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Episode 383: Cliff Albert

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·32m 28s·analyzed·Dec 14, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Cliff Albert on building pinball communities and taking controversial design stances.

Summary

Cliff Albert, a Pennsylvania-based pinball enthusiast and tournament organizer, discusses his approach to community building in the Poconos and his philosophy on pinball game design through deliberate provocative takes. He's establishing tournaments and location play in Stroudsburg while advocating for more affordable machines to grow the hobby beyond collectors. The interview explores his 'troll' persona on social media, his hot takes on game design (criticizing System 11s, defending reused playfields, questioning expensive new releases), and his belief that pinball's high cost prevents mainstream appeal.

Key Claims

  • Cliff started his 'troll' persona as a joke to spark pinball conversations, not out of genuine anger

    high confidence · Cliff explicitly states he started doing pinball stand-up content to provoke discussion and doesn't actually disagree with half the things he says

  • No pinball machine should cost over $7,000

    high confidence · Jeff's hot take stated clearly: 'every pinball machine should never be over $7,000'

  • The secondary market crash is affecting operator ability to recoup machine costs

    medium confidence · Cliff mentions 'the secondhand market is pretty much crashing' and notes this impacts location operators

  • Spooky's reuse of playfields across different themes (Looney Tunes/Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween/Ultraman) is a smart business strategy

    high confidence · Cliff argues this approach serves different audiences without requiring duplicate purchases and credits Borg for doing similar things with Metallica/Guardians

  • Iron Maiden Pro and Future Spa are the greatest pinball games ever made

    high confidence · Cliff directly states these as his answer to 'what is the greatest game to Cliff Albert'

  • System 11-era games were the worst Williams ever made; designers didn't get good until later

    high confidence · Cliff's explicit hot take: 'I hate System 11s. I think they're the worst games of all time'

  • Pinball will never achieve mainstream appeal like e-sports due to high equipment costs

    medium confidence · Jeff's hot take: high cost of ownership prevents global connectivity unlike video games at $500-600 for console/games

  • Delaware Pinball Collective is the best organized pinball community on the East Coast

    medium confidence · Cliff states 'Delaware is doing amazing things. I think from what I know, they're like the best on the East Coast'

Notable Quotes

  • “I just thought of like, man, I used to do stand up for like a year before it like almost ruined my life. But I just thought pinball stand up would be so funny”

    Cliff Albert @ early — Explains the origin of his 'troll' persona as humor-based rather than genuine criticism

  • “I'm not really soured on the price more than I am soured on, like, the value of what we're getting, right?”

    Cliff Albert @ mid — Core philosophy on Bond 60th pricing—the issue is value proposition, not absolute cost

  • “See, that's the fun thing about pinball. And, like, listen, we're friends to be able to just banter back and forth like this, but it's kind of art. Art is subjective.”

    Jeff Teolis @ late — Frames the entire discussion—pinball design preferences are artistic, not objective truth

  • “every pinball machine should never be over $7,000”

    Jeff Teolis @ mid — Explicit hot take on pricing as a barrier to growth

  • “if they've got their hands on three of these [Bond 60th], they weren't selling”

    Cliff Albert @ mid — Uses Project Pinball's giveaways as evidence that Bond 60th pricing is problematic

  • “Harlem Globetrotters is the best game ever... it teaches you everything about pinball”

    Cliff Albert @ mid — Contrasts with Bond 60th's spinner focus; advocates for accessibility and fundamental skill teaching

  • “We turned off multiball on Centaur, which is like, what, what, what?”

    Jeff Teolis @ late — Tournament director perspective on mechanical reliability vs. intended game design

  • “I also talk in a very – like we had to go over – I think you said it three times, no swearing. I also talk in the old school, ragey, East Coast way, right?”

