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Ep 17: Delayed

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 37m·analyzed·Sep 26, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Deep Root Pinball missed launch sparks community backlash; hosts debate impact and upcoming game titles.

Summary

Final Round Pinball Podcast Episode 17 discusses Deep Root Pinball delayed game launch (originally scheduled for September 21st). Hosts Jeff Teelis and Steven Martin are joined by guest Travis Meary to analyze the fallout, community backlash, and Deep Root's subsequent information reveal via This Week in Pinball. The episode explores tensions between Robert (Deep Root's public face) and the community, examines upcoming Deep Root game titles, and debates whether the delay and handling damage the brand's credibility.

Key Claims

  • Deep Root Pinball's September 21st launch did not happen as scheduled

    high confidence · Jeff and Steven reference the failed launch and discuss it as a major recent event; Travis confirms awareness of the delay

  • The Deep Root delay is the biggest pinball controversy in recent memory

    medium confidence · Travis states this as his 'hot take,' though Steven disagrees with the characterization that it 'united everyone'

  • Community commentary on Pinside and social media about Deep Root has been overwhelmingly negative (99% per Steven)

    high confidence · Steven Martin: 'I've read every single post. 99% of the commentary is very negative there's a lot of vitriol there it is overwhelmingly negative'

  • Pictures of the Deep Root machine leaked to Pinside around 4 p.m. on Monday before the official reveal

    high confidence · Jeff: 'The first public leak was around 4 p.m. on Monday on Pinside. There were pictures that have now been spread everywhere'

  • Deep Root previously announced 'Five Days of Deep Root' a year in advance (around 2018-2019) which they missed

    medium confidence · Travis: 'what was it, guys, like two years ago that they said that they were going to have the five days of Deep Root. They announced that a year ahead of time. And then it came in 2019 and then nothing.'

  • Robert (Deep Root founder) has been perceived by the community as arrogant/boastful about beating other manufacturers

    high confidence · Steven Martin discusses Robert's 'bravado' and Travis notes Robert's public statements about pinball being easy and other companies being inadequate

  • Colin McAlpine (world champion player) tested the Raza machine but cannot discuss experience due to NDA

    high confidence · Travis: 'They had Colin McAlpine down there. That's a world champion pinball player. and he's not able to say anything about what his experience is on that pin'

  • Deep Root has not provided any public information about manufacturing capability or plans

Notable Quotes

  • “I would rather have a delay than a piece of shit product come out. I'm not saying that it was, but let's just say if something was a major malfunction or didn't work. Take your time with it. And they're definitely doing that. But just get it right because you only get that one first impression.”

    Jeff Teelis @ ~45:30 — Core philosophy on prioritizing product quality over launch timing; frames the delay as potentially justifiable if it ensures quality

  • “99% of the commentary is very negative there's a lot of vitriol there it is overwhelmingly negative. I don't personally agree with it. I'm sort of like you I just think okay you know it's a bad thing that happened you know it'll happen in the future.”

    Steven Martin @ ~28:45 — Quantifies the severity of negative sentiment while attempting to contextualize it; suggests not all negativity is justified

  • “I have seen the ups and downs of Pinside over the last few years... And then it was like, okay, what's going on? and then the excitement of, okay, we're going to see a game at Houston... and then when it doesn't happen, they're pissed off, rightfully so.”

    Steven Martin @ ~26:00 — Describes the volatility of community sentiment toward Deep Root across multiple cycles of hype and disappointment

  • “I think there needs to be a separation between those two... Robert came out, you know, arms flailing all about, you know, pinball is easy. All these other companies are shit. They're, you know, we're going to absolutely revolutionize the pinball industry... And when it gets delayed, people are like, see, told you.”

    Jeff Teelis @ ~38:45 — Identifies the 'I told you so' mentality as driving force behind community backlash; connects Robert's public statements to expectations management failure

  • “I'm not falling for this. Is that real? Food truck? Food truck. Yep. No. Yep. Tell me that he's punking me right now. Not a punk, man.”

    Travis Meary / Steven Martin @ ~68:30 — Reaction to Deep Root's Food Truck game title reveal; shows skepticism about the game's appeal and authenticity

  • “They need to just get their footing. And to me, if you're talking about doing all this innovation, then you need to start showing us that innovation, even if it's not ready yet. Document it. Show us something behind the scenes. Just give us a clue as to what's going on.”

Entities

Deep Root PinballcompanyJeff TeelispersonSteven MartinpersonTravis MearypersonSteven BowdenpersonRobertpersonColin McAlpine

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Deep Root Pinball's scheduled September 21st machine launch (Raza) did not occur; rescheduled/delayed indefinitely

    high · Multiple host references to failed launch, leaked images appearing Monday 4pm before official reveal, This Week in Pinball article posted after delay

  • ?

    leak_detection: Images of Raza machine leaked to Pinside around 4pm Monday, prior to official Deep Root announcement; images subsequently shared on Facebook and other platforms

    high · Jeff: 'The first public leak was around 4 p.m. on Monday on Pinside. There were pictures that have now been spread everywhere and they were on Pinside. I saw them on Facebook quite a bit'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Overwhelming negative community response to Deep Root's missed launch deadline; 99% negative commentary on Pinside per host analysis

    high · Steven Martin: '99% of the commentary is very negative there's a lot of vitriol there it is overwhelmingly negative'; Travis notes 'It's a bit of a game. Who can be the most offensive'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Community perception of Robert as arrogant outsider vs. established manufacturer ethos; public statements about competitors being inferior creating backlash

    high · Jeff: 'Robert... came out... pinball is easy. All these other companies are shit... And when it gets delayed, people are like, see, told you'; Travis: Robert 'just doesn't get it'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: No public information or announcements from Deep Root about manufacturing infrastructure, supply chain, or production capacity despite game development announcements

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.293

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round.
0:39
Episode 17, Worth the Wait. I'm Jeff Teolis. Hello, I'm Martin Rubbins. Thanks everybody for sticking around for us, I guess. Your patience, trust me. Quality control right here on Final Round. You know, when you do 17 episodes, you just can't throw out anything willy-nilly, all right? I mean, other shows haven't made it to this threshold. I'm talking to you, Raymond Davidson, and do or die. We've got to step it up, and that's what we have pretended to do here on the flail.
1:14
We have faked it. That is absolutely true. We're doing our best, guys. That is all you're going to get. You're not going to get better than this. This is really the standard. The bar is low. let's just put it that way and you know we have special guests and you think wow that's great they get all these guests on really it is we put the onus on them because that's less for us to do all right we're busy in our lives aren't we somewhat we'll get to that after our special guests because i know trust me the only reason people listen to our podcasts are to find out what you and i did in the last two weeks we will get to that but you're gonna have to stick through our next guest for sure do you think anybody cares like do you think that's like an instant fast forward yes i do i think people know that that's usually what we talk about and they're like i reckon we could probably start the podcast around 20 minutes in and they go directly to that i would those bastards how dare them i don't care what i've done in the last fortnight and you know i have very little interest in what you've done in the last fortnight so i couldn't imagine anybody else cares just trying to stroke our egos for a little bit wow way to deflate the tires there marty it's just the truth right wait wait a second maybe people listen to us like they're our friends and we know those guys we've heard them on head to head we see them on melbourne silver ball we've heard pinball profile we know these guys let's find out what's going on in their world no i don't know did you have a lot of people reaching out to you saying oh my god jeff that is so cool you're getting a pilot's license yes i did actually well did you yes i did what do you mean yes i did and by the way every single one was a heckle i think that really says it all it says they're listening it's like we're a morning radio show i know yeah i know so for those people that don't know this is not our first attempt at episode 17 is a Jeff. And in fact, I distinctly remember something about a coin toss. Oh, fuck, yeah. I forgot about that. Okay, here's the truth. 100% full disclosure, okay? It is now in Jeff time. Actually, in your time too. It is, in fact, Wednesday, September 23rd. Wait a second. That's when the show is supposed to come out. Yeah. Yep. Well, we did actually record part of our show, as Marty says. What happened, Marty? We did. We recorded, oh, geez, was it two? Probably two days ago, maybe two and a half days ago, depending on time of the day. And at least an hour. Yes, correct. Oh, yeah, we did the majority of the show. And it was all based around a certain event that was going to happen. Not that it was the focus, but it was all leading to the fact that there was meant to be a launch. and so when listening back after said launch didn't happen it just lost any context at all completely okay the best thing about what we recorded which unfortunately will never happen if we ever do patreon by the way we will give people our scraps give people the show that never aired which is funny as hell yeah you you can pay for the stuff that's not deemed worthy right Is that how it went?

high confidence · Travis and Steven both note the absence of manufacturing details: 'I haven't heard anything about any type of manufacturing at all at this point. And that's the one thing that concerns me'

  • This Week in Pinball published a detailed article/deep dive revealing Deep Root game titles and features after the failed launch

    high confidence · Multiple references to This Week in Pinball article posted after Monday's delay; hosts cite it as source for game titles like Fire and Brimstone and Food Truck

  • Steven Bowden was originally scheduled as guest for this episode but had to reschedule due to Deep Root launch issues

    high confidence · Jeff: 'it was supposed to be our wonderful, good friend, Steven Bowden' but 'mutually, we just said, yeah, we'll do it another time'

    • Travis Meary @ ~52:15 — Practical advice on managing community expectations; emphasizes transparency and incremental communication as more important than delayed big reveals

  • “You're waiting for you to fail instead of creating a situation in which they're rooting for you to win. This is like the exact opposite of say Spooky Pinball. You know, everybody, I feel like everybody's rooting for Spooky to win.”

    Travis Meary @ ~42:00 — Contrasts Deep Root's approach with Spooky Pinball's community reception; suggests messaging and humility directly impact fan support

  • “Did the pinball machine flip well? And for me, I'm really interested to hear how that was. And the whole pinball community can't hear what happened with that. And I think that that's a really important detail in this whole thing.”

    Travis Meary @ ~56:30 — Highlights the impact of NDAs in preventing critical feedback from expert players; identifies mechanical/layout quality as the real test of machine viability

  • “They've already launched their brand and it's like they don't realize it. I mean, what was it, guys, like two years ago that they said that they were going to have the five days of Deep Root. They announced that a year ahead of time. And then it came in 2019 and then nothing.”

    Travis Meary @ ~54:30 — Points to a pattern of missed commitments and poor brand management; suggests Deep Root doesn't understand the reputational damage of repeated delays

  • “I don't give a shit what the theme is. If it's great pinball, I'll play Quicksilver with all those penises on the back of the glass because I freaking love that land.”

