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Spring 2022 Chat with Mel Kirk

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 2m·analyzed·May 2, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Zen's Mel Kirk discusses Pinball FX early access: ticket system delays, cross-platform goals, and ongoing table refinements.

Summary

Mel Kirk from Zen Studios discusses Pinball FX early access challenges, platform complexities, and technical updates. Key topics include cross-platform compatibility goals, the ticket system's incomplete rollout, Williams table remasters still in progress, console port priorities, and ongoing physics tuning. Kirk emphasizes the iterative nature of development and commits to post-launch rule updates and maintenance.

Key Claims

  • Pinball FX early access launched on the last day of March with Unreal Engine technology and new third-party service dependencies creating unexpected challenges

    high confidence · Mel Kirk stated early access hit 'the very last day of March' and acknowledged the new platform, new technology (Unreal Engine), and reliance on third-party services working at different speeds than expected

  • The ticket system's dynamic bundling feature (allowing custom discounts based on remaining ticket balance) was supposed to launch weeks before but has been significantly delayed

    high confidence · Mel Kirk: 'We thought it was going to be ready like even a day after we launched. Then it's not. And then weeks are going by and it's still not.'

  • Indiana Jones is a 'very special case' that will remain purchase-only and will never be priced at $14.99; no other table in the lineup will cost $14.99

    high confidence · Mel Kirk explicitly stated Indiana Jones is purchase-only and 'There's no other table that's going to be $14.99' despite some big hitters coming

  • Cross-platform compatibility across console, PC, and mobile is the end goal but was not ready for launch due to licensing agreement delays

    high confidence · Mel Kirk: 'We're working towards that goal' of enabling tables purchased on Xbox to play on PlayStation. 'Somewhere along the way, in the way that we were solidifying agreements with licensors and partners... we hit like a 60-day window that just wasn't adding up.'

  • Zen plans staggered console launches (Xbox first, then PlayStation) rather than a simultaneous multi-platform release to ensure cross-platform system stability

    high confidence · Mel Kirk: 'Whenever we're 100% sure that this is working on Xbox, we'll go live on Xbox... and then when we can confirm that PlayStation' - implying methodical rollout rather than simultaneous launch

  • Physics simulation in Pinball FX has 80 tunable properties per table, not 41 as previously stated

    high confidence · Mel Kirk: 'Akosh said something about 41 properties. It turns out it's 80. It's not 41... Yes, it's 80. It's not 41.'

  • Williams table remasters are not locked in and will continue to receive lighting, physics, and performance improvements before final release

Notable Quotes

  • “I even underestimated how big and how challenging and what a monster this thing is. We have so many partner licenses. To try to get companies to agree to do things at the same time and on the same schedule... it's like a constant challenge.”

    Mel Kirk @ early in conversation — Directly addresses the core challenge of Pinball FX development: coordinating multiple IP holders and platform partners simultaneously

  • “When we came out a long time ago and said that Pinball FX3 transfers, backwards compatibility and tables won't import to the new one, we should have repeated that message like every month.”

    Mel Kirk @ mid-conversation — Acknowledges communication failure and why early access feedback was negative - unmet community expectations about backwards compatibility

  • “It's a marathon, not a sprint, right? And I've been out there. I've talked to everybody on where it's toxic. Just let people know that we're hearing them... I still believe in the design and the mission that we're on here. And I do think it'll work out.”

    Mel Kirk @ morale section — Shows leadership response to negative early access reception and commitment to the long-term vision despite setbacks

  • “We're solidifying the back end. We're making sure that all this stuff is working, that we have user information. We're going to do more things in the game to be more transparent about like what you've purchased and when and for what ticket price.”

    Mel Kirk @ ticket system discussion — Outlines transparency improvements planned for early access period to address purchase confusion

  • “The way that we might actually roll out the console launches is – whenever we're 100% sure that, like, this is working on Xbox, we'll go live on Xbox... It may be because this thing is like a system and we can bring on a whole... like a new part of the factory almost.”

    Mel Kirk @ console rollout section — Explains staggered approach to multi-platform launch rather than simultaneous release

  • “Pinball is really – there's things about it that even through testing, somehow, because it's so random, you don't reproduce things and you don't find things... There needs to be updates, and we are committed to that for our games.”

Entities

Mel KirkpersonChris Freebus (Shut Your Trap)personJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyPinball FXproductPinball FX3productUnreal EnginetechnologyTicket Systemproduct_featureIndiana JonesgameWorld War Zgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Licensing agreement delays pushed Zen into a 60-day window of misalignment between game readiness and partner requirements, forcing early access strategy rather than full launch

    high · Mel Kirk: 'Somewhere along the way, in the way that we were solidifying agreements with licensors and partners... we hit like a 60-day window that just wasn't adding up... Do we pause the game just because this whole thing's not ready?'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Early access launch generated significant negative community blowback regarding backwards compatibility expectations and ticket system confusion; team morale temporarily impacted

    high · Mel Kirk: 'The blowback on that right at launch was a little surprising... morale took a hit. Sure. People were down. I said, guys, please stop reading the Internet.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Williams remaster tables still require significant refinement in lighting, contrast, physics ball behavior, and performance before being considered 'locked in' for final release; describes need to 'dim the lights in the room' to see improvements

    high · Mel Kirk: 'The remasters, we are still working on those... I think that we have much tweaking to do... we need to dim the lights in the room, and everything will be brighter and more vibrant.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Voice licensing and music rights represent significant cost barriers to authentic content; Zen uses approved voice-alikes and composition licensing strategically to balance authenticity with pricing constraints

    high · Mel Kirk on Christopher Lloyd voice: 'You're not going to want to pay what it costs to put Christopher Lloyd's voice in Back to the Future' and on music: 'I can go get the real song. But sometimes I'm like, nope, no one wants to pay $14.99 for a table.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.187

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hey everyone how you going and it's not just jared morgan because guess what folks it's also mel kirk What's up everyone? Back on block A Hey guys Right a little sooner Than previous times It's kind of like Wait didn't we just have Oh yeah that was just Back in November or whatever But yeah November I just realized I mean Yeah Like we're rolling The end of April So it was actually A little while ago Yeah It's like Time flies And yet There's so much That happens in between Those times You're like Yeah it is good To get caught up And kind of touch base Again here Hmm time is going by and uh just blurs yeah i don't know yeah you guys uh uh obviously since last time we talked the uh early access is kicked off and gone in full swing there um and there okay there's so much to talk about uh regarding the early access thing um but i wanted to just kind of give you the opportunity i know you've uh mentioned stuff over on the uh the pinball show.
1:28
But just if there's anything you want to touch base on, just kind of espouse, get out there and then we can dive in with any of our questions. Oh, sure.
1:38
First of all, I'm really glad we're doing early access. The game, I always knew it was going to be a big game, but I even underestimated how big and how challenging and what a monster this thing is.
1:51
We have, you know, we divide things into content and in the contents, that we've got so many partners licenses so to try to get companies to agree to do things at the same time and on the same schedule and all the same methods it's like a constant you know that's a challenge so we've been wrangling that then we've got the platform itself which built in you know new technology and all these new things that we're learning about unreal engine and you know there's there's a trick around every corner and there's something that we didn't expect around every corner and we also have some third-party services that we've had to rely on for the first time ever. We used to develop all of our services at Zen. So we're relying on other teams to help provide these to us.