    Cliff Albert @ late — Self-awareness about his communication style being perceived as anger when it's just regional/stylistic

Entities

Cliff AlbertpersonJeff TeolispersonMayhem Amusements ArcadecompanyDelaware Pinball CollectiveorganizationRock FantasycompanyBartariorganizationIron MaidengameFuture Spa

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Delaware Pinball Collective described as successful model for building community from grassroots—started with 5 people in home basement during COVID, now attracting 20-30+ from multiple states/Canada

    high · Cliff cites it as '#1 inspiration' for his Poconos community building effort; echoed with Bartari in Scranton as #2 inspiration

  • ?

    community_signal: Cliff establishing tournament/location infrastructure in Stroudsburg and Lehigh Valley/Poconos region with goal of organic community growth through new players rather than IFPA-focused 'whoppers'

    high · Cliff actively TD'ing at Mayhem Amusements Arcade, running monthly tournaments, placing location machines throughout region; explicitly focused on beginner/new player experience

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Cliff advocates for accessibility and fundamental skill teaching in game design (contrasts Harlem Globetrotters and Iron Maiden Pro vs. Bond 60th's spinner focus)

    medium · Cliff: 'Harlem Globetrotters is the best game ever... it teaches you everything about pinball' vs. Bond 60th 'doesn't really teach you everything'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Cliff's 'hot take' persona driven by desire to spark conversation and test community reactions, not genuine anger; uses provocative statements tongue-in-cheek

    high · Cliff: 'I just thought pinball stand up would be so funny... I don't agree with half of the things that I said. You're just trying to spark conversation'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market crash mentioned as impacting operator ability to recoup machine costs on location play

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.097

0:00
it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff peels you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on twitter we're on instagram at pinball profile you can find us on facebook email pinballprofile at gmail.com and if you'd like to show your support that'd wonderful it's not necessary the show is always free but it's patreon.com slash pinball profile and thanks to wonderful people like gme law lua w rod dc derrick k derrick s and so many that have really been very very generous okay i saw in the theaters i think it was another trolls sequel and i know nothing about trolls so i thought well maybe maybe i could find out a little bit and i say that jokingly but technically the pinball degenerates award last year awarded the best troll to this man you know him you love him cliff albert hey cliff how are you good how are you thank you for having me on so what's this troll business because i've seen some of your stuff but the things i see are just you talking about this game is better than this game and it starts quite the conversation but it looks like you're having fun yeah um it was originally just started like I just thought of like, man, I used to do stand up for like a year before it like almost ruined my life. But I just thought pinball stand up would be so funny, but it wouldn't really work. So let's just do it into virtual form and mess with everybody and have a good time. But then it turned into this whole everybody actually gets angry and thinks that I'm angry about whatever I'm saying. So like, for instance. So you say it tongue in cheek. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, I don't agree with half of the things that I said. You're just trying to spark conversation. I'm just trying to spark. And also, like, in, like, a deeper sense, it can kind of be healthy where it shows, like, who likes what, right? You know? It's such a fragile time where communication can be gospel, whereas you're trying to just maybe crack a joke or two. I can kind of relate because I do another podcast called Final Round with my good friend Martin Robbins from Australia. And, you know, people are like, wow, it's a lot different than Pinball Profile. And I like to say, you know, if you listen carefully, I might be trying to tell some jokes on Final Round. I say my name, but it's not really me. Yeah, Final Round is great. Yeah, I don't understand why people get so riled up. Sorry, you live in the United States and you've lived here for the last seven years. so you don't see how people get riled up over it. Hello. Yeah. But, yeah, it's so funny because, like, the first post that I ever made doing that was, Gorgar