Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 19 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·1h 24m·held·Aug 14, 2024
View original

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Electric Bat Arcade breaks down earnings data and tackles operator questions on game tiers, maintenance, and virtual pinball viability.

Summary

Rachel Bess and Cale Hernandez of Electric Bat Arcade discuss their venue's earnings data across modern and classic pinball machines, revealing John Wick's continued dominance and strategic placement effects. They address operator questions about Pro vs Premium purchases, manufacturing system knowledge, and virtual pinball feasibility, while highlighting Chicago Gaming's exceptional customer service after a catastrophic Pulp Fiction failure and promoting the Canopy streaming service's September limited release of 'Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game' with a live Q&A featuring Roger Sharp.

Key Claims

  • John Wick has held the #1 position at Electric Bat for the second consecutive month with a significant lead over the #2 game (Jaws), driven by Stern Insider Connected contracts pushing players to play during contract windows

    high confidence · Hosts discussing their location's live earnings data from current operational results

  • Stern Insider Connected contracts generate predictable traffic spikes (~15 minutes after contract push) at arcade locations

    high confidence · Cale describing observable pattern at their venue during contract deployments

  • Players do not demonstrate willingness to pay premium pricing for Premium edition machines, and operators see no revenue difference between Pro and Premium versions

    high confidence · Rachel and Cale directly answering Mike Flanagan's operator question based on their operational experience across 75-80 games

  • Electric Bat owns approximately 10-11 pinball machines in storage/restoration at any given time, with 75-80 machines on the floor across two locations

    high confidence · Direct response to Mike Flanagan's question about reserve inventory

  • Chicago Gaming responded within one hour to a Sunday morning message about catastrophic Pulp Fiction board failure and shipped replacement parts (board, coils, wiring harness) within a week

    high confidence · Rachel and Cale describing incident where Pulp Fiction's pawn shop drop target mech coil locked and melted wiring harness

  • Pulp Fiction machines have a known wiring harness routing issue where cables can contact the pawn shop mech coil and cause catastrophic melting; fix requires ensuring harness runs behind (not on coil side of) drop target assembly

    high confidence · Technical warning shared from their operational experience

  • Virtual pinball cabinets from VP Cabs brand cost between $8,000-$9,000, comparable to high-end pinball machine pricing

    medium confidence · Cale reporting on pricing research while discussing feasibility for venue

Notable Quotes

  • “Every time they do that, every time a contract comes through... it's going to be about 15 minutes until people start coming in. Everybody that has a job that they can get away from.”

    Cale Hernandez @ ~17:30 — Demonstrates predictable behavioral pattern of Stern Insider Connected contract pushes driving venue traffic, indicating effectiveness of Stern's engagement mechanics

  • “Players, we've never seen a difference between a pro and a premium, even whenever we have had both versions of the game earn the same. Right. So never buy, as operator pro tip, never buy a premium or an LE because you think people are going to want to play it more.”

    Rachel Bess @ ~26:00 — Direct operator advice contradicting manufacturer pricing strategy; suggests Pro/Premium/LE pricing model may not reflect player preferences

  • “The pawn shop... the three drop target mech, the coil locked on and completely melted... Everything just melted together, shorted the board, shorted a lot of stuff.”

    Rachel Bess @ ~52:00 — Public identification of specific mechanical failure mode in Pulp Fiction requiring community awareness

  • “Chicago Gaming, when our Pulp Fiction had a catastrophic meltdown... they messaged us on a Sunday morning. They responded to us within an hour... that Monday... parts are on the way.”

    Rachel Bess @ ~51:00 — Praise for manufacturer customer service responsiveness; sets expectation standard for industry

  • “I don't think it's sacrilege in any way. I'm all for new things... but if I went to an arcade they had a VP pin, I'd drop some money in it to see what's going on.”

    Cale Hernandez @ ~80:00 — Balanced perspective on virtual pinball from experienced venue operator; acknowledges novelty appeal but indicates it wouldn't drive sustained play

  • “The reason you don't see this [tournament mode buttons] at a lot of places is because people just don't know about it because the tournament button is cheap. I think it's like $15.”

    Rachel Bess @ ~42:00 — Identifies information gap in operator community regarding cost-effective revenue optimization feature

Entities

Electric Bat ArcadeorganizationRachel BesspersonCale HernandezpersonChicago GamingcompanyStern PinballcompanyPulp FictiongameJohn Wick

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Premium and LE editions command no pricing premium or revenue premium vs Pro editions at operator locations; suggests manufacturer three-tier model misaligned with location player preferences

    high · Rachel: 'Players, we've never seen a difference between a pro and a premium... never buy a premium or an LE because you think people are going to want to play it more.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern Insider Connected contracts demonstrably drive immediate venue traffic (~15 minutes after push notification), suggesting engagement mechanics are effective at converting casual awareness to active play

    high · Cale: 'Every time they do that... it's going to be about 15 minutes until people start coming in. Everybody that has a job that they can get away from.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Operator community demonstrates selective manufacturing engagement based on comfort with technical systems; willingness to pass on games (TX Sector, Volcano) rather than expand into unfamiliar platforms

    medium · Rachel and Cale explaining decision to pass TX Sector to Mark due to System 80 unfamiliarity; similar decision pattern with Volcano and Gottlieb

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Operator community largely unaware of tournament mode cash game feature despite minimal cost (~$15-20) and ease of installation; suggests information distribution gap

    high · Rachel: 'The reason you don't see this at a lot of places is because people just don't know about it because the tournament button is cheap.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Chicago Gaming demonstrated exceptional manufacturer support responsiveness (1-hour response Sunday, 1-week parts delivery) setting positive industry benchmark

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.254

0:00
Today's episode of the Electric Batcast is brought to you by Stern. Insider Connected. Head to sternpinball.com to sign up today. Marco's specialties, everything pinball. Pinball parts and more at marcopinball.com. And Game Room Goodies. Check out gameroomgoodies.com for new and used pinball machines, arcade games, jukeboxes, pool tables, and more. And now, the click and clack of pinball, Rachel Bess and Cale Hernandez.
0:56
But you like to oil paint. And you have a gallery show coming up. So we've been busy with that. We're preparing for a morning show. Yeah. A local Phoenix morning show. More about that in a soon-to-come episode or keep up with our social media.
1:14
Yeah, but we're here. I think it's been like four weeks. It's been a while. Because the last show we did earnings report. And I've got more earnings reports. And we have another earnings report. This is great. People love the earnings report, and we are glad to let everybody know what's going on. Yes.
1:33
First of all, before we get into that, we have what's coming up at the bat, and I'll tell you what's coming up. Chewy is doing all of these cool, just for fun tournaments. Yeah. No Whopper Points called Bats Night Out, and every Bats Night Out is a different style of tournament. sometimes it's a split flipper sometimes it's a team challenge where teams of three go at it and we have another one coming up august 21st that's a wednesday right we don't know the format yet it's a surprise yeah it might be a split flipper it might be something else well we'll have to know beforehand we will know and then we will know we'll put it in the discord yep we'll tell everybody about it we'll talk about it on social media and what have you that's august 21st. That's Wednesday.

Tournament mode button installation costs under $20 and requires minimal effort (four spade clips, four spade connectors), but most operators are unaware of the feature

medium confidence · Rachel and Cale discussing tournament cash game feature in response to Merc Dirty question; pricing stated as 'like $15' and 'might be like $10'

  • Godzilla Premium has never dropped out of the top three earning games at Electric Bat since its installation

    medium confidence · Cale noting uncertainty ('I'm going to have to look back over the data') but expressing confidence in top-three consistency

  • Deadpool earnings increased almost 50% over the previous month following a code update that added new badges, correlated with push notifications to Apple Watch

    high confidence · Rachel discussing Stern Insider Connected data and observable traffic pattern

  • “We've talked about this before... we're pretty much maxed out in storage. So we have to sell Galactic Tank Force to make room for some new stuff to come in.”

    Cale Hernandez @ ~30:00 — Reveals space constraints limiting reserve inventory rotation strategy for active venue operator

  • “Whenever it comes to new transistors... these are all surface mount components. There's not a lot of tinkering you can do... Sterns are the same way, but you've got node boards.”

