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Episode 7: Black Knight, Wonka, and Fan Boys. Oh my!

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 10m·analyzed·Apr 12, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Black Knight remake revealed; hosts analyze game design, discuss Stern/JJP strategic timing, and interview Martin Robbins.

Summary

Josh Roop and Scott Larson discuss the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast's absence, their meeting with Martin Robbins from Head to Head Pinball, strategic release timing between Stern and JJP (particularly around Willy Wonka), and provide detailed analysis of the Black Knight remake reveal. They explore the niche nature of pinball, podcast sustainability without funding, and express concerns about the game's right-flipper dominance and repetitive music despite strong overall design quality.

Key Claims

  • JJP has only released four games in seven years since 2012

    high confidence · Scott Larson discussing JJP's production volume and competitive capacity relative to Stern

  • Stern releases approximately 3,000-4,000 units per game annually across all tiers

    medium confidence · Josh Roop estimating Stern's production numbers to establish competitive baseline with JJP

  • Black Knight game is heavily right-flipper dominated, particularly on Premium and LE models

    high confidence · Direct observation from the factory reveal stream showing Keith Elwin destroying the game with right flipper control

  • Black Knight music loops significantly across multiple players and has become repetitive after the reveal

    high confidence · Josh's personal observation from watching the multi-player reveal stream

  • IFPA has nearly 70,000 registered tournament players, but many only play 1-2 tournaments

    high confidence · Scott Larson discussing IFPA registration statistics and casual participation levels

  • Willy Wonka is anticipated to release Friday (following this episode) at JJP

    high confidence · Josh stating 'to all signs shows it to be Willy Wonka' and 'sounds like they're releasing Wonka this Friday'

  • Stern strategically held back Black Knight from Texas Pinball Festival to let Munsters spotlight shine with original cast event

    medium confidence · Josh's revised analysis explaining Stern's decision to focus on Munsters rather than announce new game at festival

  • Pinball locations are extremely sparse even in major markets like Seattle, Portland, and New York (1-2 per city)

    medium confidence · Scott Larson's market assessment of pinball venue distribution

Notable Quotes

  • “I guarantee that they have, you know, it's basically espionage, right? And that's what they do. It's company espionage.”

    Scott Larson @ early_mid_episode — Commentary on competitive intelligence between Stern and JJP regarding release timing and announcements

  • “You seriously drove three hours out here for me? And I'm like, yeah, dude. Like, I wanted to meet you. Like, I'm fanboying a little bit.”

    Josh Roop @ meeting_with_Martin — Expresses the respect and influence Head to Head Pinball had on the Loser Kid hosts and podcast community

  • “Head to Head, hands down, and then every other podcast. And then there's a few other levels and there's us.”

    Josh Roop @ late_episode — Establishes production/quality hierarchy in pinball podcast ecosystem

  • “They coordinated six guys for a joke.”

    Scott Larson @ april_fools_discussion — Highlights the community effort and passion behind coordinated April Fools' content across multiple pinball podcasts

  • “If they release Wonka are they going to be able to sell the three to four thousand that Stern is selling?”

    Josh Roop @ mid_episode — Articulates the core competitive challenge for JJP versus Stern's production and market penetration capacity

  • “I actually put a little post up for the few people that are following us right now.”

    Josh Roop @ mid_episode — Self-aware commentary on the podcast's modest reach and audience size

  • “It's crazy to me that you can tell JJP is going for the home market.”

    Scott Larson @ mid_episode — Identifies JJP's strategic focus on collectors/home players rather than location/operator placement

  • “He's just a fun guy that you want to hang out with. And there's a reason why, since Ryan C. has pulled back a little bit from the podcast, that he's had no problem getting other people on the podcast.”

Entities

Martin RobbinspersonHead to Head Pinball PodcastmediaBlack Knight (Stern remake)gameWilly Wonka (JJP)gameJosh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinball (JJP)company

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: JJP's production volume (4 games in 7 years) insufficient to compete with Stern's 3,000-4,000 units per game annually; capacity question marks on market viability

    high · Josh asking 'are they going to be able to sell the three to four thousand that Stern is selling' and noting JJP's limited output history

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball podcast community demonstrated sophisticated coordination for April Fools' prank across six hosts on three separate shows

    high · This Week in Pinball, Special When Lit, and Slapsave coordinated fake host changes/departures as April 1st joke; represented significant production effort

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Black Knight music overly repetitive after reveal stream; looping intro across multiple players becomes stale despite good overall composition

    high · Josh noting music 'started to loop a lot' and 'I've heard that song so many times now' and 'already kind of starting to get a little bit old'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Black Knight heavily right-flipper dominated, particularly on Premium/LE; upper playfield shots favor right side of playfield, making gameplay repetitive with skilled players

    high · Josh observed Keith Elwin destroying game with right flipper control, ball falling from top playfield then immediately shot back up, creating 'boring to watch' gameplay loop

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball remains extremely niche despite IFPA's 70,000 registered players; major metropolitan markets have only 1-2 pinball venues; only ~1,000 spots in largest annual tournament

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.211

0:00
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. You are on episode number seven. I am your host, Josh Roop, here with my co-host, Scott Larson.
0:16
How is it going today, Scott? You know, it's been really cold. Spring is my favorite time of the year, and we have a lot of trees that have some nice blossoms that kind of wakes you up from the winter. Winter's great here. I love living in Utah. I love being able to ski, but I really do look forward to spring and kind of that changing of the season and when things warm up. It warmed up last week and I was down near in St. George, which is about two hours outside of Vegas. And it was feeling warm. It was feeling like it was time to wake up. And we got back here and it was nice for one day and we had been hit with a rain slash snowstorm for the last two days. I know, it's insane.
1:00
How has it been out by you? Because you're about three hours away, farther east, but you guys get a lot of howling winds. Yes, the interesting part was it was not bad this morning. I had a job actually out in Vineyard, which is Orem area. Oh, you should have called me. I should have, but I was in such a time crunch today. But no, it was insane going through Daniels. That's like our big cliff area. and it just, or our big, not cliff area, what do you call it, a canyon area.
1:32
And there was just so much snow and the wind was blowing it, you couldn't see the roads. It just was gnarly. And it's weird, like you said last week, it was nice and warm and this week it's sadly just back to winter for some odd reason. Yeah, well, it's typical. This is how Utah is.