sucks. Sure. Okay. A lot of people feel that way. And I agree with because, I mean, if we have the shats the whole time, what's the point of even having the whole machine? That's so funny you say that because I remember the first time I ever watched Eric Stone on video, and it was the North American Championships, and the game was Gorgar. And he basically won by shatzing over and over, built up his bonus, and then away he went to win the championship. Yeah, I can't shat, so I hate Alien Star as well. Oh, fun game. But shatting is important. And Spider-Man Gottlieb, you know, I can't stand that because I can't shat. Have you tried? I had the glass off on my Flash Gordon to try and shat, because that's also kind of important in that game. Well, Bally's you kind of tap. Yeah, but you can still shat. Sure, sure. And even then, it's just, no, it's not my, that's my kryptonite. And I shouldn't say that on this podcast because now everybody's going to pick Alien Star. But what about Quicksilver? There's another game where you need to light the spinners. So that's a little forgiving because if you look, you know, shatting is tough when the slings are really close to the flipper. But if there's a bit of a gap, you've got a little bit of wiggle room. You don't want to go up and over. Shatzing is where you're on one flipper, you're trapped up, and you let the ball roll to the very end of the flipper, and then you flip away at the last second, and it transfers it, usually on the other flipper, but up the lane. So lighting the lane, like you mentioned, an alien star, like we talk about in Quicksilver. You've got to try it. It'll change your life, Cliff. I try, but I'm too scared to do it in tournament. Well, dude, you don't have to do it in tournaments, but I don't have an alien star around me. Here we are right now. We're in the middle of a wonderful event going on at the Delaware Pinball Collective. I know you come here a little bit, but good time. I know we're doing this in between rounds, but take a chance at some of those. Go to Quicksilver. Give it a try. All right. Yeah, I'll do it. But usually I'm lucky enough on Quicksilver where it just comes down to the in-lane for me anyway. Okay. One of those guys. Hey, if you've got that skill set, all the power to you to find the in-lanes. So let's talk pinball because I know you're in Pennsylvania and you've got some kind of big things up and coming. Yeah. So I'm actually working with an arcade. It's called Mayhem Amusements Arcade. And they opened up a spot right on the main street of Stroudsburg. And what city? Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Okay. So right on Main Street. It's called Main Street. and there was a bunch of friends that lived there and they were like yo you got to talk to this pinball guy cliff and then everybody was like yo you got to talk to this arcade and next thing you know him and i connect and he was like i really want to run tournaments out of here because he kind of knew about uh the game vault and stuff so and i played tournaments out of there morristown game ball so i started being the td because i was a td at penn skate before penn skate closed and um i remember hearing about pens gate because i thought it was a slip of the tongue but it was years ago it was at the sanctum and talking to christina if i recall yeah christina well her maiden name was samino now it's gardner uh her and dennis are they came up to mayhem uh they're good friends of mine so i uh i'd like to see them more often once we start leagues and stuff like that we're trying to start a whole scene in a place that doesn't really have a scene so kind of how close is it to philadelphia because i'm not sure the geography it's about two hours okay so stroudsburg is like the heart of the pocono's the pocono mountains so mpa so um yeah there's nothing else like it and then we're also going to be putting games out on locations uh throughout the lehigh valley and the pocono's and then you'll find people out of the woodwork like oh i didn't You know, there was pinball. Oh, look at this, location pinball and league start and then little tournaments. And the next thing you know, you've got quite the community and maybe you've got some people who've got some, hey, I've got a few games at home. And the next thing you know, you know, the Poconos are the new hotspot for pinball. Yeah, it's cool because, like, there's not a huge turnout in the new tournaments there. It's every last Sunday. But the thing is, it's all new. It's a lot of new people. And that's kind of what we're trying to do. I would love for more pinball people to come, but a lot of pinball people are looking for whoppers and stuff. But I'm looking for this to grow something.

