Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. A lot of news this week, a lot of takes this week, and a whole lot of love coming from the Pinball Show. as Dennis and I discuss if the truth is really out there, as well as Sturm Pinball production updates and a title discontinuation? Ray Day tutorializes Foo Fighters, the new Fathom Revisited Classic Epsilon Edition, the new Whirlwind 2.0 Total Chaos game release, Cactus Canyon Enhanced Package Updates, 8 Ball Beyond, a new Topper announcement, the pinball industry pricing structures, and historical trends. trends. We've got new pinball show starting lineup members, pinball market trends and Dennis encouraging listeners to not take financial advice from him. But you should. Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's Pinball with Personality. It's episode 127, and this is The Pinball Show. I'm Zach Minney. That's Dennis Creasel. How's it going, Dennis? Hey, it's going great. We're still around. We're not all in the walled garden. Well, there's a couple people that dropped off. They said, you know what? You guys are asking for support. I'll have none of it. I'm out. Not only am I not going to listen to your free podcast, I am out. Hmm. Well, that's a powerful way to send a message if it impacted the numbers, which it doesn't. Oh, snap. But thanks for playing. Numbers don't lie. They don't. We had one less listener that last week, didn't we? We gained some. I think it improved the download speeds for the remaining subscribers, so that was probably a positive net. Bitrate? Yeah, bitrate hype. How have you been this week? Oh, fine. Busy. Busy working, but not calmer stuff. So things have been – things are going pretty smooth. Oh, nice. I still got my watch content. I'm trying to keep up with that too. You seem like you've been doing a lot of content over there on watching. Yeah, well, we're past like the big – just like we had Texas Pinball Festival and all those games came out. Well, at the end of March, early April is when like this huge watch event happens. So we're in this lull right now, so I actually have to kind of work at making content because there's not a bunch of new announcements right now. It's mostly the bigger YouTube channels and stuff are actually getting to handle all these releases they heard about at the March-April event. And I'm not big enough to be able to have that sort of access. So I have to do other focus. Oh, you're the tertiary party. Yeah. I could see about setting up a relationship with one of the watch authorized dealers in the area. Some places do that. They'll go to that, basically promote the store, and then the store lets them have access to all the new stuff in the shop. Yes, yeah, Win Schilling, basically. And you'll be accused of that. Well, even small channels, you thought Win Schilling was bad in pinball, and you as the master would know. But in the watch world, oh, it's rampant. Like lots of – even little channels will get like micro brands. These are small manufacturers, just like we have in pinball, but small watch manufacturers. and they'll send them the watch for free, and they get to keep it as long as they review it. As long as they quote-unquote review it. And those channels, they're not making their money on ad revenue through AdSense. They're making their money selling the watch when they're done with the review. I wonder if they shit on that reviewed watch. If the next time another release comes out, they get a chance to review it. Well, you see, that's the controversy. Are they being honest or not? And legally, they need to announce that it's a paid promotion because if they get to keep the watch, it's akin to getting paid. You have to announce it per FTC rules. But even some of them are really good about announcing it. Some of them are not so good about announcing it. But then there's always that question, like, are they overly positive? Not all of them are positive. Some of them will point out flaws. But there's always going to be that accusation, that sense. And, you know, you might have some experience with that as a distributor who also commentates on a game. Yeah, I think I feel that. It's like poetry. It rhymes. Is that the George Lucas quote that everyone makes fun of? I have no clue. It's like poetry. It rhymes. Poor George Lucas people. George Lucas and his camera A, camera B nonsense. Speaking of that, you said The Master. That just rang out to me because you called me The Master. I watched that this last week. The Master. Have you ever seen that Jacqueline Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Paul Thomas Anderson directed and written film? No. In fact, the name's not even ringing a bell with me. What do you do? I do many, many things. I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man. Wow. I've been going through some films lately. I've taken a break from shows and series and stuff like that. I've been really diving into the best of cinema, things like Paul Thomas Anderson stuff, horror films, the best of those horror films. I just watched for the first time The Thing. Oh, which one? Because there are three different ones that I know of. I think the – Do you mean Kurt Russell? Yeah, thank you. All right, so John Carpenter's remake, the thing. Oh, there's a remake? That's the second one that I know of. He remade the RKO did one way back, like a black and white. Yeah. I thought that was his story. If you watch Halloween, John Carpenter's Halloween, there's a scene where the kids, that Jamie Lee Curtis, both of the kids are on the TV, is the original thing. I see. Okay. You'll see the title. Was it a popular film back in the 20s or whatever it was? I can't say that I've seen it. I've seen the remake of John Carpenter's remake, and they took a few different twists, but John Carpenter's. Actually, last year went, what was that? There's that Fathom Events thing that movie theaters do. I actually went and watched it in the theater because I was too young to have seen it in the 80s. I've got to tell you, Dennis, I loved the thing. It's awesome. That is a great movie. It's probably, in my opinion, John Carpenter's best film. I mean, Halloween's iconic, and it spawned a whole franchise. But as a movie, as a standalone movie, the thing is so good. So well done, too. I love the practical effects and everything. Yes, very impressive practical effects. The isolation of being in the Antarctic is captured really, really well. There's a pinball machine in it. And it's got Kurt Russell. Who doesn't love Kurt Russell? It's got everything with a big old floppy cowboy hat. Oh, he's awesome. He's awesome. So, yeah, I've been watching that, which then, because Greg and I, straight down the middle, we're planning our filming of a, we're going to do a film, an actual film. It's not pinball related. And we've come up with the premise. We're in scripting now. So we're writing an actual screenplay. How exciting. And we feel good about it. So I've been reviewing, because I know I'm going to be the eye behind the camera in a lot of respects. So I've been watching some of the – just trying to get some – not influence, but maybe influence. Some of the shots and different things. Have you picked a genre yet that you're going to do? If we go with the premise that we're scripting right now, believe it or not, it's a – I'm going to say a dramedy? Okay. Dramedy? Okay. Yeah, dramedy. Like a – not a dark black humor, but a almost – Like a When Harry Met Sally, but with Jeeps. No. Okay, well, that's the only idea I had. I'd help you, but I'm on strike with the writers. Almost like a Judd Apatow type of, like a real comedy that's still, real comedy is filthy. So comedy is not dead. So yeah, we're doing that. And then that led me to watching a bunch of documentaries about UFOs. Because, yeah, most dramedies are very UFO-centric. I think it's the thing that lent me there. Have you ever seen those alien conspiracy? I don't watch conspiracy stuff. Who's to say it's a conspiracy, Dennis? I don't watch conspiracy stuff, Zach. You don't believe in aliens? It touches me professionally at the stage with conspiracy theories that I don't want. What about you don't believe in aliens? I don't believe in aliens that have visited Earth. I do. Let's put it that way. I think I'm a believer. Where's Mulder and Scully? I think I'm a believer. I think the stuff over in, what's it called, Roswell and all this stuff, I'm not full-blown lizard people yet, but you know what? I think some shit's gone down, and they're hiding it from us. I really do. Email us at thepinballshow at gmail.com. With proof of the aliens. They have proof. They released it. The government released it in 2017. Well, UFOs are, yes, people have all sorts of stuff, and they're like, well, we're not sure what it is. Yeah, but we don't have that type of technology. it's not of earth oh my gosh have you seen the videos have you seen the videos we are not lizard people we prefer to be called reptilians turning this into v i don't know i've been watching that shit now i'm ate up with it i wonder if fucking craig bobby's a reptilian probably because he's in my head he is again Craig, what the heck, man? This is like the second time in a while. Why is he taking a break? We gave him a break for a month. What in the hell? Do you think he's dumping us? Yeah, probably. He's pissed off about the $10 Patreon. I bet the pinball party has poached him. Man, he's on fire too lately. I liked the... Oh, gosh, because he puts out so many episodes. It's probably two episodes back now. is the one where he talked about audio, and he talked about it way too long, like how long this intro is going long. Sure. And my favorite thing was he went through all of this stuff, and he's explaining sound and all that. And the long story short, the too long didn't read is, you need to give up some pinball machines and stick a bunch of furniture in your game room. That was the answer. It took us 15 minutes to get there. Fill it up. But that was the answer, is you need to have couches and chairs and curtains and fill up that game room with non-games, and then your sound will be awesome. That's what I took away from that episode. I think it was his last episode I had to text him and tell him nicely done. He opened up the show with, quote, buckle up, dick bags. It's just probably one of my favorite opening lines ever. Buckle up, dick bags. Nicely done, Jason. Without