Josh Roop @ martin_discussion — Establishes Martin's personal credibility and ability to attract guests after co-host Ryan C.'s reduced involvement

Kevin O'Connor
person
Joshua Clayperson
Keith Elwinperson
Jeff Riveraperson
Dennis Creaselperson
Danperson
Mike Lundperson
This Week in Pinballmedia
Special When Litmedia
Ken Cromwellperson
Ryan C.person
Raymond Davidsonperson

high · Scott analyzing IFPA numbers and market concentration; Josh and Scott discussing venue scarcity in Seattle, Portland, New York, Chicago despite large populations

  • $

    market_signal: JJP explicitly targeting home/collector market rather than operator/location placement; very few JJP machines on route across major markets

    high · Scott observing few JJP machines in Utah and other markets; Josh noting JJP base model price ($8,500) matches Stern LE ($9,000), indicating home market positioning

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Joshua Clay confirmed as newer Stern artist (former tattoo artist) working on Black Knight alongside established Kevin O'Connor

    high · Josh identifying Joshua Clay as artist on Black Knight reveal stream; confirmed as relatively new hire from tattoo art background

  • ?

    announcement: Willy Wonka (JJP) expected release Friday following this episode; pricing anticipated to mirror Pirates structure

    high · Josh stating 'to all signs shows it to be Willy Wonka' and expected pricing: $8,500 base, $9,500 LE, $12,500 CE based on Pirates precedent

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Josh revised initial criticism of Stern for not announcing Black Knight at Texas Pinball Festival to understanding strategic focus on Munsters with original cast

    high · Josh acknowledging 'I may have ranted a little bit that Stern didn't release anything' but 'I've kind of thought about it more' and now understands reasoning

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern and JJP appear to coordinate release timing to avoid direct competition; strategic intelligence sharing via industry workers/loose lips

    medium · Josh and Scott discussing that Stern likely knew about Wonka and timed Munsters event accordingly; Scott suggesting 'espionage' through industry worker connections