high confidence · Mel Kirk: 'The remasters, we are still working on those' and 'the lighting will improve before we say that these are the final remasters'

  • Zen Studios is committing to post-launch rule updates and maintenance for original tables, similar to Stern's approach with code updates based on real-world gameplay data

    high confidence · Mel Kirk: 'As the pinball team is growing and getting bigger, there's a focus – and it's a red line item – is maintenance and updates... we are committed to that for our games'

    • Mel Kirk @ maintenance discussion — Commits to ongoing updates and acknowledges inherent unpredictability in pinball game balance

  • “People always – they're like, 'I would pay extra for the authentic thing.' So I went out and got the authentic thing. And then it was weird... like, that, you know, we're greedy.”

    Mel Kirk @ voice acting discussion — Humorous but revealing about tension between authenticity, licensing costs, and pricing expectations

  • “We try to do everything 100%. You want to keep your licensors that you do have, and that you might get comfortable knowing that you guys will do right by them.”

    Mel Kirk @ Creature licensing discussion — Shows Zen's priority on maintaining good relationships with IP holders over cutting corners

    • Attack from Mars
    game
    Creature from the Black Lagoongame
    Netherworldgame
    Back to the Futuregame
    Bally Batmangame
    Romegame
    Marvel tablesproduct_line
    PlayStationplatform
    Xboxplatform
    Steamplatform
    $

    market_signal: Zen failed to adequately reinforce backwards compatibility limitations in communication strategy despite major announcement; mainstream gaming press ignores Zen Studios as repetitive, forcing self-directed marketing approach

    high · Mel Kirk: 'When we came out a long time ago and said that Pinball FX3 transfers... we should have repeated that message like every month... mainstream press and games don't cover us. Like they think that what we do is repetitive.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Ticket system's dynamic bundling feature was expected to launch within days of early access but remains incomplete weeks later, missing approximately one-third of intended functionality

    high · Mel Kirk: 'We thought it was going to be ready like even a day after we launched. Then it's not. And then weeks are going by and it's still not.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Significant performance boost deployed at end of previous week; ray tracing implementation improving visual fidelity for players with capable hardware; ongoing physics and lighting refinements for Williams remasters planned for May releases

    high · Mel Kirk: 'We got a huge performance boost... at the end of last week... over time, any table that's currently available will improve. And as our next series of releases in May, I think you'll see for remasters better results.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen is committing to post-launch rule updates and maintenance for original tables (Mars example), mirroring Stern's code update approach based on real-world gameplay data and community feedback

    high · Mel Kirk: 'As the pinball team is growing... there's a focus... is maintenance and updates... we want to release a game that is ready... there needs to be updates, and we are committed to that'

  • ?

    business_signal: Staggered console launch approach prioritizing Xbox first, then PlayStation, to methodically verify cross-platform system stability rather than simultaneous multi-platform release; described as 'bringing new parts of the factory online'

    high · Mel Kirk: 'Whenever we're 100% sure... we'll go live on Xbox... when we can confirm PlayStation... it may be because this thing is a system and we can bring on a whole... like a new part of the factory almost.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Migration to Unreal Engine introduced unexpected technical challenges and third-party service dependencies that operate at different speeds than Zen's internal development, impacting launch timeline

    high · Mel Kirk: 'The platform itself, which is built on new technology and all these new things that we're learning about Unreal Engine... there's a trick around every corner... We also have some third-party services that we don't work at the same speed that we do.'