    Rachel Bess @ ~47:00 — Technical assessment of modern vs. classic manufacturer repairability; suggests newer manufacturers have steeper learning curve and limited field-repair options

    • game
    Jawsgame
    Godzilla Premiumgame
    Deadpoolgame
    Black Knightgame
    Attack from Marsgame
    Fishtailsgame
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Roger Sharpperson
    Canopyorganization
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    VP Cabscompany
    Mike Flanaganperson
    Merc Dirtyperson
    Sniff Deluxeperson
    TX Sectorgame
    American Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Poison Girl Barorganization

    high · Rachel praising Chicago Gaming's response time and comprehensive parts replacement for catastrophic Pulp Fiction failure

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Strategic placement impact demonstrated: moving Stranger Things to prime bar location resulted in upward movement in earnings ranking; positioning near ATM (Attack from Mars) is acknowledged retail tactic

    high · Rachel: 'Stranger Things from one corner to kind of a prime spot... is now in fourth place... just by moving the game'

  • $

    market_signal: Virtual pinball cabinets priced at $8,000-$9,000 competing directly with premium physical pinball machine pricing; not seen achieving sustained venue adoption

    medium · Cale research showing VP Cabs pricing; Rachel stating no intention to install virtual pinball at their venue despite acknowledging novelty appeal

  • ?

    community_signal: Roger Sharp documented in promotional materials for 'Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game' and accessible for community Q&A via Canopy platform, indicating continued public-facing involvement

    high · Canopy partnership promoting Roger Sharp live Q&A September 12; Rachel identifying him as 'the Roger Sharp movie' director

  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball noted as having complete creative team turnover from original era; current company composition unrelated to original design ethos, affecting operator confidence in system support

    medium · Rachel: 'I mean, that's a whole other... So, it depends which game you're talking about. We've had a lot of luck with Hot Wheels. And I think if you follow American Pinball, nobody from that era is still with the company.'

  • $

    market_signal: Galactic Tank Force price drop to $6,400 insufficient to drive venue adoption; underperforming compared to 50-cent and dollar-per-play classics, indicating market saturation or design appeal issues

    medium · Rachel noting Galactic Tank Force doing worse than classic games and describing it as sale candidate to free storage space

  • ?

    product_concern: Pulp Fiction wiring harness routing design flaw creates catastrophic failure risk where pawn shop mech coil can melt adjacent cables, requiring field fix awareness

    high · Rachel identifying specific mechanical failure mode and remediation steps for community awareness

  • ?

    technology_signal: Modern manufacturers (American Pinball, Spooky, Chicago Gaming) use surface mount components limiting field-repair capability vs Stern's node board architecture allowing component-level fixes

    medium · Rachel: 'There's not a lot of tinkering you can do... Sterns are the same way, but you've got node boards, and you can kind of swap out smaller components'

