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Episode 202 - Kingpin's Unity

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 16m·analyzed·Sep 17, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Circus Maximus folds Kingpin/Pinball Circus projects after years of broken promises and stalled development.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss their recent activities—Tony's Baldur's Gate 3 playtime during staycation, Dennis's new county government job, and their gaming progress. The main pinball discussion covers Circus Maximus's formal failure to produce Kingpin and Pinball Circus, analyzing the company's broken promises to legendary artist Python Angelo and failed business strategy despite early hype at Texas Pinball Festival 2018-2019. They also announce Stern's final run of Guardians of the Galaxy Pro in December and Haggis's progress on Fathom Revisited.

Key Claims

  • Circus Maximus has failed to produce Kingpin and Pinball Circus; rights are no longer in their control

    high confidence · Dennis cites NAP Arcade article by Jason Knapp confirming the company's formal statement

  • Kingpin prototypes were playable at Texas Pinball Festival 2018 or 2019, and Steve Bowden played and 'blew up' the game

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony recall personally playing the game at TPF and remember Bowden's reaction

  • Circus Maximus sold Kingpin Translites with signed editions that guaranteed a place in the purchase line, with earlier numbers meaning earlier access

    medium confidence · Dennis mentions this came up in his research; Tony did not independently remember this detail

  • Circus Maximus was founded by individuals friendly with Python Angelo, the legendary Williams/Capcom artist, who made them promise to create Pinball Circus before his death

    medium confidence · Dennis recalls the founding promise but admits not re-researching all details; describes it as a 'labor of love fan project' rather than professional production

  • Stern Pinball is doing a final run of Guardians of the Galaxy Pro in December 2023

    high confidence · Dennis cites NAP Arcade article; notes this is subject to schedule shifts but currently slated

  • Haggis indicates they are still on pace to finish Fathom Revisited by end of 2023

    high confidence · Dennis cites announcement/reiteration from Haggis a few weeks before episode recording

Notable Quotes

  • “I think making that sort of promise without really understanding the scope of everything that was going to go into it was a huge mistake.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Core lesson about Circus Maximus's failure to fulfill promise to Python Angelo; reflects on broader industry pattern of unfulfilled commitments

  • “This news of them failing can be a surprise because it was after TPF everything seemed like it was downhill to me... it sounded like they were trying to find a contract manufacturer to do the build, and then nothing happened.”

    Tony @ N/A — Describes the collapse trajectory post-TPF reveal; suggests manufacturing partnership barriers may have been real obstacle

  • “It's always felt like a labor of love fan project... it's more akin to a custom build than something specifically made for production really and there's nothing wrong with that but I really lost all sight of it.”

    Tony @ N/A — Characterizes Circus Maximus as passion project rather than serious manufacturing venture; explains loss of community attention over time

  • “If there was a serious will to get it done, I think more progress would have been made than what we saw... if there was a serious will to get it done, I think more progress would have been made.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Skepticism about whether Circus Maximus had genuine manufacturing intent or just rode initial hype

  • “As far as pinball failures go, this is no big deal. It's fine. Anyway, I thought it would be a fun discussion, just because we happened to play that game.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Contextualizes Circus Maximus failure as low-impact compared to other industry failures; distinguishes it from projects that damaged customers

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonCircus MaximuscompanyJason KnapppersonPython AngelopersonSteve BowdenpersonStern PinballcompanyHaggiscompanyChicago Gaming Companycompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Failed contract manufacturing strategy; company could not secure manufacturing partner despite industry availability (American Pinball, Pinball Brothers precedents)

    medium · Dennis notes post-TPF period should have been 'strike while iron is hot' but nothing materialized; Tony mentions they 'were trying to find a contract manufacturer to do the build, and then nothing happened'

  • ?

    business_signal: Circus Maximus formally discontinues Kingpin remake and Pinball Circus projects after 5+ years of stalled development

    high · Dennis cites NAP Arcade article confirming company's statement; projects have generated no production updates since TPF 2018-2019; rights no longer in company control

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hype for Kingpin remake rapidly dissipated post-TPF reveal; project became forgotten/sidelined despite initial positive reception

    high · Tony: 'everything that is new at a show is hyped heavily at the show. And for a little while afterwards, it'll be real big. But if nothing keeps it in the public eye, it'll disappear. And that's what this is.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Kingpin (Mark Ritchie design) characterized as 'very flowy' 1990s-style game with easy progression, typical for era; not exceptional but solid Capcom title that never reached full production

    medium · Dennis: 'it – I believe that's a Mark Ritchie-designed game. It was very flowy. It was fun... It's kind of what you would think. It's kind of like a typical 90s game'

  • $

    market_signal: Pattern of broken promises in pinball industry (Circus Maximus/Python Angelo, Deep Root, Highway Pinball, Cosmic Carnival); cycle of unfulfilled projects with recurring red flags ignored by community

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.229

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 17th. This is episode 202. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. Tony, you've been on vacation. Tell us about it. I have been on the vacation, or more realistically, I've been on a staycation. I've not really gone and done a whole lot.
0:38
I say that. I've put 30-plus hours into Baldur's Gate 3 since Friday. Wow. I knew you were playing it, but I didn't know you were playing it. I have. I say that, but there have actually been days where I've not touched it at all. but my actual game play time that counts on my game isn't nearly as high as my 30-plus hours because I had a point the first day I played where I wasn't paying attention to the auto-saves and I wasn't saving very often, and it turns out that the auto-saves are kind of few and far between, so I had to replay like 45 minutes of gameplay. because I hadn't done any saves. So I got much better about saving after that. And then I've got some other points where I went somewhere when I was way too low level to be in that area, and I was trying to do stuff, and it was just too hard. And instead of doing the smart thing and leaving, I just kept trying for a while.
1:47
So, yeah, I was talking to some people on the Discord, and everyone's like, wow you got there really fast i'm like i don't know it was just there and it seemed like a place to go so i went and it and they were talking about all these places on the first opening area and i was like i think i'm gonna go back and level some more and then i found tons of stuff i don't think i've done half the stuff in the first opening area before i went to a different much harder area yeah i saw i saw that discussion and i thought okay yeah that it reminded me of when i was playing Dark Souls because it kind of just after the intro it throws you in this space and there's kind of if I remember and I don't but I think there was like three or four ways you could go from the starting campfire and only one of them is the right way all the other ways are way too hard the thing is the whole game is hard so it's kind of like if you don't know you might get confused and be like it's all supposed to be hard right and then you're fighting things you have no hope against and things so So I should probably go ahead and declare for the dear listeners that we are actually recording virtually today. So if it sounds different, if we talk over each other more, that's probably why. Because I started my new job on Monday, and then I got a message yesterday saying that the day before I had been exposed by someone to COVID. So just to play it safe, because Tony's got over 1,000 emails he needs to get back to when he gets back to work, we are recording separately so yay yay so how's your new job what else did you do besides oh i'm sorry i was gonna say how so how's the new job going the only other thing i've done is read see this is the talking over each other because we're virtual yes yes we love it we love it well you do like to read uh you know it went well and so you know i'm still in that overwhelming phase in the sense that I'm just trying to figure out as much as I can about what programs and everything we do, but also combined with all that initial training about how the county, because it's with the county government, just what all they require in terms of policies and procedures. And they have a lot of their own training separate from the department. So my life has mostly been trainings right now, but everyone's been very, very nice. It's a much larger organization than I've ever professionally worked at. So it's just, you know, a lot of faces and names and things like that. So, but I got through the first week and thankfully because of my background, I do know a lot about what we already do. So it's just coming up to speed with everything that we do specifically, like as a department versus just like, I know these programs and stuff already. Cause a lot of them I've already worked with on certain things, just never at this level of, Oh, well, This is how we're implementing this particular grant and whatnot. So that's been pretty good. Of course, I've been so exhausted. I have done very little gaming, but I've done some. So I have completely finished the story in Puzzle Quest 3. I can't remember if I had finished it off of the last episode or not. However, yesterday I finished the last achievement I wanted to go for, which was a certain amount of equipment. So there are only two achievements I didn't get in that game. One is Kill 100 Dragons, which there's a way I could do it pretty routinely, but it would take quite a while, and I didn't feel like that would be very fun. And the other was to get a piece of equipment leveled up to level 50, and the stuff you need to move from level 45 to 50 is months worth of play, from what I could tell. So I was just dedicated to that. I'm like, you know what? No. I'll go ahead and be done with that. You already have a job. Yeah, I already have a job. I really need to get back to focusing more on the Phoenix Wright game because I got through a case on the second game or two at this point. I'm ready for case three. I've actually started it. But if I keep getting distracted by Puzzle Quest, I'm going to forget how to play Phoenix Wright. All right. Phoenix Wright, you're not really going to forget how to play it. It's more that you'll forget what clues you already uncovered and stuff and where the inconsistencies have been. So anyway, so that's my excuse for all of that. But that had been occupying some of my time, and now it is not. I uninstalled it last night. So I'm now free.
American Pinball
company
Mark Ritchieperson
Spooky Pinballcompany
Deep Rootcompany
Pinball Brotherscompany
Dave P.person

