
    13:50
    I liked it being moved forward because it means I no longer had to tell my wife that I was choosing pinball over her birthday. Over her. It's even worse. That's how it's running. That's how it's in her head. You picked it over my birthday. But what she said between the lines was, you're picking it over me. Yep, that's how it is. Yeah. And for me, I lucked out. This was just a one-time thing, but I'm in a supervisory training thing for my new job. And because of, I assume, spring break, they didn't schedule training on the day. Actually, I wedged it in where it wasn't because it's on Tuesdays. I wedged it in where it wasn't going to impact my travel schedule. But I knew if I had gotten sick, like really sick, Like, it wouldn't have been a problem for me to also end up taking off the next Tuesday, whereas every Tuesday has had training since then. Now, then again, I scheduled a different training on that day anyway. They just had to deal with me eating 35 Hall's drops while I was sitting there learning how to be a defensive driver.
    14:56
    But, yeah, that definitely could have impacted attendance. I don't know because – yeah, I think it would just because a lot of people are probably still out of town, at least on the Friday, Saturday. And then we didn't take stock of the attendees on Sunday, so I don't know how that ended up looking. Saturday felt pretty full to me. Friday just felt light in particular. But there's a whole different configuration thing involved there. And in fact, I want to go ahead and jump to another email because we actually got several emails about TPF in attendance. So the next email, actually, which I think will help feed on the discussion here, came in from Doug M. Excuse me. And actually, let me skip that one. Sorry, Doug. I will come back to you. I promise. I want to go to Chris C. His email is the TPF email. So he wrote in. He actually emailed us twice. Glad you had a great time at TPF, and thanks, as always, for your analysis of both the show and the pins. Sadly, despite living a mere 15 minutes from TPF, I opted to skip this year, primarily because of how packed TPF is, which gets to the point of this email. I have an alternate explanation on why TPF seemed less crowded this year. In short, there were far fewer pins. Why do many folks bring pins to TPF? to get free entry. Fewer pens, fewer people, more space. The new arrangement wasn't to ease congestion. It was to fill space. While sadly no polynomials are involved, here's a link to a spreadsheet with data I culled from the Wayback Machine showing prior year's games list from 2020, 2022 to 2024. 2021 page was oddly hard to find Key call for your Let me put it aside here I think the reason why you struggled with that is there was no 2021 2020 and 2021 were canceled
    16:53
    And bear in mind that the 2020 games did never show up either because that got canceled also. Yeah, that was kind of last-minute cancellation. Right. So that's why you struggled with that. Back to the email, though. Key call-outs for your listeners. The number of vendor-provided games across all years was very consistent at about 140 to 142. There were 159 fewer machines in 2024 versus 2023, a 66% drop. Thus, the Fallout in machines came from exhibitors.
    17:24
    Keep up the great work, and I hope you find this interesting. Cheers, Chris. And by the way, he did send the spreadsheet as an attachment, so I was able to see his analysis. but I mostly just relied on his email, obviously. He had a postscript. I attended Expo last year and actually enjoyed it. It was my first time, so I can't speak to the broken EM Fest you experienced, but I found it to be very much more enjoyable than prior TPFs I've attended. Smaller lines save Labyrinth and Elton John, and a good variety of machines in good condition. You might want to reconsider if time and budget allows. Now, I want to go ahead and add, he sent a very short second email where he, because Texas Pinball sent an email out about like a post event analysis, basically, or summary. So he wrote a second email and that's Chris did say, just got a TPF email claiming over 500 games were there, essentially two X the number in 2023. Did it feel that way to you? So I wanted to wrap all this with what we had from Doug and with Chris, because this is obviously getting to what was TPF like? Was it the attendance stuff? Obviously, I shouldn't have said Doug. Doug's who we're going to get to later. It was David's email. And obviously what Chris just said. So maybe start. Let's start with the last thing that Chris said, this whole, how did it, like the number of games, did it feel like there were more games? It felt like there were more new games.
    18:55
    It did feel like the older titles, there was a lot less of them but more of the ones that were there were working that's a good point so something none of the emails touched on for a variety of reasons of course was it seemed like there were a lot less broken down games and TPF has never been bad about broken down games like again compared to Expo TPF has I felt done a very good job about keeping games operational but there were very few games I saw that were turned off or if I saw them turned off, they were turned on later. And I only went up to a couple of games where I wasn't actually able to play a game because something was wrong. So, uh, however, I would say in regards to Chris's question, did it feel that there were more games, especially like two times the number that there were last year? No. Yeah. And there's no way. No. In fact, I thought there were, I thought it felt like there were fewer games overall. overall but a lot of that is not so much you have to bear in mind that tony and i aren't going around trying to play all a bunch of different games because we've played all of these games before we've we've become the ron hallett juniors of pinball i mean ron hallett jr is the ron hallett jr of pinball but we're like the mini me versions in the sense that we've been at the hobby and in these shows long enough that there are very few games other than the new things that we have never played before i mean i think the only thing that was uh old that was a highlight to me again is often on the em side and they had a fairy tale collection like i the first i believe this show was the first time i ever got to play humpty dumpty yeah the first flipper uh electron electromechanic flipper pinball machine so in that regard uh there's very little that i've never experienced but we we played a number of old games but yeah and there's stuff we've played before. Right. There's always certain games that if you see, especially if you see a really nice version of that you're going to jump on. If you see a real good 8-Ball Deluxe, of course you're going to jump on it. I'm always attracted to Spanish Eyes or any of the center pop games because of my own little thing with center pop games.