    • 2:22
    And we are excited. Not only do we have, as sponsors, not only do we have Stern Insider Connected, Game Room Goodies, and Marco's Specialties, we have a new sponsor. Yes. It's Canopy. Canopy. And I don't know a whole lot about Canopy.
    2:39
    I usually go to the library and check out, you know, the brick and mortar. Old school library. You check out paper books. But there's other things you can do. There's a whole online aspect to your local public library. And here's Rachel to tell us all about it. Yeah, so whenever you said that someone from Canopy from the library system reached out to us, I was freaking out. This is like dream sponsorship stuff for me. Right. Yeah, so Canopy is the streaming service arm of the public library system. They're not in every single library, but they are in most libraries. So it's Canopy with a K, K-A-N-O-P-Y. But basically, with your library card, you can watch streaming films. And they're sponsoring us specifically because they're putting the pinball movie. Is that pinball, The Man Who Saved the Game? Is that the full title? I think that's the – The Roger Sharp movie. The Sharp family. Yeah. So that's going to be on there from September 5th through 16th. So it's like limited engagements. It's sort of like the movie theater where you can watch something for, you know, not always. So for that bit of time, you can watch Pinball, the man who saved the game, on Canopy. You can chat about it. There's like discussion boards, live stuff. Check this out. On September 12th at 12 p.m. Eastern, there's going to be a live conversation with Roger Sharp that you can join in on. So that's free for everybody. What? Yeah. Very cool. So you can chit-chat with Roger Sharp, ask him questions.
    4:22
    The man. You can talk to the man. The number one Sharp. Right. Sorry, Josh and Zach. But you can talk to Josh in Discord. You can talk. Yeah. Go to Discord. Roger's a little bit more elusive, right? So, yeah, and we'll be talking about that a little bit more, but I think it's really awesome. So you can watch a pinball movie through your public library, through the Canopy streaming service. Check it out. And how do we get there? I'll put a link in the show notes, but is there a Canopy website? So you would search for it through your public library website. So, you know, Phoenix Public Library for us local people, but there's through your library system. very cool and very exciting thank you so much canopy yay library for the sponsorship yes good deal and and be sure you go to your local library and check out some books because if you don't keep checking them out they don't get to keep getting them there you go and we want them to have all kind of fantastic books um we have a ton of of great great questions yeah i saw a lot of good ones coming through the pipes quality this is going to be a quality show oh i'm glad to hear it i'm so so happy everybody's here to uh to listen um but i want i want to do something different oh okay i want to i want to go into the earnings report first oh i wasn't let's knock out the earnings report yeah i like to shuffle it up a little bit knock it out makes it sound like uh you know we got to get through it to get to the good stuff but oh no no no i'm just so excited about these questions. I want the data. Let's get ready to it. I want to put the data out there, yeah. Okay, so first there's an asterisk. Looney Tunes and Pulp Fiction, which would have been in the top ten. Pulp Fiction had kind of a catastrophic issue that, man, they were so great. Chicago Gaming was fantastic about shipping us some new parts right away, but we did lose some data on that. So Pulp Fiction and Looney Tunes are not included in this okay um tied for number 10 isn't that weird that you have exact same you know down to the quarter um batman 66 and medieval madness wow 10th place fantastic uh ninth place 60th anniversary bond oh okay that fell down a little bit yep but again like all of these like in 5 through 10, they're so close together. It's kind of like basically if two people who really like those games didn't show up one weekend, then that's enough to swap places. Number eight is Fishtails. We put Fishtails back on the floor after it's been off the floor for a good six months. People have been asking about it. We went over it. We fixed it. It had like a reset issue. Yeah. Yeah, Shopple was working on that. We worked on some play field stuff. Replacing rubbers. Replacing all kinds of things. Taking off all kinds of ramps so you can get to the rubbers. That was fun. We had a good time doing that. We did. It was fun to do that together. I was on one side, you were on the other. We double teamed it. We Eiffel Towered the fishtails.
    7:42
    Attack from Mars is in seventh place. Is that usually a top ten game? I don't think it's usually this high. It's usually a favorite, and it is the first game you see when you walk into the arcade. For sure. Strategically, right next to the ATM. Yep, Retail 101.
    8:03
    Deadpool was in number six. Is that new? There's some shake-ups this month. But there was a recent Deadpool update. Yes. They had some new... I don't know exactly what was going on. Check the readme. You could get some badges. You could get badges. But they added other stuff to the code. The update wasn't the badges.
    8:26
    Oh, I thought that they added additional badges that you could get. It was like a limited time thing that you go in and get all of those. Well, they did. But I don't think it requires a software update for badges. Oh, I see what you're saying. You see what I'm saying? Yes. But they may have added rules that allowed you to get the badges. Got it. But more about Deadpool badges later on. We did have people coming in specifically to play Deadpool after that push notification came through on the Apple Watch. So I do think that's what's responsible for Deadpool really jumping up in the earnings. It jumped up by almost 50% over last month. So that's some interesting Stern Insider connected data for you. Wow. That is impressive. That kind of freshness will push people. to and and whenever you're in the sixth position 50 is no small chunk of change so thank you stern for doing that thank you deadpool team yeah we um thank you uh for helping us pay those summer electricity bills at the bat um in fifth place black knight okay yep and that was um that was game of the month last month oh that that was the cash game the top game yes top yes the tournament game and i think we have a question about that we do um it's in fifth place here's another interesting retail 101 you might remember we moved stranger things from one corner to kind of a prime spot and it is now in fourth place okay so it went up it went up a little bit um just by moving the game to a i i get like close to a the bat bar there um in third place godzilla premium i'm gonna have to look back over um the data from godzilla for as long as we've had it But I don't think it's ever dropped out of the top three. I'm not sure. Okay. Second place, Jaws.
    10:36
    Wow. And then in the number one spot. John Wick. For the second month in a row. And it is a significant lead over Jaws. What's going on there? This is a combination of new game plus they're doing stuff with Insider Connected. It's the contracts. We haven't seen before. Is that what you think? I think it's the contracts that's pushing it. Because every time they do that, every time a contract comes through, we, I mean, if we're at work, we can just kind of count down. It's going to be about 15 minutes until people start coming in. Everybody that has a job that they can get away from. You know, if you're an Uber driver, it's like, oh, turn off the app for a little bit. We do have a lot of Uber drivers that come through. Yes, we do. We have a lot of people that are doing their own. They grab a stiff liquor drink and then get back on the road? No, I'm just kidding. That doesn't happen. No, they don't. They usually grab a taco and then hit the road. But I'm not done yet with the earnings. Oh, okay. Because we have the classics earnings as well, which was requested. So I'm just going to do the top three of the classics. And all three of these are within 10% of each other. Oh, I can see that. This is a little bit of a toss-up.
    11:51
    Playboy, Bally Playboy is in number three. Okay. Dolly is in number two. Dolly Parton.
    11:59
    And 8-Ball, once again, number one. And as far as where those are in the overall rankings, just to give you some perspective on that, it's really right in the middle, just maybe slightly below center. So they're earning roughly the same amount as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Scared Stiff, Game of Thrones. All of those games, all six of those games are within, they're very close to each other. So that tells you kind of where some of these classics can earn. Whenever people are always talking about getting shiny new stuff, if you have a crowd of folks that appreciates the classics, they can earn certainly ROI on that much, much. It's very good. We appreciate that. some games they did better than. All three of those classic games did better than Galactic Tank Force, which price drop on that, it's now only $6,400.
    13:02
    Hit us up if you want to buy a Galactic Tank Force. They did better than Iron Man, Aerosmith, and Walking Dead. Wow. So. How about that? Classics at 50 cents a play can still earn better than games that are a dollar or three for two. Love that. But fantastic info for you guys out there wanting to start an arcade. There you have it, Data. All right. Now we are moving to the mailbag. Let's get into it. We have some great questions. I have some fantastic questions for you. Oh, okay. Are you ready? I'm ready. This is from Mike Flanagan from Discord. Okay. And if you want to check out our Discord, you can head over to our website, electricbatarcade.com. Click the podcast link, and there's a link to join our Discord right there. They should do it. And then ways you can listen to the podcast, of course. That's why it's the podcast link. I just threw the Discord thing in there. Smart. Here's a question from Mike Flanagan. Okay. As an operator, do you purchase pros or premiums? While I like the bling of premiums, generally, the additional mechs I fear can cause problems in the short or long term. and players don't seem to care enough to pay a premium for a premium. He has a couple more questions, but I want to stop there. I want to circle back and double-click on that one. Okay. And then we'll tackle his other ones. Okay.
    14:32
    I know you have an opinion on this. I sure do. And I agree with you because we've talked about it before. One interesting thing on this, players don't seem to care enough to pay a premium for a premium, implying he would think you would charge more, more than the – I think across the board, most of the places we go to are dollar play.
    14:55
