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The Pinball Show Ep 184 BONUS: FOMO Vs. NOMO

Pinball Show Patreon Feed·podcast_episode·34m 11s·analyzed·Nov 4, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Pinball market debate: FOMO revival vs. doomsday narratives, Stern's IP strategy failures, and manufacturer performance cycles.

Summary

A wide-ranging discussion about FOMO (fear of missing out) versus market negativity in pinball, with debate over whether the market is actually declining or merely experiencing normal cycles. The host and a distributor guest examine specific manufacturer performance, licensing strategy failures at Stern, the return of FOMO-driven sales (particularly with Evil Dead and Beetlejuice), and broader industry sentiment around speculation and market health.

Key Claims

  • FOMO is back in the pinball market, particularly driven by recent Spooky releases like Evil Dead and Beetlejuice

    high confidence · Host and guest both agree FOMO has returned to the market, citing specific games as evidence

  • Tariffs have disproportionately impacted non-American manufacturers and international buyers, reducing their sales

    high confidence · Guest (distributor) notes tariff scenarios have greatly impacted performance of non-American manufacturers; mentions anecdotal Canadian examples of reduced purchases due to cost

  • Stern has failed to secure major IP licenses (Harry Potter, Back to the Future, Beetlejuice) that other manufacturers obtained

    high confidence · Guest criticizes Stern's IP acquisition strategy, stating someone's job should be on the line for missing these licenses

  • Metallica LE (500 units) sold out instantly for $15,000-$18,000 and primed the market for Evil Dead's later success

    high confidence · Host argues Metallica LE was the real driver of FOMO momentum, not Evil Dead, with specific pricing data

  • Spooky lost FOMO momentum after making too many copies of Scooby Doo and other games, then regained it with Evil Dead

    high confidence · Both speakers discuss Spooky's overproduction mistakes and subsequent strategic corrections on unit quantities

  • Evil Dead took considerable time to sell out, with growth accelerating only before TPF (Texas Pinball Festival)

    high confidence · Host corrects the narrative that Evil Dead was an instant FOMO hit, noting it sold slowly until right before TPF

  • Licensing availability changes over time due to studio turnover; manufacturers must continually re-check impossible-to-get licenses

    high confidence · Guest describes how Spooky continually revisits licensing opportunities, mentioning studio turnover creates new approval pathways

  • The market has not crashed despite five years of doomsday predictions; some segments are down, but others (Spooky, Barrels) are up

Notable Quotes

  • “Sometimes I feel like it's not necessarily information that I'm trying to consume and trying to learn, but it's like this narrative that they're pushing because of their own motives... are they saying this because that's really what's going on? Or are they saying this just because it benefits them more to say it because it leads to consumption or clicks or monetization?”

    Host (The Pinball Show)@ 1:26 — Frames the core frustration: that negative narratives may be driven by content incentives rather than reality

  • “A broken watch is correct twice a day. So eventually there will be a low market for pinball, it will crash, but there's just like we can just throw speculation, throw speculation as fact for years and there's no revisionist like, you know what? I kind of fucking botched that analysis.”

    Guest (distributor, Nicole's husband)@ 3:07 — Criticizes the lack of accountability when negative predictions fail to materialize

  • “There are two forms of toxicity: toxic negativity where people attack things for no reason other than for the sport to be negative... and toxic positivity. The worst form is toxic negativity.”

    Host@ 4:48 — Establishes framework for understanding market discourse and distinguishes types of problematic behavior

  • “If you own 80 to 90% of the industry marketplace and another company, less formidable company, is able to get that, then you have failed. You failed. I don't care what the excuse is.”

    Guest (distributor)@ 28:55 — Direct critique of Stern's IP acquisition failures; indicates strong industry expectations about their dominance

  • “The reason why I think Evil Dead stands out to a lot of people... is Spooky, from its inception, has been a company that has tried to use FOMO to keep their company afloat.”

    Host @ Evil Dead/FOMO analysis — Identifies Spooky's business model dependency on FOMO-driven sales

  • “You cannot sustain FOMO if you have one product that is not favored by the majority. The minute you have just a neutral product that some love and some hate, that streak of FOMO is dead.”