    • 2:31
    They don't work at the same speed that we do. We thought that they would work. So all that to say, it was actually amazing that we did hit the very last day of March for the voluntary access. And we're making strides and headway, but this would have been, like, there's no way we could have got a single other console or even one other platform on the same day. So this is So early access, we're getting heaps of feedback. We're learning a lot of things about our own ambitions. And it's a lot of fun. Right now it's challenging. And look, it can be a little stressful. But I would say that the challenge is actually the most fun. So obviously when early access hit, there was tons of comments. And we obviously had our own comments too. um the question is how much of that were you guys expecting to hear uh and how's the morale of the team uh i mean obviously knowing where things are going as opposed to what we the public have seen yeah well we were expecting what we've heard uh for the most part uh one of the things that we kind of um miscalculated i would say is that we when we came out a long time ago and said that FX3 transfers, you know, backwards compatibility and tables won't import to the new one. We should have repeated that message like every month. You know, we thought we did the big blowout and that everybody knew about it, but we come to find out it feels like only a fraction of the audience actually heard that and knew about it. Part of that's because mainstream press and games don't cover us. Like they think that what we do is repetitive and they don't talk to us. So that's why we kind of started taking control of our own communication. We thought, well, anybody who cares about our game, we're going to get out in front. we can say what we want, but we should have been saying stuff, you know, a lot more and just reinforcing that. So the blowback on that right at launch, at early access release, was a little, that was a little surprising, I guess. And, you know, now we know, like, when we have bad news, we need to keep saying it over and over, even though we don't want to.
    4:32
    And then the ticket system, you know, one day I'd love to do a real, the real story about why everything happens. And I can't do that right now, but we wanted to talk about the ticket system and all of that, like six weeks before FX Early Access came out. And due to things I couldn't control that I was trying to control or work out, we just couldn't. And so it ended up being like just a couple of days before release. And the way we had to message it was super squirrely and watered down and didn't do it justice at all. And we also just were missing a third of that whole system right now. Once that gets plugged in, I think it'll make more sense. But, you know, so morale took a hit. Sure. People were down. I said, guys, please stop reading the Internet.
    5:16
    It's a marathon, not a sprint. Right. You know, is what we're looking at. And I've been out there. I've you know, a lot of this is on my shoulders. I've been out trying to I talk to everybody on where it's toxic. Just let people know that we're hearing them and, you know, just do what I can to. Yes, we made some missteps. We didn't communicate it correctly. but just please stay with us. I still believe in the design and the mission that we're on here. And I do think it'll work out. And if it doesn't, then we'll change it. So let's talk real quick about the ticket system. Cause there is something that we noticed, obviously.
    5:52
    And we've said that the studio granted me and Jared, one of those 1200 ticket packs, which was awesome because it let us at least experience what it is like to do, you know, do the ticket and everything based off of, you know, because everybody was guesstimating how many tickets it was going to cost to get all the tables that were going to be released at launch. And a lot of people's math had it at the 1,200 tickets would get you absolutely everything, and then, of course, you'd have to buy Indy.
    6:19
    Unfortunately, it seems like that was because with the 33% off, everybody was kind of rounding down the fraction instead of rounding up the fraction to the point that it wound up being there was just one table that you would then have to skip at the 1,200. So that's what I wanted to ask is regarding the percentage off and the ticketing. Was that – did that throw you guys also where it was like, oh, wait a second. We also intended that to be able to go across that way?
    6:51
    Yes, there's supposed to be something in there right now that fixes that, and we – hopefully it's coming in the next update. But the idea is that – so this was supposed to be a very positive thing. was just supposed to be able to, how Zen could give extra value. Like, Oh, you a user has 18 tickets somehow after they bought stuff, let's just say, Hey, for 18 tickets, we'll give you a full price table. And then you were delivering like something on a big discount. Did I freeze? Yeah, you did. It'll maybe come back.
    7:19
    That's a great face. That's going to be the title card right there. So we were talking about the ticket system. Yes. The ticket system. and yeah so what when it's fully functional and working uh if you have a ticket balance after purchases what you're supposed to get is a offer that says hey buddy you have 18 extra tickets here's a full table do you want to do you want to buy this table for 18 tickets and it would be actually even more discounted than we could otherwise offer okay we call it dynamic bundling it's actually a lot what steam does when you're checking stuff out and you you look you know you're putting stuff in the shopping cart and you go to checkout and like you can add you can just pick and choose what you want and there's like a discount um so we're anyhow that that's kind of like the aim of of this and it should be ready anytime and we thought it was going to be ready like even a day after we launched then it's not and then weeks are going by and it's still not so right it's it's a this is probably the biggest issue that would actually i mean that would be that would take a lot of that like we all said at the beginning we're like i don't want to have to do math to figure out what my purchase is and that would at least make it so that it's what we refer to as the david buster's model that if you can get rid of that yeah you know where you've you've bought the card but each machine you play is like this one's $1.37 and this one's 72 cents and you're like well i don't understand that's kind of what happens actually with this sort of system yeah and it's because we can run our own in-game discounts now yeah we can put stuff off on sale whenever we want or i can say hey jared you've bought like 30 out of 38 tables i'm going to throw you a custom offer right now because i think i want to i really thank you for supporting zen and we're like for the for eight dollars and nine cents you can own the other 10 tables you know i mean like that's the that's the full functionality right now we're operating like two-thirds functionality sure okay no that's good so how So it sounds like obviously this gives you stacks more flexibility than what you would have to do if you went through the storefronts. So if you wanted to do like a planned discount, you have to do all that through, say, Steam or the PlayStation Store. You have to like code that in essentially and set discounts. And it's a lot more complex than having to just, you know, dynamically apply things like the ticket system. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I mean, every platform has their own way managing sales, whether it's consoles, PC, mobile, PC and mobile give us the most control. We can set those ourselves. But if we want to do a curated sale on say PlayStation, we apply for that months in advance. Oh, well, we, we have a, a Star Wars May 4th sales about to go live across all these channels. We start working on that six months ago. Oh my God.
    10:12
    We can just in our backend with our own tool set, we can just click, click, click, click on sale. And it saves us a ton of time and planning and complications. So we're also not guaranteed to have sales with PlayStation and Xbox and Nintendo and all those. Right, because they can actually say, no, we don't want to let you have that, correct? Correct. I should say, I mean, usually when we approach them, they're easy to work with. But, you know, actually Nintendo we consider on sales now, which is great on Nintendo. But part of the curated sales, you still apply for them.
    10:41
    And so, yeah, we have a lot greater level of ownership for sales. and I'm sure you have, you know, there's other implications about why the ticket system's here. I don't know if, you know, you want to talk about that more? We could. I mean, we've made our theory. You can.
    10:57