    21:12
    But I think, like you said, we're at the point where we play the new games. Most of our time is talking and chatting with people and then jumping on games occasionally that we either have not seen very much or very often or are particularly nice versions of a game that we have lots of experience on or the occasional really horrible one like the high speed yeah there was yeah there was a there's a flipper issue on that the um so no it did not seem like there were more in fact i thought there were less games than there were in 2023 but all of this qualification was applied to say that i was if that was the case i was glad for it the space has been too crowded it has it's been the biggest flaw that i've known uh that i felt why people wouldn't want to go to tpf and i think it's a very valid reason to not want to go is it's so packed like if you're not comfortable being around large groups of people, it was not a good navigation experience. And if they drop 100 games so that people can actually walk around and not feel like you're sardines in a can, then I think it would be the right decision to do it. Now, this year there were more games out of the main room. There were. So there was a lot of stuff. They had a whole bunch of the arcade games, which end up a lot of times taking up like a massive wall in prior years inside the main show space outside now. Right. And they had a bank of pinball machines out there too. And they had a bank out there that they did for some, like not the main tournament, but some other stuff. But most of the time people were just able to free play those. So they had done things where they were using more of the facility and not just that main like ballroom. and that that could be why there were game counts higher than what it felt like when you were in the main space the the thing i had suspected that they had done when i saw the email because i did get this email that chris mentioned from tpf saying that there were over 500 games there to me it felt like in the main space there were fewer vendors like little vent like the little like you know like measle mods is in there and with a little like the smallest booth size you can get and and such it felt like there were less of those that there was not this maze i was hated the layout of the vendors where it just felt like you're like i don't know serpentine pattern or what but you gotta like nothing's nothing's organized in a way that like there were times there would be a vendor i would read about in the pamphlet and i wouldn't know how to find them and i'd be like oh i haven't seen them i walked around for hours the prior day and then this time it wasn't like that This time it seemed much more like everything made more sense. And because there was spacing, I could navigate. I could navigate and I could find things. And I felt like there was a lot less, I'm going to use the word, I don't mean this to be offensive, wasted space on a bunch of vendors like slinging glass and stuff with massive. There were still a few over on the perimeters of the show. But honestly, if they didn't sell booth space that large, you could stick a lot more pins in. So I think that's how it felt to me. But Chris's analysis seemed to suggest that – well, let me qualify that. He noted that the vendor game quantities were in that 140, 142 range. So that was consistent. But most of these vendors don't bring games. Most of the – you've got Marco's booth that brings games. Right. You have a few like Penn-Wolfer and stuff that always brings the same number. But a lot of the vendors are just selling parts and stuff. Right. Or you'll see the vendor that brings a game and then has a sign on it that says don't play. I know also Chris talked about Expo a little bit.
    25:14
    And you're not the only one that have told us that Expo has changed from the year we went. the year we went, we had a number of complaints, and I've been told on multiple occasions that almost all of those complaints have been adjusted and or fixed since then.
    25:38
    So, yeah, no, we've definitely heard you, but it's not something we've really talked about at this time. Yeah, let me say it a little bit differently, Tony.
    25:49
    Listeners, Dennis here. Quit trying to make Expo a thing. All right? It's dead. It's done. We're done with it. You guys are all like, it's so good. It's so great. I know why you all want Expo to be good. It's because some of you, like, want to go and get your autographs from the pinball design people, and that's the heart of Chicago. And so everyone who works in pinball, that's anyone, is up there.
    26:17
    Too bad. Go and enjoy your Expo. Quit trying to make me walk around on a non-carpeted floor for 18 hours, get stuck out in the boonies like three towns away at the nearest available hotel so I have to drive at least five miles in any given direction to get to anything, including like a McDonald's. No, it's a bad location. It's a bad experience. Congratulations that the games are no longer all broken and congratulations that they no longer charge a separate fee to sit in the seminars that they are live streaming for free on Twitch. Bravo. What revelations, what revolutions, what recalcitrance we still have. It's not related to that. The food's great.
