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Episode 223 - But For Me, It Was Tuesday

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 15m·analyzed·Jul 7, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Stern revives Rush; Haggis Pinball in critical condition with 3-person crew, no Centaur builds.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss pinball industry news in July 2024, focusing on Stern's Rush pinball re-release, Jersey Jack's new connectivity features, and critically, the severe financial and operational crisis at Haggis Pinball. Haggis is reportedly operating with a skeleton crew of ~3 people, producing only ~2 games/week, with no Centaur Revisited units built yet despite taking deposits, significant supply chain issues, and an unsuccessful investor search. The hosts debate whether Haggis can survive like Dutch Pinball did, concluding transparency and a clear plan are essential but unlikely.

Key Claims

  • Stern has renewed the Rush license and will produce Pro and Premium versions later in 2024

    high confidence · Dennis: 'they have apparently renewed the license at least long enough to go ahead and do a run of pros and premiums ostensibly later this year'

  • Haggis Pinball is operating with approximately 3 people (skeleton crew)

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Skeleton crew, we're talking approximately three people' citing local Australian resident near Haggis factory per NAP Arcade article

  • Haggis is producing Fathom Revisited at roughly 2 games per week

    high confidence · Dennis: 'a production speed which I think they've been still trying to make Fathom revisited of roughly two games per week'

  • No Centaur Revisited units have been built yet despite taking pre-orders

    high confidence · Dennis: 'not a single one, to my knowledge, has been built yet because they're struggling to finish Fathom'

  • Haggis still has supply chain issues, which is uncommon among modern pinball manufacturers

    high confidence · Dennis: 'they still have supply chain issues, which is not a common problem that most pinball companies are pointing to in any way as being a barrier anymore'

  • Fathom Revisited was supposed to be completed by end of 2023

    high confidence · Tony: 'Fathom was supposed to be done by the end of 2023'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball has developed a new connectivity feature to replace Scorebit

    medium confidence · Dennis references Slam Tilt podcast: 'JJP...they've got pinball connect now they used to use scorebit'

  • Haggis was previously the most transparent pinball company but is now the most opaque

    medium confidence · Tony: 'the company that was arguably the most transparent pinball company ever...has now clouded itself in so much shadow that they may be the most opaque player at this point'

Notable Quotes

  • “They weren't consecutive. they were two different four month stretches”

    Tony (describing Ultimate Animals Dreadnought gameplay) @ early in episode — Minor—illustrates extent of ongoing warfare in game; used as comedic segue

  • “Skeleton crew, we're talking approximately three people”

    Dennis @ pinball segment — High—confirms critical operational status of Haggis Pinball

  • “not a single one, to my knowledge, has been built yet because they're struggling to finish Fathom”

    Tony @ Haggis discussion — Critical—states no Centaur Revisited units produced despite pre-orders

  • “I completely understand the consumers being petrified who have $1,000 deposits down on a game”

    Tony @ Haggis discussion — High—expresses customer anxiety about deposits

  • “I view Dutch as an incredible story of willpower to avoid bankruptcy without considering the emotional and financial stress that they tore a whole bunch of people through for a decade”

    Tony @ Haggis discussion, near end — High—reframes Dutch Pinball 'success' as cautionary tale rather than positive outcome

  • “Do not preorder. Do not. It's not worth it. If you're not talking about a Stern or a Jersey Jack, you're risking yourself too much”

    Tony @ Haggis discussion — High—explicit consumer warning; states only Stern/JJP safe for pre-orders

  • “Having a company based in Australia does not make sense. That is not where the supply chain is”

    Tony @ Haggis analysis — High—identifies structural problem with Haggis manufacturing location vs. sales geography

  • “this is a very different market now. I think it was a very different market by the time that Centaur Revisited was announced”

    Tony @ Haggis discussion — High—suggests market conditions worsened between Centaur announcement and 2024

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyHaggis PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyDutch PinballcompanyDennispersonTonypersonZach MinneypersonRushgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis investor search appears unsuccessful; no evidence of capital injection despite restructuring claims

    medium · Dennis: 'doesn't look like they've been infused with cash'; company 'ostensibly' still looking for investor but market conditions worse since Centaur announcement

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball operating at critically unsustainable level (3-person crew, 2 games/week, no Centaur builds despite pre-orders)

    high · Local Australian resident observation per NAP Arcade; Zach Minney's refund acceleration; unfulfilled 2024 delivery estimates

  • ?

    community_signal: Pre-order ecosystem broken for all boutique manufacturers except Stern/JJP; hosts recommend avoiding pre-orders outside these two

    high · Tony: 'Do not preorder. Do not...If you're not talking about a Stern or a Jersey Jack, you're risking yourself too much'; Dennis: 'Nobody ethically, in my opinion, should be taking money on any of these games at this point'

  • ?

    community_signal: Jersey Jack implementing achievement-based engagement (seasonal challenges, location events) leveraging Xbox 360-era game mechanics

    medium · Dennis: JJP doing '12 days of kaiju' and location-based Jaws challenges; Tony confirms 'power of achievements' drives engagement

  • $

    market_signal: Dutch Pinball reframed as negative precedent rather than success story; decade-long customer pain not worth celebrating

    high · Tony: 'I do not view Dutch as a success story...I view it as an incredible story of willpower...without considering the emotional and financial stress that they tore a whole bunch of people through for a decade'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.228

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, July 7th. This is episode 223. Full. Metal. Jacket. That's good, and we could have made a 222 Vacheron reference that no one would have gotten last episode. No, but that's true. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Hi. To be fair, I think the line is like 762 Full Metal Jacket. It's the same thing. It's been such a long time since I've seen it, I can't.
0:44
762 Full Metal Jacket. So, what's been going on, Tony? It's been a couple weeks. We didn't have a lot of news last week. Thankfully, there's some video game news this week. There's not much on the pinball scene. We're in that weird time of pinball again. Where the market's dying? Yeah.
1:04
Welcome to 2008. Just wait. Yeah, just wait when we hit 2008. It's like, guess what, everybody? The first game of the year has been announced, and it is August.
1:18
Hey, look on the bright side, because we've got to find the silver lining in all things. when it reaches... You know, some people think that's their best movie.
1:28
Would you agree? I would not. I can see the argument for it. I can see the argument as well. Personally, I put it as two.
1:38
Yes. But I can see the argument for it. Sure. But anyway, the bright side that I was going to mention, which doesn't have to do with Life of Brian, would be that we would have all the failures to discuss. So there would still be – we would have content because they're – like in 2008, there was only Stern and there had only been Stern for almost a decade. We have a whole vast possible wasteland of companies that we would be able to cover. So I actually think that we could be looking forward to having a lot of content in the future. Very much so. Not that that's positive per se. Not necessarily, but it is. But it is news. It's news and it's still stuff to talk about. Well, what have you been working on?