    Or three for two. Yeah, three for two. We have seen some places that have an LE, and then they'll jack the price up on that. So I think he's suggesting the same thing here. But do you purchase pros or premiums? Why or why not? and what's your opinion on all that? Both. We purchase whichever one that me and you enjoy playing the most. Right. So it's a selfish decision in that regard, but he's totally right. Players, we've never seen a difference between a pro and a premium, even whenever we have had both versions of the game earn the same. Right. So never buy, as operator pro tip, never buy a premium or an le because you think people are going to want to play it more um that just does not that does not seem to work out that way right um i like pros better in most games because i think the flow of the game feels better to me whenever you start throwing upper play fields on stuff it starts to get a little bit more stop and go and sometimes that's cool in a game don't you think we have about 50-50 split pros versus premiums on modern sterns for the most part i think so with premium we went with a premium on bond a premium on godzilla alvira only came in a premium oh right so so i think that's it monsters we have a premium yeah um yeah so a few mostly pros mostly pros um we of course went with the godzilla premium because the attraction of the building you know falling down and and the bridge very cool stuff but we actually bought both yeah we have the pro also yeah we still have a pro and a premium for godzilla avengers we chose the pro because we definitely like gameplay on pro better right um and on um For Bond, we went with the premium because we liked the physical lock, and the jetpack thing was kind of cool. Yeah. Got a little guy. Yep. Cool. We're going to keep going with Mike Flanagan's questions. Second question, for your stable of games on the floor, how many additional games do you have in reserve, storage, awaiting, restoration?
    17:21
    Well, if our back room was bigger, we would have more. However much of the hoard we can accommodate. Right now, I think in the back room, there's maybe 10 pinball machines back there, 10 or 11.
    17:38
    And those are in various states. Some of them are ready to go on the floor. They're just being rotated through. Some of them need some work. So for us, we're pretty much maxed out in storage, though. So we have to sell Galactic Tank Force to make room for some new stuff to come in. Yeah, we're maxed out. Yeah. But, yes, there's about 10 in the back. And what do we have on the floor? Between the two locations, probably 75 games on the floor. Yeah, that sounds right. Maybe 75, 80 pinball machines on the floor. Good deal. And the final question from Mike Flanagan. We are extremely comfortable working on Bally William Stern and classic Bally Sterns.
    18:27
    That said, with different manufacturers, do you get to a point where you say, I don't want to learn another system of a game? I'm thinking American Pinball as a newer company or Gottlieb System 80. Thanks. Love the podcast. If you're ever in the Houston area, we'd love to host y'all at Poison Girl Bar and Little Dipper Bar. Poison Girl sounds... That sounds cool, right? That sounds right up my alley. We have to get to Houston. Yes. And we'd probably want to line it up during the Houston Arcade Expo. Yes. And we could go... We could also go to Wormhole, right? Yeah, we need to do... We need to do all that. And what else is there? I will see you at Poison Girl Bar. Yeah, there's a bunch of good stuff going on in Houston. Sounds awesome. system you talked about this before to me i don't know on the podcast recently in fact so we had a chance to buy a beautiful home use only tx sector um and then i thought man we don't have any system 80 parts we don't have any of this stuff and i really don't feel like um but we wanted the game We wanted the game, so we called up Mark, who operates stuff, and he also didn't have any System 80 games, but was willing. But TX Sector is such a cool game. We knew he couldn't turn down this beautiful TX Sector. So what happened? We're like, Mark? One of us was going to get it, but specifically because it was a System 80 and we didn't feel like a whole new system, we offered it um to mark we passed along the deal to him he bought it he put it in the arcade so everybody gets to enjoy it uh it's just now more of the fixing responsibility is gonna fall on mark on that particular game but so yeah so far so good so far so good yep yep nothing yeah so i mean it's it's been in it's in pristine condition um but you and i always recommend that people start with a classic ballet because those are such easy to learn or stern or yeah well those are the same twins right um classic ballets tend to be cheaper so those are the there are certain sets of games that we are very familiar with working on and we prefer to to keep getting more of those games. Yes.
    20:56
    Cool. Do you have any System 80s? No. None? None. And that why Yeah Because you not familiar with them We didn buy that Volcano We passed that along to the Outpost Codelia ladies And we glad they got it because it a fun game And they've been wanting that. And he specifically asked about American Pinball. I mean, that's a whole other... So, it depends which game you're talking about. We've had a lot of luck with Hot Wheels. Yep. And I think if you follow American Pinball, nobody from that era is still with the company. So this is a completely different... But also I feel like in the games that are like American Pinball or Spooky, you can work on the components of the game. But whenever it comes to new transistors, that's a whole different...
    22:01
    These are all surface mount components. There's not a lot of tinkering you can do. So those are all I would consider different. But I guess sterns are the same way, but you've got node boards, and you can kind of swap out smaller components in a way that I don't believe transfers to some of the other new manufacturers. Sure, sure. And while we're talking about manufacturers and reliability or different systems,
    22:34
    Chicago Gaming, when our Pulp Fiction had a catastrophic meltdown, so people know if you do have a pulp fiction you you want to watch out for this the uh pawn shop the mech the the three drop target mech the the coil locked on and completely melted which is not a huge problem as long as you don't have a whole bundle of wires running across it they were touching that coil and everything just melted together uh which which shorted the board shorted a lot of things shorted a lot of stuff so pop open your pulp fiction and make sure the um yeah the wiring harness there's enough room for for the wiring harness and it may be run differently in different games but it's it goes up through the play field and connects to um the the pawn shop i believe it controls the lamps up there so just just make sure that it's running behind the drop target assembly, not on the coil side of the drop target assembly. And there's plenty of room for that. So it's a three-second fix. We learned the hard way. But Chicago Gaming was incredible in their responsiveness and the way they just took care of everything on a Sunday morning. That's what I was about to say. We messaged them on a Sunday morning. They responded to us within an hour. and then that that monday they should on the way parts are on the way brand new board brand new mac coils all that's wiring harness so from a game that was like oh geez this is like kind of a more complex more than one thing was messed up um it was it was fixed within a within a week yeah bravo chicago gaming thank you so much shout out to them you man great company great customer service. Couldn't say enough nice things about it. They went above and beyond. Thank you, Mike Flanagan, for the three questions. We appreciate it, and hopefully we will see you guys sometime in the Houston area. We do need to go visit. We have a lot of people we need to visit out there, and I bet we can have a great time. I know it. Moving right along, we got a question on Discord from Merc Dirty.
    24:57
    What is that? I think we've Burt Dirty. Well, we've dealt with Merc Dirty before on Discord. It's funny every time. Yeah, this person has some great questions. Question number one, is there any reason, thought, or business idea that goes into having a certain game on tournament mode? Merc is talking about the tops. The cash game. Yeah, the Stern tournament game deal.
    25:26
    Yeah, that extra button on there. I really enjoyed trying to get a high score on tournament mode for Black Knight when I was in town, but came back home and realized I didn't see the tournament button a lot. What are the good and or bad things for having the game using tournament mode? For the folks not familiar with the tournament mode, I think this has been in Stern games and the software since the White Star days, Because I think the tournament button used to actually be on the lock bar. Yes. And then they moved it below in the cabinet. I don't know, I guess around like Sam or something like that.
    26:07
    So with this... And just to be clear, the tournament mode is different from just like a tournament setting in the game for playing just regular tournaments. This is specifically the setting so you can earn money playing pinball. Yeah, yeah, right.
    26:27
    So what he's asking is, what are the good and bad things for having a game using tournament mode? I can't think of anything bad because you can always play the game regularly. Right, because you have to put in extra credits to play tournament. So if you just want to play regular, just play regular. It's like two credits, which is at the bat, that's two bucks. Right. And if you put in two bucks, it's always three for two. So you still get a leftover credit that you can play. Oh, is that how it works? Yeah. So if you put in two dollars, you're getting three credits. So you would use two of those credits for the cash for the tournament game. How about that? And then you have one leftover for something else.
    27:10
    So pros and cons. Pros, you can win money. Competition, it's always fun. And, I mean, putting some skin in the game always makes it better. Right.
    27:22
    A percentage of the extra money goes towards the pot, so the more people play, the more cash you get. We only do it on one game a month because the pool would get too diluted if it was across however many. We probably have 20 games that have the ability to do this.
    27:41
    I don't see any downside other than just, you know, doing one at a time. I think the reason that people don't see these very often is because most operators aren't aware that the option is there. Correct.
    27:56
    Yeah, that's the thing. The reason you don't see this at a lot of places is because people just don't know about it because the tournament button is cheap. I think it's like $15. It's like under $20. Yeah, it might be like $10. You do have to add it yourself, though. So the game does not come with that. You have to, there's a tiny bit of extra effort to install it, but it's like four spade clips, four spade connectors, and a, screw it in. Right, so let your local arcade know about this and how inexpensive it is, and it'll bring more people in. And it will increase your earnings. It'll increase your earnings. I think, and like you were saying before, I think most people think the tournament button puts a game into tournament settings, which will remove randomness if that's in the software. And there's just like a lot of people don't even know about this hardware and software combo. Yeah. So there you go. Hope we answered your question, MercDirty. If not, just get back in touch with us on Discord. We will hit you up. this is a pretty cool question we got we got a question from sniff deluxe also also via discord i feel like these people are using their reddit names like you know there's a certain type of it's internet names you remember you know yeah yeah but when we did we did our first uh geo cities email address we've had to change that a long time ago because they were all you know people use weird names on the internet i think my first my icq oh that was a number um yeah i think Mine was always like Death Girl or something like that back when I was a teenager. There were some before that. We're all grown up now. Yep. Okay. Totally different. Not into it at all. You would never know. I'm using my regular name now online. You can search Kale Hernandez. I don't know if it's true, but you used to search Kale Hernandez on the Google, and it was like a track and field guy. Oh. It was like a high school age, well, much older now, track and field guy who experienced a modicum of success in the track and field world, which is interesting. So Sniff Deluxe on Discord.
