Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, April 17th. This is episode 165. I am Tony. And I am Dennis. We got a little bit of stuff to cover. Not a lot. Not a lot on either front. It's a fast, easy one. Yeah. So I guess we'll do intros. What's going on? It'll be a quick fun thing. In and out. 20 minutes. No big deal. Okay, I'll be a little bit longer than that. Not a lot. I've been not doing anything special. More reading, laughing at memes. We played in a pinball tournament. We played in a pinball tournament. Yes, we did. I was soundly beaten. I might even go so far as to say I was humiliated. No. Oh, there were some, you know, for not having anyone there, there were a lot of heavy hitters there. I was like, aren't you all supposed to be like at this Columbia, Missouri thing? Why are any of you here? Actually, we showed up and you were there before everyone. I was before everyone. I was the first person there. You were there before they opened. Yeah. They had to let you in and give you lasagna and be like, here, just stay. Stay. We need money. Well, I normally, here's the thing. I like to get there early. I like to eat. and I like to be done eating before the tournament starts. Yeah, I do try and do that because it's so frustrating trying to eat between. Right. And with everything else I had going on yesterday and all this stuff, I left and I went and I got there at like just before 4 o'clock. Normally, even if I get there at like 345, there's like six or seven people that are practicing and playing already. Yeah. There was nobody there. Yeah. I remember I walked in. The staff's there. I go into the pinball area And you're there And That's it Yeah And shortly thereafter A couple people from Wichita Come up And they're there And then it's like Okay So people It was We had a tournament We did four strike tournament Because there were 12 We had 12 players But some of them Were very good players Last time we were there A lot of them Were very good players Last time that tournament Had like 28 people Yes There were 12 And we've been having so many new people lately like every every month it seems like yeah they're new people their first tournament and this was just and i thought well maybe the non-new people with it being easter weekend didn't surprise me right that that that few people and then i got pizza oh it was so yeah i uh i think i barely finished top half so i mean like six which normally i'd love six but i don't know what it was it's just i could not hit a shot like ghostbusters ball one on ghostbusters i I almost got to a million points on ball one on Ghostbusters. Ball two on Ghostbusters, I brought it up to almost seven million points. Yeah. But, you know, to be fair, no one had a good score on that game. No, but my score was the bonuses. Everyone was getting bonuses higher than my total score. I just could not hit. And the thing is, is I started scenes. I just couldn't hit nothing. I like, I was like, I, every point I got in Ghostbusters came from skill shots. I started my scene. Uh, and then I bricked straight into the, I immediately drank. I, I started something else and immediately drank. I just could not hit anything. I had the same issues later that night on jungle queen. Oh yeah. Well, and it was just, I couldn't, I mean, I had of the five balls on jungle queen, I, Three of them, I touched the ball at least once. One of them, I touched the ball more than once. Out of five balls. Yes. That is how bad I did on Juggalo. It was just, she hated me. The queen hated me. I don't know what I did. I don't know. I don't know. It is a house ball. A house ball is a lot of people. A lot of people have bad Juggalo queen experiences. I must not be simping hard enough for the Jungle Queen. Well, that's unfortunate. But the, yeah, so other than, I mean, for me, other than that, I've played a little bit more of that Strider video game. Oh, yeah. I'm only about maybe a fourth of the way through, according to its estimate. I picked up a new, it's in early access, but it's a new roguelite called Nova Drift. It's like asteroids. Okay. So it's that tile, like your ship, and you spin around and you thrust, and if you shoot off one side of the screen, you come back on the other side of the screen. And there's asteroids and then lots and lots of waves of bad guys. But you get upgrades, and you can build your stuff up. It's a full-up roguelike. Oh, okay. And then you die and you start over. And you can take all sorts of modifications to the game to make it more and more difficult, But that also gets you more experience and gets you more points and lets you get better gear. I've been playing it a little bit. That's pretty interesting. Well, speaking of interesting, let's go ahead and get this show over with. So, pinball. Not a whole lot here. One of the big discussion items, it's been a big discussion item, I feel, for quite a while on pinball forums. And that is Fathom Revisited, Haggis Pinball, because it's so far behind ship schedule. I've been hearing good reports. We heard at TPF, one of the buyers had noted that they had been requested to pay in full. And so that means the games are supposed to be pretty close to coming out. And I've heard rumblings that that should be happening. In fact, we discussed on the Pinball Show, the podcast I co-host with Zach Minney last week, that I guess Haggis is planning to start getting some of those games out at the end of this month. So should be here in the next couple of weeks. We should be hearing some good news, hopefully out of some of the Australian buyers. I'm assuming they'll probably get them first. And we'll start to see. I mean, they've shown some stuff online. And the revisited package and stuff looks cool. We've talked about that before. But obviously people have just been, like, waiting. and to be fair everyone feels like everyone's waiting because everyone is waiting for stuff normally this month or next month we'd be having Stern Cornerstone number two's announcement that's not happening we haven't had anything since Weird Al as an announcement Jersey Jack still hasn't announced formally their next game but I guess at one of the TPF seminars we didn't touch on this but I guess they I don't know if they did at the seminar. Let me hedge this. I believe Jack Guarnieri, with Jersey Jack Pinball, has indicated an intention of them trying to do two games this year. I don't. Sure, I'll believe it when I see it. My point is, the first one, I agree. So the first one has to be imminent, right? They're not going to drop a game in September and a game in November, right? If they're doing two, they've got to get the first one out soon. They're not doing two. Tony, they said, one of them at least, said maybe two. They've said it all but guaranteed two. But that's in the past. That's water under the bridge, Tony. I'll believe it when I see it. Tony, it's... You know what? I'll be... That's so under the water, it's a Russian cruiser. Nice. Nice callback. Very nice. Why is he calling back? You don't get a no. You guys don't get a no. This is what happens when you miss the pre-recording joke sessions. We can't record them because our language is not nearly as prim and proper as it is now. But here's the thing. 