In my defense, you gotta know That when it comes, it never goes You know he goes until it's gone Say it, say it, say it, say it, say it, say it Welcome everybody, happy Friday, it is Kaneda This is Kaneda's Pinball Podcast The world's favorite pinball podcast When people actually got a chance to vote What are we going to talk about today? Well, there's a lot going on in the pinball world We got Pulp Fiction machines are making their way out into the world. That is exciting. I can't wait for more people to jump on Pulp Fiction and get more reviews of this game. They're sending out both the Black Coin Door Edition and the Silver Coin Door Edition. So that's happening right now. Exciting news from the world over in Spooky Land. We are going to get Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes are both starting to ship on Monday, right? That's great news. Some of you are going to have this game for Valentine's Day. That's exciting. Most people haven't played these games yet. You know, we're going to see them pretty soon. I'm not sure if any are going to make their way to New York City. It's always like a conundrum. It's like, where exactly are we supposed to play these boutique games? I'm in New York City. You think every game would find their way through New York City. I still have not been able to play The Godfather. I know people are mad at me. They're like, Chris, you're saying Elton John is amazing. and you're ragging on Godfather, is it my fault that at Pinball Machine, based on The Godfather, which is a movie that takes place in New York City, there's nowhere to play one? And you would think Jersey Jack Pinball would basically get a game to New York, considering that New Jersey, you're called Jersey Jack, you should have at least set up a game somewhere in New York City to get people on it, get people excited, they've done no such thing. You know, I don't know. By the time I get on a Godfather, everyone's already talking about Elton John. We've got Stern Pinball and Jaws pros making their way out the door. And I know there's a lot of conversation happening around the Jaws code and whether or not, like, Stern is going to fix the code in the game. And what we're hearing from people over at Stern is that they are reworking the way the clips are going to be laid out in the game. So right now, the game is a little bit of a mess, right? It's all over the place. It's a little janky. It's kind of like throwing a ton of clips into a blender. But Stern Pinball is going to get this game right. I think by the time this game is done, it is going to be a beautiful interpretation of Jaws Pinball. Yes, there is not the mechanical magic I would love in this game, but it shoots really well and they're going to get the code right. And I think that's going to give a lot of people some confidence in ordering the game. Now, I still would not order the game right now, and here's why. Why would you order a Jaws right now in which the code is not done, and they might be overhauling the code, and that's going to take a few months to do. By the time they redo the code in the game and make the game it should be, the game's going to be out for a few months. And if you wait, you'll be able to save a lot of money. You'll be able to get an LE for less than $13,000. And I think it's going to be an easy deal to make with distributors who are going to be sitting on a ton of premiums and pros and probably some LEs. I know it sounds like I'm beating a dead horse, but every single game is basically going to go down in value. The entire market is overpriced everywhere you look. And so if you just wait it out, you're going to be able to get a Jaws when the code is right for the right price. And I think a lot of people are just starting to do that. You don't have to slam people buying it right now. I understand why some people would buy it right now because JAWS might be your dream theme and you might still have some FOMO and you might want to get an LE. And if you have a JAWS LE on order, I don't think you're going to be disappointed. And I don't think you're even going to care if your machine loses like $1,000 or $2,000 in value because the peace of mind for people buying it at $13,000 is just simply this, you got one and you don't have to worry about getting one. There's no anxiety around getting one. Now, if you're one of those people who bought James Bond, Ellie, and maybe Foo Fighters, Ellie, looking back now, do you wish you would have waited longer to get the game because you could have saved so much money? But look, the flip side, devil's advocate on that approach. If you waited a year, you would not have had a year enjoying the game. And that's the balance. Everyone's just got to figure out for yourselves. How much do you want to enjoy today? And how much do you want to enjoy tomorrow? Can you wait and be patient and save money? Or do you want to jump in the brand new game right now and have some fun? There's a lot of people out there, right? $2,000 to $3,000 doesn't mean anything. And they're willing to take that hit. And they might never want to sell the game. And if you never want to sell a game, you don't care about the resale value. And yes everybody would love to get something for less money That just obvious I was looking over at pin side and