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DPP #128 "Shark week is back! So is location play!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·37m 21s·analyzed·Jun 10, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Location play renaissance and upcoming Alice reveal amid pinball accessory market discussions.

Summary

Don discusses upcoming pinball news including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reveal, Jaws accessories, and broader industry trends. He reflects on rediscovering location play at well-curated venues in Central Florida (Pinball Lounge, District Eat Drink Pinball), discusses aftermarket customization options for pinball machines, and speculates on Stern's potential Spike 2 inventory management strategy.

Key Claims

  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will be revealed at Electric Playground livestream tomorrow (3 PM Central) with details on pricing, production numbers, and release timing

    high confidence · Don states this is official upcoming announcement scheduled for tomorrow, citing livestream on YouTube/Twitch from Electric Playground

  • Rumored Alice game production will be under 500 units at a price under $15,000

    medium confidence · Don cites rumors/speculation from community: 'the mode for this is that the limit the editions will be somewhere below 500' and 'price will be under 15,000'

  • Stern Jaws accessories will be released Tuesday including armor upgrade, art blades, and shooter rod

    high confidence · Don states 'Tuesday, we're supposed to get the reveal trailer for the Jaws accessories'

  • Stern armor is priced at $279 while third-party alternatives (Cab Customs) offer similar products for around $140 euros (~$100 less)

    high confidence · Don directly compares pricing: 'it's around 140 or so euros to order a set of custom armor' vs official Stern pricing

  • Stern may be releasing limited runs of Spike 2 games like Aerosmith before fully transitioning to Spike 3 to use up existing inventory

    medium confidence · Don speculates: 'maybe they're reaching back into the well they're looking at their 40 feet of back stock inventory' based on factory tour observations

  • Jaws LE will maintain exclusivity with expression system backbox lights and speaker lights, which won't be available for Premium/Pro versions for 12-18 months

    medium confidence · Don states: 'unless you've got an LE, it's probably going to be 12 to 18 months until you can install that'

  • Pinball Lounge in Oviedo, Orlando has 35+ machines and charges $10-25 for 1-hour to all-day unlimited play

    high confidence · Don provides first-hand experience: 'this is a 35 or so game collection that's sitting in a bowling alley' with 'pay for like unlimited play for one hour, two hour, or all day for $10, $15, to $25'

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't think you're going to see an articulated shark. You're not going to see the orca that's going down with the ship. You're not going to see animatronic activities and things. Probably for this rumored price of $99.99, we're going to get something akin to the Godzilla topper”

    Don @ N/A — Sets realistic expectations for Jaws topper based on pricing, using Godzilla as comparative reference

  • “For $2,000, I can get a pinball topper that I could have forever. You're going to look at spending $3,000 just for a tent on the beach for a couple of hours? It makes toppers look like a bargain.”

    Don @ N/A — Contextualizes premium pinball accessory pricing through consumer spending comparison

  • “I'm rediscovering location play. And this is like the location I want to see. I see why people rave about it so much.”

    Don @ N/A — Reflects broader industry sentiment about renewed location play interest post-COVID

  • “So I had a great time... I'm starting to rediscover location play and how much fun that can be. One of the things I ran into is I ended up with having a much better collection at home than any of my local places.”

    Don @ N/A — Identifies home collector saturation as barrier to location play, suggests market rebalancing opportunity

  • “Locations, I think for the right locations, and this guy is definitely woke to pinball... A location like this would make a lot of sense.”

    Don @ N/A — Commentary on P3 multimorphic viability for location operators vs home collectors

Entities

Alice's Adventures in WonderlandgameDutch PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyJawsgamePinball Loungevenue/organizationDistrict Eat Drink Pinballvenue/organizationKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive reception for E.T. the Extraterrestrial as potential pinball theme; community expressing high interest in licensing discussions

    medium · Don states: 'I put it out on the Internet... people were like, damn, yes, take my money now. I would totally get that. And I was pleasantly surprised at the reaction'

  • ?

    community_signal: Location play experiencing renewed interest post-COVID as home collectors seek balance between home collection and location play; venues with curated collections generating strong community engagement

    high · Don observes personal shift: 'we're starting to just go back to maybe I'll pick up a game here and there, but let's rediscover location play' and 'now that we're getting a little farther out from COVID and people are starting to do more things locally I think we could see that take off some more'

  • ?

    event_signal: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland official reveal scheduled for Electric Playground livestream tomorrow (3 PM Central); expect details on pricing, production numbers, release timeline, and distributor strategy

    high · Don confirms official livestream: 'There's going to be a live stream on YouTube and Twitch, simulcast from the Electric Playground, where they're going to have Marvin from Dutch Pinball or DPX who's going to hopefully tell us everything we want to know about this game'

  • $

    market_signal: P3 Multimorphic platform gaining location operator adoption; secondary market pricing indicates home collector market saturation (~$5,000 used units difficult to sell); location viability stronger than home market for modular platform

    medium · Don observes: 'two times in the last 12 months i've seen someone selling a p3 for around five thousand dollars... it's like that's that's like half the cost man' and notes location operator interest: 'for the right locations... A location like this would make a lot of sense'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.112