    30:17
    Really cool question. Here's the question. The VPN tables look amazing. He's talking about like the VP cabs or these virtual pinball. Virtual pinball. Mm-hmm. Is it feasible or sacrilege to have a VPN table among other traditional pinball tables in a barcade? Would you ever have one on site at the electric bat and see how popular it's received?
    30:44
    No way. But you know what? When I was reading over this stuff, I wanted to see how much a VP cab is now. Yeah. Okay. Did you see this? I saw how much it was. Okay, I was going to get you to guess. My guess would have been less expensive than that. My guess would have been in the $6,000 range. Right. So if you actually get one from VP Cabs, it's over $8,000.
    31:10
    You know, they have different configurations. For the full-size one that's shaped like a pinball machine, it's over $8,000. Even from some other distributors, they were around like, you know, they weren't under $8,000. But I know you can build them yourself. And buy some no-name weird, yeah. It might, no-name weird what? PC? Yeah, like I'm thinking of some people that we know that have bought like cheaper versions. No, not like a one-up, like just kind of generic versions and they like don't work. Yes. That one was terrible. I would go with a reputable company. The brand of VP Cabs is great. Yeah, Brad's a good guy. Anyway, so we're dealing with, it seems like, and you could upgrade it. They had things you could add to it, custom art and everything. So somewhere between $8,000 and $9,000. So there's like a price of a premium-ish. Right. Okay. The question is, would you ever have one at Electric Bat? I would not have one at Electric Bat. Right. I don't have any reason to. We have a huge variety of physical games, so I don't see the attraction of adding a multi-cade pinball machine. And I should say that I haven't played one in a really long time, so I don't know how the physics is now, how they feel now. I can say that when I played it before, it was like a very cool video game. Yeah. but it's not the same experience. Were you there at the Museum of Pinball in Banning when they gave us this tiny room to set up in, and then somebody else put two gigantic, and they weren't VP Cabs, VP Cabs the brand. It was some other brand.
    33:11
    I was not there. Okay. We're in this little room with our Marco Specialties booth, and they put these two giant virtual pinball cabs, And it was, I don't know if it's still like this, but this particular brand was horrible because it was like two hair dryers blowing. I mean, it was just pumping, just super hot. Because you can imagine. Maybe it's good in Minnesota. Right. You have a PC in this box.
    33:43
    Damn thing's probably overclocked. Because it's running a gigantic monitor and then a monitor in the back box. Mining Bitcoin in the background. Yeah, and it was just, we were sweating. These things were just blowing. It was like two hair dryers out the back just go.
    34:01
    But they've probably become more efficient. And that's not really going to be a huge deal in a big room. But maybe in Arizona it would be an issue. I don't think these things would pay for themselves. no and and one other thing i'm sure there's some vp people that could tell me how to make them coin operated because the last time i've never seen a coin operated one right like the vp cab ones i remember when we had some at marco that we were selling they uh they have a coin door but there was no way to accept um money money that's kind of the most important part right but that was years ago there there may be a way to do it now or it might be like a time thing i've noticed that some video game shops like console shops they have i haven't seen in a while you you put your quarter in and it's like five minutes or whatever hopefully it's more than that but anyway um but at the same time if i went to an arcade they had a vp pin i'd drop some money in it to see to see what's going on i don't think it's sacrilege in any way i'm all for new things uh yeah i would i would also play it you know i would want to check it out um i don't i don't know how many times i would keep playing it whenever there was um real i just like physical things a lot more for sure for sure and that's that's the one thing like if you have one in a room with 60 pinball machines i think people are going to try it one time and go man i want to play like a real pinball machine but you get to play like these fantasy tables like there's some cool we used to play bob's burgers yeah and and fallout yeah and if i lived in an apartment or a small house so i'm not i'm not opposed to owning them but i don't have a reason for us to own them right yeah cool and there you have it sniff deluxe thank you for your question via via discord now Now, I think this was an IRL question. I know Roland was asking about this and maybe some other people. Multiple people have asked if Jurassic Park earned notably less while we had the issue where it couldn't go online. We had some technical difficulties with our Jurassic Park and had to troubleshoot it with some boards and different configurations to get this back online. We finally figured it out. Yep. It all got sorted out. and yes it did take a significant hit it's a little bit hard to parse out because the game itself was down for several days while we were working on some of the issues with it and as best as i can tell it affected their earnings uh the earnings dropped by about a third just not that doesn't include the part where it was down like just by not having it online when people are used to being incentivized by seeing their name on the board when they do well and then that gets taken away from them i they tend to play one of the other 18 games that you can um see your name on in big lights insider connected really really works and um we're not just saying that because they're a sponsor of the show no we were saying that beforehand and there's tons of data yeah we have the data data good deal next question from frisco pinball via discord as an aspiring operator what is the one lesson you've learned throughout your years that you wish you knew when you started good question there's a couple of things one thing that comes to mind is that i was afraid when we when when i put games in a dive bar that my games were going to immediately be like carved up and just disrespected right um they still to this day haven't been the only um you know like godzilla no longer has pictures like the images that have worn off the side by the flipper buttons there just from being played over and over and over. But people are kind to your games. And even when they're not being kind, if they get pissed off and slam their hands on the lockdown bar, which I don't enjoy when people do that,
    38:34
    the games can take it, right? Beer gets spilled on them by accident. It's no big deal. You've got beer seal. It doesn't mess anything up.
    38:41
    Just to be less precious about them. Sure. because the games are going to be fine. Then the other thing is just that it's more work than you think it's going to be. Yes. Keeping the games in a condition that will make you proud to tell people that this is your spot and these are your games is a lot of work. People ask us a lot, like, oh, this must be cool to just do this. And it's great. It's very cool to do it, but me and you get to do it together because we're there 60 hours a week.
    39:21
    One thing, besides the amount of time the maintenance takes, you're not going to do any maintenance if you don't have anybody playing your machines. And we knew this from the get-go just because we were involved in certain hobbies that required great marketing, whether it be an art show or live music, which I was in. We knew. Catch me at the Phoenix Art Museum this November through April. Yep. There's a little plug in there. Yep.
    39:55
    I mean, we knew you have to hold. I mean, this goes for bars. This goes for almost anything. any small business, you have to hold events to get people to your establishment.
    40:07
    And this is easy with pinball because what do you do? Pinball tournaments. Either whether they're IFPA-sanctioned or not, if it's just fun stuff, you should mix it up and probably do both.
    40:21
    But it is so important. We've just seen it locally. The arcades that are not doing tournaments and all that stuff, They can kind of look like a ghost town some weeks. So it's very important to get started on that as soon as possible. And just constantly putting yourself out there, even though it's very uncomfortable for a lot of people, especially a lot of people in pinball. A lot of us tend to be kind of more introverted and or awkward. I put myself in that category for sure. And you just have to do it. It's so important to do that, right? So don't neglect your marketing or publicity, however you want to call it. I'm lucky to have you. I would say that you are the best in the business at all of those things. Thank you. That's sweet.
    41:16
    Thank you for doing it. So if you can't do that, find someone who can from the get-go. For sure. I think we were in a lucky situation where we were so deep in this industry for a while before we actually started running an arcade that there weren't a lot of surprises. Yeah. We were prepared.
    41:41
    I think the only thing I wish I knew about beforehand was those cool, like, 3D-printed Playfield risers. We used those yesterday. Yeah, we used Nick. Our friend Nick made some for us with the electric bat logo. Man, those things are great. and they're inexpensive. And if you haven't seen them, they're like these brackets. You can get them. I'll put a link in the show notes. You can get them off Marco's specialties. But they are these risers that will hold the entire play field out of the cabinet. Yeah. So you can work on stuff in the back. Yeah. Very helpful. It was very helpful yesterday. We were working on it I wish I knew about those before Well before those risers I saw people using clamps towels and clamps Yeah Like the spring clamps And you put those on the side of the cabinet and you know with towels of course so you don ruin the cabinet art or anything like that Yeah. Good deal. I like that. That was fun. We were reminiscing about when we first started this thing. Thank you so much, Frisco Pinball. Now we are moving on to Williams8696 on Discord. We got some more stuff from Discord.
    42:49
    Question. Often on location, 90s games, especially Data East, are often dark and not well lit. It can make them difficult to play in dark rooms, particularly. Is this an issue of availability of lighting bulbs from the era, or are there other issues at play?
    43:11
    Those games were just dark. They were just dark games. Because this is whenever they transitioned from not having levels, so you could use your 44 or 47 lamps to light up the whole thing. There's not really anything obscuring that light. So then you start layering ramps and things on top of it, and you still have the same bulb technology. and a lot of operators would drop it down from the 44 to the 47 to try and conserve power, heat, keep your inserts from cupping, all of that stuff. So it gets a little bit dimmer there. You can still get all of those bulbs or you could replace them with LEDs. So if you're seeing dim games on location, it could be that the bulbs are burnt out. It could be that they're using the original incandescent bulbs, which are just not as bright as the LEDs that we're used to now. Sure.
    44:13