    • 1:50
    Yeah. well what have you been up the last it's been it feels like forever since we last recorded we kind of were off a little bit and then we recorded on a weekend and put it out on a monday because of the black night all right and uh yeah we've we did so much in the last couple weeks yeah no it's it's been good um we uh well let's jump right into it so we actually recorded um we record after texas and we were able to talk about different things. And I may actually have some different takes on some perspectives. I may have ranted a little bit that Stern didn't release anything and really kind of neglected the Texas Pinball Festival show. However, I've kind of thought about it more, and I thought, you know, maybe they really wanted to at least give Munsters kind of the spotlight. They had a big event with two of the original cast members, and I think they were trying to sell as many of those as they can before they moved on to the new one. I think it's kind of sad that Black Knight didn't get the big reveal at the festival, but I also understand why they did what they did. um and i i also i think there's a little bit of strategic planning between stern and jjp with jjp they obviously both of them know what the other is doing and so with um with expo when stern when jjp released pirates and they really impressed everybody and blew away. And then a week later or so, Stern released Guardians of the Galaxy. And I think in some ways kind of eroded what JJP did. Now, of course, JJP didn't have Pirates available to sell. So I think that certainly didn't help. But I think that JJP is trying to do a little bit of that with what they are likely releasing on Friday, which to all signs shows it to be Willy Wonka. So it'll be interesting to see how that strategic planning plays out. I know as the fan base, it's difficult, but I understand why they do it. Movies do the same thing, right? Yeah. If you're a big movie and you're trying to figure out when to release, you're not going to release it against Star Wars. You're not going to release it against Avengers Endgame. You're going to try to position yourself so you're the only game in town. Yep.
    4:32
    So I understand why they did it. I think it did disappoint a lot of people who were planning on going to the Texas Pinball Festival expecting more news. Yeah, I agree. In many ways, that's why I didn't end up pulling the trigger. And I was anticipating going to the Texas Pinball Festival this year. well and I think also it comes down to I don't know if JJP and Stern do know the way that they're doing their reveals together but it does look like there was some predictability on what Stern was going to do and so JJ kind of capitalized on it I think they do obviously if random podcasters who have no money in the game have enough information on what's going on, being fed to them by either side, then I guarantee that they have, you know, it's basically espionage, right? And that's what they do. It's company espionage. So I'm sure that JJP has people at Stern who work for them and they know who to talk to. And I'm sure that Stern has the same thing at JJP. And whether or not it's a worker on the line or something. I doubt it's any high-level intrigue. This is not a Cold War situation. But there's enough information floating around that comes... That would be fantastic if it were a Cold War situation.
    5:56
    But I think it's just more of a hey, there's so many people who work at Stern and work at J.J.P. on the line. Somebody's going to be able to tell you what's going on. Yeah, I know what you mean.
    6:10
    But it would be fantastic if it were like a James Bond situation where he dressed up in like a tuxedo and snuck into Stern so he could see what's going on. That would be hilarious.
    6:21
    But well, no. And I'm looking forward to both of them. But before we get moving on to those, I was going to say we got to meet with Martin from head to head. And it's funny because, like I said, it feels like it's been so long since we last recorded that when I texted you, I'm like, we had did we ever talk about Martin? You're like, do we even record after we met with Martin? So I'm like, dang, that's how long it's been. It's just been, it's been too long. Well, it's challenging. We both have real, I know it's shocking to say that none of us get paid for this. And so this is just, Hey, this is what we do in our spare time when we're trying to have fun and enjoy our hobby. And this is one way of enjoying the hobby is actually being a podcaster. um so yeah it's uh it's certainly and since we have more of a casual schedule um but you and I talked about this I my feeling is if you have more of a casual schedule then it allows you to um to not take the podcasting as much of a job and more of a hobby and so I think it's easier to sustain some excitement about it so hopefully it's this hopefully it comes across yeah and it's kind of nice that's what's nice about this is like i said it feels so long that i'm actually excited to get back behind the microphone not saying i haven't been excited but i know some of the guys that we talk to that are other podcasts so we get ideas we we talk to uh just about different stuff that happens behind the scenes and whatnot um you can tell that if you're doing it week to week they kind of get burned out yeah um and what starts out as something fun and enjoy joyous or whatever, joyful, it kind of goes down quick because the people are really good at their jobs, like head-to-head and special and lit, and those guys are on a weekly basis, and they have all this content and whatnot. It seems like they get a lot more listeners, but they also get a lot more critics. That's one of the things we were talking to with Martin is it's hard. You get a lot of critics behind the scenes because they don't think you're doing it right or you they want you to do it a certain way and that's kind of the nice part we haven't hit that point you know the only critic we get dennis creasel of uh like eclectic gamers and he's not even a critic man he just comes here i i love the dude it's so funny because we'll do an episode we'll put it out and the next day or the day after we'll get like a page worth of comments and i would just i love talking to Dennis. He's a great guy. Dennis is so great. Dennis actually probably listens to the podcast more than you or I do.
    8:55
    It's always good to have someone who gives you a good summary of what we talked about as opposed to a, hey, you guys are idiots. Don't do your podcast. It is kind of embarrassing when you're like, I don't remember talking about that and you have to go back and listen through your own episode to respond to what he said. Did I say that? Did I? What were we saying there? But no, it's great. I love what the other podcasts are doing. And speaking what the other podcasts are doing, I thought the burnout issue was happening with, oh, This Week in Pinball podcast. It does happen. I think it's just it's hard. It's hard to maintain momentum. And it's one of my favorite podcasts. If you guys haven't listened to it, it's Tony Kornheiser. He's actually the guy on Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. And I've been listening to him for years. but his podcast is really, it's marginally about sports, but really just more of like a morning talk show. And he is, he's always talked about this when people come up to talk to him and he says, well, I want your job. And he's like, okay, great. So you've got your Monday show. You talk about sports, Tuesday show, Wednesday show. What are you going to talk about Thursday? And I always think about that with, with our podcast or with any podcast that yes, it's always great to get that big adrenaline surge when you talk because you're excited to talk about what you're passionate about. But eventually you kind of have to maintain your momentum. And it's really, I'm just looking at it personally. I think it'd be really hard for me to maintain that momentum every week. If you and I both have young kids and we're married, We have real jobs, not pinball-related.
    10:45
    Hey, a pinball-related job would be fantastic, but I don't have that, well, basically any ability to contribute to the pinball industry.
    10:54
    Stern if you're listening. Yes, Stern if you're listening. Yeah, exactly. I'll just move to Chicago right now.
    10:59
    Or Kara, his wife wants you at JJP, so Jersey Jack if you're listening. Hey, I'd be up in the deep root. San Antonio sounds pretty nice this time of year. the river walk. Um, but yeah, and I, I think it just, it, it makes a big difference if it's more of a passion project than a job. And I, um, and this is, this is not taking away from anything from all the podcasters because you and I have listened to so many podcasts and that's what basically got us to where we are today. Um, I, I think that, uh, you know, the ones that I've listened to most, uh, I've listened to, um, to this flipping podcast. I've listened to the pinball podcast or listen to slam tilt um you know listen to um coast to coast um and and certainly others like all those it's so great to take everybody's take because it really it reinforces how many different ways there are to contribute to this this hobby yep and it's it's a good way to contribute to the hobby as well yeah but going back to what you were saying man no one does get paid for this. When I did radio DJ, I was just the night DJ. I was a teenager in high school. I was stoked to even have a job. And now I was the cool kid in school because I was on the radio. Well, one morning, my boss, who was the morning DJ along with another gentleman, they invited me in to see what their show was all about. And their show started about six o'clock in the morning. So I thought that meant, oh, we'll get in at six. We'll start BSing on the microphone. No. They were there before me, and I got there at 4 in the morning. They were already printing off papers. They were highlighting stuff. They were talking about this, talking about that. They wanted to know what they should be covering, what they shouldn't be covering. This was just a typical Tuesday morning. And this does go back to that's their daytime job. That's what they have to do. And so they're getting paid to do it. So it's not as hard to do when you're actually making money at. Now, these guys like Head to Head, Special One Lit, just your weekly podcast, This Week in Pinball, they don't get paid to do this. And a lot of them spend most of their free time looking for information to bring to the forefront. And it's very impressive. I really take my hat off to those guys. But going back to what I was talking about with This Week in Pinball, I know you didn't listen to this episode, but I was listening to This Week in Pinball.