Craig Bobby, let's do his job for him, Dennis. Okay, so I guess we'll start with Stern Pinball. Of course we will. Stern Pinball. What's going on? What's going on production-wise? Well, production-wise, last Friday, they always have these production video Fridays now, and they were showing off a little Foo Fighters LE and James Bond Premium. So those Foo Fighters LE have got to be about done by now. Yeah, I would think so, too. I know that we're still due some Foo Fighter Premiums, so I would guess those on the line this week. But the James Bond Premiums, we had some James Bond Pros trickle out of that factory last week, which wasn't estimated to be rolling out until later this month. So they're, they're kind of mixing things up a little bit and it's probably just based on whatever parts are coming in at the time. But it looks like James Bond premiums are coming and some food fighter premiums are coming as well. Uh, I don't, let's talk about what's not coming, Zach. Oh boy, here we go. Oh, this is a, Oh, I've been seeing so much about this on the interwebs. People are frothing on this one. They are. I think it's, I think it's a combination of shock and awe. It might be a little dose of denial, too. You know, it's interesting. It's interesting because I know, broadly speaking, I've seen a lot of positive responses to these production information like this. And because you regularly share it, you tend to get a lot of credit for that. But when stuff about this started to come out, just generally, I just saw a lot of people that just were like, no, I don't buy it. It's like, okay. And we're talking about Rush, listener. Yes, the band. It was a game of the show for the Pinball Awards. Yeah, it won that. I think Twippy's that took home, if I'm not mistaken, I think Twippy's that took home their… Gotti, Game of the Year. Yeah, there you go. I think so. I think you're right. The accessories are just now rolling out. People love expression lighting. I hear lots of talk about Rush expression lighting. I've heard great things about the code, the rules. Sales have gone up on Rush over the last six months significantly. So what's to discuss, Dennis? Well, they're discontinuing Rush. This seems kind of early compared to, I think that's probably where the disbelief is coming from. because there are skews like Deadpool and Star Wars that have been around a lot longer than Rush, which was a last-year game, but numbers don't lie. Apparently not. Apparently not. Rush came out early, what was that, 2022, January? Yeah, but that's when I thought it was. Yeah, or December 2021. Yeah, I don't remember when they first started shipping them as kind of part of my brain freeze there. It was almost following that Stranger Things path where when it first came out, people were like, we don't like this theme. We don't like this game. There's no code in it. We don't like this. It was the scoop. Remember, they had to go through like 80 iterations. I'm rounding up to the nearest 80. Yeah, the airbags and everything else trying to protect that scoop. There's a lot of corrections on this game. That's an interesting analogy you did to Stranger Things because we remember when Stranger Things dropped, it was the ball doesn't go in the Demogorgon mouth. And then with Rush, it was the ball easily goes into the scoop, and then the scoop is shredded. The TK multiball doesn't work. Yeah. And then later on, people started loving that game, and then they pulled the Pirates of the Caribbean and said, you know, no game for you. And then everybody wanted it. Now, Rush sold fair whenever it first came out. It's been so hyped. So it's interesting you noting that because people talk up Rush a lot. And I think it's like you noted, you know, there's the rules with it. And I know a lot of competitive players in particular really enjoy the rule set. I know some people that I think it's a combination of perhaps true opinion and a combination of just I got to be contrarian. And I don't like that even common folks like Godzilla. And so they say Rush is the best game, which isn't true. But that's what I mean, broadly speaking, it's rating wise. It's just not true objectively. But there was a sort of attempt to say this is actually Stern's greatest game, too. And I'm sure to a number of those people, they actually believe it. And then the third thing is, of course, all of Canada, I thought, was legally obligated to buy it. I'm blaming Canada on this one. Apparently that didn't happen. That's why it's getting pulled. Canada, you didn't buy enough. Do you think Craig Bobby is not on this episode because he knew this would come up and he didn't want to answer questions? Because he doesn't own a rush. Yes. You know what? It's that in combination with this damn writer strike. Maybe this is Craig Bobby really sticking it to the man here at the pinball show. He was like, I wasn't told about no Patreon dollar. Wait a minute. What is going on here? Are we like the James Corden of the talk show? Is that us? Only if it's as we appear in the filmed version of Cats. That's horrible. What did you do with Dame Judi Dench? Dame Judi Dench. Oh, bastards. I don't know what's going on, but here's the thing. Everybody was talking. She went from M to meow. Pushy. I'll see it all. It's a big circle. The thing is that people had been kind of, there's been some rumbles about Rush getting discontinued, especially when we reported here first probably that 2023 we're not going to see any Rushes. We reported that back months back. and people were kind of shocked by that they're like what it's like their newest game why would they're not making it all this year no then there were some rumblings even so much to have other media people come out and say no that's not true like they didn't pull the plug even nap arcade he had a story a couple days ago that the headline stern pinball has not officially pulled the plug on rush pinball yet people right and i read that and that i guess maybe it's a it's true in the sense that like the license is still there but there's a difference between it being quote-unquote discontinued and uh it not being on the production schedule ever again uh i you know so and to to further make sure that all of our listeners are equipped with the most current and accurate information i'll go one or two further rush was not playing for 2023 i can tell you direct from Stern Pinball. They have no plans to produce Rush in 2024. They would have to. They're trying to preemptively look at what 2024 is going to look like with new releases and catalog releases. They have no plans to. What they would have to do is squeeze in Rush into 2024. They have zero plans to do that. Therefore, their license will have expired. They communicated this information with their sales team. At this time, they do not plan to produce Rush again. Period. Right. So they still have the license for now, and they could choose to at any time decide to go ahead and make them because they wouldn't even have to renew the license. But there's a schedule that they are trying to fill out, including games that aren't released yet. And here's where I'll go. I said one or two. Here's my second one. flipping out pinball has, I think, 30 rushes on order. We technically still have rushes on order. So for me to be telling you they're no longer making rush, if anybody's going to know, it's going to be me who's no longer planned to get those 30 rushes. Yeah, you're going to have to cancel those. Yeah. At some point. I mean, how long do you – I don't know if you've been in this boat before. Because I was going to ask, like, how long do you hold people on the wait list, you know, and before telling them that, you know, well, maybe you already have told them, like, It's not planned to be produced again. Do you want to keep waiting? Fortunately, I have not taken, because we knew that 2023 was going to be a no-run for Rush, when people asked to order it, I said, you know what, I'll put you on a list, but we don't need a deposit or anything. I don't. There's a good chance that if this doesn't happen in a year, like, let's not take too many steps right now. So it's not going to affect me too much. And we had Rush Pros in stock up until a couple weeks ago. So it wasn't horrible for me to have to contact people. So do you think that, given that this has been communicated by their sales team out to their networks, do you think that this is them going, you know, we've run into some issues in the past where we weren't really communicating what was happening on games, that we still control the license? I'm thinking Elvira, of course, specifically. Yeah, looking, yeah. And that kind of looking ahead now more and being like, you know what, let's not put people in the boat where they're, Like, are we waiting three years to get a game we want to buy, or are we just going to stop it and walk away and say instead, okay, look, we've got other stuff we need to work on. The rush sales just aren't there anymore to really warrant trying to shove it into the schedule somewhere, and we don't want to have to renew the license. So let's just – I mean, we're not doing it this year. I think this is the sales executives at CERN Pinball doing what they do best, and that is they have to estimate what are we looking at timeline-wise here. And if we are going to run it a year from now, do we predict sales to be high enough up that it even makes sense to renew a license? Because we know license is going to run out in 2024. Do we pay more? Do we re-up that based on what we estimate? Because we know the rules are pretty much there already. We're getting the accessories out. Do those really sell? How much more? And I think at the end of the day, they said it's not going to make enough sense to make them. Or some people might argue, Dennis and listener, that, well, this is a marketing tool to take a poll. If now dealers go back to Stern and say, hey, no, we've got to have them. We've got to have them. Everybody wants them. They're freaking out. Then Stern can be like, okay, well, that's free marketing for us and a free poll using our sales force. I don't think it's that. I really don't. Otherwise, they wouldn't say you've got 30 on the order. Sorry. I think – and I'm not a salesperson, so bear that in mind. grain of salt and all that I think it would make more sense if that was their goal to go ahead and say this is the last