    Steven Martin @ ~70:45 — Philosophical stance on theme vs. gameplay quality; suggests Deep Root's game roster quality matters more than IP selection for hardcore players

    • person
    Razagame
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Cactus Jacksvenue
    Fire and Brimstonegame
    Food Truckgame
    Pinsideorganization
    Final Round Pinball Podcastorganization
    John Papadiukperson
    Quicksilvergame
    Stargazergame
    Rick and Mortygame
    Avengersgame

    high · Travis: 'I haven't heard anything about any type of manufacturing at all at this point. And that's the one thing that concerns me'; Steven: 'Didn't hear any of that on the This Week in Pinball deep dive'

  • ?

    content_signal: This Week in Pinball published article/deep dive revealing Deep Root game pipeline with titles and features after launch delay; served as damage control response

    high · Multiple references to This Week in Pinball article revealing game titles like Fire and Brimstone, Food Truck; Travis: 'them releasing everything today as they have, to me, they had to do it'

  • ?

    machine_intel: Raza machine tested by world-champion player Colin McAlpine but results cannot be disclosed due to NDA; community lacks expert evaluation of machine playability and mechanical design

    high · Travis: 'They had Colin McAlpine down there... he's not able to say anything about what his experience is on that pin... Did the pinball machine flip well? And I don't know if we'll ever have that answer'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Deep Root announced 'Five Days of Deep Root' event approximately 2 years prior (c. 2018-2019), announced a year in advance, and failed to deliver; establishes pattern of missed deadlines

    medium · Travis: 'like two years ago that they said that they were going to have the five days of Deep Root. They announced that a year ahead of time. And then it came in 2019 and then nothing'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Deep Root's decision to delay announcement rather than share partial information or behind-the-scenes content backfired; Travis suggests humbler, incremental updates would have been better received

    high · Travis: 'I'm like, this is a mistake. No matter how bad it came off this weekend, you had to scrap something together... Even a little bit tonight... why not just have that ready to go yesterday?'

  • ?

    community_signal: Contrast between established manufacturer community (Spooky Pinball receives universal support) and Deep Root's perceived outsider status; community prefers incremental innovation over disruptive rhetoric

    medium · Travis: 'This is like the exact opposite of say Spooky Pinball... people are waiting for you to fail instead of creating a situation in which they're rooting for you to win'; Steven: 'We're actually really happy with the industry as it is. We'd love for you to innovate... but not at the expense of others'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: NDAs enforced at Deep Root testing events prevent disclosure of gameplay and mechanical feedback from expert players; limits community transparency and trust

    high · Travis: NDA prevents Colin McAlpine from sharing experience; 'And the whole pinball community can't hear what happened with that. And I think that that's a really important detail'

  • ?

    announcement: Deep Root revealed list of upcoming game titles via This Week in Pinball article, including Fire and Brimstone (religious game), Food Truck (by Barry Aster), and others with gameplay descriptions

    high · This Week in Pinball published article with game titles and features; hosts discuss Fire and Brimstone as 'first multi-denominational religious pinball game' and Food Truck as order-management themed game