Entities

Stern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinball (JJP)companyBarrels of FuncompanyAmerican PinballcompanyPinball BrotherscompanyPedretticompanyChicago Gamingcompany

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Tariffs have disproportionately reduced sales for non-American manufacturers (Pinball Brothers, American Pinball, Pedretti, Hexa) and impacted international buyers, particularly in Canada where prices have become prohibitive

    high · Guest notes tariff scenarios have greatly impacted performance of non-American manufacturers; anecdotal Canadian examples of reduced purchases; Back catalog games (Abbas, Queens) similarly affected

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: FOMO has returned to the pinball market after a period of decline, driven by successful limited production strategies from Spooky and other manufacturers

    high · Both host and guest explicitly agree FOMO is back; host says 'Isn't that wild? I didn't know if we'd ever get that back'; recent games (Evil Dead, Beetlejuice, Winchester) driving cycle

  • ?

    product_strategy: Manufacturers (Spooky, Barrels) are strategically reducing unit quantities to sustain FOMO and secondary market premiums; key insight: cannot sustain FOMO with neutral/divisive products

    high · Guest notes Spooky and Barrels have gotten better at balancing unit quantities; Beetlejuice planned at fewer than 1,000 units; discussion of Scooby Doo overproduction killing FOMO streak

  • ?

    business_signal: Market performance is bifurcated: Stern, Spooky, and Barrels stock/brands up; American Pinball and European manufacturers (Pinball Brothers, American Pinball) showing weakness; some smaller companies departing (Haggis, American Pinball mentioned as going away)

    high · Guest discusses varying performance across manufacturers; notes Spooky and Barrels stock up; Stern 'still going towards the right direction' but trajectory less steep than two years ago; European manufacturers presumably down

Topics

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as market driver and business strategyprimaryMarket health and doomsday narratives vs. actual performance dataprimaryStern Pinball's IP licensing strategy and failuresprimaryTariff impacts on non-American manufacturers and international buyersprimaryManufacturer production strategies and unit quantity controlprimaryToxic negativity vs. toxic positivity in content and discoursesecondarySpooky Pinball's resurgence and FOMO business modelprimaryEntertainment and content incentives driving negative narrativessecondaryMarket cycles and industry consolidation (American Pinball, Haggis departures)secondaryLicensing negotiations and studio turnover as opportunity windowssecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Host expresses frustration with doomsday narratives and what he sees as disingenuous commentary, but acknowledges real market segments showing weakness (non-American manufacturers). Guest (distributor) is more measured and data-driven, defending some negative takes as having merit while disagreeing with doom-and-gloom framing. Discussion about FOMO is nuanced—host sees it as unhealthy psychology; guest sees it as necessary market excitement. Criticism of Stern's IP strategy is sharp but grounded. Overall tone is critical but engaged, with underlying respect for industry dynamics.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.102

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. Thanks again for the ongoing support as a Pinball Show Club member. Enjoy this exclusive TPS content, and make sure to visit the Pinball Show Club Discord to chat about the bonus material. Here now on the exclusive Pinball Show, Patreon topics. Is FOMO back? Is Pinball dead? Will Stern ever make more games than any other manufacturer? Can your Thatcher, can Mariah Carey ever really top Dolly Parton?
0:33
Oh, they're both angels. So that is the question, Dennis. FOMO versus NOMO here on the exclusive episode. And I figured this would maybe be a quasi safer space for you to kind of go on about this because, you know, bluntly, Zach, by my count, which may be a little off, you have brought this up five times this calendar year. this issue about people claiming that the market is dying, doomed. But they always tell us.
1:03
But it clearly gets your goat. Notice the screaming goat reference there. So I thought, okay, let's give you this. Use this as the platform to kind of go into it because it's definitely pissing you off on some level that people say this. I think I get so perturbed about it because I don't know the motive behind it. Sometimes I feel like, and this goes outside of pinball too, Sometimes I feel like whenever I'm consuming media, a lot of times now, I feel like it's not necessarily information that I'm trying to consume and trying to learn, but it's like this narrative that they're pushing because of their own motives.
1:47
I just that's what gets me frustrated because I'm like, are these individuals, whether it's outside of pinball or in pinball, are they saying this because that's really what's going on? Or are they saying this just because it benefits them more to say it because it leads to consumption or clicks or monetization or whatever it may be? That's what I think fires me up. And I think the juxtaposition is like when I don't see that from my end as a distributor or a salesperson, then it's just like, well, what the fuck are they even talking about?

high confidence · Guest (distributor) has not observed a market crash from sales perspective; notes selective downturns in European manufacturers and overseas buyers

Guest@ 25:01 — Articulates the fragility of FOMO as a business strategy

  • “Metallica LE... Sold out like that. Sold for $15,000 to $18,000 afterwards. Still holding a pretty high value. That led us into Evil Dead.”

