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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 29: Elwin's Bond 60th Anniversary Is FINALLY Here!

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 54m·analyzed·Jan 8, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Triple Drain analyzes Elwin's Bond 60th Anniversary reveal and discusses 2023 Stern design team pairings.

Summary

Triple Drain Podcast discusses Elwin's James Bond 60th Anniversary pinball machine, which was officially revealed after months of anticipation. The hosts analyze the game's design, artwork, layout, and marketing approach, comparing it to other recent releases and discussing community reception. They also cover Stern's announcement of two 2023 cornerstone design teams (Dwight Sullivan/Brian Eddy and Jack Danger/Tanya Kleiss), Twippy award nominations, and production/availability concerns.

Key Claims

  • George Gomez revealed the two 2023 Stern cornerstone design teams ahead of time: Dwight Sullivan + Brian Eddy, and Jack Danger + Tanya Kleiss, with Zombie Yeti handling art for both

    high confidence · Joel conducted interview with George Gomez (Chief Technical Officer at Stern); hosts confirm this is unusual pre-announcement disclosure

  • Bond 60th Anniversary features a single-level playfield, not street-level design

    high confidence · Tom and Joel discuss layout; Dennis Creasel reportedly corrected terminology during stream

  • The Bond license holder is extremely picky and restrictive with visual assets and artistic direction

    medium confidence · Joel notes pattern across all four Bond models and LCD screen, suggesting licensor constraints on cabinet art grid layout vs. dynamic collage approach

  • Spooky's Scooby-Doo announcement generated immediate pre-order demand despite minimal reveal information

    high confidence · Tom observes Pinside community reaction: 'Where do I buy? I'm in' despite no gameplay details shown

  • Triple Drain was nominated for Twippy awards and is currently ranked #1 on the nominees list

    high confidence · Joel and Travis confirm nominations; Travis jokes they are now 'top seed' and '#1 ranked podcast'

  • Bond 60th Anniversary playfield includes all James Bond actors but no Bond girls, with one possible female scuba diver at bottom

    medium confidence · Joel and Tom discuss playfield artwork; Travis questions representation of female character

  • Brian Eddy has history of unique mechanical designs (Mando moving playfield, Stranger Things, Shadow)

    high confidence · Tom praises Eddy's design innovation and willingness to take mechanical chances

  • Zombie Yeti is doing art for both 2023 Stern cornerstone games

    high confidence · Directly stated by Joel as revealed by George Gomez; Zombie Yeti confirmed as head of Stern art department

Notable Quotes

  • “It is very clear this licensor is extremely picky and hard to work with. So I don't want to blame anybody at Stern for some of these artistic directions because we've seen it in the other three models of the Bonds machines.”

    Joel @ ~1:15:00 — Identifies Bond licensing constraints as driver of cabinet art design; excuses Stern's creative choices as licensor-imposed

  • “We know everything about the game except for the theme, everything. And yet I'm not seeing that. Like I'm not... What does that tell you? Power of fame.”

    Tom @ ~28:00 — Contrasts tepid community reaction to 2023 Stern teams vs. enthusiastic Scooby-Doo pre-orders, attributing difference to designer reputation rather than information completeness

  • “Every Elwynn game has been him and Rick Nagel. How could you not be Team Elwynn? I think that's a valid statement.”

    Travis @ ~20:00 — Asserts Elwin's proven track record and designer loyalty in pinball community

  • “Brian Eddy, he's made some amazing games. I think he takes some chances with his designs and kind of some of the uniqueness of his mechs and whatnot.”

    Tom @ ~35:00 — Endorses Eddy's design philosophy and mechanical innovation as compelling despite limited game history

  • “It looks sleek. I'll give them that. I really don't care for the movie posters all over the place.”

    Tom @ ~52:00 — Critiques Bond cabinet art grid layout as uninspired compared to sleek black powder coat

  • “When she saw it, like, I had to tell her, I'm like, because she was like, why the hell did you buy me a sex toy?”

    Joel @ ~42:00 — Humorous aside about WowStick screwdriver misidentification; demonstrates podcast's comedic, off-topic tangent style

  • “I don't think Bond 60th Edition falls into this category [of games people buy purely for aesthetics].”

    Travis @ ~58:00 — Concludes Bond's art package lacks visual appeal to justify shelf display value compared to Halloween, Ultraman, or Frankenstein

Entities

George GomezpersonDwight SullivanpersonBrian EddypersonJack DangerpersonTanya KleisspersonZombie YetipersonElwinpersonRick Nagel

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Triple Drain Podcast launching video content as Patreon exclusive (after free initial video); implementing three-tier pricing ($3, $6, $9/month) for video-only viewers

    high · Joel explains Patreon video strategy; first video released free on Pinball Network YouTube, subsequent videos behind paywall for Patreon members; hosts acknowledge production value investment (lighting, camera equipment funded by Patreon

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Muted community reaction to 2023 Stern design team reveals despite detailed information (designers, programmers, art director known but theme/price unknown); contrasts sharply with enthusiastic Scooby-Doo pre-orders based on minimal reveal

    medium · Tom: 'I'm not seeing that reaction' to detailed team info; attributes difference to designer fame/proven track record over information completeness; notes Spooky Scooby-Doo generated immediate 'where do I buy' responses

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Elwin's absence from 2023 cornerstone lineup creates opportunity for Jack Danger to establish Stern credentials; mixed community confidence due to lack of proven Stern-scale game design track record

    medium · Travis questions Jack Danger as 'big question mark' with only homebrew experience; Joel expresses excitement but notes low expectations due to unknown; frames as either advantage or risk

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Brian Eddy's design approach emphasizes unique mechanical innovation and willingness to take chances (moving playfields, unconventional mechs); contrasts with conservative design patterns

    high · Tom praises Eddy for Mando (moving playfield), Stranger Things, and Shadow as evidence of mechanical uniqueness; frames as positive trait distinguishing Eddy from other designers

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.344

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. All right. Tom, are you ready?
0:19
Si, Senor Joel. Si, okay. And Travis, are you ready? Are we allowed to talk? Can we talk now? Yes, I needed a second of silence. We were in the middle of talking and you were like, I need to stop. I had to hold my breath. Okay, okay. Podcast, don't talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, and go.
0:40
We're three guys who like to talk and talk. So we came up with a class our days. We're going down the summer sun tomorrow. And we call ourselves Triple Three. Triple train Travis has a question I legit have a question Because we didn't discuss this before Did you play like an intro During that? Yeah Like we do have an intro right? I mean the intro is the normal podcast intro It'll be the TPN Does it like animate it with like all kinds of Explosions and shit like that? You know I'm going to figure it out We'll see So the reason Travis is asking this silly question is because we're doing video. We are doing video. We actually have a camera on all of us. Yeah, Tom is touching it. Travis is moving. Oh, you're not supposed to do that? Travis moved out of his closet for this. He did not. He put up one picture in the background, I see. Not hung on the wall, just sitting on a table. I think that's a light. And he has a light rod. But besides that, that's all. It's a floor lamp. Who calls it a light rod? But it's like a whole tube that's lit up. It's a tube light, yes. That's what all the cool people do now for their backgrounds, Joel. What do you have? You have like a bunch of pinball machines. I don't know what you do with that when we're not filming. Yeah, you know what? Yeah, this is a cool background. Tom, you have a cool background. Travis, you've got a wall.
2:12
person
Bond 60th Anniversarygame
Spooky Pinballcompany
Scooby-Doogame
Stern Pinballcompany
Triple Drain Pinball Podcastorganization
Joelperson
Tomperson
Travisperson
Twippy Awardsevent
Flippin' Out Pinballorganization
Fox City Winter Bashevent
Emotoperson
Mandalorian (Mando)game
Stranger Thingsgame
Shadowgame
?

licensing_signal: Bond license holder is exceptionally restrictive on visual assets; cabinet art grid layout appears to be licensor-imposed constraint rather than Stern creative choice

medium · Joel observes identical visual treatment across all four Bond models and speculates licensor limited Stern's options; contrasts with dynamic GNR LE collage approach

  • $

    market_signal: Bond 60th Anniversary design appears constrained by restrictive licensor requirements; cabinet art grid layout may reflect limited artistic options rather than intentional aesthetic choice

    medium · Joel speculates: 'maybe this was literally their only options' when discussing restrictive licensor; notes pattern across all Bond models and LCD suggests systemic constraint

  • ?

    personnel_signal: George Gomez (CTO at Stern) revealed advance information about 2023 design team pairings—Dwight Sullivan + Brian Eddy, Jack Danger + Tanya Kleiss—confirming Zombie Yeti as art director for both games

    high · Joel states George Gomez disclosed this 'ahead of time' and notes this is 'not normal' for Stern to share design team info in advance of theme/price announcements

  • ?

    product_concern: Bond 60th Anniversary cabinet art criticized as uninspired grid layout of movie posters lacking dynamic or artistic collage composition; playfield artwork receives moderate praise

    medium · Tom: 'I really don't care for the movie posters all over the place'; contrasts with GNR LE's 'dynamic' hanging poster aesthetic; Travis concludes Bond doesn't qualify as visually compelling display game

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Unconfirmed speculation about Elwin's next game timeline (September mentioned as hypothetical example); no official roadmap provided by Stern regarding cornerstone release schedule

    low · Joel speculates: 'if I knew that, say, Elwynn wasn't going to be until September, right? Just throwing that out there. That's obviously not confirmed.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern appears to be testing advance designer team announcements as marketing strategy; unclear if this reduces current game sales or drives future game interest

    medium · Joel notes this is novel pre-announcement practice; hosts discuss whether early team info affects buying decisions; speculation about whether people delay purchases or commit based on team composition