    • 4:37
    Yeah. No, I had who knows. Anyway, the point is, look, you and I are just trying to have a nice dinner, all right, out of our Patreon money. Let's be honest. Okay, we were supposed to have a special guest on. I'll say who it was. Funny enough, it was supposed to be our wonderful, good friend, Stephen Bowden. Yes, correct. The events that happened, I reached out to Stephen. I said, probably not a good idea, and you're probably busy. And mutually, we just said, yeah, we'll do it another time. Great. Stephen is a welcome guest on this program anytime he wants. Open invite. Yep, open invite. If you want to come on instead of myself or Marty, you even have that in your back pocket, Stephen. Absolutely take over the show. Give us a fortnight off. Anyway, lots happened in Stephen's world, not just with Deep Root, but with Fun with Bonus, all that kind of stuff. So timing just wasn't right. We scheduled that interview on Tuesday, the day after the supposed Deep Root launch. Well, Deep Root obviously has pulled back. We will talk about that in a second, but Stephen, obviously, it didn't make sense to do it. But here's how we – the funny thing is we record your part and my part together before we do the interview and pretend like we've already interviewed Stephen. And that whole line of comedy is now just completely wasted.
    5:50
    We come off the end of an interview saying, well, what did we learn? Of course, we did this the other day too, didn't we? We had this on another interview too. What did we – with Johannes. Remember we talked about what we learned from Johannes We hadn't even talked to him yet So the lesson learned is Make sure the interview happens before you Liable what happened in the interview Yeah do the interview first Before you build the structure Of the remainder of the podcast Around that interview Is really the summary there So we're getting a redo We're delayed, you get it Listen, does it matter that it's a little bit late No, it matters that the product is the standard you expect here on the Pinball Network with Final Round Pinball Podcast. And I can promise you, this is going to be exactly what you expect it to be. Okay, so here we go. We are going to talk about Deep Root and the fact that the launch didn't happen and then our friends at This Week in Pinball have put up an article giving us a lot of information about what they saw and what Deep Root wants us to know now. and already there's videos out there, people have done podcasts.
    7:06
    We don't necessarily want to say all that everybody else is saying, and I don't think you, our valuable listener, want to... Singular. What I hear is just go and repeat. So the best way to comment on what's happened is to bring in a better commentator. What do you think, Jeff? I would much rather have that. So thank goodness we have a good friend who's been on this program before. He is a semi-professional karaoke singer. Is that true? No, but we made him sing on this show. He had to sing the Tiger King theme. That's right, he did.
    7:48
    It was the only way we would allow it. Yes, yes, true. All right, time to say hi to our good friend, Travis Meary from Oklahoma. Hey, Travis, how are you? Just fine, Jeff. How are you doing there? Thanks for coming on under short notice. We appreciate it, and we won't make you sing. I don't know. If you suck, maybe we will. I don't know. If you get boring, we might have to liven it up a little bit. You were good last time.
    8:11
    Yeah, no, that's no problem. I mean, Oklahoma's boring enough, so, I mean, what else am I going to do, you know, on a weeknight tonight? Come on. I want to go to Oklahoma. You know, I want to hit Cactus Jacks and some of these other places. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was actually just out there tonight, masking everything, checking it out. So I'm waiting for them to hopefully get Avengers in pretty soon. Definitely looking forward to that. Looks like a great game. And Cactus Jacks is, you know, in Australia, we're obviously other side of the world. So news that comes about pinball is really only what the media presents to us. And I am actually very aware of Cactus Jacks. What's it like as a venue? You know, it's actually, it's really excellent. At any given time, they have 50 to 60 pinball machines from all eras out there. And, I mean, it's a lot of fun. The community here, it's just excellent. I mean, everybody helps each other out. I mean, there's all types of different personalities. So, I mean, it's really the place to go to if you're around the Oklahoma City area or even anywhere in Oklahoma. Well, we appreciate you coming on the program here. I know right now you'd be voting for Carol Baskin on Dancing with the Stars. But I do want to say, how's the beard coming? Because we did a reaction to your reaction videos, and we saw Zach had his beard. We saw Kerry Hardy had his. You were a little clean cut. Is the beard coming in so that you can be a proper reaction YouTuber? Okay, so I need to talk with you two about that.
    9:37
    Legitimately. Okay, my wife watched that, and she laughed her ass off. And the reason why, guys, I'm 36 years old. I can't grow a damn beard. I just, I cannot do it. And she just laughed her ass off at that. I have not heard the end of that for two weeks straight. You're welcome. Every, yeah, every single day. She's like, how's the beard coming along? It's like, Jeff can grow a beard. Marty can grow a beard. Where's your beard? And I just, I can't say anything. So yeah, I have to thank you two for that. Thank you. I definitely do appreciate that. You need a face merkin. Do you know what that is? No, I don't. What is that? Marty knows. Well, what's a merkin, first of all, Jeff, besides a face merkin? Fake pubic hair? It's a pubic wig. A face merkin? Is that what you guys are saying? Yeah, it's a pubic wig, and what he's saying is have a pubic wig, but on your face. Face merkin. Let me look up there. No, no, don't look up. Just put up merkin. Yeah, I should have looked that up incognito. I will. instead of the work computer good choice yeah i can imagine all the pop-ups coming up on your screen right now not that i would know what that is and then your wife goes down to check you know something in the morning like what the hell was travis looking at late at night i mean he said i gotta stay up late hey i told her who i was talking to so if you guys get hate mail from her then you know why uh she loves us hello is this true can i just back up a second just on something that you said, which I've now realized is the truth and not a joke, Carole Baskin is actually on Dancing with the Stars. Oh, yeah. That is hilarious. And I've just seen one of the songs that she dances to is Eye of the Tiger. That is hilarious.
    11:28
    Are you guys... That's a real thing? Are you guys hitting me? No, I'm just looking now. Are you kidding me? I haven't been paying attention. Is she really? It's true. You guys are taking me down a rabbit hole tonight. I already looked up the Merkin thing. Now I'm about to Google this. I've got to stop. You've listened to this show. You knew that's what was going to happen. Hold on a second. He's Googling Merkins and Carole Baskin dancing.
    11:54
    Jeez. All right. Deleting my cookies now. Tossing your cookies now. Yep. Okay. Do you want to talk about Deep Root or do you want to talk about Merkins? I'm good either way. Hey, I mean, they're kind of the same at this point, right? Oh, wow. Okay, we know where you stand. Yeah, shots fired early. Well done. So here's my hot take on it. I say hot take. My general take on it is I do hope that they're successful in whatever it is that they're going to do. Like I want to see people in this industry be successful. And, of course, obviously, this past, what, 24 hours is the culmination of everything after the past five years. I mean, it's been crazy. But I know there's more information that's been coming out, I guess, even tonight, right? I guess so. It's kind of semi-morning for me. So I haven't done my catch-up over the last eight to ten hours. What's happened recently? Well, I know this morning TWIP finally kind of put some stuff out. Oh, yeah. And I was waiting to see. I haven't gone over all of it yet, but I saw some of the stuff. Well, that I definitely have. I've read the Trip article. I've made a lot of points that I want to talk about. Before we go into that, let's talk about the reality of the launch not happening. What I can say is, and I was having this conversation with somebody, and I feel, and maybe only because it's recent and it's now and it's fresh, I feel that this has been potentially the biggest pylon in recent memory when it's come to pinball controversies everybody like there's very few people that are taking a positive stance here it is an absolute pylon do you agree? Are you saying that Andrew Highways just went oh my god he's probably reached out and gone hey mate I know how you feel Yeah, it's kind of odd. This has totally united the entire pinball community, hasn't it? Hold on a second. I've heard your hot take. I'm going to disagree there. Which hot take? I'm going to disagree that it has united everyone. Oh, wow. Because I have a different stance on it. What's your stance? My stance is it is extremely disappointing. Of course it is. That we are united in. But I have seen the ups and downs of Pinside over the last few years. Just the revolt of the idea of John Papaduke being hired. The, wow, that's pretty cool that even though it's not Zidware, Deep Root is looking after those not in the class action suit. And they're going to look after some of these people either monetarily or with games. It's up to those people's choice. Okay, that's pretty cool. And then it was like, okay, what's going on? Where's the delay? and, you know, concerns about the things Robert had said, the bravado, if you will. And then the excitement of, okay, we're going to see a game at Houston. All blue. It's only going to be a prototype. And then you actually see it and you're like, oh, it's not actually pretty bad. I'm kind of excited. Then people are like, when's it coming out? And then they're up again. Okay, we're going to see a TPF. COVID happens, it doesn't happen. They're down again. They're excited for September 21st. And then when it doesn't happen, they're pissed off, rightfully so, that they don't get to see it. and then they finally get to see it today or yesterday on Twip, and they're like, okay, that's kind of cool. Oh, okay, the lock bar I thought was not really what it was, and it's up and down like a fucking toilet seat. No, it's not, Jeff. Sorry. It is. It's not. And I say that because I've literally spent the last 24 hours on social media, on Pinside. I've read every single post. 99% of the commentary is very negative there's a lot of vitriol there it is overwhelmingly negative I don't personally agree with it I'm sort of like you I just think okay you know it's a bad thing that happened you know it'll happen in the future I certainly didn't lose any money and I'm not losing anything by not saying it but people have absolutely piled on telling you now It has been ultra negative. I think it's been, I think it's become a bit of fun. It's a bit of a game. Who can be the most offensive and who can say the most offensive things towards Robert and Deep Root and the machine, the lockdown, the fish tank in the back. I'm sorry. But it really has been overwhelmingly negative and that's the point I kind of wanted to address is that it doesn't need to be this negative. There are real humans, people out there, actually trying to do their best to put out a product, and everyone's shitting on it. And I'm not comfortable with it. I'm not. Yeah, I think it's one of those things. I was actually talking to somebody about this earlier today, and I think it's important. For anybody out there that's listening, I really do think, and I think a lot of people are galvanized based on how Robert kind of was, you know, just how boisterous he is and everything. And that tends to definitely cause a divide nowadays, especially, you know, 2020. We all know how it is. And, you know, to me, I think it's important for people to just like you guys are saying to separate, you know, the words that he's saying compared to everybody else that is there that are working their asses off, you know, day in and day out that are trying to do the best that they can, you know, because at the end of the day, we really don't know what's going on inside of there. Like we hear, but we really don't know. And there's no telling. I mean, he could be rolling with an iron fist, not listening. You know, maybe there's just not ideas that are being receptive. But at the end of the day, I have to believe that people that are there trying to earn a paycheck are doing the best that they can, trying to produce something coming out of it. So, yeah, I definitely agree that that's that's important to at least be aware of that. I think there needs to be a separation between those two. Do you think people behind a keyboard give a shit when they're shooting off their comments? The thing that pisses me off the most, this is what pisses me off the most. It's not the delay. I privately talked to some of the people that were there, and I won't reveal who they were because I respect their privacy. They didn't say anything. Nobody broke an NDA, which I was happy to hear. But all I said was, I would rather have a delay than a piece of shit product come out. I'm not saying that it was, but let's just say if something was a major malfunction or didn't work. Take your time with it. And they're definitely doing that. But just get it right because you only get that one first impression. Absolutely agree. I would love to full stop that, but I'm going to continue by saying, and it comes back to what Travis was saying, right from the bat, Robert came out, you know, arms flailing all about, you know, pinball is easy. All these other companies are shit. They're, you know, we're going to absolutely revolutionize the pinball industry, from manufacturing to quality of games to features to all that kind of stuff. And a lot of people sort of said, we'll prove it. And when it gets delayed, people are like, see, told you. I think that's really what it is. Everyone's just got this whole, we told you so. We just want you to be a bit more grounded with what you say. Be one of us. And I think that's kind of the response throughout the last couple of years, is I think that People have felt Robert isn't one of us. He wants to come in with his big hammer, and I don't mean the hammer on the play field, I mean his figurative hammer, coming in saying, I'm going to shake up the industry. And people are saying, well, hang on, we don't actually need you to shake up the industry. We're actually really happy with the industry as it is. We'd love for you to innovate and push it further, but not at the expense of others. And that sort of him being perceived as a bit of an outsider has been what's really got a lot of the pinball community up in arms. So when things like this happen, people are