run of Rush Absolutely And then have their sales network communicate that because they done that before haven they I think they did like on vaulted Star Trek. Like, we're going to do this run of this vault, and this is the last time we're doing it. They have in the past, but then here lately, because there was some discussion in TPN's Discord about, no, they do a last call. Here lately, they kind of haven't. If we think about things like the Star Wars comic, those were just poof. We're not making any more. Sorry. Did you get notice on Guardians? I think Guardians was a thing because of how the system works now in distribution. Before, you could place orders like, last call, get your orders in. But because Guardians hadn't been made, dealers already had back orders for that title. So there was really no need to say, hey, guys, here's your last shot. We already had our last. We have orders. in. We could re-up that, but if they're trying to get through an order, they might not want to get a ton more. I don't know. It's very confusing, but Guardians, I don't remember if they said, hey, last order. They might have just said, because I remember Led Zeppelin was the kind of thing that was like, okay, yeah, we're done with that. Oh, all right. I think it's too complex now. It's too much to handle. When you've got like 20 titles in your catalog that you're building, yeah and i've i've wondered and actually i wondered slash i think it makes sense that they're they used to have so many skews on their website listed that i mean just not even going into them sort of like pro versus premium just in terms of titles they had so many that were listed and they're they've got 11 still but seems like a lot of games to say we're still making 11 different games because you got i mean you got everything elwyn's done is still there you still got Star Wars. You still got Deadpool. Those are older titles. You still have Elvira listed. Iron Maiden, Jurassic Park, Avengers, Infinity Quest. Yeah. Mando is still production. And then you still, on the site, have Rush and, of course, the newer games, 007 and Foo Fighters. And some of the stuff makes a lot of sense. Like, Godzilla makes a lot of sense because they still sell a lot of them. Sure. And other stuff like Jurassic Park is always going to sell. Yeah. Honestly, even though I know it's deeply popular, a game, I'm really surprised they still do have Iron Maiden. It's so old. Here's what I will, because I agree, and this goes into it even more so. I think that the reason that the pinball show helps stand out is, well, we're brilliant and hilarious, but some of the updates that we give, some of the insider information, all these scheduling and stuff, this is kind of the information that dealers have. We can kind of read between the lines here with the scheduling. So I think as a result, you consumer and enthusiast can read through the lines here as well. So when you have an Iron Maiden that might get re-upped last year and then runs once a year, I hold that weight of that importance of that title still to a Foo Fighters that's running four times a year. So the writing's on the wall. Like when Rush wasn't running for 2023, we can't think as enthusiasts that, oh, you know, that one's killing it. They're telling us right there. If there was still high demand, and at some point demand should taper on everything, they do more than one run. Yeah. Or they do a run. When you get an old title, you might get one run a year, and maybe they think, you know, it's worth upping the license each and every year for that one single run. because Deadpool, for example, it came out almost five years ago. It's a 2018 game. It gets one run this year. Same with things like Mandalorian, one run this year. Avengers, one run this year. Star Wars, one run. A lot of these are Disney-controlled sort of things, so I wonder if maybe the license package is a package and they're like, we're able to easily get this all license-renewed, So it's not a big deal for doing one run a year. And we forget that Stern has told us, I think they've told the community, but they have really good relationships with two or three individual entities. And see, this isn't even behind Patriot. Come on, Dennis. These people complain. They don't get all the nugs. Look, they have a great relationship with Lucasfilms and Disney. So more than likely, every year or every other year, we will get a Star Wars property. So if you're wanting to know what's coming out, think about, timing-wise, what makes sense from the Star Wars property. They have a great relationship with Marvel and Disney. Think about, once every year, every other year, what title would make sense from a Marvel-Disney. Those are the kind of things that when we're thinking about theming, those are guarantees. They've told us they have great relationships, and it's silly. They sell well. It's silly not to focus on the IP holders that they have great relationships with and, oh, by the way, are the largest in the entire world. So if you want to know what Stern's creating in the next 10 years, they're going to create Star Wars stuff and Marvel stuff. And band stuff because they love the band stuff. I think some of that comes from previous sales of band-related pinball machines. And I think another is probably the licensing manager executive is Jody Dankberg, and he's a music band guy. That was some damn good info, Dennis. I hope they like it. Man, I'm impressed with us. So, sure, we could see Rush again, but you may not be able to hoot again in 2024. That's so stupid. I'm sorry. Oh, my God. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's really bad. I may even edit it out. If you want one, get on with the fascination and try and find one now. Okay. There you go. That's better. Flipping Out with Friends is last week. Ray Day, our best bud in the whole world, coding extraordinaire Raymond Davidson, he joined the Flipping Out with Friends program with Joel Engelberth, walked him through the rules of Foo Fighters Pinball, getting some great feedback to that. That, alongside of a rule sheet that Stern Pinball has recently announced and launched, it's an online rule sheet for Foo Fighters. More of a booklet, really. It's like 12, 14 pages long. More of a novella. Yeah, people are loving those things. I saw a couple people on the forum say, between the live Ray Day video walking Joel through the rules and this rule sheet, that's perfect. It's a perfect little combo. That's all you need to know in learning everything with Foo Fighters. and I don't know Foo Fighters is well it's not complete 1.0 yet but rules wise I don't think it has the little intricate details of like a rush so I think it's more approachable in general as a game. I've heard that approachable is the word it flows so well but have you ever heard of a game that flows too well? I'm waiting for that to be the next argument it flows too well not really I usually, and maybe people mean that when they say some games they feel are too safe. Yeah, I can see that. But I've never actually heard someone say something flows too well. I think it might be a thing. That game, I kicked that game's ass the other week and got over a billion. I felt like Keith Elwin. I'm glad you didn't do it on stream. You might have sabotaged all the sales. I know. Sorry, Toy Story 4. That code depth is like the perfect amount of depth that I want in a game. That's about as far as I want it to go. I don't need it to go any deeper. We'll talk about Toy Story here soon. Well, speaking of deeper, we need to talk about mermaids. They're sirens. Martin is like, no, they're not, Zach. They're not sirens. They're mermaids. Mermaids. We didn't call it Siren Edition, you dipshit. Haggis Pinball in the news big time this week. They had an update. Damien over in Australia had a video update letting everyone know that manufacturing Mermaid games is going well and they should have all of them done by the end of the year. This is the Fathom Revisited, the top model edition. End of the year, having all of them done. Then they're even going to do a small Kelps run after that. Damien, I don't understand why. Just keep going. Who cares about Kelps? I guess they had some interest from TPF. I guess. production of their next revisited game is going to start in 2024. Early, early 2024. I wonder if it will be at next year's TPF. I hope so. Announcement of that next title is going to be this year, mid-year. It's probably this summer here. So that's all good info. Haggis Pinball announces this last week that they are now offering an upgrade option for Fathom Revisited Classics. Remember, listener, those individuals who just wanted the Fathom game, but they wanted a new version of them, they could buy the classic version. You don't get the 2.0 code or anything, but you get a brand new Fathom pinball machine for a killer freaking price. But now they're offering an upgrade for those who have a classic on order, because remember, they have not started producing classics yet. You can now do an upgrade before your game gets made, and you get an enhanced rule set. You get that 2.0 rule set. You even get the LCD apron displays and RGB seven segment displays as well. Upgraded sound system. A lot of what comes on that mermaid edition. You can have that now. I think the kit is right under a thousand bucks and it will be installed at the factory for you. Now, it's not everything from the mermaid edition, but there's a lot of that stuff. And this sparked some interesting conversations and debates online. It's the same old, you know, well, Cactus Canyon SE Plus, what the hell is that? I get the topper now, and, you know, I thought the topper was exclusive only to the Mermaid editions. That whole argument. Also, in addition to that, before we discuss, Dennis, they still have open the Fathom Revisited Classic. You can still order that game, but for the next two weeks, they're going to close the orders. Actually, it's probably a week now. In a week, they're going to close the orders. You can now purchase this, what they're calling the Fathom Revisited Classic Plus, for I think $8,600 plus freight, customs tax, et cetera. So you can order one now if you would like. So Dennis, how do you feel? I think I know how you feel because you've voiced it in the past on things like this. How do you feel about them now saying we want all of our classic people to be able to get 