100% honesty. I'll believe they get one game out this year when a game arrives to somebody. I don't care what they say. Until a game is shipped and somebody's like, hey, I got my whatever. Toy story? Sure. I got my toy story. until somebody has that, I'm not going to believe they're going to ship a game this year. Period. Because they've proven that they can't ship a game on time. I figure the second the game is formally announced, six months to a year after the formal actual announcement, a game will actually drop. Okay. Unless they got smart and decided not to announce anything until they're ready to ship. And that was the rumors early at the start of this year, that they were actually have been building these games but what the thing that hangs me up is if that's the case i would have thought they'd have been ready for an announcement in march right because unless they've got i understand with delays and stuff that maybe they have been building and they haven't gotten the the quantity amassed that they wanted and i don't know what what number that is right my logic would have been if you had a hundred ready that that would be plenty because people would immediately start seeing the unboxing photos and reveal streams. It depends, of course, who gets the games, but usually that stuff comes out pretty quick. People are excited when they're the first to get stuff. Anyway, yeah, that's a fair point. You know what? They might. They might get two games out this year. They might announce a new edition of Woz. Oh, yeah. That would technically be, oh, it's a new edition. It's a new game. The Wicked Witch edition? Yeah. It's the Flying Monkey edition. They changed all the arts. Everything is just Photoshop Flying Monkeys. They took that Flying Monkey mech out of that Yellow Brick Road edition. There was that. I think to accommodate the new backbox they were using. I forget. But, yeah, no, I don't. I'll believe it when I see it. I think with Fathom revisited coming, there might be, not including Stern, there might be one more reveal this year. American Pinball, are you thinking? Possibly. It'll be an interesting awards season. We thought last year was light. Yeah. Last year, on paper, it wasn't too bad because there were three games out for Multimorphics P3, but it was just so weird because Godzilla just dominated so heavily. Literally nothing was going to beat Godzilla. Yes. Literally, the only thing that Godzilla didn't win was the thing that they didn't have, so they weren't qualified. Right, at the Twippies. At the Twippies. The topper, yeah. Yeah. And then with the engrossed hobbyists who voted in the PIAs, there were two things it didn't win that it was up for. Oh, the light package went to Zeppelin, which has that expression lighting kit. Right. And then the... Oh, and music. Right. Right. Because Led Zeppelin had Led Zeppelin music. Right. I think Godzilla was in the running for both of those. No, it was well-respected. And the music was always controversial with real bands winning versus custom pinball music. But, of course, someone could have argued that with Godzilla too. Well, you know, it's really leaning in on the old Godzilla theme, which it wasn't made for the game. Whatever. They leaned into the old theme. They had Blue Oyster Cole. It's up to the voters. That's probably why it was number two. Right. So, well, that's fine. That's fine. Poor Mando. And Carl Carl Weathers' call-outs. That's all I can say. Yeah. Poor Mando. Poor Mando. Mando would have been a good game if it had been released in a different year. Yeah, I think so. I think it would have done a lot better. But I just don't know anymore. So, now one other thing I did. I don't want to get into the deep. Then why are you bringing it up? I'm bringing it up because I want to talk about part of it, but I don't want to get into the depth of it. There's a whole thing on Pennside going on. Pennside drama! That's partially your fault. Mine? Well, it has to do with your other show. Oh, okay. Oh, I know where this is going. With multimorphic and discussions with Zach and issues and stuff. But what I find is interesting about it is ignoring all of the drama, because I don't want to get involved in the drama. It came out that the P3 is two inches longer than a standard machine, which I'd never heard before. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like the play field. Like the play field is like longer than a standard play field, which is something I'd never heard before. Yeah, I hadn't either. Again, but I never. I mean, it's probably listed in some dimension somewhere that I just never bothered to check out. I guess that's something to do with the module and how it all works. Okay. But continue. I don't know anything about it. I think it's interesting because the discussion there and the drama there had to do with where the mechs fell on the play field and everything. The scoop line discussion. With the scoop line. Because that's like the demarcating line where the module. Right, because that's where the monitors blow it and then the module that you put everything above it. And on a regular machine, how things fall. And then that's when the discussion came out that it's actually two inches longer than a standard machine anyway. Right. And I guess that's towards the back, I assume. Well, I guess it's two inches no matter how you measure it. Yeah, it doesn't matter where it is. It's two inches. That thread discussion really focused all over the place. You know, there was that stuff about, like, how far from the flippers. Right. Which I would agree that would be how I would think about it, is how far from the flippers is the scoop wall. and then because the whole discussion for those haven't read the thread the whole discussion part of that is really just revolving around like where are the mechs on p3 modules like and where are you quote unquote well it's not quote unquote i don't think anyone flat out said this but stuck with just the screen right setting aside because i've heard rumors of discussions about mods uh i shouldn't say mods but but modules that are able to extend mechanisms down onto the screen. Because, of course, with engineering, all sorts of things are possible. But by default, what we've been seeing is there's a screen, there's a scoop wall, which is like the dividing line, and then there's where the module goes. And they've got more length. It sounds like a couple inches more than what we've been used to, or at least were used to. I saw some other people talking about it, and I was like, is it two inches more than a stern? Is it two inches more than the old WMS? Is Stern now different than WMS? I don't know. Right, and that's the thing is I don't know. It's just because I know it's always one of the things that's always been weird to me is the lack of a shooter lane. So it just drops out of the top, which took me a little bit to get used to. I'm used to it now, but it took me a little bit to get used to with the loss of the shooter lane. But then I would assume if the play field's actually longer, that the ratios are probably the same then. Instead of it being slightly wider, the actual overall ratio is probably close to the same with the loss of that lane. Yeah, no, that's an interesting point because you would have more side-to-side play room without the shooter lane. And you've added playable width. Right. And now why not add some length? Of course, it gets weird because not everyone, you know, the length of the shooter lane, how far up it went, varies so much. Like some, it's the entire side is taken up and others, it's a little section and they do put more mechs up. Right. It's all weird. It's all math. I shouldn't say it's weird. I shouldn't say it's weird. Well, it's like, geez, boy, our tournament, in our