    13:20
    I've been out of town, so I've been a little busy. I need to catch up. so last week april 1st i put on the episode it says that dennis creasel and ken cromwell for special lit is on the episode and i figured they're just with zach and they started off and they're like by the way jeff patterson said that zach's not as dedicated to this job as he should be because he's got other commitments so they've kicked him off and now dennis and Ken are now the official hosts. They're quitting Eclectic Gamers. They're quitting Special When Lit. And I'm kind of mind-blown at this point because it kind of made sense because Dennis and Ken are kind of one of the staple co-hosts with Zach. So I'm like, okay, that makes sense. The thing, though, that I knew it was a joke by the time I got to the end of the episode was the fact that Dennis was laying it on so thick. He was just on the hate for Zach. Not that was hating Zach, but just like, Dennis does not like the market trend segment, and he's just going off about it. And he's going off by like, so long, sucker. You know what I'm saying? It just was like, it was so too much that it was like, this can't be real. But the awesome part is... You texted me, and I told you, I said, you know this is April 1st, right? Is this really what's going on?
    14:42
    Well, and what was crazy though, too, is that they incorporate two other podcasts. They did, They actually, Special One Lit released an episode that day with Ken Cromwell and the gentleman from Slapsave, if I remember correctly. And they said they were going to do their new podcast. And then Zach Menny ended up going to Slapsave along with Jason Fowler, if I remember correctly. And they did their own episode too. So it was really impressive. I mean, step back for a second. These guys are all doing this as a hobby. And they coordinate. it's hard to get two guys together but they coordinated six guys for a joke yeah and it was fantastic it was i i knew it was a joke but i just thought it was wonderful it's crazy to see someone do that and i really appreciated the amount of work that went into that it was fantastic yeah if you guys haven't checked it out i highly recommend you go check out all three episodes because it was just great it it really does it kind of boggles the mind how much energy that they did for their passion project. And certainly it's, it's great that in this small little corner hobby, we have such motivated people to, to really bring great content for free. I mean, really.
    15:51
    Um, also since we've last recorded, we listened to head to head and Jeff Riviera, our good friend from the pinball podcast was down there. Jeff, Jeff Rivera, Riviera sounds like he's part of a, a Vegas show script show, but yes. he no he's actually part of a mariachi band be fantastic no sorry i've got a kid i've got a kid on my team and that's how he pronounces it is riviera sorry i'm a soccer coach his last name he said it's spelled just the same way as jess oh really and so he says he adds an eye in there huh yeah the way that well they're hispanic i guess i don't know so he says they say it that way anyway i'm sure jeff i'm sure that's the origin of just name too you know so uh jeff rivera of the pinball podcast went on with martin and i thought it was a really good episode yeah it was great those guys did great yeah jeff's a great podcaster i've always loved uh listening to him and and meeting him in person he's just as genuine in person and just like you said uh we um well uh i i got a text from someone who was at the texas pinball festival, one of our Utah friends. And he sent a picture with him and Martin and said, Martin was going to be in town in, in Utah for business right after the Texas pinball festival. And so you got ahold of him and I, you know, I messaged him too. And you messaged him and I said, Hey, we, we'd love to get together. Uh, you can work it into your schedule. And we actually were able to coordinate and go to one of the local pubs out here that run pinball It kind of a hipster pub that run by one of the main guys actually the guy who was on our podcast I think episode three or four Dan And he has games there with Mike Lund who was our state champ And it was really great to meet up with Martin and actually meet with him and just talk to him about basically what he does and what he does in pinball for the land down under. So that was great. well and the funny part about all that too is when I was texting Martin I said where are you located at because I would I just automatically assume it's Salt Lake because with business venture the biggest business business capital is between Provo Utah and Salt Lake right like it's going to be in that area so so when he said Ogden Utah and I said well if you'll commit I will drive up there and he's like okay whatever you know and I'm like but you have you have to meet me in Salt Lake because Ogden is four hours from here. So if I can get him to come down to Salt Lake, I'll do it. So he's like, sure, whatever. So it was funny because I showed up there that night. We were talking. We were BSing. We were having fun. And at the end of the thing, I'm like, I got to get going. And Martin's like, why, dude? It's like 9 o'clock, 9.30. I said, I got to make the travel home. And he's like, you seriously drove three hours out here for me? And I'm like, yeah, dude. Like, I wanted to meet you. Like, I'm fanboying a little bit. I mean, that's the reason we got into this because I really appreciate what Head to Head did for the podcasting scene. I think they really elevated to a higher level when it came to their product. Yeah. And so it's funny because everyone always teases. They're like, give Martin a hug at Texas Pinball Festival because he hates them. And when Martin's like, you seriously drove three hours, that deserves a hug. Yeah. So I thought it was really funny that Martin had to hug me because I drove three hours. He gave you a kiss on the cheek.
    19:21
    He did give me – yeah. It says it in the Bible, greet everyone with a kiss, right? Right. Yes, exactly. Right. Anyway. Yeah. It was hilarious. He was great. Yeah, he was great. It was great to talk to him.
    19:36
    Yeah, and it was really great talking to him. And he literally is as genuine in person as he comes across in the podcast. I mean, he's just a fun guy that he's a guy that you want to hang out with. And there's a reason why, since Ryan C. has pulled back a little bit from the podcast, that he's had no problem getting other people on the podcast. And by the way, we are going to be special guests on the podcast this Friday night.
    20:02
    For the Monday night episode. Exactly. And the last episode that he did, I messaged him after and I said, that was hilarious. I said, you know, Crazy Levi from New York, I said, is my new spirit animal. He's hilarious. He's a guy I'd love to just hang out with. And he laughed and he said, yeah, it took me four hours to edit that episode. And again, mind blown. I said, wow, four hours. You're putting that much effort into putting a quality product for free. Again, just think about that. That's why in my book, head to head, hands down, and then every other podcast. and then there's a few other levels and there's us so yeah but they're not doing it for free they're doing it out of the money of their own yes yeah that's true they're not doing it for free they are actually paying to do this that i didn't know that until we got two three episodes in and we we've been able to do it on the free for that long yeah the thing is is i'm on the side i'm a i'm a dj so i have a mixing board i have a microphone it's just something i own so it wasn't an expense for me to actually have a setup for my computer. But the thing is, is I totally space. Yeah. Music files or sound files, whatever you want to call these, take up space and you've got to pay for a place to post those. And so, um, it just, it's funny. Cause like Jeff with pinball podcasts, I'm like, how much do you spend on your podcast stuff? And he's like, dude, I stopped keeping count. He's like, it's, you do it for the love of it. So it's just something else.
    21:41
    So, And us pinball people are all used to spending good money. Oh, hey, speaking of that, hey, I didn't even tell you. So on my Wizard of Oz, I ordered the Flying Monkey mod. Did I tell you about this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember messaging you to get it. Yeah, no, so I just barely got it. And I looked at it and I said, wow, this is amazing. And it's really cool. And I need to put it in. And by the way, it is fantastic. It's amazing. If you have a Wizard of Oz and you can get a hold of it, that and the Red Smoke Witch mod, which, by the way, I have both of them and I haven't got around to putting them in just because I have not had time and I'm not the most tech savvy person. Of course, I also looked at that and I said, huh, I'm not even thinking about this, but that cost me $200.
    22:31
    Yes, in the grand scheme of things for the entire machine, that's really not much. But I thought, wow, that is really a passion project to be able to say, yes, I want a flying monkey that takes the ball up as opposed to the screenshot plastic monkey that's taking it up. And that was worth it to me. And I don't regret paying it one bit. But absolutely, you just find ways of spending money and enjoying it in this hobby. Well, at least your machine can do that because, you know, Yellow Brick Road, we got rid of the monkey. Yeah.
    23:00