  • “Nobody ethically, in my opinion, should be taking money on any of these games at this point”

    Dennis @ near end of Haggis segment — High—calls for halt to new Haggis pre-orders on ethical grounds

  • “I do not view Dutch as a success story...I view it as an interesting outcome. But your mileage may vary”

    Tony @ end of Haggis discussion — High—clarifies stance that Dutch outcome, while positive for customers, shouldn't be celebrated as industry model

    • Fathom Revisited
    game
    Centaur Revisitedgame
    Jaws (2024 Stern)game
    John Wick (Stern)game
    Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
    Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
    Scorebitproduct
    Insider Connectedproduct
    NAP Arcadepublication
    Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
    Pinball Showorganization
    Pinsideorganization
  • $

    market_signal: Stern using Rush re-release as calendar filler; suggests confidence issues with upcoming cornerstone title and slower-than-expected Jaws sales legs

    medium · Dennis: production calendar blank in certain months; Rush production fits October slot originally planned; Jaws 'doesn't have as long of legs as Jurassic Park and Godzilla'

  • ?

    community_signal: Haggis transition from most-transparent to most-opaque pinball company; communication breakdown with customers and distributors

    high · Tony: 'the company that was arguably the most transparent pinball company ever...has now clouded itself in so much shadow that they may be the most opaque player at this point'; tight-lipped with distributor network

  • $

    market_signal: Centaur Revisited pricing perceived as excessive for market conditions; significantly marked up over Fathom

    medium · Tony: 'I thought it was way too expensive. Because it was a significant markup over Fathom for maybe as interesting of an art package'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Haggis Fathom Revisited dramatically behind schedule (was due end 2023, still unfinished mid-2024)

    high · Dennis: 'Fathom was supposed to be done by the end of 2023'; skeleton crew production rate of ~2/week insufficient to clear backlog

  • ?

    product_concern: Mixed reports on Haggis build quality; parts availability issues and fulfillment delays more problematic than failure rates

    medium · Dennis: 'I've heard some people say they've had parts issues'; 'you can't get parts out of them either'; 'frustrations is this whole thing about not getting games built'

  • ?

    business_signal: Boutique pinball manufacturers unable to compete with Stern/JJP on delivery, support, or pre-order safety; industry consolidation risk

    medium · Dennis/Tony discussion implying only Stern and JJP safe for pre-orders; Haggis/Dutch crises illustrate structural disadvantage of smaller manufacturers

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Haggis experiencing ongoing supply chain issues while other manufacturers have resolved similar problems

    high · Dennis: 'they still have supply chain issues, which is not a common problem that most pinball companies are pointing to'; Australian location structural disadvantage