0:00
Settle in friends, let's all get together. It's Sunday as a time of this recording. We're getting ready for a blockbuster pinball news week. I can't wait for the drops, man. Let's cover it all here in a little bit and we'll just recap what's been going on. Settle in, this is going to be a good time. Grab the throw pillow even. Let's go.
0:30
Man, I can't wait for this week. We got the new Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's going to be revealed. I think we're going to learn a lot about that coming up tomorrow. Got a ton of Stern stuff to get to and search through the chaff. Some more fun production things that are going on on the Internet and everybody. But how are you guys doing? How are you doing as we get ready? June is here, man. Summertime is coming. I know summer officially starts on the 21st. That's the summer solstice. But, my God, it is blisteringly hot here in Central Florida as I'm recording this here. Poolside from Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resort. First time staying here. Wanted to do it forever. Finally, everything aligned. We just checked in. So I was going to record this in the morning, but we had to check out. Spent most of the day at Universal, which is nothing but just walking from one pinball theme to another one. and I put out on the little interwebs and everything one major blockbuster theme that I see utilized heavily within the theme parks that hasn't been done yet. You know, walk around, you got Back to the Future. It's been done. It's going to be done again. You see Jaws, which is just killing it. Keith Elwin's probably my favorite game from his. I think it's going to surpass Godzilla in my exuberance for it. You know, Ghostbusters has been done. People are still dying for more Ghostbusters content. and then the fourth one is E.T. the Extraterrestrial another Spielberg title man the dude started with Jaws and then like right as he was at his just creative peak he dropped Elliot and Friends on us and I think it would kind of work with pinball I think it's a deep theme it's got the 80s nostalgia which is very much on trend right now and in a lot of ways things like Stranger Things have borrowed from the premise of E.T. a little unsettling extra-dimensional, extra-terrestrial, you know, kind of government conspiracy sort of thing. There's a lot of things that are borrowed from that and other period pieces from the 1980s. So I put it out on the Internet, and I was like, hey, Facebook folks, what do you think about E.T. as a theme for pinball? Like, is it just me, or, like, would you guys kind of be into it too? You know, because I don't know that automatically, you know, eight different modes jump out of my brain, but when I put it out there, people were like, damn, yes, take my money now. I would totally get that. And I was pleasantly surprised at the reaction that came out of the E.T. license. Now, E.T.'s got a dark ride at Universal Studios Florida. It used to be in Hollywood. That was taken out for the Mummy Coaster. And then I believe it was still at Universal Osaka. I think they may have reworked that into something else. But for right now, this dark ride is still killing it. You know, just where you're on a bike with E.T. and Elliot escaping from police. You end up going to his home planet. It's totally weird. I think if you just take the first half of that ride and put that under glass, I think it would be fun and compelling. And other people agree. Let me know your thoughts. Speaking of thoughts, I've been talking to my buddy Robin over the electric pinball.

Location play is experiencing renewed interest as people move away from pandemic-era at-home arcade focus

medium confidence · Don observes: 'we're starting to just go back to maybe I'll pick up a game here and there, but let's rediscover location play' and 'now that we're getting a little farther out from COVID and people are starting to do more things locally I think we could see that take off some more'

Electric Playground
venue/media
Melvinperson
Cointakercompany
Great American Pinballcompany
Cab Customscompany
Custom Pinballcompany
P3 Multimorphicgame/platform
Spike 2technology
Spike 3technology
Aerosmithgame
John Wickgame
Godzillagame
Pinball Mapservice/website
  • $

    market_signal: Aftermarket armor/customization market undercutting official Stern pricing; Cab Customs offering competitive products at ~$100 less than official Stern armor ($279); growing DIY powder-coating accessibility reducing premium customization costs

    high · Don compares: 'it's around 140 or so euros to order a set of custom armor... kind of like $100 or so less than the official Stern armor' and reveals local powder coating costs under $200 vs $600+ through established shops

  • ?

    product_strategy: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reveal delayed with ongoing production discussion; multiple distributors being activated suggesting imminent or near-term production readiness

    medium · Don discusses distribution strategy: 'Great American Pinball... another place. Nitro Pinball, I believe, in Canada will be servicing this as well' suggesting coordinated distribution setup

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jaws LE maintaining exclusive feature set (expression system backbox lights, speaker lights) with estimated 12-18 month delay before Premium/Pro availability; exclusivity as LE value differentiation

    medium · Don states: 'If you do have a Jaws LE, you still have some exclusivity with the light up sonar lights and everything... Unless you've got an LE, it's probably going to be 12 to 18 months until you can install that'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern may be managing Spike 2 inventory by releasing limited runs of existing Spike 2 titles before full Spike 3 transition; factory backstock of components suggests deliberate production strategy

    medium · Don speculates: 'maybe they're reaching back into the well they're looking at their 40 feet of back stock inventory... maybe they're going to reach into the well and just kind of go through each of their Spike 2 games and see how many more they can use up' citing factory tour observations