    Yeah. Yeah, we'd love to talk about that if you can talk about that. That's why we've been steering clear about it. Well, in everything here, it's like a big, long story. So I try to give you, like, shortened versions of it. When we started working on Pinball FX and we looked at our entire catalog and we said, is it even worth it for us to remaster all the tables in the library? Should we even care about that? Do people want those games again? And we say, well, we think that they're pretty high quality in the way that pinball works in the world. That's the reason why games from the 80s and 70s and even before are still sought after and people want to play them because a good pinball game remains relevant. And so we had a series of decisions to make about, you know, let's, and then the question was like, well, we know we can't do backwards compatibility, what's the next best thing we can do? Well, everyone's always been asking us, I would say this is the number one thing. I bought a game on Xbox and I played on PlayStation and the answer's always been no. Because our games were hosted on first party stores and there's no connection between those two. Well, now we have the table data, Zen has it, and the way that we're setting up the back end and the way that platforms are evolving, we can enable, if you are on Xbox and you are also playing on PlayStation, like your Xbox in your game room upstairs and your PlayStation's in another room and you download FX, we're working towards that goal of making that happen. So we thought if we're going to ask people to buy the table again, let's make sure that it's only one other time and they can have it wherever they want. So that's our end game, our end goal. Somewhere along the way, in the way that we were solidifying agreements with licensors and partners, we, you know, it's like now I can say that, but like six weeks ago I couldn't. And so we're trying to get the game out. And we're like, do we pause the game just because this whole thing's not ready? And then we got into some, you know, it was just, man, we had, we hit like a 60 day window. That was just, it just wasn't adding up. And one part of the game was ahead of itself. The other was lagging behind because of agreements. So it came out kind of in this, you know. But it's nice being able to say this at least in early access, because since there's only one place you can purchase the stuff right now. Right. Now, by the time it comes out with console or whatever, it gives people a better sense of where do I want to purchase this at the start with the intention of knowing that they might not have to because there are some people that have bought it on three different platforms, FX3 on three different platforms. and if they know ahead of time of hey the goal is to not make you do that they can pick their platform that they usually play on and maybe purchase it for that first with the intention of hey eventually this is the goal that's you know happening i mean at least it definitely softens the blow that way i would think yeah it totally does let me say one more thing you know like we started that this is why early access is so important because we're solidifying the back end we're making sure that all this stuff is working that we have users information we're going to do more things in the game to be more transparent about like what you've purchased and when and for what ticket price so you'll have like a purchase history is um so we think that's important as well but the way that we might actually roll out the console launches is whenever we're 100 sure that like this is working on xbox we'll go live on xbox and then you can see what's happening between like egs and xbox right and then when we can confirm that playstation so it might not actually happen where we just roll out all the consoles like in one big day and it's big hurrah it may be because this thing is like it's like a system and we can bring on a whole like a new you know like a new part of the factory almost you know like this line is coming online and now this line is coming online so we have to be really i mean that's just the way we have to be very methodical and make sure it's working because if we try to launch it and it's not working then we're gonna have you know the blowback and everyone says i'm full of crap so So let's clear up something now because I know there – I'm not 100% sure, and I listen to all the various things that pop up. But, okay, first off, mobile app with Indiana Jones. Is that only ever going to be a purchase only, or is it at some point going to be where it was with all the other Williams tables where you were able to earn table parts and eventually get the table that way? It's purchase only. It's not going to go into the parts. There we go. Okay, got that. Question two, kind of similar to that. We were thinking that other premium tables on the line of Indiana Jones would wind up also being a purchase only not a ticket But then I read somewhere else that it seems like that not the case that maybe everything else going forward is going to be under the ticket So can you clarify that too So Indy is a very special case on a lot of fronts And right now, every table in our lineup is going into the ticket system. It will not be a store item for purchase. Okay, right.
    15:55
    Also, one other thing. This is why we're on it. There's no other table that's going to be $14.99. I mean, okay. I'll just say that. We don't have one game in our entire lineup, and we've got some big hitters coming. They won't be a 14-90 now. Okay. Right. Last thing in regards to kind of touching back upon mobile.
    16:16
    Mobile obviously has its own ticketing system in that. Is there any chance of rolling over the ticketing system you have now and kind of feeding it into that, or is the mobile thing just because it's completely written differently, not going to be connected in any way, shape, or form to what you guys currently are doing with the ticketing? No, there's a chance. When I say cross-buy, cross-platform, I'm saying console, PC, mobile. Wow. Okay. Okay.
    16:47
    That's pretty nice. That's the goal. And we wouldn't have started down this road unless we thought that we could actually make that happen. so you know we are we have a long history you know Zen was one of the original I always go back we have a lot of equity with first parties we were one of the very first games always done groundbreaking stuff and first parties like to let us try weird experiments and see what happens another big thing that I noticed right off the bat because I use a PS4 controller
    17:27
    PS4 controller, not currently supported in the game. Interestingly enough, it was not supported in FX2 either. I had to download a third-party controller system for that. FX3, no problems, worked great. I can use a PS4 controller. Except for the Rumble doesn't work in that case unless I use a third-party. So, coming all around. I noticed, first off, Rumble is not a factor at all currently. It doesn't work with an Xbox controller. It doesn't work with a PS4 controller. Is that a conscious decision you guys are just saving, since that's gravy on top of the whole game, putting that to the back burner before you implement, or is that gone in terms of... I would say that it's just because we're not at that stage of the port yet for console. Now, these are some details that, to be honest, I'm not even aware. I mean, I know that it's not in there, but I don't know what the plan is for when it would be ready. My guess would be we're just not there on the console port yet, so we're on controller support. Because somebody had mentioned, I don't know if you know anything about this, but somebody was saying that there's something about games using the Unreal Engine that Unreal doesn't have a license with Sony or something like that. And I was like, yeah, but that doesn't make sense because then they come out on Sony PlayStation. But I don't know if that had any factor to do with it either.
    18:48
    I don't know. I'm not sure. and where we are i mean yeah there's some things guys that i don't know uh specifics right now because uh we're actually we have more layers at zen we're a much bigger company and there's some things and i'm that surprised me even now so yeah i'd imagine that uh the the whole console support like you were saying it when you're stuck in the frameworks for playstation into the game because it's all developed on unreal you're using the same engine across all platforms now when eventually that becomes a priority for the business we'll start seeing support trickle in to the app um over time i reckon that's probably what's going to happen yeah um look are we we kept i mean you started with this feature set that's ideal for well first of all the goal was pinball effects on all platforms day one yeah and then it was like oh crap this thing is not that there's no way that's possible let's go early access on one platform with this big feature set and then it just keeps going you know here's what we got we got to go out we have to start we have to we have to we have to get it going so there's some of these things we call them bells and whistles you know they just might not be there might not be ready yet okay how much of the game as we see it now and i and when i say the game i mean the tables how much are they locked in versus being fluid with changes because i noticed on discord lynn was asking questions about lighting um which was like a welcome and we got some comments about that too but um where it was like okay maybe these tables aren't locked in with their look just yet they're not locked in. They're not locked in, both from a performance standpoint, from lighting, in physics, of course, there's always discussion about physics. But yeah, I would say that, well, the new tables, the Zen Originals, World War Z, I think that you can see a difference in lighting. You can correct me if you disagree, but those are more polished, more finished. The remasters, we are still working on those. In my opinion, we need to dim the lights in the room, and everything will be brighter and more vibrant on the table itself. I think that we have much tweaking to do. Yeah, because something that I know that we noticed was, like, for instance, the ball. It keeps the same intensity of glow, whether it's going into a shadowed area of the table or not. Interestingly enough, too, right now the ball, And I imagine that this has to do with, again, bells and whistles. The last thing you need to do is make the ball look spectacular, get the whole table working fine and performing fine. Then you can add that tweak. But like in FX3, the ball is very super chrome. Here it's kind of a dull, you know, whatever. But it stays that same exact intensity so that in an instance where, and my go-to is always with Attack from Mars when playing strobe multiball, where the whole point is not be able to see the ball, but because it keeps the same intensity, regardless of none of the other GI lights going on, you can still see the ball clear as a day. So that's the kind of thing that I was like, hey, if you guys are still working on it, great. Then I don't have to keep on harping on it.