like, yeah, see, you're an outsider. You just don't get it. And further to that point, and it's again what you said, Travis, every time somebody posts and says, Deep Root is shit, this is shit, they're also saying the other people that work there in that same breath. And I don't think any of them are. I've never met Robert. I'm sure he's a nice guy. But they are trying to put out a product. They're trying to do their best. and it doesn't help is really what I'm saying. It doesn't help. Yeah, I mean, it's tough. It's one of those things, you know, and we just circle back to, you know, when somebody is very vocal about being the best or trying to beat, you know, other companies or whatever may have you. I mean, it's going to, you know, people usually aren't going to respond positively, you know, to that. They're waiting for you to fail instead of creating a situation in which they're rooting for you to win. You know what I mean? this is like the exact opposite of say spooky pinball. You know, everybody, I feel like everybody's rooting for spooky to win. So when Rick and Morty came out, that was like, you know, a giant parade, everything. And rightfully so. And so here with nothing produced and it's somebody that's just, you know, the most active and talking about, you know, there's just a lot of talk and little action. I could tell that obviously people are getting frustrated by that. But yeah, I think I just, I do wish that they would have shown something yesterday. Maybe not necessarily a full reveal, But even a little bit tonight, they finally trickled out some stuff. And so I'm kind of like, why not just have that ready to go yesterday? You know, it just came off a little unorganized where nobody was quite sure what was going to be shown or what was going to happen, you know, the day of. So I think it just added a bunch of gas to the fire. The first public leak was around 4 p.m. on Monday on Pinside. There were pictures that have now been spread everywhere and they were on Pinside. I saw them on Facebook quite a bit, actually. And they are pictures that we've now seen on Twip. So I wonder if Twip was told, go ahead and do the full deep dive because the pictures are already out there or we need something. What do you think it was, Travis? Do you think this is some sort of saving grace? Do you think? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. A hundred percent. I mean, it's as soon as they delayed, I was talking to somebody about it and I told him immediately, I'm like, this is a mistake. No matter how bad it came off this weekend, you had to scrap something together. And I think people would understand that even if your product isn't complete, if you show up humble, if you say, here's what we have, here's what we're working hard on, and you're highlighting it, yeah, you're still going to have people that are going to be negative about it. You know what I mean? But you're still going to have others that are going to start understanding it because there are people out there that are excited about new pinball. I mean, I'm one of them. I played it out in Houston, and yeah, I had issues with it, but I wanted to give that feedback because I want to see it get better. I enjoy any type of pinball that there is. Now, certain machines may not be my favorite. Certain rule sets may not be my favorite. But at the end of the day, even playing the worst pinball, to me, is better than doing something else. And that's just the way I feel about it. So, yeah, I feel like them releasing everything today as they have, to me, they had to do it. I mean, there's no way that you could put these self-imposed deadlines for reveals and then you're not even meeting your own deadline, which that's I mean, that's just total egg on their face. And from the stuff that I've read about, I mean, there's some interesting stuff that is in there. And I don't understand why it seemed like that this reveal had to had to really circle around Raza or like it was just starting Raza. Yeah, I see all this other stuff. And I'm like, this stuff is so much more interesting than Raza, in my opinion. Because once Raza comes out, then it's done. They've got to move on to the next thing. It's just a single product for an entire company. Raza shouldn't be the entire company. So the stuff that they're talking about today, that's the stuff I'm interested in. I don't understand why they didn't just highlight that yesterday and come out with that. I'm not sure why they're not leading with that. So the point really is, do you have a live flipping game at launch? or do you just launch your brand and your concepts and your titles without a live machine Would everyone have been okay with them just doing let say a promo video talking about the features and then the Twip article coming out and then them saying, you know what, in the coming weeks, we're going to have a live stream of Raza. Do you think people would have been okay with that? I think they would have. And I think the big issue at DeepRoot is they've already launched their brand and it's like they don't realize it. I mean, what was it, guys, like two years ago that they said that they were going to have the five days of Deep Root. They announced that a year ahead of time. And then it came in 2019 and then nothing. They ended up missing that. And then these dates keep getting pushed back. And you look at it, they don't really have too much of a social media presence. We just kind of hear what we hear over time. And it's like their brand is there, but they're not really presenting it. And that's the part I don't understand. But you're exactly right. They need to just get their footing. And to me, if you're talking about doing all this innovation, then you need to start showing us that innovation, even if it's not ready yet. Document it. Show us something behind the scenes. Just give us a clue as to what's going on. and today was at least a step in the right direction. Because if you see some of the stuff that's out there, there is positive response to the potential that what they're saying. But the question is, is can they actually enact that potential and make it a reality? And that's the part I'm not sure of because I haven't heard anything about any type of manufacturing at all at this point. And that's the one thing that concerns me right now. That is the big void I noticed as well. Didn't hear any of that on the TWIP deep dive. didn't hear about that from really anything. And it is probably the most important part of all of this, right? Yeah. If you can't build your pins, I don't see how anybody's ever going to get to play them. I mean, they have to. And the fact that that part really seems absent in all of this. What I really want to know is, from this weekend, is how did, if we are going to talk about Raza, how did it play? We heard that there's technical issues, but did it at least flip well? because technical issues, that can be fixed. But if the layout, if how it actually flips is still off, then that's an issue. You know, like we could take an Elwin pin and you could strip it all down to just whitewood and it's going to flip well. Like you can tell. I mean, you know how it is, Jeff. You know, you can tell how the shots are going to be. And so I'm really curious how that is. And, you know, the bad part is this is what I hate about the NDAs that they have. They had Colin McAlpine down there. That's a world champion pinball player. and he's not able to say anything about what his experience is on that pin, flipping it. And for me, I'm really interested to hear how that was. And the whole pinball community can't hear what happened with that. And I think that that's a really important detail in this whole thing is, did the pinball machine flip well? And I don't know if we'll ever have that answer. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, great. For me, I don't care about the manufacturing. like if I'm really honest, and I obviously want to know how it flips, but the first thing I really wanted to know was what are the titles? What are the games that you're going to release? And do I feel some sort of connection to those titles? And is that what's going to get me excited? And today we did get on This Week in Pinball a list of, I think, a lot of games that are in development development, and then with some details around them, and then a further list of games. If you can just humour me just for a second, if I can go through a couple of them. The first one that comes up is Fire and Brimstone, which is, and I'm quoting here, relive the Old Testament alongside the prophets of ancient times, build up faith or suffer the fire and brimstone of the wrath of God. The features are it's the first multi-denominational religious pinball game. All right. Does that get you excited? uh to be honest no i mean i guess the concept could be interesting but i'm not like how would they do that exactly like when i hear fire and brimstone i think of like an ancient warrior fighting that's what i think of and then when i hear religious pinball game now all of a sudden i'm thinking okay are they going to make this like a sunday school type version or are we going to see like what are we going to see out of this well i think if you remember the old safecracker game And if you were to get that special feature where the coin came out, it would be communion would come out.
    28:58
    I could be wrong. I probably said too much. You probably have. So the next one from Barry Alsler is Food Truck. Get orders filled quickly and accurately to keep your social media reviews up for maximum scores. Watch out. Your competitor, the Roach Coach, will try to steal your customers and look for any opportunity to post bad reviews and sabotage your business. The features are some cool toys and mechs along with a fast-paced visual ordering queue. Is that, are you guys serious? There are several games listed. I haven't seen any of the games yet. I'm not falling for this. Is that real? Food truck? Food truck. Yep. No. Yep. Tell me that he's punking me right now. Not a punk, man. You're going to hear a bunch of different games. And keep in mind, I mean, he's going to ask you for your opinions if these games appeal to you or not. I will say this about absolutely every single game that is out there in any pinball, and especially when you look at the old games where there were no licenses. I don't give a shit what the theme is. If it's great pinball, I'll play Quicksilver with all those penises on the back of the glass because I freaking love that land. You love penises, yeah. All right, I don't give a... I think astrology is a joke with all the horoscopes and bullshit like that, the hocus-pocus, but I'll play Stargazer, and fire off all the Zodiacs. I don't care about all that stuff. The game is fun to play. So whether it's Food Truck, whether it's Fire and Brimstone or the other ones that Marty's about to say, maybe the theme doesn't appeal to me. If the game's good for any company, I'm in. But we've got nothing to play. We've got nothing to play. All we've got is this information about themes. So all we're really doing is judging on the theme because we've got nothing else to judge. Okay, so these are real legit themes. These are absolute legit. The next one is Merlin's Arcade. This is a John Norris game. The concept is it's a medieval... By the way, John Norris has shared this on his page. Yep. It's medieval arcade Olympics set in the 80s. Train with Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table. Batten Morgan Le Fay to regain the Holy Poppin' Grail. Features based on 8-ball deluxe with flow and precision around new mechs with a unique gameplay heads-up display. I can get on board with that. I can get on board with this. That one sounds interesting. Yep, yep, yep. I like this one. Yeah, you like it because there's wands involved, all right? You can bring out your little Harry Potter wand. I get it, Marcus. I'm glad you clarified by saying Harry Potter wand. Yep. Well, that and 8-Ball Deluxe, I mean, it just now showed up in Australia just last year. So, I mean, that's probably a big deal down there, right? We just got our first shipment. Well done, Travis. Nicely done. Okay. The next one I think Jeff will be excited about. I was excited about Food Truck.
    31:53
    You were, unless they sold, was it tacos that you had for the first time? Is that the one? I'm a taco guy now. All right. Okay. So, Barry Ousler is doing The Who.
    32:09
    Take the legendary band The Who on an amazing journey in search of the pinball wizard. Features are some unique mechs and special effects Around this musical spectacle Sold I could dig that one That'd be a good one Yeah, I think so too You've got to have a band theme That's what I think And the Who I think that's a good enough theme For a band pinball Yeah, well I can think of one song They have What? Well, you guys got to remember I was born in the mid-80s Like I've heard the Who before I'm just trying to think of all their music Okay, you know Pinball Wizard You know, my generation. Hope I die before I get old. All right. What about Won't Get... You ever watch CSI? Won't Get Old Again, right? Okay, yeah. What about Who Are You? Okay, yeah. Now it's all coming back. Magic Bus. Kids Are Alright. Baba O'Reilly. Behind Blue Eyes. Come on. They've got good music. They've got good songs. And I think they've got songs that have some universal appeal. You might not necessarily be a fan of The Who, but you hear the song and you go, So, yeah, this is actually a freaking cool tune. So, I'm on board with the Who. I would never buy it because I'm not that much of a fan, but I think good on them. The next one, also a Barry Osler game, is called Gladiator. The concept, Players Septimus, a captured slave who must rise in the ranks of the gladiators of Rome, hone your skills, kill the senators, and overthrow the emperor who killed your family and enslaved you. features based on the 3D Space Cadet layout, the first virtual table converted to a physical layout. Subways galore. That one could be interesting. I love the theme idea. I'm trying to remember the Space Cadet layout. I know I've played this before when I was younger, when it was on computers, but I can't remember the exact layout off the top of my head. I mean, obviously, 3D Space Cadet, it was so cool because you could be at work on your computer and rather than have Solitaire up, you could have pinball. So that was always better. Are you saying the next game is Minesweeper?
    34:15