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spike 2 to Spike 3 platform transition underway; expression lights and backabox LED systems becoming standard differentiation feature for LE variants

    medium · Don notes Jaws and John Wick both have expression lights tied to gameplay and discusses eventual broader adoption across titles

  • ?

    venue_signal: Well-curated location venues with 25-35 game collections featuring current-generation machines driving strong community engagement; venue quality and game selection driving location play traffic

    high · Don describes Pinball Lounge: 'you walk in the door, and, of course, John Wick Premium right there in front. And then there's a Pulp Fiction. There's Jaws is there... and when that hour ended, it was still like, man, there's still so many more games I want to play'

    • 3:30
    And they've been, it's electric pinball, right? Yeah, the makers of the purveyors of fine aftermarket toppers. The electric playground. God, man. My summer sun has been like roasting my brain. I know I'm completely probably dehydrated. Anyway, forgive me, Robin. His show's kicking off next week. And that's what I wanted to get to. Because it's going to be the week of Alice in Wonderland. But I don't want to go among mad people. Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here. And while I think the original Disney theme would absolutely slap five times, full open-faced palm in the face,
    4:05
    this is going to be a takeoff of the, I guess, public domain, we'll call it. And we know the Papaduke history with this game. This was created in papercraft format. But there's so much about this that I don't understand. How far in development did the original game go? Did these guys just uncover a trove of like, here's the gameplay modes, here's the assets? It very much would be a product of its time. And I don't know if it would translate well just picking it up and dropping it off in 2024 without some plussing up and some housekeeping. So we're going to find out a whole lot tomorrow at 3 p.m. Central Time. There's going to be a live stream on YouTube and Twitch, simulcast from the Electric Playground, where they're going to have Marvin from Dutch Pinball or DPX who's going to hopefully tell us everything we want to know about this game, pricing, when's it coming out, how many are being made, where can I order one, because drip-feeding information has been constant the last several days that I've been watching it. Cointaker was the exclusive U.S. partner distributor for Dutch Pinball. Now there's a handful of others, Great American Pinball. I'm reaching out to some other people. We'll talk to Jeff at Mad Pinball, and he says he's interested but hasn't heard anything concrete yet. So, you know, are they in the mix of signing up distros in anticipation of this game getting released? When is it getting released? Is it getting revealed now? Is it getting revealed in 2025? I don't know, but I think we're going to learn a lot at 3 p.m. Central Time when the In Before the Lock gets kicked off. So, InBeforeTheLock.com is the website address to get to. They might even pre-show a little bit. Robin was saying, I'm still texting him right now. but if you want to get your questions of which I have a metric ton get them out there because they will ask everything as long as you're not a total jerk about it let's find out so my questions right how much of this game did they actually get with the assets I mean it could be that all they got was this paper craft and like this loose idea plus the zombie yeti art maybe that's that's all it is maybe there's some more to it you know is this like a magic girl situation where like sure it looks pretty but there's really nothing there under the hood or was there you know modes that were you know kind of thought out already um you know what had to be added to it those are the things that i want to find out for this game uh i still don't know the price i still don't know the edition numbers the the the i guess if you're looking at mean median and mode on rumors the thing that's appearing the most often the mode for this is that the the limit the editions will be somewhere below 500 which i like and then the price will be under 15 000 which i mean I guess under $2,000 would be even better if we're going to talk about price. But that kind of makes some sense. So it looks like this would be a title that would be targeting directly against the limited edition, the collector's edition kind of tier level. And I think the fact that they're only making under 500 of them will help bolster that. If they're making 350, man, this is going to be a fairly rare title. The fact that they're not making 500 limiteds and then an unlimited number of regular pro editions or something, I think will help this out. And then, you know, I like that they're walking before they run. So this new side branch from Dutch Pinball, they're not saying, okay, we're planning on doing 5,000 machines. Everybody send your money now. And then we find out that they can only make 150 a year or something. And then this is going to be another three- to five-year process of, like, I ordered a game, my money's tied up, and when the hell is it even getting here? So I think we're going to start seeing some answers here soon. And I think they should do that. I know they've teased that this game's coming out. We know what it is. So I think just go ahead and give us the info dump. You know, if this is a title that's not going to be in boxes until January, I think there's not really much of a need to even have been teasing any of this all along. So the fact that we know that Dutch is doing a separate label, the fact that this is their first game, the fact that we have an idea about numbers and price, I think now is kind of the right time. Let's go ahead and release this information. Then we can start kind of budgeting and see, you know, when does sales go on sale? You know, who are we going to put our name in? the box with and whatnot. Because everybody knows Cointaker right now, but they just announced Great American Pinball as being another place. Nitro Pinball, I believe, in Canada will be servicing this as well. But you need to give a fair shot to all your distributors. I think we need some information to know when's it time to put our name on the list. Because if I think I really want this game, I probably would have already put my name on the list with Cointaker. Then