    But that's what's up. Yeah. They can get – I think one of our darkest games was Creature from the Black Lagoon. And we really – new LEDs really help that game out a lot. And we got some super bright LEDs. You go to Marco's Specialties and pick up some – there are like these four stacks or these – they're like tall LEDs that have like – Eight LEDs on – Yeah. Yeah, separate, like pointing in separate directions. And we put those in the back of the game where the lanes are, and then I added some other like super bright bulbs that really helped out under the slingshots and what have you, under the slingshot plastics. You do want to watch out for blinding people. Yeah, don't blind. So make sure they're hidden under plastics or something like that. Don't put a super bright where it's just blasting somebody in the face. And one thing that helps out a lot are those LED strips near the trough. Yes. They do. They're amazing. And they're easy to, they're very easy to put on. usually just use some alligator clips to uh to a gi circuit sure yep good deal that will solve any of those issues but i mean you can add spotlights if you had an arcade and it's like that i guess you could just yeah they're not your games just tell the owner about this stuff wear a headlamp um good deal thank you so much who was that williams williams 86 96 williams 86 96 on discord Thank you so much for the question. Yes, those games can be dark. If you're at home, I guess you can get some pin stadiums.
    46:01
    Yeah. But we don't ever mess with that stuff. And it seems like Stern is doing something about it by adding they've, first of all, I think, was it around like Iron Maiden when they started putting the lights under the apron? That helped out a lot. Or maybe it was like after Iron Maiden. But then now they're doing the expression lighting. It looks like they're kind of moving toward where that's going to be in like every game. Yeah. So you can get kits for that, too. They see that there's a market for Penn Stadiums and doing their version. Yeah, there you go.
    46:35
    All right, next question from Mark F. Via email, hi, Rachel and Kale. Greetings from Santa Cruz, California. Ooh. I really enjoy your Electric Bat podcast because I enjoy hearing an arcade owner perspective of our hobby. I was wondering your opinion regarding shaker motors. We do have some shaker motors in a few games. Number one, do you think adding a shaker motor to a stern pinball machine causes more repair problems, issues versus not having one installed in the game at all? Number two, do you have shaker motors installed in many of your pinball machines? If yes, what are your favorites? And three, if I do get a shaker motor, which machine do you think might be more enjoyable with a shaker motor? Elvira, House of Horrors, or 007, You Only Live Twice?
    47:28
    Question one. We have shaker motors in games. I don't think it's causing any appreciable loosening of things. But we also periodically go through games and tighten everything up. So even if it is loosening stuff, I mean, that's just part of owning a game is you've got to go through and tighten top side, bottom side, always be tightening. Right. Yeah. I haven't seen – when I first heard about Shaker Motors, I was like – I can see why somebody would think this. I'm like, why would you want to put a jackhammer in your machine? But I mean – It kind of already is that, right? The coil is firing off. I mean, it's like a damn auto hammer going off over and over again. And the ball. Yeah, and then the ball. I mean, the shaker motors are not going to cause a problem at all.
    48:19
    We have them in about half of the machines that could have them. Right. I want to get one in Jaws. I heard it's very cool in Jaws. Yeah, that would be great. I love it in Jurassic Park and Godzilla. Yes. It fits the monster games. Yes. The rumble of T-Rex and then, of course, Godzilla, who's almost like a T-Rex. Basically a T-Rex. A radiation lizard, kind of. Isn't that the whole story? Yeah, gamma rays and things. A radiation lizard. Let's call it a radiation lizard. So Mark is asking, if I do get one, which machine do you think would be more enjoyable, the Elvira or 007? Do we have one in 007? We have one in 007. and we do not have one in House of Horrors. Right. So I can't answer that with experience.
    49:11
    I would lean towards House of Horrors, actually. I would lean toward both. Oh, yeah. Why not both? It's like $100 for a shaker motor, right? Yeah, considering how much we spend on all kinds of other stuff. Yeah, why not both? Yeah, do both. Yeah, throw them in there. I would buy two of them, go to Marco Specialties, call those guys, and they can have them in the mail today. They're real quick with the shipping. Yeah. So do both of those. It's inexpensive. You can even go to Game Room Goodies and get them. Oh, Game Room Goodies has them, too. There you go. Bam. I might actually call them up after this. That's where we get ours. Because when they deliver a machine, we're like, hey, bring a shaker motor, too. Bring a shaker motor. Yeah. So why not just get both of them? I'm going to put one in Elvira. I'm curious. Okay.
    49:55
    Let's put it in Elvira. And I want it in Jaws. I heard it's so cool in Jaws. Okay. I'm ordering two. Get three because I want one in John Wick. Because, you know, I guarantee you they're going to have it where the gun goes off and the whole machine shakes. Yeah, get some shaker motors. Just buy a pallet of shaker motors. Let's get it. All right. Hit us up for shaker motors. Next question. And thank you. Thank you so much, Mark F., for the question here. And the push. Don't worry about anything. We're buying more shaker motors. Yeah, throw the shaker motors in all your machines.
    50:26
    This is from Mr. Bauer on Discord. Hmm. question for the Batcast, since Bat Baby number one showed up, and I think we'll have to explain that, he just had a child, a baby. Specifically, his wife did. His wife had it. Megan had a baby. It takes two. Yeah, but she did a lot of work. She did a lot of work.
    50:48
    This family, they got engaged. Yes. At our arcade in front of the Jurassic Park machine. Yes. Megan asked for a token because she wanted to play Jurassic Park. And I hope I get this story right, if not, write in. It's roughly this. And Mr. Bauer reached down into his pocket and pulled out a ring instead of a token. Man. He did the swish-a-roo, right? Man, he really, that was a good one. That was a great night. And you know what's going on. Eventually, and it may be 10 years from now, we're going to have to sell them that Jurassic Park. Yeah. Because we would offer it to them before anybody else, and they'd probably end up buying it.
    51:32
    Anyhow, so here's the question. In the meantime, you could pick up a sweet Galactic Tank Force. So you dropped it. So the Galactic Tank Force is the first pin we're legit selling. Yeah. And we're doing it. I know people are like, of course they're selling that thing. They hate it. It's fine. It earns a little bit of money. We're not selling it because we hate it. We're just selling it because we're running out of room. Yeah, what we're doing is prioritizing games that can be used in a tournament versus games that cannot be used in a tournament. Galactic Tank Force cannot really be used in a tournament, so it gets the axe. Yep, there you go. And you can get it right now for $6,400. And I promise you it's the least expensive Galactic Tank Force out there, so hit us up. We won't ship, though. We're not going to deal with shipping. You can drive down here and get it, buy it locally.
    52:30
    Okay, so he had a bat baby. Bat baby showed up. I find myself with much less time to practice pinball. Yeah. If I know I'm only going to have one hour to practice. I thought it was going to be if I know I'm only going to have one baby.
    52:43
    Oh, no. This is about time, hour. But a baby is about time, too. You have to put a lot of time and money into a baby. I'm glad people are still having babies because I see all the news reports. that we're losing people, the kids aren't having sex anymore, and we're not having babies, so we're eventually just going to be a bunch of old people. Like me and you. We had an arcade instead of a baby. Yeah, yeah. And it's as time-consuming. Oh, God, this has gone off the rails. Okay, so let's go back to Mr. Bauer's question. Please. If I know I'm only going to – he doesn't have a lot of time because he's got a baby. If I know I'm only going to have one hour to practice, how should I split up the time to be most effective? For example, should I spend 30 minutes practicing techniques like active catches, alley passes, and dialing in a specific shot, and 15 minutes reading rules of a game I'm not familiar with, and the last 15 minutes watching videos of previously streamed competitions? or spend the whole hour trying to make it to the King of Monsters on Stern's Godzilla for the thousandth time. He's really good at Godzilla. The goal of the practice sessions would be to stay competitive during Tuesday night league. I imagine it's different for everyone. Just curious to hear your thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Bauer. I have some thoughts on that. I got two thoughts. All right. You want me to go with it? Go with it. Tell me what you think. and you can add whatever I say. So I have two avenues. I would go down here and figure out what's going on.
    54:28
    First of all, I would say, like, just have fun. Like, just play your game and have fun and don't worry about, because like you're saying, you don't have a lot of time, you know. So I wouldn't stress myself out with I got to keep hitting this scoop shot over and over again. I'm not going to stop until I get it. That sounds just really stressful. I would just coin up the game and have a blast. Just do whatever. Don't focus on any certain aspect. On the other side of the coin, I've talked to several top 100 players, and they all kind of say the same thing. they most of them have games at home and before they want to play like a big tournament if they just want to get better they they set up the game in like hard mode like your your index level level stuff so um uh you know four inch leg level is make the thing steep um no ball save um sometimes adding lightning flippers um but then then what they do is we'll put it on like i don't know what Can you, like, all the way up to 10 ball? Can you do that? Yeah. And all they do is just keep trying to hit the same shot over and over again. They work on accuracy.
    55:50
    They also, in their spare time, read the rules of games like, you know, Mr. Bauer was talking about here. Should I study some rules of some games I'm not familiar with? Yes, that's what some of the top players do so they're not caught off guard. Yeah. You know? Because you don't want to show up, if your goal is to win, you don't want to show up to the tournament very quickly trying to look at pin tips or just shooting the lit shots because you have no idea what a good strategy is for a game. So if I was going to do it, I would do what Faye and Serge and Schoppel do after league or just occasionally, I guess. These are local electric bat players. Very good electric bat players. and they will just have a competition about, like, let's see who can hit the left ramp the most times in this game. So you're playing the game, but you're also really trying to aim for a particular shot. So I would work on accuracy, and I think that's kind of fun if you're gamifying that sort of thing. So, yeah, Michael and Megan hang out and try and beat each other on specific aspects of a game, and then I would probably take one game that I wasn't familiar with and then read a rule set or trying to figure out tips and techniques. But just like one of them at a time because it's really hard for me. I don't know how other people learn best, but to retain that information without having the opportunity to practice it. So just pick one game you're not super familiar with at the arcade maybe put five bucks in that after reading the rules and try and duplicate what they're recommending sure that's good advice but i think most importantly just have fun with it just have don't stress yourself out with like oh i gotta know this i gotta know that no it should always be enjoyable sure of us are getting rich so playing pinball right so so many of the top players i've talked to they do so many different things like um i think in even One of the Papa videos Bowen talks about, he doesn't ever do that thing where he coins up a game and just tries a shot over and over again. He plays the game. But you do have some top players that do that. There's some people like Chewy and Ty and I'm guessing Bowen that can just kind of look at a game and after playing it once or twice, they can just internalize what excellent strategy is for that game. Sure. I'm not that way. That's just not. I'm just hitting lit shots.