    The next game is Microsoft Paint. Mahjong. Yes, you can somehow make that work. Okay, next one. This is from Robert Mueller and Dennis Norman. Yukon Yeti. The concept, a goofy and lighthearted game, this mischievous and lovable teenage Yukon Yeti feuds with gold miners against the backdrop of the late 1890s Yukon Gold Rush. Feature, who doesn't want a sequel to Whitewater? New mechs and the great multi-level flow you can expect from the original. Now that one has my attention. Because I enjoy Whitewater. So hearing that they're doing a sequel, that one has my attention. I love Whitewater. In fact, that is my favorite Dennis Norman game, Whitewater. so I'm in. They're already saying it's going to be multi-level, just like the first one and so I'm curious to see how the ramps and the returns would be as well. I would assume it's going to be just as crazy as the original one It would have to be crazier, wouldn't it? I would think so, up the ante. I mean I assume we can make these ramps too, right? Like it'll be fine I mentioned that I love Whitewater It was one of my favourite games when it came out. When I got back into pinball and then obviously when and became a competitive player, the rules probably let it down because it was do the thing, which was get the five times multiplier into multiple. Otherwise, if somebody else gets it, they win. So I love the layout. Would love to see some enhancements to that layout as just a bit of an evolution. But new rules, modern ruleset with that kind of layout. Yeah, take my money, please. Yeah, that's a good overall theme. I'm personally a fan of games that get sequels. Like, if it's done right, I'm personally a fan of that, so I don't mind that at all. Last one that's got a description. This is by Dennis Dorman. It's called Machine Age. The concept? You are dropped into a battle spanning ages, being, and time itself. Help two dieselpunk heroes take on the world's greatest threat in this dystopian thriller with the help of a mystery ally. I'm not sure what to think about that one. With the help of a mystery ally. So, okay, you've never played it before. You've never played the prototype. You've never seen it. Here's a game for you. It's called Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland. Aliens are trying to take over the world. They land on an adventureland carnival that just happens to be built upon a graveyard right beside a nuclear power plant. Does that interest you? The theme is like, what? No, I love that theme. I freaking love that theme. Marty, I know you like that. But at first you're like, I'm confused. What? It didn't matter to me. Again, the theme was maybe something that art can do, but I just, again, it's all about, I'm a different player, right? I'm not a collector, and I'm also not an operator. So with a lot of these titles you've been mentioning, and the common thread I've heard from a lot of these are, okay, these are made for the home collector as opposed to out on location. There might be some out on location. I think the Who would be probably the most welcoming one of all of these titles, but it sounds like they're making them more for the home collector. I could be wrong. That's what I would assume. If they're not making licensed themes, I would assume that that's where their focus is going to be more on the home. I don't know. When I hear themes like Fire and Brimstone and Food Truck early on, those aren't themes exactly that I think would be catching people's eye. Those two pens might be some of the best design pens we've ever seen. You never know. But again, I'm judging it on what we know. I'm only going to mention one more, and it's no information except for it says three words. All in capital letters. It says, hey, you guys, 2021. The Goonies. Yeah. I mean, Mrs. Penn will hunt you down if it's not. Correct. She has been desperate for that game, and a lot of people have. So, look, as I've said, I do not, I did, I watched the Goonies movie and it was a lot of fun. Certainly didn't love it because it wasn't era appropriate watching it now when it came out 100 years ago. But I can still see that that would make a fun machine just based on that. And that's kind of what I'm saying about all of these titles that we've just gone through. So almost close your eyes and imagine what a layout would look like with that theme. And a lot of people are doing that. Yeah, I mean, I think it would really make a great theme. And if they don't do truffle shuffle multiball, it'll be a trap. Yes, for sure. So here's the thing that we're seeing with Deep Root. We're seeing now a bunch of titles, some that are totally brand new to all of us. I think we knew about, well, we definitely knew about Raza. I don't know what else on there. We knew Fire and Brimstone, I guess. Yeah, Alice in Wonderland. So there are other ones. Alice in Wonderland is also going to be developed. Magic Girl? Magic Girl, yep. Yeah. So we knew those ones. The other ones we didn't know. Okay, now other companies don't give us the titles well in advance. Some get leaked. I mean, I think Avengers was pretty impressive that it wasn't really leaked. Everyone kind of assumes and knows that Guns N' Roses will be next from Jersey Jack. There's a lot of talk about Led Zeppelin for Stern, Cactus Canyon for Chicago. We don't know this many titles in advance. From a marketing standpoint, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are you going to save your dollars because some of these titles excite you? Or are you now in the boat where, okay, you've mentioned the titles. Okay, let's see it. Let's see it. How long will it take? I think I know where people are going to stand. But what do you think, Travis? You know, it's an interesting concept because really, when you look at other industries, especially dealing with video games or even like movies, you know, like we take the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We all know well in advance what's coming out and approximately when it's going to come out. And I've often wondered if something like that with pinball would actually work. and I didn't think of it though to this extent that DeepRu has done. I've just thought of it of what if they do this just for a calendar year to say here's our next two or three releases just to get out ahead of everybody else. You know I mean imagine a world in which Stern at the beginning of this year announced hey we're coming out with Ninja Turtles around this date and then we're coming out with Avengers around this day and then whatever else in the future and it's a tough call because I'm not really sure how that would affect the buyer. Whether somebody that knows that a pin is coming out, say six months down the line, will that affect what they buy today? And I'm curious to know whether or not, you know, for me personally, I would still buy a pin today that I know I want to play, but I would also have it planned out that I know I'm going to sell it by this day so that way I could fund the next pin. And so I don't think it would really affect me in terms of holding off on my money because if I buy a pin, it's because I want that pin. And so it's an interesting concept. And I think that there's certainly some validity to it. But also announcing how many games that Deep Root announced ahead of time is that three, four, five, it's like 15 games, it seems like. I mean, it's a lot. I don't know. That might be a little much because I don't see them coming out with a lot of this stuff for a few more years. It would take Stern, based on their history, at minimum three years to do that, to put out 15 different titles. And that includes the Heavy Metals, the Pabst Can Crushers, and the Primuses, and Star Wars Homepins, and all these other ones to get to that number 15. So that's a heavy load when we still haven't seen the first one come out yet, which we are anxiously waiting. I think what we're going to see with all these titles and why other companies don't release it, perhaps, I could be wrong, we'll find out with our next week's guest, a little foreshadowing, is that all you're going to get is probably criticisms. Again, these keyboard warriors that have zero intention of ever buying a game for this company, any company, but just are there to critique. Listen, they're entitled to their opinions. They're no different than you and I and Travis talking right now. We all have opinions. They do it on the keyboards and stuff. But you know why my opinion and your opinion and Travis's and everyone else who does one may or may not matter? It doesn't matter if we have zero intention of ever buying one. Really. We're just kind of armchair quarterbacking it. And the other thing, too, with all of us is I haven't put one cent down on any of these games. I'm not waiting for my investment to come back. I haven't been asked for one dollar. A lot of it is, too, is what is anybody that's being super negative about something? What is their intention from it? You know, are they critiquing something because they want to see it be better or are they just critiquing something to the point that that's just their main goal? Just to just crap all over something with no intention on trying to build it up or trying to give any type of constructive criticism for it. You know, I think a lot of that is what's the intention behind it as well. let me just give you a slight counterpoint on that jeff i'm not saying my individual opinion counts nor yours or travis's sorry to let you down guys but let me tell you why our collective opinions matter it's because there's those people that are the keyboard warriors or whoever they are that are you know turning into a game who can have the funniest comment about it and who can be most offensive there's also a lot of people out there that are on the fence that don't know and that is the opinion that they're going to get. And then those people that would have either been on the fence or had no opinion at all are now faced with this collective negative opinion that could, by osmosis, become their opinion as well. And that's where it matters. I wish it didn't, but that's why it does matter. Yeah, I think you're right. I have to agree with you. And I'm a bystander like you and I. I guess what is getting my back up is I think of the people, the real, real people. It's Stephen Bowden, who is, I don't care who you know, I'm telling you right now, you will never, ever find a nicer person in pinball than Stephen Bowden. Travis, God bless you for the recent podcast you did. And that's why I actually called you to come on tonight because you said some great words about Stephen and fun with bonus. And we all feel for that guy. We want him to succeed. And I know he will because he's a winner and a smart man. You know, I've met John Norris a few times. What a delightful man he is. And the people that I've met with Deep Root, I've never ever once met or talked to John Papadu. So I don't have an opinion, yay or nay, about him. I love his games. I don't like what happened with the Zidware thing, but buyer beware. You knew the risks when you bought that, and I'm sorry. And I've got friends that bought that. Sorry about that. I've been burned on eBay. Same freaking thing. Not to that extent. Marty, you've been burned on GoFundMe things, have you not? Kickstarter. Yeah, three times. Yep. You've been burned on Kickstarter. We all have our stories of buyer beware. Again, it's to me about the people. So you're right. The collective negativity is going to influence some people. And I'm glad you mentioned earlier, Travis, think about the actual real individuals, not so much the company. Yeah. I mean, that's an important thing. And I really do think moving forward with Deep Root is in all reality, all they have to do is just get stuff going and be consistent. That's all they have to do. If they can start doing that and they're actually putting out products, we can fast forward three, five years from now. And this is but a distant memory. You know, I mean, it's not like in 2020, everybody's remembering, you know, High Roller Casino from Stern Pinball or Harley Davidson from 1999. You know what I mean? It's all about what is coming out today, what is happening today. And so if they can just start producing and just start getting consistent, and these games, they don't even have to be just the best of the best. I think if they just simply get something out and they get on the proper production schedule, that will alleviate a lot of concerns. Because once people realize that there are games coming off the line and they can count on this company to keep producing, I think you'll see a lot more goodwill go towards them moving forward. And like you say, thinking back historically, I wasn't necessarily around at the time. I was just a little bit after. But, you know, when Gene Cunningham was trying to remake Big Bang Bar, it was, and all the archives are there on the internet on RPG, Jeff. Take it easy.
    47:30
    On RGP. The amount of controversy then and negativity was just as huge. It was big, but probably a smaller community back then, so obviously not as many posts. But when you look back and you think about Big Bang Bar, do you think about all the stuff that happened that was good and bad to get the product out there? You just think about the game and the fact that it's now out there and it's ridiculously expensive. But that's what's going to happen when they start releasing games. People get their hands on them. Back to what you were saying, Jeff, about you play the game, you want to physically play it. Travis, does it shoot well? Well, if it does all that, maybe a lot of the history will be behind us. Yeah, no doubt in my mind. I mean, you guys know how this industry is. It's just that 90 to 120-day span, and all of a sudden it's on to the next thing, and then the next thing, and the next thing. And so I think with as many themes that they're saying that they have, as long as they start producing, I mean, people will respect that. And I'm sure something in there will be a winner, you know, one of those. and then all of a sudden you do a second winner, and then you do a third winner, all of a sudden you're very relevant to the conversation then. You know, I mean, nobody, even today, we can go back to Spooky. Does anybody really talk about Rob Zombie Pinball today Not really No no I have to agree You know what I mean But it all about Rick and Morty and that a game that sold out And it not like Rob Zombie was you know a great love pin And what was their other game that they first came out with? America's Most Haunted. Yeah, America's Most Haunted, again. I mean, that's where that company went from, from there to Alice Cooper to TNA, you know, with Denise coming in with it, to Rick and Morty. So, I mean, they're a prime example of a company that can really evolutionize themselves. And so I think Deep Root, they're in a position to where they can try to do that. And I hope that they do do it. And, you know, at the end of the day, once we get to 2023, 2025, this will be but a distant memory. It's just a matter of them actually getting there. They have to get there. So let's relate this to another pinball company. It has been over a year since we saw a new machine from Jersey Jackpinball, an excellent machine in Willy Wonka. People are speculating and waiting, and let's just assume it's going to happen because it's going to happen, about Guns N' Roses. When the game finally comes out, and from everything we all hear, it's going to be fantastic. When it comes out, are we, six months after it comes out, going to be talking about the delay? Same point, exact same point that Travis just made. No one will care. I think the difference here is, has there ever been a release date put on