high · Dennis explicitly frames this as repeating pattern: 'it comes up in slightly different forms, uh, time and time again' referencing Deep Root, Skip B, Cosmic Carnival, Highway Pinball

  • $

    market_signal: Circus Maximus's Kingpin Translite pre-order strategy (guaranteeing purchase line positions with numbered/signed editions) as FOMO/funding mechanism; translated commitment into financial obligation for enthusiasts

    medium · Dennis's research reveals pre-order model: 'if you ordered a Kingpin Translite, like have one of the signed ones, it got you a guaranteed place in line to buy the remake and the earlier your Translite number was, the earlier you were in the line'

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball scheduling final production run of Guardians of the Galaxy Pro in December 2023 (subject to shift)

    high · Dennis cites NAP Arcade article; notes Guardians was still in production line despite long time since release; Pro version chosen over Premium due to weak Premium value proposition (giant Groot arms covering playfield)

  • ?

    product_strategy: Haggis on pace to complete Fathom Revisited by end of 2023, planning subsequent transition to Centaur Revisited

    high · Dennis: 'Haggis out of Australia, they have announced, or perhaps I should say reiterated, because they've said this before, that they do plan on finishing Fathom Revisited by the end of this calendar year, the end of 2023. And it sounds like they are still on pace to do that.'