tournament we were in yesterday, like Doctor Who, it's a short run and then it kicks through a mech to drop around to. Right, right. Or as opposed to Stranger Things is a short run Star Trek for example though Sterns goes all the way up Yeah It's just an interesting little Change That I hadn heard about or hadn known about I don know how much it really changes anything I mean more space is more space It's like, I think we think about it more. Well, obviously we do with wide bodies because they've added more space to the sides and different people have different opinions. My opinion is pretty well known. I don't think much of wide bodies, but. Right. But some people love them because, I mean, the biggest thing that you can do with more space is put more stuff in i mean that's fundamentally what it offers correct now whether or not it compromises the gameplay a lot of that is of course going to come down to what people chose to do with the layout like demolition man is respected by a lot of standard body width players because the way it's designed you're pretty much shooting the standard width What they use the wide parts for are not generally accessed things. So it feels better than what you might get out of a Popeye. Right. Well, here's another thought. Two inches, it's not very much distance, but the P3 has all of that wide open space down below. There's no max. There's nothing. Well, there's the slings and the flippers. There's the slings and stuff, but there's a big wide open area. So if you're looking at two inches longer, you've got that much more straight space with nothing in the way to slow your acceleration down of the ball, depending upon how hard the degree you have set up of the slope. So could you potentially get even faster than normal ball drops towards the end as it's coming down with there not being anything there to slow it down? There's no pops. There's no scoops. There's no little sling set somewhere for it to bounce off of. So what are the chances? I mean, what would the difference, what difference would something as slight as two inches make? I'm going to say, I don't know, a four and a half degree slope or a six degree slope speed-wise on a ball. Yeah, these are math questions, Tony. These are math. I don't know. In theory, yeah, there's nothing to slow the ball down. it could conceivably get faster, but I don't know if it'd be enough to be noticeable by, I'm trying to think how many, like their biggest one that would let you like cannon lagoon is probably the best example where you might experience that, where you're just like, there's nothing. It's just this wide open, let the ball game. But I bet my, this is, and this is my gut. So I'm probably wrong, but I'm going to go with it. Cause my gut, my gut tells me like jacking the game up from six and a half to seven degrees makes way more difference than another two inches does on on the length so that change the changes in the brutality of the game are best controlled by controlling the slope versus anything you do logistically to the amount of time the ball is on yeah there's just not probably just not enough you probably can't even notice it it's right it's so different when i think about things that make the ball go faster and you know to ways where it's like holy cow this stuff is just flying around like i have no like i have no control so when it comes to ball speed like i think about things like f14 and stuff like you're using coils and stuff to speed up the ball really right the scoop in tna that's the stuff that makes things brutal from a speed perspective like you need mechanical acceleration so hyper loops and and getaway to ramps and all that that's more so than gravity but but it's a given that you know a lot of people think if they raise the game up more they'll make the game harder that's you'll make it faster vertically right but and i actually had this conversation with someone i think a few days ago but the problem like when i bought my hoops and i got it home the prior person had it the back legs all the way up i set the high score on the game the first ball i put the first ball first game i played over what he had had for years because, and it was for years because that game still had the original battery in it. It still worked. And the reason was, Hoops needs a lot of side-to-side action to work as it was designed. Vertically, you're just not interacting. The slings aren't in play enough. And yeah, the ball's fast up and down, but you're supposed to be draining out the sides on that game. And when you take it up too high, that ball wants to move up and down. doesn't want to move side to side. So what you're saying is, it's just a universal constant. Width is more important than length. Sure. If your flippers are pointy enough, like Gottlieb's. Exactly. So yeah, no, that was, okay, well, that's an interesting point out of that thread. I hadn't thought about. I thought, once you brought it up, that you're going to be along the lines of the, like the mechs and the scoop wall. Because that's what I started to think about. Because of course, I saw the posts and I read it. Right. Well, I mean, and it's true. I just, I mean, I never really considered it that way. I hadn't either. I was more looking at, I mean, to see actual numbers, that was what kind of changed in my mind when the actual numbers put to the differences. Well, yeah, and that's what it was for me. And saying aside that, because I saw like there were tape measures starting to come out, and I was like, let's just think about it from when you eyeball something. because that's what the average player is going to do. And so that's what that made me do that whole exercise. So that part was at least a little interesting. I think that it went in a direction it didn't need to go. But conceptually, you know, I have, I've always just chalked up like, as you know, I don't have an interest in owning a P3. None of the games have been, while I've found a few of them to be good, like Weird Al and Heist, they're not, oh, but I want to own it good, you see. and I've always just assumed that I just leave it that generalized. It's like, oh, this game is fun, but it's not put it in my lineup of seven fun. Right. Like, how Rush? I was like, okay, yeah, Rush seems fun, but I don't have an interest in owning it. I'm not saying it's not good, but it's not Dennis good. It's not coming into the lineup. Yes, it is not worth owning. Right, right. To me, it's not worth owning. In a personal opinion. But this made me think, what is it i don't know i'm not going to go and count like how many games rely on on mechs below the scoop aside from the standard three inch flippers and and unified you know symmetrical slings how many have mechs that are and stand-ups too because of the screen thing but below that scoop line versus above like i you know it depends if you count ems or not quite frankly right ems really going to skew everything. So, this made me think, you know, maybe that's it for me, though. Maybe that's distilling it down beyond game design. Fundamentally, it comes down to game design, but distilling it down, maybe I'm just biased in favor of games that have mechs in the lower two-thirds. I wondered, is that true? I never thought of it. Well, then, that would be part of a bias. It's something that you don't think about. It just exists. You won't. and again, EM, but games are games. You had wanted it a really long time. You have Campus Queen. Right. And it's like, okay. So what I started to wonder