    Host@ 19:50 — Provides key evidence for the argument that Metallica, not Evil Dead, primed FOMO resurgence

  • “When something's not available and you can't get those assets, over time, shit changes... Spooky told me... we will continue to work and build relationships... because the turnover at these movie studios are so crazy.”

    Guest@ 31:37 — Reveals the persistent, relationship-based nature of IP licensing negotiations

  • “It's tasty there's it's tasty i understand why manufacturers find the promo tasty i don't understand why distributors would find the fomo tasty”

    Host@ 21:35 — Highlights a potential misalignment between manufacturer (benefits from artificial scarcity) and distributor interests

  • “Licensing is the biggest, it's a tough part in pinball, but it's not one that you can take lightly or get too comfortable in.”

    Guest@ 32:16 — Summarizes the critical importance of continuous IP pursuit in the market

    • Evil Dead
    game
    Beetlejuicegame
    Metallica LEgame
    Back to the Futuregame
    Harry Pottergame
    Scooby Doogame
    Elton Johngame
    Avatargame
    Godfathergame
    Toy Story 4game
    Winchestergame
    King Konggame
    Dungeons and Dragonsgame
    Predatorgame
    George Gomezperson
    Greg Bonesperson
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    ?

    licensing_signal: Stern has lost major IP licenses to competitors: Harry Potter (JJP), Back to the Future (unknown but not Stern), Beetlejuice (Spooky). Guest argues this is a strategic failure given Stern's 80-90% market dominance

    high · Host explicitly states Stern failed to get Harry Potter, Back to the Future, Beetlejuice; guest says someone's job should be on the line; repeated emphasis that Stern was once known for locking up IPs

  • ?

    product_launch: Evil Dead (Spooky) did not achieve instant FOMO; market buildup was gradual, with acceleration only near TPF (Texas Pinball Festival). Metallica LE (500 units, $15k-$18k secondary) primed the market beforehand

    high · Host: 'It took until right before TPF, they finally sold them all'; 'Evil Dead has everything to thank from Stern Pinball... Metallica LE... Sold out like that. That led us into Evil Dead'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Repeated negative narratives about market decline/doom circulating in industry despite distributor lacking evidence of crash; host frustrated by five years of unaccountable speculation presented as fact

    high · Host: 'by my count... you have brought this up five times this calendar year'; 'people claiming that the market is dying, doomed'; guest's wife: 'how long does that have to happen until they were wrong because it just seems like that's all people have said for five years now'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: FOMO can only be sustained if product quality/design is strong; neutral or divisive products immediately kill FOMO momentum; production quantity control is secondary to product approval

    high · Guest: 'You cannot sustain FOMO if you have one product that is not favored by the majority'; discussion of Scooby Doo overproduction + quality issues destroying FOMO; Spooky needed to improve 'quality and quantity'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Licensing remains non-stop effort; manufacturers must continually re-check 'impossible' licenses as studio turnover creates new approval pathways; licensing availability changes over time

    high · Guest describes Spooky's continuous re-checking strategy; notes studio turnover means new people, new approvals, new opportunities; 'you have to continually keep looking into things that are impossible... try to sway their opinion otherwise. It's a non-stop.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Host suspects negative market narratives are driven by content creator incentives (clicks, views, monetization) rather than actual market conditions; questions the motives behind doomsday commentary

    high · Host: 'are these individuals... saying this because that's really what's going on? Or are they saying this just because it benefits them more... because it leads to consumption or clicks or monetization'; guest: negativity 'generates controversy, it generates clicks, views... negativity sells better than positivity'

  • $

    market_signal: Limited edition games with strong IP command significant secondary market premiums: Metallica LE ($15k-$18k), Evil Dead elevated pricing; FOMO-driven scarcity pricing sustains collector demand

    high · Metallica LE: 'Sold for $15,000 to $18,000 afterwards. Still holding a pretty high value'; Evil Dead: currently selling for $15,000+ on secondary market; Greg Bones regretted selling