2.0 if they want to do that upgrade? Yeah, it's not the right answer, but I understand why they've done it. Do they need to make more games? Is that what they're just trying to squeeze the coral there? Need's probably not necessarily the right word. I'm not going to jump to the conclusion like financially they're in dire straits and they have to do it. Here's what I think happened. I think that they decided to go ahead and do Fathom, got on the remake train, figured, okay, there will be a lot of people that want to go ahead and just get an updated version. or couldn't, you know, if one of them got so expensive, it was hard to secure one, especially one in good condition. So, you know, they thought, we'll do the classic, and then we're going to have this awesome LE version. And the code was the driving factor on the Mermaid Edition, in my view. It was the idea of having a whole new rule set that you could also enable to play. And remember, they sold out of those, but there were some distributors who bought on the last day. Like, it wasn't going to sell out. So it barely sold out, maybe is a good way to phrase it. And that, I think, was fine. I think that was like Haggis was happy and everyone was happy. Getting the games to Texas meant a lot of people that this wasn't on their radar. I mean, the production delays alone would have put it off of a lot of people's radar. And so people got to try it. They had them set up for the new code, and it was fun. I got to play the new code, and the new code was great. And then you find out, like, oh, well, I can't order one from Haggis anymore. Maybe there's still some distributors that have it. I actually had someone who hadn't received their Mermaid Edition yet who offered to sell me their spot after I talked about how much I like the game on Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Because, again, that was the only way to get the new rules. And so I think they saw dollar signs, and they're like, you know what? We had such a success at TPF. We've got people that want Marty's rules. Let's open the books and find a way to sell it to them. And so they went back on their original word and now offer a plus version in order to sell that. And I think their logic is probably you have to have these upgrades for this to happen, so we're going to charge a little more. We'll do the classic plus thing kind of like when CGC rolled out Cactus Canyon and people fell in love with the topper and it was only supposed to be with the LEs. And they're like, okay, let's do a plus version. I mean it's a cash grab. I get it. And I think that's why they're only doing this – they announced a two-week period to get it is they do want to move on from this. But it's – I think they're like we're leaving money on the table if we don't do it. So like from a – I just have a – again, and this is probably what you knew I would say. I have a problem when you say you're going to do something and then you change – you do – I'm not real big on mind changing. If you're going to go out and commit to something, you should stay committed to it. But this is not new. We talked about Chicago Gaming. Stern has done this with the Batman Super LEs, and they upped the run count, and they've upped LE counts before, too. It's just as tacky. American Pinball with Valhalla did it. Yes, and the three freaking flavors. It's all a bunch of crap. They went from 300 to 500. And Travis, I think, spoke very well about this on the latest episode of Triple Drain, about the risk of burning your super fans, the ones who bought in early. And there is that risk in theory. However, I will say, based off of what we've seen with Chicago Gaming, American Pinball, and Stern, this will be forgotten. And even though I don't conceptually like this idea, this is pinball, and people move past this stuff really quick. So I think that there will be no long-term damage to Haggis for the decision. That's a good take. That's a good fair take. I don't know how I feel about this because I'm mixed. the results of this I agree with because I do think that more people need to have that 2.0 rule set I initially did not understand whenever they came out and they said hey we're going to do a revisited classic version and a mermaid with 2.0 so I'm like well that's fine but still put the 2.0 in the classics even if they don't want it you've got so much other stuff going on with this mermaid edition that you don't have to have all of that and set yourself apart with that rule set, you can still put the 2.0 rule set or at least offer it. So I think the results are what I agree with. But the timing of which they did that is the thing that I think is going to not sit well with a lot of quote-unquote collectors. I'm curious if for their next remake, when we find out what that is, whatever, you know, if they're going to revisit 8-Ball Deluxe or Centaur, it's probably going to be a class of 81 game in my opinion. if they based off of initial sales and where the demand was off of tpf if they go down to one model and it's like all right it's eight ball deluxe revisited it's going to have the new code it's you're not going to be able to get it as cheap as the fathom revisited classic is going to have the lcd and all of that and just say you're getting one package we don't have to worry about two different skews are now three different skews to manage and because we know the demand is there for the the enhancements on the art and everything else so let's just do that one version not limit ourselves and then we don't put ourselves in this bind anymore because the bottom line is most people don't want classics they want the they want the revamped version so the jersey jack approach getting rid of the standard model yes except jersey jack still does two models i think i could i would wonder if haggis would go to one would go to one all right i could see that because something tells me we were selling flipping out pinball as a dealer for for haggis pinball we sold mermaids we didn't really sell classics i heard that i heard that broadly back when the when the books were open all the demand initially was for and again it wasn't huge demand when it first was announced either but it was all for the mermaid and so and some people might say dennis i'm not a collector i would if here's why they might be upset here i am i went in on a mermaid i would have bought just the classic if it was just 2.0 because i didn't I didn't need all the shiny, beautiful stuff on the game, the chrome trim. I didn't need the lighting underneath. I didn't need the reflecto. I didn't need any of that stuff. And then to that argument, I would say, well, they did that right, though, because you're basically paying the same thing as you would, but with the Mermaid, you get a lot more stuff. So at least they didn't screw people there. Yeah, I see where they're – I think the logic here, and I think this is the same logic Chicago Gaming had with the SE Plus, is, well, okay, yeah, we're letting you have this, the thing most people wanted, but there are still differences. So the LE or the Mermaid Edition isn't going to be mixed up with the Plus Edition. Well, you know what is interesting? Chicago Gaming kind of did this as well. Whenever they, remember Cactus Canyon, that was the first time that they didn't offer a classic version. Well, and again, that's where I wanted to, yeah, that's a good point because I got the idea when they launched Medieval Madness, but then people found out, you know, no, we want the bigger display. It's like, if you're into the... If you're into the old, like, original... This is my theory. If you're into the old version, like, the true Williams Medieval Madness, you're not going to be happy with some remake anyway. You're going to want the authentic. You're going to... A real collector goes for the 90s game, not some rehash. That's not true. So, no, it is. No, it's not. No, I'm sorry. I'm calling out to the listeners right now. One is superior than the other, and it is the CGC model. If you're a real collector, then you want the original. You don't want a clone. It's just a copy. It's a homage. It's a better copy. Why don't you talk into the microphone? I got a backup mic right here. Check one, two. Testing, testing. Yeah, they both working, and guess what? They don't like no feedback. What's up? That's what the player wants. You see, it's a different audience. a player wants the best quality game they can get a collector see if you were just cool with anything Zach you'd go and buy a Junker Radical and you'd send it to HEP for restoration instead of trying to get a minty one that never took damage but you're a collector and you want a minty one so that's where it's at I'm not saying one is better than the other what I'm saying is numbers don't lie Zach The classics don't sell. People want the enhanced versions. If we're doing a remake. I'm still getting caught up on this all day. You know what? Give me the choice and option between a HEP restored Medieval Madness versus a Royal Edition. Give me that Royal Edition all day long. I'm sorry. HEP, I love your work, but the other game is better. It just is, and I am a stereotypical collector. No, not per my definitions. Not a true authentic collector. it ain't no rockets meteor dumb dumb you're collecting i mean think about it you're like oh yeah i collect re-editions that's what you're saying no i collect re-editions look how cool i am i'm a re-edition collector you still have old tvs and radios better editions come out still the same thing yeah yeah but if you buy some oh look that here if atari comes out with a remake of the atari 2600 that's not gonna have the same nostalgia but it has hdmi input damn it it's better i'm not If I wanted to play games, I'd want the remake too. Absolutely. But it's a different audience. If I were out buying Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness and Cactus Canyon, I'd get the CGC ones. And I'm not saying I don't collect pinball, but if I'm like, oh yeah, I'm a Williams collector, you don't get CGC. I fall on the sword a little bit because I think the gameplay probably is a little bit better on the normal one. There you go. I'm using the shill. The original one might shoot a little better. I'll give you that. See? I'm even giving you that. But here's the point, Zach. The numbers don't – move past that you've been enraged by my fact that I'm