is, with our games, could we have them designed for the P3? Like, as it is. Like, when you stick in a standard back module and you use the fan layout of the lower. Obviously, with Campus Queen, you could. Yeah, there's no way. There's no way. Starting with the fact that you have two-inch flippers. There's two-inch flippers. There's the mushroom pops in the lower play field. And most importantly is most of the points on that game come from opening up side gates and then getting your ball back into the shooter lane, which doesn't even exist on a P3. Okay. So I walked through mine this morning in my head. I didn't go down and look. So sorry. Some of these might be – yeah, some of these I'm not going to be sure of because I don't know exactly. in my head i don't know exactly where the scoop wall is the tape well i don't know i don't know exactly how what the measurement is and no i don't because this is an intellectual exercise this is just what an average person is going to do and i'm just an average i'm just an average show tony so my lineup godzilla premium the pop i think's below that scoop line godzilla scoop and the left spinner i was all i'm pretty sure all beneath that point in terms of being on the lower two-thirds and I think at least part of the Mechagodzilla carousel that rotates is as well. I'm not sure of all of it is, but I think at least part of it is down. It might all be, but again, because I'm not quite sure. I'm trying to be fair. But they're definitely mechanisms that are on where the screen would be, is my point. Walking Dead Pro. So the right ramp starts way low on that play field. It does. It also, much like Campus Queen, has a shooter lane return feed. And then I think, again, not quite sure, the Well Walker bash toy may be too low. I think it'd be right on the edge. Vis-a-vis. It may straddle it. It could go either way. It may straddle it is the issue. Because, again, people aren't, most of these other games, they're not going to think about where that, where is it a third or two thirds. Like, it's just, they put it where it fits. Right. All right. So that, but that one, you couldn't do. Star Trek Pro. So left orbit spinner is too low. The left scoop. And then I'm not sure about the right upper flip. It may be high enough to be above, but that's also where there's a return to shooter lane. And as you know, there's no shooter lane. Hoops, I think maybe the leftmost kickout hole is too low, but I'm not sure about that. But regardless, Hoops relies on that the slings are not the same size. Yeah, it's all asymmetric. Yes, that's sort of a, yeah, they're not symmetrically designed slings. One is way smaller than the other. So, again, that's a major geometry change because you've got so much clearance on the right side. Right. So that one doesn't. Firepower is one that maybe you could. I wasn't sure. Most of the shots on that are back Other than the six The six stand-ups In the bank in the middle Like the three on the left and three on the right But all kind of centralized They might be at that scoop line, I wasn't sure So that one is a maybe TNA, Pop Bumper is way too low So that one is a no And then Buck Rogers Is my last game It's got two target drop banks On the left The far left one is definitely too low or beneath the scoop bank, I should say. Then there's the whole right side drop targets. They're too low. And then it also has two different size slings, kind of like hoops. So other than maybe firepower, all the stuff I've chosen to put in my collection has mechs in that lower two thirds section. So maybe that's it. Maybe some people want that and other people don't. Because here was my, and I've never asked, but this was my assumption years ago when I saw P3. My assumption was this design with the screen is clever because it's essentially embraced the notion that fan layouts are what people are wanting to design possibly or whatever. But you want to be able to accommodate a fan layout. And think about when this all came out. Like, what was the Pinside top 10? And we were talking earlier, Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Lord of the Rings, things where most of the shots, if not all, are in the back of the play field. And the P3 design would accommodate that. And those were very popular games. So to me, it's not – it may not be for me, but it's not a bad thing. I just think – and I kind of had this conversation with – I know you didn't – or I shouldn't say I know because I didn't ask you. I assume you didn't listen to the TPS. You were right. You know I didn't listen to the movie. Let's see. How many TPS episodes have I listened to? Like none. Okay, well. Maybe you're probably not missing much. But he and I had a conversation about germs because he didn't like germs. I liked germs. And I thought germs was – I didn't get to play germs. I liked watching germs because I – the thing about germs, what it does that I like is it leans into what makes it even special. And I think having these conversations, including these people talking to me about, you know, ideas about moving mechs to be over the screen and stuff. It's like, to me, it's not leaning into what makes you special. It's trying to be what traditional pinball does. But gluing on additions onto traditional pinball, I don't think it's ever going to feel as good as it does if you did it from the ground up. Right. This is my take. So why not have things like the germs and be like, no, we're not. traditional pinball. We're not going to have a pop bumper above a slingshot on the right side of your game. We're not going to stick a scoop down three inches to the left and above the left. No. We're giving you things like germs. We do ball tracking down here. We use technology down here. And I think that's a way they should lean. And so far, that's what by and large, their modules do. Right. That part's enjoyable. So my thinking is like, I don't know. That's where the whole thing with the discussion about that. I know it started because they were talking about an interview and how Dennis Nordman struggled with the design aspects and whether – I don't really care if it was easy for him or hard for him or if it was a mental block or if it was truly mathematically different. um i mean that can be interesting but you know in our discussion here giving you brought it up that's sort of where i come from is like to me that the p3 is a unique thing celebrate that it's a unique thing and understand that that uniqueness just will not appeal to all traditional pinheads because of the way the compromises you had to make in some things to get the additions you got and others. Right. And I was thinking about, you were talking about, you know, the, the rumors about having like pop bumpers and mechs that can extend over the play field. And, and I'm going to agree that I think that I, I don't know if that would help anything. I think it'd almost be easier just to lean into what the play field does, but I could see having ramps that extended down. So you put the module in and then you have to attach the ramp on the top. that would give you a little bit more touchdown below to for ramp entries right because that could lay down and lay on top of the play field not be an issue yeah some things are easier than others and all of it in a way is interesting like from an engineer like i could see where an engineer could look at that and go that is an interesting challenge and i want to solve it having and again i am not an engineer having done so many projects with