  • “not everybody's going to be able to play the big Lebowski. Not everybody's going to be able to play Bond 60th”

    Cliff Albert @ mid — Core argument: high pricing prevents accessibility and location operator growth

  • “We're trying to get that connection, but it's just too expensive to own these games to have that kind of global appeal”

    Jeff Teolis @ mid — Directly compares pinball's barrier to entry vs. e-sports market penetration

    • game
    Bond 60th / James Bond 60th Anniversarygame
    Looney Tunesgame
    Texas Chainsaw Massacregame
    Halloweengame
    Ultramangame
    Tim Sextonperson
    Ron Hallettperson
    Slam Tiltorganization
    Gorgargame
    System 11product_line
    Metallicagame
    The Beastevent
    Project Pinballorganization
    Bowen Kerinsperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    Pat Lawlorperson
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany

    medium · Cliff: 'the home market is going down because the secondhand market is pretty much crashing' and impact on operator economics

  • ?

    community_signal: Tournament director perspective on TD decisions: turning off multiball on Centaur for reliability despite design intent; clipping in-lane on Ice Fever to prevent unwanted extra balls

    high · Jeff explains tournament director reasoning: 'avoid future problems' and mechanical reliability override original game design in competitive context

  • $

    market_signal: Extended discussion of $7,000+ machine pricing as barrier to growth; Bond 60th at $10k+ specifically criticized for value proposition vs. cost

    high · Jeff: 'every pinball machine should never be over $7,000'; Cliff on Bond 60th: 'the value of what we're getting' as concern; both note LE flipping and secondary market issues

  • ?

    announcement: Spooky Pinball announced Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre in second week of December timeframe with reused playfield and different rule sets/inserts

    high · Cliff: 'they just announced Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, kind of similar play fields, a few changes, certainly inserts and whatnot, and definitely a rule set'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky's playfield reuse strategy (Looney Tunes/Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween/Ultraman) positioned as catering to different market segments without cannibalizing sales

    high · Cliff endorses approach: 'I think it's great... They're catering to different markets, brilliant' and notes Borg does similar with Metallica/Guardians

  • ?

    technology_signal: Jeff questions why pinball cannot achieve mainstream appeal equivalent to e-sports due to $7,000-15,000+ equipment costs vs. $500-600 console/games

    medium · Jeff: 'pinball will never have the same appeal as e-sports or gaming... too expensive to own these games to have that kind of global appeal'