    • 6:04
    But you know what we're not free of, Tony? We're not free of pinball. Well, that's good. We'll never be free. But maybe we will be free. Incidentally, there will be a link in the show notes, as there has been the last couple. Not in the main links, but in the episode links. I should say, I have show links at the very end of our podcast description stuff that we have in the show notes. But before that, I always put in specific episode links. So the Fursona shirts, that link is still there. There is now Fursona pint glasses available, which have the Fursona logo, but also have the EGP logo on essentially the quote-unquote other side of the glass. It's kind of weird because it's a round glass, so I guess there's not really another side. But basically, there's imagery all the way around the glass. So I finally threw that together because I wore my Fursona shirt that I got on my Watches with Dennis livestream yesterday. And we actually had people asking about the shirt that we're watching the watch channel, perhaps because your eldest strapped a watch to my crab Sona. That's exactly what it was. So anyway, those are available and the link is there. So we do encourage you to explore if you would like to get one. I can confirm that the tri-blend is tri-blendy and super soft, which is what tri-blend fans seem to want. So that's what we did.
    7:19
    But pinball. we don't have a lot of news but i think we have one item in particular that's going to be worth a decent bit of discussion or at least i want to have a discussion with you about it because i think it's pretty interesting but let me go ahead and just hammer through a few things uh really quickly before we get to that part so first uh we're not going to play a game today because we're virtual so i can't just hand you a sheet of 10 rank random pins that we've been doing but i do want to go ahead and announce the results of that so um because we did play it on episode 201 and just like we did for episode 200 we are having our patreon members remember you can go to patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers and it can be as low as a dollar a month if you want to support the channel that way we very much appreciate it and appreciate all i think 49 or 48 of you who are currently supporting us but you guys who are do that get to vote in the uh who won rank random pins. Based off of the last one, where you and I, we were very similar on many of the lineups. I think we went three or four in before we actually deviated. Yeah, it was weird. It was, well, I think we see a lot of games eye to eye a lot, plus just the ones that happened to be picked, some of them were pretty clearly like, these are not top tier and these are. Yeah. But you did win. You got 46% of the Patreon votes saying that your ranking was the best. 31% felt mine was the best. 23% said they wouldn't pick between us. And no one chose the option saying that Pinside was better than both of us.
    8:56
    So I did also want to add separate from that. I didn't really see it on Patreon, but I had some people message in or either they messaged me directly or left a comment somewhere. I took a fair bit of grief regarding how hard I was on Genie. You probably recall because I think we both put it dead last. We did both put it dead last, and then you beat it and flayed it and made everything like you were, oh, what was his name from Hannibal? Or not Hannibal. Hannibal Lecter? No, no, not him. The other one from Silence of the Lambs. Buffalo Bill. Oh, Buffalo Bill. Yeah, you were all telling Genie to rub the lotion on its skin, and you were going to wear it as a coat.
    9:47
    Well, I mean, I was going to say that game is wide enough, wide body, that we could probably turn it into a king-size bedspread.
    9:56
    Yeah, no, a lot of people, apparently a lot of you out there, for whatever reason, have a fondness for Genie and thought I was being too harsh. I just wanted to say that I stand by all the statements I made, and if anything, I was too kind. So you can take that with you. But you can like whatever games you like. Absolutely. We don't game shame here.
    10:17
    No, but we do judge games. We judge games. And that one has been judged. But you can like them even if we don't. That's okay. That's right. You can like Space Invaders, too. I mean, everyone makes mistakes. I make lots of mistakes. So, enough of the game. Let's go ahead and get into some of the news. One item that I thought came out a few weeks ago, but Haggis out of Australia, they have announced, or perhaps I should say reiterated, because they've said this before, that they do plan on finishing Fathom Revisited by the end of this calendar year, the end of 2023. And it sounds like they are still on pace to do that. So that is good news for any of you who are still waiting for your Fathom Revisited. games. Good. Of course, after that, they will be moving on to the Centaur Revisited.
    11:06
    Another item, and these next items are actually both covered in the same article on Nap Arcade, and I do have a link in the show notes, so you can go and read the Nap Arcade article. It actually touches on more than just these two items, but there are two items in particular, one of which we're going to have a discussion on. But the first one, which we are not going to have a discussion on because it's not really that interesting, is Stern is doing their final run of Guardians of the Galaxy Pro. I actually had originally forgot until like last week that this was even still technically in the production line. Like they were still making Guardians or still were saying they had the ability to make Guardians. But yeah, I was gonna say, I thought Guardians was done like a while ago.
    11:47
    And they are done with the giant Groot Arms premium versions. But apparently, and this does sometimes shift. So I wouldn't say take this with a grain of salt, but just be aware that this can move. But currently, Stern Pinball is slated to do a final run of the pro version of Guardians in December. So if you're wanting to get a new in-box game, there is a chance. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying there's a chance that you can go ahead and place an order with a distributor and pick one of those up. It is a fun game. I do enjoy it. And I definitely see why they still would do a pro and not the premium because that was the last game that really stood out to me of a why would you get the premium? Oh, it seemed like you got where giant Groot arms covering part of the play field. So I didn't understand the value in it. But the pro played the pro a lot, and it's a lot of fun. It is. Code got to a really good place on that game. All right. And the second item in the same article with the same link in the same show notes is about a company we haven't talked about, I think, since 2018, Tony, and that is Circus Maximus. Oh, wow. So, yes, you're probably going, what did Circus Maximus do? Well, I'm glad you thought that. So allow me to elaborate. According to NAP Arcade, they have failed. And by that, I mean they have indicated to Jason Knapp of said NAP Arcade that they are not going to produce Pinball Circus. They are not going to produce Kingpin. I'm so shocked. the rights to those games are no longer in their control according to you know when you go online you check like the trademarks and all that stuff anyway jason elaborates a lot more in his article on nap arcade so i'm going to encourage you to read that for the details should you care however i wanted to go ahead and and talk about this because i i yeah the the shocker thing is really worth exploring so i just want to point out a few things before we did uh we do that so So there was an article also on NAPARCA. I don't have a link to this one in the show notes, but I believe it was from April of 2022. So a little over a year ago where it was indicated that the Kingpin project was still alive at that point. So something has changed from April 2022 to September 2023. I think, but I couldn't remember exactly. I think it was 2018's Texas Pinball Festival where they had the Kingpin prototypes of the Kingpin remake available for play. And you and I played it. We did. It was either 18 or 19. It was pre-COVID for sure.
    14:23
    And it was one of those games that it was okay. I seem to recall while we were in line, somebody blew that game up. Steve Bowden. Yes. so it was steve bowden so it was definitely a their item uh i i specifically remember playing it but i'm not at all surprised by this news the only surprise i mean to me this news isn't
    14:49
    anything more than just publicly saying what everybody already knew yeah i would say the main thing is a lot of everybody's probably forgot that this was a thing at all but the kingpin game generated, those prototypes generated a lot of buzz. There was a lot of excitement. Do you remember, do your member berries go back enough to remember that they were selling Kingpin Translites and part of that deal was if you ordered a Kingpin Translite, like have one of the signed ones, it got you a guaranteed place in line to buy the remake and the earlier your Translite number was, the earlier you were in the line? I don't remember that. I remember them selling stuff but I don't remember the special. yeah i didn't i did a research to remember i didn't remember my my pepperidge farm did not remember that either right that came up in some of my research i do remember the tables because they were at other see i thought this was and again i i really don't remember the year as well but i think the year listed in the on and when the online systems was for kingpin in 2018 i think it only came to the one tpf but circus maximus i thought was a regular including at 2019 where They would like have a table with a lot of old art and drawings and stuff, and they were selling those. And I thought the whole thing was rather than to do the preorder model, they were doing the, hey, buy this stuff, and we're using that to support the company's projects.
    16:13