    • I've got two walls. What are you talking about? Oh, yeah, in a corner. Yeah. So, okay, so anybody that's listening to this in the normal format, yes, this is the Triple Dream Podcast. We are, you know, the three of us, Joel, Travis, and Tom, nothing out of normal. but we're kind of a pinball and we call ourselves triple dream there you go we talk is really what it's like you're quoting the song you're always going with it oh god i gotta got it so we are still doing the podcast we're still going to do the audio form of the podcast you're probably listening to this on the pinball network but something we are doing different is we decided we've always had our cameras on but we're actually going to release video of this podcast and so The thought is we have started the Patreon. There's Patreon, triple underscore drain Patreon. We have some Patreon members. We're incredibly grateful for their support. That support has paid for some swag.
    3:09
    We've basically bought our own merch for ourselves because that's apparently what cool people do when they have a Patreon. and then it's going to pay for this artwork that you see down there, the Jackson Gee artwork that we used for that swag. But the thought here is this first video is out there for everybody. Everybody can have it, enjoy it, watch it as many times as they want. It will be on the Pinball Network YouTube channel. So go to YouTube, type Pinball Network, you'll find this video. But our thought is after this video, we're going to make the video aspect of this a Patreon exclusive. So if you're a Patreon member, it doesn't matter what tier you are. When we release the normal podcast episode, we will also release the link for the Patreon members. So if you're one of those people that would prefer to take this in, they want the visual side of this podcast, they want to see Tom's beautiful face, they want to see Travis's corner of his tan blank walls, you can do that. You can do that for a small, small fee of either $3, $6, or $9 a month. That's all you got to do. Or you can join my OnlyFans and see that other wall as well. Yeah, you don't want to see that. You don't want to see that wall. You definitely don't want a black light on in that wall either.
    4:26
    So, I don't know. If you want to see a face to this, then awesome. Feel free to join the Patreon and enjoy the video. Otherwise, enjoy the podcast. That's what we're here for. The audio part of this is always going to be available to anybody. so yeah so there's your disclaimer and we're going to see how this shakes loose so yeah catching up with you guys it's been a little while we've gotten through Christmas we've gotten through the new year I know we tried to get a podcast in before the end of the year trying to wrap everything up and one thing that I did after our podcast is I actually had a really cool opportunity to interview George Gomez he's the chief there he goes talking about himself Yeah, like let's just talk about Joel's podcast and our podcast. Why not? Might as well. What is it? Chief Technical Officer? It's not. You interviewed him. You tell us. He's the man. Okay, George Gomez. He's the man. And it was an awesome interview. He said a lot of stuff. But what I wanted to discuss with you guys is through that interview, one of the things that he shared was two cornerstones next year. one of them the design team is Dwight and Dwight Sullivan and Brian Eddy and then the other design team is Jack Danger and Tanya Klais and as far as I know that's that is not normal for anything like that to be shared ahead of time because as we know there are people that are very loyal to either designers of the physical machine or design like coders they really just send them booze or something?
    6:05
    Apparently I just asked the right questions. I don't know, but it was, uh, he, he revealed all that. And then the other thing that he also revealed is zombie Yeti is doing the art package for both of them. So we know the game designer, we know the software programmer and we know the artist for both of these games. The only thing he left out is the theme. Um, so we really, I mean, we have no idea what those things are going to be, but with the two of you guys and as many games as you have owned, and as much experience as you have in pinball, does that mean anything to you? Are you excited about one or the other? Or, I don't know, is there hesitation of, well, if Dwight and Brian go first, I'm going to skip that and I'll wait for Jack. I don't know. Does that forecast something? When's Elwin's next game? It's right now. We're going to talk about that tonight. Drop the sweep.
    6:58
    Yeah. But, I don't know. Thoughts on that. Thoughts on that? I mean, it's cool to know what's coming up. Obviously, we don't know theme or anything, but, yeah, it's kind of cool to know who's going to be designing and working on the games. I think that's really neat. You still have Mando, right? It's right here, Joel. Oh, I can't. It's just a little out of frame. Okay. So Mando, I mean, that's a Brian and Dwight game. I mean, do you like that combo? Oh, is that combo enjoyable enough that you sign you up for another one? I mean. Yeah, potentially. Okay. I mean, it just depends on the theme and see what happens. All right. Travis, what are your – I'm not making any promises. Okay. So what you're saying is the team will not cause you to commit to buying something. No. That's what you're saying. No. See, that's fair. I'm just going to use all of Joel's catchphrases. Thank you. This podcast. You're welcome. Wait, are we supposed to drink if someone's drinking? I think so. I forgot how that works. So, okay, all right. I mean, I know plenty of people that are just Team Elwynn. So every Elwynn game has been him and Rick Nagel. How could you not be Team Elwynn? I think that's a valid statement. But people are like, okay, I don't care what the game is. If that combo is happening, I'm in. And I feel like there was a time where there were, like, Steve Ritchie fans. They're like, I'm in for every Steve Ritchie game. They just love his games. So do you feel, I mean, like Jack is a big question mark. We have no idea what a Jack Danger game looks like. What do you mean he built a home pin? Yeah, but still, I mean, it's like give him free range, two node boards, do whatever you want, three models. Like we have no idea what Jack Danger is going to make. Within the Stern bomb, of course. True. And Tanya Kleiss only has one game, which is Deadpool. Pretty good game, though. It's a fantastic game. It's a great game. But that's, I don't know. I mean, I just, I don't know. I don't know if people heard that information and they're like, well, looks like I'm safe for 2023. Like, I'm not buying a game. Or there's people that are immediately like, oh, I'm in. I'm already in because of this team. Honestly, oddly enough, I really didn't hear from anybody positive or negative either way with knowing. You know, it's kind of like one of those things. I think it's just a lot of people assumed what the teams could possibly be just based off the past, based off who's released games recently. Everybody knew that Borg has already come out with a game with Rush. Everybody knew that Elwin was on Bond's 60th. So I guess it was just generally assumed that it was possible he was not going to be in the 2023 lineup. So, I mean, people were kind of putting the dots together here and connecting it. So, I mean, it's just, I don't know. I think it would be a bigger deal. I mean, it is kind of a big deal that they are announcing that ahead of time. I think it would be even a bigger deal if they did that with themes. And we've talked about that before, about announcing ahead of time what they have, almost like a stern day and, hey, here's our release schedule and here's what's coming. Because it's not like anybody else could do anything about that or react to that anyway. So I would always be curious about that because I don't know. I don't think it would necessarily stop people from buying the game that they want to buy because there's a lot of people that will buy a pro, right? And they're wanting to just buy it because they're just going to wait on the premium. Or there's plenty of people that will buy a game and just they know that they're going to sell it. They're just buying it thinking, OK, I'm going to hold on to it for three to six months, move on and go to the next one. There's thousands of people out there that do exactly that. Well, I think it's an interesting point because you're saying we know literally everything about the theme, but you're not seeing people commit. You're not seeing people like, oh, I'm in. I'm in like Tanya. Like, I love Tanya. I'm in. I mean, what is there to commit to, though? I mean, outside of, like, doing a pre-order, and nobody knows what their allocations are for those games. I mean, how do you commit? You know what I mean? If both of you knew that the March Cornerstone release was going to be Elwynn, I'm assuming both of you would already be setting aside money in your bank account. Well, yeah, but come on. Preparing for that. You said Elwynn. That's like, you know, he creates all-time bangers. That's not fair. You know what I mean? You can't compare, like, the person at the top of the mountain and then say, okay, since you'll get his, like, surely you have to make those decisions with everybody else. Because the thing is, Elwin is proven. Like, Team Elwin is proven. We don't know what Team Eddie and Dwight will bring. We don't know what Team. We know Eddie and Dwight. Okay, one game. Like, Mando. Like, that's not. It's just one game. That's not like four or five. That's my point. Okay. You know what I mean? So if we judge it off Mando, then what do we do? You know what I mean? Because Brian Eddy, he's had different types of designs in the past. Dwight hasn't had the same type of rule set. So, I mean, I don't know. We might get something totally different. It's hard to tell. Yeah. It's just we've had a lot of discussion about this of, like, why doesn't Stern give us info ahead of time? Like, why don't they announce stuff ahead of time? And I think the fear has always been that they don't want a future title to be hurting their current title that's for sale. And I just thought this was kind of an interesting situation where we, in my opinion, we've heard a lot of solid information about what's coming out with these new games, but yet I'm not seeing that reaction. I'm not seeing people like. I don't think it's solid enough. That's the problem. I mean, you know who's doing it, but you don't have a picture of what's going on. you don't have a theme, you don't have a price.
    12:43
    There's a lot of things. Well, you bring up a good point, though, Tom. That literally means that there's plenty of people that will make buying decisions strictly off a rumor also. True. I mean, that's where the industry's at. If people don't tell you ahead of time and they don't know, everybody has to make their decision based off a rumor. And all three of us know. We've talked about that. I mean, Tom, I know you've probably done that. I know for a fact I've done that before. in terms of deciding not to get a game at a certain time because this other game might come out or in terms of purposely trying to buy a game, hurrying up because I think another game's not going to come out for a while. I mean, we've all played that game to some degree. So I don't know how much it would affect. Like, for instance, if I knew that, say, Elwynn wasn't going to be until September, right? Just throwing that out there. That's obviously not confirmed. It's not going to happen. the show. But if I did know that, then in my head, I have two choices. Either I'm saving money for that, or I know I want to just jump on a pro instead of a premium for this next release, because then I know I want to turn around and sell it before the next game. I mean, that helps with that type of decision making. There's plenty of people out there that want to buy the next game, regardless who it is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just, I think it, like it amazes me and I know we've already talked about this but Scooby-Doo Scooby-Doo as soon as it was announced like spooky already had essentially kind of some drama and some baggage that they've been carrying through for the last year plus with issues with layout of Halloween or lack of code or I mean there are people that feel burned by spooky pinball and so I think we all were were just like what's spooky gonna do on this next release are they gonna sell lot. Are they going to do this? Are they going to do that? Then all they did was tease Scooby-Doo. That's all they did was tease. And you see on pin side and it's just like, where do I buy? Where do I buy? I'm in, I'm in dream theme and boom, boom, boom. It's like all these people are ready to commit. They haven't seen anything. They don't know anything about the game, nothing. And people are ready to put down a down payment. But yes, here is the exact opposite. We know everything about the game except for the theme, everything. And yet I'm not seeing that. Like I'm not, What does that tell you? Power of fame. There you go. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. But I will say, I mean, I think Brian, Brian Eddy, I mean, he's made some amazing games. I think he takes some chances with his designs and kind of some of the uniqueness of his mechs and whatnot.
    15:18