pointing out that you're buying a bunch of reissues. Don't fuck with my toppers, Dennis. Don't fuck with my toppers. Why don't you go practice falling down? I'll be there in a minute. No, that's not the point. That's not the point. It's not that they don't do a good job. I prefer the CGC versions myself. There is no point. It's not worth the work to make the classic skew. I just don't sell enough. I agree with that. I agree. And that's where I think Haggis is like, you know what? Let's just do the mermaid edition. I can see him doing that. Eat eight ball mermaid. Let's just do that. Just do the one version. And if people don't want that chrome and all the extra fancy. Well, tough. They're not enough of the market to care. If they call this the mermaid edition, are they going to call that cowboy edition? Maybe. I want them just to call them all mermaid edition. Oh, that would be great. Or if they called them siren editions. They're not doing that. Jesus. Banshees. Let that go. Oh, my God. You about put me on fucking tilt rage over here saying that I want the incandescent bullshit Bally Williams versions. If you a collector of WMS games you would have to have them be WMS not someone rehash That not true There is not a scintilla of evidence that this is true None. No, I'm just saying. Just collect. But folks, collect what you want. I would prefer the CGC versions. I've played both versions of all of these things, except I still have not played CGC's Cactus Canyon. And I prefer the CGC version of all of them. The cabinets are the same. They line up perfectly. I don't have that authentic fade, but whatever. Or the smell when you really draw your nose into that coin door. Cigarettes and... Speaking of things going up in smoke, let's talk about Whirlwind. What? You don't like Whirlwind 2.0? Oh, my God. Damn it. The decisions being made on this are fascinating to me. Oh, my God. I love the idea of the 2.0 system. I love it. And Whirlwind is like my favorite. Whirlwind's a lot of people's favorite System 11. It was the last System 11. I think it's probably a top, I'd say top 20 game for me. Maybe top 15. I don't think it would reach top 10. And hey, if you're not hung up on authentic ones, you can get a Pedretti version. And then to make the code even more deep, what are you? I mean, System 11s are an obvious, I think an obvious ground to go into with 2.0 kits because, yeah, the rules, generally speaking, almost – actually, I think you could safely say every System 11 game has flaws. But the ruleset, just in terms of versus modern, what we expect out of rules, even if you didn't make them any deeper, would probably need repair. But the idea of actually making them deep is very, very interesting. And I think there's been interest in this ever since Bride of Pinbot 2.0, but we've really seen it take off in recent years. We've got it with Funhaus Rudy's Nightmare last year, and I will say this. Mayonnaise hot dog. We should have known what was coming when we saw the mayonnaise hot dog on Funhaus. The warning signs were there, Zach. Get yourself a creamy hot dog. Pedretti Gaming licenses out from Planetary Pinball Supply the rights to Whirlwind. They call it Whirlwind Total Chaos. It's a 2.0 kit. And Dennis and I, I have so many thoughts about this. Dennis has a lot of thoughts as well. You're going to want to hear this. But the only way to do so is to sign up to our Pinball Show Club membership over on Patreon. We have a juicy discussion. Oh, my God. So many things. Patreon.com slash the Pinball Show. All you got to do is sign up at the lowest membership support. It's $10 a month. People are still getting shitty with me saying that I'm minimizing how much $10 is. And I thought I made that clear last week, Dennis. It was a joke. $10 is my fucking mortgage. It is a shitload of money, people. I think you should go to your financial advisor if you're even thinking about signing up to the $10 level with the Pinball Show Patreon membership. Don't be stupid. Don't be impulsive, people. Sit down. See if it fits into your financial plan this year. And if it does, we can even sign off on it with your accountant if you need. But this is a big deal. I can't express that. Am I clear enough, Dennis, here, that $10 is really important? It's a lot of money. I'm not a licensed financial advisor, and I don't give financial advice on podcasts. Figure it out. If you want to sign up for $10 or the middle level at $25 or Big Ass Love Muffin $100 a month club, you can get all this too. But $10 is going to get you the Patreon exclusive segment that we are about to discuss, as well as a Discord that is oftentimes hilarious and fun and informative. I dropped that Rush information on them. What was that, early last week? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So sign up now if you want to hear it. You're not going to want to miss this one. Where is it at again, Dennis? Patreon.com slash The Pinball Show. All right, back to Chicago Gaming Company. Do you think we got any energy after that discussion on Pedretti Gaming's Whirlwind Total Chaos? I'm tired now. I am too. But we got to talk about Pulp Fiction. Did you see the stream? They had a stream this last week, Jack Danger. I heard about it, but I didn't. Deadflip did the stream to Pulp Fiction over at Play Mechanics, I believe. they were at. Terrific stream. Wonderful, wonderful stream. A lot of good chatter about it. You could actually hear the game and like a lot of shows, people have been playing and love the game, but they can't hear it in my opinion. That's why I said, you've got to play this game where you can hear it. So the stream did provide that. Didn't lose any sales because of the stream, so that's always a big plus. I did have somebody message me and they're like, oh my gosh, did you rack up a ton of new orders because of the stream? Because that was a great stream. and I had one, one new order. And I don't think that's because the stream didn't do a good job. I think that's because so many damn people have already ordered one of these things. I'm not sure streams normally, for most manufacturers, really move sales. I think they could lose sales if they're bad, though. I think that's the – and people often do want to see one so they can be better informed because not everyone who ordered it probably got a chance to play it either. Yeah, I still think it's a risk, but it went over wonderfully. I skimmed through the first 20 minutes or so, and it's fucking awesome. It's Pulp Fiction, and it shot really well, looked really good. I was more interested when the Triple Dream Pinball Podcast had on Josh Sharpe recently some of the stuff that he was discussing because the week prior, He was scaring people with the, he was talking about Cactus Canyon and the enhanced code. He was scaring people because he was like, look, it hadn't been worked on since Lyman's passing. So I don't know when this is going to get out. People are freaked out. So Josh Sharpe on Triple Drain, he was talking about the code. But first he was discussing what that new enhanced code will have. and he has a playable version of, you know, up to this point, what him and Lyman had. And he said his Cactus Canyon, that is with the enhanced code thus far, what it has, it's got a ton of risk and reward opportunities with an increasing intensity and the player progressing further into scoring. So he said, yeah, at this point, because he was trying to balance out when it was going to come out because he don't know, But he said the one he has, like, I think he said, I'm paraphrasing here, Dennis, but he said, if we were to release what I have in my game right now, people would be fucking stoked. They'd be very, very happy. Yeah, that's a good summary. But it's still not where it's going to be based on what Lyman once said in the outline that we have. Still a lot more coding that's got to be done, but what he has is wonderful. So that was cool. And then he also said, which I don't know if anybody picked up on this, he did say that unlike what he did say the previous week that nothing has really been done since Lyman's passing, there has been significant progress that has been made since he did say that on Penn's side. So I think it stoked the fires, and they're organizing, and they're doing something now. Yeah, it was interesting. Okay, so I wasn't the only person then that had the interpretation that there hadn't been much going on with it based off of that statement. Well, because when he was talking on Triple Dream, I remember he described it as wanting to correct some misinformation, and I'm like, okay, yeah, people had the wrong impression. So I could see – I wouldn't have used that word, misinformation, when it was driven by statements that were coming out of people who were working on the game. We covered this on Eclectic Gamers, and I was like – the way it had been presented to me made me think that Chicago Gaming may have been considering dropping doing the code outright. Yeah, I don't see that. Well, not – and then when I hear Josh on Triple Drain, I'm like, well, if it's as far along as it already is, I mean, I had the impression they had an outline, not that they had actually had programming done. So it was – I think that will probably reassure a lot of people that were very excited to get the code. I remember when we were filming up there, because Lyman, when he got there and we were doing a featurette thing that's not released or anything. But the one thing that Lyman was pumped about when he came up, it wasn't about the interview. He didn't want to mess with any of that. But he's like, hey, Josh, look what I got. And he had a thumb drive. It was the new, he's like, oh, look, the most up-to-date code kind of thing. and I was like, hey, I'll run down a CV. I want to copy one of those maybe and let me have the new code. So, yeah, I knew that they were working on it. I think it may have been, do you think it could have been Josh saying that publicly on Pennside to kind of put a boot in him? Because maybe he's to the point where he's like, well, I'm not a programmer, but I have this outline pretty much like I can't do much more here until I get something actually coded. Hmm. I – no, I don't think so. Okay. I'm just glad to hear that. I think he would just tell them, you guys need to move your ass. I've never gotten the impression that he minces words. He doesn't. He's pretty – I