    So let's go ahead and have a bit – you've already touched on a number of the elements about this and not being a surprise. But for the discussion, what I thought would be interesting is to briefly describe kind of what Circus Maximus was, or as best as I can remember, because I did not go and re-research all of this. But from what I recall, that company, we'll say, I think it was set up as one, was established. there were some of the individuals behind it one or more who had known and were friendly with Python Angelo who was the famous artist slash designer more known for his art with Williams and with Capcom and when he was dying they had made a promise to him that they would make Pinball Circus which Pinball Circus is the weird vertical gameplay thing it's at the Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame if you want to play it. I think only a couple were made. I think a private collector owns the other one. A lot of people kind of like it. It's an interesting gimmick. It was just a really creative idea. So the plan had been Circus Maximus was established to go ahead and make Pinball Circus. The thing is, Pinball Circus is so unlike a traditional pinball game that putting it together was very ambitious and very difficult for them and was going to be very expensive. So around this 2018 period, 2019, whatnot, they had said, okay, we're not going to start with pinball circus. It's too hard. We're going to go and do Kingpin, a Capcom, another Capcom game that kind of like Big Bang Bar didn't really, they made a few of them, but they didn't really get out there.
    17:59
    And we'll let people buy Kingpin. That's like a traditional pinball machine. So we'll be able to build Kingpin, sell Kingpin, and then we can reinvest the profits from Kingpin into being able to accomplish the Pinball Circus project and fulfilling our promise to Python.
    18:15
    So that's kind of where that came from. Now, I personally have never played Pinball Circus, and I've also had very little interest in the concept itself as a vertical game. Having played Kingpin, the two things that stood out to me was it – I believe that's a Mark Ritchie-designed game. It was very flowy. It was fun. A lot of people who are at that TPF were noting how easy it was to progress through it, but that is also pretty typical for a 90s game. So all that sort of stuff. It's kind of what you would think. It's kind of like a typical 90s game, but it was from a company that didn't get a whole lot of games out there, and this one never made it into full production. So I thought it was a smart strategy. But as you noted if you had known about this this news about them basically I don know if I want to say giving up I just say failed This news of them failing can be a surprise because it was after TPF everything seemed like it was downhill to me I don't know what your impression was, but it seemed like they just didn't accomplish anything. It didn't come back to more show. It wasn't at more TPFs. They weren't doing regular news stuff. It sounded like right after it and when hype was highest and hottest because there was a lot of positive reaction to it at the TPF we played it at. It sounded like they were trying to find a contract manufacturer to do the build, and then nothing happened. But I don't know what your recollections are. Yeah, I recall the same. There was a lot of hype, at least at that show, but that could just come down to being show hype. Everything that is new at a show is hyped heavily at the show. And for a little while afterwards, it'll be real big. But if nothing keeps it in the public eye, it'll disappear. And that's what this is. This has never felt like a real big professional, like going for broke giant project. It's always felt like a labor of love fan project. it's more akin to a custom build than something specifically made for production really and there's nothing wrong with that but I really lost all sight of it you just would hear about it every once in a while somebody would bring it up and you'd be like oh yeah yeah I vaguely recall that existed, and then it goes away. And I'm not, like I said earlier, I'm not surprised with it having a complete disillusion at this point, especially to continue attempting to put something together that you were not able to put together when we were in the period of time pre-COVID when the economy was solid, and then immediately after COVID when the interest in such things was so high and the economy was still in pretty good shape to now where the economy is flat in the toilet and interest is dropping and there's just no path forward. And I can definitely understand the decision that there's no path forward.
    21:32
    Yeah, no, I'm not like from a business decision standpoint. I do think it makes sense to go ahead and say – I want to say announce, but I think they only answered this because Knapp asked them. But to go ahead and formally pull the plug, I do think it's the right answer.
    21:49
    The communication approach out of Circus Maximus was bad the entire time. They came with all of this buzz and hype and interest generated out of that Texas Pinball show. So they had a period where I think they could have, you know, strike where the iron's hot as the expression goes and done something. I never fully understood. Of course, we don't know all the details why they could not resolve. If the issue was finding a manufacturer to do the build for them, it made very little sense to me that they couldn't actually find one. American Pinball had been and after this point continued to and probably still continues to talk about its willingness to do something like that. We saw them do it with Legends of Valhalla. We know that up until the acquisition, Pinball Brothers was relying on Pedretti, I believe, Gaming to do their builds. So everyone's been finding contract manufacturers. This may have been a little too late to use Spooky, for example, which used to do a lot of contract build stuff. I'm thinking Jetsons, Dominoes, things like that, and then moved away from it. But I it's felt like, yeah, it felt like it wasn't a really serious endeavor because if there was a serious will to get it done, I think more progress would have been made than what we saw.
    23:05
    I, you know, again, I don't care personally. I don't care whether they were going to succeed or fail. It is. It doesn't matter to me. It would have been interesting to see Kingpin actually get out there. We've seen other remake style approaches do very well. Obviously, Chicago Gaming has essentially relied on that from its pinball side forever up until when they finally get Pulp Fiction out. But I think the lesson here – there's a lesson. For those of you who are really passionate about something, I think the lesson to take away is maybe don't make promises you can't keep to people.
    23:43
    So – because I think it seemed like – and maybe this is unfair, so I apologize if it is unfair. But it seemed to me the reassurance that we always had was, no, Circus Maximus is going to do this because they promised Python that they would. Not about Kingpin, but they promised that they would do Pinball Circus. And I think making that sort of promise without really understanding the scope of everything that was going to go into it was a huge mistake. But whatever. It's done. Yeah, I can understand the situation, but sometimes even with the best of intentions, you can't complete something like that without prohibitively causing damage to other people or to your own personal financial situations. and I remember I won't because I'm not I'm not interested in you know like blaming I'm not blaming anyone this sort of stuff happens but I remember hearing this was years after when I was already starting to forget about this I think that uh another podcast that I was listening to in pinball talked about didn't go into any detail but just one of the one of the hosts was like really assuring like no circus maximus is serious even though we weren't hearing anything about it that this stuff was still going to happen. And obviously that was not true. And, um, I just think it just reminds me of a, of a lesson that I feel like we never learn in pinball because it comes up in slightly different forms, uh, time and time again. And I'm thinking from the really blatant stuff like deep root and skip B to the more nebulous stuff, like, uh, So what we saw with Cosmic Carnival out of, I'm already forgetting the name of the company that did that one, and Highway Pinball, where there are all these warning signs about failure. And then there are always people in this hobby that are like, no, it's fine. It's fine. Now, in this case, because there was no preorders, the loss of this doesn't really hurt anyone. Yeah, there are probably a few people that are going to be really upset who bought those translights because they weren't interested in the translate. They were interested for their place in line. But in the grand scheme of pinball failures, this one doesn't really damage people. No, I don't think so. Like if Circus Maximus were to want to come back in some capacity, they probably could with no real blowback. The thing is, my hope would be, quite frankly, I mean, like if I were a potential investor, I'd say don't. No, you had plenty of chances to try and salvage this, and you chose not to. and so just let it be done just accept that this was not a project that anyone was involved was equipped to do and just let it sort of slink off into the forgotten lands don't worry in a couple of years no one will remember this I mean there will be a few of us who will but by and large I mean it's not going to go down in infamy or anything like that it's just one of it's like Great Lakes Pinball and Expose weren't they supposed to come out with a game called X, but no one remembers. Just me and Pepperidge Farm.
    26:57
    Because it didn't happen. And no one lost money. So who cares? It's like that. So, hey, as far as pinball failures go, this is no big deal. It's fine.
    27:07
    Anyway, I thought it would be a fun discussion, just because we happened to play that game. I mean, and I did enjoy Kingpin. It was fine. It was nothing super special, but it was enjoyable. It definitely was not a game that fell under the qualification of a real stinker.
    27:27
    Oh, no. I mean, I would have rather had Kingpin than Genie. Oh. I mean, but it wasn't a game I would have ever entertained buying either. So, it's fine.
    27:41