    Anywho, let's move on. Okay, by the way, that being said, I have heard the Yellow Brick Road is fantastic in person. It is glittery. It is shiny. It is yellow. And I'm sure they'll find at least 200 buyers for that. And I hope they sell 1,000 of them because I really like having at least a plausible competition for Stern. I mean, the numbers don't really generate that, but I actually put a little post up for the few people that are following us right now. But I did say, hey, sounds like they're releasing Wonka this Friday. Is this really the time when JJP can compete with Stern for a release? and what I'm saying is that if they release Wonka are they going to be able to sell the three to four thousand that Stern is selling because you know when when you add all the Stern stuff together I mean having in Stern's releasing for a year if they release one a year and be able to do those numbers at least you have some sort of a competition like right now we have a theoretical competition because jjp people forget they've only released four games yep and they've been out since 2012 2012 so in seven years they've released four games and again i i love it i love that they have elevated the game i you look at once jjp jumped into the market and how much stern has really elevated their game from world you know world poker tour uh that that is it is light years ahead of that well what i find interesting about this whole situation is i got thinking about this today because you hear wonka you start asking what's the price going to be and okay okay well you you kind of jump you kind of you actually you you buried the lead so we haven't even talked about well we haven't even talked about but wonka is likely the title is going to be really like all signs point to it but yes so no well okay hold on sorry well let me let me roll this back just two seconds so i'm like how much is this going to cost and he said if we follow pirates it'll be 8500 uh the that's the standard the le will be the 95 and then the collector's edition is 12 12 5 but those aren't set in stone he cannot confirm nor deny that's what's going to be because you know how it is, the NDA. Well, if you get thinking about it, how much is an LE through Stern? Yeah. No, an LE through Stern is $9,000. Absolutely. Yeah. Which is crazy to me because pretty much JJP's base model is the price of Stern's high-end model. Granted, you take a couple out like Beatles and Batman 66.
    25:54
    But it's crazy to me that you can tell JJP is going for the home market. there's not very many JJP games here in Utah. I don't know outside of Utah if there are. I know of a dialed-in on location, if it's still there, and I know of, I think, maybe two Pirates on location, and that's it. Yeah, I know some, and I think there are some enthusiasts. Now, okay, let's be honest. At least, even in Utah and other markets, I guess you can take out some of the hot markets like Seattle and Portland and New York and maybe Chicago. you probably have one to two pinball locations.
    26:36
    And even when you're talking about like the biggest tournament in the year, you're talking about pinball. Yes, it's sold out. It's sold out in seconds, right? That's still, you know, that's still only a thousand spots nationwide. And so it does provide kind of a wake-up call as to how niche the sport really is. And well, okay, if you want to call it a sport, The gaming, the hobby, it really is. And that even in some of these hotbeds like New York and Seattle where the population is so much higher, they still kind of know each other.
    27:14
    So – Well, and here's the other thing though too. Look at the IFPA numbers. There are almost 70,000 people registered for tournament. Not everyone plays tournament. Not everyone is in tournaments. Yeah, and it's how many people have actually played in a tournament. But really, when you start taking out the people who have played one to two, I would bet when you talk about the people who play five or more tournaments, that number is going to start contracting seriously. Now, I still think that's a good thing because what it's showing is that how many casual people have actually played in an IFPA event. You can look at it both ways, right? Who's going to be coming weekly to all these things? But who's even come at all? I mean, that's still pretty impressive, but it's still pretty an un-niche hobby.
    28:04
    Yeah, true. Well, should we talk about the two hot topics then since we've already kind of been dancing around them anyway? What do you want to talk about first? Let's talk about Black Knight first.
    28:17
    So it was teased April 2nd, so the day after April Fool's, and then they said that they were going to show it off. today's Wednesday we'll probably put this out on Friday or something they showed it off last night Tuesday Jack was fantastic getting it up online into YouTube pretty quick it was like 6 minutes or 7 minutes after they actually aired it if I remember correctly insane anywho in perfect stern fashion we were in the factory I don't know whose Black Knights those were I don't know if the Black Knight 2000 they might be Steve's personal ones. I thought that was cool. Cool is their backdrop. And they started off on the pro. You know, the artwork looks fantastic. I know that we've really talked about Zombie Yeti and Christopher Franchi these last couple of games, but it's good to see that there's still other talent that is available as well that can do just as good as this. Who did this one? Do you know? I think Joshua Clay helped out a lot and I'm trying to think who the main guy was. Because Joshua Clay is actually a fairly young, newer artist. He was originally a tattoo artist and is now working at Stern doing their artwork.
    29:32
    And he was actually on the stream last night. But let me – if you give me a second, I'll look up who the other artist is because I have no clue. Why not? This is live. Live, baby, live.
    29:46
    Kevin O'Connor. So Kevin O'Connor, who's done Kiss, Walking Dead, Avengers. he's been around for a while but I think the artwork looks fantastic the cut scenes and the stuff on the actual LCD look really good they almost remind me of a video game between the defeating the linch lords, the sand worms the stuff like that I actually like that direction I was kind of confused I don't know if they did explain it I was kind of in and out and I've replayed it a couple times but on the side of the lcd it's kind of got the same thing as iron maiden had with its super pop super ramp stuff like that but it was it was kind of all grayed out and i didn't see anything really going on with it um shots look good uh my only complaint is it is a black knight game and i thought they would kind of steer away from this but on the premium and on the le is a very right flipper dominated game. Yeah, it is.
    30:51
    All those shots to get up on the upper playfield are on the left side of the playfield. And even when you start off a shot on the LE, it goes directly onto that upper playfield, just like any other Black Knight. But Keith Allen was playing on the premium, and he had two balls cradled or a ball cradled on the left, and he was just destroying it with the right flipper.
    31:13
    He'd fall off the top playfield, and shoot it right back up there. And it kind of got boring to watch for a little bit. Okay, well, it's your key fell when you can boss any game around.
    31:22
    That's true. That's true. I know Raymond Davidson's great. He's amazing. He's the best active player.
    31:31
    Keith is kind of in that, hey, I've been there, done that, but he can still come in and crush it when he wants to. And so I think overall the game looks fantastic. I love the music. The problem is when you've got four people playing the same game, the music started to loop a lot you were hearing the same intro which is fine um the music did change up as you got into different modes but i think the problem is is i've heard that song so many times now with it being a remake it's already kind of starting to get a little bit old so i don't know if they will add more music on but i the funny part to me is is everyone's like this is the most metal pin ever this is more metal than iron maiden and i grew i grew up through the 2000s i graduated in 05 and this metal music is my punk rock music yeah it's funny because like my favorite band is some 41 and if you've never listened to them check out check out their album chuck because it sounds a lot like this music well anthrax is very i mean it is scott ian from anthrax who does all the guitar riffs but yeah it's um yeah and it's it certainly feels like a guy you know ramping on a guitar and just uh putting a whole bunch of licks down oh and i love it i love the flamethrowing whatever he is like a skeleton zombie soldier whatever guy and robertson did the voice for him and it's just hilarious every time it pops up just you know we're cooking with gas now just i don't know the game looks fantastic actually keto's here in utah is getting theirs on monday or tuesday so we should be seeing the pro very yeah i'm actually really excited to see that i think it'll be really great i am too i might be one of the only people because this is one of the one games where they said that the premium and the le are out selling the pro they're having no problem selling the premium but in my opinion i actually enjoy the pro more than the premium i haven't had my hands on i'm really curious i i'm really curious because So I'm relatively new to pinball. I bought First Game Simpsons Pinball Party. I bought it in 2013 or 14, just kind of on a whim. I really had no idea about pinball. Again, I grew up in the 80s.
    33:52