    • 2:21
    Not a whole lot. I've been continuing my Ultimate Animals Dreadnought playthrough as the Italians. It has gotten very slow because I can't go to peace with anybody. It is November of 1933, and I have had complete peace where I was not at war with anybody for a grand total of eight months since 1908. They weren't consecutive. they were two different four month stretches okay because the last you spoke to the listener we actually had someone on pin side ask about this game and i did share the the game title with them it you had basically taken over all but like east london and the english would still refuse to give you peace oh yeah no it's it's i've been at war with germany for two and a half years And at this time, there are these several places that are loving the introduction of their pasta. These lovely little towns, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiel, most everything the Germany owned overseas. They still don't want peace. I don't know why. No peace. I've literally moved it so that my entire European fleet is now based out of German ports because they're just larger than my Irish ports. Yes. So you've gone to – And I've been at war. I haven't been at war with Britain in forever. Is there still a Britain? There is still. They have southern England and Scotland.
    4:08
    So it's not even contiguous? Is that contiguous? No, it's not contiguous. I've cut them in half. The only real trouble I've ever had is I've been at the war with the Americans five times now. And those wars would normally last about a year and then end because we pound the crap out of each other so bad. because we are the top two nations in the game by GDP, land size, fleet size, and tech advantage by a long shot. So we're just beating the crap out of each other super bad. And then we go to peace with each other, and everyone else goes, hey, they just beat each other up real bad. Let's jump at war and see if we can take some of our land back. That's what it amounts to.
    4:57
    And neither of us can really hurt each other's main holdings. We're like trading some stuff in the Pacific back and forth, and they keep trying to take Panama back. And I just have put so much stuff there that they can't take Panama back. No. That's your canal now. It is. Yes. At this point, I'm literally taking canals and stuff just because I had to. It was the only way to keep their fleets from bouncing from ocean to ocean. You might want to rename it to like the Pasta Now Canal or something. Yeah, it's my Bolognese Canal. Yes. But in addition to that When I need a break from that game I've started playing Star Trek Resurgence Which is It's not by Telltale but it's kind of like a Telltale game It is basically an episode It's like a Star Trek episode And you actually play two different characters And the story Bounces back and forth between the two of them And it's been Interesting and really fun It is definitely like an episode Where there's just some quick time events as you watch the episode. And you get to make choices the way you deal with people and talk to people. And it actually affects how people look at you, and it changes your choices farther down the line. So it's been going. It's been fun. It's a little. It is on the just edge of Uncanny Valley. Like the art and the faces and the face movements and the body movements are just slightly unsettling. Like it's like They could have been a little better It's just a little rough and it's just enough That there's times where your brain's like Ah So But the story and stuff has been fun And you get to see a lot more of Uh It's interesting because they didn't put you on Any of the kind of standard stuff that you've ever Like ship wise that you've ever normally seen In Star Trek stuff you're actually on A Cheyenne class ship Which you see like one episode, or a Centaur class ship, but you see like one episode of DS9, I think. There was like an episode where there's a Centaur class that you spend a lot of time in in that, like one episode. Otherwise, you might see one or two in the background occasionally. That's it. So it's interesting in that way, but it's been fun. I'm not terribly far into it, but I've just started for something else to do.
    7:20
    Well, there's always variety as needed. Yes. Oh, it's definitely needed. What have you been up to? Well, I mentioned starting Firewatch last episode. I finished it very shortly after that episode. It doesn't take long. It's not a particularly long game, but the story was enjoyable. The story's enjoyable, and I always thought it was just a beautifully done artistically game. Yeah, there were a couple things about it that were a little weird for me. I actually got lost a couple times, which I guess was maybe the point. but um i'm gonna blame the graphics engine and not my directional skills and but anyway yeah so i enjoyed that uh too bad they has that company done a i don't want to say a sequel because i don't care about continuing that story i just meant like a game like that but didn't i couldn't see anything i don't think they've done anything else so anyway that was an interesting side so for variety's sake i have gone back to starfield oh i said that well there is dlc but i wasn't all that far i mean i had about a day's worth of gameplay and so 24 hours of time in the game so you know nothing to sneeze at in the grand scheme of games that's usually enough to get through them but uh so no i've gone back like i was ready for a quest that wouldn't even start for me and it was like a known glitch so that worked for me so i was able to actually continue and it was that might have been a side quest so i could have skipped it but i was just kind of like you know i went and played other stuff at that point um and so anyway i've uh i'm about two days worth now and i've so i pumped in because i took a couple days off this week so i spent a lot of time fielding my stars and working on like some of the the faction quests and stuff doing a lot of those because i had heard and i would agree uh i can't because i'm not all the way through the main story do a full comparison to the main story but some of the side quest stuff is is very well written so it's been more interesting than the main story which is one of the criticisms but of course i can enjoy the side story so that's fine so i'm doing that um getting back into it and i haven't touched the dlc aspects but uh i've been enjoying it so that's good which i had a lot of trouble getting into it initially but i think after seeing the fallout tv show and i've just finally been able to fully let go that starfield is not fallout in space and i just have to accept that that the gunplay doesn't that's my probably my biggest complaint i just don't feel like the combat feels great to me i just i need vats i want vats that's as good that's as fun but um but anyway so i'm back to playing that so and that's pretty much it i uh obviously fourth of july went out talked some video games went out to a lake in the area uh some friends of ours that we know from way back in the day uh they host out there and so talked a little bit of gaming with some of those individuals and then i knew we would have gaming stuff to talk about today but before we do that tony we have to talk about pinball stuff so there are a few pieces i feel like we have a little bit more news uh at least interesting news this episode than we did last episode plus we do have some more listener emails that we will get to i went ahead and put them all at the end of the pinball segment because i felt they were by and large pinball related but not entirely uh so first thing stern you remember rush pinball it's one of your not most favorite stern pinball releases well they have apparently renewed the license at least long enough to go ahead and do a run of pros and premiums ostensibly later this year so i know you don't love rush we kind of talked about that uh last time when we did the ranking off of that listener email who wanted us to rank 15 pro versions of the game. And I've also just struggled to connect with Rush's layout. But I do remember when it was indicated that they were done making Rush. I was really shocked. I mean, it was like a game of the year for a lot of people. Yes, it was arguably a weak year. But a lot of people really, they aren't me and they aren't you. They actually really, really, really like Rush a lot. So it's like, why? And this was when games were still selling really well. So the question that I think came up was, why is this game that, by and large, was pretty beloved, taken out of production super fast? I mean, it felt like it went out of production quicker than Led Zeppelin. And Led Zeppelin I understood. No, totally. Rush, even though it didn't click for me, didn't make any sense. It seemed like the nation of Canada alone was prepared to keep rush sales going, but I guess it wasn't. Blame Canada. But apparently there has been enough pent-up demand at this point, probably because the game does have such a stellar reputation, that they're going to do more. And not just like a pro model like they did with Black Knight Sword of Rage. So I think there's that. I also wanted to ask you, though, do you think that maybe this is a – I'm going to use the phrase warning sign. That might not be the best phrase to apply to it. But, OK, they've just done Black Knight. Here they are going back to the well on Rush. Is this Stern recognizing, OK, the pinball economy, it's not like it was in the pandemic, which we all know, seeing things like how John Wick performed and they're like, we know there's some demand for something like Rush. Let's go back and keep our line busy making a has-been game that already is appreciated rather than just going on in and launching a new game where we have no idea if it's going to click with people or not. I think it's partially true. It's about keeping the line up and going with something that they're comfortable with them getting sales on. If they've built up an internal backlog of something that's not selling, I can see definitely keeping the line going on something you might actually be able to move quicker. It's not like they would have wanted back in the day to have just continued making WWEs when they had something else that would actually sell. Yeah, and I think an aspect to the piece of this, normally I would say I wouldn't think it necessarily because we're not yet when a cornerstone would come out. We wouldn't normally see a cornerstone in July. Right. I think the expectations are there's been a block in the sort of a blank spot in the calendar of production because Stern provides a calendar of production. It does change. I've seen it sometimes change quite significantly, but it looks like September is when the next game is set to come out. Here's the thing. I have seen speculation. I don't know if it's been confirmed or it's a speculation. I'm going to say it's speculation, but it may have been on the initial calendar, that these rush games, October.
    14:06