    All right. Well, that's it for pinball games. So, we can move over to video games. We did actually get a review in on a Steam code. Did we? Awesome. Well, we kind of did. But I told them I was running with it because I thought the email was good enough to serve as the review. So thank you, Dave P., for submitting this video game review for one of the Steam codes we provided. Incidentally, let me – you'll hear my paper here. I'm pulling out my sheet. I have three Steam codes left. So email eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com if you would like a free Steam code. Anyone who does not have a pending review may ask for a Steam code. So if you've already done one, you can get another one. But I need to already have the review. If you want to be hurt. That's my rule. If you want to be hurt, you can have another one. Well, we thought maybe these were all bad because most of the reviews have been pretty not great. I think that's a fair description. Let me give you a little secret thing that I have vaguely considered. Right this second, Humble Bundle has a special going. Oh, no, don't. From Tales from Wales, which is an FMV choice-driven game production company out of the UK that makes nothing but games that are all full-motion video, old-school, pick-the-conversation-route type games. And I have seriously considered purchasing the entire bundle just to gift the codes to people.
    29:22
    I mean, they've got one that's a full FMV millennial dating one, and they've got one about a couple scientists trapped in a room or building when there's a biological outbreak. I mean, it's all sorts of fun.
    29:44
    We're trying not to drive the listeners away, and I worry. This format worries me. The Night Trap approach worries me. The Night Trap approach. Yeah, that was the one you left for most of the video. Yeah, it was. And controversial, too. Oh, Sewer Sharks or something like that. It was like robot submarine thing, like one-man robot submarine thing. was all FMV. I played one called The Seventh Guest, I remember. Oh, I remember The Seventh Guest. Yeah.
    30:18
    There were some decent ones. That was a long ago. That was in the long ago, back when they... Well, I mean, there were some other ones that they weren't all FMV, but the big thing was all the later Wing Commander games that were full FMV for all of their actual story stuff. Before you figured out that you could make more money doing Star Citizen and not doing anything. Oh, yeah, no kidding.
    30:49
    Those were fun games. I liked Wing Commander. And they made Mark Hamill the main character. That was where, and I think it was you who told me about how, that's because, what, Roberts was, he wanted to do Star Wars, and when he couldn't have the rights to it, he did Wing Commander. But then as technology advanced, he started to make it look more and more like Star Wars, which kind of irked me. Yeah. Some of the later Wing Commanders I was less happy with because they'd gone away from what I thought was some of the fun, quirky things of the game. But they were still enjoyable. I enjoyed all of them, even the really lame later ones.
    31:33
    Hmm. so anyway speaking of older games that's what it turned out to be in the case for dave so dave p submitted this and i will now read what he wrote thank you finally got around to installing this and the code was for the original doom nice not sure how much not sure how much of a review i can give it's the game everyone played i haven't played it in years but it looks and plays the Same. The only thing I noticed was different was I could use an Xbox controller to control the game compared to keyboard. Thank you, Dave, for the review. And I think that was probably sufficient because, yeah, you almost assuredly know the original Doom if you're listening to this podcast. Right, right. I mean, I'm sure there are some people who've heard of it, not actually played it. Maybe a few, but I mean, back in the day, it's like a it's an arcade. Like, isn't it an arcade game you can play in one of the – in the new Doom or the – like, there's a way to play the original in one of the new ones. It's like – Oh, it wouldn't surprise me. I thought. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just remembering playing the original Wolfenstein in the Wolfenstein remakes. But – Maybe that's it. Our new versions. But anyway, doesn't matter. Yeah, it's Doom. So, yeah, you either know it or you don't. I thought it might be interesting, just real briefly, that when getting this review, quote-unquote – I'm air-quitting – review in – Do you remember the science lab stuff in Plane Doom 2? I do. I thought that might be a fun little story. So Dave, you've triggered member berries for us, or at least for me. And now Tony is member burying as well. So I'm going to tell it as best as I can recall, and you can correct me where I'm wrong because I don't remember things well from the 90s. but in high school you know computers were still for for schools a pretty young technology there weren't a lot of it professionals that were really involved basically the computer science teacher might run the network as well but this was back when we were still like using daisy chain together computer networks with t connectors and stuff it was it was not the modern cat six and much less or Cat5 or anything with the regular LAN cards, I don't believe. But I'm meandering. So some of us were in a physics class. We were in AP Physics. And so we had computers at our disposal. And the way AP Physics worked is our instructor, whenever we would have a test at the end of each sort of chapter or section, the next day we would go over the test results to understand what we got right and wrong with the teacher. And then there was never enough time to go ahead and just start the new chapter in the teacher's mind. So we were just kind of given free time, which ended up being most of that particular period. Now, Tony, at the same time, he didn't take AP Physics. He took journalism, and that meant he had free reign to roam around the school to find scoops. I will have you know that it had nothing to do with scoops. I was the photo editor and the darkroom, because this was pre-digital camera, was back in the storage and prep area for the science labs. Oh, okay. So that's why I had free reign to go, because I was working in the darkroom during my journalism class, getting pictures printed and stuff ready for layout and for the newspaper. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. No, so no scoops. But because Tony would be back there, we wouldn't have anything else to do. We were done with going over with the test. We always kept hidden copies of Doom 2 for install on the network. We kept them around because the game we'd install it, but it inevitably would get uninstalled. But games were small back then, so it didn't take that long to get them installed. So we would go ahead and we would install Doom 2 on computers, and then we would play Networked Doom 2 Deathmatch for the rest of that period. And that's what we did for, like, every chapter we finished in physics. Yeah. No, we kept a bunch of – because this was the old-school school network where they tried to run an antivirus check one time, and every time it got to my personal user account, it crashed. and the reason it crashed was because of uh i because of newspaper had a uh file structure that was like 50 some odd levels of files deep each with protection on them so they could not be deleted because there was a spot where we stored all of the i i was the backup for all of fonts used for the newspaper. But because it was 1995, when the computer virus scanning programs hit a file structure that was just that deep, it just locked up. It would just lock the entire thing up. And I got called into the office to explain what was there because they were getting ready to just flat delete my entire user account. Oh, now they did flat delete one of my things once. That was a that was I remember this because I thought I was going to get in trouble. So because what because there was no good reason for me to have done this other than it amused me. So, again, I was a teenager. I was easily amused by things. So I had a file. I had a like a word perfect style. I had a text file, essentially a word processing file. And it was massive, massive. And by massive, I mean just many, many megabytes. And so what would happen is when I was just bored and had downtime, I would load that file up and I would – it had a lot of like things I had written just like – so if you were to open it, it would – you'd start reading it and it would read like just like normal stuff like a story I wrote or a paper or whatever. And so I just took multiple things I had done as projects and I put them all in one document. But then I would copy the document and paste it to the bottom, and I would do it again.
    38:07