they're going to get a large share of the distribution sales when this thing does go live. So I'm hoping for some new information. We're going to find out tomorrow, Monday, 3 p.m. Central, probably a little bit before, but they do it in a live stream format. And then it's recorded and released, of course, later on YouTube. So if you can't catch it live, you can still see the recording. But if you want to be interactive and ask questions, tomorrow is the time to do it. So get around to doing that. All right, so what else is happening next week? Tuesday, we're supposed to get the reveal trailer for the Jaws accessories. um i like this you know next to new pinball day new topper day is also kind of a cool thing uh supposedly they're releasing the uh armor upgrade uh the art blades the shooter rod we already know what those look like and are they just going to be copies of the le versions and if they the le versions are they going to be powder coated i would think not because the premium because the Premium not powder and that what you be buying this for the Premium and the Pro so you want it to match everything else So if you want some little wrinkly, overcooked, toast-finish armor, it's going to be like $279. Can we talk about that for a second? This is pinball side armor, okay? This stuff is laser-cut in mass, on a plasma cutter, laser cutter, whatever, banging out the sheet metal. You throw it on the breaker, you form it, and then you throw this black wrinkle powder coat on, you know, 500 pieces of this all at the same time, and then you put it out there. Okay, I get it.
    9:55
    You know, it's kind of, so I've kind of gotten into this. Like, you know, if Stern can make it, can I make it? And it turns out, yeah, yeah, you can. You can make your own pinball armor. I've been buying Cab Customs armor. Guys out in Barcelona, Cab Custom on Facebook. we did a Jaws armor giveaway and it's around 140 or so euros to order a set of custom armor and it'll come with that black wrinkled powder coat if you want and it's kind of like $100 or so less than the official Stern armor and it kind of looks a lot better it's got more to it and if you want to add your own embellishments on there you can do that and I kind of think that $279 that's kind of a lot of money if you can get something that looks maybe a little bit better and then I've taken to getting things powder-coated myself, and my gosh, I was way overestimating how much that would cost. I think the first game I got completely powder-coated, it cost me like $600 or something crazy dollars. I went with a known aftermarket kind of pimper of machines and kind of had them do it for me, and then it was mailing the armor out, mailing it back, a lot of shipping and everything. Now I've come to find out, like, hey, I've got a powder-coater in town. They know pinball now, and we can do an entire game, including coin door, including speaker panel, shooter rod housing, all the legs, the side armor, the whole bit. And it's like under 200 bucks. It's like crazy. Now, I supply the powder because I want to go for kind of these exotic colors and things. You know, so, but, you know, there is something to be said about, you know, I order from the distributor. It shows up. I bolt it on. I'm done. And then I've got like the official official. So I get it. I'm just like, eh, this seems a little much. Shooter rod is going to be $159 or something dollars. It's probably going to be the same one as the LE. you know and if I'm an LE owner I'm seeing other people with the same look for less money I don't know that I'd love that but that is what it is Artblades whatever everybody and their grandmother's making Artblades if you like the official Stern ones go ahead and get them if you like some of the cool ones that aftermarket people are doing go do that check out and this is not a sponsorship this is just products that I buy in a review Custom Pinball also on Facebook French Dude in this case he does Artblades Some of the art really hits Some of the art misses a little bit But it sells two types You can get the acrylics Or the normal decals But you can also get these ones with a plexiglass acrylic finish And I've got these in a couple of games I put them in my big Lebowski I put them in Stranger Things And man, it's like a radcal on the inside of the cabinet Looks fantastic And because it's a stiffer, thicker mill acrylic That these things are printed on They go in a lot easier For those of you that have done Artblades before Or, you know, it's hard to get the decal completely straight. A lot of us do the wet mount so you can stick it on there and then, you know, kind of slide it around until it's finally in position. These acrylics, you can really just put them on with some spring clamps where you want them and then just peel off and stick. And that's how I did it. Very simple. And I think when I do go for more dark blades in the future, I'm probably going to stick with these. They do cost a little bit more, under $120 or so. But, man, I don't think anything is competing with the finish and how those things look. So check them out. Check them out. Also, was it Tilt or Pin Graphics? One of those guys was doing decals on mirror blades, similar to kind of what Stern brought out with Venom. Love that look. That look is kind of cool. Of course, those are a little expensive. And then they got the power blades if you have like $400 to waste on those. Those are like nuts. You know, they light up and everything. They have EL panels in them. But we're going to see what Stern got. So that's the general accessories for Jaws. But what about the topper? Let's see what we're bringing. I think whatever concept of a topper you have in your head, unless it's essentially just acrylics that are going to be backlit with flashers and then tie into the gameplay, I think you may be setting yourself up for some disappointment. I don't think you're going to see an articulated shark. You're not going to see the orca that's going down with the ship. You're not going to see animatronic activities and things. Probably for this rumored price of $99.99, we're going to get something akin to the Godzilla topper, which I like my Godzilla topper. I dig it. The light show is cool. The interactivity is the best thing that you're getting with it. We are all looking at it like, man, they have the same Godzilla on the topper that they have in the machine. Of course, the reason they did that is because they