    58:32
    I have to make a concerted effort to learn a game. But then once I do learn it, I enjoy it so much more if I have various strategies that I can attempt. You know what blows me away? When I have asked some top players about their strategy and how they practice, one interesting thing was when I was – I think you were there. We were playing – years ago, we were playing with Dalton and Georgia, Georgia champion. and he knew we were playing in an arcade that was foreign to him. I think it might have been his first time there.
    59:09
    And we were watching somebody play Doctor Who. And he started telling me all about what this person was doing. And I was like, how do you know all this? Have you played the game before? He's like, no, I read a lot. So he reads a lot about games, probably watches some streams also. So he already knows strategy for games he hasn't even played before. Yeah. And if you have time to do that and don't have a baby, that might work out. Right?
    59:39
    Thank you, Mr. Bauer. Go have fun. Play a game. We'll see you on Tuesday. And, you know, he's gotten popular with the stall ball game. Yeah, he does. He runs the stall ball. He loves stall ball and the gamery. Thank you for your question. And moving right along to Johnny Q. Trek via email. We've spoken to or at least answered Johnny Q. Trek's questions before. Yeah. Here's a good one. Hi, Rachel and K.O. Johnny Q. Trek here again. How about that?
    60:15
    So my very first pin was a Stern Star Trek Pro that I picked up from a free play arcade back in 2020. Oh, I wonder if it had to close down because of COVID. Might have got a good deal on that.
    60:28
    The inside of the cab was jet black and covered in what I thought was black rubber dust. But I later learned from experience it was more likely coil stop dust. When I got it, I restored the play field and vacuum and wiped down the interior as best I could. but the cab interior has continued to be covered in black, likely from its previous five years of continuous use at a free-play arcade with minimum cleaning. My routine vacuuming only keeps it in check, and I only recently realized that the bulb sockets under the playfield have also been collecting coil dust within as well. My question is this. what are your recommendations regarding deep cleaning the interior of the cab is it worth the risk of potentially damaging wiring components to disassemble everything and do a deep cleaning is there anything i should do to the cabinet interior besides vacuuming or is it okay for the cab wood interior to stay practically stained black uh and there you go that's that's the gist of it um so when i read this question i kind of remember like acdc and star trek or that era like looking like that and almost like there was like over spray from spray paint on the inside of the cab and i think that's what this guy is seeing because i i went to ipdb i looked up a stern star trek pro and there's a clear the inside of the cabinet is black but it's not like and like a nice finish looking black it looks like there was it was it was a sloppy spray paint job and they had a guy with krylon doing doing the seams what i think um you know stern doesn't build these cabinets they get it from a third party and so they may have switched manufacturers and this is no longer the case. But I remember cabinets looking like this, and maybe they put the sides on, and then they try to match the bottom to the sides with a rattle can or something. But it looks like a lot of overspray. So I think with this guy, I'm assuming it's a guy. Johnny Q. Trek. Johnny, maybe? It is a guy. You know Johnny? Yes. Oh, personally? Well, I mean from corresponding. Okay. uh with this guy is mostly about star trek well i think what this guy is seeing is is not like coil dust and stuff i think it's overspite i think it's a lot of overspray because in in the photo on on ipdb you can even see there's like some unfinished wood and then this like overspray all over the place um so i think that what this person is seeing um we okay some of our dirtiest cabinets are like creature from the black lagoon like 90s cabinets yeah um but this was a free play arcade so it's possible that this thing got super super dirty yeah well i don't think free play arcades necessarily get more play per machine than a coin drop or a card or whatever. Yeah, because I've talked to people that run the free play. Well, it's not really free. You pay an entry free. And it's not like their games are getting wildly more plays than a coin drop.
    64:13
    So the question is, should he care about it? Right? Yes. If it's dirty. Back when I was doing, like, restorations and things, I cared about a lot, and I would make sure that the inside was totally clean. In the arcade, we don't.
    64:35
    They're not that dirty. If I was him, I would take a microfiber cloth and clean, you know, just wipe up all the dust. Anything that comes up, get it out of there, I guess. But I wouldn't, like, spend a lot of time on it. The one thing that does matter, though, is all of those inserts. If those inserts are dusty, and it sounds like they are, I take Q-tips, like some alcohol, just clean out the inside of all of those inserts from the underside of the play field. And that can be time-consuming, but it makes a really big difference with how the game looks whenever it's lit up. That makes a big difference. So make sure that your inserts are clean. Everything else... You did do that recently, and it made a huge difference on one machine. I can't remember which one it was. Medieval, I think. Yeah, I think it was medieval. Yeah. So just, I wouldn't, it's not that big of a deal. You're not, you're the only one looking inside the cabinet. I don't think it's a huge deal. And we have seen machines that are super, like, had rats in them that were still operating. So, not our machines. Not ours, no. Not our machines. But, yeah, so it's totally fine. And just, you know, the vacuuming is a great idea. Just do that if it bothers you. But, yeah, the dust from the coils or the plunger slamming into the coil stops are going to always happen. And there's nothing you can do about that. So just, yeah, if it bothers you, blow it out.
    66:06
    There you go. Thank you for the question. This is from Brett BMF on Discord. Question. What kind of seasonality do you experience? Are there months that are busier slash slower than others? Great question. And I think this depends on your region. Yeah, because, yes, our slowest months are the hottest ones.
    66:34
    July and August down here, but up in Flagstaff at 7,000 feet, they're some of our best months. So for us, it kind of, I mean, it doesn't quite balance out. But it would matter on location. Like if you're near a college campus, of course, you're going to make more money when school's in. Yeah. But pinball as a whole slows down during the summer months. I just know that from selling machines and parts. Because most people are outside doing stuff. Sure. Especially up north. Yeah. Well, up north, our strongest months are the warmest months.
    67:20
    So, but that's also... No, I'm not talking about... I'm talking about for other arcades. Oh, okay. Like way up north. Oh, you mean up north like Minnesota. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure those would slow down, right? You want to go outside. So, yes, seasonality. I think everybody has it, and it's just dependent on where you are, what those months are. Yep, good deal. Thank you, BrettBMF. Now, this is from Cliff Albert on Instagram. We love Cliff.
    67:54
    Colorful fellow. I'll tell you what. Never start an argument in his life. If you're not following Cliff on Facebook and Instagram, go do it right now. Man, he is great. Here's a question from Cliff. So starting up new leagues and other monthly tournaments. I took the decision to make games a little harder than normal, mainly because I and the arcade I work for, Mayhem Amusements Arcade, go check them out. Shout out to Mayhem Amusements, are trying to build a pinball scene. New people are always turned off that tournaments take so long. That's true. I think everybody's turned off by tournaments taking too long. Yeah. So I'd rather have the machines more of an even keel for our players than the tournament lasting too long. Is that the right thing to do? We have a mix of really good players and really new players. Also, we take a lot of info from your podcast and glad you all exist. Thank you. Thank you so much, Cliff. Thanks, Cliff. We're glad you exist.
    68:55
    And then, by the way, it seems to be working the way I'm making the machines harder, but the tournament's quicker. It seems to be working. What's your opinion on that? Well, we've talked in the past about how we balance it out, alternating faster playing games and slower playing games. But not many arcades. Not many arcades have that luxury. And what do you mean by setting up banks of quicker playing games and longer playing games?
    69:21
    I know which ones of our games average shorter game ball times, I guess. So group all those together, and those will be in a round. And then your longer playing games will be grouped together in a different round. So you just alternate groups of games.
    69:44
    But, yeah, most people don't have the ability to do that. So you do have to make this choice, whether you want to have kind of longer running tournaments and you have people on short playing. someone's playing Black Knight and then someone else is playing Godzilla and that game could be three times as long.
    70:07
    But also, as a brand new player, I don't want to have no rubbers in the outlet. I want it to be friendly. I don't want to show up and just feel like... No ball save. Yeah, plunge, drain. Okay, that was cool. I did absolutely nothing. So what I would do is probably make the tournament itself shorter, meaning fewer rounds or different... I would maybe cater the style of tournament to be something like a max match play so that way people have the opportunity to be playing they're not you don't want people to be sitting around and waiting for other people to play um right and you also don't want people to feel like they just walked up to the game and then drained and it makes them feel like a terrible pinball player so i would i would do something like a max match play, have it be for a shorter duration, and maybe make the games a little bit harder if they need it. I don't know what your baseline is. Where are they starting at? Are they flat? Are they super easy? But I would not go all the way to make them competition-level difficulty because that's hard to win new people over. And that's no fun. Yeah, it's not fun for most people. And we already have a follow-up. It sounds like what he's doing is working, and that's a good thing. I'd be curious to what style of tournament he's running. If it's a match play, just what the parameters of the tournaments that he's running are. But I'm glad that, like, kudos to you for trying to start a scene and doing your part to show fun stuff to new folks. I would. My leg's kind of cramping up here. Yeah, I see. You did a lot of jiu-jitsu this morning. You fought a lot of dudes before breakfast. Man, we had a blast.