    27:02
    Yes, but the food isn't exactly bad in Texas. No. So, but it's better in Chicago. yes well there is an Indian restaurant I'll be more than happy to take you back to that one is not what I was thinking of the Chinese place and I'm a sucker for portellos and I like Chicago style pizza yeah that's not pizza but it's fine I like Chicago style casserole it's fine alright so thanks for all that Now I want to get to Doug's email. I'm getting all these names mixed up. There's so many emails, but we do appreciate it. So Doug M. wrote in to us. This actually has to do with he's kind of responding to an email on the pinball show about a discussion I had with Zach. However, I told him we're going to address this on EGP. So this is what he wrote. Dennis. Oh, he even did it. He even did it in my little the Dennis here thing. It's a little bit I do on TPS. So you can tell he's taken the similar here. So let me try to do it. Do it. I so want to give him a weird accent, but no, I'll do it just like it's a Dennis one. Dennis, Doug here. Last week on the Pinball Show, you and Zach had a long discussion on the new barbecue-themed pin. In that discussion, you expressed your bias to Kansas City-style barbecue and specifically Gates barbecue sauce. being from New England where we are actually becoming known for exceptional barbecue. Don't laugh. It is true. I was intrigued and I bought a bottle off Amazon. Not kidding. See receipt screenshot below. As an aside, he bought Gates Original is what he bought. Okay. Continuing the email. So it showed up the other day. I have to say it is good. But is it barbecue sauce? No, it isn't. It is that best taco seasoning or a taco seasoning flavored sauce. Again, good stuff, but it ain't barbecue sauce. Smiley face, Doug. All right. Thank you, Doug, for emailing in. You're wrong.
    29:15
    Gates, original Gates. I don't ever go to Gates and get barbecue. But if I buy sauce at the store, I almost always buy original Gates. I really like it. I don't know what your thoughts are on Gates specifically, the original.
    29:30
    Because some people don't like it. It is different. It's different. Gates is not my go-to. My go-to is either Jack Stack or K&M. K&M is a very local place. They just have one location, and it's in a little town near here. Jack Stack is a bit more. They're a bit larger name place. But those are my go-tos for that. Would he easily be able to order either of those? Let's give him some suggestions before we destroy him. Okay. I would say Zarda. If you prefer sweet, Grandma Zarda.
    30:11
    That's a good point. I used to get Zarda sandwiches quite a bit. They're a little far north for me. Jackstack, K&M. Jackstack is good sauce.
    30:22
    I think those are the big ones. Arthur Bryant's. The biggest Gates competitor, one would say, because they're kind of near the same area, I think. I never go there for barbecue either, though, so I'm not sure. Right. Yeah, I've gotten their sauce from the store. So those are all ones that I find quite good. I think the big difference that we're looking at here is I'm going to go out on a limb. I'm going to assume New England has the East Coast bias of a vinegar-based sauce as opposed to the tomato-based sauce that is more common in the Kansas City area, which would make the difference in why you would think it would be like taco saucy type thing because it doesn't have the deep vinegar base.
    31:05
    I actually enjoy a vinegar-based sauce now and then. I'm particularly a big fan, if you can come across it, of Tennessee Red. Tennessee Red is like a vinegar-based table hot sauce, barbecue sauce thing. Big fan. I normally get mine from Blues Hog, Tennessee Red is what I normally get. I always keep a thing of that at home because I prefer it on, like, eggs and stuff like that. It's a good sauce for going for a more vinegary type base.
    31:44
    That would be my recommendation. But I think that's the big difference is just because there's such a difference between a tomato base and a vinegar-based barbecue sauce. That's a very fair point. And I do like the vinegar-based sauces as well. So I'm pretty open. But we have both types around here. Right. Now, the important thing is as long as I am going to say it, if your favorite barbecue sauce is Sweet Baby Ray's, you're wrong.
    32:14
    It is not. You just haven't had any actual barbecue sauce. It is like the Hunt's ketchup of barbecue sauces. Yeah, I have to admit, I was pretty taken aback by the taco seasoning comparison for original Gates, though. I thought that was pretty harsh, pretty cruel. Maybe. I'm not a huge Gates fan, though. I know plenty that aren't. It is very much a different style of sauce, as you noted, I mean, with its ketchup style basis.
    32:48
    Of those type of places, I'll typically, if I'm going to get that, I'm going to go Sarda. just because I have a preference for Zarda. But I don't associate that sort of ketchup-based style with tacos either. No, I don't. I mean, what I like about it is there is heat to it, which I do associate with, because you've got garlic powders in it, red peppers in it, cumins in it. There's some chili powder in it, so I see kind of where you're getting the – but the base is still ketchup. So I just – I don't – but you know what? Here's what I'm not factoring in properly. I bet out in New England, they probably mess up tacos about as bad as they mess up barbecue, and they probably use ketchup on the tacos. I still remember when I lived in Syracuse and I found out there was more than New England clam chowder See we give them credit for bland overly creamy clam chowder And I really like New England clam chowder. But there also was a Manhattan clam chowder. So New York took clam chowder and ruined it in some way. And Manhattan clam chowder is, I think, a tomato-based clam chowder. So I think based off of that, I don't know. I never ordered it, quite frankly. I looked at it. I was like, absolutely not. You've got to be kidding. Why is it red?