already have the tooling for that Godzilla. But they kind of painted it a little different. I don't know. But for $1,000, you know what you're getting into. What was I doing today? I was talking to a friend of mine. He was getting ready to go on a Royal Caribbean cruise. And so they have their own private island. and they do this, you know, day at some whatever beach, whatever it is. And there's a water park there as part of it. And the entrance to the water park was like $80 for like the few hours that you were going to be on this island. And you could rent a private cabana. And he told me the price, and it was around $3,000 to get your family a private cabana, which is essentially someone's gone on the beach and set up your tent for you, and you just kind of hang out there all day. Maybe drinks are included. But I was like, man, you know, for $2,000, I can get a pinball topper that I could have forever. you're going to look at spending $3,000 just for a tent on the beach for a couple of hours? It makes toppers look like a bargain. And so that may be kind of the market that starts looking at when they price these things.
    15:12
    Because compared to normal humans, $2,000 is an incredible amount of money, especially to pay for some light-up plastic that goes on top of a pinball machine that you don't even look at when you're playing, to be honest. But it put things into a little bit of perspective, and I think that's important to have. I am by no ways excusing the absurd price for toppers. Jesus. But, you know, that kind of flavored it. It was kind of a little funny joke that I had made, a little observation, you know, how prices and values can fluctuate depending on the situation. But, you know, isn't that funny? Like you could go get this Caribbean cabana and it's like, you know, well, I guess it's the experience with the family that you're really buying. But you could have that topper and take it home and sleep with it under your pillow or something. and have something tangible. I don't know. So we're going to see. So is it going to be the Amity billboard with some flasher LEDs behind it? Probably. We'll see. It'll be kind of neat, I guess. I'm excited to go see what the thing looks like. My Jaws will be moving on out, although I'm not writing off the possibility of Jaws coming back at some point. I'm loving that game. I love my Jaws Premium. I'm loving the code so far. I'm waiting for even more to come out for it. And even though I'm selling my Jaws Premium, I think, you know, should the mood strike me right and I have the space and somebody's offering one, I think I kind of wouldn't mind a Jaws LE at some point just because of that iconic theme, man. I love it. So let me know what your thoughts are on that. What else is Stern doing? I'm looking at a picture on App Arcade, as one does, of course, of Aerosmith. And thinking, you know, since the sun will be setting soon on the Spike 2 system that we've been enjoying with this awesome LED screen, now the expression lights and all that they're about to move over to the Spike 3 system either in the next game or like the game after the next game so maybe they're reaching back into the well they're looking at their 40 feet of back stock inventory thinking can we chew through some of this Spike 2 supplies before we then have to resupply for Spike 3 for the factory so maybe they're going to reach into the well and just kind of go through each of their Spike 2 games and see how many more they can use up and get out there this would jive with the fact that we saw that huge stack of Aerosmith back box decals on our factory tour. Now, that might just have been back stock. I'm sure they've got back stock inventory for all of their things, especially when you hear people getting their games and then, you know, decal gets scratched and you need a warranty replacement. Still waiting for one in Iron Maiden.
    17:43
    But, yeah, we'd be surprised to see, you know, small, limited runs of things like Aerosmith. Maybe they go back to the well. Would we see another Batman 66? Would they have to renew a license just to run a couple of those? I don't know, but it would seem to make more sense than not to maybe use up some of that current Spike 2 inventory before Spike 3 fully lands. I don't know. They're going to have some back stock for warranty repairs and things, but I kind of think it would make sense. So we'll see. We'll see.
    18:11
    You know, NAP's kind of hinting at it, and, you know, maybe. But I don't think I would be terribly surprised. As far as Aerosmith as a game, it's a very early Spike 2 game. I think it was the first or second. and not a whole lot of them out there, and the ones that are out there don't necessarily have Insider connected because that would have had to have been added. So I think some new IC runs of Aerosmith, yeah, why not?
    18:35
    I don know who going to be buying all these but it wouldn surprise me to see that One more thing I want to say about the JAWS extremities Oh my God my brain is fried The JAWS accessories that are coming out. I haven't seen anything yet indicating that the expression system back box lights or speaker lights would be available either. And I think these would be something that would work on multiple titles. We're seeing John Wick now has them as well. probably it'll be a thing going forward where the le's will have that included as a way the stern can add some extra value without decreasing the price although john lincoln had a shooter rod i'm just saying um but i haven't heard about that yet so we'll wait till tuesday maybe i'll be pleasantly surprised although i'm anticipating we're not going to hear anything about those speaker lights for like maybe a year if it was a year from now and they're like hey you know contact your distributor we now have these available that wouldn't surprise me so if you do have a Jaws LE, you still have some exclusivity with the light up sonar lights and everything. And with John Wick, as soon as they come through with that code update where the guns on screen will have muzzle flash with the speaker lights and tie in with the expression lights, I think we're going to have something special. But unless you've got an LE, it's probably going to be 12 to 18 months until you can install that in there. Unless the Penn Stadium guys can get their concert Neo XLs out and tie them into some kind of a speaker back box light as well. But still, I don't think it's