Guns N' Roses? In fact, nobody knows that it's Guns N' Roses officially. So there's no expectation because you haven't put a point in time on it. So when you say delay, what delay? Yeah, I mean, that's true to a point. I got a lot of friends that are Jersey Jack fans, and I'm not going to lie, they're getting a little antsy right now. They're getting very antsy, and I think a lot of that comes from, too, with what happened with Pirates. They announced it, what was it, October, I think, of 2017? Yep. And then it ended up taking months afterwards for it to come out, and then by then all the hype was just completely gone. And then again, we look at ebbs and flows. Now all of a sudden, everybody wishes that they would have been an early adopter of it because the prices for those games went sky high all of a sudden just from them not being produced anymore. So, you know, I can see why people are getting antsy and want to see something from Jersey Jack. But I think most of that comes from being fans of that company. And it is just thinking that they'll never put anything out, because at least I think Jersey Jack has the credibility now built up over the past few years that they're going to produce a pin. And I just I don't know this for a fact, but I've kind of theorized just based on listening to the first podcast that they put out within their company that since they're wanting to start getting games more on route, they're wanting to wanting to try to compete with Stern. You know, I was kind of wondering if they were just keeping this game on a certain track in order to help them get their manufacturing down to where it'll help them springboard to the next release that they have to where they start getting consistent with their releases. And so that's why, to me, it makes more sense to have a gap now and then release this pin when it's ready, especially if it allows you to basically market it correctly and then use the next few months to get as many sold as you can, but at the same time get prepared for the next one because that's something that Stern does excellent at. I mean, they're the gold standard at pumping out these machines at an incredible rate. And I think the only way to really start, you know, cutting out your own slice in this whole industry is you have to do the same thing. You can't do 18, 24 months in between releases. You have to be consistent at least six to eight months in between, I think, to even start making a dent. You know, because otherwise it's, you know, we're at the same thing. We're having the same discussion again where people are just waiting around wondering when the next pin is going to be. It depends on your business model. Well, Spooky is a lot longer than that, and they sold out. Yeah, absolutely. And just like you said, it's entirely dependent on business model. And their model operates great because I imagine all the – and that's exactly why, too, I guarantee that they get the non-refundable deposits up front. Because you get that influx of cash flow right there, and then you're set for the next couple of years to do what you need to do to get prepared. And that's a great place to be at. You know, whereas you see these larger companies, they don't necessarily do that. So therefore, their velocity of sale has to be much higher. You know, they have to get this sold. Their turnover rate has to be at a much faster pace. And so I can kind of see with Jersey Jack moving that they're going to have to adopt the Stern model more than what anybody else is doing. But, yeah, no, I agree. The way Spooky's model is, I mean, that's excellent, especially for their size. I mean, I don't see any reason for them to ever change that at all. That's a great place to be. But Jack Guarneri did actually come out and say, he didn't say, we want a Stern model, but he did come out and say, we are going to announce these games and you are going to be able to get them in your hands a couple of weeks after announcements. So that is the plan. The free pass I'll give them is they moved their manufacturing from New Jersey to Chicago. And that's a big deal. And I know you could say, well, Spooky moved there into a bigger factory, Stern moved factory. They moved down the road. The difference is they've had to move from state. So that doesn't mean everybody's going to come along. So they've had to rehire and rebuild. That's a big disruption to your business. So I kind of say give them a free pass and just go, just give us the game. We want it. But I can excuse the delay. Yeah, they need to get it right because the last thing you want to do is try to release a game and you're not prepared to manufacture it correctly. Because that's just asking for disaster. So, you know, to me, like we just talked about before, even if there was a couple of months extra delay, if games are pumping out as soon as they announce, I mean, everybody's going to be happy regardless. Are we forgetting one other major thing here in 2020 that may be a factor in all of this? This freaking pandemic and the ability to manufacture and have large bodies in certain places? That certainly causes a lot of disruptions. That's why, to me, it's even more amazing that Stern's been able to do what they've done with Ninja Turtles and now Avengers. I mean, that just goes to show you just how well-oiled of a machine it is up there. So, Travis, wow, you're into this podcasting thing. Hey, we've only done 17. He's done 19 already. Marty, he's ahead of us. I mean, I'll be honest. It's because I saw Zach Minney doing it, and I figured anybody could do this. That's what it is. love you zach i just can't i can't sing like him i tried you guys got me to last time i can't do it oh you can sing like zach no i mean i have a lot of fun and to be honest with you if it wasn't for this whole covet thing and everything being shut down like it probably wouldn't exist but without any events going on it's just i have literally nobody to talk pinball with i mean this is the times that I do get to talk pinball. It's either by text or by Skype. And so eventually I was just like, you know, I'm just going to start just talking to myself into a mic and I'm just going to see what happens. And lo and behold, it just kind of just took a life of its own, really. But yeah, that's that's literally the only reason why it exists. That's the only thing you could do with your free time. You couldn't grow a beard or open a zoo. You know, there's so many options. Yeah, I mean, there's not much to do in Oklahoma to begin with. So when things get shut down, it's just, I mean, I couldn't think of anything else to do. I mean, I watched a lot of TV, more than what I had in the past couple of years. But after that, I mean, I could only watch so many Office episodes. So I had to do something else eventually. So if people do want to hear you or see you, where do they find you? They can find me on YouTube at Marv Loco. No, no, no. What's your home address?
    57:01
    care of carol baskin is that no yeah my wife love that just give away just give away everything and just have people outside the house we'll do that when you're done when you're off the air no we enjoy you know what we did kind of we didn't poke fun of the reaction videos but um because i think it's just a matter of marty and i aren't really the most talented people when it comes to making videos, perhaps. So this was the closest thing we could do. We certainly can make jokes. I thought it was hilarious. I mean, there's nothing anybody will ever say or do that'll offend me. Like I got four kids and two sons I get made fun of every single day. I mean, I think you and me talked about that, Jeff. It's every single day I get made fun of. And that's the glorious part of having your kids home from school as well. You just hear it every single day. Yeah, no, there are some positives, too, though, of this pandemic. I mean, there's certainly more negatives, but the quality time with family is certainly something that we'll look back on and go, you know what, that's how we got through it. Yeah, it's definitely made me pause. I mean, there's a lot of things, even though traveling for pinball and everything, I mean, I constantly stayed busy. And this was in all reality probably for the past decade. The first time these past few months, I could actually just take a breath and pause. So, yeah, I mean, it's it's tough with the kids trying to explain to them what's going on. Why can they not go to certain places? But at the same time, we've we've tried to do the camping thing a little bit. So we've we've still tried to figure out our way around different areas to try to still have our family time. But for sure, I've I will say I've gotten my fill of just watching kids videos all day on YouTube. I'm about over that at this point. Travis, we appreciate you coming on under short notice. And we also enjoy your insight, too. You're a smart guy when it comes to marketing. And it's actually not really foreign to you. A lot of people don't know, but it's kind of your background, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, the easiest thing I can say is that there's a reason why I'm able to travel to different events. And simply because just working for myself, being able to make my own hours. I mean, I've just I've owned different businesses just for the past decade and I've been around it a lot. And really what's helped me out is just having skin in the game and a lot of different endeavors. So it was just trial by fire. I had to learn how to either sell stuff, market stuff or get it to work, because if it didn't work, I wouldn't just be out of a job. I would not be making any income whatsoever. So, you know, I have to thank my wife for that because she's been very patient with me over the years in terms of doing that because it does require a lot of travel. But luckily, I've been able to kind of draw back from that, especially during during these past few months. And so, I mean, I enjoy talking about I know some people, you know, I get in the weeds sometimes when it comes to marketing and all that. But I mean, it is one of my passions, just trying to figure out how to get something to work, how to bring something to market and how to get it to sell. And, you know, just seeing it with pinball, it makes my wills turn in my head. And so I find it very fascinating. But at the same time, I'm not going to lie. I'm ready for these events to start. I'm ready to just get back to just playing pinball and figuring that out. That's what I'm really looking forward to. Yeah, we are too. All the best, Travis. We will catch your podcast. We will catch your streams. And we appreciate everything you do. No, I appreciate you guys having me on. You guys continue to stay safe. So there we go. there was Travis. Really good to get another commentator's opinion on Deep Root and what's going on. And I'm assuming it's come across as balanced as we would like it to be. I enjoy talking to Travis myself. I think where we are right now, and it is Wednesday here on the 23rd of September, we've ridden the roller coaster. We've gone up and down and up and down, up and down. I think today with the release of all the things that they're going to be doing, pretty exciting. It's got people going, okay, maybe I can wait for it. I want it now. But if this all happens, okay, good, great. The whole thing I come back to is, what are we owed? Are we mad because we were owed something or are we just disappointed? Because there's a difference. I think disappointment, that's fine. I think we were excited to see this and get our hands on it. Okay. Well, a very much more intelligent person than me, this was a sports psychologist once told me this and it's really stuck with me. He said, we only get angry over two things. Two things make us angry. When there's an injustice and when our standards aren't being met. So, is there an injustice here? Well, some would argue there's a bit of an injustice because of the whole J-pop thing. But I really think that expectations or our standards were not being met and that's why people are angry. Okay. Alright. I can think of other things to be angry about. fuck, I was going to flip a coin and give you a million different things that I was angry about. But that's how you get angry. But the things that made you angry are either your standards weren't being met or there's an injustice. Okay. All right. You know what is the opposite of being angry? Being excited, being thrilled, and nothing, I'm telling you, nothing is more thrilling in pinball than our sponsor of the week. Can't wait.
    62:32
    Marty, when I say Abraham Lincoln, what do you think of? Top hat. Wasn't he a president as well or something? Yeah, yeah. Okay, but here, Marty, let me narrow it down.
    62:44
    What do you think of when you think of Tom Selleck? Many things. First thing that comes to mind is Ferrari and Magnum PI. Not quite there yet.
    62:59
    What about ZZ Top? Hold on a second. What about Yosamity Sam? Um, I think I know what you're talking about, but give me another clue. Okay, I'll put it in pinball terms. Think of you, think of me, think of Roger Sharp. All I can think of is legendary facial hair. Is that where we're going? Abso-frickin-lutely. Now, there are some people out there that are not able to have this. There are these unfortunate people. Well, luckily, no one because of the new final round beard and mustache kit. Marty, have you ever wondered where all those clippings go from the barber shop? I have wondered where they go. Well, don't you worry. They're not going to a landfill site or being dumped in the ocean. No, no, no. We're environmentally friendly here. We've gathered it up for our final round beard and mustache kit. Is this for real or just a lot of hype with nothing to show? Is this for real? I don't know. You tell me. Keith Elwin has been wearing one for years. Well, if it's good enough for Keith, it's good enough for everyone. Get your phone around beard and mustache kit today. Oh, look at that. Travis Murray just bought one. Okay, we're good.
    64:11