    34:00
    I bet because of that, they have a bias against all ketchup. I don't know. Maybe. That's my theory. But you know what? I can still say with 100% honesty, the best deli sandwich I ever had was on the East Coast. Well, they do know sandwiches.
    34:17
    Best pastrami I've ever had. Oh, man, that sandwich had pastrami and corned beef on it. Spicy mustard. oh best sandwich i've ever eaten in my life and um i will say that again going back to uh when i was in syracuse they have a there was a place called dinosaur barbecue there and it was very good and in fact i did not realize that it's it's pretty famous even like my my dad used to work for black and beach the engineering firm and there were kansas city He knew that we're like, yeah, when we go to Syracuse, we go to Dinosaur Barbecue. So it had won over Kansas City Inns as well. It was always crowded, though. Well, I remember we talked about it when we were up there. We tried to go there, but it's so crowded. But the line was like way out the door. So obviously kind of like what we're used to with so many of our things. But, yeah, definitely if you enjoy vinegar-based sauces, definitely look in the Carolina line of stuff in particular. We have a few brands around here that use that style. but I don't have any particular name one that sort of stands out to me that I would recommend. Like I said, I like the Tennessee Red, but that's a list for Carolina and more of a Tennessee thing, obviously. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are all these regions. Also, if you like things just a little spicy but not like hot, hot spicy, but, I mean, my go-to is the Jack Stack Spicy.
    35:48
    See, I don't like really, really hot. It's not really, really hot. It just has a bit more tingle than the normal stuff. It's a little less ketchup.
    35:57
    Hmm. Okay. Yeah, I know. That makes some sense. Yeah, the main thing that I would tell people if they're not familiar with Kansas City is just we – sauce is a key part of the barbecue in Kansas City. Like, we use a lot of sauce. Yes. Compared to – like, well, Texas, which, I mean, that's the one thing. Other than how well the meat was cooked, the time we went to hard eight, I remember how bad the sauce was. It was like water. Yeah, and it's one of those things that we're used to having sauce in everything I eat. I mean, one of the staple sandwiches in the Kansas City area is, you know, like the burn-in sandwich, which is a bunch of burn-ins dumped in a big old pot of sauce and cooked up and then slathered onto a bun. Looking at some names of sauces. Here's another one I will go ahead and suggest that I do like. That's very common, very mainstream that you can easily find is KC Masterpiece if you like a molasses-style sauce. So that's sweet. Oh, I completely forgot about KC Masterpiece. I did too, but it's actually – it's one I do occasionally buy because it's relatively safe because it's kind of got like a maple vibe to it. So if you like a sweeter-style sauce, that's a decent one to go ahead and consider. but yeah so those are the ones that stand out to me but okay and we don't believe you about New England actually being like a key place of barbecue sauce so don't ever say that again, thank you alright, pinball news we're finally there, we're through the emails I'm a fat guy so I'm willing to give it a try though next time I go to New England I can be proven wrong but where's their big show? maybe if y'all quit trying to push us to go to Expo so much and try and say hey why don't you come to Allentown Yeah, I know Allentown's not New England, but isn't that the closest show? Do you guys do a show in New England? I don't know. I don't know what's going on up there. I've never been to New England, not New England proper. I've never been further north than, well, not counting Alaska. I've never been further northeast than New York. So it's just one of those things. Allentown. Because that's in Pennsylvania. I know that. I'm trying to picture on the map. How close is it to Battleship Cove? because that's on my to-go visit list. Big Loop.
    38:13
    Yes, the Big Loop. Very famous. No, it's my personal Big Loop. Yes, your Big Loop. Just like one of these days, I'm going to take a lot of extra time off work, and after TPF is over, I'm going to drive south so I can go to Corpus Christi and Galveston to see Lexington, Texas, and then I'm going to go up to Mobile, Alabama so I can see Alabama.
    38:37
    and then maybe into Florida to see. I didn't know mobile was on your, your list of places to go. Yeah. There's a museum I want to see. So what was this Cove place called?