going to one-to-one fit with the code that's being designed by Stern, so it will always be just a little air apparent, right? So we'll see. Maybe Aerosmith will come out with expression lights. How about, I think for a music pin, not a bad idea. All right, so I'm in central Florida. It's June now. Kids are out of school. Kids are just about to get out of school. And so it wasn't, you know, not a bad time to come on down, hang out at the parks. The parks are absolutely not packed, which has been nice. I think we're in a situation where COVID ended and everybody was just like, we need to go out and do theme park trips. We haven't been able to do them for years, and the parks were just busy, busy, busy. And then this summer, I think people finally got that out of their system, and they're like, let's go do a cruise. Let's go to the mountains. Let's go camping. And people aren't just descending on the theme parks. So wait times have been not so bad. Rise of the Resistance, a big Star Wars dark ride. at the studios park here, typically has waits of, you know, multiple hours. Yesterday, 30 minutes right in the middle of the day, if that tells you something. Slinky Dog Dash was like 75 minutes, and that's typically like a 320-minute wait in the middle of a Saturday in June. So there you go. So that's kind of interesting. So not a bad time to come on down. You know, people are doing other things. And I think we're seeing that in the pinball market as well because, you know, we're not just sitting at home and buying every game that comes out. We're starting to just go back to maybe I'll pick up a game here and there, but let's rediscover location play. So that's what I've been doing. Most of the times I come down here in Florida, I'm stuck in a theme park somewhere just having the best time ever. This time I've finally gotten time to get around to some of the locations here in central Florida, and the Pinball Lounge has been, whenever I put the word out, like, guys, where's a cool place to play? When I look at Pinball Map, there it is in Oviedo, Orlando area. It's a northeast quadrant of the Metroplex. But they talk about the Pinball Lounge. So this is a 35 or so game collection that's sitting in a bowling alley on the outskirts of Orlando. And it is phenomenal. It's on Coindrop. Or you can buy yourself a game card and pay for like unlimited play for one hour, two hour, or all day for $10, $15, to $25. Extremely reasonable. I've been here four days. We've gone twice now. Picked up a $10 card. And when that hour ended, it was still like, man, there's still so many more games I want to play. I should have got a two-hour card. So I'm rediscovering location play. And this is like the location I want to see. I see why people rave about it so much. So you walk in the door, and, of course, John Wick Premium right there in front. And then there's a Pulp Fiction. There's Jaws is there. It's a premium level.
    22:42
    Scattering of, smattering of Spike 2 machines. There's a labyrinth there. There's connected NBA games, so you can play those head-to-head. that was super fun first time i've been able to do that they got a great tales of the arabian knights they got a fun house there there's a safe cracker that they've actually put their own coins in and tries i might have played it like 10 times yesterday and i wasn't able to get myself one but i think i'll go back and see if i can play to get a coin you know but that's there and then they have a p3 multimorphic with final resistance in there and i'm so glad they do because this one is playing very well um you know it's only two flippers you don't have to mess around with the other buttons really and i got to just spend some time in a you know unlimited gameplay style and playing final resistance on a p3 so you know not just waiting in line you know at a show to get my hands on it and then to back off and it's not like a poor playing version that i've seen on some locations this was playing great um the game is super fun and i kind of see now the vision from jerry there about his p3 system so i'm kind of coming around to it a little bit had a lot of fun playing the game and i'm starting to see like what can be done with it and i'm it's great that it's idle location i would i know jerry wants to get these out to more locations and i think that's a great idea so your local place can have a game that they can swap in every now and then and you can play something that really the only other way to do it is to go all in on this very expensive platform and it's expensive modules and then you know hope for the best right and you know looking at people that have been trying to sell this thing after market it's a hard sell uh they don't tend to go well two times in the last 12 months i've seen someone selling a p3 for around five thousand dollars uh you know without the modules and it's like that's that's like half the cost man these things are very heavy as well and and trying to nudge this thing i agree so definitely an investment for home you know it's not like a stern you can just fold down take the legs off and drag it up the stairs i mean this thing is like if you're in you're in you're married to this thing And that's a lot of risk for a homeowner. But locations, I think for the right locations, and this guy is definitely woke to pinball. He knows what it is, what's going on with it, how to take care of machines and keep them running. So a location like this would make a lot of sense. Plus, the clientele coming to this place, you have to kind of know about it. It's completely out of the way. It's a bowling alley that's completely nondescript from the road. You wouldn't know something magical is in there unless you knew about it. Which is probably why I haven't even been there until now. So I had a great time. Now the two times that I've been there, I'll probably go back again this week because it's worth the 20, 30-minute drive, depending on traffic, to cross Orlando to go play. So I'm starting to rediscover location play and how much fun that can be. One of the things I ran into is I ended up with having a much better collection at home than any of my local places. So it's like, you know, there was really no impetus to go out and play on location because I had a better arcade at home. so I don't think it would be a bad idea to kind of trim my own my own game arcade down a bit to just like some real nice nuggets that would give me some room so if an absolute