    You obviously look at Mando on the premium, like that moving play field. Sure, Pirates had the moving ship. It's not the first, but it's just like that is a unique match. Stranger Things was an incredibly unique design. Shadow, like, give me more of that. That's what I loved everything about Shadow. So to me, it's like I'm always intrigued to see what Brian Eddy is going to do mechanically. And then Dwight, Dwight knows how to put on a moment, put on a Dwight show. There's going to be fun experiences, I will say, in that game. I don't doubt that. So I'm excited for that. and then with Jack like I'm very much excited to see what Jack's going to do I have no idea what he's going to do um and I don't I don't know I don't know if that means I've set the bar low because I have no expectations or if I I don't know I don't know what that means but I'm I'm very excited to see what's coming from Jack and then Tanya the one thing I have experience of Tanya I freaking love I love Deadpool so I'm excited for this year even though there's no Elwynn I'm still excited for this year and what's to come.
    16:25
    What do you mean there is an O-1? Well, yes, there is an O-1. So if you want, we can. I mean, there's other companies, obviously. There's a lot of other podcasts have already done their 2023 predictions. Hold the phone. We got to talk about something else. We got to talk about our Twippy nomination. Oh, okay. All right. Yes. Let's dive right into that. So first off, everybody that's listening to this podcast or watching, if you're watching the video, if you nominated us for the Twippy, like, thank you. Thank you so much for that.
    17:00
    Twippy, it's a very cool award ceremony. It's very much a People's Choice Award. And I know, I think we had mentioned it, but, you know, we're obviously not campaigning for it. We were snubbed last year, Joel.
    17:14
    We had, like. I changed my mind. We are the number one ranked podcast right now as the nominees, right? Oh, because it's at the top of the list? Yeah, that means number one, right? This is ours to lose now, Joel. That's exactly the way it works. What are you talking about?
    17:32
    Last year, I think we had all of maybe six episodes out, so we were very much new. But it is very clear, I mean, just through, you know, the emails we've gotten and the Facebook messages and then the Patreon supporters, like, it blows my mind that there are people out there that enjoy this and want to support us. So I know we weren't campaigning for Twippies.
    17:55
    I want to make sure, like, if we get votes, I want to make sure we earn those votes. We get votes from listeners that enjoy this content. I'm not going to ask my mom to vote for me, you know. I did. I told my mom, vote for me. I'm kicking her out. What are you talking about right now? Oh, your roommate? All right, I walked right into that one.
    18:18
    So just to clarify, she lives with you, not you live with your mom, right? No, my mom provided me with this tube light that you were talking about, this one wall. She got me this mic and this camera. So, yeah, that's why I get to do this. One picture. What's the picture of? I'm sorry for the audio people, but is it a ship? Is it a ship? What are you talking about? Is it a ship? Oh, it's a stormtrooper. All right. A stormtrooper. He's on a ship, though. Okay. I just don't agree. Yeah, it's got gray and white tones. Why are we talking about this right now? We're supposed to be talking about Twiggy. Because, believe it or not, that is the most entertaining thing that you have in your frame of your face. Hell no. Okay, hey, look at this. We're going to go up on a stand-up bar or something. So I have this new device, right, that we should be sponsored by. You guys are going to crack up. So this is called a WowStick. I don't even want to know. What is that? Okay, I accept that it looks like something else. What is that? It's a screwdriver. A WowStick? Yeah, it's called a WowStick, right? But here's what's hilarious. It literally says 69 in 1.
    19:34
    Wow. I know this looks like one of those Hitachi wands, but it's not. I swear to God. Look. It's awesome. What are you searching for that to be a recommended product? Okay. Is that vibrate? No, it doesn't.
    19:49
    Okay. You guys are going to lose it when I tell you who I found this product out from. I was watching Marco's specialty, and Emoto was the one there. she was talking about this wow stick because I thought he was using it on one of the pinball machines. I was like, holy crap, I got to get that. And I didn't put it together, though, what it looked like or that it had the number 69 on it, Joel, until I got it. And I was like, wow, I bought this. I even told Monica, I was like, hey, and that's my wife, for those going home, I was like, hey, we got this new product coming in. And I told her it's called a wow stick. And so when she saw it, Like, I had to tell her, I'm like, because she was like, why the hell did you buy me a sex toy? That's not for you. That's for me. I did say that because I wasn't thinking that. And then I realized she was being serious. So let me get this straight. So, I don't know, like a year ago. So what does that do exactly? It's a screwdriver. Like, it automatically screws in stuff. Wow. Like, it's all screws. Yeah. So it's good? It's worth it? Yeah, it's worth it. So if the makers of the Wow Stick are listening, hey, good on you. You guys have been great. It's a Wow Stick and a Comfy. That's – and you're a happy boy. Hey, you know what? I told Tom earlier I'm literally stealing all your stuff, so I'm shilling. That's the way it works. All right. Nice, Tom. Very good. I guess I'm wearing it.
    21:18
    Not for people listening to the podcast. No. My wife is like – I think you just sniffed right into the mic, too. My apologies. I thought it was on mute. the comfy has basically become my wife's at this point but just to reiterate first you told us roughly a year ago that there was a point where you had bought lube for your pinball machines it was super lube for your pinball machines but you told Monica hey I got she's like oh we got a package and you're like oh I bought some lube and she got excited and then you had to clarify it was for a pinball machine so fast forward to recently she pulls that out and you say No, that's for a football machine. So, two for two on just three disappointment-wise. I just keep thinking we're going to go for a fifth kid, and I just disappoint her as usual, so it's fine. It's good. By the way, Joel, why am I on the bottom of this? Yeah, so the layout, because Travis in his closet before, he, like, mounted his camera way to the left, and we basically were looking at his shoulder blade, so I just assumed Travis was going to be looking left. And then he changed everything. I didn't know the production value needed to go up to me having two walls and a tube light. I didn't know that was coming. Okay, so for the people that nominated this type of content, thank you.
    22:39
    What are you doing with your life is what I want to know. Yeah, but in all seriousness, no, it is fantastic. Twippy voting is live right now. So if you nominated us, obviously feel free to vote. If you didn't nominate us, that's totally fine. Still, go for it. Vote.
    22:55
    Vote for whatever you want. Obviously, there's voting for a bunch of game categories, so feel free to pump whatever game you really are passionate about. And then basically all the social media stuff between podcasts and streams and all that fun stuff. So, Tom, Fox City's Pinball made streams. Yes. Yeah. And we appreciate every vote.
    23:19
    See, the problem is – I love that, Tom. Well said. If you do video, you still have to mouth it. I know. I should have did that. Oh, yes! Yes! It happened! Oh, so for people listening on the podcast, what just happened? And the answer is El Gato No Signal. Now you know what we go through if you're watching this on YouTube. This is the life of podcasting with Travis Murray. And you wait, and there he is. Manual focus. There he is. I don't see any problems with this the funniest thing and again everybody thank you for nominating us but the funniest thing is I forgot what I was going to say people nominated for this content okay this high quality production videos go out we forget our jokes do you think the Twippies are going to drop us from the ballot now after we release this episode Hey, we made top ten. Probably. We made top ten. Hey, we're number one seed, Joel. Forget that. Yes. All right. So, yes, for everybody, thank you so much. Flippin' Out Pinball, which is what I stream on, was nominated for streaming. So thank you for anybody that nominated us for that. Tom, Fox City Pinball was nominated. Thank you for all the people that nominated him for that. Travis is here. So thank you, Travis, for being here. With my wow stick. Yeah.
    24:47
    All right. And your lighted rod. God, yeah. Well, so. Joel, we've got to speed this up. I need to hit my OnlyFans by 10 o'clock tonight. So, our notes were really short. It was basically Twippy and talking about what's coming out this turn. But, really, the meat and the potatoes, meat and potatoes of tonight is all about Bond 60th edition. So, Bond, the Elwyn version. The Elwyn version has officially been announced. We've all known it's coming. They've been talking about it since October, but nobody's seen it. Nobody had any idea what it was. It was finally revealed.
    25:24
    And, man, there's a whole lot we can talk about here. So what do you want to talk about first? Do you want to talk about what the game actually is, what it looks like, all that? Or do you want to talk about marketing? Because I know Travis is, he is jonesing. He is ready to talk about everything, marketing and price and everything that's happened with this reveal. Whatever you want to talk about, Joel. you're the leader of us three idiots so go for it all right well we'll start with uh we'll start with the design so overall design initial thoughts we'll start with outside of the game what do you think of the looks of the game not looking at the layout just the looks of the game initial impressions uh tom let's go for it where's the powder coat where's the there's powder coating it's black powder coating, but it's not sparkly. I think there was somebody online that they're like, I'm out because it's not sparkly.
    26:20
    It's sleek. I'll give them that. I really don't care for the movie posters all over the place. I thought the back glass looks pretty cool.
    26:33
    A lot of blue. I like the blue. Yeah, it looks good. Yeah. I mean, it's a pinball machine. I did a – It's a good review. It doesn't look yellow and white like Dr. No. Like Dr. No, yeah. I did a chatting stream last night on the Flippin' Out stream. Flippin' Out with friends. Is there anything? By the way, it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. No longer am I streaming on Twitch. Only on YouTube. But I did a chatting stream like that, and George with Don't Pin It, Flip, actually brought up a good point, which he said the design of the posters reminded him a lot of the GNR limited edition version of the game, which had all the different band posters. But if you remember, it was like a brick wall or something, and then the band posters, they were dynamic. Like, it looked like they were hanging, and they weren't just on a grid. Like, it looked, I mean, it was busy, like a collage, but it actually looked like there was effort put forth in the overall artistic layout of the cabinet art. While this is very much just like it's just a collage. It's just a grid. And I know, I mean, we've already talked about this a good bit. It is very clear this licensor is extremely picky and hard to work with. So I don't want to blame anybody at Stern for some of these artistic directions because we've seen it in the other three models of the Bonds machines, and then we've also seen it on the back glass. We've seen it in the LCD screen. When it comes to the visual assets that this licensor is giving them, it seems like they are extremely picky.
    28:14
    So maybe this was literally their only options. How about the side art on the head? You mean just the titles, the listed out titles of every, yeah. I mean it kind of looks like our pre-production notes really once you think about it it kind of does actually bring up a good point uh I don know I mean I not I would say I mean I mean there are art packages that have been on like Halloween is a beautiful looking game Like Ultraman, beautiful looking game. If you're talking about the art package. Zambietti, almost everything he makes. There are people that clearly buy the games and are just totally fine with it sitting in a corner because of how good they look. Unfortunately, I don't think Bond 60th Edition falls into this category. You get a custom shooter, right, Joel? Okay. Union Jack Yeah, okay Well, that's the outside Well, I'm just bringing up a point No, you're right You're right So, artwork I would say the artwork on the playfield I actually like I know it's Photoshop It has all the Bonds There's no Bond girls on the playfield Which is kind of surprising But all the James Bonds are on there Nothing Disappointed there I mean, isn't there a female scuba diver at the bottom? I mean, if you want to get technical, you're really I mean, just look at the body. I don't want to, like, assume gender, but I'm seeing what looks like a female. So, I mean, you know, there's there's one. If you're in doubt, I don't think it's quite doing what you want it to do to represent a Bond girl like that. That's fair. Yeah. So I I would say but I like the blue. I actually like the artistic side. I like the graphics on the play field. I do. I like it. I like the way that looks. I think that looks a whole lot better than the cabinet art.