    So that's right after when is currently a month, the month into when. Now, they can build more than one game at a time. They're stuck. But I just think that that's maybe more of a sign, not a lack of confidence in the next cornerstone or anything, but rather that they don't expect, like, John Wicks to need to be on that secondary line because they've fallen through the floor. And I think you're correct. I think that's what it is. And I think they're showing that up. And I also think Jaws probably doesn't have as long of legs as Jurassic Park and Godzilla did. Correct. So there's that as well. Even though, by and large, the buzz on Jaws has been pretty positive. The buzz on John Wick has been pretty mixed. I still haven't had a chance to play it. I haven't either. Okay. So there is that. I'm going to jump to Jersey Jack Pinball. Just a little quick piece that I wanted to mention here. they are apparently really close to rolling out a new connectivity feature of course we know stern's insider connected well i guess jjp i was listening to slam tilt podcast i guess they've got pinball connect now they used to use scorebit you remember right i remember scorebit i remember it was really cool because it can integrate into all sorts of games and be able to pull scores and i thought like for competitive reasons and tournaments and such that could be a really really handy feature i also always thought that the financing model didn't seem sustainable to me because it required monthly subscriptions basically by the owners right but they had an integration with jjp for a while and then those got like stripped out or not you or at least not used going forward so apparently they have been working on a new replacement for scorebit i think it's a little odd that they dropped scorebit without having the new thing in place but again when they kind of dropped score but i don't feel like insider connected had fully found its stride now that it's got an app and everything i a lot of people i mean insider connected is working for people it is let's put it that way i mean i don't i don't have the app but yeah i don't either but i mean they've started to do like uh challenges uh see like seasonal things like 12 days of kaiju but it's like oh i'm gonna do my 12 days of kaiju or or i know people will be like oh, there's like a special location-based Jaws thing. I need to go and get there within this two-week period because I want to earn some of those special achievements. And we know the power of achievements. Blukes. Yes, Blukes. Xbox 360 pioneered those. Steam jumped on them pretty quickly as well. And I think it's done – it's interesting because achievement chasing can be a path to madness, I would point out, as someone who used to be pretty aggressive about trying to get achievements. but one of the things I do appreciate about achievements is they will often get you to approach a game in a way you might not normally think about it and you might find that way fun right so that's the value of it I think but anyway so JJP doing JJP things the last major news item is our biggest one and so that's why I wanted to put it to the end and that is about haggis so I do have a link in the show notes to anyone who wants to read an article from over at nap arcade This is not an article just about Haggis. However, I'm pointing to it because of the information in it about Haggis. And that is, per that summary, a local, like a local Australian resident who lives near where Haggis does their game builds, has indicated that Haggis has been constructing games, so they've still been operating, but barely. Skeleton crew, we're talking approximately three people. and it appears purportedly a production speed which I think they've been still trying to make Fathom revisited of roughly two games per week.
    17:52
    And as they try and close out the rest of those Fathom revisited purchases that they have received. As near as I have been able to tell and from what discussions I have had, Haggis has been quiet. Not just quiet with the public. That's pretty easy to confirm. Right. But since they did that whole like restructuring and we're trying to find an investor post, they also have been pretty tight lipped with their limited distributor network that they happen to have, which is even more concerning. So now U.S. distributor flipping out pinball, who for full disclosure, the owner, well, co-owner of it, Zach, is my co-host over on the pinball show. So I do a podcast with Zach. So just FYI. So for clarity's sake, we had a discussion about this on the latest pinball show. I don't have a link in the show notes to it. People can just find it over on the pinball network if they want to hear it. I think it starts about an hour in. But that came up because I guess there was a not just I guess I saw it on Pinside at least there was a increase in demands for refunds from Zach for people who have deposits in on Centaur revisited Zach doesn have any Fathom revisited orders outstanding He had already gotten all of his. So it was only Centaur. And Zach did actually go ahead and accelerate the refunds from what he had planned. So he had indicated, because these are normally non-refundable deposits, he had indicated, though, that if Haggis went under, No pun intended that that he would issue, you know, he would pay for that because the deposit money has gone to Haggis. Right. I have the money, but he would refund them from his money, from his company's money.
    19:36
    Haggis has not failed. We don't. But they aren't winning either. So they're in this weird boat. And of course, essentially, people can go and check out the discussion on that, because part of it was Zach had estimated on his Web site to people looking to order Centaur. that it would be produced in 2024, and we're halfway through 2024. So it's very – like Zach clearly thought that unless they said they were out of business early, you weren't to expect the game until sometime this year and not to the end of that. However, people have become, for obvious reasons, extremely nervous about it. So he's gone ahead and made some alterations to what he's been doing with deposits to deal with that. And my point bringing that up isn't really to discuss flipping out pinball, but it's just to lay the context about the level of fear that exists amongst people that have been trying to get the game. And I think it's noteworthy to point out there are a lot of people, a lot of Americans included, that did not go through flipping out pinball. They've gone through haggis directly and full paid. Right. And that's full paid or if I'm mistaken on that, have given the deposit directly to haggis. So there's all the context. Tony, run with this. What do you think? I mentioned the – This brings us back to our never-ending mantra of do not preorder. Do not. It's not worth it. If you're not talking about a Stern or a Jersey Jack, you're risking yourself too much, in my opinion. I might even include Spooky into that list. I would include Spooky in that list. But any of the other smaller companies, I think you're putting a giant risk. And if you can comfortably put that risk, that's fine. But I think it would be best not to.
    21:34
    I'm hopeful that we'll see something out of the Haggis Group like we ended up seeing out of Dutch where eventually people are made whole. but from the sounds of it if it's three people putting machines together uh as they get a chance when they're not doing the jobs that are obviously putting food on their tables uh slowly and rolling stuff out in their stall and fathoms i wouldn't hold your breath that's only going to last for so long yeah uh and i i mean there are some people you might recall i don't know we've ever really discussed it but uh haggis offered this like deal also for people because they had this plan to make five remakes that they got the license for like these early ballet remakes and people like were able to buy in to be in this like to get a discount across all five if they were going to buy them all or something like that i don't remember the details enough i'm i'm living dangerously here but you know special uh special pre-order pre-orders with extra of pre-ordering us um it's a it's a total mess i i to me the thing that stands out was how how much of this is of haggis's own making the company that was arguably the most transparent pinball company ever when it came out has now clouded itself in so and so much shadow that they may be the most opaque player at this point. I mean, we're talking a company that when they were making Kelts was like doing weekly videos and promoting. I mean, and a lot of this was to promote the brand. They have struggled mightily ever since Fathom. And given that, I completely understand the consumers being petrified who have $1,000 deposits down on a game that not a single one, to my knowledge, has been built yet because they're struggling to finish Fathom. For those that don't know, Fathom was supposed to be done by the end of 2023. Right. And the last information we had with that information about needing an investor, which is scary enough, also indicated they still have supply chain issues, which is not a common problem that most pinball companies are pointing to in any way as being a barrier anymore. Plus, we just have to factor in that this is a very different market now. I think it was a very different market by the time that Centaur Revisited was announced. I was quite frankly very surprised at the number of pre-orders I heard about for those Centaurs because I didn't – I thought it was way too expensive.
    24:14
    Because it was a significant markup over Fathom for maybe as interesting of an art package. It depends on your take. but I don't know other than this sort of scenario I mean if the games get built I suppose the distributors would have their orders because the deposits have gone to the company and then they could just sell the games not to a pre-order person but just sell them out of a warehouse which a lot of people would maybe be comfortable with quality issue concerns aside which has been a problem that's plate a lot of these smaller manufacturers and i've heard mixed things about about haggis's build quality i've heard some people have very positive experiences i've heard some people say they've had parts issues the biggest thing i've heard hasn't been like that they have an excessively high failure rate but rather one of the frustrations is this whole thing about not getting games built it's you can't get parts out of them either right and it's just i'm i'm gonna because I don't know the details and it's unfair of me, but I'm a podcaster, so I'm going to do podcaster stuff and I'm going to ride in on my horse of ignorance and I'm just going to start spouting off stuff. This completely aligns with everything I said about how this didn't make sense. Having a company based in Australia does not make sense. That is not where the supply chain is. It doesn't make any sense. They were behind the eight ball the moment they decided they were going to do manufacturing in a country which has a pretty high per capita number of pinball players, but is not where most of your sales are going to be. Had it been an entirely Australia-focused endeavor, maybe it would have made sense. But their whole just-in-time manufacturing approach, by their own admission from their last email, has not worked in their favor.
    26:05