    • 7:31
    Cliff, that's a good point because you've played pinball long enough and you're in tournaments and stuff, so you understand the whoppers. But when you first got into pinball, and if that's what you're trying to do is bring new people into it, whoppers don't mean anything. It's the experience. It's fun. Maybe it's the format. Maybe it's the social aspect. maybe it's coaching to get people to understand pinball a little bit better whoppers that's that's down the road yeah you know who actually got me into tournaments was Tim Sexton Tim balls yeah Tim ball so shout out to him so he was hanging out at rock fantasy Oh yeah Keeler a great place Yeah yeah yeah and I love Rock Fantasy I love Keeler good friend of mine and just went up there and played the Open up there And I was messaging with Tim back in 2017 saying, hey, what do I do? And he was like, well, pretty much generally every pinball hangout is a competitive situation. He wasn't trying to scare me with tournament talk or whatever. So the one day, my wife and I, before we were married, we just were sitting around on a rainy day, and we're like, let's do something. And I'm like, wait, we're into pinball now. Let's go find a pinball spot. So we looked up a pinball spot. We saw Rock Fantasy. It was two hours away. We're like, let's just go there. We got there just in time for the tournament. That was in the old location, too. The old location, yep. And we got there just in time. and I'll never forget I thought he was kind of a jerk and now I love him to death but uh Ron Hallett okay so Ron Hallett was blowing up Spider-Man at the time I thought he was blowing up and I just look at him and I go I don't think I'll ever be able to do that that that was amazing and he looked at me like you know his profile picture on Facebook yeah that's how he looked at me and uh I was like well that was a weird look but all right whatever and then eventually I kept I've seen him at tournaments, and I listened to Slam Tilt, and next thing you know, we became friends. And we did a rock fantasy tournament on Zoom during COVID. Oh, nice. Yeah. Really? Yeah. So what we did was Tom Farkas, one of the rock fantasy guys there, he had an Excel sheet where we would do percentages against our grand champion score on said machine. Oh, that's kind of neat. Yeah, it was really cool. And we'd just hang out and talk pinball. Well, that's good because, you know, sadly, some of the places that we grew to love didn't survive COVID, but we're seeing more pop up again and hopefully, knock on wood, things are good. And the growth like what you're trying to do there in the Poconos, I'd like to see this kind of expansion. But really what impresses me, Cliff, is that, again, bringing new people in because you and I are of a certain age and we remember pinball when we were kids. But right here at the Delaware Pinball Collective just a few weeks ago, they had a massive kids' tournament. I thought, oh, that's kind of neat. You don't see a lot of those. You see a lot of women's tournaments. You see – they don't have seniors yet. I'm not sure for that. But the kids' tournament, they had 42, 43 people. Yeah. Delaware is doing amazing things. I think from what I know, they're like the best on the East Coast, not taking away from anybody else. But I only live an hour and a half away, so I'm very lucky. and lots of people here from new york from new jersey uh you know washington dc baltimore a couple of there's four of us canadians here that came from the gta area yeah yeah i've been doing tournaments before this whole collective uh when they were holding it at joe and chad's house they were um alternating each tour event you know and then i remember in covid we would uh do high stakes tournaments where we only allowed like a couple people in the basement and we would just throw some some money and it was just like just to keep things alive you know yeah social distancing you know all that stuff but isn't that interesting because i remember talking to chad hastings about this delaware pinball collective and what was the pinball scene like before that and he said there really wasn't much the fact that these five people got together and put these wonderful games here, made a new community. Is that kind of your inspiration for maybe what you're going to be doing? Definitely. They are the number one inspiration. Number two inspiration is Bartari in Scranton. They're running Bells and Chimes Leagues. They're running regular leagues. They're running all kinds of stuff. And Spooky Pinball, they're really tight with Spooky Pinball. and they always do, like they did a Zoom podcast with them and whatever, and they build a scene out of nowhere, and there's like 20 to 30 people coming out for leagues. That's pretty good. Yeah. Speaking of spooky, here we are recording this in the second week of December, and they just announced Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, kind of similar play fields, a few changes, certainly inserts and whatnot, and definitely a rule set. You want to hear a hot take? Yeah. Oh, here we go. First of many to come here. Yeah, so the hot take is anybody that complains about the same play field situation is dumb because I think every theme or every layout should get at least a second chance. And I think what they did with the same layout kind of deal, even with Halloween Ultraman, I know a lot of people didn't dig it too much, but I think it's a great idea. I see that Borg does that and then does minor changes. I mean, Metallica Guardians, right? Sure. Rush has a lot of similarities to X-Men. Yeah, and Tron is just mirror of that. And I love that. I don't think that a theme needs a layout. You know what's funny? You talk about Guardians and maybe Metallica. I didn't own Metallica. I love Metallica. I didn't own Iron Man, but loved Iron Man. So I got Guardians. I'm like, I feel kind of like I have a little bit of those. And I agree with you. I don't even know if it's a hot take or not, because I do think it's brilliant that those are two