then I saw once again this Haggis pinball thread creeping up towards the top of the Pinside thread list and I started reading up on what's going on and here's what's going on. There are still people that ordered this game over eight months ago and I'm talking about Fathom Mermaid Editions. Over eight months ago there are still people who paid in full that don't have their game. And I just want to ask each and every one of you, at what point, and maybe you don't care, and I think most people don't care, but at what point, at what point do we hold Haggis and the Haggis apologists accountable, right? When do they become accountable? They once again told people they were going to do something, and they were going to get all the Fathom Mermaid additions done by the end of the year. remember when they were taking deposits on centaur and i told everybody don't give a deposit on centaur because they're not going to hold true to their word they're not going to finish fathoms by the end of the year they're not going to start shipping centaurs in january go back and read what they said it's not just read what they said remember they made a video in which when they took your money on Centaur. They said they were going to have Centaur production happen in January. Here we are. It's almost mid-February and has anybody seen any Centaur production going on? And not just that. There's people that have deposit money in on Fathoms and they're not getting any correspondence. And I'm just going to say this right now. I don't understand why anybody? Why is anybody defending Damien and Marty and this company at this point? And I'm just asking them to just get back to your customers. You don't have to get back to Canada. I'm never buying anything these guys ever make. Never. I will never support a company like this. I don't think you get to do this. I don't think you get to lock in people's money for years and then not correspond with the people. Why? Why would we forgive them of this? Like someone could have $8,000 in a savings account that's giving them 3% to 4% return on their investment, and you could be making a few hundred dollars, or your money could be tied up with Haggis Pinball, and why are you giving them a loan? Think about that. When Damien is taking your money, he's promised all of these people you would have your game in eight weeks, and so you're giving him alone to keep his company afloat. I bet your money is going to rent. I bet your money is going to vendors. You know where your money's not going. It's not going to your game. And how long can he string everybody along? I think the apologists are just looking real silly. And once again, Damien said something that did not come true. How many times do these guys get to lie to the pinball community before people hold them accountable? And here's what I think is happening. I think people are holding them accountable. I don't think people are going to order Centaur. You know, it's one of these like fool me once, fool me twice kind of scenarios. Like who's going to invest in this? And now that everybody's witnessing, there's no secondhand market on any of these games. So why would you lock your money in on any of these Centaur remakes? Here's what you should do. Just let the people that are distributing this game, let them take the risk. Let them order the games. Don't put the risk on your shoulders. And hey, when the distributors get a game and it's in a box and it's in their warehouse, yeah, then order the game. Not until then. Why would you want to order it now? Let the distributor pay for the air freight and filling up a container. Why would you take that cost on on top of the game? So you're going to lose $1,500 in value on an air freight cost? It's absolutely inane. So I think Agus Pinball is on a short list of companies that I really don't know how they're going to survive 2024 with so much competition. There's just too many companies executing on a much better level. New companies like Barrels of Fun, right? Is anyone getting jerked around by Barrels of Fun? Are they telling you you gotta pay in full for your game and you're gonna have it in eight weeks and eight months go by? No, they're not. Spooky Pinball's not jerking anyone around. There's Elton John's in boxes. You can go get this weekend. Chicago Gaming Company, now that Pulp Fiction is on the line, I fully expect to see a ton of Pulp Fictions out the door over the next six months. There's going to be a lot of pinball making its way into the world over the next six months. It's going to get really, really interesting to see what happens over the next six months. And it got me thinking, like, what am I most excited for? If I were to be honest, what am I most looking forward to in the pinball world? Well, I'm going to go from the end of the year to now. Like everybody else, I'm so excited for Back to the Future. I can't explain enough how excited we all are that we're going to get a Back to the Future game made by Dutch Pinball, and it's going to have all of the assets in the game. I mean, that is so exciting to each and every one of us. Now there a lot of questions How much is the game going to cost How is Dutch Pinball going to deal with the overwhelming demand they going to get for this game right We know on day one a Dutch Pinball