    I think his wife bought it for him. We've already made our commission. Well done. So that means we will probably get a free beard and mustache kit in the mail. Seeing as our sponsors are now generously providing our gratuity. I saw. Yeah. Thank you for posting that very private picture of me in my new car. but I guess, you know, it just shows the power of pinball podcasting. It certainly does. How has your last two weeks been here, Marty, since we last talked? What can I tell you? There's not really been that much that's happened. One of the things that I did was I streamed Jurassic Park with video and audio from the movie. Now, I've heard about this. I didn't know it could be done on the newer machines. How is this possible? Well, you actually just download the code. It's not widely available, but if you go to a certain forum, you know, pinball-related, kind of sounds a bit like landslide, you know, you might be able to find some information there. And effectively, you just flash an SD card, put it in your SD slot on the Stern machine, turn it on, and there you go. You've got it. And you did it yourself? I did it myself. Now, I know you like to have a go at me about my ability when it comes to pinball maintenance. This couldn't be simpler. You literally load up a program on your computer, flash an image to an SD card, put it in the slot, turn your machine on, that's it. It is still relatively new, so it did bug out once. But here's the thing. When Jurassic Park by Stone First came out, a lot of people were critical of it that it didn't have video from the movie. And the call-outs really were narrowed down just to Newman and some other people. And I kind of at the time thought, you know what, I'm actually okay with that because I like the fact that it's a first-person perspective. Like you are the person that's in the park and you're telling your own story. You're creating your own story because you're going through the paddocks, whichever one you choose. You're doing control room whenever you're having the T-Rex attacks, whatever. But it's you that's doing that rather than following a movie. I didn't really want to feel like I was just going from the start of the movie to the end of the movie and there was no deviation. Because you know I've said this many times, I like to have choice in a pinball machine. So I was happy the way that it did, and I didn't really care for it needing video footage. Now that it's there, I think it's great. Does it change the game? Absolutely not. I think what they did with the video assets, the animation that they created, was absolutely sufficient. I have to think that has to be one of the hardest things to do in pinball. Putting that together when different elements change so quickly in pinball that you don't want them overlapping. You don't want a video going off for something that happened three events ago. Correct. We do remember that there are some machines. I think it was Ghostbusters. When you got into the left scoop, it would do whatever the book thing was there. Then it would do the extra ball setting. Then it might add a ball. And all this is just happening. I think they fixed that up. But you're right. coordinating all of that and prioritizing all of that is probably something that we just don't talk about and we don't really care about but someone's got to do it i think the reason we don't talk about it probably as much as because they've they've perfected it in many different games and if it was an error we'd probably notice it more but because they've done this uh it's pretty incredible like even call outs again sounds video all these things they have to be timed perfectly because of the way the events happen in pinball so the fact they've got these movie assets that's pretty cool i i am calling bullshit on you because you said it was really easy and you did it when you said there was a glitch you had to have called somebody come on marty i know you too well no no no no no the glitch was the game froze i just turned it off and turned it on that that's all it was i did it once and that was it will you go back to the old video assets you have a choice now i will go with whatever comes out next meaning if 1.03 code comes out and it doesn't have the video assets that's what i'll go and will i need to put them back in after that i don't know marty you stream on melbourne silver ball are you allowed to have those assets shut up i'm being serious oh i don't know probably not but you know what i'm trying to be a snitch here well you what's too late for that you are being a freaking snitch hey twitch so check out melbourne silver ball marty's doing it he's fucking cheating he's fucking cheating it um i'll tell you what was really funny though when i first started the game kept resetting well it kept draining the ball and I was like, oh, that must be it. New code. And I was trying to pinpoint when it was happening. What's the game state when it was doing? And then it just kept tilting the ball, tilting the ball, tilting the ball. And I went, you know what? Just so I can play this, maybe I'll just take the tilt bob out. Oh, my God. Opened up the coin door and the manual and goodie bag was leaning against the tilt bob. That's how much of a noob I am. Oh, wow. Seriously, that's awesome. That's what happened. So I was like, come on, someone clip it. I'm going to write to the people and let them know, just get some feedback and, you know, help the project forward. And it turns out I'm just an idiot. So. No arguments. There you go. That's the highlight of my fortnight. How about you? Well, not to one-up you, but I also did a little revision on a pinball machine. I put on my first mod. What was that? I finally put on an ACDC cannon, took off the plastic piece of shit that came with the pro ones i mean it's functional don't get me wrong but it looks like crap right the blue and the hand-drawn cannon no no this is it's not quite die cast it's some sort of plastic mold really nice paint job it's fantastic looks good still shoots the same and i did it myself thank god there was a good how-to video this is from back alley creations i'll uh give them a plug because i've been looking for this mod for a while you And I looked on some of my favorite sites, and somebody suggested that one. Got it. They were great. Delivered it. Easy to install, and looks a hell of a lot better now. So I like it. Yeah, okay. So I'm looking at a picture of it now. I know what you mean. It's just effectively a box that has a blue decal with a cannon. Oh, that's terrible. So what does it do? Does it turn it into like a cannon figurine? Is it more like that? It kind of goes over. So you take off the blue plastic cannon cover, really, and you put on, which really looks like a cannon with the big wheel, and there's even a wick on it, which is funny, and that goes over top of it, and it just sits on top of the coil, and it covers up kind of the mech, if you will. You're asking me to be freaking technical here. What are we, slam tilt? Talking about our repairs? We can never read that show. If Final Round does that, we're screwed because we're two noobs. You asked me what I do. I watched a video. I took out screws. I put it on top. I screwed it in. It worked. That's all I did. It was a Phillips screwdriver. I know that much. I'll make it easy for you and for everybody listening. I've looked at it. I know exactly what it is. Go to backalleycreations.com and type in Canon into the search, and it will come up. It looks great. It does look good. So now I'm thinking about other mods, and I'm going to go to Measle Mods because I'm a big fan of theirs, and check out some of theirs as well, and Comet Pinball. They have some great mods, too, for lighting, and, of course, our friends at Pin Stadium. Lots you can do. Lots of people are doing this. If I can do it, if Marty can install the videos on Jurassic Park, I mean, wow, we've really come a long way. Well, I also did fix my Lord of the Rings machine recently, which involved soldering. So I am actually getting better. Were there broken connections when you went under the playfield that you could easily see?
    72:55
    No, not necessarily. But there was a wire that was leaning against another one. so I had to take some stuff out to make sure everything just flowed well but I did the thing that a lot of people I know which made me feel better too I put it all together and went why have I got one screw left over Where did this go So, I don't know. That just happens. My apologies to great pinball people out there. Crystal Gemnick is one I can think of. Bruce Nightingale, Ron Howlett, these people that are experts when it comes to fixing machines and they have to listen to you and I try to explain things in not even layman's terms, just really moron terms, because we don't know what the hell we're doing. And everybody I talk to, and you probably are the same, when it comes to fixing games, you just got to get in there and do it. I guess you're not really going to break stuff, but for me, it's just you don't know what you don't know. And I mean, I can say, I've got a game, Medusa, okay? So the left sling is fluttering. I don't even know if that's the correct term. so obviously there's i'm guessing a gap issue in a switch i don't know i could be wrong by even saying that i really don't know i just know the ball doesn't hit it and all of a sudden goes and i'm like okay well that needs to be fixed so once covid's done i can get a friend over and maybe fix it well that's you've really only got three options either learn how to fix these things yourself, have a friend that can fix it for you, or pay somebody to come out and fix your machine. They're really your options. The most rewarding, obviously, is to learn it yourself. I have, A, I have no patience, and B, I've got terrible hand-eye coordination. So, like when I said I got the solder out, if I start soldering things, I'm fusing any wire that's around the solder point as well. and big globs. Soda is dripping everywhere. I've burnt myself trying to do it. It's just I, you know, I understand my ability, the limits of what I can do, and that's why I make sure I've got good friends that can come around and help. That's it. So that is the most important option. It's the friends who can fix. That's the option for me. Now, even as canon, I did myself. There was one screw. There's two screws when the canon moves out. So I did, like, change the power and stuff on the game, which I think really just involves pulling out a plastic knob when you open the coin box. Anyway, the video, thank God, was good. But it said you have to take out these four screws. I could take out four screws. Got it. Done. Popped off the thing. Got it. But then you had to put four screws back in. I could only put in three of them. So one I didn't. I'm like, ah, it's tight enough. It's good enough. And it kind of holds wires from dragging, but there were two screws that did that. One did it. I thought, well, that's tight enough. It'll be good. In other words, I couldn't get the screw in. And I bet you I tried for an hour and I'm like, I'm going to break this thing by forcing it too hard. I'm just going to leave it. I think that's hand-eye coordination, getting into small places, maybe not having the right tools. Oh, you know what? I was just going to say you've got to have the right tools as well because there's a lot of times you're trying to unscrew either a screw or a bolt. and you've really only got a small amount of space there. So you've got to have the right length tool and sometimes they've got to be quite short. I've got a socket wrench. I've always been told the size of your tool doesn't matter and I've lived that way my whole life. No, I think you've just got to have the right size tool for the hole is it. It doesn't matter the size as long as the two are compatible is how I'm defending myself. But yes, I know I've got a socket wrench kit, and a lot of the times it doesn't work because they are too big, and then I've got to use like a little tiny adjustable wrench. You've just got to make sure you've got the right tool for the right thing. That's really what I'm saying, without any innuendo. So it's that. All right. I didn't have any innuendo, and you went there. That was you. Of course. Yeah, for sure. You know what else happened to me? What happened? I hope it's golf related. again, we've recorded this show now twice, so he knows.
    77:31
    Listen, I was getting pissed off watching the U.S. Open golf, the final round, because I have to watch everything final round because of this podcast. I have to make sure that if they say final round, we sue them. Anyway, the point is I was watching the U.S. Open, and I was getting pissed off at the commentating, and it does it every time on golf. And I thought, oh, wait a second here. This makes no freaking sense. There are no spectators. There's no one on the course other than the golfers, the caddies. That's it. And the golf commentators the whole time are like, he's lining up for the punt. He's got about 18 feet. He's going to break right to left. A little bit of an uphill climb, but he should be able to. Is he British? Is that what I'm hearing? That he's a British commentator? There might have been. I could have been Nick.
    78:15
    Honestly, it sounded like you were commentating Snooker. That's what I'm saying. Do they do that for Snooker too? Yes, but it's even quieter than the golf. Why?
    78:25
    Because you've got to have absolute silence with snooker, like absolute silence. Okay, but why in golf when the commentators are nowhere near the golfers? It's not like they're blasting the commentating to the golfers as they're lining up a putt. You know, we talked about this at Pinberg when the commentating on the stage, the commentators could be heard by the crowd and also the players. And this happens at a lot of different events. And they weren't whispering. You go even one step further. You go to a great event like the New York City Pinball Championship. Levy is off the charts, you know, going, hey, it's a different style. There's rock and roll music playing sometimes during competitions. It's so much fun. It's different. It's not for everyone. I will agree. but it's certainly not the whispering that needs to be done. And I think that used to be the way it was kind of in pinball. I don't think you need to be as over the top as Levy, but I think as it relates to this golf, like why were they whispering? What pissed me off about it was it put me to sleep on the couch. I missed the golf because this guy's tight. I think that was more so the game. Obviously, I'm not a big fan of golf, but this is what I'm going to say, right? If you watch golf, obviously you do. That's why you're bringing this up. It's not a fast-paced game. So if you had somebody that was really enthusiastic and over the top, it would not suit the mood of the game. Do you think that's just tradition? Oh, no. Commentators have always done it that way. But if a guy holds a shot from 180 yards out, he should lose his mind. or if he holes a 60-foot putt, I mean... I have heard them get really excited when something miraculous happens, like a hole-in-one or, I don't know, a birdie or a bogey or a beaver. I don't know. What do they call them? An eagle? An albatross? Yes. There's a bogey as well. There's not an albatross. You're making stuff up now. No, there is an albatross. What's an albatross? Well, a birdie is one under par. An eagle is two under par. An albatross is three under par, so a two on a par five, or should you be lucky enough to hole in one on a par four? That would be an albatross. Tell me more about this golf thing. Albatross is very, very, very... Dude, does it really bug you that much that they whisper? Okay, so how is this related to pinball? It's just you're juxtaposing that against where we can get really quite loud when we're commentating pinball. Is that right? Well, I think commentating pinball, people do exciting things. Yeah, but people do exciting things like every two, three seconds. Okay. I think the first time I noticed the commentating, and I might have even been a part of it, was being heard as the players were