different audiences, too. You're not going to own both of them. That's fine. Spooky doesn't want you to own both Looney Tunes in Texas or Ultraman in Halloween, but the fact that they're catering to different markets, brilliant. I think it's great. And the cost for them to do that is wonderful. And I don't want to see things like, you know, maybe Woe Nelly turns into Primus, turns into Pabst. That's enough. And a little birdie once told me that that was originally the idea for James Bond's 60th, The Limited. And then Keith came along and said, I might be able to do something for you. And we have that wonderful game. But I'm never mad about it, though. No, but I guess it really depends on the price point. But why not, right? I mean, if it's easy to do, if it's easy to get a new license and you've already tapped out of the old one, hey, what the heck? Yeah, I agree. I mean, like, of course, like these companies are going to try and find cash grab and stuff, but I'm never mad about cash grabs because if they're out of money, they're not making pinball. Yeah, exactly. If they don't make money, you know, if people don't like certain things, it's for everyone. So like everyone's going to like something different and they're catering to a whole nother market. All right. We're going to trade off on hot takes. My turn. All right, let's go. You know what your pinball machine's worth? every pinball machine should never be over $7,000. I don't care. Here's my hot take. It's whatever somebody was willing to pay for it. Yeah, but that's, though I'm a business owner and, you know, capitalism and blah, blah, blah, that just sucks, though. You know what I mean? It prices people out, no question about it. This is a very expensive hobby from an ownership standpoint when you look at price of toppers and things like that. That is the unfortunate thing. And that's maybe why pinball, my hot take number two, it is why pinball will never have the same appeal as e-sports or gaming. Because when video games, you can buy the console for, say, 500 bucks. You can buy the video game for under 100 bucks. Everyone can play and they're connected and it's the same for everyone. We're trying to get that connection, but it's just too expensive to own these games to have that kind of global appeal, I think. Yeah, my whole thing is we all talk about growth of pinball, right? And I really think that pinball should be on the ESPN. If we can watch beanbags being tossed in a wooden hole we should be watching pinball as well And with the growth what i saying is it very uh sometimes it hard for operators to make back what they pay for these machines right so like being now kind of dipping my feet into being an operator that whole thing of like oh a machine is worth what somebody will pay for it devalues well not devalues it stunts the growth of pinball in my eyes because not everybody's going to be able to play the big Lebowski. Not everybody's going to be able to play Bond 60th. You know what I mean? So I would rather see more on location, and especially now that the home market is going down because the secondhand market is pretty much crashing. Well, that's the problem. I would see so many people in the last five, six years get their hands on an LE, and wow, that's impressive. You've got one of 500 or 1,000, let's say certainly less than a thousand and they flip it for huge amounts i would imagine and i don't know this to be true i do some of the distributors are like holy cow we're leaving money on the table and they're paying a premium for that premium price and they're flipping it for what they're being told to flip it for they have to sell to that price and people go and flip it right away and that's probably the disconnect that's what drove the prices up it just got too high but also i haven't been a big fan of the model where distributors were given uh these certain titles it's only happened a few times and they've been told to set their price uh that one bothers me yeah i mean it's never worked by the way it makes the distributors the bad guy right i mean like that kind of sucks right um these companies should be helping out their distributors more than they should be just being like you know what i'm saying like the pricing of bond 60th. It's a fantastic game. We're talking about the... I do enjoy the game. If price isn't an issue for me, just my opinion. I certainly like the game because it's different and while there's a lot to do there, and I kind of do like single level play fields, the price is just outrageous. You knew it was outrageous when the wonderful, wonderful charity that is Project Pinball gave away one, and then And two, and then three. If they've got their hands on three of these, they weren't selling. Yeah, so my thing is that the game, I'm all about street-level games, right? I love my old-school Bally's. I love the weird Gottliebs like Hoops and Car Hop. Those are great games, right? They are good ones. But how much more would we love Bond 60th if it was six grand? Again, I said the game's great. You're talking about the price. Those are two different things. But what I'm saying is, like, if... They would have made so many of them. Yeah, people would have loved it more. But the thing is, for me, seeing that game, seeing, like, let's say... You're soured on the price. I'm not really soured on the price more than I am soured on, like, the value of what we're getting, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess the price goes into that. But it's like, okay, you got Deadpool Pro, and then you got Bond 60th. Now, I think one of the problems with a lot of people in this hobby is they cheered that game on when nobody was buying it just because of Spinners. Spinners has been around for longer than I've been alive.
    19:49