don't think he'd do some passive-aggressive, yeah, they need a little nudge. Let's just drop a bomb here publicly and scare everyone into thinking that all I've got is like a notepad that Raymond wrote up and that just shows some ideas. Yeah, Josh does seem like a figured-out kind of guy. figure it out he also talked about and teased about new hardware we knew that you know we've reported that you're probably going to get some new hardware in addition to the software in this enhanced package he also kind of confirmed that as well and said that the new hardware feature will also work on the other code so there's like the original code that nobody's going to really play, the unfinished code. There is a completed code where it's at right now as it ships with the remake and then an enhanced code that has not come out. But the new hardware feature is going to work on all those codes. Hmm. New hardware feature. Interesting. Spooky Pinball. Anything squeaky over there? Nope. Nothing's going on. They had an impromptu factory tour last week and a lot of chatter indicating it was a very good look over overall for that company a tour yeah and i i i went back i watched this didn't watch it live but i would highly recommend this impromptu factory tour yeah because it was really good and it was it's fucking spooky pinball they're so hard not to like over there with luke and bug yeah they just walked around they're just ho-hum like oh yeah oh it's almost like they fucking stumble upon a camera oh hey there's a camera turn it on how do we work i think that red button does it oh hi internet oh hey uh let's walk around here here's a pinball machine and here's how we make them it's like the most humbling sweetest thing ever and it's fucking awesome they walked through all of the different departments the wiring the printing departments the play field stuff the cabinets and explained kind of in detail. There's just boxes stacked up. Oh, here's a lot of our wiring harnesses. Oh, here's our new proprietary boards. Here's how they look. It just worked. It worked really well, and it gave you a really deep inside look to that factory and how they build pinball machines without overwhelming the viewer. Highly recommend. Go check it out. And they call themselves Boutique Pinball, but it seemed like a fully functional pinball company to me. Working much better than most manufacturers, to be honest with you. But they started from somewhere, Dennis, and that's where Sean Irby's at. Irby? Irby. Sean Irby has created a custom pinball machine he's calling 8 Ball Beyond. Have you seen any of this? I have gone and looked at what Nap Arcade has put out about it. Yeah, so this sparked my interest, so much so that I put it in our weekly notes. And then, yes, I've seen that Nap Arcade compiled a lot of the informational links and stuff all in one place. So go check that out at naparcade.org. But typically we don't talk a lot about custom pinball homebrew kind of stuff for many reasons. We won't go into that now. But for one, personally, not a lot of it impresses me. But this did. A ball beyond? Weird theme. Go check out NAP Arcade's links because this was very, very well thought out. There's videos up there. I like the layout. I love some of the tech that's being utilized in there. Tube shot. There's a tube shot, Dennis. Try tube shot. Try tube. It's in there. There's an interesting little locking mechanism with a magnet fathom-esque. There's just some really cool lighting effects. And if you look at the animation, animation's actually really far along for a homebrew. Like, this could work. And I also want to point out that the artwork was done by, I think, Johnny Crap. And I got to say, the nicest artwork he's ever done. Truly beautiful trans-light back glass on this thing. Wonderfully done. I would display that proudly if it was a mirrored back glass in my office. That's a cool game. This guy knows what the hell he's doing. So we're going to see and hear probably much more in the future about 8 Ball Beyond. Nicely done, Sean. Let's hope he's not like a dick. Jersey Jack pinball. Dennis cannot get enough of talking about Toy Story. No one talks about it anymore. I don't even know why this is in here. Because they recently announced accessories official. I didn't think Jersey Jack sold accessories. They do. They're affordable. They are. Who doesn't love an affordable topper? I thought you left a zero off of the topper. Right? Yeah, the topper. They just announced this last week to dealers and to the world that Toy Story 4 has licensed official Disney Pixar property accessories, including interior art blades that are going to be available in late June. $129 plus shipping. Those are $10, $20 more than a Stern art blade. But keep in mind, they come with those protectors. people love those protectors like those um when you raise the cabinet up it protects it from scratching so it's like a two product in one kind of thing and then the topper they have a topper that's available 299 bucks plus shipping that's available in late july so for all of those with the toy story 4 le i can i can bet you'll want these things in your game they also had a code update you love those dennis toy story 4 with the code update version 1.12 they're adding an audio equalizer. This doesn't sound like a big deal to me, but boy oh boy. If you could have seen when we were there filming for Godfather Featurette seeing Keith P. Johnson. I swear the guy popped wood when he was talking about adding these audio equalizers to all these games. He's like, he's doing it in shame. Like, it just makes the sound so much better. It's like night and day. I don't know how to express it though. And I'm like, well, it's difficult to express in this featurette, so we're going to cut that. Yeah, So you get the update now with Toy Story 4. Audio is pretty good on Pinball Brothers Alien Game. I know that. The reason I bring that up, because did you celebrate Alien Day this last week? No, I forgot about it. April 26th? I was busy. What were you doing? Cosplaying your xenomorph outfit? Or are you the facehugger kind of person? Well, I am sort of short, so I suppose I maybe would work better in a facehugger outfit. I was trying on my new suey outfit. I'm going to take that to the next pinball cosplay. Suey. And you guys have to be patron. You have to hear that conversation. That was a good one. Pinball Brothers had Alien Day, and to celebrate, they wanted to save you money. I mean, does it not get much better than that? They did something I thought interesting. They offered a discount on new Alien LV machines. Now, this offer is only valid until May 15th, so you have this week. But they're taking off $426. How clever. $426 discount for those purchasing an Alien LV. Now, do we see something like this in the future? This reminded me of like the car dealership. You know, at the end of the year, they do rebates and warrant. Like year-end sale, like last year's model, you get a discount kind of thing. Because historically, we have not seen this in pinball. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know that people do it tied to like a special day like this in particular. But I have always found it very odd that if something's sitting in inventory. We're not allowed to sell it. Yeah, why pinball doesn't lower the price. It's like that's how markets work. Quit being like anti-free market. Yeah. I've got a couple titles of a topper that are really expensive, and they're sitting. I've got some games right now that are sitting, and they're on the secondary market lower than what I even paid for them. But I couldn't even get some of my money out because I'm not allowed to sell them for lower than the MSRP. It's weird. I know that pinball – How long do I have to sit on these things? Pinball is expensive. I get that. Pinball machines are expensive. This isn't – it's not – I don't – I try not to be too – I'm going to upset, I guess, listeners, but it's not a luxury good, though. This is not – like the industries that try and never let prices go down are trying to protect their luxury goods, trying to protect their value proposition that they have established. That's not – this is pinball. It's an electronic thing. It's not that. I do see – I think there can be time windows for things, like two years after a product is launched. Maybe they have an agreement in the future with dealers that after a product is launched for two years, then you can take $500 off of it or something. Give us something. If it's sitting, I just don't – that's not how normally you would – it's not the proper way to sell. It's sort of silly. How do they do in the watch industry? Do they hold that MSRP as well? No, no. So most of the time, you go to an authorized dealer, so whoever the manufacturer is working with, and you can negotiate a discount even if the watch is new. Now, if the dealer is like, I don't need to give a discount, they don't give discounts on Rolex. They're allowed to, but they don't need to. So there is a lower price probably. And then they have rules as well about not being allowed to gouge above MSRP. But then what ends up happening is if they really struggle, like even offering discounts at the store doesn't work, they can sell like in bulk to another person at deep discount, whatever discount they want to liquidate inventory. And that's what's called the gray market because those entities will then take the watches and mark them up, not up to old pricing, but more than what they paid for. So the second is basically like a whole second-hand market that just deals in less popular models. Now, I will say that using that, we have to be careful because I know as a dealer for arcades, I don't even like dabbling into the arcade scene when it comes to sales because it's not really policed at all. So it's like this Wild West. You can sell it for a dollar over even though they tell you not to and nobody cares. And it's not even advantageous. Like that's how you create the big, the big fricking monopolies right there because it's quantity over quality. So you might not get help in the future, but damn it, that dealer only makes a dollar for shipping a one ton arcade game to you that costs 20 grand. Like what's the purpose? Well, they're trying to move a shitload so they can have power in the future. I hate, I hate that system. Sure, sure. And there's instances in other industries where entities