    30:08
    But, yeah, what are your thoughts on the layout? Like, is there – I know we kind of geeked out about it yesterday on the chatting stream, but, I mean, you guys are tournament players. You guys have played a lot of street-level games. Do you feel – not street. I feel – take that back. Dennis Creasel educated on me. This is not a street-level game. This is a single-level game. What's the difference? Basically, street-level, there was, like, a few Gottlieb games that they were made off With off-the-shelf parts, they were made to be cheap. They were made to be cost-efficient. If it was Gottlieb, good thing it's not a street-level game. Yeah. So it's just single-level. The way some people are reacting to this, they made you think it was a street-level game. I mean. So it is a single-level game. So for the two of you, this to me, were you seeing, like, what elements stick out to you? Or do you see elements in this game that represent other games? What do you think? I love inline drops, so I like that. I think the left orbits. The figure eight thing? Yeah, the figure eight thing is really cool.
    31:16
    Plus it's got the two spinners involved with it, which is really, really, really cool. Yeah. I like that. You know, four spinner game. That's, well, technically five, I guess. if you count the spinning disc. Oh, the hat, yeah. Yeah. So if you watch the video showing off the game, there was a shot that actually showed whoever was playing. I don't know if it was Owen, whoever it was. But there was a shot where all four spinners and the hat were spinning. So there's a combo that you can do to loop that around the outer orbit. It hits the middle spinner and then hit the figure eight combo and then also hit the hat, and all the spinning things were spinning all at once, which sounds incredible. The first thing I thought of, though, when I saw that is, like, how are the score reels going to keep up? Because, like, if a spinner gives you a minimum one point, that means that score reel has to spin as fast as the spinners are spinning.
    32:22
    So we're talking there are mechanical score reels in the back box. That's a side note. There was a render that leaked. And I remember when we looked at that leaked render months ago, we all saw the LCD and we're like, that looks strange. We just didn't. It looked like it was just a graphic. Well, that's it. That was the real thing. And I would say, at least in the videos, even, it still kind of just looks like a graphic. Like, it's not blatantly obvious that there are mechanical reels in that back box. But I'm very curious. I mean, maybe when you see it in person, it's very obvious. But some of the videos I've seen, like, I think it's cool that there's mechanical reels in the back box, but it's just it's not wowing me like I was hoping it would. But anyway, so layout-wise, I don't know. Travis, what are you seeing layout-wise that's getting you excited? No, I think it's all pretty cool. I really like the figure eight. Just being able to do all four spinners at the same time, that's never been done before. I don't recall any game that's ever had this many spinners on it, especially for a single-level game. So that type of shot, that looks pretty sweet. And I think what I like about the figure eight especially is that you could go around either side. You can go either way with it. It's from what it looks like. And then the inline drops, I love inline drops. I wish more companies, more pinball machines would be released with inline drops. I actually really like the idea of the captive ball in the back, too. That's a good callback to certain other games like Mystic and games like that in which, you know, you need to hit a captive ball. And it actually means something in the game. So seeing that's pretty cool. And then, of course, you know, drop targets. Everybody loves drop targets in general. But, I mean, what I'm most curious about, and I think I might have talked to you guys about this before, too, is I'm really, really interested to see how this type of layout. Because it's like a classic alley type layout, right? And you have the Stern flippers on there. And they're obviously, yeah, they're very powerful. And even in the trailer, it showed a few air balls coming off the inline drop. So I'm very curious to see how that works, how that goes with the game flow. I'm sure having snappy flippers with those spinners, with Opto spinners, that that's going to be a lot of fun as well. So I don't know. I mean, I'm not crazy about the disc, to be honest with you. But in Avengers, it makes sense to me because it's definitely with, you know, on point with Dr. Strange in here. Like, I get why the disc is there, I guess, with what's the name? Oddjob is the name of the set. So I get that. I don't know. For me, it's just kind of in a weird spot where it's at just right in the middle of the play field. So I'm curious about how that'll be. But I've never really been a fan of that type of mech to begin with. So I don't know. I mean, obviously, they've got to have something in the middle of the play field of some type. So I don't know. Maybe it'll make sense when it's there. Once I see it, maybe it'll make sense because I guess it says something about, what, you advance your gadget, I guess, with it. Yeah. Because there's an insert right there. So I'm curious to see how that applies to the rules. I think the way it works is you have to hit down the bond targets, which are the four drops on the left. And in one of the videos, it almost looks like those are sweepable. Like in one of the videos it showed at least hitting three. Yeah, the N-O-B, then it ricocheted off a stand-up, then back down. Yeah. So I think you complete bond and then probably rip the disc, and then that counts towards a gadget. But it looks like you do that so many times, and there's a multi-ball there. There's a multi-ball of collecting bonds, so there's kind of actually a little saucer in the back where the figure eight happens. So I don't know what you have to do to light that, or maybe you just hit it, And once you hit that enough, but it's like collecting all the bonds, there's a multi-ball there. The drop targets, there's something unique going on there because it talks about locking a ball. So it almost looks like you could drop them down and then shoot the ball back there and maybe it holds it. Because if you lock two, there's some multi-ball involved in that. And the action button, if you read the instructions, the action button says something about you can hit the action button and it drops the drop targets and would start a multiple or something. So it's like you can almost store a ball back there, and then when you need it, you hit the action button, and it drops it and gives you the ball. Like, I don't know, like, just unique stuff like that, that I think this game really, initially I wasn't super excited about it, and that's just because I thought it was kind of an unobtainium kind of thing. I was like, why would I get excited about a game I don't think I'll ever play? Like, I'm never going to see it on location. I just didn't want to get excited about something I didn't think I'd ever be able to play but yet now the more that I'm looking at it I'm like this game looks super fun to shoot yeah and I mean plus too judging by what the inserts are saying and everything I feel like this is a game that's a step above what Beatles is and I'm saying this as a former Beatles owner I'm just judging that because obviously they have the villains on there it says like spinners, pops, loops discs, so you have to assume that they're attached to some type of task in the game that you've got to perform. But then on top of that, I love the idea of having the four spinners, and I love the idea of the inlines, and I love the idea that there's multi-ball in here, and there's more than just one multi-ball in here. Yeah, exactly. So to me, it's going to give you a lot more, I guess, what's the word for it? A lot more play you had. And plus, too, it being a single-level game, that means all times are going to be short. It's not going to be near as long as your normal modern games that have ramps or anything like that. So I'll be interested to see how that really applies with the multiball, if that means they're going to be very close to the start button or if they're going to be a lot more difficult to obtain. It looks like with the bonds that you collect there, I assume that kind of works kind of like the super jackpot does with Beatles to where you have to do the mode or the task with it, and then maybe you hit that at the very end of it for, like, some type of super jackpot collect or something like that. And I know somewhere in there, I think it's at the very backside of the whole entire play field, it says something like collect all bonds to start bond multiball. So I don't know. Maybe that's, like, some type of wizard mode or mini wizard mode that's built into there because, I mean, you have to do a lot to get to that point.
    38:45
    That's the one thing. reading the rule card that I saw on there, you're realizing there's a lot more depth here than I expected. And to go back to your fear of the snappy flippers, like I have TNA, and TNA has snappy flippers. And it is. It's a fast game. It feels like a modern game compared to when I step up to. Like at a time I had TNA, at the same time I had 8-Ball Deluxe. And like 8-Ball Deluxe, the ball just seems so slow and with no power, you know. So I think it will feel new. I think it'll feel fast. I think it's going to be a brutal game. That's what Dennis Creasel was saying on the chatting stream last night, that he's like, you guys are talking about the flow shots. You guys are talking about the center shot to the right orbit. You're talking about the eight ball, like the figure eight shot. Those are all the flow shots. But everything else on this play field is brutal. You know, you have that spinner in the middle, the disc. You have three drop targets dead center, the MI6. Like, you hit those, those are going to be in danger. You know, there's a lot that you need to shoot at that are on the sides. this is going to be a fast and dangerous game.
    39:50
    So the more I talked about it, the more I looked at it, the more excited about the game I got. What are your thoughts on the LCD screen in the game, in the middle of the play field? Tom is making an unhappy face, and Travis looks cool. I mean, Tom, what do you think? It's hard to judge it because I don't feel like they've really said much about it. I mean, the only thing I gathered from looking at the videos was it might show some rules or something or objectives. But, I mean, they could show scenes from different Bond films and things like that. I don't know how inventive they're going to get with that LCD. So it'll be interesting to see. I hope there's direction. Like, I hope there's, if you start a mode. This is a great level game. How much direction do you need? Well, it's Joel. He needs all the direction. Blinky light is not enough direction. So I would love it. I mean, I like the location of it because it's in your eyesight. So, I mean, if it could tell me what to do or explain what's going on or display something to make that mode different, I mean, to me. When are you going to have time to see that, though? Like while you're trapped up? Because it's going to be, I mean, if it's playing fast, you know what I mean? It's going to be easier to look at that screen than it will to look up normally where an LCD is going to be.
    41:16
    Well, how's that easier? All you've got to do is just move your head up. You don't have to look up nearly as far. You're going to have to split to see it. Why didn't they market it like that? You don't have to look up as far. You can just look at this. Save your neck.
    41:32
    I don't know. I mean, I like it, personally. That's one thing. like the P3. Oh, I bet you do. Oh, well, so the P3. The P3 stand over here. See, I told you he was going to bring it up. We knew this, Tom. We knew it. The P3 has all that information down on that. You don't have to look up at all. You're comparing apples to oranges right now. Oh, I'm sure Keith is very excited about this comparison right now. Just follow me on this short little journey. I'm just saying the P3 does a good job of explaining what to do. It's all down there. And even like Haggis did the screen with Kelts, Alien did the screen. I don't, I don't, like, to me, having that information, that visual information lower down, I like it. Now, there's a mod, it's like Pin HD or something, where there's a guy that, they're basically duplicating the screen in a standard Stern game, and then putting a little screen down in the apron. And that's the same idea of, if you're looking at the flippers, it's easier to look three inches lower than lift your head all the way up and look at the screen. That's what she said.
    42:38