    22:19
    We are working on it, and the lighting will improve before we say that these are the final remasters.
    22:25
    Actually, we got a huge performance boost. It was the end of last week. I think that was the latest update, which, you know, now depending on your PC spec, and we're still finding the minimum spec that we're going to support.
    22:39
    It's a huge, I mean, that's one of the biggest topics at the moment. But, you know, ray tracing plays a lot into this too. Those who are experiencing ray tracing, I think that the game looks pretty good and they're getting a good result. The frame rate is there.
    22:53
    The HD resolution is there. But we have some other new technologies that we're integrating, some new stuff that will continue to improve. And over time, any table that's currently available will improve. And as our next series of releases in May, I think you'll see for remasters better results.
    23:14
    I've got a question about, you know, you were talking then about sort of iterative improvements over time. I'm just wondering, for some of those originals, you know how the big players in pinball at the moment stern they they release code updates for their tables after they've learned stuff about them on site and about scoring balancing and stuff like that now in the past that didn't really happen for a lot of the zen originals um but i'm wondering now mars is a good example actually mars was going to be the case in point here um is are we going to see a mars approach with some of the original um tables over time Are they going to refine the rule sets based on data received, for example? As I'd even say with World War Z, that's a big comment right now is that the first person machine gun is so overscored. I agree.
    24:09
    I got massive scores because that's what I do, right? Yeah. No, no. So there's a – as we're leveling up, Zen, and as the pinball team is growing and getting bigger, There's a focus, and it's a red line item on everything that I'm thinking about is maintenance and updates. And, of course, we want to release a game that is ready for everybody to play. But, look, you said it's like start. Pinball is really – there's things about it that even through testing, somehow, because it's so random. You don't repo things, and you don't find things. You don't see things. There needs to be updates, and we are committed to that for our games. Maintenance on platforms, maintenance on content. That's correct. Yes, absolutely.
    24:57
    I don't know if you heard my rant against Rome, but that was one of the ones for me where it was just like, dear Lord, those insert lights need fixing. Jared pointed out the contrast of lighting, shadow, whatever to delineate the play field objects.
    25:16
    And then my thing was like, and the voiceover. it was just like can we get a british chicken there oh i kind of feel that way i was actually about the music with a lot of the uh the marvel tables too because if they're so of that moment when the tables were released and now when you hear them it's kind of like whoo that music didn't age quite as well as we'd hoped right yeah I'd imagine that doing updates to I mean doing updates to rules is one thing but then doing updates to voice artist work and musical composition and stuff that's a whole another level again look okay I'm always honest with you guys alright people always they're like I would pay extra for the authentic thing so I went out and got the authentic thing and then it was weird like that you know we're greedy so yeah right what are you talking about indie yeah i mean we are yeah i mean we can just i can go get christopher lloyd but you're not going to want to pay for it i guarantee you no way you're not going to you're not going to want to pay what it costs to put christopher lloyd's voice in about uh in uh back to the future so no well i mean you guys have done a fair job at some of your uh voice impersonations um i mean like amanda voices for example yeah amanda voice is fantastic exceptional you know like you know that's a really good voice alike right to the point that i was surprised then when seeing the little uh in one of the the pinball shows they were giving like quick facts about each table to then find out that on belba that that actually is tamora morrison i was like really wow good job zen yeah there's there's hidden and there's uh sometimes we do use a real voice it's just we go through uh well i should be careful about our tricks and our secrets but you can't say you can't say the name uh some people are willing to work non-union so so you don't say the name then people are like oh because the name is on the credits it means it's not them they must use a voice like it sounded like but um you know uh this our licensors help us identify actually anybody that we're using as a as a sound like is literally approved through the highest levels of these companies. I mean, they are the official son of like of X actor, you know, so it's as good as you can get without getting the real thing.
    27:40
    Yeah, it's really interesting. Music is another thing. Music is hard to do, but I can go get the real song. But sometimes I'm like, nope, no one wants to pay $14.99 for a table.
    27:54
    That brings up an interesting point because I was replaying some of the tables, the Williams tables and I know back when you guys first got Creature you had reached out to the five different music tracks I know and you had only gotten response from I think like one or two or whatever is that still continuing or is it finally like nope they never responded we can't go forward with that yeah in cases where they don't respond I'm too busy to try to keep right going after on the phone finally you're just like I don't know if these rights exist should we just put it in the game like there's another company that used to have the rights and they just did it the level that we're working on we can't afford to do that so we try to do everything 100% you want to keep your licensors that you do have and that you might get comfortable knowing that you guys will do right by them yeah makes perfect sense gotta have that level of good standing always speaking of creature that means that then like in fx3 when you're in multi-ball mode and the ball goes up the long way and then around the ball everyone's just spinning around the ball three times currently in pinball effects it does one spin and dumps so that's the kind of thing that it's again the table's not set they're still going to be fine tuning and i imagine that that has to do with kind of surface friction of the various parts of the table too. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny. We talked about our physics simulation the other day or on one of the pinball shows and Akosh said something about 41 properties. It turns out it's 80. It's not 41. I see properties. It's 80 deep. Like we, you know, this is a, like we thought that we had checked in with deep and that we, I was like, can we please confirm this number? And we're like, yes, it's 80. it's not 41 so that's a lot of parameters you need to tweak every table has got its own i mean yeah it's a lot they mess with it so you've also got the problem of you know and this is something that people i think it's starting to realize now but that you're tuning to your example of the table it's not the table that you've got your local pub down the road like for me in netherworld for example there's a creature there it plays very differently to the one that sends in but it doesn't say it's wrong it's just not that table so how well has it been how well has the game been maintained you know how old are the rubbers on the flippers i mean like that's right has it has it recently been shopped you know what's the pitch of the play field you know there's so many different variables exactly there's so many different parameters you know probably those 80 parameters that you're talking about there you know that's probably a feasible amount to have in a simulation but there's probably even more if you look at real world scenarios that are also interplaying with what you're experiencing in the game so it's going to be nigh on impossible to recreate the experience across everything but you'd be able to get pretty close i'd imagine with 80 variables i agree it's always a work in progress of i don't think physics will ever be done here i don think we ever say all right everybody happy call it a day you know no it ever going to be happy with physics You know what I mean But it good to keep on constantly not to just sit back on the laurels and instead constantly try and get them better. So long as I think that then whatever's already out gets that upgrade too. Because then you start getting this weird, oh, well, this table plays old because it was released a while back versus what, you know. And then everybody starts getting that, oh, I wish that they hadn't have put that table out you know a year ago because it would have been so much better now you know kind of thing yeah um we have some interesting ideas about all that and you know deep is our physics expert and so what happens if we decide we find something better deep has to go and change all the tables and uh right now it's such specialized knowledge you know like how do we replicate that knowledge well we coined this thing deep's academy of pinball or his pinball academy and we're literally trying to bring on all of our pinball people and teach them all the specialized knowledge you know so um it is deep in jedi robes and there you go yeah there's definitely that it's good that you're actually you were looking for it's good that you're like looking at the bus factor in the studio because that's a that's a big problem with institutional knowledge you know when something's so critical to the game you know if something were to happen god forbid to deep you know it would be terrible you know all that knowledge, poof, gone. So spreading it is much better. And, you know, he's an awesome pinball designer, and he wants to make, he wants to do more designs, you know. So the guy can't just work on physics every day the rest of his life. Yeah, that's right.