    Exponentially it would grow every time because my assumption was well no one ever going to read down like 30 pages of some high schoolers writing So I was just doing it to make as big of a file as I could The, so one day I got back from a, I don't remember if it was a field trip or what I, I was out of the school. I think I came back in and I was, I got called into the, the it computer science person's office, whoever she was who oversaw the network at that, that year and so i thought oh dear uh because they want to talk to me about my files and i thought oh no they realize that i have created this monster bs uh document that serves no purpose i just thought well i don't know i've never been suspended before but i don't think that's gonna be very because it's gonna be like i thought i had cloaked it pretty well i thought i was pretty clever back then anyway so i i get called into her her office and she is super apologetic she's like dennis i'm so sorry we ran out of network space which was part of my motivation for what i was doing i was filling up more like i could see i was i alone was physically making this huge difference on how much network space was left because there just wasn't i mean people they know there's a hard drive space was expensive back then so i just filled up so much of it with this one file but she's apologetic because she's like i saw you had this document like the name of the file is something like it's like like uh you know like i don't remember i call like social science final report or something you know she's like i tried to back it up dennis but it wouldn't it wouldn't fit on a floppy disk and i couldn't i couldn't figure out how to back it up and we had to delete it i i'm so sorry i hope i you know do we i think she was what like if i was gonna have to explain it to an instructor or something and i don't remember what was so relieved i just said something like that's okay it was a backup so that was the death of my like 20 megabyte word uh word perfect file or whatever it was um that i just did because i was a little punk i guess i don't know it was computers in the 90s in schools were weird. Like, I know I had a computer file in my personal thing that my girlfriend could log into my account. I could log into her account. And we both had a file that was listed. And it was just what we used because there was no text messaging because there was no cell phones. There was no IMs. It was just basically a chat file where one of us would log into the other's account and do chatty type stuff in a Word file in there on their thing and then close it. And then whenever one of us was in a class where we had to get into the computer, we would open it up just to see what was there. So it was a weird time. Oh, yeah, it was. And so for people wondering how did we keep Doom around where we need to pull out the disks and install Doom. We did Doom and Doom 2, but Doom 2 was the main one we played in the science lab. The trick was pretty simple. So they would go through, they would search the network and purge exe files was how they kind of would get rid of it originally. And so what we learned to do is just change the extension to a document. So we'd – and this was – Doom 2 was smaller than my massive thing. Like it wasn't a big thing. So you could just call it whatever you wanted, like EnglishStory101.doc. And then when it was time to play, you'd rename it to .exe, run the installer, have the game on there, and then we'd play. So that's how we kept it on the network.
    42:06
    Good times. Yes. So thank you, Dave P., for the review because at least it triggered the member berries. But moving beyond Member Berries, Tony, I know you have some modern video game stuff. I do have some modern video game stuff. It's been an interesting couple of weeks in video gaming.
    42:25
    A couple little things. Steam turned 20 on the 13th. I had not realized it had been 20 years until I saw that. I'm like, man, that makes me feel really old. Only yesterday you were hating on Steam. I used to hate Steam real bad, and now it's the better of the evils of that type of thing. So another kind of biggish thing, E3 has confirmed there will be no E3 in 2024, which we already knew from those reports to the L.A. Council about that space being released. They've confirmed that that space has been released. They are also no longer working with the ESA is no longer working with the company that they had worked for, worked with to set up the last or attempt to set up the last couple in-person E3s, which is the same group that puts on the PAXs. They're no longer working together. And the ESA says they are looking to do a complete reinvention of E3 for 2025. It's dead. Why do they struggle?
    43:45
    They need to pull a Circus Maximus and just say, you know what? We can't do it anymore. You just got to let it die. Just end. It's just over. No one's going to blame them. Just end it.
    43:56
    It's not been important in years. Because everybody saves all of their big important stuff for their own personal directs. Like Nintendo's Direct they had. that's right a big in they had a pretty big in uh they released a new trailer for the paper mario thousand year door uh remake no release date other than next year but i know that game we've had that conversation in here on previous episodes that game has a huge draw and a huge call people are really looking forward to that one uh they released a big thing on the princess peach show time which is the new princess peach dress me up game uh and when i say that i make that as a joke to the final fantasy 10-2 where every time you changed jobs it was a job system and every time you change jobs your characters change clothes uh for whatever job they had because this is here in this it's pretty or the it's the same type of thing princess peach changes clothes and becomes a swordswoman or an investigator or a pastry chef. Yes, people sometimes hear us refer to this style of gameplay, which is very common in a lot of Japanese games, as make-u-make-u dress-up. Yeah.
    45:15
    But we'll see. I mean, I don't know. Is this the first really big Princess Peach primary game? I think it is. It's the first I know of. I mean, there might have been some other small things, but for like a big game, big game, Most of their other announcements were old DS and Game Boy Advance titles that are being ported to the Switch.
    45:41
    But the one that I really liked is they're bringing back F-Zero. Kind of. F-Zero, the original birthplace of Captain Falcon, is coming back. but it's as one of their 99 player games. So they're calling it F-Zero 99, and you'll be racing 99 other players in F-Zero stuff. I played Tetris 99 a little bit when they originally released it, and I never played Super Mario 99, but I did play Tetris 99. And this is the Battle Royale system where they basically release the game, and it's like a race, and as you get eliminated, you're just flat out. So the Tetris 99 was a lot of fun, and that's where I found out that, no, I really suck at Tetris. I'm, like, really bad at Tetris compared to people, apparently.
    46:37
    Yeah, I knew someone who was most excited about this Nintendo Direct because F-Zero was going to be talked about, and then when it was F-Zero 99, they were so pissed. Oh, the rage. The rage must have been palpable. I mean, I don't know. So I asked, well, what did you want? And it was like, anything but this sort of stuff. And I was like, come on, it's F-Zero. You should be happy. F-Zero was such a popular game that they've basically just ignored ever since. Yes. Was it F-Zero that that guy bought that one share of Nintendo stock to ask about at a shareholder meeting? I thought so. I thought it was, too. But maybe this is what it got. Imagine what he could have got if he had bought two shares.
    47:29
    Maybe that would have been a remake of the original. I don't know. I mean, they're remaking everything else anymore.
    47:37
    Following up on some other stuff we've spoken about, the Embracer Group is looking at cutting loose Gearbox Studio. that surprises me just because i would have thought of all the stuff they've been massively acquiring i thought gearbox was going to be like a long-term moneymaker i would have thought so because they just bought gearbox like a year and a half ago uh and the thing is is gearbox is huge they make the borderlands games and and all of the borderlands games have sold pretty well and been fairly popular even like the least popular borderlands game has was fairly popular but No, apparently there was an internal notice released to Gearbox people saying that nothing is confirmed. There are several things being talked about and some stuff up in the air, but they are looking at being sold. So it would be a sell, not a complete shutdown like they did with Volition.
    48:43
    Right. Yeah, I would imagine they could get money out of Gearbox. Oh, yeah, you should be able to get good money. I mean, Gearbox put out Tina's, the Tina game just last year, and it was very popular, as I recall, which was the Borderlands 3 spinoff game.
    49:01
    So, to, oh, part of the Nintendo Direct is they did release that video message from Charles Martinet about becoming the Mario ambassador. I don't know if you saw it. I did not. It's kind of awkward. It felt awkward. But I always think those direct release things that Nintendo does like that feel weird, where it's just a person sitting in front of a giant white expanse talking. It always feels a little strange to me. But this one felt really awkward. and in a recent convention he said that he doesn't really know what all the job entails and that we will find out together.
    49:49
    Okay. So he's not retired because he's a Mario ambassador, but he's kind of always been a Nintendo ambassador so he doesn't know if there's anything different or if it's just that he doesn't voice characters anymore. But it was definitely I recommend finding the video if you've not seen it and watching it. It is a little weird, just a little weird.
    50:17
    The big thing news-wise, two items, one potentially huge and the other quite large, Unity, an engine used to make games, very well-known games, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Outer Wilds, a bunch of other games, has announced a change to their business model. They're going to be introducing a new fee that is per new game install.
    50:47
    And to say that the developers were upset would be an understatement. It is the first time I think I've ever seen multiple releases from multiple different groups that literally say that the company making a change is f***ing insane because that's quoted in two of them.
    51:14
    And since we'll be bleeping that, it is the F-bomb dropped in multiple releases from different groups talking about it because the change to the business model will affect games that are across a certain threshold, don't know what that threshold is of success, they will be charged a monthly fee, the developer will, where for every number of installs that happen in that month, they'll be charged a fee for that.
    51:46
    Because things work differently with stuff like Game Pass, instead of the developers being charged that monthly fee. The owner of the distribution system, like Game Pass, so Xbox, will be charged that monthly fee. They have backed up and made some clarifications.
    52:15