my with my dad who is an engineer i remember just to me the things that like if i were to distill down the philosophy all in a nutshell it was always about if we wanted to achieve something how can we figure out a way to achieve it and when we would achieve it the glory was in the achieving of it even it was janky and weird and like you're bypassing all normal protocols you're doing the most inefficient things and it's like but we got it to work the engineering was a success and so that's where like pop bumper could you i'm sure an engineer could figure out a way but it reminds me of that line from jurassic park about you were so busy thinking that if you could you never stopped to think that you should and the ramp thing seems on the surface of my non-engineer brain to be easier than floating a pop bumper over there but on the flip side like are there gonna be issues with the with the ramp flaps that lead up i mean because normally those are screwed down and we're not going to be screwing them down into posturing. That's true. And all that stuff. And again, there are all sorts of things you could do. I just don't know that you should. Like, I think you can get a lot of variety. I mean look at every module they had so far They all dramatically different They are So being like no the two thirds are going to be mech free aside from two flippers two slings I don't see why. I don't see it as a bad thing. Our 10 minute discussions all really comes down to you've done something unique and it's not going to appeal to everyone. And that's OK. Yeah. You shouldn't you shouldn't pick like you shouldn't be designing specifically for Bob Jenkins. Bob Jenkins is a great guy. Better than Leroy. But trying to aim everything directly towards making Bob Jenkins happy can cause issues with other people. You might as well just do what works for the best overall and go into your vision. I mean, I do like the scoop wall and some of the things, like germs, when the scoop wall pops up as an actual wall. Yeah, to be the side of the Cameron Petri dish. Yeah, I enjoy that. I like it when you get the individual pop-ups as scoops here and there and that move as moving targets I like that the engineering of that gives you a lot of flexibility and a lot of interesting things to do it's one of those things, I think there's a lot of possibilities there but there's issues and there's always going to be issues and I think the best thing to do is to lean to the possibilities Stern has issues, every game has issues, their choices they've made cause issues, JJP has issues, choices they've made cause issues. Everybody's going to have an issue. There has to be what do you call it? Everybody surrenders something in order to pick up something else. So the question is just do you lean into it? Let's move to rumor corner, Tony. We missed rumor corner last time. Amazingly. Amazingly. It's everyone's most favorite corner on EGP. No one wrote in to me. Maybe there might been someone who i was chatting with who said what happened to rumor like you mentioned there was going to be a big like a rumor you had from tpf and then you didn't do it but that might have been you telling me that yeah because i i got home and you're like didn't we didn't do rumor corner it's like this is what happens when i did not type it i have to type rumor corner in the notes to remember to to rumor tame people right okay it's the favorite segment yes so i have so as an apology because i think i missed another one a prior week as well so i'm going to give three i'm going to give three rumors gotta gotta make up for the last two and then and then catch up okay so the rumor that we were going to share with everyone last week was when we were at tpf we spoke with someone who I will describe as a high-level person associated with American pinball. And they did confirm that Dennis Nordman's first game with them will have at least one ramp. Now, they refused to confirm whether the ball will interact with said ramp. But that confirms there's a ball in the game. Yes. Good logic, Tony. That is why we have you. That's what we did. Deep think. That's right. Deep think. Okay. Okay, so if you like Dennis Nordman and you like ramps, I should have asked if it was a plastic ramp or not. But I'm going to – it will be a ramp. There will be a ramp. There will be a ramp. All right. So that's what we meant to say in the last episode. So I don't know what the other one was going to be prior. So I've got – so here are two more rumors to make up for the other one we missed in this current week. All right. There are more and more reports. I know we've rumored this before, that Chicago Gaming Company has Pulp Fiction. but information is coming out that Quentin Tarantino is mandating that this game be single level. I could see he's a man of principle principle. Yes. So, well here, here's the thing on the principle that, that I wanted to ask you, and we don't normally have a discussion on rumor corner, but I do want to kind of discuss this one because this is what came to my mind. I could totally see it fitting with the vibe of whatever. Yep. He's going with, but if he's going with true old school are we going to get something like beatles or is quentin did quentin actually go to them and say no no no no guys this needs to be an em or it's so good it would be amazing wouldn't that be awesome or at least it needs to sound like it needs to feel like an em like it needs to have bells or chimes it can be solid state under the hood right like it can't do any like i want score reels like oh that'd be interesting that seems like a thing he would do. And it does. That's why I wanted to bring it up. It seems like totally a thing he would do. And then they'd release it in two editions. There'd be the normal edition, and then there'd be the Quentin Tarantino limited edition, where all of the artwork is just replaced by ladies' feet. In the words of Joel Engelberth, that's fair. Okay, well, it's saying aside the L.A. discussion, so I have no rumors on that. We do know that CGC has typically relied upon three models so that's conceivable. And I do want to say that the EM part is not, I've not heard a rumor about, that's coming straight out of my head. I've only heard rumors about the single level aspect, but it begs the question, I think, how hardcore Quentin is about, if this is true, that it needs to be old school and old school doesn't just mean no ramps. Right. So anyway, So there's that. And then this one, the third rumor I will provide is, and this one, this was probably the one I feel the strongest about because whoever controls the IP, I forget which movie studio, and I shouldn't because I just watched documentaries on the making of all four Jaws movies. Ah. Oh, yes. You know, Jaws has been talked about forever and a day about Jaws coming to pinball. Well, it's like the trademark use of JAWS, the studio updated to add pinball machines into the listing. And the way it was filed was a – and we attend – there's like categories, I guess. And it was filed in a we are actually intending to do this category. Well, that seems like a pretty solid rumor. So now the rumor is that Jaws pinball is in development and that Stern is who controls it. Further adding the layer of diabolical trolling that they like to do, given that the code name that Jurassic Park, Elwyn's Jurassic Park, ran under was Jaws. Nice. Now my question, this is again not a rumor but my speculation, is the code name for Jaws Jurassic Park? I mean It would complete the circle