    • 2:22
    And Nicole just said this. Was it Nicole? I think it was Nicole, my wife. We were driving somewhere, and we were talking about like the market's supposed to be down. I thought there was a recession. I thought that pinball, nobody wanted pinball anymore. I thought that nobody was buying pinball. and I was telling her something about that and she goes so how long does that have to happen until they were wrong because it just seems like that's all people have said for five years now like a broken watch is correct
    2:55
    what twice at some point I guess yeah there will be a low market for pinball it will crash it will you know but there's just like we can just throw speculation, throw speculation as fact for years and there's no revisionist like, you know what? I kind of fucking botched that analysis. I was wrong in 23 when I said this. And I'd like to think I'd try to do that whenever I'm wrong.
    3:26
    So that's what kind of is part of it. It's part of this narrative. And maybe it's just ease of being able to just jump on the bandwagon. Oh, that's a good talking point. Let's do that. Does that make sense? Maybe that's where I'm at. Yeah, I mean, I just assume, and again, I'm not consuming the content that you must be where you hear it. I don't as much, but I still consume. So I don't think about it quite so much, and obviously I don't work in the industry, so
    4:00
    I don't think of it from that angle either. uh i have would just assume that it's people you know in the attempt to be entertaining they are taking hot takes and it's more exciting to talk about uh a downturn than there would be to talk about an upturn um yeah it kind of reminds me a few episodes ago main episode that we did here on tps i just remember because there were a few comments that came in very supportive of you because you were you really advocated for positivity you're like you know i want things
    4:31
    to be positive and people why be in the hobby and a lot of people really kind of embrace that angle and and for me it's there's a you know there's a road and my goal would be to be somewhere on the road i'm not even saying middle of the road just be on the road there's two forms of toxicity as i see it and the worst form is toxic negativity where people attack things for no reason other them the sport to be negative. And that could be part of what frustrates you here is there are people that because
    5:02
    it generates controversy, it generates clicks, views, all the rest that you've mentioned, they will say the market is doomed because negativity sells better than positivity. On the flip side, toxic positivity is also unhealthy for the hobby. It's just not as bad. So saying everything is great when it is not, saying every game is good when they are not lulls people into a bad space as well however that's boring content too it it is but it's it generates less than negativity does so we see more of the of this the market is doomed versus a
    5:38
    every game is awesome bye bye you know like people just like hype machines um where i get accused of that sure um the reason why you are you probably get accused more than some others that there are other podcasts that, and they even, they brag about it, say, I don't want to say anything negative. And you know, like my stance would be, well, why, why do you not want to, you should be willing. If something is not right, you, we should be honest. That's my view. We should be honest
    6:09
    enough with our listeners to say, I don't think this is right. I think this decision was stupid. I think this decision was incorrect. Now, some people will hear me and they will say, Dennis is overly negative because of that. I try and stay on the road. It is not my goal to be mean. Like in a happy hour thing, I may be mean for sport. I don't do it for this sort of thing because the audience is too big. So there are some that choose to never be negative and they don't do the hobby favors.
    6:42
    However, it's far more destructive to be negative all the time. even if you like like we're talking people that are like i think willy wonka is great i'm gonna shit all over it they're doing it for sport and and it's and it's extremely damaging it's more so that they shit on it and they've not played it yes well the issue is that that negativity pushes people out of the hobby toxic positivity falsely can traps people and makes them have my issue with toxic positivity is you could end up feeling like you were deceived into
    7:17
    spending and buying and doing things and it makes you dislike the hobby on the back end toxic negativity though has much it front loads all the damage so that's why i view it like if i had to pick which is worse the toxic negativity is worse now back to this discussion point though about i that's where i think it's coming from but i'll defend again without having heard these individuals specifically. I will say it depends on the slice of the market we look at, right, Zach? So you distribute for a lot of different manufacturers. It has seemed to me from the
    7:52
    reaction publicly and our discussions that we've had for the show that when we talk about like recessions, we're not in a recession, not officially, we're not in a recession. However, it does seem like the tariff scenarios have greatly impacted the performance of the non-American manufacturers and their ability to sell to Americans. That's a great point. Based off of your hands-on experience, does that part sound like, yeah, maybe it's not no one's buying games,
    8:22
    but a lot less people are buying Pinball Brothers games or... Pedretti or Pedretti or Hexa or all I would say that it We don have enough data points yet I would make that same hypothesis though that we're going to see reduction of games from those manufacturers. It's just so hard because our data points are predator. So it's like, well, I don't know if that, you know. But the back catalog, right?