banger comes out I don't have to put it in the bathroom or something uh but it'll also encourage me to kind of rediscover locations and now that we're getting a little farther out from COVID and people are starting to do more things locally I think we could see that take off some more let's do some coin drop tournaments man why not all right so uh the other place I went and played eat drink pinball or something the district district eat what the heck was this place called it was at some dead mall in the same town it was only four or five miles from the pinball lounge um but the reason i went there you know they had 1828 games something something around there um some duplicates they had a class of 1812 which is kind of cool a mary shelley's frankenstein which is starting to warm up to a bit you know there's a tommy there a bunch of the newer sterns a limited edition attack from mars with the topper like that was the first time i played one that was all completely dressed out, but they had a shadow, it was their Twilight Zone, I think they might have a Scooby-Doo, but they had a Jersey Jack, they had every Jersey Jack there, they had a Jersey Jack Pirates of the Caribbean, and that's pretty much why I was like, alright, this is the one that we need to go to right now. So rolled in there, I played probably the best game of Pirates of the Caribbean I ever played, I got like a million and a half points on it, which for that game and the way that it scores is good, man, I got a couple of multi-balls, I was hitting targets, you know, I shot a ball from the one ship to the other ship. It was just a great game that I had on it. My wife and I both played. And I was looking at it, and it was sitting right next to Toy Story 4. And I'm like, my God, man, Jersey Jack. If your Toy Story 4 was loaded just close to where Pirates of the Caribbean was, we wouldn't even be having any kind of discussion about it. It would have been like, yes, I want that. I want to play with those toys. Like, give me the thing, man. Because, like, what a fantastic game. Like, what happened to Jersey Jack? They come surging out onto the scene with Wizard of Oz, just loaded. And it's like, imagine if they took Wizard of Oz and used a much more compelling, relatable theme. To me personally, not some black and white musical from the 1920s, but something like heavy hitting, like say a Pirates of the Caribbean. And then they did it. And my God man even though it doesn have the triple spinning disc or whatever that game is loaded with so many different ballpads So many creative ingenuic things The three inlanes on the left the one that just dies the other two that feed back to the flipper The under flipper shot to Tia Dahlba's dungeon off that left upper flipper. The physical ball locking, the heart in a box, heart-shaped box, nirvana box that's up there in the middle. The magnet and the pin in the back that holds the ball up and then the magnet smacks into targets and things. And then it plays into the modes. It's got fun pop bumper placements. It's got a rocking ship upper play field. The thing is nuts, and you guys know this.
    28:33
    Why aren't they making more of these games, man? There's been a couple of times that personally I've even thought, let me sell three or four of these games and just go in on a Jersey Jack Pirates of the Caribbean and just have the dang thing. I know they're expensive. I know they're overpriced. They're like $25,000, although I've seen some come down below $20,000 recently. you know but why not just have like the game in the game room you know the same same amount of value in the lineup but like like a really high-end machine and i think i'd be terrified to own it because what if they re-ran them and it was like a fifteen thousand dollar collector's edition version of jersey jack's pirates of the caribbean that just completely gut and undercut the entirety of the market can you imagine especially if johnny depp was in oh man forget it forget it so um so i think for that reason i'm just i'm so scared to ever buy one of these things because like you know that happened with stranger things right it happened recently with black knight sword of rage like if they come out with something else just cut you off the knees gosh that would suck and then you wouldn't even have the best version of the game anymore so i talked myself out of it i talked myself down but what a fantastic game and then what happened like this was eric man eric made this game and i don't even hate guns and roses um the play is not fantastic but the light show is so good, and the music is so good, that game is fun. And the only reason that it's so cheap is that they made so many of them and there's so many out there. You cannot derive a huge price off of it anymore, which is just they're all out there. And, you know, it's not Pirates of the Caribbean. It's not Wizard of Oz. But dang if it doesn't have the best light show on pinball. To this day, man, I still love it. And then what happened, man? We got Toy Story 4 and Godfather, and it's like, where's everything. It's like you just took a shovel and just started scooping things out of the game and then you're like, okay, here we go. And then they're priced more than they've ever been. I really hope they turn this around. I think they're in the right direction with Elton John as far as Elton John's a fun machine. That's fair. It's not loaded. It's not loaded. I don't think anybody could say that Elton John is as loaded or even 70% as loaded as Pirates of the Caribbean. Look at all the extra ball paths, the subway systems, the pop-up nests and everything, the floating upper playfields, shooting a ball at another ship. I mean, come on. You don't have dueling pianos with Elton John. You don't have a 1970s Elton John and a 1990s Elton John, and they're firing cannons at each other in a Looney Tunes style from their respective piano upper playfields. But the game is good. The game is good. The game looks amazing. the set dressing on that is just dripping onto the floor so I love that let's springboard back into the land of just huge toys imagine something with the size and scope of Pirates of the Caribbean with a Harry Potter license with a Muppets license with something just like damn man I really hope they get back there they've got a chance to do it and we might see that at IAAPA I didn't want to wander off too far in there but I had fun playing Pirates of the Caribbean that was the take