Back to the Future game would easily get 5,000 orders from this community. Even if the price is $13,500, they're going to have 5,000 people who want this game. There's no way they're going to even be able to get close to supplying enough games a week and a month to even get near the high demand for this game, which I think has some people nervous that Dutch might price it really high to try to soften some of that demand and give their manufacturing line a chance at this thing, right? It's still crazy to each and every one of us that Stern Pinball didn't secure this license. I don't know what magic Roger Sharp worked on this theme, got this game for Dutch Pinball, and Stern didn't lock it down. It's crazy, especially because Joe Kamnikow has such a relationship with Gary. Like, how did all of this go down? So we've got Back to the Future from Dutch Pinball, right? Are they going to make 88 super limited edition games? How much are those going to cost, right? With all the demand for this game, it feels like you could charge $88,000. So I'm super excited for Back to the Future. That's the thing that has me the most excited. The second game that I am so excited for is the next game from Jersey Jack. And I'll explain why. Because it's Mark Mark Seiden. It's a new designer who's been over at Jersey Jack for like three years now. And this is his first game. And I do believe this, that when you're a designer and you want to make a name for yourself in the pinball world, your first game has to be a hit. You want to put everything into your first game because it's your moment, right? It's your moment to tell everybody out there in the pinball world that you belong on the big stage. And Mark's been given a great opportunity with a company that's got a lot of money. They've got a beautiful pinball package. But they're also a company that's in a strange position right now. Jersey Jacks had two flops in a row. And you might even say they've got three potential flops in a row. And it's not that Elton John is a bad game. It's just not selling. None of their last games have come anywhere close to selling the amount of games that Guns N' Roses sold within a month. And it's obvious why. The themes aren't really clicking with the pinball buying community and the price is so high. So Mark Mark Seiden is going to come out with a game at an interesting time. Is it going to be standard body or wide body? I think it's going to be standard body. What is he going to put into the game, right? Is he going to give us a fast game that's pretty empty but with great flow like Elton John? Or is he going to load it back up? Is it going to be something more like dialed in? Is he going to find a way to put a lot more toys and mechanical magic into a standard body jersey jack game? And then the real thing that has everybody excited is the possibility that this is either going to be Harry Potter or The Matrix. Now, I'm just going to tell you right now, I did not read the Harry Potter books. I've seen all of the Harry Potter movies, but I am not a Harry Potter aficionado. I would much rather it be The Matrix, and I hope it's based on the first Matrix movie, and I'll explain why. I think it's much easier to take that first Matrix movie and turn it into one of the most incredible theme-integrated pinball machines ever made. And Jersey Jack, with its lighting system and with its ability to use magnets and toys, I could just see the world of Matrix coming to life like never before in a pinball experience, using like magnets to create bullet time, having a phone booth that you can lock balls inside of. It's right there, the sentinels that you need to destroy. Like there's so much opportunity to bring the Matrix world under glass. And then just think about all that black and green, the green lights just raining down the machine and making it feel like you're inside the Matrix. And I feel like if they can get the assets from that Matrix movie and the music and the call outs, it could just be one of the coolest pinball machines of all time. And my worry with Harry Potter is I don't think they're going to have the movie assets. I think it's going to be more like Wizarding World and it's going to be inspired by the world of Harry Potter. But it's going to be so hard to translate that into a pinball machine that's absolutely going to be incredible. But there's no denying the fact, right, that Harry Potter is a juggernaut theme. And if you love Harry Potter, absolutely, you're going to want to own that pin. It's just not for me. So personally, Harry Potter is not something that I'm dying to see. I would much rather see Top Gun. I would even rather have Beastie Boys than Harry Potter. So that's what's got me excited, though, is like Mark's game and Back to the Future. Now, after those two games, the next on my list is Alice in Wonderland. I'm just going to say it. Alice in Wonderland, a John Papadu game made by Dutch Pinball, and you know it's going to have a lot of magnets. You know it's going to have an upper play field. You know it's going to have toys You know it going to have the craziest art package of all time and it also just going to be super limited Like they not going to make a lot of these games And I think as a collector and you want to have something unique in your lineup