    8:54
    The Abbas, the Queens, the... I mean, the same argument, though. The Funhouse remakes. Same argument. That's what's tough. If they had a big hit, then I think we would be able to tell more. That's the problem. I think what we could also look at, I don't know the numbers, but is Europe buying as many games? Is Australia buying as many games? That would be interesting. It would be. And again, from your angle, hands-on angle, you wouldn't be able to tell us that, obviously.
    9:29
    So I suspect because of retaliatory tariffs that a lot of those countries have put in. Again, I only have antidotal examples. I have heard from our friends in Canada that they are buying a lot less games because the games have become really expensive for them. because in retribution for America putting tariffs on Canadian stuff, pinball machines have been swept up on the Canadian tariffs in response, things like that. So it has sounded to me like those elements of the market are down, not because the market is down,
    10:00
    but because of economic brinksmanship that's going on between governments. I would say that even loosely, like domestically here, I think theoretically, I could even get behind the whole argument that there has been a dip quantitatively. I've just not seen it. But I think if I'm looking at every seller, if I'm looking at every manufacturer, I could see there being even maybe an interest dip, the hotness that pinball was in 2020, even though we're still pretty hot and heavy right now.
    10:36
    Probably a dip. But I don't think we're seeing it really from – I think it's like a trickle down or trickle up. I don't know which one it is. Where we're seeing the bottom people really hit, we're seeing American pinball pretty much gone. So we're seeing it. Yes. That was my next thing that I was going to mention as a possibility. So I feel like there's a pretty good case for the overseas manufacturers and maybe the overseas buyers. Like I think there's really the economics argue that we should be seeing less performance out of them.
    11:13
    And I I think we know we see less out of you're right about them. There being a lack of a hit. I mean, we could argue that the the European manufacturers have just had bad games. Predators should have been a hit, though. Now, some of that is the fault of the licensing that they secure. And they should have known better. But in the company and the company. Sure. But, you know, a lot of a lot of these companies, even bigger ones than these European ones, are pretty poorly run. They just are. I think a big test would be back to the future.
    11:48
    We're not going to see that. But are we seeing a spike in the out? We don't know yet, but are we going to see a spike in the Alice sales and a desperation to get to the front of the list and back to the future? Or is everyone spooked now that they're not going to make back to the future because they're so desperate to keep the Alice sales in place that it sounds like they have no money? I mean – That I don't think we'll ever know either way. But the other thing is a person could – I have less sympathy for this argument because it's super myopic. But again, with someone who kind of deals in antidotal data, they might go and say, well, of course the pinball market is down.
    12:23
    In 2024 – like 2023, everything was great. 2024, Haggis goes away. 2025, American pinball goes away. We're not seeing a whole bunch of new upstarts now. We're just bleeding companies. So isn't that a sign that it's going down? You could, and I could see along the same argument, and I'm fine with this argument. It's just whenever it's presented, it's presented as doomsday where it's like, eh, maybe I can see a little dip here and there, but certainly not affecting – some companies are actually going up.
    12:55
    You got, I think, Spooky's brand and their stock is up. Barrel's stock is up. Stern, regardless, I would still say they have a nice – now, maybe it's not the trajectory that it was two years ago, but I think it's still going towards the right direction. And you know what? At the end of the day, if they are corporate, it's about not only – It's about how much this pitch is.
    13:25
    This pitch, even a pitch, may not be enough. They may want that. I don't know. JJP, certainly their brand is up from Harry Potter. That overhaul, that entire brand. How many misses, and I guess it depends on definitions of misses, did they have in recent? Like Elton John obviously has gotten legs on it. It finally moved the scene. Not to the capability that that company should be. Right. And I don't expect Harry Potter even worse. Avatar. Godfather. Toy Story 4.
    14:00
    It's just it's like it's yes. Now, you also brought the thing up about FOMO. I do think FOMO is back. I actually. Isn't that wild? I didn't know if we'd ever get that back. I don't think it's healthy, but I do think it is back. It makes me nervous. Why is it not healthy? Because we've seen what happens. We've seen what happened the last time there was lots of FOMO. Speculation on shit games that resulted in people getting burned. And if anything can drive a person out of a hobby besides the toxic negativity, it would be getting burned on repeated titles.
    14:34
    I just don't like speculation, and FOMO drives speculation. I just see a thunderstorm not being a causality from a sunshiny day. Like there's just cycles, and I think we're going to have cycles. And it depends on how long you're in this hobby. We've been in this hobby long enough where we see the cycles come and go. But for somebody that takes a three-year dip into pinball and out, maybe they see the worst of it or the best of it. But I think there's always going to be cycles like this. And I like the FOMO.
    15:05