    What? Okay, Travis. Joel, I got a secret to tell you. Okay, you ready for this? I know this is going to blow your mind right now. I'm ready to be wowed. The vast majority of pinball players do not look at the screens for information. They just don't. Think about the whole discussion. The whole discussion we had about Rush. It has all the information right there. It tells you what multiball is ready. It tells you what to hit. I don't even look at the flippers. Yeah. It tells you all that information, and people are still like, I don't know what to do. I mean, that's just what happens. For whatever reason, we don't look at the screens as often as we should. You know what? I want a game that has Bowen Cairns coming out of the speakers. Right? Why hasn't he developed an app that is like a pen caddy in our ears? Exactly. That's what I need. He'd be like, why the F were you hitting that shot? I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea.
    43:41
    Travis, you've been on my stream before, and that's pretty much what you say the whole time. Oh, yeah. Shit rolls downhill, Joel. That's how it works.
    43:50
    You know what I really like is that collect bonus shot that goes back into the shooter. Oh, the M shot. The shooter lane? Oh, yeah. That's cool. I like that. It's so simple, but it's just so cool to do that.
    44:07
    It does say M. What does that mean? What's the M shot? No, M is a character from Bond. It's like, I think it's the leader or the person in charge, M, and then Q. Just one letter? Q is the person that does all of his gadgets. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. It was a her in the Daniel Craig. I don't think it was always a her, but M maybe it was. I don't know. All the Bond, they're rolling their eyes so hard right now. All right, well, hey, there you go. There's another female presence right there in the form of a letter, right there on the right side of the play field. There you go. But Bond is spelled out. What is surprising is there's three rollovers at the top, and each one says 007. Why it doesn't say 007 for the three roller, I don't know. and then ABC. That's one I don't know. I don't know why they chose ABC instead of some other three-letter acronym. Because it's like a classic game. There we go. That's the way it used to be. ABC. Plus there's 007s everywhere on all the classic games. That's another reason why they have that, Joel.
    45:16
    Okay. Yeah. I would say just the more I looked at this, the more excited I got about the layout and the more I started to appreciate how much you can actually put into a single-level game. Dennis Creasa was bringing that up. Like, ramps actually take up a lot of room. People just assume a ramp is hovering over the play field. But, no, you have to have a ramp entrance, and you have to – it takes a little while for that ramp to then elevate up and become a ramp. So unless you're just doing, like, Captain Marvel – or, yeah, Captain Marvel ramps or some of these quick 180 ramps, like the ramp on Led Zeppelin over on the right, Like, you have, it takes room, and that's room that you're missing other things. While you take this game, like, there is so much stuff on this. People are saying, oh, it's a single level, like, this should be cheap, this should be cheap. There are so many mechs in this game. They're, and sure, they're not custom, besides the odd job hat, but the number of drop targets, the number of saucers that have a coil to pop it out, the inline drops have two coils, one to pop them back up and one to drop them down. Like, there's actually a lot in this game. You just don't see it like you normally do. So, I don't know. One of the questions I had last night was, because George, don't panic, he was all, like, he's like, I'm in love with this game. I just can't justify it for $20,000. If this game would have been, I don't know, if there was a premium version of it and it was the $9,000 or $10,000. If this was a $12,000 game, I would have bought it. You would have bought it? Travis, would you have pulled the trigger if it was, let's say, $10,000 or $12,000?
    46:56
    I mean, if Monica says yeah, then, you know. I mean, technically it could be a $12,000 game if somebody wants to buy it. I mean, it could, like we talked about, you could buy it for $1 if you want to or for free or $100,000. Let's actually talk about that. I'd buy that for $1. I'd do that for $1. So there is a lot of misinformation out there, right? Oh, here we go. There we go. And I'm really going to let Travis really run with this. But so what I will say, this is in layman's terms, what it sounds like for every other Stern Pro, Pro Premium LE, every single one that's come out, there's typically like three numbers that are told to distributors. There's basically the absolute lowest that you can sell this game. Don't advertise it, but the absolute lowest you could ever sell this game without getting in trouble. Then there's something else. And then there's the advertised price. price? Go ahead, Travis. Matt, is that what you're talking about? Sure. There's three numbers, right? UAP, right? No. UAP? Isn't that like a UFO or something like that? I don't know.
    48:06
    It's like any other industry. Every industry has it goes like wholesale price, it goes UMRP, it goes MAP, it goes MSRP. I mean, they have all that. And then sometimes there's a price ceiling you can go to also. So it just depends like what industry you're in. But with this particular thing, there's a reason why it says call for price. You know, that's just that's dictated. It's not like we all got together and all decided, hey, we don't want to show a price. You bastards.
    48:35
    That's direct from Stern. And that's just the reality of it. And that was planned all along. And I mean, I've read stuff that like people like different companies are colluding together. I've heard that from multiple people. I've heard that we're just all like just trying to get too greedy with the price. I mean, I've heard just all kinds of stuff. And I'm not like talking about any one person because if you're listening to this and you're like, well, I said that. Well, guess what? About 20 of you, 30 of you said that. So I'm not talking about any one person. But that's just I mean, it just goes into what this product is. You know, we've we've talked about it a lot in terms of what this product is and what this product isn't. So, I mean, how else do we want to elaborate on that? Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Okay, so are the pop bumpers wired together? No. They are individual pop bumpers. But so just that alone, like what it seems like. So distributors have been put in a tough spot because, like, I don't know. If Stern looks at this and like, well, I'm going to let them sell it for whatever they want. Like I think Stern kind of looks at it like I'm throwing them a bone. And that happened before with the Beatles gold, what was it, gold platinum? Gold platinum, yeah. So diamond, they could sell diamond for whatever they want. And it was just like, yeah, feel free. And I think the thought there, Stern, is like, feel free to capitalize on it, you know, like whatever the market value is, go for it. Now, the truth is distributors are already allowed to do that, even on a Stern Pro or even on a Stern Premium. There's plenty of distributors out there that sell the games for like they all sell for the same price. Some include free shipping. Some don't. Some do this. Some don't. But they're all roughly the same price. And then there's other distributors that say no. And they hold on to the games and they wait. And so those are the people that, hey, yeah, it's sold out everywhere else. Well, you can buy it from me, but it's going to cost more. And that's fine. Like that's how business works, you know. It's almost like the free market. Yeah. Amazing concept, isn't it? It's it's just comes down to what do you want? I mean, that's why in my mind, that's why even used games over covid were going for higher than than than available price, because that's what it was. It's fine. You can buy it new at this price, but you're going to wait a year and a half. Or if you want it now, then you can buy it. It's going to be more. Well, and that's that's the thing I've always told people, too, that, you know, if they talk about games that are above MSRP that are doing box and they're like, OK, you know, why is this happening? It's like, well, why are you selling your used game for more than MSRP that you have? And I'm not talking like any recent. Like, why not sell your Addams Family that you have for the MSRP that you paid for new in box? You know what I mean? Nobody thinks of it on that level. So, you know, it's not meaning like, well, because you do this, we can do that. It's just, hey, this is the way that the industry is. This is the way supply and demand works. And it's not just in particular to what pinball is. like that across the board on all industries. And the fact is, is that if a lot of us, if everybody sold MSRP across the board, you better believe the backlog would even be greater. Like the fact is, is that there is still a backlog, even with the market dictating what they want to buy. I mean, that's the reality of it. And there's a reason for that. And it's just because handball is very popular. And, you know, we've talked about this before. The buyer base of pinball is much larger than what people realize. For whatever reason, people think that inside and Facebook is like the end of it. Yeah. And I'm telling you right now, it's not just comprised of people that type on a keyboard, that get on Facebook or that want to get on a forum. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just pointing out that that's not that's not the full base. like the full base isn't the people that listen to this podcast or watch YouTube videos or watch Twitch streams. It's just not. Yeah. You know, I mean, let's take, for instance, like Jack Danger, right? He works for Stern, longtime streamer, multiple time Twippy winner, all this and that. He probably averages less than 200 viewers, like concurrent viewers watching, you know, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. What I'm pointing out is, is this is somebody who is the face of Stern. Now, do we really think that there's only 150 to 250 people buying pinball machines from Stern at any given time? It's just so much larger than what people realize. And people just don't, they don't think of it that way. I mean, it's the same way. Think of any other hobbies that you guys might be involved in, whether it's video games, whether it's running or working out. It's like, okay, how often are you going on message boards about that and spending several hours a day or several hours out of your week thinking about it or doing it. You know, hobbies are just a lot larger than what people realize. Yeah, and I totally understand what supply chain issues. I mean, almost everything. I mean, you look at the car industry. There are so many people. Like, I remember when the Bronco came out. There it is again. Elgato no signal. It's been another 30 minutes. I need to get on the Elgato forum. My God. Yeah, yeah. You need to go on Pinside and figure this out. Yeah, I need 10 people to tell me how to fix this because I am in trouble. Look how professional Joe and I are. We look great. We look great every time. Consistent every time. Anyway, so when the Bronco came out, there was such a demand for the Bronco that it became like a bidding war almost. There were dealers that were like, okay, I have one. What do you want? And it just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. People were paying way above MSRP for it because it was there and they knew they could have it. And I'm not like, are you mad at Ford for that? Like, sure, build more cards, or cars, like build them faster. I would love for Stern to build games faster. But I don't know. It is what it is.
    54:34