Then it would also be stupid You know what would be the better codename for Jurassic Park Well Jurassic Park already had it I mean the better codename for Jaws No I don't know Back to the Future Oh I love it I love it You'll never have your back to the future Zach I think the biggest problem Is at this point with Jaws There's nobody good left alive to do call outs. Let's have a little bit of conversation about that. So my guess is that it won't have any of the actors on the screen. Maybe they'll have, I wouldn't think for their voices. So it'll be trash. It'll be garbage. It will. You'll, they could either get some sound of likes. I don't know. Have you played the Zen studios? Jaws virtual? Okay. I think they tried to do sort of sound of likes. It's not cringy. cringy but it's not great but um yeah i i mean there there could be that maybe there's some obscure care like who's left i mean i don't know if they can get Richard Dreyfuss that would be what everyone would want the two other main actors are obviously dead yeah i believe uh mrs brody nobody cares she's still alive but she has not worked in decades right uh so So in fact, she came out of retirement to do Jaws the Revenge, which I'm sure she regrets. But – Depends on how big – how many zeros were on that check. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally interesting – to me interesting. Sorry, everyone. Aside, I also watched a documentary about the making of the first Friday the 13th movie. and uh the the actress who plays uh mrs vorhees in it she because she was known for some other like she never had done horror her car broke down and she needed money to buy a new car so she did friday the 13th to buy her new car because they were going to like pay her a thousand dollars a day or something and it was 10 days of shooting so she got 10 grand and she bought herself her a new car or something that's why she did it it's why she did it because she uh she got fan hate mail like people wrote to her and said how disappointed they were in her doing that movie but but um because at the time it was so gory that it was seen as uh in poor taste right but she was better than but but since then she grew to you know kind of embrace that you know the movie gained its fans over time. But anyway, so yeah, so Jaws. Yeah, my theory is that the LCD screens are mostly going to be shots of the fan, shots of the barrels. They'll be able to essentially have unlimited use of the shark. The problem with Jaws, especially if it's all around the first Jaws movie, is while it was never meant to be that way, what makes Jaws so good is you never really see the shark very much, and it's all about these three people interacting. Right. And the problem with later Jaws movies is like, well, there's no suspense. You're constantly seeing the shark. I know Steven Spielberg wanted you to see the shark all the time, and he was forced to pivot, and that pivot turned it into a great movie. But that's the frustration with something like Jaws. If it was really all about the shark, as the example I used with Zack, is if it was like Deep Blue Sea, and there was lots of shark stuff you could look at, make more sense. The reason why Godzilla works with its screen is there aren't any individual actors they have to worry about. It's all people in the suits. So you could get the rights and you had all the kaiju and all the scenes with these kaiju at your disposal. They don't have that with – like Richard Richard Dreyfuss isn't a rubber suit. It's Richard Richard Dreyfuss and he'll control his likeness. So, well, honestly, I think part of where we're setting at is maybe it's time to get away from all of these like so serious movies. We don't need a pinball machine based on Godfather. We don't need a pinball machine based on Jaws. Where's 1941? Where's airplane? Where's hot shots? This is where we need to go. We need all the Leslie Nielsen movies Nothing but Leslie Nielsen All the way there I don't think he was in 1941 Where's the police squad? Or Naked Gun Yeah, the Naked Gun From the files of the police squad Yeah, yeah We might have to leave OJ out of the art on that We could leave OJ out of that one We could, yeah Definitely Where's Dracula dead and loving it? Master! Master! Wasn't he in one of the scary movies as the president? I think so. Or one of the knockoffs. Or one of the knockoffs. Where's Mr. Magoo? Mr. Magoo. Where's Repossessed? Re-re-re-repossessed? My favorite scene from Repossessed to this day is when they go up to, like, it looks like one of those, it's like a vending machine to get chips or cigarettes or whatever, and they put in the money and get out a Bible. Yeah. The whole thing is my favorite scene. I've never seen Exorcist. Everything I know about Exorcist comes from Repossessed. Oh, I've seen Exorcist. It's solid. But yeah, no, Repossessed is so... I just love the... Rock and roll. I hate rock and roll. Oh! Well, are you not rumortanged, Tony? I was. I hope people feel like we've made up for it. made up for our past transgressions. But speaking of transgressions, Tony, we must transcend pinball to the realm of video games, you know, where all the real money is. Right. And where there's transgressions. Oh. Oh. Tell us more. I'm not going to start with transgressions. I'm going to start with something a little weird. Yeah, start light and end heavy. That's what everyone likes. Okay. I'm not going to say I'm starting light. Oh. I don't consider it starting light When I'm talking about companies Making changes directly related to an ongoing war So it's cruiser light, not frigate light Yes We talked in the past that Wargaming The makers of World of Tanks and World of Warships They fired their creative director over comments about the conflict And they're a Belarusian company Yeah, technically they're based in Crete But they started in Belarus But they moved to Crete years ago, technically. They still have offices in Belarus, and they've got offices in Russia. Well, they put out a notice that they are no longer going to operate in Russia or Belarus. They basically, their St. Petersburg-based company, their division, is its own company now. They're closing their Belarus-based division completely. and they're actually releasing all control of their live game in Belarus and Russia to the company that was spun off from St. Petersburg. So they are releasing World of Tanks and World of Warships. They are no longer controlling that game for those servers that are for Russia and Belarus. That will be a different company with a different game, and there are no ties between them. They actually put out an announcement. I'll read it real quick because it's pretty short. Over the past weeks, Wargaming has been conducting a strategic review of business operations worldwide. The company has decided it will not own or operate any business in Russia and Belarus. Effective March 31st, the company transferred its live games business in Russia and Belarus to the local management of Lesta Studio, which is no longer affiliated with Wargaming. They're the ones based in St. Petersburg. The company will not profit from this process either today or going forward. Much to the contrary, we expect to suffer substantial losses as a direct result of this decision. Just as another aside, Russia and Belarus comprise like 70% of their total player base. Oh, okay. I didn't know it was that stacked. Yeah, no. It's a huge portion of their player base. It's like 60% to 70% just in former Soviet areas, basically, and then