I think this game is going to be it And I looking at the game right now people I can tell you right now, this game is going to shoot pretty awesome. It's not going to be a clunky J-pop Raza design. Trust me. I think it's going to shoot just fine. And I think it's going to shoot more like a Tales of the Arabian Nights and a lot less like a Raza. So that's Alice in Wonderland. And the questions around that game are tremendous, right? It's like, how many are they going to make? How much is it going to cost? How are they going to finish the artwork without zombie Yeti? So a lot of question marks on that game. We know that game is coming out within six months. And I'm not even mentioning Stern Pinball. I'm not even mentioning Pulp Fiction, which I have to pay for. And all of a sudden, like I'm sitting down in my chair and realizing, well, wait, Chris, you've got too many games you want. You don't have a house yet. You don't have room for all of these things, you're going to have to make some choices. And I think all of us are in the same boat. We're going to have to make choices, right? We're not going to be able to buy everything we even want. We're not going to be able to go in on full price on all of these games because it's probably just too much money to invest in pinball in one year. And if I had to like look at all of it, I would just wait for back to the future. I mean, it's easy to just wait for back to the future. It's probably not going to be impossible to get an Alice in Wonderland secondhand. You know, there's just going to be a lot of people that don't want that game because they hate J-pop. I get it. That's going to happen. Pulp Fiction LEs are not going to be hard to get. We all know this. Like once they make a thousand Pulp Fiction LEs, I think we're going to see a lot of them up for sale at any given time. There's always going to be like eight to 10 of them for sale. And yeah, you might have to spend a thousand or $2,000 more to get one, but they're not going to be hard to get. But Back to the Future to me feels like a game that when people get it, they're never going to let it go. It's just that kind of theme. I feel like the Matrix is the same way. If they nail Matrix, that collector's edition of a Jersey Jack Matrix, they will sell out of a thousand of them at $15,000 a pop instantly. So it might be a year in which we might have to get back into the good graces of our distributor friends to make sure they can grab us one of these in-demand games. But we're all going to have to make choices, right? We're all going to have to make choices because for a lot of you out there, you don't have any room. For a lot of you out there, you need to sell a game to get a new game. If the secondhand market is going to just destroy you, you know, you're not going to be very happy and it might not free up capital for some of these newer games. But here's the good news. Here's the good news. The secondhand market on almost every single game that came out before 2019 is really strong still. You're still going to make money on those games because you got those games for the right price. The only people getting destroyed are the newbies who came into pinball during COVID and bought all the new stuff. If you're one of those people, you're just going to get destroyed on the secondhand value. But for most of us out there, you got your games at a different time. You didn't spend that much money on them and almost none of them has lost that much value. So you're not really feeling the pain. It just feels like in the world of pinball today, if you go in on everything new, that's where the pain lies. Like that's when you're going to get absolutely hosed. I think it's going to be a really interesting year. I'm really happy to sort of wait and see what happens next. I think there's a lot of pressure on companies like Haggis to survive. There's pressure on companies like American Pinball to survive and Multimorphic. I think what we're going to see in 2024 is a real division of those that are going to make it and those that are clearly about to flatline. And I don't think there's going to be any in between. You either have a hit game that people want. There's no longer going to be the ability to just slowly survive. I think those days are going to be over. I could easily see us thinning out the amount of companies making pinball in 2024. I would not be surprised if three to four pinball companies closed their doors this year. And it's not that I'm rooting for them to close their doors. Remember, all of these companies have been making their own decisions. If a pinball company has to close its doors, it's because it made bad decisions. They brought stuff into the market people didn't want. Unless you've got a billionaire backer unless you've got another company floating your operation and some of them do everybody else is in big trouble if they're a boutique company that needs sales it's going to be quite the year to watch how everything unfolds everybody have a great friday we'll be back tomorrow with our saturday morning spectacular let me know what you think about this episode let me know in the comment section what's the one game that you're really waiting to get in 2024 and let's just compare notes and have some fun. Everybody, talk to you soon.