    Well, I mean, of course, sure, I sell these things, so I get that. But even from a hobbyist's perspective, this is fun. The FOMO is fun. That's why we like opening trading cards because we want to see what we're going to get in there. It's the mystery. It's the risk. It's a lot of reason why we like pinball in the first place. But, yeah, so I like the FOMO. I don't know that it's unhealthy. I think, if anything, I would argue that it is an arm of health. It is what you need.
    15:35
    It's like the dark chocolate, if you will. That chocolate's not supposed to be healthy for you, but dark chocolate actually is really healthy in doses. So that's the way I see it. It revitalizes. It's a cleansing, if you will, when you get the FOMO in your bloodstream. Because it's caffeine. A lot of people would argue caffeine is horrible for your heart. But in moderation, man, caffeine is good for you. Like coffee, I can find a list of doctors that would say that coffee is actually a good product for your body.
    16:11
    for balance and everything like caffeine in moderation actually not bad not bad it's interesting i i guess i there's excitement like excitement for games but i i view that differently than fomo for me fomo is all the worst traits of human psychology it fear it's obviously fear of missing out it's a limiting effect it's weakness it's a desire to own things because you feel like you'll be a less person for not buying it.
    16:42
    It plays to everything I don't look forward to in human qualities. So inherently, I think it appeals to a baser instinct that is not something that deserves to be cultivated. But it is understandable that it is in individuals. I don think it would ever you know FOMO running amok I don think ever kills the hobby and dooms pinball or anything like that It just we seen where I mean while it back like we seeing it more now That's why I agree that it's back. We're not seeing it in everything.
    17:14
    We're still seeing I mean, this is a lot of this conversation is being driven by Evil Dead, followed by Beetlejuice. And then what happened with Winchester? Those are really the the main ones. If you want to get a lot of this other stuff, it's still pretty obtainable. I think some of why FOMO is back is two really good things, I think. One, I think these companies, I'm thinking Spooky specifically, have gotten a lot, a lot better about getting really good licenses that drive it.
    17:47
    Like they just they're playing the game a lot better than they used to. They're listening. and another thing that I think Barrels and Spooky have done and I think what we'll see with Walking Dead Remaster is they've gotten a lot better about balancing the number of units available if you want to drive FOMO you can't make too many units if anything it's better to make too few and they're leaning into that a lot more now and it's working so in that regard they're just better
    18:18
    manufacturing now Better manufacturing the quantities that are necessary to create this sort of cataclysm of excitement that results in the need to purchase very quickly. I'm not going to be so short-sighted. I think we do this easy. We get short-sighted, and we don't give attributes to where they belong. That's why in the main episodes I was talking about everybody trending down Stern Pinball. Don't forget why we are where we're at. It's because of Stern Pinball. If we look revisionist wise
    18:50
    Back into last year We like to really think about Evil Dead This is a big point that I want to make That I want all you viewers to really pay attention And really consider this before you poo poo it We want so bad to talk about Evil Dead That's the reason that we're building the FOMO I'm not saying I'm taking this stance But I could I think what if I took the stance You all are wrong Evil Dead took quite a while to sell I think the revisionist history is saying
    19:21
    they're hard to get now and they're selling for $15,000 plus now that's a convenient easy way to look at it and to not really do the work that it takes to see what the truth is I'm saying I could argue this is that it wasn't Evil Dead has everything to thank from Stern Pinball when they before Evil Dead was even released gave you pretty much an instant sellout of Metallica LE. Only 500 units. Sold out like that.
    19:52
    Sold for $15,000 to $18,000 afterwards. Still holding a pretty high value. That led us into Evil Dead, which took a while to brew. People were like, okay, this game is solid. Okay, this game is awesome. So it might have got there by itself. But I could argue that, man, there's a hell of a primer. We forget about Metallica doing that 500 units, bam, just like that. I think part of it is because Metallica Premium is still available and made.
    20:24
    So to some individuals, they're not going to – like the link feels – It's still technically available. It feels more tenuous. I understand your angle. And you are absolutely right to point out that Evil Dead was not an instant FOMO thing. It took until right before TPF, they finally sold them all. So Spooky put in work on that one. It wasn't just – Because Greg Bones sold his because he didn't know where the market was going to go on it. He doesn't ever want to lose money on games, and he loved that game. He was like, I'm selling it because I know I can at least get my money back out of it.
    20:57
    And he's kicking himself now. He's like, damn it. I could have actually made money on that game, and that was – he owned it for a little bit of time. The reason why I think Evil Dead stands out to a lot of people, or at least I'll say why it stands out for me, is Spooky, from its inception, has been a company that has tried to use FOMO to keep their company afloat. They are a FOMO – like Stern, the FOMO for the LEs, absolutely. But we know Stern's bread and butter profits are coming in on premiums and pros.
    21:28