    You know what I'm saying? There were four on that. Oh, my God, there's four. Well, guess what? Harlem Globetrotters is the best game ever. there's three of them two saucers a double flipper it teaches you everything about pinball you can tap pass yeah it teaches you everything that you need to know about pinball where bond 60th doesn't really teach you everything you know what i'm saying like it's the four spinner okay we hit spinners all day cool i mean i'm gonna game i'm not saying that it's bad well agree to disagree on that because there are things i find interesting on that i like the way the odd jobs hat resets whereas other spinners don't reset case in point avengers you know you could you could be player two and that is in a really awkward position where you're gonna have to take a dangerous shot to get it in a favorable position yeah i was just gonna say they just had leftover avengers and then put how on top you know um but yeah no i mean it's it's a good game but i just and i'm not mad at them no no no you know like i don't care like put it up for 25 i i've been saying for the last two years, Stern can put out a whitewood for $25,000 and sell it. Yeah, it was called Supreme. Remember that? Yeah. But that was the first time I was like, okay, this is grossing me. Yeah, yeah. But that's a different thing altogether. But I'm not mad at that because it's like, if they can do it, why not, right? Okay, you're due for a hot take, and I heard it earlier upstairs watching you play roller games and then whirlwind. Cliff, what do you think of System 11s? I hate System 11s. I think they're the worst games of all time. I don't think that those designers actually got good until the Williams era.
    21:30
    Yeah, Pat Lawler, Twilight Zone is the only good game that he ever made. Steve Ritchie, Led Zeppelin is the only good game that he ever made. Whoa, I have one of those, and I might question that. Yeah, and you want some hot takes? I'm going to give you some hot takes for this pinball profile podcast. You can't find a bigger Led Zeppelin fan of the band than me. And God bless Tim Bowles and Raymond Davidson. I love that game. I love the code of that game. The code of that game. Even the layout. See, the thing is, I like the Pro better than the Premium. So do I. No, so do I. I agree. Yeah, because I want to play the game. I want to get through the game. I want to feel what it's like to experience, not experience Led Zeppelin. I don't care about magic. I don't care. Oh, look. The ball goes. You know, I want to get through the, I want to play the game. And that's the difference between collectors and players. And that's why my takes are so hot on pinball. I got you. So we've gone on one end of the spectrum. Gorgar is not one of your favorite games. Nor System 11s or some of the legendary Pat Lawler games. You think Zeppelin is a great game. Begs the question, what is the greatest game to Cliff Albert? The greatest game is Iron Maiden and Future Spa.
    22:46
    Okay. Iron Maiden pro and future spot. Okay. Hold on a second there. Okay. And I will explain thoroughly. We're going to trade off. Here's what we're going to do just for fun. I'm going to agree with you on Iron Maiden. I think I can't find a flaw with that at all. So let's focus on future spot. You give a positive. I'll give a negative. We'll go back and forth and whoever's got the most wins. No, it doesn't win, but just kind of fun. Okay. No. Let's compete. Okay. So. One at a time. Everybody that complains about, oh, it's another fan layout. Future Spa, one of the most creative layouts of all time. How many in lanes do you possibly need? Is four enough? Too much. Not enough. Seven. You see the six up at the top? Cliff wants that on the side. Yes. Okay. You're positive. Go ahead. Yeah. Two spinners. Okay. Here's my negative. The one on the right is useless because it's so far away because it's such a super wide body. You cannot rip that spinner. Okay. You're positive. play better.
    23:48
    Don't go for the spinner. Go for the drop targets all day. The inline drop targets are great. Here's my negative. As much as I love Paragon and the Beast and the danger on that left-hand side, it's kind of fun to pop it out of there. You're a dead man walking if you're in there on the right-hand side of Future Spa. No way. No way, because here's the thing. You got to know... Well, you got to play it more, okay? Dalton I speaking to you Dalton Pinball go check him out on Twitch And you got to take the outlane rubber off That what I do So on my future spa I have it jacked up all the way powerball and the outlane rubber off
    24:35
    This crazy future spa. Remind me never to give that one a flip. But, okay, you're going to have to come to the warlock party. I'm in on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, I will give you things I like about Future Spa. You have to give me things you don't like about it. Okay. I'll give you two things I like about it. Okay. I kind of like the kickback always working. When you're stuck with four inlanes on there, at least it rewards you with, okay, it's going to give you 3,000, 6,000, a letter. I like that on the far left. Okay. My negative is what you said with the right spinner.
    25:10
    Seriously? Yeah, no, the right spinner, yeah, that does suck, but you've got to play better. but you know it does suck um but another positive from you another positive i'm not gonna say the artwork because that's definitely not it especially when it doesn't match oh i love it let me let me i gotta find another positive ah you can tap pass on that i like i like that sometimes you don't even have to tap pass you can have a good ball roll on the left and then just goes nicely to the right flipper another negative thing that i have about it is that i don't have another negative thing about it and i i'm i apologize uh i mean the candy cane oh that would be a positive for me too i do like the candy oh my god i mean like when it works when it works well sometimes you can airball that star rollover i mean even if you airball it it still feels good i missed a negative if I wanted in there. All right, go with the negative. Just one word. Geometry. That's it. I'll just leave it at that. Well, I failed geometry, so I don't care about geometry.
    26:19