    What constitutes an install is going to be decided by their data model, which is a proprietary data model. They are reporting, though, that they will charge an install on all installs. So if you have the game and you delete it and then you reinstall the game at a later date, there will be a charge for that install. They have said that they will be making some protections put in so people can't like install, uninstall, install, uninstall, install, uninstall the game a whole bunch of times to basically put a developer out of business. And they also won't be charging for the very first time a user installs a game or something along those lines. It was kind of hard to understand with how they laid their stuff out.
    53:08
    So the things I find really interesting in this is, A, the Studio Mega Crit. They made the Slay the Spire game.
    53:20
    Has announced that they are going to be cutting all ties with Unity and are planning on migrating the last two years of work on their brand new game that they've been working on to a new engine, unless Unity completely reverts these changes and protections are put in place to prevent changes like this from ever happening again. they were one of the people who dropped an f-bomb in the it like in their press release so uh they definitely did not hold back on that one um they are also looking at uh all right let me rephrase let me back up somebody should be looking at the fact that over the last couple of months, all of Unity's executives have sold tens of thousands of shares of stock since August, basically. So in the last two months, leading up to this announcement, all of their high-level executives have dumped tens of thousands, Into the hundreds of thousands. They've dumped between 50,000 and 40,000 shares of stock each in the last two months, which definitely seems like people who know they're about to make a decision that's going to make a very major stock hit happening.
    54:48
    So how that falls into an insider trading type thing, I'm not positive. how that would drop. But it is definitely pretty suspicious to make such moves and then immediately drop something that tanks your stock price this bad. Any thoughts?
    55:10
    Oh, yeah. Okay, so I've been loosely following this one because I've seen it pop up on a lot of the gaming subreddits. So a few things. One, in some of their backtrack, I wasn't entirely clear. It sounded to me like they may have announced at this point that if you want to stay under your existing term of service, that's an option as long as you agree to no updates to your Unity build.
    55:43
    And because originally their proposal was retroactive to any version of Unity that you were using. So even if you were done supporting your game, it could apply to the – like they were totally changing the terms of service for everyone. Kind of like we recall discussing with Magic and Hasbro, I should say.
    56:04
    And so I think I read something that they had now clarified that it would be an option, but you wouldn't be able to update Unity. If you want to stay on the old TOS, you would have to basically agree to not use a newer version or something like that. I don't know. From the way it read, it sounded like it was anything. Basically, you could not do anything update-wise. You basically had to abandon your game as of January 1, and there was something else you could do, and then you would stay on the old.
    56:36
    To me, it sounded like it was an attempt to say, hey, if you're done, like if you have an old game, you're not going to all of a sudden have to pay us because the old game is still popular or whatever, but you had to be done with it. I don't know. I don't know if that's true or not. I also saw, supposedly, there was a group of developers, mostly out of Europe, that had sent a letter, as I'm sure many developers have, to Unity, objecting to the changes, but also, as part of that, noting that they had all immediately turned off in-game ad revenue on their existing Unity games. so to start punishing the company now I guess is the sense of that Makes sense And the third thing I recall reading again this is like comment sections of Reddit so I don know if this is true or not but purportedly at least with some of the gamers out there are blaming the well I sure the CEO is behind a lot of this But I guess purportedly the CEO for Unity used to be with EA, and purportedly he tried to pull this stuff off at EA, and there they wouldn't let him do it. As in one person claimed this is the guy who wanted to charge people real-life money for you to buy ammo in games. Oh, I had not heard that. Again, this is a Reddit comment. Is it true? Is it not true? I don't know. I didn't care enough to investigate it further. But if you had brought in someone who actually thought you could monetize the selling of bullets in FPS games, this would fit with that person's mentality.
    58:19
    Because that's what it feels like, that they think they get to charge per shot. And in this case, the shot is install.
    58:26
    So my overall thought is I think this is going to blow up in Unity's face bigly. and maybe your insider trader angle about, hey, are they doing this, liquidating and planning to buy? Are they going to try and buy the stock back when it's all super cheap because they're going to crush their stock value because Unity is going to all of a sudden become very unpopular as a build option? Because the tough thing is, of course, those who are currently supporting projects or have projects underway. People thinking about starting new projects, I think a lot of them are just going to be like, you know what? But we're just going to – Unreal is looking kind of nice. Let's just shift. Let's just find another engine. There are plenty out there. So I – this seems – yeah, this is like right up there post-Hasbro with the most interesting like blunder.
    59:15
    I don't know if Unity is just like hurting for cash that badly or this CEO is just absolutely obsessed with the idea that we can monetize on a much more aggressive scale and no one can do anything about it. But I don't think that's true. I think he's wrong. I think he may have thought people were locked in and had no choice. But this seems really dumb to me. That's just my opinion. Yeah, I mean, if they're having monetary issues, there's ways they can go about restructuring their accounting and everything.
    59:52
    I'm sure they can raise their fees. But going at it this direction, this route, is just crazy because of the simple fact that if you uninstall a game and reinstall it later, they get charged again for the fact that you uninstalled and reinstalled a game. And quite frankly, sometimes it happens when you're playing a game like a modded version of a game that if you want to remove the mods, one of the things you automatically do is you uninstall the game and you reinstall the game to make sure all the mods are cleared out before you can play Vanilla again or install new mods or go about it however you want to go about it. And for them to get charged every time somebody does that is a little insane to me. so and hey this part i also read that they had thought and this might give you a few more hasbro vibes that this change like with the install fee when it kicks in was only going to like affect i don't remember somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of the people of the developers using unity yeah so again kind of like a lot of those hasbro changes which seem to be designed for a very specific type of entity making products that relied on i said magic earlier but i just said like D&D stuff, because that's what it was, you know, those additional things, like they were trying to target just a few companies. Purportedly, again, I didn't read the original source material on this, Unity's thought was that this per new game install threshold was only going to involve like 15% of the entities that use their product. But as we've learned before, that doesn't matter. People will read this really broad language and this really nebulous talk with no specifics and be like, this is going to affect me, and I'm concerned about it, and we're going to do something about it. Right, well, and the fact that the way they talked is that Threshold is based completely around a game's success. So you could be a tiny little indie developer who kicks out a game that costs $10 that suddenly blows up. You could get an Among Us or something like that that goes suddenly huge, and that could trigger into this. So – I don't think we see that out of Unity, but I think Unity has a lot more to lose than Hasbro even did. I agree with you, and I don't think we'll see that out of Unity. Now, this does make me think, are they intentionally trashing their stock prices for like a buyout or something? Because if the executive sold all their stock off while the prices were high, then they intentionally trash the prices that opens them up for purchasing, uh, even through just a straight up stock takeover.
    63:09
    I, I mean, and I don't know all the nuances of that style of business. I normally though, if you wanted to be bought, I would have thought you want your share price to be as high as possible. And then they just, they hold their shares, you know, you get sold and then they make a whole bunch of money because the share price and the deal was agreed upon when it was at an all-time high. With this, my guess would have been more along like if there was nefarious stuff going on that if they wanted to, if they thought, let's do this, we know it's going to trash the price. So we sell our shares, make a bunch of money. The price falls. We buy our shares back and then we re-raise the value.
    63:52
    But I don't know what the third step is where they think they recover the value. Like, do they say, yeah, let's sell it all off. We make these changes. Our share price falls through the floor. We buy it all back, and then we undo the changes, and then now we have more value. We just got free money.
    64:10