    Born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s, where you'd go to the arcade, and basically, just like in Special Win Lit, It talks about the pinballs were just in the corner and nobody was playing because that was like that was the era of the Donkey Kong, you know, Pac-Man, all those things that were. Wow. You can do this on a computer screen or on TV screen. This is amazing. But the people who have that connection with the Black Knight, I think, are the ones who, you know, it's their grail pin. They want the Black Knight or they want the Black Knight 2000 because that's the that's the pen they have the emotional connection with. I don't really have that. And so when I look at it, I always thought, OK, well, this is a historical pen. But really, it was before the glory days of the 90s and the well, there was the first renaissance in the 90s. And then there's the the nouveau renaissance now that is just blowing up. it doesn't have the same feel that Black Knight does. It's a very specific feel type of game. And so the people who really have that connection, I think you have to have the premium, like there no or the premium play field or the LE There no other question because that is what it is You channeling that However when I look at it it the same way I kind of look at it and say man, it's kind of samey as the Black Knight, which is why I don't get much of a feel for it. Yeah, you get up to the upper play field, which is cool. And there's the right upper flipper that is really dominant by it dominated by it but then i don't know it just doesn't seem as much as like a full playfield type game like it seems like it's an upper third playfield type game and so i'm really interested to see how that that pro is going to play because i kind of suspect that i'm going to enjoy the pro more see that's the thing i was really liking about the video i watched both of them um i've watched the pro more than i have the premium but the pro almost seemed more flowing more steve richie yeah it was more more of a spider-man type feel more of a star trek type feel absolutely but i think he's not he's less constrained by that upper playfield now i will say the one thing i do love about this is the upper playfield it's kind of brilliant for them to put that translucent playfield on there because it still allows them to, to use the whole playfield, even on the, because that's, that's always been the big complaint with some of these upper playfields, right? The upper playfield in Game of Thrones is that it, it, man, it really dominates the field and it really detracts from the entire lower playfield anyway. And I always felt that way with the Black Knight or at least Black Knight 2000. I always felt like, okay, great, but it basically makes the lower playfield feel fairly useless. All you were trying to do was get it back up to the upper playfield. And so the fact that they made the translucent playfield, it allows them to use much more of it. Well, that's what's funny to me is like I felt like it's now vice versa. I feel like the upper playfield, yeah, it's cool that you got the physical. the ball locks but in other words i feel like it's kind of it feels redundant it feels but but i i do feel it's it feels very saney with black knight and black knight 2000 and i think if you have an emotional connection then that's the way to go yep oh i totally agree well and it brings a lot more um strategy into the game the other thing they were talking about the other thing they were talking about was the lower play field if you can get the multi-ball started there and then go to the upper play field and do the the multi get the multi-ball started there you can get a six ball multi-ball going that's stacked so you've got the lower upper play field multi-ball all of a sudden going crazy so that that could be really cool to see um there was one other thing on there that really impressed me because it was funny as i was watching it i was thinking how cool would it be that you do a throwback inside the game to the old games. And apparently if you spell Knight and then you shoot the left, it's not the far left shot, which goes into a vertical upticker.
    38:23
    It starts a mode that is retro mode. It goes into, it's just Black Knight screen, and it plays the music. It almost sounds like a mashup between the original Black Knight and the 2000, and you can just blow up the score that way. And that's perfect, because that's exactly what this game needs. It needs to be kind of a modern take on a retro game with a throwback to the retro feel. I totally agree. And I think Tim Balls is killing it. And here's the thing. Here's the thing. When they first revealed these, it always worries me because everyone always bashes the code. Dude, Guardians of the Galaxy sucked when it first came out, but now everyone's ranting and raving about it. Yeah, it's a year later, a year and a half later, but the code's in such a nice place now. I actually love Guardians. If I didn't have an Iron Man, I would buy a Guardians because it's the perfect game for me. Yeah, it's a perfect game for me. I have young kids, and so it's very similar to Metallica. And really, my kids are eight, five, and four. And so it's not a game that I would personally have. I love the game. It's a great game. but it's just not for my home market.
    39:38
    But Guardians has a very similar feel to, you know, it's been said halfway between Metallica and Iron Man. And I have a great Iron Man. I love playing my Iron Man. So if I didn't have my Iron Man, I would absolutely go buy Guardians of the Galaxy. Yep. Well, and that's the thing with Black Knight. I'm just really loving what the codes, like even though the code's probably not complete at this point, Tim Balls' vision for this game is looking really, really good. Yeah. I love Tim's passion when he talks about it. It's exactly what you want in a hobby like this. You want a high-level – okay. It's really embarrassing what Stern has right now. And they have Keith Ellin, basically the best player of his generation and likely all-time right now, just being able to make Iron Maiden and being able to say, okay, this is fun, but this is also what tournament players want. And then you have Tim Sexton, who is young. He's 25, and he's coming into the scene with a fresh perspective. So you have all these legacy designers with Steve Ritchie, and you have all these great, I guess, legacy programmers. You have Lonnie Robb and obviously Lyman Sheets and I'm blanking on the other guy's name. Oh, he just did Monsters.
    41:09
    Yeah. Oh. Dennis. Yes. And so it's 10 o'clock here. Yeah. So I'm getting tired. But yes, all of them are great. But they've all been in the industry for 30 years. And so it's great to see a new take of what Tim Sexton's doing and also with what Keith Elwin's doing. I mean, it just – it freshens things up. It just – obviously, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are great bands. But you need those newer bands that are coming out to kind of keep things pushing forward so they don't just keep repeating. Well, and let's rewind the clocks a year and a half ago before Iron Maiden. I mean, the biggest complaint I was hearing, you had Guardians had just come out. Aerosmith was out.
    42:03
    The Ghostbusters, which was the dumpster fire at that point, everyone was throwing a fit about the code on that one, which they still are. Sorry, don't know what to tell you.
    42:12
    And Batman 66. Batman 66 came out and there was no code to it. And everyone's complaining that they need to start buying up coders. The only guy that knows who's doing this job down there is Lyman Sheets. You can tell the difference between a Lyman Sheets game like Walking Dead versus whatever the other game it was. And sorry, it just hit me. It's not Dennis. It's Dwight. Anywho. Dwight. You're right. Anywho. Sorry. I was actually while you were talking. I was trying to look it up to figure out who it was. So a year and a half ago, people were complaining, yeah, the artwork's caught up. The designs have caught up. The code now needs to catch up. Well, here we are. year and a half later, Tim Ball's 25 years old, killing it. And you can see the vision he has.
    42:58
    And Wyman's killing it with, I mean, Batman 66, the code on that is fantastic now. Dwight, I think, did good on Munsters. I don't know why everyone's bashing as hard as they are, because we're buying Monster Bash. It's pretty much the same code. And maybe that's a problem. It's been 20 years.
    43:16
    You know, okay, here's the challenge. the one thing Dwight does which I do love is that people always say hey we want innovation in pinball well he's trying that he's trying to say he has he comes out with a super complicated game with Star Wars which I'll admit is more complicated than my brain can handle I thought Star Wars was a fun game um but it wasn't my favorite uh I I didn't want to to buy it in the end but I thought that he certainly was trying to push beyond what everybody normally does. And he's like, hey, well, let's try it this way. And so if you can fault anybody, then you can say, hey, he tried too hard for something or he tried to do something and it wasn't a home run. Okay, but he hasn't struck out on anything. I would say that he still does a solid game. Well, here's the other thing too. Munsters has been out for three months. Why are we crucifying the man for three months' worth of code when Guardians came out and there was pretty much no code? Or Batman 66 and there was no code? I mean, give it a year.
    44:24
    Well, there's always a – once people start playing the game, there tends to be a reevaluation of what was going on. I mean, Iron Man was panned when it first came out. And guess what? The Iron Man code isn't that deal. I'll put it this way. If I can get to the wizard mode, I guarantee it is either that I put the rubber bands of the outlines straight down the middle, or the code's not that deep. And really, the code's not that deep. It's still a fun game. It doesn't matter if there ends up being a somewhere over the rainbow mode or there's no Valinor. It doesn't matter as long as it's still fun and you can still compete with it. Look at how deep something like Total Nuclear Annihilation is. It's not. It's the same thing. It's destroy nine reactors, but we all think it's fun. And so what are you shooting for? As long as it can be a tournament game, it can be a casual game, it can be a home game, it can be a location game. It seems impossible for someone to universally love something unless, of course, it's Lyman Sheets because they're just going to say, oh, well, it's Lyman, he does amazing stuff. Okay, fine, but when Walking Dead came out, no one liked it either. I totally agree. You know, it just seems that there seems to be so much negativity toward a game when people just kind of forget that the whole point of this is to have a good time.
    45:57
    So, well, now Walking Dead is now considered one of the best games because Lyman's just gotten the code where it is to nowadays. Yeah. Well, moving on. I was going to say, yeah, let's move on because we're running out of time. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm rambling tonight. But I will say, can I tell you one thing? Yeah, go for it. So I was at work the other day and a guy comes up to me and he says, hey, you're into pinball, right?
    46:25
    And I'm like, yeah. And he said, okay, because I'm looking at getting a pinball machine for my room. And I'm like, okay, so tell me about your interest in pinball. He's like, well, I grew up, and we had a Black Knight in a Black Knight 2000.
    46:41