    They're making more off of that. They have kind of leaned into the anniversary edition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're again. Limited loophole. it's tasty there's it's tasty i understand why manufacturers find the promo tasty i don't understand why distributors would find the fomo tasty the so spooky has always relied on having limited counts and as of rob zombie because it took a while again for america's most haunted to sell out but once they finally did when they launched rob zombie like 300 units fomo sold out
    21:59
    And they kept doing that until people encountered Halloween and Ultraman. And then they made almost 2000 copies of Scooby Doo and they're still making the thing. So they lost. It's like Austin Powers as he lost his mojo. They lost their FOMO. So why is FOMO back? Because we saw Spooky get it back finally with Evil Dead. It's not like Texas Looney and Scooby. It's like they're just building them. And so now they're like, all right, here we are, Beetlejuice.
    22:31
    We're going to do less than 1,000. We're going to do all these. We're not going to make the mistakes we were doing where we put out too many of them and got too cute with deciding that the design didn't matter. We just build whatever and people will buy it because it's a world under glass. They learned lessons. Here's my last question then. What is your question? Do you think that FOMO's ability to sustain over time, do you think it is contingent upon the decisions and actions of the manufacturers, or do you think it is out of their control?
    23:13
    Oh, that's tough. I know. So is it cyclic or is it just management of how you present and launch your product? I'm mixed on it because I've – I'm sitting here thinking about it. I'm like, can they sustain this? It's – I don't have a good feeling that I have a good answer on that. I, my, what my gut, my gut is telling me, Zach, is that they can influence it.
    23:44
    Certain cyclic factors will probably influence some aspects of it because certain times, certain trends. Well, then there's control though. They say, well, then have your timing better then. Right. It's hard to forecast though. And that's the thing is like you don't – until you see where the cycle is bending on the circle, like where we are and when – and it's not really a circle, right? It's uneven. It's distorted. It's rhombus. Yes, it's rhombus.
    24:14
    And the line has got to keep going. You can't space your timing out perfect. You've got to keep that line going. I don't think any company would have the ability because of the forecasting and the things outside of their control to ever do it what will quote perfectly. However, it can be managed to some degree. In my head, it was conceivable that Spooky could have from Rob Zombie all the way to Beetlejuice sold out of every single game within, let's say, a three-month period.
    24:48
    Had they managed two things better. The quantity and the quality. But ultimately, isn't that what almost all pinball comes down to is quantity and quality? Yeah, that's the contingency there. You cannot sustain FOMO if you have one product that is not favored by the majority. The minute you have just a neutral product that some love and some hate, that streak of FOMO is dead. And we saw that.
    25:19
    Spooky again is just a great example because they've been at this for quite a while and the limited counts have made it a very interesting case – a set of case studies. But you see the instances where people would be like all right everyone ordered FOMO immediately because the art was good interesting like the concept love the theme you know interesting niches that stern never going to do then as they slowly because they don't build like stern they build slow so as the game starts to roll out oh great the the servos
    25:49
    are breaking the elevators are breaking the code's not very fun the animations are pretty ramp yeah it's it everyone at the back of the line is now like if i want to get out of this game i have to sell it at a loss like it's used and i haven't even received it yet like that was like the the biggest anti-fomo we ever saw was they made too many of them and it just wasn't a good enough product those things would have been okay if they'd been able to build them really quickly which stern has so stern has the advantage there on timing the problem with stern is their
    26:25
    sustainability for fomo is difficult because of how many units they have to make to keep that monster going. So that's the upside of Stern and the downside in that it's hard to sustain FOMO when you have to make 3,000 of every title. How much can you do FOMO? You got to get really specific. I don't think a company like Stern could ever exist entirely on a FOMO limited edition driven model. Not at their current size. It is hard to see how they keep rolling like they That is tough to see.
    26:57
    As long as – but if they can still maintain a sizable audience that might buy a Stern because it's everywhere, it's easy to service, it's reliable, they're the most affordable games. There's a market there that they've got, operators like them. There's things that Stern can rely on without trying to turn to collector FOMO. and I think we see them experimenting as you noted like the anniversaries and stuff they're experimenting a lot more they they really they I mean they're not stupid they want a bite of that
    27:28
    FOMO pie and they're taking bites and I think they're taking bigger bites now but they still the beast has to be fed and that is a big beast I recently told them in conversations you know and they already probably knew this but my my take to them because I talked to all manufacturers about what the marketplace looks like, who's doing this, how's this working. And when I talked to Stern the last couple times, it was, you know, if you guys get to the point where you're seeing what other people are doing
    27:59