    So they didn't, you know, and they're getting purportedly, they fell behind because, you know, one thing wouldn't come in on time and they couldn't, you know, it's not like they have, they order enough stuff that they get stockpiles and they're able just to build off games. It's just sort of like, oh, well, now we have enough to build one sort of thing. It's just, do you think they Dutch this and, you know, maybe years later actually get through building everything that money can't, like, do you think they survive? Because Dutch, we were surprised, but they pulled through and got all their big Lebowski's out. Right. And I would say, I would consider that the best case scenario.
    26:42
    The best case scenario is that they successfully make people whole. What we actually see out of them, I don't know.
    26:51
    I mean, I was convinced that Dutch wouldn't make it, and they did, so maybe Haggis can pull off the same thing. But here's the thing. That's two companies in recent years that have fallen to the point of being down to having one in two guys who, through just sheer willpower, finish off and make stuff right, which is good on them as people, but for the hobby and the industry as a whole, is a terrible percentage looking at the amount of games that come out and the chances of being hurt by these early ordering, early adoption type stuff.
    27:28
    Well, I mean, yeah, it's looking like that might be best case scenario. Here would be my recommendations. As a non-business person, I'm just going to make up my old recommendations. Burn it all down. Got to go full podcast. I'll go for podcast. Okay. So here's the thing. Maybe it wasn't the best commercial decision, though. I completely respect the fact that they were pretty transparent about the issues that they had faced with the manufacturing, the hope to pivot, and the need for restructuring. Okay. May not have been the best business move, but I think the community liked hearing something. At this point, I feel you need to be more transparent. I do not mean weekly videos of whatever you're doing at the Haggis factory. Nobody cares. They do care, but I don't care. Here's what you need to do. Like some of this information that's referenced in the NAP Arcade article. How many people are building games? Tell us what's or at least tell us what is your weekly build rate on Fathom? But tell us, maybe tell us over the last eight weeks how many you've built each week.
    28:30
    Outline what your plan is on if you don't get this restructuring investment that I assume they're still looking for, because things haven't dramatically changed as near as I can tell. It doesn't look like they've been infused with cash.
    28:43
    What's the plan? Is there a plan? And I get it. The fear would be, well, who's going to put any money in if the plan is if we don't get more money, we have to go out of business? But honestly, nobody ethically, in my opinion, should be taking money on any of these games at this point. Like if I was selling Centaurs at this stage, I'd be like, no, I will not take your money anymore. This is just too dangerous. I'm not aware of any that are, except I don't know if Haggis would still let you buy from them or not. But I mean, I definitely wouldn't do it. They needed to sort of indicate like, this is what Dutch ended up doing, as you may recall. Like we knew Dutch was going in and had basically volunteer labor. Like the owners were going in and they were initially building games and then selling those games new. And that could be the strategy here, as you mentioned, like a best case scenario thing. It could be a, like, we're going to build two fathoms a week and get those to all those pre-orders. For the centaur people, you're now the centaur early achievers. We're super duper sorry, but we're going to have to build centaurs and sell them. Like, here's a game in the box, ready to go, sold to someone who didn't pay for it. And then every three that we sell, we can build, you know. and whether people are going to have the patience for that i know i would probably rather have partial refund or whatever pennies on the dollar because i think investment again it's like is this going to take 10 years 10 years people don't people lose and this is where it still sort of irks me that some people i don't think very many but some people will point to dutch as a success story i do not view dutch as a success story i view dutch as an incredible story of willpower to avoid bankruptcy without considering the emotional and financial stress that they tore a whole bunch of people through for a decade. Correct. So I don't view that as a win. I view it as an interesting outcome.
    30:43
    But your mileage may vary on that. But there's that versus if Haggis gets infused, like what they think they would be able to do and what that timeline, that estimate would be. I'm not asking for concrete details, just like what is the plan? The saying, I want to restructure, like who, and maybe they're having conversations behind the scenes, but like when you see that and you see where they're at right now, who in their right mind would go in and say, you know what, other than like an angel investor who's got more money than sense, who's going to come in and say, wow, what a great idea. You owe all these games to people, and you've already purportedly, ostensibly blown through all of the deposit money you have. So you're going to take my money and then do what with it other than try and dig yourself out of a hole? My question is when do I make money? Because it sounds like you need my money to subsidize all the mistakes you already made. And I said this on the pinball show, and I will still stand by it. I've met Damien. I met him at Texas Pinball Festival. He seemed very passionate about pinball. But if I was to invest, I would want to change in leadership at this point.
    31:49
    There's more than just passion to doing something successfully. I mean, that's been proven time. And so I think part of the plan would need to be with an investor. I don't think you can go in and say, here's my restructuring plan, and I need an investor. I think the plan needs to be I really need to an investor and I want to rely on that expertise and discuss a restructuring. And I am prepared to be a partial owner and to lose my CEO control over this because I have failed. Yeah. And I think that that would be I'm just trying to think of a way where anyone would anyone who was truly wanting to invest would possibly give money. And I think they would need to have a voice in it. They're not going to be a silent investor. Right. And I think Haggis is just too small to get the investment that they're looking for, especially with being as quiet as they are.
    32:44
    And it came to me while we were talking here. Wasn't there also a huge list of weird, freaky extras for the limited edition Centaur purchasers? Like custom motorcycle helmets? There was a helmet and stuff, yeah. And a bunch of other weird stuff. There was some swag and stuff, yeah. So that's what I was thinking.
    33:09
    So I wonder how that works in addition to everything else. Yeah, I don't know. It's a mess. But anyway, so there's your Haggis update.
    33:18
    I mean, that's all the pinball news I have. We do have a few emails I mentioned, so I'm going to go ahead and start going through those. I'm going to start with Rob F., who wrote in and said – Rob's probably worried what voice he's going to get. Sorry, Rob, I only have a few.
    33:35
    My Led Zeppelin premium that I bought two days before your most recent episode. I think Dennis's quote was, Led Zeppelin would be 15th for me even as a premium as well. This is not a game to buy. Do not buy this game. No, do not buy this game. It's not worth it. Like at all. Just don't buy it. Brutal. Lol. Truth be told, I only considered it because I got it for a steal at 5,400. I didn't know Stern Premiums could get that low. For that price, it's worth the few weeks I get to play it before I turn it around on trade or sale. I think that's a pretty safe bet. I won't lose money on it. Unless you guys talk about it again next week, that is. My take on it so far is that it's really a pretty dull game. I can't call it terrible. I have played Barbecue, WTF, Thunderbirds, and Punny Factory. But certainly a disappointing effort. Before this, I played both Pro and Premium a couple of times at shows. The Pro version is the worst Spike 2 game, hands down. The Premium is better, but maybe still the worst Spike 2 game. Honestly, the best Premium upgraded feature that tends to be forgotten is the expression lights are included. They look fantastic and are integrated with the music very well. I can enjoy that magic... That magic... I did not read this ahead of time. thing for my basic love of a rippable spinner point of view the added third flipper shot is certainly better than the pros crash dummy brick wall but not much it's really hard to hit and it likes to rattle or reject it's not a lot of joy to be found there once you get the shots figured out combos start to chain together and that's probably where the charm ends don't buy this game unless it is from me and i am sure to make you a good deal on it smiley face okay sorry for the edits and a beep there that I decided I needed to put in. But thank you, Rob, for writing in. I do apologize about the harshness of the game, and I didn't really. What's the expression I've heard on Loser Kids Pinball Podcast? It's not my goal to yuck in your yum. So let me put it that way. It's not my goal to yuck in your yum. Yeah, they don't like to yuck in people's yum. That's why they try and be positive. That's what they mention on one of their episodes. I'm like, you know what? I think maybe I yucked in Rob's Yum, and that wasn't my goal to do so. However – I don't think you did read that article. Well, all right. So I would say at $5,400 for a premium, I definitely would have been tempted to get the game as well. So I do understand that. Temptation. I mean, Tony, have you ever thought about if you saw WWELE for $2,000? Like maybe it would – No. All right. What he meant to say was, yeah. So it's like that. It's like that. So like if I saw a WWE for like 200.
    36:26
    But no, I wouldn't have bought this either. No, it was no. No, Rob. I mean, thank you for the quasi review that you provided. I'm sure that's helped a lot of people understand. And hopefully contact us to. No, don't. Actually, I don't want to because I don't want to be responsible with hooking someone up with a ledger. Yeah, let's not do that. Just reach out into the ether asking for Rob F. to contact you. Or watch for his ad, wherever good ads are made. And consider buying this game if you want to think that we are all very wrong. Because taste is subjective. Taste is subjective. I mean, not in this case. But in many cases, it is subjective. So always remember that. So thank you, Rob. Chris G. wrote in.
    37:15
    And you might recall from the last episode, he was the one who asked about the southern accents. Right. That's where I think because the first line goes, thank you for addressing this. Tony, why limit yourself to just feet or food? Por que no los dos? Put a Led Zeppelin pro in the background for the weird self-harm people. I was upset by the lack of fans news on this podcast. The people want to know. Chris. Well, thank you, Chris, for writing in. And another beep for me.
    37:47