    32:48
    There's only so many tweaks you can make before you start going a little bit bonkers, I think. So, yeah, having, you know, allowing people to grow as well is obviously a key thing at the moment. And as the team is getting bigger, I'd imagine there's going to be more opportunities for people to advance in the studio as well. Actually, one of our customer service guy is a new pinball designer. Sorry, the clouds have cleared. I know he's got a big son. Yeah, no, we're trying to have 12 internal pinball designers, and we're currently at eight, so we've still got four to go. Oh, man, that's really bright. Sorry.
    33:22
    Yeah, that's fine. Is it a conscious decision right now with specifically the Williams tables? because I don't know if this plan is going to extend to the Zen Originals. But right now the Williams tables are all basically using, although they're using the new flipper physics, and that's across the board. Everything's got the new flipper physics.
    33:44
    The settings, like in terms of the flipper angles, are all what we used to call the Zen version instead of the shallower, more difficult settings. And that would even extend to tournament settings on the tables. is that just kind of a conscious decision to hey let's get the performance up let's get the game up and running and then that can be something that gets tacked on at the very end uh or is this what we are going to be uh living with no i again this is a question that i'm not aware of the status of where they are with that stuff and so i would just assume my assumption is that we're trying to get performance stabilized across everything and then we can start to make these uh adjustments and i mean i'm definitely we're not going back we're not going backwards i mean what you know like we're going forward so you will see what you know these these things uh added on as time goes along because for sure i'm seeing the performance issues improving um i'm kind of purposely like keeping my rig not at the minimum requirement that was listed which was the 16 megabyte of uh ram i'm only at eight um just because i'm like you know what maybe i can test to see how low this can go um so like my frame rate's not quite hitting 60 yet but it's still very playable and it helps me actually be able to see when improvements are coming for not that mine's a low-end machine because it ran fx3 like a boss but it's probably like mid-range really yeah yeah because my vid card is definitely not capable of ray tracing yeah no no 60 fps um hdr with ray tracing is our goal and that's you know we're confident we'll get we'll have that performance um at least 60 fps and and you know full hd is like that's the men You know, like, but heck, we have companies, whether they make television monitors or they're, you know, the video card manufacturers themselves, you know, wanting us to push our game on their stuff. So I think that we have the opportunity to take advantage of, like, the latest and greatest. However, that's not where the majority of our player base is. so we have to come down and uh and that's what you know that's we'll get gains as we like last week i thought it was really good and it turns out i mean it's a funny story it just turns out that we had some wrong setting in unreal you know and it's just like oh my god it's like baseball just change a one to a zero and everything gets fixed right yeah and you know i'd imagine that the studio like you i think you touched on this before but it's you know probably you're learning every day different things about how the engine interrelates with with what you're trying to do there at the studio so these discoveries are just going to happen and you're going to go okay sure we've just had a 20 improvement because of a setting you know and then i remind myself this is a marathon not a sprint yeah yeah it's still gonna be better than it's still in the Long term, this is, you know, we couldn't maintain the PX engine anymore. And we all, we miss those days, but there's just, it's just, we're dealing with the growing pains of this. So you get the headache for, you know, the next two years and then it becomes very, very friendly to you for the long run afterwards. Yeah. Yes. I've got a quick note because it just popped into my head then about the overall sort of fan cave experience and how it carries through to the window not the windows, the Williams games so at the moment we've got the old environment with all the Williams tables so is there an opportunity there to actually normalise that so it's more fan cave or is there an underlying reason why that's not yet done um i don't know i don't have an answer for you on that okay to be honest uh yeah i should we should find out our long term well so you were familiar with the fan cave in star wars yeah and not being too forward looking i mean you can see some similarities uh there so i have a i have a feeling it's a design choice right now uh from our team because of you know what is what our plans are in the future okay because that was definitely when we saw that you were emulating the fan cave from star wars vr we got excited because we were like oh that's gonna be sweet because now yeah you're gonna be able to to see your trophies basically in the room as you're playing and then it was like oh wait no we're going with the environment oh wait no we're going with the the dodgy carpet uh um and it was like oh that's kind of a that's kind of a bummer and then I also thought oh it'll be so much easier if they were doing it that way as an option because I know some people love that stuff and it's like hey if there's you know kind of like how you can turn on and off the animations if you could turn on and off what your view of the room would be but I was like oh that would make it so much easier for when you guys do go to VR with these where it's just like yeah it's already built it's already there you know kind of thing but I understand it's so there's like pillars of the game you know that we decide we want this to be able to operate like this one but you know in a in a step or an update we're going to turn on this thing so they probably say well then we the table needs we need to do this table for now then you know when we get to this part of our roadmap and our plan when we turn on such such feature then you know there it is so yeah right is that making sense what i'm telling you guys i'm telling you without telling you yeah we can read between the lines telling you without taking a major announcement.
    39:31
    That's right. Just wait and see, in other words. What about we noticed that with the New Zen Originals coming out, there's been some really nice back glass art updates happening with that. There's a clear decision from Zen to actually present the table that's in the middle of the room with some really high quality back glass art there. I'm just wondering... Yeah, that's right. World War Z in particular is fantastic that back glass image is is really sets the table which by the way okay yeah excellent job on world war z love it really world war z yeah definitely he's awesome yeah he did a good job with that for sure i'm just wondering um on the subject of the overall sort of cabinet and back glass uh updates is are we going to see more standardization um with the back glass um uh across some of the older Zen tables? Because up until now, it's sort of been a community-led effort to sort of manage back glasses. In particular, I'm thinking towards cabinet mode when people are going to be wanting to show their friends these amazing tables on their cabinet with really nice back glass art. Is there going to be some sort of, you know, standardization across both in the sort of desktop versions of the game and carried through into the cabinet sort of things as well? Yeah. And I can give you a little preview because we're going to get ready to talk about Pinball FX cabinet mode, which is, by the way, the official name, right? Like we used to call it in-cap support, and now I feel like that just sounds like it's a problem. We're trying to support everything. Yeah, right. It's the official name for the mode, right? But, yeah, I mean, as a little preview, yes, we're going to standardize and have officially released Pinball FX graphics in assets for Backglass, for whether, you know, for your static or on the dynamic side, that we have something that's coming that we'll be talking about and announce, but all that stuff is going to get upgraded, standardized.
    41:33
    Yeah, it's been a little bit like the Wild West. We just couldn't support it back then. Pincap support, I don't need to rehash the past, but we kind of fell into all this, how we just turned on vertical monitor orientation and boom, we created a whole new sort of thing for the game and it's been its own island in the game.
    41:52