    38:48
    Battleship Cove's in Massachusetts battles. Oh, wow. Okay. So it's not also in Pennsylvania. No. All right. It looks like that is a four hour, 45 minute drive on I-95. Oh, that's not bad. All right. So in terms of news items, uh, we got some pinball brothers news, uh, The Pinball Brothers are no longer with Pinball Brothers. Well, I read this the other day and I was like, I mean, that's interesting. I don't know how many are brothers and how many people are. I don't remember any of that stuff. But but the thing that was I thought was interesting is it wasn't actually very recent. So two of the original founders have just recently announced that they aren't actually with the company anymore. They left after December. So it's been a few months. However, I guess in their announcement, they indicated they hadn't been involved in any decision-making at the company since January 2022. What I couldn't tell is, are they suggesting that they were forced out and they left because they weren't allowed to be in the decision-making, which is how I interpreted it? That is also how I interpreted it. Or is it a, hey, we've been hands-off since January 2022, and we just decided to make it official as of December 2023? But I got the impression like they basically were forced out of any decisions. So they're like, why should we even keep a stake in this company anymore? I had the same feeling. Okay. So we don't know if that's true or not. This is alleged, guys. This is alleged. But that's based off of what I interpreted from reading that. But Pinball Brothers has already been in discussions a lot lately because they posted a picture of a bell helicopter. And then based off the announcement stuff, everyone's very confident that this is going to be an ABBA music-themed pin. Because I guess they're doing a reveal on the date of one of the ABBA albums or something. I don't know. I don't remember the details. I don't care. I like ABBA. Everyone knows Dancing Queen.
    40:54
    There was that Mamma Mia musical that used a bunch of ABBA songs. I've never seen it, but I know some people really liked it. Pinball Brothers being based in Europe, and purportedly ABBA is quite a bit larger in Europe than it is in the States. I don't think that needs to be purportedly. They are. Purportedly, I didn't confirm it, so I'm just telling you. It's been purported to me that it's kind of a big deal. Okay, road trip. We've got to fly to Europe and do polls to find out if ABBA is more popular. I'm just saying. I just wanted a little brief, I don't even want to call it a discussion. I just wanted to know your thought, Tony. Given they work with Pedretti in Italy does their build, this could be a strategy to try and sell more games in Europe where maybe the price point because of the shipping and stuff is more attractive to people. Do you think this is a smart move? Do you think doing ABBA is a smart move?
    41:49
    I do. I think ABBA falls into that kind of classic sweet spot of nostalgia music that people have the money to pick up.
    42:04
    I am firmly going to say it's time to start moving into the 90s more. I think Foo Fighters did very well, and it's time to start having that. If I have to listen to all the music that I listened to in high school at work when they put it on because they decide it's Dad Rock Thursday and they just start playing the music I listened to in high school. And if I have to sit there and not cry as I listen to it, I think it's time that I start. Where's my Nirvana pen? Okay. Where's my Fuel pen? Let's go. Let's get this going. I mean, come on.
    42:39
    But no, I mean, I like ABBA. So I have no – I'll play it. I'll play anything, really. But I think if it's specifically targeting to have higher sales in Europe, I think it's a good choice.
    42:56
    Yeah, I think it's a fine strategy to try. I'm not really big on music pins in general, it seems. But you'd think they'd usually do decent sales. The only aspect to it that surprises me, and maybe the ABBA thing with Europe is going to be a good workaround on this, But by all accounts, and these accounts could be inaccurate, Queen hasn't done that well for them. And Queen is a big deal everywhere, including Europe. So I don't know that that it feels to me like they are so desperately trying to find something that can do as well or better than Highway Pinball's alien license, which seems to be how they make all their money is on alien. and you would have thought Queen would have been a good opportunity but for whatever reason it just doesn't seem to be resonating the same way that Alien did and ABBA is not going to resonate as well as Queen in theory as a theme would however they might have some good ideas on it it's also going to be an interesting test because I think ABBA is going to basically be the first concept that they're taking to production that in no way is a highway thing Like Queen had been as part of the Highway package of stuff that they acquired. So this is them kind of going out on their own. And maybe the problem with Queen is what they got out of Highway. I mean, I remember when we played it at TPF 2023, and it wasn't the worst game we played, but there were issues with it that we didn't care for. Anyway, but we will wait and see and report more when we finally get to see the game revealed from Pinball Brothers. I only have one more pinball topic for us. Dutch pinball. I think we did go ahead and touch on the last episode that they had announced that they had finally got all the early achievers satisfied on their big Lebowskis. I think I heard on Slam Tilt Podcast that basically it took a decade for everyone to be made whole. But they did it, which is something we did not think they would do. I didn't think it was going to happen. Not originally. Super congratulations for actually pulling it off. Extra impressive given they basically did it all by just selling one game over a really long period of time. Because they haven't had any. I mean, they had Bride of Pinbot 2.0 kits. Maybe they still built some of those. I don't know. But other than that, they went into Big Lebowski after the kit. So what does that mean? What are they going to do? Well, you know what it means? It means it's time to spin up a new company.
    45:32
    I mean, not a terrible idea. Maybe. Maybe it's not the first time somebody has cut ties with the old bad press to start something new. That's true. But maybe make sure your naming is a little – they probably reasonably worked around it. But here's the thing, and I do have a link in the show notes for folks if you want to read the Nap Arcade article about this, which goes into more detail. But they are starting up or have started up a sister company, which they are calling DPX, which stands for Dutch Pinball Exclusive. So they still didn't get away from the Dutch Pinball name, which might.