    The safe word is jackpot. Okay. So those that didn hear the last episode the feeder food thing was about Tony OnlyFans We can assume that everyone everyone here is all the episodes So I have to I have to put all this stuff in So so you, you could do both. That's what Chris is saying. You could consider doing both. You were trying to decide between the two, but you didn't think about gluing the two together. That's, that's, that's very true. I didn't think about that. The, The Led Zeppelin pro in the background brings thoughts to mind that I can most definitely not say on the podcast.
    38:32
    But I don't know. Maybe it'd be, yeah, I don't know. Mental images happened, and that's a thing. So, yeah, but no, the safe word is jackpot. Jack Potts. All right. Regarding the fence news. So the fence has been repaired. I had a contractor. About 40 feet of fencing was replaced. I was out for a conference two weeks ago, and they did it while I was gone. So it just happened. I knew they were planning to try and do it that week, and it happened to be while I was out. And so they got it up. And there was a little – because there's a giant cotton tree in the corner, so they had to be a little creative about that because there was no way to drive a new post in where the cotton – wood was and work around it and uh so yeah it's not it's shinier than the rest of the fence that part of it but um so it's resolved and now the tree repair and by repair i mean like canopy raising and getting all the dead limbs out of the trees that is scheduled for almost a month from now that's how far out it just had to be but i actually had another limb that was almost out of the mulberry like a limb that if it it wasn't going to fall on anyone but me mowing but it was like a big enough one that it would probably kill me so i pulled it out of the tree myself uh yesterday and i'll have to saw it down probably because it's pretty thick but i was like that one's getting too low that one actually broke off the tree there's a lot of dead ones on the tree still right so there's your updates on my lawn stuff and finally one last email this one is from scott g not to be confused with chris g i don't think they're the same g so i don't think they're related ain't nothing but a g-fang aloha dennis and tony while i am pushing 50 i still enjoy watching some animation which leads to my questions it's been a long time since simpsons south park and family guy were made which of those titles do you believe is most likely to be done again what title that hasn't been released yet would you like to see if any I envision Beavis and Butthead, Bob's Burgers, King of the Hill, Futurama, etc. Perhaps many of these games are not a Stern's let's sell thousands type opportunity, but it's hard to imagine a lack of interest within the community and fan bases. Thank you both for the content. Well, thank you, Scott, for emailing in. So let's start with the first question. So which do we think would be the most likely to be remade? South Park, Family Guy, or Simpsons? from Stern. I don't think any of them are likely, but if one of them was going to be, it'd be Simpsons. Uh, agree. I don't think it's likely, but like if they start doing white star, obviously they start remaking white stars. Lord of the Rings is going to be what they're going to try and do first. Right. But Simpsons would be the logical number two at that point. I think so. I just don't know if there's really enough demand for it, but, but yeah, so we're in agreement on that. All right. What animation that hasn't, which is most of them, which hasn't had a pinball machine would you like to see stern do regardless because he pointed out you know it might not be one that stern sells thousands i guess just pick like one you want to see i would think bobs burgers or archer would make sense a lot of people have said archer for western style animation um trying there's just well he doesn't say it has to be west i know i No, but that's just where I'm leaning right now. Why? Why not the do you even lift bro one that you like? Well, I think that should be in everything because that's just straight hilarious.
    42:19
    But no, I definitely think that those are the ones that I could see the most from there. I think if you were going to go to anime, there's a ton of choices with the obvious one right on top for me being Dragon Ball would be the obvious one. Well, if I were to do anime and I'm going to lean a little more commercial with that, I would do Cowboy Bebop. But what I would – Dragon Ball would sell better. Dragon Ball probably would sell better. However, I would do Cowboy Bebop because I do have a preference for it. Oh, you're not – I'm not going to say you're wrong. No, I mean I just – but I still think I picked a pretty commercial one. I think so. My overall pick, which is a Western animation pick, is really easy for me, and it wasn't one of these listed. These would almost all be commercially better. But Venture Brothers, that's what I would have. I did really enjoy Venture Brothers. The Monarch! And I get to voice the Monarch.
    43:13
    You can voice Mrs. Girlfriend. I'll pass. No, you can do it. I believe in you. I think I'd be better off for one of the Henchmen. Or was it Doctor? girlfriend doctor doctor girlfriend and then it was uh doctor mrs the monarch or something like that yes yes yes yes number 20 you could voice number 23 yeah oh it would get mark silk to do that or everyone listens like i have no idea what they're talking about the characters are so over the top so the show started as a johnny quest uh sort of spoof but every season kind of went with it's kind of like how my understanding is archer's kind of gone with a different style as it's moved forward it was kind of like that with season not to the same degree but it was kind of like that with the seasons and venture brothers where they kind of started twisting on things a lot but it's always just sort of making fun of these uh villains versus heroes and the heroes aren't very heroic and the villains are lame and it's all there's a lot of like corporate politicking and just all the sort of anyway uh but the just the characters so many of them because they're over the top in their own ways. I think people would have a lot of fun with it. There's just so many things you could do with it. You wouldn't have to be locked into monarchy ball nonsense. There's just so many different ways you could go with so many interesting characters.
    44:37
    Like Phantom Limb. There's a role for magnets and all the rest of it. So Venture Brothers would be my pick.
    44:45
    Okay, well, that's it for pinball. So video games. All right. we're going to open video games with an update from a story that we talked about back during the pandemic.
    44:57
    Back during 2020, Dr. Disrespect was dropped for no reason that was stated. No reason. Permanently banned from Twitch. He didn't even know why he was banned, supposedly.
    45:11
    Shortly after having signed a new exclusivity contract, a big one and everything, he was just permanently banned. A series of releases from former Twitch employees over the course of the last couple of weeks has basically put it out that the reason for that drop was because he had been caught sexting with a minor on the Twitch's Whisper, which was their little Twitch kind of. Yeah, not Twitch, but their Twitter type thing that they did. They had their little messenger. Yeah, their little messenger thing called Whisper for a while. and attempting to arrange a meetup at TwitchCon. Oh.
    45:54
    So that came out. It's former employees, so it's grain of salt and all of that. Yeah, the former employees who have a great deal of bitterness towards a streamer who wasn't Twitch. Okay, continue. Yeah, which was rapidly gotten rid of when Dr. Disrespect himself admitted afterwards that that was basically what happened. He said that he did have – he exchanged messages with an individual that was a minor in 2017 that, according to him, leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate. Oh, okay. But in his aggressive, his very aggressive, you can find it easily online on social media. It's a very aggressive response is how I would put it.
    46:49
    Stated that there were no real intentions behind the messages, whatever they were that occurred. And that he was also claiming that he is not a predator or pedophile. Well, claiming those things might be problematic for his brand. Right. I don't know, Dr. Disrespect. So, I mean, very true.
    47:09
    But then following that statement, some more Twitch employees came out and stated that in the messages, the individual had made very clear that they were a minor. And he said that's not a problem. He very much didn't have an issue with that. And the sexual stuff continued afterwards. So as should not be a surprising This has had a major blowback on his brand He has been ousted from the development company that he co-founded He has lost his long-running partnership with Turtle Beach Who do headsets Oh yeah, the headset maker Yeah They're big Yeah, and he's been a major portion of them And he's been removed from that He's been removed from NBA 2K24 in which he had like a character and call outs and a whole bunch of stuff. And by removed, I mean on the next patch, they are removing all of his stuff and renaming anything that's left and completely removing him from the game. And he also had to deal with the San Francisco 49ers who have dumped him completely.
    48:20
    And he is currently on an extended vacation. Well, how's his YouTube channel doing? His YouTube channel has been completely demonetized. And while not banned, has been removed from the partnership program. Oh, wow. So that he does not make. There's no AdSense revenue then. There's no AdSense revenue. There's no nothing. No super chance. And also because of the stuff set up on it, the way that removal works. He does not get anything from any affiliated channels either. And he can't start a new channel or do anything else. He has been basically persona non ingrata from YouTube. So he can still post stuff there. but he won't make any money off of it. So we will see where that ends up going. But I think that explains very well the reason why they dropped him in the middle of such a thing. So solidly, it never, it never made any sense. One that he said he didn't know why they dropped him. That was nonsense. I think everyone knew that though from the get go, but that they had a, I mean, This was a major – he was a big traffic driver for Twitch. For them to decide after – just after signing an exclusivity deal to walk away from that meant they had to have been really scared about something. I know the other thing people thought was that he had maybe done something like with Mixer or something and tried to make a deal with some other company and offended Twitch. I'm like, this is all about money with companies like this. they would have thought that he will damage the Twitch brand was the only thing that ever made sense to me. Right. And this would be damaging to the Twitch brand.
    50:06
    And I also always thought it was weird that he did sue Twitch over the drop. And it was settled. And the settlement was neither side admitted to any wrongdoing. Right. So there was no monetary settlement. There was no nothing. That was a settlement of, oh, I'm suing you. And then the lawyers got together and talked. And he's like, how about we just say nobody did anything wrong? Well, I mean, if it went to trial, Discovery would have had all of this stuff come out. So I'm waiting for the next former Twitch employee to just give the copy of the whispers. I mean, that's post them. It's.