    I'm glad I'm in the hobby because as the price of these new in-box games go up, the value of my games are also going up. Where it does suck, though, are for people wanting to get into pinball. That entry into pinball is getting harder and harder because they're getting more and more expensive. And I agree that does suck. But it sounds like that, though. But if that's the case, I don't think that's the case. Yeah. Because why is Stern increasing their capacity? Why are they already at max capacity? You know, because people talk about this barrier, right? They do. And yes, the price is high. But very much, we all understand we are in a first world hobby. Like we all get that, you know. And so we all have the freedom to choose what we want to do with our finances. and if a game is too much money, guess what? That's why there's games from the 70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000s that are still available. I mean, that's why I got a bunch of EMs. There's no way that I paid $2,000 or $3,000 for them. Some of them I paid $100,000 through $500,000. And it's just, I mean, the hobby is what it is and it's only relative to when you get into it. I mean, I imagine, I still remember when I got into the hobby several years ago, made it past those five years, thank God. But I still remember, even then, when I first started looking at it, people were all complaining about the prices. They were doing it then. I remember seeing somebody say, I cannot believe a CERN Pro is $4,800 used or something like that. You know what I mean? And that was then. That was the mindset then. You bring that to today, there would probably be 30 people lined up to try to get that instantly. So it's just all relative to what the time is. It's all relative to what people want. I mean, everything is super expensive. Anything that's electronics is super expensive. Cars, PCs, video games. I mean. Electricity. Everything, yeah. That's just how it is. So to bring it back to the Bond 60th edition, I mean, distributors have already been, distributors have already had this freedom essentially forever. Like they've always had the ability that they can sell games how they want. And I understand different distributors, they handle their business differently. Some focus more on, like, relationships. They want to make sure that their buyer base really feels, you know, like family. Like, hey, I'm here for you. What do you need? And just this consistent friendship. But, you know, like, to be honest, Zach and Nicole are flipping out. Every game, every new unboxing I've ever bought, I've bought from them. And I genuinely enjoy working with them. Like, I really appreciate working with them. But that's not exactly what everybody does. while there other ones that it just like I need something and people are going to call around and find wherever it available They don care They want it now They going to pay whatever it is now I don know who doing that better or worse But to bring it back to the 60th edition, it's a weird spot that Stern puts them in saying, you can sell the game whatever you want it for. They also, there's no limit for how low you can sell this game. And that's kind of crazy. So you're not allowed, the distributors are not allowed to advertise their price. They have to, say, call for price. And there is no handcuffs on how low they can sell the game. The problem is they're still buying the game. Like, they have to buy the game. So the distributor wants to make money.
    57:58
    Now, why does it matter that the low matters? Why does that matter? Because there are distributors out there that they get allotments. They get allotments of games that they almost are feel forced to take, and then those games sit on their shelves and they're stuck with them. Because even if they wanted to do a clearance, even if they wanted to potentially get rid of some of those games at a loss just to get them gone, they can't. They can't because there's a minimum value set on those games. So they're screwed. They've paid a bunch of money to J.J.P. or Stern or whoever.
    58:34
    That's gone. The money's gone and it's sitting on a shelf and they can't sell it. Same with accessories. There's limitations, and they know that if they sell under that price, they're in trouble. Like if they get caught, they're in trouble. Do you think there's any distributors holding on to WWEs? I don't know. But you look at, like, there's a lot of distributors that have Toy Stories in stock or, I don't know, Mando's in stock. And it's just, it's one of those, and I definitely think there are some smaller distributors that that's, if most of their capital is stuck in games that are on their shelves and they're like, I can't get rid of these. I cannot try to reclaim any of my money. Chuck them off the road. I mean, it's a touchy subject. It's a touchy subject overall. I mean, I can't speak for how other people run their business. That's up to them. All I can say is I know that the business that I'm associated with, we follow the rules to a T. I mean, because that's the way to run it, because I personally, I wouldn't want the ramifications for not doing it. And so, I mean, that's why I've talked to you guys before. It's just like I worry about how the tax laws are all the time. I worry about making sure that we stay within the parameters of what our manufacturers want. And I mean, that's the way I've always ran things anyways with my previous businesses and with other industries I've been with. And I think that that's me personally, for me, that's I think that that's the best way to go about things. Now, like I said, I can't speak for other people. I don't know how other people run their business. That's for them to decide, you know, and that's for Stern to decide how they want to run their business as well, just like it is for any other company that's in here. So, I mean, yeah, it's it's definitely a touchy subject. And that's why you never hear anybody say like what these values are. you know and it's the same way like I've told you guys like we've talked about different things before and even though we're on a podcast together I've been up front I've been like hey I can't give you that information or I can't say this or I have to leave something out and you know and it's the same way like we might have seen something come out and I'm like okay hey here's what I wasn't able to tell you now we can talk about it so I mean that's just the way it is and you know I mean And to me, that's the way to run things as much as you possibly can. And, you know, that's just how it is. Now, in terms of what's going on here, it's a unique thing. When you're dealing with a high-end premium product, obviously there's a lot of people that are very vocal that they don't feel that this is a high-end premium product. I think that's the dynamic that we're kind of seeing play out. Would you guys agree or disagree with that? What do you guys think we're seeing? A hundred percent.
    61:26
    A hundred percent that people are like, I don't see ramps in this game. And, you know, it looks like an EM, you know, even though it's not. I mean, it's definitely not an EM. It just has EM reels in it. Yeah. But, yeah, I think a lot of people are like, well, wait a second. You know, my Mando was X amount of dollars. This is way more. Right. It's like double.
    61:54
    It doesn't look like you're getting the same package for the money. I think that's the biggest problem. Right. And we talked about this before, so I've kind of boiled it down into a couple different things. And when this was initially coming up and we knew that Bond 60th was coming up, we knew that Elwynn was involved in it, the three of us talked privately. And, you know, we pretty much predicted exactly what is happening, that people are going to balk at it. People are going to be a little bit upset like this. Nothing is happening right now. That was not unexpected, basically, at least on our end with our private conversations that we've had about this to the extent that we could have them. And, you know, I've narrowed this down to three things. Basically, the reason why that things are kind of playing out the way that they're playing out. It's one, obviously, starting to struggling with the rollout overall of bond in general with how the cornerstone went. and now how the 60th is going, right? Correct. And then two, we're also assuming that dealers that have these allocations, right, that they have the platform to reach certain buyer bases, right? That's the other variable that's here. The other one that's here is that basically you have the online pinball community reacting to variable one, which is the rollout that Stern has gone with, right? And so when we look at what the 60th anniversary bond is, this licensor is gone to all kinds of other product lines, all kinds of other industries, and it's everywhere. It's not just related to pinball. I mean, I was looking through what all before this came out. I took a deep dive to figure out, OK, what other products are out that are carrying this particular line, right? And I think I forwarded some of it to you guys. There's like a $125,000 watch out there. There's an $8,000 bottle of champagne. There's a $6,000 game of backgammon. There's a $30,000. Wait, wait, wait.
    63:57
    What was that for backgammon? $6,000. But it's Bond. It's a Bond 60 version of backgammon, Tommy. I don't care if it's right.
    64:08
    But this is just to give an example, right? And then also there's like a $30,000 motorcycle. I think there's like a 25ers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, $30,000. It was like a little Jeep thing, a moke or whatever that's called. So, I mean, there's like a $1,500 pair of shoes, right? Basically what you're saying, this is geared towards high-end collectors. Right. Well, it's geared towards high-end Bond super fans, right? Right. And so the thing is, is I feel like the way that this game came out from Stern, and the way that people are reacting to this in pinball, it's obvious that people aren't understanding that right now they can have their opinion on it I'm not saying like oh you just have to sit down and shut up like feel free like say what you think give feedback like there's nothing wrong with that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that but I think that there was definitely a lot of friction or some I don't know whether they're called a failure or what it is but something has been miscommunicated here to where I feel like maybe Stern wasn't clear enough with who this is for exactly, you know, or maybe it is that Stern did intend on it going towards the pinball person. And it just completely missed the mark on that because I mean, all, everything that we've looked at prior to this release did not indicate to us personally that this was going to be for your normal pinball buyer. Right. Well, yet everything about how this has come out, it's almost like, think of this, Joel, before you go. And think of this. This last rollout, the way that it came out, the way that the trailers were, the way that the pictures were rolled out and everything, it was basically the same exact way a Cornerstone would be released, right? And we are all like Pavlov's dog. We're all just we know that when a trailer comes out and we expect a Cornerstone, now we expect a certain looking game, whether it's with art, with design, and with price. And if we don't get those things, all of a sudden, that's when everybody loses their shit. Yep. Because we're so used to that. I mean, that's just my theory on it. I think that that's what we're seeing play out right now. Well, to me, I think it's because there are a lot of pinball enthusiasts that are, they're either, one, they've identified themselves as like, I am all in on Elwin. So the fact that this is a Keith Elwin game that they can't justify buying pisses them off because that's all they want. They want more Elwynn. They would buy every Elwynn game they can, but they can't justify buying this game at $20,000. Well, because Elwynn has made four games in a row that have been slam dunks, grand slams. You know, I mean, it's hard to blame people for that, you know.
    67:01
    But, yeah, unfortunately, I don't know. I know I'm not getting one. and the biggest reason is the price. I mean, I can't justify spending $20,000 on a pinball machine. Don't look at me.
    67:21
    Yeah, you're doing some easy math there, Tom. You sell two of those, boom. Oh, yeah. But it's also, I've got to sell two of those to get one. And to me, I mean, if this game, in my mind, if this game would have come out and it would have been $9,000, they would have sold as many as Godzilla. Like they would just, they would have sold the backlog. Like they, at $9,000, they would have sold so many of these games. So I was thinking about this, and I don't think they can do this because it's a limited edition, but what if you eliminate the topper? What if you take out the LCD screen? What if you remove that spinning disc if you possibly could? You know, take away some features, make a premium game. well I mean yeah that would be I mean there would be people that would probably jump all over it I even had in the loser kid chat that we had Scott had thrown out the idea of like what if CERN rethemed this layout like what if they gave L1 the chance to do an unlicensed theme or rethemed it like if that was all it was it was just an L1 shooting game it was his license like I know he loves skateboard what if they just did like a I mean the way it laid out like just make the mechanical reels out and just put an LCD in because guess what? There's the space. Yeah. They could sell a ton of them. But now we're in the situation of Stern has already gone down to two games a year.
    68:47
    They're going to sell a ton of whatever they sell. It's not like they're twiddling their thumbs trying to find something to build. But the name tells you what it is. The 60th Anniversary Edition. and across all industries, that automatically makes the price go up. Now it goes up to various degrees, and obviously there's going to be people listening to this who's like, well, the price shouldn't go up that much. But the fact is, I mean, that's what it's doing. So, I mean, then we have the choices as consumers. Do we want to buy that or do we not want to buy that? And I'm telling you, this product, right, it's like think of it this way. How many people are in the industry right now that want to spend that much money? How many of them are full-on hardcore pinball fans that are really into the Valley Williams days, like the single-level games? How many are out there that fall under that demographic?
    69:48
    Exactly. I would argue not too many, and that's what's happening right now. And so I think, too, day one, your buyer base on day one, they're pinball fans. They're not casual buyers. They're not people that just suddenly just discovered this. They are hardcore pinball enthusiasts on Discord, on Facebook, on websites, listening to podcasts, consuming content, because that's how they know that this game is coming out. That's the reality of it. So I think that the buyer base for this pin, they're out there. They haven't been found yet. They have to discover the game because it's going to be the high-end James Bond enthusiasts. And you can't tell me. There's a $125,000 watch out there. You cannot tell me that there's not 500 people out there. Dennis Friesel, is that true?