    46:15
    But as long as they're doing it like, yeah, KFC is KFC. Now it used to be Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now it's KFC. So it's just whatever. I don't know. The plan, as I understand it, is they're going to be making fancy pants, highly limited exclusive games for collectors. So think Zidware, but in the Netherlands. That's how I interpreted it. It's a boutique boutique. Yeah. I mean, I didn't think they were making that many games, period. So I don't know why we need DPX. Now, I want to say it like TX Sector. DPX, PX, PX, PX. Dippix. please don't fill our inbox with dipics just saying yes please do not email it click the gamers podcast at gmail.com with that uh so tony you you said you thought it was a good idea i've i think that there is a definite place in pinball for the the the very niche boutique small run there will be a lot of people that are angry but i think if a company can get the right themes if they're vertically integrated enough like their designers and everybody it's just a small team that the the designs puts together and they can put it out a product that is high enough quality i think there's a very niche spot for them to survive it'd be like something akin to like Shelby putting out special small batch off versions of Mustangs and stuff like that. It is very much a space that can be built into for a small clientele and with a small number of competing companies. I think it has the possibility of working quite well. Now, my understanding is that because this is a sister company, Dutch Pinball is still going to be operating making the rumors they have back to the future. That's the rumors they have back to the future. And that DPX might be doing the things like there's also been a rumor going around like they were going to take Papa Duke's Alice in Wonderland or I think it was the Alice in Wonderland. It was the Magic Girl. I don't remember anymore. One of them. One of his games. And doing it. of course dpx px px all right i um i disagree i think this is a horrible idea and for a couple of reasons the not so horrible reason that i still think is a horrible reason is i'm not sure that there is enough space at the top of mount everest here for this company to wedge themselves in i get it on paper about this demand to meet the the collector the small limited collector thing but it seems like everyone who's coming into pinball i know this isn't true in the true chronology of it but it's just like everyone keeps going higher up market that's been the strategy for everyone so we've already got jjp's coming in at fifteen thousand dollars and and all the rest of it i don't know that i'm not i'm not going to say that i disagree with you that there isn't more space even higher up at thirty thousand dollars at $50,000. In theory, there's always a market for probably at a million dollars as a market conceptually for something. But I don't know. I don't know if that it's so loosey goosey right now, especially like I have a lot of questions about their ability to actually deliver like a high quality. Like, is it just in my opinion and it's solely opinion, all they can do is throttle the supply. I don't know that they can build at that level. I don't think they can build at that level. I don't think they can. I hate to do the watch analogy. But, you know, when we were in Texas we went around we looked and got to see some things like from Omega and Panerai And you also put on a Vacheron watch Did you notice a difference between the Vacheron and I did notice a difference. After every other watch other than the Vacheron, I didn't want to lick my wrist. Mm-hmm.
    50:34
    But, I mean, just in terms of handling that and experiencing the quality versus you like your G-Shock. Right. Okay. oh we're wearing the same g-shark we are we are we're very we're very fashionable the that's what i'm i'm saying i don't think dpx can like like what's it going to be high-end pin i don't think they're going to do hep i don't think they're going to be like nickel plating every screw and stuff like where's the luxury i don't think it's there and i'm saying that based off of nothing other than that's what i feel i feel like i'm gonna be like we're gonna make 20 of these look at this and solely try and do it on on le style solely on exclusivity and maybe some people will fall for that but i don't think the game's build quality is going to match like what's coming out of jjp so i really question how many people are gonna fall into this sort of category because we've already seen other attempts like don't forget about um what was their name uh team pinball that built those 20 mafias and they couldn't sell them all that's true and it was super exclusive, you know, for the high-end collector, and it just didn't work. And, well, I think that's another one of those things that it's going to come very much based upon how the game actually plays and what the game looks like, and most especially how the game is themed.
    51:55
    I mean, if they really, though, if you think about it, if they really want to target the high-end market person, What they need to target is building a set of gyroscopic stabilizers that the pinball machine can be put on so I can play it on my super yacht.
    52:13
    I don't want the ball. If I'm sailing through heavy waves, I still should be able to play pinball. That's a good point, and maybe their second sister company can do that. So let me go ahead and say the second and biggest reason why I think this is a horrible idea. in what world do we think that they have the ability to manufacture for two different companies at this point because it took 10 years to finish doing early achievers on big lebowski's it took that long to make enough money selling a game with a very popular theme and a reasonably fun layout and not the best but not the worst build quality they haven't had anything new in a long time and Now I feel like it's like, hey, we were walking. We had our contract manufacturer. We fell. We broke all our limbs. We very slowly healed because we didn't go. We didn't have medical care. We didn't have an insurance. So we had to just sort of heal while lying on the ground. And we've been crawling and making progress. And now that we've crossed this threshold, we crossed this finish line that we had set for ourselves against all odds, against what Tony and Dennis said, we achieved. We achieved what they and many others said could not be achieved. We are now ready to sprint. Sprint a marathon. So we're going to go and we're going to have Dutch pinball and we're going to start a new game there. And we're going to spin up this Uber Lux DPX, PX, PX, PX. And sell stuff that I just feel like it's super ambitious based off of capability that I don't think is there. That I feel, even if you disagree with me, I think it's fair to say they sure haven't proven it. They sure haven't proven that they can do two games at once.