    50:43
    The interesting thing to me is all of this happened in 2017, but it didn't come to Twitch's attention until. Maybe the minor filed a complaint a few years later. Or it could be one of those things where maybe they did, after they signed the exclusivity agreement, just to be safe, they did an in-depth review of everything tied to him to cover themselves is what I'm thinking might have happened. Because you don't want something like that. There's so many messages that I'm sure that they're not covered all the time. They might have just done a deep dive to try and protect themselves. Sure. It's a little weird, though, to not have done that before the signing of the agreement. meant and then to have continued the investigation afterwards seems weird unless they saw stuff that they thought was sus and they didn't stop the contract and then went forward right with a continued investigation and then ended up finding something so dire they were like we have to take action we cannot this will blow up in our face and we've got too many things blowing up in our face because we're twitch and we mess everything up yes so uh yeah and again like you said this is always one of those things that was thought to be in likelihood or it was this or something else that would have been a moral problem the minor aspect is what surprised me that correct i given who he is uh that it was harassment based was i think theorized that was what my thought was but a lot it could have been and again uh i didn't i don't watch him i don't know but you know there were a lot of people that were like was it something racial was it something ethnic was a sexual harassment. There's just a lot of things that people kind of, but some form of harassment. Well, because he'd had some issues in the past where doing live streams in bathrooms and stuff. So there was a lot of stuff up there. We'll see. I'll be interested to see how this plays out after his extended break with his family, which I would assume is therapy and trying to hold his marriage together. Why?
    52:51
    Well, it's just because that's the type of thing that typically comes out of that. Sure. I'm just – again, I don't know the personalities, so I don't know why his wife would want to stay married to him, quite frankly, especially now that he doesn't have income.
    53:07
    That's valid. But she's not twitched. She might not be just thinking the economic angles. Well, clearly she's put up with a lot of – but I love Sam? Right. The fact that the character he plays is, it is 100% a character that he plays. Sure. I guess. But.
    53:29
    Disrespect. Yeah. This wasn't Dr. Respect, Mr. Respect, or whatever. Okay, anyway, well, whatever. Yeah.
    53:42
    Gaijin, the makers of War Thunder, the ones we've talked about multiple times. War Thunder. Because, you know, they're like the best place to get top secret information because people will go on the forums and complain that a tank or a plane isn't modeled accurately and then release the manual for the classified manual for the vehicle to show that they're that, oh, this is the correct thing. They have now issued an apology Because on one of their Loading screen art packages The person Or persons or AI that lifted it Just straight lifted the Challenger Explosion And posted it into it as something Being shot down In the background with a bunch of plates Flying around and missiles flying And it's not like And it wasn't stylized It's literally Somebody took an overlay of the actual picture And put it on it And it is 100% They took the picture And posted it into the background That That's too soon Challenger might always be a too soon for me And I did not watch it blow up live I was a little too young to see it But I remember the posters Of the crew being up And the news and everything else So that one and then but it does raise some questions about their art acquisition stuff. I mean, I guess they probably thought it's the loading screen. Who really cares? But let's just imagine we just take explosions of everything. I don't know. Just imagining like someone's like a hard-boiled egg in the microwave explodes, but they take the image because it said explosion. They just superimpose jets and stuff. The thing is they released a statement. and that's basically what it says. The statement is, Hey guys, yeah, please accept our apologies for this. The picture was part of an aerial explosion reference pack used by our artist and the context was lost. Because our artists are all like 20-year-olds who don't know. Right. We'll change the key art on Monday. We'll make sure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone. Things like this shouldn't happen and we'll make sure it doesn't repeat. Okay. I'm not going to slam them too hard. I still remember this was where the Kansas City Star, major regional newspaper around here, had to apologize when they did a – the circus was in town and they said, here come the clowns. And they used a stock photo of Gacy.
    56:16
    And they had an issue with apology the next day because, again, they just – they went for – they had archived stock photos of clowns and he's in there. because I don't know what happens but we don't like it anyway alright so thanks for bringing up the challenger I just love to remember that well as we continue to talk about disasters there a new live action street fighter movie on its way No no no March of 26 They starting production now The question is Are we getting Vondam Street Fighter Or are we getting Legend of Chun-Li Street Fighter Or something in between I can't believe that there's going to be something better Because I don't know as much as I enjoy Street Fighter I don't know that there's anything in here that can actually make this a decent story. I think I've seen both of those. I can't remember the Legend of Chun-Li one at all. Van Damme Street Fighter, the only thing I really remember. One, Raul Julia owns that movie. Totally. He's dying. His kids love the franchise.
    57:41
    He showed that this guy was a serious actor. The only other thing I ever remember is how much cocaine was done on the set. Every story you hear about it is there was a lot of cocaine. All the cocaine was done. Raw wasn't on the cocaine, but everyone else just like... You probably can see the lines in the background.
    58:08
    It explains so much about that movie. 100% if you have not seen that Street Fighter movie, it is worth watching. It is. just to see Raul Julia eat the largest ham ever and just be so over the top and perfect with being a massive ham. It is what every other role where somebody is trying to be a massive ham dreams to be. That's where Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons wanted to be Raul Julia level of being a massive ham. That's what he was aiming for. He didn't get there, but that's what he was aiming for. He tried. I mean, he probably had even less material to work with, but also Raul Julia was just such a phenomenal actor. I would say it was, in my opinion, the greatest scenery chewing performance since Wrath of Khan.
    58:59
    Yes. Yeah, I think you're right. Definitely. And probably perhaps the best scenery chewing ever done. In terms of just the quality, it's schlock, but you want to listen to him weave it. I mean, there's a reason why people talk about the, but for me it was Tuesday. That whole speech is so memorable. It is. Because he delivers it so well, and he's in this ridiculous robe and all this. And if you don't want to watch the movie, I guarantee you, because I've seen it, there is a compilation on YouTube that is just him chewing scene from that movie. And that alone is worth it. Yeah. All right. But so there's a live action. Well, I don't care. Yeah. It'll be more interesting when we find out who the actors are. Yeah. I mean, maybe this one's actually good. Yeah. I'm assuming at this point that Chris Pratt is Ryu. That's kind of where I was thinking. I'm worried. All right. Maybe they'll be. Maybe. They might be enough now where they're not going to whitewash Ryu. Yeah, maybe they'll make him Ken. Because in the other one, Jean-Claude Van Damme was Guile. So that was at least a little bit better of a fit. But yeah. Yes, the American played by – he's from Brussels. Right. Muscles from Brussels. That was what people called him. Yeah, I'm like, yes, what a great fit. That's the American, Guile.
    60:25
    Come on. He didn't even try a terrible American accent. I don't care where he's from. He needs to do a fake American accent like the Brit who played the villain in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the Nazi guy. He was like, they told me to sound like an American. I used the most ridiculous American accent that I couldn't believe, and they loved it. And as a kid, I thought he was American.
    60:51
    And he thought he was like the Dick Van Dyke of Britain. just for giggles. And it's the most terrible thing. The absolute most terrible thing. But at this point, I think that movie needs Sir Ben Kingsley.
    61:15
    Sir Ben Kingsley in Street Fighter. You'll go fire! I was going to say, that's dolsome. You're going to say it's dolsome. It's totally poking fun at Gandhi. He won an Academy Award for Gandhi. I just won an Academy Award for God.
    61:32
    So. Okay. So, Street Fighter live action. Very exciting. So much excitement. To someone who isn't me. And I think that's the same month that the next Super Mario is coming out. Speaking of Chris Pratt. Yeah. It's me, Chris.
    61:50
    I'm in everything now. It was a fun movie, so I can't. You know, what would be fun? What? Is if they just cast nothing but Chris's. Chris Pratt, Chris Pine. Here's what would be funny. We need a, not a TV series, just like a little miniseries. Remember miniseries? Do like a little four to six episode miniseries. Live action of that little blue flame nihilist. Live action, though. Live action.
    62:21
    And it just says like demotivational quotes in despair all the way through. That's what I want. That would be worth it. That'd be worth every second.
    62:31
    Saber Interactive, in what they claim is a good thing, but is nothing but flashing giant warning signs to me, has canceled the planned public beta test for Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, saying that they have the game almost ready, and they're focused on optimization and polish, so they feel like running the public beta test would pull developers away from prepping for the full launch and isn't worth it well i could see this as one of two things one they're recognizing that because of when the launch window is set they do the beta and anyone identifies anything they won't actually change it so why do the beta because the people are going to call you out for not fixing things from the beta the other option is the game is a steamy turn and they desperately need the sales. And if people are going to try the beta, like how I tried the beta of Destiny, and I was like, no. Yes. And I walked away from buying that game, that they'll do that to this, and they can't afford to not have the sell. Right. I think the next warning sign to watch out for is if they decide not to give out early copies for review. That will be. They might have to Godzilla it. And by Godzilla it, for those that don't know, because this is not the Eclectic Movie Podcast, even though we often wish it was back when murica godzilla came out they knew that it was the steaming pile of poop they knew and so what they did was quite frankly brilliant it was cynical and brilliant they launched a massive multi-million dollar blitz ad campaign to spike the opening weekend amount as much as possible before word of mouth spread and it did work they brought in a lot I went opening weekend and saw that movie. I did too. They had their deal with Taco Bell. That's a lot of fish. That's the one line that comes out of that that I still remember.