will undercut, especially this happens more like in service industries where someone like on a bid for contracts, like government contracts, where they'll come in and they might try and win bids where they lose money to crush their competition. And then they raise their prices after they've won. So there's a there's a balance, obviously, because pinball does a good job of keeping that threshold and keep keeping the value up. They do a damn good job of that. Pinball, yeah, they do a good job by going way too far the other way. It's a horrible model. I would rather have it too strict than too lenient. I would not. I would not because this model hurts the customer more. I could see where you're saying it would be better to be too strict than Total Wild West, but practically speaking, the problem is these games that are shit are artificially overpriced because the manufacturers... Like remember you might remember this before you were a distributor but remember like when you could get WWEs forever That game should have been That game was garbage And no one could liquidate it So they giving them away as prizes LEs at tournaments for years And it like that game is not worth what you ended up thinking it was worth as an MSRP. People should be able to sell them at a loss at some point. So here's how I would do it. I would say if I was a manufacturer and I was intervening in my distribution agreements, I would say, you are not allowed to sell below MSR or below whatever the minimum, minimum, you know, whatever, you know, you've got your like three different pricing brackets. You're not allowed to sell below the true minimum for like 12 to 18 months. After that, you can do what you want. Something, just some timeline in it. And then after, and eventually they're like, after that, we don't care anymore. That way you still protect and you avoid the, the concerns you've raised about people coming in and doing like a $1 above and all this nonsense. But at some stage, people need to be able to liquidate stuff they're sitting on. And y'all end up sitting on pinball machines. I'm sitting on some products. It becomes downright goofy, that level of control. And some of it I take a loss on just to increase some capital here. It's just – it just does not – it does not work the way it should be working right now. I get where the protections are somewhat helpful, but if a game's not popular and there are a ton of them, I'm sorry. Toy Story 4 shouldn't still cost $12,000 new in box. It just shouldn't. It's got a code update and accessories. I don't care. Unless those accessories include the conversion kit to turn it into Toy Story 1, I don't care. Hey, you know what? Congratulations to the person who just bought a Toy Story CE yesterday from Flip N Out Pinball. You're my new best friend. I guess it's all, at the end of the day, I don't know why I brought this up with the whole Pinball Brothers discount thing. I guess it's relative. And what else is relative? It's all relative. Money and value proposition is all relative. Very similar to the Screaming Goat Club here, the pinball show. Dennis, did you know that we just inducted in two more starting lineup members to the Screaming Goat Club? I did know. Oh, my gosh. At $100 a month, these, they all should be nicknamed. whales because they are they're the fucking best willies that i've ever seen oh that didn't sound right you know i meant the reference free willies a whale an orca that's where i was going here fuck but we're going to induct these people they're new and we've got to give them the proper introduction ladies and gentlemen it's that time again some of you are rolling your eyes and i don't give a shit. Introducing into the starting lineup, adding from the previous starting lineup is Rodney C. Rodney C. Dennis, we're going to refer to Rodney C. Thank you for the support we're going to refer to raw dog as simply the bobcat what a menacing sound that bobcat you know what dennis bobcat attacked my wife i'm sorry that's kind of why that's where you went Yeah. Yeah. Watch out. Watch out. It's a bobcat. Take your voice. A bobcat? A bobcat. Yes, ma'am. I thought that you were going to do Bobcat Gold. Wait. Oh, God. Here's a true story. I got done with my performance one night, and this woman came up to me and said, Oh, I really like your act. Would you like to come over to my house and do some cocaine? And the menacing sound. What the fuck is wrong with his voice and how did he get his wife? Yes, the old drunk Bobcat Goldsplay. Wasn't he on Revenge for the Nerds? Or was that Booger? Who was that? Shit. I don't remember who played Booger, but yeah, he did. I'm getting my quirky 80s stars. Yeah, he did a whole bunch of stuff in the 90s and early 2000s. I like Bobcat. Yeah. He was very Pauly Shore-esque. Did a lot of black comedies. They had their, yeah. I wonder if he was in a naked gun. I don't recall naked gun. He did what shakes the clown in the early 90s. Oh, gosh, yeah. We're going to go with Rodney C. You are the Bobcat. We also have another one. Holy shit, it's not just our family members, as some would say. We've got another. This is somebody that's special to us. Introducing the famous Steve. Jay! And people are probably like, why is he fang? Because he is, dude! We're going to go with, Steve, you are going to get the nickname by the pinball show. We're going to go with, I'm confused. I don't know which one to go with, Dennis. Do I go with The Wolf? I just pictured this majestic white wolf, like white fang, man. What was in that film? Was that White Fang? I think it was a Fang. Snow Dogs. No, it's not Cuba Gooding Jr. Snow Dogs. The Wolf. Ooh, I like the sound of that. Or do we go with... This is just sad that I'm even saying it. It's Steve Jablonski, guys. I can't hide it. I get a flaw in it. Yeah, the world-renowned composer of Transformers films. And just a list of films. Michael Bay film. Just so many damn great films. It's him because he's fucking awesome. Do we really fuck him up and just go with the Bumblebee? Bumblebee! I saw this every time I hear Bumblebee. I have to scream it like Sila Book did in the trailer for Transformers 2. Bumblebee! Bumblebee! What does that mean? Do you think if we did that, Stevie J will actually... Yeah, if I were him, I would cancel this. I think he might. Jablonski, I'm sorry. The Bumblebee. The Wolf or the Bumblebee. Why not like The Maestro? Ooh. That sounds... What do I do sound-wise for The Maestro? Something, maybe a little clip from something classical. Maybe ask the folks on the Discord or something in a poll. Oh, okay. Yeah, why don't we do that? Maybe they've got some ideas. So for those that are part of the official Pinball Show Club at Patreon, we're going to do a poll, either on Patreon or Discord, word. Jablonski. Do we give him the designation of the wolf? The bumblebee. That's still my favorite kind. I'm so sorry. Or, ooh, the maestro. And again, thank you to all of our other Screaming Goat Club members, including the panther, Rob A., the kineticist, Colin A., the falcon, Frankie F., the stern OEM shaker motor, That's my favorite. V. What does the fox say? Joe F. The bell. Charlie B. Charlie reached out and was like, hey, I made my wife listen to that. And this is how sweet she is. She said that she's the chime to Charlie's bell. Oh. You know what? I'll give her a little chime for that. Nicely done. And remember, if you want to be part of the Screaming Goat Club starting lineup, All you've got to do is go to patreon.com slash the pinball show. Bye, bye, bye. And you get the goods there. Fucking paywall polo. Yes, please. Also, a reminder, we're going to have our next The Pinball Show live Zoom hangout. For those that are a part of the Screaming Goat Club and or the Nordman levels on Patreon, we're going to have that May 31st at 8 p.m. Central. Woo-hoo! So those $10 members, I know $10 is a lot of money, but maybe bump it up to $25 a month and come hang out with us May 31st. last one it was too hot for TV we couldn't even air it so many dirty little secrets dropped in that thing the only thing that I know dirtier Dennis the little thing we here at the pinball show like to call pinball market trends pinball market trends pinball market trends we got like 24 oh listen to that all these damn animals and sounds and shaker motors pinball market trends trending up this week believe it or not is Godfather CE. They're about to go into production and of the many games that have been released here recently in the last year or two, that one, the CE spots are still not only holding their value, but they're up value. They are worth more than they were MSRP. They're firmly planted in that club of Foo Fighters LE, Pulp Fiction LE. Now look, Godfather LEs are not flying out the door. But damn it if these Godfather CEs CEs are not doing very, very well in the secondary market. Plus, JJP should be having them come off the line any time now. Jack Guarnieri told us springtime. It's spring, Jack. Let's see that gold glisten in the sunlight. Also trending up this week is Rush. Now, sure, you know, they may not be making Rush again, but that's what's going to increase the secondary value of it. The game itself continues to peak. the accessories rolling out put it over the top a nice little cult classic in the making and now everybody him hauling on whether or not they should pull the trigger on rush it's got to the point where it might be too late driving up fomo and pricing of rush pinball the bigger question i have long term is will rush join the club of elite band pins metallica acdc i'll even give it to gnr in many respects. Does Rush join that group? Or does it just end up being another Aerosmith? All trending up this week is apparently individual on Pinside by the name Visual Magic. Visual Magic reached out to me and said, hey, I heard you trend up Star Trek LE on the last Pinball Market Trends, and while the whole Picard thing may be right, what you failed to also acknowledge, identify, was that Pinside recently split up all of their pro premium and LEs on the top 100. And it takes so many submissions of a rating to be included in the top 100. Star Trek LE finally got enough reviews, and those reviews were very positive, to plant it upward into that top 10, as you were alluding to. So in addition to the trends that you were identifying, Zach, there was also another reason, in my opinion, that it is in fact