    53:59
    Like, we've been just sitting watching a trickle out of TBLs, and now they're like, yeah, we need a sister company?
    54:06
    Okay. I think – I have no confidence in this. No, I mean, I haven't had confidence in them forever. They've proven me wrong. They've proved me wrong. I mean, in the sense that – they proved me wrong, too, in the sense that I said that they would go away, and they didn't. But now they're doubling down. But I can't I can't look at I mean, I guess I could, but I won't. I won't look at you making your preorders whole over a decade and calling you a winner, because to me, that's not winning. Think about what all that all that free money you sat on, especially people who waited the full 10 years. You how many people like what that would have gotten in an index fund in the S&P 500? I mean, we're talking thousands of dollars lost of earning potential. You got whatever. I don't want to talk about it anymore.
    55:01
    TPX, PX, PX, PX. We'll see what happens. It'll be interesting to see. Maybe they'll prove me wrong again. It's always interesting to see. All right. Video games, Tony. What do you got for us? Well, I'm going to shift up my order from my notes a little bit. Oh, no. But Twitch, there was a short-lived new meta on Twitch, the green screen meta. I don't – okay. I don't know about this. It didn't last very long before Twitch amended their rules. But the green screen meta started apparently because someone decided to – she put on like green underwear or green spandex shorts and set a camera up to look at her butt and then used it as the green screen to show the game that she was playing. so she was playing fortnight but instead of showing her showing her screen it was showing her butt with the fortnight game being played on it because it was green screened and this kicked off a thing where people were doing it on their butts and on their chest and all over the place and uh twitch had to quickly make an adjustment to their allowable okay rules to get rid of it uh Twitch, Twitch, Twitch streaming so desperately wants to just turn into porn.
    56:33
    I mean, it's one of those ones that I think that is even more insane than the hot tub meta and all that stuff.
    56:45
    It's just, oh, it's craziness. um so dennis you make the biggest game of 2023 you win spiderman all of the awards go with like all of the awards okay what do you do to follow up on having won all of the awards and making a game that everyone loves and it's amazing a sequel yeah no larin says no they're not making a sequel they're not making dlc they're not even doing anything dnd based they won they're gonna go make something new now so after baldur's gate 3 wins everything makes all the monies and is massively huge they're not following up with dlc or baldur's gate 4 they're gonna go oh we're gonna try something new now we won they didn't say that i said that but that's what it amounts to it's okay We won, so we'll go do something else now.
    57:43
    You know what? I respect it. I do, too. They did an interview that was – their CEO did an interview that was very – I thought it was very good, and he basically said it's like making DLCs is something we've done in the past, and it don't have the same kind of passion or fun, and it's never as successful as when you're making something new because it's just irritative. So let's go ahead and just do something new So they're just moving completely away And starting on something new entirely I kind of respect it We'll see Phil Spencer in his series of interviews Being released Has said that he has been very impressed By all of the PC gaming The handheld PC gaming hardware That's out there And he's wanting to improve The Xbox experience On those existing handheld PCs So the Steam Deck, the Legion Go, or the ROG Alloy that I'd never even heard of, but they want to get more games on more different screens. And he thinks targeting that as a specific market would be a good idea.
    58:55
    Well, it aligns with the strategy he's been pushing for years, which is we don't really care what you play on. As long as you play our games. Yes. Because, I mean, they've been doing that with their simultaneous PC and Xbox releases for years. Now they're pushing out on us. It's a concern in people because they're like, why are we developing for Xbox? No one wants to buy the Xbox. You can play all the stuff on everything, which has always been the challenge that a lot of people have felt about that. Well, especially because Xbox sales are not great anywhere that's not called the United States of America. Yes. I think the biggest issue, looking a little bit into that, has been, I think for the devs, the biggest problem, because my understanding is the porting in and of itself isn't inherently like a big technological leap. But because they did the S and the X, and the S is such a weaker system. It's like I think at some point Microsoft is going to need to draw the line and say, you know what, we need to go back to just one hardware spec size the next time they do their next generation release, and hopefully we'll just do one and not try it. It's just too many hoops to jump people from. Which makes complete sense.