    And I said, have I had the game for you? Perfect time. I said, they just barely announced Black Knight, and I've been texting back and forth with him, and he's really excited. I did caution him. I said, now, by the way, the rule number one, and this is what I learned from the Buffalo Pinball guys, never buy a game you haven't played. yep so make sure you buy you play the game and see okay is this what i really want but he's super excited for this and i'm going to take him up to keto's when uh uh when they have the black night he can look at it but of course he's a legacy guy and so he he's watched the streams uh nerd at heart like me and he said i you gotta have the upper play field i'm like yeah for someone like you absolutely yep well and he can get hooked up at gaming con so So absolutely. Well, trust me, I've already talked to him about it, but I, I think that it's a, he still needs to play the game. You know, it's his first purchase, but he was all for like buying the, you know, buying the LE and buying the, and I told him about the topper. He's like, Oh, you got to have the topper.
    47:44
    So let's talk about the next bombshell. Last Friday, it was revealed that Wonka, it was revealed by a couple of different sources that Wonka is coming out. I know that people are still saying, oh, who knows who the next – it's Wonka. It's Wonka. They put out a golden ticket. I mean, come on. When distributors are now making official statements saying that they cannot take money for Wonka. We haven't confirmed – yeah. But we have an interest list for Wonka. Yeah, Wonka is coming. And by the way, this isn't just one distributor. This is all distributors are saying this. Like there was a – it's the same thing that happened when Star Wars came out. there was a super secret list where they said hey by the way the next steve richie game is coming out and everybody knew it was star wars and they said if you want to be in the le then put your name on this list we can't take money but if you want the name of the list then can i make an can i an extended invitation for all the distributors out there right now by the way go ahead okay jersey jack stern spooky i don't care who you are if you want a second opinion scott and i are willing to come out and test these things. We don't care. I'm like, you know, I have, seriously, I will adhere to the NDA. Oh yeah. Just go, you know, I will be a test location for you. Exactly. If you want to send a pin to Highland, Utah, um, I am here for you. Yeah. I would love to get to put, put my hands on it first and then be like, yeah, I'll give you the check right now and say, Hey, you know what? I will absolutely be a, I will be your advocate out here in the West. And I am no respecter of pinball companies. I will take any pinball company. Exactly. You can send me a test game, and I will love it up. So we're not shilling for anyone. We don't put one other company higher than the other. But, hey, if you're looking for another opinion, I know Chicago Gaming has their warehouse in Reno. We're not that far away. Bring it on. Hey, you know what? I'll even go pick it up. Why not? But anywho, so Wonka gets unofficial, officially announced. Everyone's blowing their lids on this. This is still one thing I don't fully understand. I get if the theme is what you've always wanted, but I just can't fathom the idea of saying, hey, here's my $12,500 based off of the title of a game. I just can't fathom it. but rumors start flying however okay here's a question though here's a question um so you have a couple things going for it would you be as excited about wonka if it were going to be a kapow title or a stern title or a jjp title definitely jjp but i don't know i don't know i Willy Wonka I grew up on, weirdly enough. It came out in 1971, and my mom loved it, so we always watched it because that was her show growing up. So I think with it being – I don't know. Me and you both think alike, though. I have to have my hands on the game before I say yes. Yeah. Okay, I will say, though, so for me, it's theme-specific. Okay. So when they say Wonka, who do you want it? I'm like, that seems like a J.J.P.-type game. Yep. when they say, when the rumors are flying out that they're going to do a Guns N' Roses game. I'm thinking, who should do this? And my attitude is, hands down, Stern. That should be a hands down Stern game. So I just don't see it being in JJP's wheelhouse. Who knows? Maybe I'll be wrong. But I think that that feels more like their game. It's the same thing with a monster theme. That's a spooky theme. I mean, Rob Zombie coming out, and it's like, yeah, that's a spooky game.
    51:50
    So I think that, like, at least the rumors are that Wonka with Pat Lawler, because, again, Pat Lawler is kind of like Lime and Sheets, where regardless of what he does, as long as he's not too constrained by design, then he'll put out an amazing game. And really, his last game is his best game. One game of the year? Yeah, people can talk about Adam's Family and Twilight Zone, and I have a Twilight Zone. I have a great Twilight Zone. I still look at Dialed In and say, no, that's better. It's a better game. People have an emotional connection, just like I said about Black Knight. People have an emotional connection with Twilight Zone and Adam's Family because it's one of their games of their childhood. But Dialed In is the best game he done so far and it not even close and so what is he going to do for this one Well I think he do something pretty amazing Have you heard any of the rumors out for this game yet
    52:54
    Not too much. I've heard that it's basically there. There's nothing crazy in it. I was going to say spoiler alert. If you don't want to hear anything about the possible spoilers of a game that hasn't even been officially confirmed yet, skip the next. Yeah. And by the way, This is Josh and I speculating because we are not at head-to-head level, so we actually don't have people texting us and saying, hey, you want to see a picture of the field? That is not us. This is us, two buddies, talking about, hey, what do you think is going to happen? I did get a message.
    53:30
    So here is the rumor. Okay, so see, that's the host, not the co-host. The co-host gets nothing, but the host is where it is. So here's the rumor. If you don't want to be spoiled because this comes out Friday morning and you'll see it Friday night, then skip a minute. All right. Fast forward a minute. Okay. So here's the deal.
    53:50
    Supposedly, the silver balls will be multicolored balls, and the game can recognize the different color of balls and will associate to different modes in the game. It will solve certain balls in certain areas of the game. Don't know how much truth there is to it, but the gentleman swears he has on good authority. that that would be uh the ever everlasting gobstopper uh option that's actually pretty cool i the one thing i wonder about that is okay are they proprietary balls is this you know because people like shiny new balls they put in games um are they gonna be able to swap them out is this like the power ball like if you get the official power ball and have to swap it out in your twilight zone it's expensive if you get the cheap cheap knockoff ones then you can do it but the real ceramic one that's kind of expensive so i think however i think it would be a metal ball just because you've got to catch the ball like supposedly it's going to catch these balls well he loves magnets yeah he does love magnets however um so i've mentioned twilight zone Who designed Twilight Zone? Pat Lawler.
    55:01
    So, hey, I think that would be fantastic. It would certainly be a fun gimmick. Who knows? I'm really excited. I'm a huge Pat Lawler fan. I will say I tend to love games with a little more flow, which is why I have two Pat Lawler games. I have Twilight Zone, which I would say is an absolute hit. I have Shrek, which I appreciate for its difference, but that's certainly Pat Lawler being constrained by design. You can tell.
    55:35
    There's no bells and whistles that make it amazing. But I did hear that there are no gimmicks in this that tend to blow your mind away, but it's an amazing integration of it. And really, I think it's, you know, J.J.P. needs a hit. They've had, I would say, three great games. I'd say Wizard of Oz is a great game. I'd say Dialed In is a great game. I'd say Pirates is a great game. But the problem is, if you're looking at the baseball analogy, if you're trying to hit a grand slam every time, it's hard.
    56:13
    You need to have a few base hits. And by the way, I do like what they tried to do with The Hobbit. I think it's so beautiful. I love the way it looks.
    56:26
    It's not my favorite game that they have, but it's not a miss game in my opinion. I just think it's – that would be probably more of a base hit game that they have. It's not like – it's certainly not a miss. But I think that that's – people are hoping that this is going to be dialed in with a theme that they like.
    56:51
    I agree. So, I don't know. I'm excited. I've been singing the Pure Imagination song. Wonka sings. Yeah. I've been singing that all week long. I'm driving my secretary nuts down at work because she... There you go. But I'm excited for this game. I'm excited to see the possibilities of what it can be. Yeah. And it's so amazing. Think of the time, like, think of the time we live in pinball where these things, we don't just have to wait till we walk into the arcade and say oh there's a new game let's try it out i love building the anticipation of this i love saying hey what are the possible things now i also i i haven't seen any leaked playfield pictures i haven't seen any leaked art and really at this point i'd like to avoid it because just like martin from the slam uh from head to head excuse me uh he says i don't want to ruin the excitement if i know everything that i want to be wowed and I'm, I'm feeling just like him. I want to be wowed by this thing. Well, I think we're having a watch party Friday night and then we're giving our, given our thoughts on afterwards, but yes, well that's it. Yeah. You and I are going to watch it and then we are going to be on the head to head pinball podcast and we will talk about it and see what we think. Um, I, it's man, it's so amazing. Think of all the art in pinball. When's the last time there was a bad uh a bad art package that was wasn't constrained due to licensing i know i guess you could argue that um you know you could certainly argue the star wars didn't meet expectations but i also question i'm working with lucas that there's no chance that they did what they wanted to do um i i'm a firm believer that pirates was constrained and not necessarily that they couldn't do what they didn't or what they wanted to do yeah but i think there were so many moving cogs with how many different people are on that game i really believe that's where the delay came from i think it could be i think the challenge also was just trying to make the uh the triple disc uh i guess not a headache um yeah but that took a year to do that maybe maybe okay so you remember my major was mechanical engineering so i actually have a very similar background.