    There's a whole bunch. And we'll be talking about that hopefully the next official communication from Zen. We'll have a whole bunch on cabinet.
    42:02
    That's really cool. I almost went – and I forget who's building the – Leno. Yeah. So when they started building that, I almost went, hmm, seems to me like they're about to troubleshoot in-house what all cabinet builders are facing so that they can for themselves experience what everybody else is kind of doing. And I was like, I have a feeling when they get done with their cab, that's when cabinet support's coming.
    42:29
    I think we're going to have it out before the cabin because they're so behind. Look, I love those guys. No, the videos are funny and what they're doing is cool. But, yeah, I mean, like, it's a super important part of our audience. And it's kind of, to me, I feel like it's home base. Like, those people have to be happy for the game to really succeed. so we're building our own machine and yes troubleshooting and understanding all the nuances and supporting that feature supporting pink cow players is ultra important and again it's one of those things that got chopped off or like can't have that for day one but within a reasonable amount of time we can have it so and I it's coming soon actually I go ahead I was I was thinking more on the along the lines of cabinet support a while back you said that now that things are starting to relax a little bit with venues and stuff like that, you were going to relook at getting location-based virtual pinball back in things. Has that happened? Have you actually done any more of that yet? It's funny. I was just in Florida. I just flew in before I started talking to you guys. I got back to my office.
    43:43
    A big part of the conversation was the commercial market and what we're doing and what the plans are. there's some big things brewing I always knew this would be really cool and that it had potential but the partnerships that are aligning and the players at the table the companies that are getting involved with this oh my gosh it can that's really exciting it's definitely coming back for sure that's great because you know I would hopefully we get to see a redo of that amazing Marky Stulk cabinet you had what I used to call the Dave and Buster's style you know in your face glowing scrolling marquee because that thing was incredible as a cabinet so one of those more than cool uh actually i so there's a few of them that have been live in a few locations and my my home arcade here was at a local casino we installed it a few months before covid hit it's still online and still working half the games in that place are like waiting to be serviced but ours is still online and working and we got redemption working so you can play and earn tickets um and we're getting data from it it's really cool um and i showed a picture of my daughter playing it just a couple days ago when i had these meetings in florida and everyone's like that's the machine i was like that's the machine and uh yeah see that's the thing like that style that you set up for that cabinet because from what i understand it's actually like a it takes a cabinet and just bolts on the marquee like it's a thing you can just add onto the cabinet depending on the location so that that's like if you think about it in the context of a casino it's the perfect fit like it's it's so visually intense yeah yeah it's going to draw you in and that's like you see a lot of the this sort of cabinet design coming through with you know the company's like raw thrills they specialize in this sort of like eye-catching attention-grabbing cabinet design that you just can't not see in an arcade it just draws you to it.
    45:43
    That's something that doesn't really happen with traditional pinball. They try with video screens and stuff like that, but not to the extent that this Zen cabinet does. You can't miss it. Am I able to share my screen on this? I can give it to you. You can. There's a little button down there that should enable you to share it. It's like a little widescreen monitor button next to the gear. We'll give everybody watching them. let's see if we let's see if we break the internet by doing create a secondary stream that's not it this is let's see transfer file toggle the chat i don't know if i'm seeing what um yeah maybe that's maybe it's too hard this is beyond what i know yeah i do it through obs so when i share a screen i don't know how to do it on a personal monitor there we showed it at e3 a couple years ago so i mean it's it's it's been seen in the wild you can go you can probably find it somewhere but But, yeah, no, I have a picture of this actually installed. I'd love to show it to everybody who's watching this.
    46:45
    You should tweet it out Yeah put it on your tweets and then we can get to it Okay put it on my tweets I need to get back to Twitter I terrible at Twitter But yeah I mean it great to hear that you know it's not in any cabinet mode for those folks that are passionate about it at home. But, you know, seeing it out in the wild and actually engaging with it in, like, an arcade or location-based setting, it's going to be a really new experience to see what that's like. yeah um and i wonder too um how uh this is probably uh long long ago news now but it makes me think of you know how the engagement with ik1up went and you know whether i think a while back there you said you know the response to that cabinet was so oversubscribed that you're having trouble catching up with demand. How is that even shaken down? It seems like the whole home market thing was a really interesting experiment, but it seems like it sort of stopped. And there may be reasons for that you can't talk about, but I don't know. Well, the first run, let's call them Gen 1 units, were ultimately very successful. They got hit with pretty bad supply chain issues from a good inmate that couldn't bring in as many units as they wanted uh i was kind of bummed because i saw units going for like three times the msrp on ebay and you know that was never the goal or the intention it was always like i want to proliferate pinball machines in homes not create an item where people you know make them more like so you know uh but then when we kind of decided what ultimately, there's a lot of people making decisions, but ultimately what we decided was let's go back to the drawing board. Let's make sure that these machines that somebody gets can be expanded upon, you know, better, like the modding community is huge there. Can they upgrade? Can they get more content? Like all those things. So there's active development happening. And I don't know what the next I mean I know like on paper what their target is for another release but I don't know like right now we're in a little lull but it was supposed to be proof of concept way over delivered proof of concept it blew us away you weren't kidding about the modding community either they love it they're dropping in like the perfect size back glasses they're dropping in new play fields they're going nuts exciters and actuators and they're just going nuts with it well and all you know in zen we want the best representation of our game and it's not up to i don't decide what hardware arcade went up decides to put in the machine it's up to us to try to make the best game experience possible on that hardware because that's what they can sell for a price you know so um uh we'd love to see better hardware and over time things get cheaper and i've learned a lot about how manufacturing happens it's changed a lot since guitar hero that was my last hurrah with manufacturing um but the way things are done but you know it's a it's a thing that it's a it's a part of our pinball offering that has got a lot of potential and will definitely be around for the long term okay uh i'm curious about uh i think you guys i hope aren't having any more emulation issues after the alphanumeric deal that I'm sure you guys cracked that nut. But there's still issues with sound. I know some of the games that I was revisiting, Williams Stables, obviously we're talking Williams, not with Zen Originals, but where there's crackling sounds,
    50:38
    almost like distortion or whatever. I know with Whitewater coming on the way, people are going to jump on that if there's that sound. How would you describe the sound, Jared? I never quite understood. It's like an odd cymbal noise. Like the cymbal noise is being sampled strangely. Right, like it wasn't bassy enough, right? It was like, I don't know. Anyway, I'm wondering, is somebody still working on sound emulation? Zen's aware of the sound issues that are there?
    51:13
    I don't expect that you know the… I think so. Again, these are some details that I'm not fully aware of right now, but just talking about it, I always take notes from our chats, guys, and I'm always checking in, making sure that somebody's aware of these and on it. But I know that there's... I was on our Discord chatting with somebody and he sent me a link to a video, and he's like, this is a sound issue. I was like, that's an issue. Okay. Yeah.
    51:39
    So, within Pinball FX and with World War Z. Yeah, let's talk about World War Z for a moment. Again. Yeah.
    51:48
    Not Spell-O-Rama. contained within a cabinet, the insert lights tell the story. Like all the things that we were always like, oh, this would be so much. It's just like, that's why I'm over the moon. Nailed it. Yes. It's wonderful.
    52:03
    I'm not familiar with the game at all. I'm wondering with, in terms of licensing, obviously Saber Interactive, gee, one of your partners.
    52:13
    Obviously, I was like, hey, there's where some of that merger comes in. and then Paramount now has its own tab. Can you talk a little bit about licensing with those two companies and just going after the game, even though it's loosely related to the movie?