trending. And damn it, I agree. So much so that you, my friend, Visual Magic, are trending up this week. There's no I in team, baby! And of course, my eyes are always on the prize of a mod. And I've got to give a shout out to a mod this week that caught my eye. And that's for Deadpool. Trending up this week is the Hell House Scoob Mod. Did you guys see this one? It's by J85M in collaboration with Stumblur and Swinks, I believe. An interactive LED lighting sculpture thing. It's got like the Stumblur lighting in it. the Tokyo Neon sign thing, but for Deadpool, it's Hell House Scoop Mod. Solid. Shit's great. I don't know if he stopped selling them or not, so you might want to jump on Pinside as fast as possible to get in queue, but I saw that and I'm like, here we go again. Another one of these interactive lighting mods that pretty soon, my whole collection is going to be full of this kind of stuff. So nicely done, J85M, on that Deadpool Hell House Scoop Mod. All right, Shellmaster, find some balance, you biased fuck. Fine. training down this week uh okay i'll shit on your games let's shit on elvirus house of whores premium yeah see keep poking training down this week very much is ehoh because if you look at the numbers i don't lie it's going to show you a landscape that uh it hasn't dropped like somebody's getting canceled or anything but it's like a nice gentle rolling hill that's going down a little bit and And the reason being is that I believe that for the most part, the pinball hobbyist community has now been fully satiated with that title. I think we're good. It was released. It sold a lot. It was a studio title, so it had even more popularity. The LE, the SLE, a lot of talk around them. Beautiful pins. Then we get the 40th anniversary with the Purple Cheetah, Leopard, Panther, whatever the hell it was. Sparked interest. and then the last run that we had here of the premium version a month or two ago. The numbers will tell a story. It's right in front of us. And we're good. We're good on Elvira. We're good. We'll have a renewed interest as an industry community. We'll have a renewed interest for this title probably, if I had to guess, late 2024. So this is one that I'm keeping my eye on when it comes to production of whether or not we'll see another run of Elvira's House of Horse. Also trending down this week, JJP's Willy Wonka Ellie. My favorite JJP. Now, Zach, these have been holding very high. Look, they're still holding high. Probably higher than they were in MSRP. But very much like Elvira, you're seeing a gradual declination. I don't know if that's a word, but I'm going to use it. Declination of pricing on Willy Wonka Ellie's. A year ago, they were bringing 11K+. People introduced to this game finally. No longer a side chick or a side dick. People were proud to say that they owned and liked Willy Wonka. Now, you're seeing them in the low tens. It's finally come back down. Okay, we're back down to normal secondary market, JJP, you know, mint LE levels. Makes sense. You get lucky. You may even find one in the upper nines. But I think you're going to be about 10, 250. It's going to be the common place for a Willy Wonka LE. Now, CEs, those are still high up there. But the regular LE, what a phenomenal game. low tens ten thousand dollars and i can't leave you guys without saving you a little bit of money in this week's deal of the week deal the week comes from flipping out pinball why cry cry cry when you can buy buy buy and this week's must buy is the brooding the steaming the kettle's warm she's about to get hot on james bond i've got a pre-owned james bond pro right now brand new they're 69.99 i've got it right now listed i think on socials for 62.99 that's freaking steel but we need a PM&T level of steel deal. So I'm slashing it. Judy chop. Getting it down to $59.99. That's not even $6,000, people. Buy, buy, buy. Practically brand new James Bond Pro. Come pick it up. In six months, that price is going to be ridiculous. You're also going to see the premiums and LEs start to go up too. Just watch them. Just watch them. Oh, and the pinball bounty this week. You know what? You guys weren't doing your job. I got my own Spider-Man vault, sons of bitches. It's coming from, where's it coming from? Oklahoma, I think. Was this Travis Mears? Where is this coming from? Tulsa. I think it's Tulsa. You're getting me a Spider-Man vault, Dennis. How about that? Wow. Still looking for that mentee-ass radical Dolly Partner Congo. You know, people that come over to my house, they're like, hey, I thought you were asking for a Dolly Partner radical. They're sitting right here. I'm like, I know. And they are super nice. But they're not CGCLE remake nice. You see what I did there? homages yeah what no look guys i'm just here to report the facts the facts are the le remakes with the toppers are better than even a hep restored original with incandescence because numbers don't lie and neither does taste on pinball market trends i want to do the suey sound watch out grandma here I come for some reason I just picture Suey the shit and piss monster making out tonguing a grandma and her being totally into it doesn't that fucking creep you out if they do it they need it after she needs to look towards the like to the camera and smile and there be a chunk of corn oh my god we're done we're fucking done we're finished That's the pinball show. Oh, gross. Dennis, where can people catch you? They can always reach out to me, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. So gross. EGP has a Patreon, so there's a couple people out there that just loathe me, and they feel like if they want to support Dennis, they can there. That's fine, two people. Fuck off. But you can email us at thepinballshowatgmail.com. We have all kinds of stuff, too. We have Patreon. We have Facebook. We have TikTok. We have Discord. Follow, like, and subscribe to all of that stuff, as well as straight down the middle, a video series I do on YouTube with my buddy Greg Bone. Follow, like, and subscribe to that. Or the pinballnetwork at gmail.com. But I really want you to go follow, like, and subscribe to Flip N Out Pinball. That's my company. We do distribution for pinball and arcade and mods and stuff. I'm about to add some stuff to the vault. Maybe, oh maybe, I just might add the really hard-to-get stuff right now, Dennis, is the Replacement Stranger Things Projector. And I may have just got my hands on a couple more of those coming to the Flip N Out Pinball Vault very soon. But until then, the product showcase for Flip N Out Pinball this week is, believe it or not, Jurassic Park premiums. Here's the skinny, people. I stopped taking orders on those months back because I knew my allotment was going to be full for the May-June run here. I think they're coming in May here. but I was able to secure a good amount more. So for those of you who are thinking about getting a Jurassic Park premium, but you don't want to wait until next year, I've got open spots now. I'm going to open up the website, or you can email me at Zach, Z-A-C-H, at flip, the letter N, out, pinball.com. That's Zach at flippingoutpinball.com. Or you can text me, 812-457-9711. Get one of those, because that game is phenomenal. Push comes to shove. That'd be one of the last games I ever get rid of in my collection. I just love it so much. It's the premium version. The T-Rex that eats the balls like your mama. Also have Godfather LEs in stock. James Bond pros in stock. I've got some used pro and premiums in stock. I think I may have some more premiums coming this month. Alien LV in stock now with a reduced price. We have Jurassic Park Home Edition, Star Wars Home Edition, both regular and comic. October Fest Deluxe, I think I'm down to one more of those. Toy Story 4 LEs and CEs, Ultraman new in box. I did just get in another Halloween collector's new in box. How about that? I've got a, I think I've got a Toy Story 4 LE coming in used, as well as a Turtles Pro coming in used, and I think a Rush Premium coming in pre-owned. And you know about those Rush Premiums. I'm going to make them in a month. Oh, you know what? I also got some Turtle premiums. I was able to secure a couple of those. Remember, those are discontinued. Those are gone. I found a couple. So, Turtle's premiums in stock. Mandalorian premiums, I think I have some of them. Just, if you want a pinball machine, I got it. Come on. Come on. Guns N' Roses still. I still got those. Golden Tees got those. Go check out the Pinball Network. A lot of really good podcasts in stream this last week. Go check them out. Who pissed me off this week in podcasting? Was it a TPM person? Maybe. I don't think anybody pissed me off. Oh, Bruce. Bruce Nightingale. Give a shout out to Slam Tilt. They're still hung up. Bruce mostly. Still hung up on the pinball show and the beauty that we bestow upon our listeners over here. I think I've had Bruce on here. I want to have Ron on here at some point. I don't think I've had Ron on here. Ron's very difficult to get a hold of. He's an important person. Very busy. He's got good takes for the most part. But Bruce, fuck. I have no clue what that guy's smoking. You know what? That guy's smoking the same thing as the creative director of World Wind 2.0. Oh, no, no, no. They get the same dealer. Whoa, shit. Nah. For Dennis Creasel, I'm Zach Minney. And folks, I'd say, you know, if you're taking a game and you're going to update it, do a new version, honor the theme, and be creative and free, don't just sit and poach from Mac and Me. and always practice safe pinball rush is not happening people it's not gonna be made anymore until it's made and i look like an idiot drop i am back i got my coke zero no uh what'd you usually get cherry coke zero or something i get whatever's on sale i had to go to the grocery store yesterday with two kids that was the worst Get in the cart Get out of the cart Stop Stop hanging on to me I can't Oh if that shopping cart Hits me in the back of the heels I'm gonna lose my mind Yep You let him push To try and distract him Yeah Just try to do something She put something in the cart I didn't get nothing What the fuck Pick quicker Then I don't know what to tell you I don't like pineapples What good for you What the hell Who doesn't like pineapples I know Fucking freak Do we need any bananas? I don't know. Why would I know? You should have checked. Where's your mother?