    70:40
    That's just the way it is. So, I mean, yeah, that's just covering that base. Now, covering the other base that did kind of – it made things very interesting. And I feel for the smaller dealers, and I'm talking about the ones whose allocation isn't as high as, say, the bigger dealers, right, that it caused a lot of customer confusion, a lot of consumer confusion whenever Stern sold these direct. Because what happened? All of a sudden, the call for pricing at a price. And it was clear. Now, you guys are free to say what it is. I'm not going to broach and say what it is. But obviously, they put a price out there and people were able to. It was $19,999. There you go. So everybody was. Anybody could have seen it. It was there on their website. Exactly. But it's not there anymore. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. People went ahead and screenshot it. Now, what I don't know, because I was in another meeting when all this was going down. We're taking it down. Yeah, we know. Of course. So, but was that, so the price, was that actually on the website, like for everybody to see, or was it after the fact that it was on? I, so I don't, I don't know. I'm a Stern insider. I actually pay the whatever, $40 a year for that. When the reveal happened, I was like, oh, I'm four minutes late. Let's see what Stern sells it for. I literally logged in, clicked on it, and I saw it plain as day. Like I could have added it to my cart. $19,999. $399. Did you take a photo of it? No, I just saw it. Your Honor.
    72:16
    I saw it, and I'm pretty sure I messaged the TPN Discord or one of our chats, and I was like, oh, Stern's selling it for $20K. So as soon as I saw that, though, I'm like, well, Stern has set the baseline. I like Travis said it's supply and demand. Yeah, what's distributors going to do? Are they going to roll with that, or are they doing something else? Well, the tip part was, too, you know, obviously you see nobody else saying what a price is out loud. Why? because it's listed as call for price. Now Stern can do whatever they want to do because they're producing the game. But, yeah, I knew something was afoot because when I got out of my meeting, I had 27 messages on my phone from, like, 20 different people, all basically with the same exact thing, like showing what a price was. So, I mean, that getting out there immediately, it basically set what the tone was because it wasn't like the people. Right, because these weren't going to fly fast because we've already established the demographic of this. And the demographic is not going to be a day one buyer. It's just not going to be for this particular product. So that being said, the people that you do have that are involved in pinball, right, and want to get this product day one, well, then they automatically have the power to shop around and try to find a price they could find. Well, what's going to happen? If you are panicking at the initial reaction to people online, what are you going to do? You're going to sell it as fast as you can. What happens when you sell something as fast as you can? Does the price go up or does it go down?
    73:47
    It's simple economics. And if we just exercise logic, we can see that. Now, if we want to get on the stern about taking a price down or whatever you have, they do that for all their games. It's like if a game gets sold out, look at their backlog. This isn't some, like, thing that Stern is just undercutting, you know, everybody and trying to hide something. If you look at all their games that they don't have for sale anymore that's directly on their site, it says sold out. Yes, that's what I was trying to pull up on my phone. But that was brought to my attention that the price is removed as soon as it's no longer available. Yeah, and there's this narrative that's gone out there, and it's completely false. The narrative that's gone out there is that, well, Stern is trying to trick the buyers and trying, they're embarrassed by their price. They're doing that. It's like, they sold out. They sold out of the game in like 10 minutes. Do you think that they're sitting there and they're like, you know what, guys? Really embarrassing. Let's not even show them what price we sold out at. You know, this is a normal practice. And for whatever reason, people that are hearing this or people that are running with this narrative, they just they don't know it's a normal practice. And I'm not going to wonder why they don't know that. But it's just the reality of it. The game sold out. It sold out. And so, yeah, unfortunately, I say unfortunately, you can name it either way, but the price is out there. So it is what it is. So now that's going to create another dynamic that people are going to probably choose to run their allocation and run their business around that price. And you're going to get people because the game's not selling quickly. I mean, that gives the buyer power. That gives the buyer a chance to call around to numerous people and say, well, you know, dealer A gave me this price. What can you do? Oh, okay. Well, let me call him back. You know, I mean, I guarantee that's happening, no doubt in my mind. And, you know, this is one of the first times probably in, what, three years that buyers literally have an opportunity to kind of be able to have some wiggle room for negotiation and stuff like that. And that's perfectly fine. It's just that's the reality of who this product was aimed for. And, you know, let's face facts. If we know that the buyer base for this pen, like the main demographic for this pen, is not there day one, are they going to discover this game on Facebook? Like, are they going to join a pinball group all of a sudden? Are they going to discover Pinside all of a sudden?
    76:20
    You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just like, how do you even know this product exists? Well, I don't know that answer. Yeah. If you're not a pinball fan, the only way that you know that this product exists is if you just accidentally run into it, right? Or if you just happen to consume so much James Bond content that all of a sudden they know about there. I mean, even if you look at YouTube, like Kerry Hardy's thing, right? Yeah. His satire that he did. It was great. Yeah. If you look at it, it's getting more views per hour than what Stern's trailers are for the game. Oh, wow. So what does that tell you? Now, I don't know if it'll eventually get more views. That's just out of the gate if you look at the metrics of it. So what does that tell you? Who's consuming this content?
    77:08
    And it's pinball people. Yeah. It's tough here because it's very clear. Like, I mean, there are pinball distributors out there right now that don't even have a website. So it's like, how are these guys, you know, if you're whatever, if I'm some athlete with millions of dollars and all of a sudden get into pinball and they're like, I like James Bond, like $20,000 is nothing. They don't care. But how are they going to find that tiny distributor to be able to buy the game? Like, I don't know. What I was saying earlier, though, is I think there are two type of people that are in the pinball community. They're either the Elwynn fanboys, and I say that lovingly. I don't mean that. It's like, yeah, I love this Godzilla. I love it. And to me, it's like it sucks because they want to support Elwynn. They want to buy Elwynn's stuff. They just can't. They can't do it at $20,000. And then you also have Bond, like, super fans that are pinball enthusiasts. And even a Bond super fan, they've been dealing with this for months. Like, do I buy the Bond Pro at $7,000? Do I buy the Premium at $9,000? Do I buy the LE at $12,000? Or am I going to wait and spend $20,000 to get my dream team? And I think they're just frustrated because it is so expensive. Now, why is it so expensive? I don't know. I'm not here to be mad at Elwynn. I know there's some people that are like, Owen sold out. No, Owen did his job. He was told, he was told to design the game. He designed the game. Like, and then, and then Stern, like I, it was one of the Gomez interviews. It was either super awesome or, or something else. But it seemed like the licensor said that like, well, can you make us a game with all the bonds that that's like an older game? And they're like, Oh, okay. Yeah, we can do that. And sure. They, It was probably through licensure discussion that they decided to make it exclusive and a super LE model. Where the $20,000 came from, who at CERN or the licensure, who decided that? I have no idea. I don't know. But it is what it is. Well, that's a great point that you just made right there. I know. Yeah. So if the licensure is requesting this, right, and it's a special one-off, how in the hell is this an indicator of something negative for the hobby in terms of the direction? Like how is it? Can anybody explain that to me? Because there's a special edition. Like how about we reframe this? And this isn't a defense of any one thing. I'm just approaching this from the 360 point of view, looking at it from every angle. Why can't it be, hey, pinball's gotten so popular over the past few years, Stern, Jersey Jack, everybody else has done such a great job, that the licensors of James Bond recognized this and wanted to have their 60th anniversary game made into a pinball machine. Like, they saw that and they wanted to do that. Why is there nobody considering that? Well, this is the fear. And I think the fear is that everybody that's a pinball enthusiast, or the majority of people that are pinball enthusiasts, they love Keith Owen. And the fear is that CERN is trying to do something new. where they want to make these super high-end pins that are exclusive. And who are they going to put on it? They're going to put the best designer right now, or the greatest of all time. They're going to put the best they can on these high-end. And now, all of a sudden, here we are, all these pinball enthusiasts going, we love Owen, we want to play Owen, we want to buy Owen games. And all of a sudden, you've put them out of reach. Essentially like what they did with Lyman, where Lyman was all the boutique stuff. And everybody loved Lyman Code, but now the standard middle-of-the-road pinball person was priced out of being able to buy Lyman Games. So I think the fear there is, is this a new direction that Stern's going? Are you going to put your golden boy on your most expensive stuff? And if so, that would piss me off.
    81:02
    Like, I say that, but Keith has said he did this game because he was between two cornerstones. Exactly. So we know we have at least one more before they put them on the exclusive list. Well, it's a fair question, and you just answered it right there. Like, the information's all out there. They established it up front in their podcast release about it, that this was done between Cornerstones. I mean, that's – and here's the other thing that's kind of gone. That was all scripted.
    81:29
    Yeah, they're all faking. There's really not a Jack Danger Cornerstone coming out. It's $30,000. It's coming out later. It's a scam. but it's like I don't know I think that it's okay to have a reaction I never want to tell anybody not to have a reaction because everybody's free to have their own opinions how they want to have it except for Joel he's always wrong as we all know but that being said it's just I just think that we got to take a step back realize what this game is for what it is it's not an indicator of the hobby's going down the shitter. It's just all about greed. It's just this and that. Why can't it just be a 60th anniversary bond pin that somebody that likes pinball may or may not buy? And guess what? If a lot of people decide to not buy it, I think Stern's going to keep producing games in this way?
    82:26
    Probably not. That's a good way to bankrupt your business. I don't know. The thing that's gone unseen about this, and I told you guys this before, what is something that started at the beginning of this year, January 1st, at 12 a.m. Besides that, that nobody is talking about now. I know the answer. What's the answer? The answer is every other pinball machine that Stern Pinball makes is now more expensive. The price went up across the board. Even the ones sitting in stock? Well, They can. All the prices went up. They can. And nobody noticed that. Like, all of a sudden, it's just been, I mean, they might have, like, day one. There's probably a thread somewhere on Pennside or on Facebook of somebody complaining. But now this comes out. Now, all of a sudden, it's like their focus is like a goldfish thing or, you know, whatever. It's like, over here, looking at this. So, you know, the price is what it is now. We know what the cornerstones are in terms of the timing that they're coming out. We know what the teams are. So I would say to everybody, like, hey, trust me, the sky is not falling. It's not all of a sudden just going to be just super LEs left and right. Is it hailing?
    83:48