    71:54
    And I'm getting hungry again. I am, too. Well, we don't have too much longer here. We can get you something to eat. All right. Today's show is also sponsored by Flower Child. If you want to eat healthy, check out your local Flower Child. Do you like that? Do you want to get that or do you want some seafood? Hey, man, either. We'll update you. Follow us on Instagram. We'll post our lunch on the story there. Thank you so much, Cliff.
    72:24
    We're glad you're a fan of the podcast. We're a fan of you. And keep us updated. We want to know how your tournament's going. And hopefully we can make it up there. Where is Cliff? No idea. We're going to find out. He's on the Internet. That's where I see him. He is on the Internet. We're going to reach out and come visit. He sees a lot of pinball enthusiasts.
    72:42
    All righty. Moving right along. gutter ghoul ah it wouldn't be an electric bat cast that's right and here we go this is the grand finale okay it wouldn't be an electric bat bat cast if we didn't have a question from gutter ghoul and right now we want to thank gutter ghoul for hooking us up with an absolutely beautiful simpsons pinball party yes which is in the arcade right now everybody's freaking out about it some of the newer people didn't even know there was a Simpsons pinball machine. There's actually two. Yeah. There's a Data East one and then this Stern one. I think the Stern one is better. I think it's much better. And this is the most beautiful copy of that machine I've ever seen. And I feel really fortunate to have it. Super clean. And our buddy Wiley is the one. All the bells and whistles. Wiley Bumtail is the one that. He told us about it. Told us about it, turned it on to us. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks. Here's a question from Gutter Ghoul. Gutter Ghoul is on Discord if you want to ask him a question.
    73:48
    What manufacturer slash games has the most frustrating engineering choices, like an over-engineered flipper mech that doubles repair time or uses a fragile switch type for every high-impact shot?
    74:08
    Okay, we'll tackle that first. Then he has another one. Okay. Okay, well... Manufacturers with frustrating engineer choices. It's, I mean, there's kind of some, there's a lot of ways this can go, right?
    74:22
    There's some designers who make frustrating engineer choices. So, looking at you, Steve Ritchie, whenever I have to take off a bunch of things to get to something that makes me shake my fist at the sky. You know who's amazing? Keith Elwin. Heat Elwynn, I rarely have to take off more than the specific thing that I'm trying to access. I think it's because he was an operator for so long. He really understands what it's like. I think some of the most nerve-wracking stuff is like 90s-era Bally Williams.
    74:57
    If anybody has had to re-rubber Bram Stoker's Dracula, oh, my God. Whitewater's also in the camp of Dresden. I think these guys were thinking they were like disposable things. Right. I think they still were disposable at that time. So you didn't. They were selling so many. They were turning them out. So, hey, who cares what the operator has to deal with? Right. And I'm really glad Stern is thinking about this more. Yeah. Other manufacturers have parts that are wearing out way too quickly or are just not up to snuff with what it's supposed to accomplish. like this the spooky servos are like the prime example of this right this is it's kind of a hobbyist servo that is meant that's it's being asked to do more than it was designed for um so but my number one thing is is the what i feel is easily preventable which is um design your game in a way that I don't have to take off ten things to get to one thing. Yes. So think about that when you're putting in your upper play fields. If you're putting in a secondary upper play field, first ask yourself, why? Why am I doing this? Is it adding anything to the game?
    76:17
    What do you think? You spend a lot of time under the hood. Most frustrating engineering choices. I mean, it's just like having to remove tons of ramps and other stuff just to change a rubber. Yeah. I think that's the biggest pain in the ass. Yeah.
    76:39
    I think that's about it. Okay. Yeah. Good deal. Now he has a question about tournaments. Any gear recommendations for performance improvements? Comfy shoes for stamina, gloves for painless nudging, fanny packs. You like fanny packs. Only because they don't make pockets sufficient for all the things I have to carry. Or are all of these things just security blankets and you just need to practice? Some of these things are very important for those lengthy tournaments.
    77:10
    Shoes. Especially once you're out of your 20s and out of your 30s. You can't wear vans anymore. Right. You've got to get the barbecue shoes, like some good Brooks or some New Balances. The kids call them dad shoes. I like to call them daddy shoes. Do you remember that whenever we were still working at Marco and doing those shows and we were on hard floors, do you remember that I used to wear heels all day? I used to wear boots. I wore cowboy boots. You wore cowboy boots and I wore heels and we were on concrete floors. 20 hour days on, there's 24 days, I mean hours in the day, but I would only sleep for about four of those. Yes. So I was up for 20 hours. We were in our 30s. And then we very quickly into our 40s. Man, we were something else. Yeah. Yeah, man, those were the days. Now we're in our mid to late 40s. I'm much smarter now. I can't stand as long, but I'm much smarter.
    78:11
    Yeah, so good shoes, especially if you're in one of those like District 82 or so. One of those tournaments that's like two days long. Yeah. I mean, you have to get some great shoes with good insoles. Make sure you have wide shoes. You know, I didn't know this until recently. They make a 4E, which is like a super wide. Yeah. So you have your standard width, and some companies make a medium. Most people are familiar with a wide shoe because you'll find those, like, in stock. Right. But I didn't know this. Listen, lots of times you have to special order. Many manufacturers make a 4E, which is a super wide. That's what I use. Yeah, you have a strong base. Right. I have a narrow foot, so I can get away with a regular shoe, but I like a wide toe box because your feet can... You turned me on to that with ultras back in the day. But when you're on your feet for that long, your feet swell. Your feet swell. You should be hydrating, getting enough salt and all to get all this fluid. Your feet are just going to swell. gravity you know how gravity works you know it's still a theory they don't even know if it's real it's a theory of gravity kayla you don't don't go down that road you know you know good and well what the difference between scientific theory and an idea is but all of those things uh do but i don't know i've never used gloves but you know if you like wearing i've seen some great players wear gloves who's who's a european guy that wears the gloves that are kind of like floppy no i was thinking of bob matthews before you said that i don't know who he wears like a fingerless glove yeah bicycle glove gel inserts i've never done gloves so i can't speak on that but fanny packs are great for all of your stuff and drink tons of water and and if you're drinking alcohol have a glass of water in between um each cocktail or beer um comfy shoes are great um what oh caffeine that's a big thing i like it it helps with a you know i like it it helps with the brain It helps your reaction time. Some type of caffeine. I don't know. However you want to do it. A little Red Bull or some caffeine pills. No-dose. I don't know. White Cross. Caffeine does help a lot. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Gunnar Gull.
    80:26
    Yes. Before we go, I'd like to shout out Game Room Goodies. Yeah. Valued sponsor of the show. Also, Marco's Specialties.
    80:37
    And then, of course, Stern Insider Connected. here's some cool updates uh you know we were talking about the updates to uh deadpool yeah so there are new badges available wolverine's boulevard of love that's on deadpool where you can win very cool badges such as murk mouth or allergic to cats or so much rage and more and then they there's more coming soon okay you can do all that also august we're in august right now right that's right they're seasonal quests i like those they they had a couple of quests that uh that have now uh dated out you can't get those now you gotta jump on them because now i can never go back and get them you can't go back and get them my chance but the ones you can still get i didn't even know august is international pirate month did you know that no why is that argus is that why did you just make that up i did just make that up yeah that was good yeah So that's not it, is it? Either way, it's International Pirate Month, and Stern Pinball is celebrating that with the Flippin' Pirates 2024 badge. Play four different internet-connected IC games with an R in the name.
    81:53
    Okay. You just got to play four. There's no certain score or anything, so that's an easy one. Okay. Coin it up, play some games. What's your sum with an R? Does Godzilla have an R? Godzilla.
    82:06
    Avengers. Aerosmith. That's an R, right? Yeah. Aerosmith. Yeah. What else? Does Walking Dead have an R?
    82:15
    Batman. I don't know. You guys figure it out. There's got to be a bunch of R ones out there. Metallic R.
    82:26
    Jurassic. Anyway. Jars. Yeah. There's also Frank and Stern for Frankenstein Day. Play monster-themed pins to unlock the badge, the Frankenstein badge. Did you know about this? No, I didn't know. This is your wheelhouse. Yeah, I've got to get this. So these are the monster-themed pins. You have Godzilla, Stranger Things, and Monsters. You have to score over 7.5 million on one of those games. And you get the Frankenstein badge. 7.5 million on Godzilla?
    83:02
    Or Stranger Things. I can do that. Stranger Things, you can do that on the launch. On the plunge, right? Boom. We're not trying to make it hard for you. We want you to have some badges. Thank you so much, Stern, and the people at Stern Insider Connected. And we value your support.
    83:21
    Okay, that's all I have for us. Anything else? I want to say a very special happy birthday to our good buddy, Ty Bull. Ty Bull, happy birthday. His birthday is this week. His birthday is this week, and we're going to celebrate with him soon. Yeah. Soon we're going to have a lot of fun.
    83:38
    Thank you all for joining us. If you have any questions for the Electric Bats, which is Rachel and myself, you can reach out to us at electricbatarcade at gmail. You can check us out in the Discord. If you want to join the Discord, go to electricbatarcade.com. go to the podcast tab and there's a link where you can join the discord there's also links to many different options for listening to the podcast and of course we're always on YouTube if you like to look at us while we talk good stuff thank you so much for joining us we're glad to be back and happy flipping alright the bats are out we're going to do the super secret bat handshake and we'll see you guys next time go to your local arcade drop some quarters swipe cards Do whatever you do. Pay the entry fee and keep these machines out in public and operating. We'll see you guys soon. Thanks for joining us. Bye-bye.