    59:17
    I understand just when you're looking at something like this, you want reliability to be a must. Oh, I totally agree, yeah. Admittedly, I was disappointed when they took out the triple spinning disc, not because I think it was a huge aspect of it, but I thought it was really interesting in that it provided some movement to the ball, but I'm one of those guys that really don't like the spinning disc on a game because it always does the same thing. It just shoots it out the outline. The left outline, it just always is a magnet for that. On X-Men, it just shoots it out. All those games, I'm just kind of rolling my eyes at it. All it does is just, it shoots it the same way. So I thought that with the triple spinning disc, it provided a variation of movement, but it was more interesting than it was the other thing. Now, I think they recovered well by not having that disc in there and saying that, yes, they can put that image on the back screen, which I thought was a really nice save. It just, I think it took the air out of people's sails. I think, well, just, I think everything that took, that just, that was a headache. That was a train wreck. It's a fantastic game. I love playing it. But between the reveal in September to almost a year before production, at least nine months before production, and just the headache and the discs and just everything. I think that game would have done a lot better if it did not have as many hurdles as it did hit. If it came out right after, and you remember the thread on Pinside where it said A Dark Night for Stern, and I commented on it. I said, absolutely. Like this was a train wreck because they had – they released nothing. The year before they had the Batman 66, which was obviously pushed because Adam West wasn't in good health. And so they were trying to push that ahead and it just – it looked like Stern was really floundering compared to JJP. and when JJP came out with Pirates, that was a fantastic reveal.
    61:39
    And then it was the Empire Strikes Back. After that, Stern just cranked up the volume, and they just released good, not necessarily great game, but good game after good game after good game. And they've had some really great hits.
    61:57
    I think Guardians has really come into its own. I think that Iron Maiden has really come into its own. And I've actually grown to appreciate Deadpool. And I know that people thought it was clunky at first. And I think it feels different just because, again, I'm not Keith Elkland. And it's hard for me to hit some of the shots. But it still felt like, man, this is a good game. And that's all in the time that JJP was chasing trying to release something. You can't sell something you're not selling. You can't make any money. That's what my biggest hope is for Jersey Jack. I hope Pat Lawler has designed something that just blows our mind, that it just plays like butter, and that we love it, that this theme is perfect. And on top of all that, after everything's said and done, we get them soon.
    62:49
    That's one of the things I fear for. The rumor is they'll show this, and then it won't ship for six months. You know what? I would be shocked. I think that the reason why they stopped Pirates is because they learned from their errors with the previous – I would say dialed in. They shipped actually relatively quickly.
    63:12
    But you remember after the dialed – and dialed in was a horrible reveal because I remember watching it. I remember watching it too. Yeah, and I thought, wow, okay. And I even texted the distributor that I know, and I said, what do you think about it? And he said, I think it's like your grandpa trying to appear cool and trying to connect with a young audience. And I still see that, even though I think it's a fantastic game.
    63:45
    The theme, I think, is still a little bit of a head-scratcher. so I'm really hoping that this is that perfect nexus and where they can sell 4,000 units and say yes we can play with the big boys well and the other thing is with Dialed In really if you just change the cabinet artwork and you could do this yourself if you rethemed it you wouldn't have to retheme it because it doesn't even say Dialed In when you start I think it pops up and says yeah it really should have been Quantum City KS and Quantum City That's really what it should have been. That's what we should do because I don't think it says dialed in on it anymore. We should just start calling it Quantum City and see how it's received. Yeah, but the art I think is a little bit – it's kind of a mess. No one is going to look at any of those characters and say, that's cool. Yeah. I really do. I hope this goes really well for Jersey Jack. I'm excited. I can't wait. We're 48 hours away and let's do this. I'm excited. I just like I said I've been working with some of the distributors for the Salt Lake Gaming Con that we're doing at the end of June and I'm trying to get Jersey Jack's new game that we don't know what it is that would be fantastic if one came out that's what I'm working on it would be great to have it there realistically what I've been told is we probably won't see it there because Jack probably won't have any for the next four months is what I've been told Well, okay, we'll see. Okay, by the way, I've been watching this Black Knight stream. Who is the dude who looks like he escaped from an emo Mortal Kombat with a face mask on? I don't know. I was wondering that last night, too. Okay.
    65:31
    By the way, I can say that because I guarantee no one will ever accuse me of being cool. So at least the guy looks cool. I just kind of wonder about the face mask thing. He kind of looks like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. You know what's one of the funniest things of that stream last night? Steve Ritchie gets up there 9 and 30 seconds to a minute on the pin drains the ball and his voice, the Black Knight yells at him and tells him to play better it's kind of funny when you're telling yourself that you're sucking it up that's fantastic it'd be like J.K. Simon's playing Spider-Man that's the reason why I love the original Spider-Man way more than I like the Vault Edition because the call-outs are fantastic well we've been running for a little over an hour now we should probably wrap this up the topic we were going to talk about I guess we'll stick it in our pocket and save it for later we're just so excited for Black Knight and Wonka what else were we going to do? you know what, you have to go where the hot topic is again, we need to save something for our Thursday show, right? correct really quickly though before we wrap it up, I want to give a quick shout out to Mike Lund, he is our state champion He went on to the national finals and was in the top eight and even beat out Steve Bowden. Yeah, and he was taken out by the eventual second place guy. So, hey, if you're going to be taken out by someone, you want them to go far. Correct. And Mike's a great player. He's a great guy. He's the one that runs most of the machines at Keto's, and we're pretty proud of the dude. So it was awesome to see him take down a legend. so I don't know if Steve would call himself a legend but we're calling you it Steve is the best ambassador to pinball we've said that before Steve is one of those guys that you're like you know what I want to hang out with you we need to get him on soon Steve would be great I'd love to hear about well we didn't even talk about the deep brew stuff but we have time well we've got some good interviews coming up so it's just the problem is there's so much going on in the hobby right now it's hard to it's hard to pin down schedules between us and them well and they're busy too i mean that's their job this is our you know this is our hobby it's their job yep exactly so well awesome man it was great talking to you um if you want to find us check us out on facebook honestly that's the best place to get a hold of me or scott uh just loser kid pit mall podcast you'll find us. Oh, before we wrap it up, I want to ask any of our listeners, all 13 of you, if someone has a better design, because I seriously just scribbled with my finger on my phone and then slapped that as our logo. If you've got something way better, ship it in to us. We'll give you credit. I don't know if we can give you anything. We'll work on something. We'll give you a shout out. But, yeah, we want to look a little more professional. We want to look like we're not doing this absolutely for free.
    68:39
    But, yeah, if you want to check us out, Facebook, SoundCloud, or if you want to contact us, like I said, best places, Facebook, or you can contact us at LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com. So anything else, my man? No, I think we'll see you in two weeks. Sounds good. Well, I'll see you on Friday night. Oh, that's true. Well, we'll talk. And if you haven't checked out all the other pinball podcasts that we have referenced, the pinball podcast, again, the most creative one that Jeff talks about. Easy way to remember. Head to Head. There's Slam Tilt.
    69:15
    There's, you know, when Coast to Coast pops up, which ones do you listen to regularly? You listen to more. Special One Lit. I listen to Slap Save. Pinball Nerd. Mrs. Pin. Buffalo pinball. Yeah, buffalo pinball. Dude, there's so many. And they're all good. I really appreciate it because my job, I work by myself most of the day. I do heating and air conditioning. I service stuff. So it's really nice to be able just to put in some headphones and just listen to the hobby. Yeah.
    69:48
    It's great. Certainly everybody in the hobby does an amazing job. And I like that this is kind of an escape from real life.
    69:59
    Yep, yep. Oh, I forgot. Eclectic Gamers. Yes. No, Eclectic Gamers are great. Absolutely. It's getting close to 11 o'clock and I'm getting tired.
    70:09
    All right, man. Let's wrap this up. Okay. Check us out. And check us out on Head to Head this weekend.
    70:17
    Sounds good. All right. Later, man. Okay. We'll see you. See you.