    60:04
    But we'll see. Well, yeah, we'll definitely see what happens. And then because, like you said, I don't have a whole lot today. Take-Two Interactive has signed an agreement to purchase Gearbox Interactive from Embracer Group. So what's interesting is they're not buying all of Gearbox. Oh, they're not? No. Okay. They're buying most of Gearbox. They're buying Gearbox Software, which is the one based in Frisco, Texas, Gearbox Montreal, Gearbox Quebec. Embracer is keeping Gearbox San Francisco they're going to rename it they're keeping Cryptic Studios Lost Boys Interactive and Capture Dimensions that are all part of Gearbox as well so what that translates to is Take-Two purchased the Gearbox studios that make the franchises for Borderlands and Tiny Tina's yeah that's all that's their biggest franchise I think right also Homeworld Risk of Rain brothers in arms and duke nukem oh my god what a lodestone that did you play duke nukem forever i did it was oh it's so awful oh it was such a disappointment you i'll tell you what you y'all listen at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers we get to a hundred patrons You all can be $1 ones. Tony and I will do a video playthrough where we play Duke Nukem Forever. I don't know, together or just sitting in the same room. We'll do it. Oh, God. I'm committing us to that. Wow. Hey, it's a lot of people. That's a lot. They ain't going to. That would be physically painful. That game is so bad. But if people are mad about what was said about DPX, PX, PX, PX, and barbecue sauce, they can punish us by doing that.
    62:01
    We need a really big show. in Kansas City so all people can come and get good barbecue. Yeah, that would be fun. That'd be fun. All right, so they got the good stuff. They got the good stuff. And Duke Nukem. Okay. I found it interesting that included in it was Homeworld because Homeworld 4 is in production. Okay.
    62:29
    You played the Homeworld. It's three, whichever one it is, three or four, is in production. I played both. Yeah, yeah, I played Homeworld. It would be three. Right, because there's Homeworld and Homeworld 2. Right. It was all I remembered. Yeah, I've played the Homeworld game. I love the Homeworld games. They are masters of their art for what they are. Quite a lot of fun. And that game is, like, deep in production. So it's interesting to me that they got that in addition to everything else. I've also heard Borderlands 4 is in.
    63:03
    No surprise. Going to be in production. Which is, yeah, no surprise. So what's Embracer franchise-wise keeping?
    63:15
    Lost Boys, so they're keeping the Remnant franchise. I've never played a Remnant game. I don't think I have. And there's also, that's from Gearbox San Francisco, and they also have several games in development that are close to release, but haven't been announced.
    63:31
    Cryptic Studios does all MMOs. They're Neverwinter Online, Star Trek Online. I used to play the Neverwinter Online. I used to play Star Trek Online.
    63:41
    Lost Boys Interactive, specifically, I don't remember. They just make one game. I just don't remember what it is off the top of my head. And Captured Dimensions, I don't know what franchises they make.
    63:54
    Did you see the thing? You probably did, given you saw this. Did you see the thing where the dude with Embracer was all like, yeah, we're not quite ready yet to start buying more studios? Yeah, as they're in the middle of selling everything. And I was just like, people can't because it's an audio format. You cannot see that. I'm in full Shocked Pikachu right now because I read that and I was like, Shocked Pikachu. We're in the middle of laying everybody off and selling everything because our stuff fell through. Of course you're not buying studios right now. You guys bought a bunch of them, devalued them all, and then had to just fire sale them. what he's thinking about expansion you know i will he's the sort of person who had found dpx they're making money on gearbox yes they they're selling it for 416 million studio and they bought it for 380 and they're but they're selling all the valuable stuff i mean right yeah star trek and neverwinter might pull in some some stuff but all this other stuff i I ain't even heard of it. Right. No, no. Borderlands has always been the big thing with Gearbox. Yeah, when you hear Gearbox, it's Borderlands. Yeah. So it's interesting. We'll see where that ends up going, but, I mean, it's no surprise they've been talking about dumping Gearbox for a while. It's just Gearbox is like one of their biggest. Well, maybe they needed the profit. Just to settle things out. All right. We'll see what happens. It's been an interesting run with them. Very much. They did that giant purchase run through 22 and everything, and then after their little secret backdoor negotiations with the Saudis, allegedly, fell through. It's just been tumbling trying to shore that company up ever since.
    65:40
    But that's all I really have. I didn't want to throw a whole lot in here in this post. Well, we actually had a pretty normal-sized episode, as it turned out. Yeah. Thanks to all of those emails. And again, if you guys want to reach out to us, give us topics to talk about, we'd love to do that. EclecticGamersPodcast.gmail.com. You can also reach out to us on Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. And as I noted before, for the Duke Nukem Challenge, you can always go and support us at Patreon.com slash Eclectic underscore Gamers. We're on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. I haven't really done anything since TPF, mainly because I hurt my back. Yeah, you've been in back recovery mode. So I haven't really talked about, I haven't even done one of my little driving videos that I started doing. That's what you should call it, is driving with Tony.
    66:29
    I had considered doing another thing. I was going to call it breakfast with Tony, but I haven't figured out a good way to do it yet. Have you thought about wearing some green screen? Yeah, I was going to take my shirt off and put on like a green screen spandex thing. and just I'll be playing the game while having it projected on my chest. Yeah. It'll be fun. Or I use green paint. That way everyone can see the hair.
    66:58
    Okay. Well, until a couple of weeks from now, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.