    and you're wondering, hey, why isn't this working? Hey, why did this work? Like one of the things you need to pay attention to, like if you want to take command and take control of this market, you've got to go back to obtaining the IPs that you once did. I gave them the example. I said 10 years ago when a big title would come up, we would be like, oh, Stern's going to get that. But now when a big title gets announced, we're like, I don't know if Stern will get that one. Like Spooky will get that or somebody else, JJP might get that.
    28:29
    Like you've got to turn that immediately. You can check all the other boxes that other manufacturers can't. But what you're slipping on in a sense is the IPs. Like you've got to. In my opinion, somebody's job, I hate to say it so strongly, but somebody's job should be on the line for not getting Harry Potter, for not getting Beetlejuice's turn, for not getting Back to the Future. That's pretty harsh to say, but if you own 80 to 90% of the industry marketplace and another company, less formidable company, is able to get that, then you have failed.
    29:09
    You failed. I don't care what the excuse is. I don't care what the cost. You failed. They were able to get it. You weren't. It's failure. And somebody should account for that. Like whoever's making those decisions, if I'm running that company, the worst PR move is George Gomez saying like, oh, nobody was passionate about that. I do not want to hear that shit. I do not. That's a joke. You get passionate. I can't assume that Stern can – that some won't slip through, that some – a coup will happen and some company will end up getting a license that probably should have gone to Stern.
    29:43
    But it is – I do agree. I mean look, I know you can – They were known for locking up IPs. Remember that? You can demand – it was – these other companies are – well, they're still small. They're bigger than they used to be. Oh, yeah. I think it's a lot to demand that they bat 1,000. That being said, I agree with you. The choices that they have made lately are not recipes for fun. Like King Kong ain't selling because it's King Kong. Dungeons and Dragons, Drawn Wick, these are not A-tier choices when A-tier choices exist.
    30:18
    Because I do agree with you, regardless of my own personal opinions, Back to the Future, Harry Potter, Beetlejuice, those all made more sense than the three I just named. If I'm Stern Pinball, I'm making my competitors earn their wins. I'm making them earn their wins by taking risks on lower IP because they get all the assets and they put a lot in their games. I'm making them earn it. I'm not putting on a fucking silver platter Harry Potter or Back to the Future or Beetlejuice for them. It's just – it's not happening if I'm running Stern Pinball.
    30:48
    So I totally understand why Stern would pass on Predator if they're like, we can't have Schwarzenegger because it's a licensing mess between three companies. Okay, there's no way we're doing it. But here's the problem, though. They did that. I don't know if the truth is, but maybe that happened like back to the future. We couldn't get the assets. We heard that. I think even Spooky told me or somebody told me that they looked into it. That's a good point. But they couldn't get it. And then later on, they could get it. Then I would argue, you've got to see what it costs to lock it up then. Or make sure that every stone has been unturned.
    31:20
    And what I have been told by manufacturers is this, that when something's not available and you can't get those assets, over time, shit changes. So some of the – I know Spooky's told me this. Like they've said, we have to continually check in on the things that are impossible to get. We will continue to work and build relationships and to see if anything – because the turnover at these movie studios are so crazy. There's so much turnover. There's always going to be new people. You can get everything
    31:52
    approved and signed upon after already agreeing to something. And before you launch the game, there's new people that are like, now we're running marketing. Now we have to go over all this. We don't like this. And they'll change shit on you. So you have to continually keep looking into things that are impossible to make sure twice a year that they're still impossible and to try to sway their opinion otherwise. It's a non-stop. Licensing is the biggest, it's a tough part in pinball, but it's not one that you can take lightly or get too comfortable in.
    32:24
    I will say that, and I don't want to, this would be a whole other Patreon special. Yeah, we've already done here. Yeah, but with Stern, I still, even the big dog, even the one that makes a lot of the right moves, the decision not to focus on licensing and instead to be like, I still don't know what Jack Danger is doing now that he's not a designer, but why that and not more effort on licensing is beyond me. Like licensing is going to get you more sales than whatever the hell he's doing.
    32:55
    And Stern's got the gameplay better than anybody in this industry. They've got all of us collectors believing that they have the best gameplay feel. What's the last game that Stern had that actually had a really – a truly bad layout, a bad one? I can't say. Some would say maybe WWE. Well, yeah. Some might not include anything in the LCD era. Some might. I can't off the top of my head think of a bad one.
    33:28
    I mean, they got some of the stuff on lock is what I'm saying. And that's where people will be critical about the – and I mean there have been toys and stuff that have failed, absolutely. Sure. But just in terms of an enjoyable-to-shoot layout if everything is working right, they've done things pretty smooth over there. I don't think they go quietly. I mean, yeah, Stern, just wait. They'll turn it on. They'll be fine. Okay. That was good.
    33:58
    Man, it all fired up. I guess we'll find out from the listeners. Yeah. Thanks, guys. You can turn it off now. Tell a friend to join, too. you