    64:31
    It was a terrible movie and it collapsed after that. But they saw the writing. They weren't deluded. They're like, this movie is trash. And even dumb American moviegoers will recognize this as trash. Godzilla fans are going to be pissed. Regular movie fans are going to be pissed. We made it and we're pissed. how can we maximize our return on investment? And they did what they needed to do. This is kind of like that, but on a mini version. Perhaps. We'll see.
    65:02
    And another bit of interesting, PCGamesIn.com worked with SteamIDFinder.com and has estimated that the total worth of unplayed Steam games sitting in users' libraries is at $19 billion. Yes. I'm not surprised, actually. I guess I didn't really think it would be that high, but, I mean, there's a lot of games that I don't even do a lot on Steam. I have a number of games that I've never played. Yeah, me too. And I try not to get games because I'm like, am I going to play it? I need to be honest with myself. See, a lot of mine have come from, like, Humble Bundles and stuff like that. Me too, but still, it's still, still. Still, it's a – now, how accurate is this number? We don't know for sure. Well, it's an estimate. It's an estimate, and the estimate is based off the fact that only 10% of players' libraries were searchable.
    66:01
    So they just – So they had to forecast. But still, that translates to if only 10% were – that's still like $1.9 billion. I think 10% is probably a pretty reasonable sample. sample uh i don't know the whole methodology so i don't i don't want to go too out of turn in terms of speculating that they had a good structure but that could be an accurate ology is they got the number of unplayed games and at 10 percent so 10 yeah i think 10 is probably a reasonable yeah enough at that point you probably have a pretty good average of what overall steam would look like i would think most normal surveys uh and such are much smaller levels and you don't get a lot of percentile improvement once you start going right people sometimes ask like why Why on the political surveys is like you get this margin of error when you cross like a little over 1,000 people, but like 2,000 people, no one goes for that. It's like because honestly, it's not worth it. Statistically, you're not going to see much difference after that. But anyway, no one cares about that. It's not an eclectic survey podcast. Right. Now, just out of curiosity, I went ahead and went to the Steam ID finder and their little pile of shame, which as they call it is the pile of shame, and ran myself through the pile of shame.
    67:14
    And my pile of shame is over $2,000. Tony! My total Steam library count is over eight. So, I know I haven't spent that much on video games. You don't know. That's the thing. You don't know. It's been years. It has been years. It's been years since you turned on your turning on Steam. But there was a period of time where I was getting, I was part of the Humble Bundle deal thing. So I was getting like eight or ten games every month of Humble Bundle stuff. So, but yeah. And I've also had a Steam account for a long time. A long time. So. Now, here's something we've not reported on in a long time.
    68:02
    PlayStation is actually going to attend a show. Wow, when that's not their own. Yes. They're actually going to have a major presence at the Tokyo Game Show this year. And they've not had a major presence at the Tokyo Game Show since 2019. And they've not really had a major presence at any show since 2019 or before even. they pared down to only going to a couple of shows before they completely went away. So I find that interesting because while they still skipped almost everything this year, they are going to attend the Tokyo Game Show. Be interested to see what they have there.
    68:37
    And Nintendo had their call with investors, had a bunch of discussions about a variety of things, including a discussion about taking legal action against people who utilize their IPs in ways that make people uncomfortable,
    68:59
    which I think is them getting around just playing on the edges of saying, basically, they're going to go after people who rule 34 Nintendo stuff if it's too blatant or it's too big of a money-making thing. because there's no way they're insane enough to attempt to go after Rule 34 stuff because there's just too much of it. They would lose. That'd be like when Bioshock, Bioshock's creator, made his big giant call about people not to Rule 34 Elizabeth from Bioshock. And that went out. That worked so well for him. Yes. They all listened and were like, you're right. We should leave her alone. Yes. Yeah, that's definitely what happened. But also during the call One of the things they talked about Was Switch 2 Specifically They stated that they did not believe the parts Shortages that caused issues With the original Switch release In addition to like the Xbox and Playstation Releases were going to be a problem For the launch of Switch 2 They did not share any information about When that would be, cost, or anything else But they did share that they are currently Not planning on any price changes for the original Switch at this time.
    70:14
    So the only other thing we know is back in March or May, they had made the announcement that they would talk more about Switch 2 by the end of the fiscal year, which for Nintendo is March of 2025. Right. So we'll see when we learn more information about that.
    70:33
    And the last thing is Summer Games Done Quick ran this last week and I completely missed it and forgot about it. But they raised $2.5 million. So that's better than Awesome Games Done Quick did and better than Summer Games last year. That's very unusual that it was higher than Awesome. Normally it's lower. And apparently what they did is they set some sort of final incentive and the incentive goal was the Awesome Games Done Quick amount. So they use that to drive it. I only watched a little bit of it on a couple of days. There was one day, I got to admit, I was pretty annoyed, though it didn't drag out too, too long, where there was someone and they were doing Baldur's Gate 3 and the incentive hadn't been met. So the person sat there acting like they were thinking about how to set up or acted like they were setting up their attack on the final boss, which was like a two second thing and stalled it out for i'm gonna say two minutes it was probably one to get the last thousand dollars and i was just like i was also really surprised that they got more than 2023's sgdq sgdq 2023 was less than 2022 and i i just figured that people were going to be less generous this time around because of market uncertainty but very much apparently uh It worked. But yeah, very different that they passed AGDQ because that's winter and people are out doing summer stuff. Yeah, normally it's the big one. It easily makes more money. So that very much surprised me when I read the news about it this morning. I have disliked their recent issues with stretching incentives to not allow incentives to fail. Yeah. I mean I think people – and maybe they've tried to do that for a while. It's just the incentives have become more and more aggressive, and the obviousness of not allowing it to fail is apparent to everyone at this point. So it's hard. The hype is fake, so it's hard once you've seen a number of these, and you're like, well, they always make the incentive. So there's just – if they just missed some of them, it wouldn't feel so artificial.
    72:42
    But they get – I mean it's gotten dumb too in my opinion. I mean I guess it's working, so they're going to do what they need to do. And this was for Doctors Without Borders was what this was raised for. But, I mean, when it's stuff like, let's, you know, we want $50,000 to play a three-minute DLC thing. And I'm like, this doesn't equate to me. Whereas, you know, they got little things that, you know, release a couple grand to, like, pick the name of the character. You know, kind of fun stuff. I remember they did a thing a few years ago where it was like $25,000 or something like that. It wasn't insanely large. but it required the streamer to do his final inventory shuffle for Final Fantasy IX before going into the final boss blindfolded. It's like, okay, I can see that. That's interesting because that means everything has to be done off muscle memory. Yes. And they had someone who did some Mario 64 blindfolded this time as part of a – I think he did some. Some of it I think was part of an incentive. The dog was back. I did not watch it. This time the dog played Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball or something.
    73:51
    I don't know. Was it better? I didn't watch it because I won't because that dog needs to not play video games. I've already decided it. I will recommend two things, and they're going to be very samey, so I feel bad about that, but I think it's worth it. I will recommend the Kaizu-level Mario Maker thing that they did with two-team relay race where that's fun. I thought it was really good. And then Mario Maker 2, they did troll levels. Two people running troll levels, which was a lot of fun, too, because they're just all the worst things in the world. Right. I can see that.
    74:33
    That's it. Okay. Well, folks, if you want to reach out to us, the best way is email at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com. But you can also contest us.
    74:42
    Contest us. Yes. Okay. It's been a long morning. You can also contact us, facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. Of course, the best way to support us is listening. But the second best way is financially, patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We have tiers as low as a dollar a month. I've started as of this month to not just do a babies first, but rather a pinball meme. I'm going to try and do that for a while because I'm tired of working in the babies first duck into everything. Honestly, there's just too few pinball releases to really use the duck. So anyway, I don't know. I don't promise that, but it's just something kind of fun. But otherwise, it's really just out of – we don't give you stuff, sorry. It's just out of the love of listening. But we appreciate it. We do. Where else can they hear us? They can also hear us on Twitch and Instagram. It's at collective underscore gamers. And we will be back in a couple of weeks. There might be a release. I don't know. Probably not. Let's be honest. Let's be hopeful. But if there is, it'll probably happen tomorrow. So keep those listener emails coming. So we'll have something to talk about just in case that doesn't happen. But until next time, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.