playing. You were kind of conscious like, oh gosh, is this going to bother the players? I think what would bother the players is if, you know, a person cradles up, they make a shot and you go, oh my God, look at the shot. You know, as they're still playing, that might screw them up a little bit. but a nice steady volume, perhaps? I don't know. I mean, you don't want to startle a player, and I think that's the one thing I was always worried about as a commentator. You don't want to startle them, but... I'm going to hopefully, fuck I hope, put a full stop on all of this by saying I think you've got to match the ambience of the event. And the example I'll give is the Melbourne Super Bowl Championship, which is obviously the tournament that I run, and it's at Flipout, which is a pinball show. and there's thousands of people. But when you get to the finals, usually the finals are happening after the show is finished. And I think you did hear the commentating. We had a guy called David Holroyd from Melbourne who does an absolute spectacular job of commentating. The weeks of research that he goes into to make sure that he's got the right things to say, knows all the rules, it's just phenomenal. But when it's during the day and everyone's there, he's you know blow by blow fly by fly just commentating everything that's happening but then when you're down to the final four and there's only a group of people watching and they're all quiet he's then up against the mic and he's whispering and he's saying right he's now doing this because he doesn't want the person hearing him commentate so i think you've just got to match the ambience of the event there you go done all right i just thought i'd point out that uh it put me to sleep but you're right now that i think about it i probably was more about the comfortable couch and the long night before and you had a few long nights didn't you i mean with our first time we recorded this yeah i was i was quite hung over when we recorded this the other day because that was that was monday wow and i and i streamed on sunday i actually had to cut the stream short because I was starting to fall over. That's actually true. Really? Yeah. Ooh, I've got to check Twitch. Oh, it's not that exciting. Drunk Marty's not a fun Marty. I disagree.
    83:38
    He has some moments. Drunk everyday Marty might not be fun, but drunk once in a while Marty? Damn good time.
    83:47
    No, it wasn't planned. I had just started drinking early and it just went into the stream. It was lots of fun. It's a good Sunday night thing to do. You know, speaking of golf, I was supposed to actually be golfing on the weekend, but I lost something. Your virginity?
    84:04
    Not yet. I lost what my friend said was my man card. What's a man card? It's a hypothetical bullshit term that should be gone, but it basically talks about when you do manly things, you've got your man card. When you lose it, you did something that was not manly. I don't mind losing it. I don't care to have it because the reason wasn't exactly great. I was invited by a friend to go golfing with Ann, my wife, and other couples. There were going to be, I think, four couples. So two foursomes. Great. You ride in a cart with your wife. You go golfing. Great. I told my wife she was super excited. Then, I don't know, three days later, I'm told, yeah, it's just going to be the guys, the no wives. So I'm like, I've already told Ann, yeah, it's just going to be the guys. I'm like, I can't say to her, yeah, you're not coming now after you're all excited. They basically called me every name in the book and said, yeah, dude, it's just going to be the guys. I'm like, I get that. Had you said that originally, that's different. Anyway, so they continued to abuse the hell out of me. And I kind of said, like, I think I'm doing the right thing here. Like, I actually went golfing with Ann. You know, I wasn't going to take that away from her. And by the way, just a little sidebar, I'm a horrible, horrible golfer. My wife is an outstanding golfer. You would much rather golf with her anyway if you're worried about the quote-unquote slow play or whatever they were deeming concerning. Anyway, I was kind of bummed. So you kind of saw some what you thought were friends, true colors. So I might have lost a man card. I might have lost a friend out of this, but I still have a wonderful wife that I think I'm still ahead of the game. Do you think maybe they didn't want to play against her because she's such a good player? Do you think that might be it? I don't know. They're like, let's bring Jeff along. He makes us feel really good about our playing, but that Anne, she's going to kick our butt, and we're not going to be happy with that. To tell you how good Anne is at golfing, we've played a few rounds this year. I have not beat her on one hole all year. Oh, you'd lose your man card just for that. No, no. I'm smart enough to realize that she's a great golfer, and I just like to get out and swing once in a while. Very quiet, of course. I don't want to make too much noise when I do. No, that's right. When you're out swinging. Yep. But anyway, I just thought, I guess the reason I bring this up is with what I've noticed in pinball over the last few years, you don't see these kind of examples. I think we really respect all walks of life in pinball. I certainly hope so. I know you and I do. and I do think the majority does as well. Yeah, I think so. I think it is diversity for me. I gravitate towards diversity. I like people that are different and I like being around a lot of different people. Yeah, that's cool. Me too. I mean, some of my best friends are now in pinball. I mean, I have friends that have never flipped once. That's fine. That's great. But some of my best friends that I talk to on a regular basis are all over the world and it's because of pinball. And people that I unfortunately, sadly, think I probably never would have met before if it wasn't for pinball bringing us together. But thank God there was this hobby. Yeah, I'm the same. I've got two distinct sets of friends. It's almost like before pinball and now pinball. Very rare that they have come together. I don't think it's really happened.
    87:38
    And it's fine that way. I think you've got your pinball people you can talk pinball to. If I started talking pinball to my non-pinball friends, they would just keep looking at me like I'm some sort of freak. So I just leave it out. Worse when it comes to having to explain that I do a podcast. How about you? Yeah, it's one thing to say you're a pinball player and you go to competitions and there's the ranking system. When you try to explain this to non-pinball people, yeah and then they ask you questions like do you warm up for pinball? can you get injured in pinball? yeah you can yes to both but yeah you can because then you're totally they'll abuse you for sure well imagine how hard it is having to explain to somebody that you stream pinball podcasting, well podcasting is one thing because at least people understand a podcast and they go oh that's cool you do a podcast when you have to explain what streaming is then people go And do people actually watch? I mean, yeah. And people pay for that? Not a lot. Yeah, don't get into those details. Yeah. So that streaming is next level crazy when it comes to explaining to muggles about pinball. Harry Potter reference. Nice. I even know that. I got it. Are you holding your wand? You are holding it. well that's the funny thing too about we not only play pinball and go to competitions and have pinball machines yeah we do the podcasts and streams and videos and and then when you say oh uh there are several pinball podcasts actually out there you lose those friends right away so you just some things are just best left unsaid and you know the first thing that people really He'd say, when I mention that I do a Pimple podcast, I say, what could you possibly talk about? Like, is he really that much? It's like, yes, Karen, there is a lot going on.
    89:40
    That was actually, her name was Karen. Oh, really? Okay. I just wanted to clarify, not the inverted commas Karens of the world. That is the funny thing, because if they listen to this show and we've told them, yeah, there's a lot to talk about, they're going to go, um, you just talked out of your ass for like two hours. okay other good pinball podcasts have things to talk about yeah i should say to them well i have been speaking to you for the last half an hour so obviously i can talk about nothing no that's probably a bit harsh guts deep guts deep anyway so we know we are constantly reminded that we are outcasts of society because we like pinball we are not normal and i like it that way and you want to know something else here here i'm gonna alienate us a little bit more sure why not we spent the first hour talking about deep root and the delay with the launch yep here you are listening to us and we promised something huge and we've delayed it and delayed it and delayed it it is our most underrated bracket oh no i know and people still listen i know once we get it out there which will happen every day when i wake up the very first thing i do well after obviously having a coffee and having a shower is i go to our facebook page and i try to post a poll on our facebook page every single day just to see whether it's been fixed the answer is no it hasn't so guess what we're gonna have to bite the bullet and forget that those polls which were so much fun to do here on final round you did it for years on head to head we're just going to have to go without the funny gifs we can still have the poll we can still get that information and even spread it on our massive social media uh different venues and outlets it will go viral for sure especially when we put it on twitter i mean seriously i assume every single person listening right now is on twitter based on the numbers well i think we're over a hundred likes now that might be a stretch no technically we are over 100 likes and that was the the challenge that i gave a couple of weeks ago was to get us to 100 likes admittedly 73 of those are other people that we like yeah but you add those together we're over 100 so those are fishes So if we like them Maybe they'll like us Maybe they will But you know Okay so if we put the poll on Twitter Which by the way you can do polls on Twitter You just can't have funny gifs You can do polls Twitter we're not going to get the response But it's final round pin I think on Twitter I believe Oh my god you got that right Well we've done the show twice now Yeah you should remember it from two days ago On final round pinball Which is our Instagram account Nope No. I think it is. It's Final Round Pinball Podcast. The whole thing? You set it up. No. You're definitely wrong. I'm going there right now. I'll beat you. Instagram? No, actually, I won't go there. I'll wait. I'll wait for you to find out what it is. My phone's... My battery's dead, so... Oh, is it now? All right, it's Final Round Pinball Podcast. I didn't think it could be that long.
    93:07
    But it's Final Round Pinball on Facebook. And it's also funaroundpinball at gmail.com, the way that you can send us an email. Wow. Are we consistent or what? Nothing like that.
    93:21
    And on TikTok, we're round final, if you will. Yes. Are we on TikTok yet? We should do TikTok. No, it's being banned in the States. That's true. Yeah. So, sorry. We missed that boat. But we are on videos. Oh, by the way, we might actually have a video we have to do. I haven't even told you about this. No. Okay. I'm scared and aroused. What is it? Marty, you and I might, leaning strongly towards definitely doing... Yeah? A video for the Chicago Virtual Pinball Expo. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. I'd be up for that. Doing what? Just talking shit like we normally do? Yeah, we might have to prepare this time. Yeah. I mean, you have done a pinball show seminar talking shit about podcasts before, so you can do it. On video, though. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. You know what? This will be fun. It was nice that Rob asked, and I said I would look into it. And what looking into it really involves is asking Marty, knowing Marty will do the production and the editing of it. Yes. Yes, it's true. You got a green screen. You got to get some use out of this. Well, hopefully you'll have a green screen by then so we can then match the quality. I know that you've upgraded your camera. You've now got a proper 1080p webcam. Well done. Welcome to 2015. I've done way more than that. Josh Jacobs, who you can hear on the Pinball Network, behind the scenes has been helping me with my little studio. And I have upgraded absolutely every single aspect of my computer, not just a webcam, the whole thing. and I just got it on Tuesday, so I don't have a green screen. Do I really have to get a green screen? No, of course not. It would be kind of cool, though, wouldn't it? I mean, you know, it's what the professionals do, sure. But then I'd have to change the background from my end, wouldn't I? Yeah, easy. Oh, this stuff is easy. You know what? I think Joe Fox did it when he was on our show, so if Joe Fox can do it. You can use virtual screens as well. You know, this stuff is easy. Putting a video together and just slapping it up on YouTube, Easy. All right. Okay.
    95:38
    Except for the, I don't know, five hours of recording we did for that reaction video. And then the five or six hours of editing after. Yeah. It's a bit of work. Okay. I better make sure my final round face merkin is tipped off. Let's just make sure.
    96:00
    Hopefully mine will get here in time. All right. I think we're good. we've done this twice most of it was good we apologise for the shitty stuff which is also most of it no I think it was a good show I'll tell you what was great honestly Travis I could talk to Travis in fact so last time Travis was on which was the trivia right at the end we spoke to Travis for like another hour today after we I don't know we chatted for about another 30-40 minutes could just speak to him for hours yeah he's good and He's got the Pinball Podcast. Not the greatest name, of course, but it doesn't matter. The quality of the show is good. His YouTube channel as well and a smart marketing guy. This kind of ties into what we're doing next week. Next week, you and I are giving a lesson on marketing.
    96:51
    We are experts. Let's face it. We have been doing podcasting now for I think maybe three, probably three and a half years. You obviously a lot longer. But we are therefore experts in marketing. Yep, absolutely. So we'll try it out with our guinea pig next week and see how well that person does. It's already lined up. It should be good. Until then, Marty, it's been a pleasure. It has been a pleasure doing this twice this time. Better the second time. And appreciate everybody. Apologies again for the delay, but hopefully it's worth the wait. Worth the wait. that is the common theme worth the wait i agree the weight yep okay marty take care you too thanks everybody for listening speak soon