another very large portion that is like Europe, and then there's the rest of the world. Back into what they were saying. We will be completing the operational transition with all due speed while remaining in full compliance with all laws and ensuring the ongoing safety and support of our employees. During the transition period, the live products will remain available in Russia and Belarus and will be operated by the new owner. Wargaming has also started the process of closing its studio in Minsk. It will be conducted in strict compliance with the law. Heads of products and services will be meeting with their teams shortly to discuss the impact of this decision on each department. We will provide as much severance and support as possible to employees affected by this change. So, that's a pretty major thing for any company to do. Oh, yes. I mean, that is a huge portion of their business that they've just cut off. Obviously, they've had to have figured that they can survive it. Yeah. Though it'll probably hurt, and they'll probably be in for some lean times. Yeah, given the vagueness of what they could. Like, they weren't very specific on what severance they could provide. Right. And that's probably because they're not entirely certain how easy they'll navigate this. Right so it be it be interesting to see what I been wondering about since I first read this is well what kind of divergence are you going to see in the live game Provided they maintain World of Tanks and World of Warships on all of their other worldwide servers, as the divergences start between the two games as patches come and changes come. Or what else are they working on to start a new live game? Which is possible. I don't know. They've kind of, I won't say rested on their laurels because they're continuously putting out new patches and adding new stuff to their live games. They're very good about it. They've put out several games that are not their live games in the past as well. Some of them are kind of popular. Some of them aren't. But they're still, the core of their money has always come from World of Tanks, World of Warships. so it'll be interesting to see where that goes for them and how this works out because that is a risky move right there on slightly ok more than slightly on much kind of happier less politically fraught news Lego and Epic Games have announced that they're joining a long term partnership to as they say shape the future of the metaverse with a focus on building a safe space for young players. What does that mean and how is it going to take? I don't know. They haven't even put out anything specific. They just announced the partnership. Okay. My guess is that they are going to put out something that is considered more child safe but probably falls into the same kind of categories, say, Roblox does. Oh, all right. but I mean something more like they had that Lego that Lego universe game that they had they ran for a long time but I know I mean my kids are of age and they are like they'd rather play Roblox than almost anything else as weird as that is to me I understand that them and their age group that's normal but it'll be interesting to see how this works out because Epic Games obviously hugely popular games, even with younger segments, with their Fortnite and all of that. Lego is Lego. I mean, that is a pretty powerful combination of companies working together. So it'll be interesting to see how that works out. We talked, was it the last day? I don't remember. It was the last episode, a couple episodes before, about how there's all these speedruns coming on Elden Ring. Yeah, I don't remember which episode. It might have been the last one. Yeah, but there's been all these speedruns where they were getting the times down like under 30 minutes to beat Elden Ring, all this stuff. The current world record, as far as I know, as of when I got these notes, for a speedrun of Elden Ring is under nine minutes. Oh, wow. I can't even imagine beating a Dark Souls game in under nine minutes. No, I'm trying to think. While I normally only watch speedruns During charity events Games Done Quick I think I've seen All three Dark Souls I don't know if I've watched Demon's Souls I've seen all three Dark Souls speedrun And they're not under 9 I watched the video We included a link to the video Just because it's less than 9 minutes And if you're interested, okay It is very much Game mechanic little issue. It is very much speedrunner shenanigans. Where, you know, you see a speedrunner doing some weird thing, and then all of a sudden a whole bunch of stuff happens. It's full-on speedrunner shenanigans. But it's still pretty impressive to see a game like that beaten in under nine minutes. And the person complaining that they could have done it faster. Yep. Well, let's see them do it then. They think they're so cool. So, So another game that we've touched on from time to time over the years, ever since the debacle that was its release, No Man's Sky has yet another new patch with a whole bunch of additions. We don't normally talk about them unless they're like a really, really huge patch or that I've decided to try the patches out to see how they are. I've been pretty happy with the game since they've patched it so much. I think it's actually a halfway decent game now. Um, what's interesting was when they were talking about the newest patch in an interview, uh, they came out and said that they are working on a new gang in the background while there were still working on patches for no man's sky. And they think it'll be just as ambitious as no man's sky. And I read that. I'm just like, have they learned their lesson? I mean, maybe I, I would just, I don't know. I, What do I know? I would tell them, I would go in a dramatically different direction. I consider No Man's Sky one of those underdog success stories because they cut their own leg off so badly in the pregame hype. The release went so poorly. But through sheer determination, they actually turned the game into something decent, if not what it was originally talked about being. It's still a decent game. now, years later. So I'm hoping they learn their lesson and they are not going to do this pregame hype buildup insanity, cut their own legs off with the new game. Yeah, I would. As long as the main, you know, as long as the leads are still there, I will assume that yes, they know at least in terms of how they market and promote and talk about the game and what they reveal versus what's actually already done, ready and proven that they won't make those same as that they'll do an ambitious game but they i'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say yeah that that wound has to still be so raw that yeah that they're gonna they'll be more cautious this time because they know it costs them a lot of money the way they did it last time they won't make those mistakes yeah yeah that's my guess i'll just guess yeah that's fine and then we'll dip down for the last time oh we'll never bring it up again huh oh gosh i wish i just mean for the last bit today i know more than half the listeners i hear about it i just have a hard time not talking about it because it's such a big deal we're going to talk about activision blizzard or boo depending who you are i even i admit it was kind of nice not talking about them last episode yeah but everyone got a vacation. Well, vacation's over. Vacation's over. It's been noticed in Overwatch that they have edited Zarya's skins. She had a bunch of skins that had Z's on them. Those have been removed. No Zed. That's understandable. Not a huge thing. They put out a survey to their players. Overwatch players? Activision Blizzard put out a thing to players. engaging interest in cryptocurrencies and NFTs and other upcoming gaming trends. Why is this a thing? Why are people allowing this to be a thing? Never mind. Don't answer that. If I put in, maybe I should. Maybe I should start putting it in every time an NFT thing turns out to be a scam. But then our video game segment is going to be like three hours long every episode. But, man, I just – I'm amazed they felt the need to put out the survey. And they couldn't just read news articles and go, man, this seems like a really dumb idea. But who knows? Okay. They've also decided and announced that they are going to convert all of their temporary contract-based, contract U.S.