    See, that's the fun thing about pinball. And, like, listen, we're friends to be able to just banter back and forth like this, but it's kind of art. Art is subjective. And, you know, we don't have to like everything. We don't have to dislike everything. And we can still have a conversation. So you're not a troll. This is a lie. I was told this was going to be a dangerous interview. Where's the danger? No, no, no.
    26:43
    The thing is people started calling it trolling, right, where I just – joking. I just wanted to joke with people and I always say Future Spot is better than Paragon, right? And people actually got mad where Dalton got it. I think I saw it. Yeah, Dalton got it and started drawing pictures about it. You know what I mean? That's where I first saw it. Yeah, and that's the fun of it. So that was kind of when I'm like, okay, who's this Cliff Albert guy? But never offended, just kind of like, I think he's kind of joking or he's poking the bear, if you will. Busting bubbles. But when we first met, it was very kind and you were wonderful to come up to me and say some very nice things. And I appreciate that. You came to my tournament, The Beast at Pocketeer Billiards in Buffalo in August, which we'll do again next August 1st weekend. Thank you very much for coming. I'm glad you had fun. I had so much fun. I spent a lot of money and got to 27th place. Oh, top 24. Yeah, yeah. There's a B division next year. Don't you worry. Okay. I don't usually play B division because I don't think that I'm worth it if I'm not an A. But I thought it was great. I thought all the machines were great. Some of them were brutal. Some of them were fair. And I like that little mix. I probably spent about $120 in Walking Dead trying to get $100 million. But I did bust your bubbles with the Centaur not having a multiball. Do you know why we did that? Did I ever tell you why we did that? Because it didn't work. We turned off multiball on Centaur, which is like, what, what, what? It was whenever you're a TD, and you'll find this too when you're in the Poconos and doing these events, you always try to avoid future problems, which can include putting in games that might give problems. Or a perfect example, I just ran a tournament where we didn't want extra balls to be played or even plunged, so how do we do that? And we couldn't change dip switches or whatever, so in the case of some game, this was a game called Ice Fever, I don't know if you've ever played it.
    28:43
    We couldn't turn off extra balls. There was a way to do it, we couldn't do it. So all we did, extra balls are done by getting the three in lanes up top, and then it's random. so we clipped one of the in lanes just so you could never get a multi-ball i love it see that's what we did for centaur in a way yeah i and and i wasn't like mad about it but a lot of other people oh sure and we took it out for the playoffs we were like all right we'll give you a ball deluxe yeah and and i had to just to keep up with my cal ripken like street of busting had to bust the bubbles you know like and i did i forgot about so it was hardly a bust yeah and and honestly like The thing is I also talk in a very – like we had to go over – I think you said it three times, no swearing. I also talk in the old school, ragey, East Coast way, right? Sure.
    29:32
    But – and I talk the way I – when I type, that's the way I talk. So when I'm saying the F word in this F-ing this or this, I'm not saying that in anger. No. I'm just – that's – but people take it as anger. You're not an all-caps guy, are you? sometimes sometimes you know but but all caps just means pay attention listen to me you know what i mean like i'm holding the conch i'm speaking yeah yeah well i want to thank you for doing this and because you've been such a wonderful guest i'm going to actually right now reveal the first three games in the beast main finals we've got gorgar we've got whirlwind and roller games clip i hope to see you there in 2024 jeff maybe you won't maybe i'll make not make the finals on purpose but i'm still coming um no i i thank you for this um it was great finally meeting you because like we didn't know each other uh before like like until like right before the beast i was shocked when you told me you've been listening to the podcast for over five years yeah uh and like i was just like dude how did you not hear of me i don't go on pin side first of all um i don't go on pin side i only do pinball enthusiasts um i guess well you know i can't say i really go i've seen it but it's not probably the way the algorithm works it doesn't pop up i i don't usually post on other things like yeah pinball enthusiasts or things like that so hey it doesn't matter we're here now and by the way i didn't mean it like how did you not hear me but um but i also like you know i've done this conversely i'm shocked you heard of me yeah i mean well i mean i do a stream right so like it's a plug myself dj warlock pinball 777 uh the whole stream was to put together um rock and roll and pinball nice so but we probably have to go i think we got some playing to do right now so yeah cliff all the best and thanks very much for doing this no thank you so much i'm i'm like honored to be on pinball profile this is like technically you're kind of a celebrity that means nothing i mean it means something to me because i'm on here now but best voice in pinball. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you very much. Please don't put Gorgar in the beast. There'll be no promises, but I don't have one, so you're probably in good shape. But Cliff, have a great one, and we'll talk to you soon. Yes. This has been your pinball profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook as well. Email pinballprofile at gmail.com, and if you'd like to show your support on Patreon, not necessary, but very welcome, patreon.com slash pinballprofile, And thank you to all our wonderful supporters. Here with Cliff Albert, I'm Jeff Teolis. Later.
    32:08
    Everybody's dancing in the moonlight.