    But, like, they're not going to unring that bell as cleanly as that. So because normally with the – unless the execs again – because there are so many other shareholders that are going to be downright upset who didn't sell their shares if there's a takeover when it's now worth even less than before. Like I don't see who's supposed to make them – like it hurts everyone else other than the execs if they try and do that, and then people might call them out on it. So I don't know why they would want the value to go down. It's kind of like the whole thing with Elon Musk and Twitter. The whole thing with Twitter's position was when he wanted to back out of the deal or redefine the deal, he had agreed on a share price above the value of the company. So that's why they held his feet to the fire on you have to buy it while it's high. That's when the takeover is the best for the people being taken over, not when it's low. So I think to me, I don't think there's a long-term play on that. I think there's what they could be accused of. It's probably as simple as we know these changes are going to be unpopular, so let's sell our shares while they're high. I think it's just that simple because they knew the shares weren't going to stay high once they said, hey, we're going to do something. You'd have to have been pretty stupid to think that all the developers were going to be okay with this. Oh, yeah. I think that's why they did the sales were to line the pockets. I just didn't know if there was a possibility that, like you said, there was a step three in there. Or if maybe they want – I mean even if the executives wanted to come back in and take over a controlling portion of the stock. Now, some of it could be – yeah, there could be. If they – like long-term, one of the things that maybe they – again, I don't know all the nuance of this. But if they think there are too many outstanding shares, that could maybe be the strategy. They drop their share value down, and then the company buys a bunch of the excess shares back to retire them so there are fewer shares, raising the individual value per share higher.
    66:11
    That's something – this way they're doing it is different than the way I've usually heard it where a lot of people – a lot of companies, I should say, coming out of the pandemic had raised – they'd raised all these costs because of the supply chain issues. And then when the supply chain issues alleviated, they kept their prices high. You keep hearing about all these companies with record profits and then they do stock buyback. Right. They do stock buyback to retire shares. so that maybe instead of hey we got a whole bunch of money because we're charging a ton of people stuff and we're using that to buy back shares the whole let's trash the shares and then we'll use cash and buy we'll buy that out so then we raise the value of the shares to all the shareholders that way and then maybe undo it and then the stock goes back up i don't know it's just the hardest part is the whole stock goes back up playing because it seems like once you've burned that bridge, it's hard to unburn that bridge and to get your prices back up and to re-win trust. Just ask Hasbro how well that's working for them. Because even with them going completely repudiating everything and flipping, they still have opened competitors up to them. Paizo still has gone their own way. All sorts of theirs. They're still down more than they were before they started that whole mess last year. Yeah, normally I would think the main thing would be they wouldn't get it back up to normal. But if they do a share buyback, that would help with some of it because normally if the value of the company is the same, which it would be regardless of the number of shares out there, the supply of the shares is lower. So the share price goes up because of that. Right. The company does buy back a lot of that. That could do it. And let's see, I'm looking at a little guide here because I'm really not familiar with the strategy because I don't work in the corporate world. But let's see, another advantage if they did the share buyback would be the earnings per share would go up because of a reduction in outstanding shares as well. That makes sense too. So and then let's see, third reason noted is shareholders who don't sell their shares during a buyback, that would include what shares the executives still have in this instance, don't make a cash return and therefore they don't have to pay any tax. Interesting.
    68:55
    And they don't have to pay taxes because they didn't do anything to – Right. They didn't make a cash return because they didn't sell their shares. Normally, when you sell shares, you have to pay tax on it. But they actually raised all that value because they didn't make a cash return on it, so there's no tax applied to them. But they now actually have more valuable shares and get more of the revenue share like the dividend split. Interesting. Now they pay tax on the dividend split, of course, because they're getting more of that. But basically it's like a way to own more of the company without actually having taken any action, I guess.
    69:35
    So I'm not saying that's what they're doing. That's just the one thing that came to my mind that maybe would fit like long term. Right. Beyond just, hey, we know it's going to go bad. I want money now. Let's sell now because this may never get back up to what it was, which is the simplest answer. Be like, yeah, we know what we're doing. so let's take our cash now and we'll go ahead and we'll put that money into Apple instead yeah we'll buy we'll take it back we'll buy a well run company somebody better than us so one last and what is potentially one of the largest affecting things on video games in quite a while SAG-AFTRA has voted to send a strike authorization vote to members in the interactive media segment ahead of the upcoming bargaining dates with the video game companies.
    70:33
    So one, and that was a unanimous vote to send that authorization out. So once the, as I read it, once the rank and file vote on it, the SAG-AFTRA members in the video game business will be on strike, as well as all of the current SAG-AFTRA in the movie and TV and voice acting spaces.
    71:04
    And that's been an ongoing strike for quite a while. I know we've spoken about it in the past, roughly. We watch a lot of Star Trek and stuff like that All the Star Trek series Have been real good Lately Other than the one But they've all finished their seasons Or are currently airing And there is no known date when any of that stuff Is going to come back Because of the ongoing Rider Strike and SAG After Strike That shows absolutely no Hints of Ending, they're not even really having serious conversations at this time. So the whole movie and TV space is about to get real quiet, just like it did a number of years ago when the last writer's strike happened. There was a rough year or two to bounce back. The interesting thing here is how much of the issue will be the bounce backs, considering they've just started, or because of how COVID was, video games shot so huge during COVID. Movies and TV had such issues and took a little bit of time to bounce back. So it'll be kind of interesting to see.
    72:19
    Yep. That's going to have a pretty big impact on a lot of entertainment. But we're seeing a lot of interest in this space right now. I think a lot of it's driven by inflation for a lot of workers because I'm thinking of the auto worker strikes that are now underway in select plants. But in this space, in the creative space, there's also, I know, a lot of the concern about AI and changes in how distribution of media has worked and how that revenue sharing functions. So it's even more complicated, I think, in the entertainment. So I'm not particularly surprised that this is going to come up with the negotiations with the video game companies. We'll just have to see if those companies are actually going to be less recalcitrant compared to their TV and movie peers. Yeah, and I have no real sense if they will or not. I know from some of the other stuff I've read, like you said, the revenue sharing on streaming services compared to on-air airings of shows is insane.
    73:20
    Because I know people who have watched every single episode of a series multiple times. They do it multiple times a year. and then you hear about the people talking, the actors talking, or the writers talking, and somebody might watch the entire series five times in a year. They might make a nickel off of it, but that exact same show airing on an aired television station will make them $100 or whatever.
    73:52
    And it's just because of how the revenue share is broken up. And then, like you said, the AI, I think the AI space, especially for writers, is going to be a huge thing. And it sure seems like from a lot of the stuff I've read, that is one of the things that is being heavily pushed back upon by the studios are the AI restrictions.
    74:15
    Yeah, that seemed to me that one of the bigger hangups on the movie and TV space is the desire. They don't want to cave on the AI. They want to use it. Yeah. And I think that's – I don't know if that's the biggest sticking point, but that was the vibe I had. And I imagine riding on video games is going to run into a very similar situation. So I'm not optimistic that it resolves quick, but we'll see. I would be surprised. I honestly – at this point, I don't see any clear sky on the horizon coming in from this run. I think this is going to be an ongoing issue because, as I recall, the last big strike, you heard about some stuff moving forward a couple months into the strike. And we're way past that. And we've not really heard of any movement to the point where there's even been extended periods of times where they're not even talking. so yep but we will cover the future of that here because Tony and I are scabs and we're still working yeah I mean we're not part of the union and we're not doing any work that would be considered scab work to that union but yeah but for a mere dollar a month we work at pretty low scab like rates through our Patreon very true Well, that's all I have for today. We had quite a full episode. I think we did pretty good. So you all can let us know if we did do good or not by emailing us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. You can also go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast and leave a message there. Or you can support the channel and our scab-like wages at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks with all the latest fun tidbits and news and everything you can possibly handle until you burst. But until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.