-based game testers into full-time employees, making $20 an hour, and eligible for full benefits because they'll be full-time employees. Wow. That's great. I mean, except for those employees who are trying to unionize. They don't get included in that. And it doesn't go active until January 1st. And it's April. What did I say it was? It's April 17th. Yep. So they've got to wait, you know, eight-plus months-ish or eight months before they become. But eventually they'll become full-time employees if they don't get fired before then because of something or another. and as long as they don't try and unionize. Because unionized people, according to Activision, cannot have their contracts adjusted because of the National Labor Relations Act. Though the union organizers and people from the Communication Workers of America, the union they're attempting to join, says that that's not how that works. So, wow, Activision Blizzard. You guys, they have decided, or they have announced as well, they hired a new chief diversity officer, whom Bobby Kotek claims will help them reach their ambitious goals of becoming the most welcoming and inclusive company in the gaming industry. I would agree that's a very ambitious goal for them. That is a super ambitious goal. I mean, I wonder, what kind of compensation do you have to be offered to take that role with a company that is in that? Is that one of those situations where it doesn't matter because you literally can't make it worse than it is? You could screw up so massively badly that it still turns out better than it was? My guess is, yeah, whoever takes the position would be like, well, I can't make it worse. Right. I mean, there's people out there who could make it worse. Sure. But they didn't hire them. I think anyone who seriously would want the job would be like, even like I've got these most basic things, I would at least do marginal improvement. Right, right. And that's the route they went. So good for them. Hopefully that will help. I'm sure. Yeah. And the last thing is the biggest. I thank you to Derek Kay, who wrote in about it, and I'd read about it as well. and we included a link in the show notes to the article he sent in about it. The lawsuit brought by the California Department of Fair Employment has had a little interesting turn because there's now allegations that California's governor, Gavin Newsom, who already has a fair length of issues. Yeah, he survived a recall effort. Yes, going on, is directly interfering in the case on Activision's behalf. Bubby! Bubby! I mean, what? Is he buddies with Bobby? What? Allegedly. Allegedly. Just like allegedly Bobby talked to some friends who talked to some other friends before the Microsoft announcement was made and they bought lots and lots of stock. And suddenly there's an insider trading investigation going on. Allegedly. Well, the investigation is going on and they did buy the stock. But allegedly there's insider trading. It wasn't just luck. The talking's allegedly. Yeah. That's allegedly. All right, so Gavin. All right. Wow. Yeah. Well, apparently there are claims. What are the allegeds? Allegedly, the governor's office started interfering with the lawsuit, demanding advanced notice of litigation strategies and planned next steps for the litigation. and as the litigation continued to have success in the state courts, they were asking for more and more information of that type. And when the chief counsel, Weber, the head of the Department of Fair Employment, fought back and attempted to protect the agency's independency from the governor, she was terminated. And another lawyer has resigned in protest due to the interference coming out of the governor's office. The alleged interference? Alleged, yes. Coming out of the governor's office. It's just the gift that keeps on giving. And Division Blizzard is just, it's insane. It's crazy. The turns and stuff this has taken. You know, there's like normal stuff where it's like, oh, you did bad thing. We investigate. Yep, you did bad thing. Pay us fine. And then here there's like, oh, you did bad thing. You're in a lot of trouble. Well, you're about to get bought out. And members of Congress are questioning what's going on over here because Bob is going to get such a huge payout. It's like hilariously, hilariously large, the payout he will get from this buyout. It is insane. and his golden parachutes are crazy. They're probably platinum. Yeah. Triple platinum. It's insane. I mean, if I remember, I know I talked about it in the past. I think the worst case scenario is a quarter billion dollars. That's like they found out that he murdered and ate his assistant. They have to give him like a quarter billion dollars. Wow. So It's Wow So we will see We'll see where this keeps going I Of everything I saw coming up The governor interfering on Activision's behalf Was not something I ever expected No Yeah It seems so weird Obviously if the allegations are correct I mean they have some That the terminated lawyer had just been reappointed by the governor like four months prior. That's what makes it so weird. Because you had a good opportunity to get rid of them quietly if there was some other motive. So unless they did something else that the governor didn't like, they haven't said that yet. Right. So it's weird. It's weird. Yeah, the whole thing is just weird. That's sort of the thing today A lot of things are weird Everything's weird Well, what isn't weird is how people can reach out to us They can email us EclecticGamersPodcast at gmail.com Or they can go over to facebook.com Slash EclecticGamersPodcast And shoot us a message through the messenger tool On Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram As Eclectic underscore Gamers And we will plan to be back in two weeks With the latest shenanigans Will Activision be a part of that one? we will have to wait and see. We'll see. We'll make sure shenanigans we'll have nine pieces of flair. We'll be back for shenanigans. It's all good. Oh, that's a good reference. Ryan Reynolds will appreciate it when he hears this episode. He will. We love you, Ryan. Yes, we do. Bye-bye. It was my July 4th break. This is our Independence Day. Wait, no. It's not. This is Easter. This is the Lich's Day. Oh my god. Oh dear. Oh dear. Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. We're not recording yet, so... I just found out. I saw you clicking the button. Oh my god, he's doing the breath. He's doing the breath. Click, click, click. Click, pancake, mother f***er. Alright, it is recording now. Click, click, mother f***er, pancake. Sorry, I always remember that from Family Guy, like season one. Oh, anyway. Back when it was funny.