home point what a fantastic game that is that's just too expensive for me to own it's like a high-end car you know i could go and get one but then i'd be too afraid to drive the damn thing i'd be too afraid to like insure the thing you know i i don't have a high-end watch because like i'm not gonna wear you know forty thousand dollars on my wrist and then you know be looking around my shoulder hoping i'm not getting shanked in the neck for it you know it's just not that's not how i roll man you know that's why i don't have like a big gold chain though i do love the look and i love the aesthetic and i love to have a grill to go with it, you know, I would just get stabbed in the neck and somebody would take it. So it's just not worth the risk, but, man, what would it be fun to have. All right, what else do I got? We Are Pinball is a worldwide perspective pinball podcast I have started with my boy Jengiz for Retro Jango on YouTube. He does a lot of old Amiga stuff and pinball stuff. He's an operator. He's a distributor in Europe. He lives in Copenhagen. And I thought, what a great partner for a pinball podcast to just combine perspectives and just broadcast it out to the world. You know, not just me speaking to my fellow peers here in the United States and southern Canada, but also, like, let's kind of capture everything worldwide, you know, and put some perspective there. So our total number of episodes have now doubled. We have two out. We just dropped the other one last night. And the feedback I'm getting so far, pretty good. I just want to remind everybody, like, if you're going to listen to it, it's really coming from a worldwide perspective. You know, it went a little off grid there towards the end of the episode. But Cengiz had some questions like, Don, this is stuff I'm seeing on the news. What's going on at the southern border? And I'm like, my God, man, that is a loaded topic. I don't know any way I can dance around any kind of response to this without alienating at least half of the audience one way or another. So I tried to encapsulate as pragmatically as I can, but don't get completely turned off of that.
    33:30
    Perspectives coming from Europe, he comes from a completely different place. and one thing that Mark Twain, American laureate, has taught us is that travel is antagonistic to ignorance. It was essentially the gist of it. I'm going to butcher the man's quote.
    33:48
    But essentially, travel is one of the best things that you can do for yourself in order to give yourself more of a perspective. If you're down in your little corner of wherever state you live and that's all you've really seen, that's all you interact with, that's the entire world to you. You know, to the ant, the ant hill is the cosmos, right? So, you know, have a little bit of perspective and keep yourself open to new ideas and things. That being said, we had a wonderful discussion about all things pinball and all things going on right now. So go check that out, We Are Pinball. It's at Spotify. It should be everywhere else now as well. We've got a Facebook page that people are finding their way to. and it's really kind of a collective of those of us that are just like, hey, we like pinball. You got something, you make a mod, you got a cool location, you got a tournament you want to promote, just go ahead and put it on there, man. It's like our own little posting forum where everybody is welcome. I mean, we includes everyone, you know, not just me. It's not me, our pinball. No, no, we are pinball, WAP. We even have an easy acronym to remember. We have a new logo now as well, so thanks for that. More fun is coming with that for as long as it survives. So check that if you would. I'd like to give a thanks out to all the Patreon members, especially all the new people coming in, man. We're almost at 100 paying members, which means we're going to start giving away multiple giveaways per month, not just the one. Up this month, John Wick Translites, alternate Translites. So if you've got a location that's got the game, if you're getting the game and you want something a little bit more adult than what comes out of the factory, I've got the hookup and you can win it for free. All you've got to do is be a Patreon member, which I guess is saying it's not really for free, But I ain't exactly accepting self-addressed stamped envelopes. If you want to enter without paying for Patreon, and you want to send me a self-addressed stamped envelope, fine, go ahead. We can do it that way. But we'll be picking somebody. And as always, anybody from the higher tiers gets double entry towards those. We're having a lot of fun, too. I'm doing extra episodes now for the Patreon. I kind of have to. You know, when I started it, I wanted to keep the show completely, you know, still free. And just wanted to have a tip jar out there, like I was a lounge piano player. It's something I've always aspired to But what has happened is so many people are in there And they're just so gracious And so loving That I feel compelled to just generate even more stuff for them So they feel like they're getting more value I want my Patreon members to feel like They're getting the most value in pinball And so that's what we're doing That's why we do free giveaways That's why we got our own Discord That's why we have special other Discord channels For the higher tiers And that's why I try to open it up to more of what's going on The ins, the outs who said what, what drama do you want some tea? we've got a tea room at the upper levels come into the producer chat and we can talk about anything I don't hold back anything in there from those guys so it's been a lot of fun we've been having a good time and we're still growing so thank you to all of you for doing that everybody else, go ahead if you need a game email jeff at madpinball.com he's blowing up, madpinball is the wave of the future not quite a Dutch distributor yet but we're working on it, anything else?
    36:54
    Of course, email me at donspinballpodcast at gmail.com. Find me on Pinside of Pin Don. I've got the Don's Pinball Swag Barn on there. You guys are finding your way there because you're ordering mods and stuff. Find your way to the Facebook page as well. Like and subscribe me on there. YouTube, whatever. You know where to find me because you're finding me, man. It's working. Otherwise, patreon.com slash donspinballpodcast. Again, easy to find. Have yourself a great pin week. Later.