    52:32
    Yeah, well, there's two sides to this. Zen is now a part of Embracer Group, and we're under the Saber Interactive vertical. Embracer has close to 100 studios. It might be more. It's crazy how many. with even more IPs. And so there's definitely going to be more Zen, Embracer, and Saber collaborations, which makes a lot of sense. There's great things for us to make pinball games out of. Then there's the Paramount side. And we did Garfield, which is a, you know, it used to be CBS Viacom and it recently rebranded Paramount. So Garfield is a CBS Viacom.
    53:12
    Shall I say South Park Studios? Um, there's other great IP within Paramount, the company, which is massive, as big as, uh, you know, I mean, more diverse IPs than like even Disney, you know, or some of these others, uh, universal. so yeah there's a lot of room for us to work together and World War Z was super low-hanging fruit because you know Saber has the game and we use game ready assets and that was just another quick hit but you already saw Garfield. Garfield came before of WWG so you can I think maybe you'll see this long relationship form. Hence why there is the Paramount tab in the game now so that we can expect more licenses under that branding to start filling in the gap. There's more coming from Paramount, no doubt. Paramount also owns some other great Williams stuff. They do indeed. That's why we keep on saying the holdout that we're waiting to see one day is the Warner Brothers tag come in. Because then it's like, ooh, now we've got all the majors. Guys, I am booking slots into 2024 if you can believe that.
    54:15
    Wow. Jeez. I mean, you did suggest, I think it was in one of the pinball shows, that the content team has got their schedule sorted for the next 24 months, but that's that that's a big deal geez when i say future proof in the game i mean like it is out there yeah wow everyone i can't tell you how many inquiries i have all the time and i just have to people i'm like we'll get in line i'd love to work with you but it's going to be 20 like april 2024 we could probably have a game for you you know so i think you you we we covered that last time we spoke actually just the amount of you know the fact that the game is now what it is people like the queue is just growing out the door right for you to finish getting the game because they can see what the potential is yes and again it's a marathon not a sprint and sometimes it can be overwhelming but no i like when whenever i bring in a new ip and now i just ask the guys is hey do you want to work on this you know i should say guys and girls because we have a growing uh diverse range like our suit i'm so happy that's a whole another topic but it's so great um it's more diverse and it's very important but everybody gets excited and if they're not excited i say nope sorry because after making this many games and people working on this game for so long it's very important that we're working on the things that are very exciting for the team I was curious just because obviously I'm watching Moon Knight right now. Moon Knight, that's one of your original marble tables that came out. At the time it came out, I had no clue what Moon Knight was. Even after playing it, I had no clue what Moon Knight was. Me either. I went and played it this weekend, and I was like, finally, some of it's starting to make sense, but clearly since it's based on the comic and I don't think the, the show is even scratched the surface of, of what that character is. I just, in the back of my mind, I was like, Oh, how angry must Mel be right now that they can't have moon night ready for purchase.
    56:24
    Yeah. Um, there's, there's some of that, but, uh, we do what we can do. I mean, yeah. We have so many different entertainment tie-ins that we could, you know, try to shoot for and activate. But my experience is I think the last time we tried to tie a movie release to the game was Avengers with Avengers Chronicles. And we were late with the game because they changed some artwork at the last minute, which affected the characters. And it's hard. It's hard to make a game. And then it's hard to do all the other stuff to go around the game. Yeah.
    56:56
    Yeah. Well, it definitely sounds like, I mean, you've, we were talking about seeing a roadmap. And obviously it's hard to put down a roadmap, a detailed roadmap or anything. But it definitely fills me more with confidence that the direction of where things are going, that it's not, hey, it's... I think what a lot of people's worries were was that here's the game and what's playable, and they're afraid that that's what is, as opposed to no, it's still evolving. Because it is hard to get our heads around early access. we we knew that you know this was a big risk and it was because we always put out very polished things we never got any sort of early access we you know we just never went there and we said well people usually um they come to our game and it's awesome and it you know it's very polished this time we're taking a completely different approach and it is a hundred thousand ten percent the right it was the right call i don't second guess at it for a moment because i can only imagine what kind of hot mess this would be if we tried to do this out on all the different platforms all the time Yeah, that would have been very, very hard to manage.
    58:08
    You know, there's another aspect to this that I'm realizing. I mean, there's another – Zachariah, Zachariah, however you say it. We say Zachariah. I don't know where you get the Zachariah thing from. Zachariah.
    58:19
    You know, that's a level of game, and they're a certain size and whatever. But, I mean, for the most part, we're the only game in town, and so we get everybody. Like, there's nothing else. I can't say go play this while you're waiting for us to get better. So all eyes on us for everything. It's a lot. It's a lot. And we created such a wide audience across so many different channels and platforms. The expectation is, look, I love it, but at the same time, I mean, it's hard to make everybody happy. Does it surprise you that you're the only – I mean, again, Zachary is doing what they're doing, but they're kind of boxed in. We keep on screaming from the tops of the roofs, get that Gottlieb license, guys. It would be a perfect fit for you. But are you surprised that you guys are essentially the only game in town?
    59:09
    Yes and no. People – I think it shows our commitment that we had to the game and that we just took it so much further than whatever – is this a good idea or not? I don't know, let's do it because it's, we love the game and we think that this will, you know, take it further. And we just, I think we kind of left people in the dust and, you know, and then we were able, you know, when we brought Williams in, that kind of was a huge moment as well.
    59:36
    We're just hungry. We're very hungry for it because of the game in Hungary. It's a cultural thing because of the way pinball was so important to Hungarians. We just went after it. I'm not Hungarian, right? But we – so I'm a little surprised, but not. I mean, if somebody goes after something with such tenacity, you know, it's hard to keep up. I think we maybe surprised people when they – you know, when FX2 came out. I really think that that was – all the other companies making pinball at the time were like, well, Zen just won. And so it's actually been game over for a long time. It just took a little while to weed it all out. You know what I think we need to do, Jared, or I need to do? I need to figure out how to record off my PS3 and actually play Zen Pinball, the original Zen Pinball. The original. And just show how far – because, I mean, even the menus alone are so crazy different than where we are today.
    60:36
    And my favorite part about that whole game was you could bring up the stats, and they're the craziest stats. Like, it's essentially the, I imagine the internal stats that you guys would look at, but you can count how many times you flipped.
    60:52
    Really? Wow. Oh, we had crazy, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just like the most bizarre stats that would pop up that you could look at.
    61:01
    But yeah, I still have that installed, so I should do that and just like try and record and just be like, yeah, here's where we came from. Here's where we are now.
    61:10
    yeah that kind of might be what end up what ends up happening with the pivotex early access everyone might be like whoa you remember this the first day it came out on march 31st 2022 and you know even just a couple months from now i might you know you could do the side by sides or you know yeah yeah that's what'll happen i mean this is like i said it's a massive game it's a marathon and not a sprint in our roadmap of content and platform and features and the way the whole thing will end up working.
    61:39
    I think it'll be a really, really cool story in the end, and I just hope that everybody enjoys it. I'm sure we will. I'm sure, too. All right, well, that is our time with you today, Mel. As usual, we appreciate you coming on here and having the discussions. We love doing it and getting all the insider information that we can go nerd deep on because I think everybody kind of – everybody appreciates that at least on our – that watch our show. So, again, thank you so much for coming on with us.
    62:12
    I don't know what we're going to talk about next time, Jared. I don't know either, but I'm sure it's going to be stuff and things like we always do. There you go, stuff and things. All right, folks, until then, we'll see you next time. See you later. Thank you all.