    Here's the thing. The market speaks. And if the market doesn't want something, guess what? A company will adjust because if they don't, they end up out of business. That's just the reality of it. And I think what's interesting is you back up. There it is again.
    84:07
    El Gato to Signal. We like to bring levity, Joel. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So what I was saying, though, is you back up when we're in the middle of a pandemic. It didn't matter what pinball machine was being made. People just were dying for a game. Distributors were placing orders, basically, like give me as many as you can because I can't keep anything in stock. Everything's selling. It was just buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. And here we are. You look at TNA. TNA was announced, the remake. It came out more expensive than people thought. It isn't sold out. They haven't, they did not sell out of them. You look at Scooby-Doo. You can still buy a Scooby-Doo. Like every other release that Spooky had before Scooby-Doo was sold out within hours. And here we are. we're going on weeks now, Scooby-Doo is still available and it's not sold out. You look at Toy Story. Like, Toy Story, sure, Toy Story, the LE allotment and the CE allotments, the CE sold out.
    85:10
    But there are distributors that have them right now on the shelf trying to sell them for MSRP. So they sold out to just, like, I think we've had some of the more recent releases. I think there's Bond LEs that you can buy. Like, there are readily available games in the last few releases, so I do think some of these manufacturers are starting to see, actually see price ceilings or, like, where they're at. Now, I think this Bond game is unique. It is a Super LE. It is something, and we're going to have to wait and see what J.J.P. does. When JVP's next game comes out, do I think they're going to go lower than the, what was it, 12-5? That was the LE, and then the 15. That was the seed. Do I think they going to go lower I don think they going to decrease their price but I don think they going to raise it Personally I don I mean I got nothing wrong with prices being dynamic from a manufacturer. I've told you guys this before. It's definitely odd that on a premium product that the prices are usually the same across the board. That's always just kind of throwing me for a loop a little bit because obviously when the prices stay the same like that, that's what really starts to cause an imbalance too, because the demand is way higher for something else. And obviously if it's priced the same and people stay at that, you know, the product's going to be gone instantly. That's just the way it works. So, you know, I don't know at the end of the day, just like we talked about the prices, the price, uh, I guess just wrapping up, uh, or tying up a nice little bow on top of bond 60. I think it's just going to ultimately depend on when companies can find the buyer base for this. And that's ultimately what it'll boil down to. It's got to be the Bond superfan. And the Bond superfan that's not involved in pinball, they're not going to discover this game today. And so what have we talked about before? The great thing about pinball themes is every time somebody new gets into the pinball industry, it's the first time they're discovering all these games at the very beginning. So, I mean, that's just the way it is. That's the way it always will be. Yeah. And I just, what has surprised me through this reveal, it wasn't a price. When I saw 20, I was like, good. I'm glad it's 20 and not 25 or 30 or 35 that some people were saying like 20. Okay. 15. I think 15, it would have sold a lot, you know, but when I saw it was 20, I was like, all right, it's 20. But it just, I'm excited about the pin itself. I do think it'll shoot well. I think the code looks fun. I think the game will be fun. I don't know when I'm going to have a chance to touch one or play one, but I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that. I understand if you're – oh, Travis is pointing. Just sell two games behind you, and you'll have a chance to touch one. And you'll have half of it. Yeah.
    87:59
    You're almost there. So that was my initial thought. But my thought, though, yes, if you're a Keith super fan, I'm sorry, it's $20,000. I mean, it's either you buy it or you don't. If you're a Bond super fan, I'm sorry, it's $20,000. You either buy it or you don't. Luckily, if you're a Bond super fan, there's a pro premium LE of another Bond game you can go for. otherwise there's a what is it a Sega version or was it Data East version of Bought like there's that there's a you know I mean there's different levels of this there's probably somebody listening to our podcast right now that cannot afford a pro pinball machine of their dream theme right now I mean and that's Rush that's just the way it is and Rush is a fantastic game by the way I've heard people complaining about you know like there's nothing in games. There's sterns going backwards, this and that. And I'm like, I'm looking at Rush and it's like one of the most jam-packed games in recent memory. It really is when you break it down and you look at, hell Tom, you're LE behind you. The expression lights are just the tip of the iceberg.
    89:09
    Let's think about this, Joel. Let's break this down, what do they say, to a fundamental standpoint. It's got expression lights. It's got drop targets It's got a movable ramp It's got a magnet It's got a fork that creates a captive That creates a captive ball It's got three scoops with a subway Right? It's got a subway It's got a diverter It's got three different wire forms Optical spinner It's got a concert on an LCD screen It's got fantastic art It's got a drum clack in it Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Unfortunately, it has terrible rules and code.
    89:52
    Wow. What is that? Wow. Is that Tim Sexton coming through your door right now? I don't know, Tim. He's taking the sledgehammer to the QA. I'm texting Tim and Raymond right now. I don't know Tim, but I know Raymond, and I just, I know Raymond consumes everything, and I just want him, like, I just, I know he reacted. That's the only reason I say it. Raymond's like the F-B-S-A-G-E-L. He's like, what? But what I'm getting at, though, it's like, it's like, yeah, it's just I've heard so many people just over the past 48 hours. And I'm sure you guys have heard it, too, that they're just like, oh, Stern's going backwards. There's nothing in the game. There's this and that. It's like, for F's sake, we just had Godzilla just two years ago or less than two years ago. Number one game Stern has like five or six of the last like major top 15, top 10 games. voting on this? It's literally, it's a consumer. It's like, what are we talking about? Godzilla's insane. What are we talking about? Godzilla's insane. Rush was really good. It's really, really good. And it's just, I think, overall, just the bond reveal between all four models has just been a mess. And I just, I think people are really struggling with that. And the fact that they know, like, it's unknown what's coming next year. Like, if there was an Elwin game right around the corner, I think people would take a few deep breaths and be ready for whatever. But, like, the Brian-Eddie-Dwight combo, they're just like, let's see, I hope. But that's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping the next Cornerstone comes out. It's a banger. It's awesome. And people can take a deep breath and realize, you know, this is an exclusive game just like Elvira 40th, you know. Right. Well, and people's reaction is always going to be based on what's the latest thing. Yeah. Like, what happened when Jersey Jack revealed pirates? There was, like, there was, yeah, everybody went nuts. I don't want pirates. What's next? Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, before that, Joel, there was people that were saying, like, oh, Stern's going to close down. There was, like, a massive thread, like a dark night for Stern, all of a sudden. I remember that. Wait a second. They didn't? Yeah.
    92:00
    So it's, like, people just, they react so quickly instead of just taking a step back and saying, okay, what is this? And again, it's fine to have opinions, right? Us three have opinions and people let us know all the time when they think our opinions are wrong. But we're willing to take a step back and look at something for what it is and test it out and see if our first impression of something holds up. And that's what I love about you two is we are willing to change our minds on something. We're willing to see it for what it is once we get around to playing it or once we get around to experiencing it. Then we try to formulate what our whole idea is of whatever we're seeing. So I don't know. I think that it's just one of those things that I personally think that the industry is very healthy right now. I can say that just being obviously on the inside of the industry. I tell you guys all the time, like, things are good. But, yeah, of course things could go down. There's ebbs and flow to everything. But I don't think things are going to go down simply because the company prices one particular product when they have like 20 or 22 other variations of their products that could go on the line at any given time. Sure. It's just, it's way too much of an overreaction. And it's just like the same way. If Jersey Jack comes out with an absolute banger at TPF or whenever they decide to come out with it, that everybody forgets about Toy Story. Yeah. Like everybody forgets about that. I will say when I interviewed George Gomez, the thing that made me, it really bummed me out. You have to throw that in their face, don't you, Travis? Well, you know what? I interviewed Tom Graff before. That's right. You can check that out.
    93:40
    No, when I – well, Bondiol was right at the end when he was just – and then he said, he goes, hey, you know, for all you Bond owners, like, the code is coming. You know, please understand how much I care about this game. The code will happen. And he goes, I don't – he goes, I'm not the devil or whatever he said. He's like, I don't know why so many people have made me out to be – just think I'm just the worst. And I don't – you can tell it genuinely hurt him of, like, so many people are ready to grab the pitch for us. They're like, Stern's doing this, and they're not going to do this, and blah, blah, blah. But they do that for every game. Yeah. What's the difference? And that's what – My own kids do that for me when I cook freaking breakfast in the morning. I understand. They do. I have eggs.
    94:24
    It's just like we said, Joel. We know how much it means to Gomez. Oh, yeah. We know that, and it's not like everybody's sitting at Stern and they're like, well, how can we screw over the customer today, and how can we piss them off here? It's like, of course, they're passionate about their job. They want to bring value. They want to do that, and I think it'll happen. Okay, sorry, Joel. I totally interrupted you. No, I was the one who interrupted you. Tom, you're fantastic. You're a freaking beauty, Tom. I love it. For anybody that's watching the video, you guys get it now. You guys totally get it now that you can see Tom. And you can also see Travis.
    95:01
    Say that again, Joel? You can what? You can see Travis's walls. You can see me because my camera's working. Your walls are way more important. So what I was going to say, though, is for anybody that's listening to this podcast or watching it, you're clearly a pinball enthusiast, and you're probably consuming all the media you can or reading everything you can. And at the end of the day, make sure you're enjoying the hobby. Like if you're reading stuff and you find yourself getting mad or frustrated or venting or angry, like this is a hobby. Like make sure you're having fun with this. And if you're not, maybe take a breath, like step away for a day. Or, you know, if you're listening to somebody just complain constantly, maybe stop listening to it for a little bit and just realize like we're supposed to have fun here. We're supposed to have fun. And that to me, it's just in this particular reveal and seeing so much hate directed towards CERN. Like this is everything's falling apart, blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, like, no, just, just no, like, just, I don't know. So that at the end of the day, the content that I try to create, I'm trying to share the enjoyment that I have for this hobby. And, and I hope that's what people take away from the pod. Thank you for the eye roll, Travis. That's my goal. I think with streaming a game, like I want to make sure people are enjoying it. So enough about that.
    96:20
    If you want to see a breakfast, go watch just, no, no, go watch. Yeah, the Flippin' Out stream only on YouTube. We're on YouTube this year. Yeah. If you want confidence going to Indus or Plain State, just watch just another pinball stream or whatever you're on, Joel. It's Flippin' Out. Oh, Flippin' Out. Sorry. Well, I can't. Yeah. Once again, when you're talking about confidence in my stream, one of the best comments that I've ever read on my stream was somebody told me watching your stream would build my confidence just like going to Walmart builds my confidence on my looks. It was something along those lines, and there's truth to it. But you mentioned InDisc. We'll wrap that up. I don't know. Is there anything else? I think we've hit the 60th anniversary game. We're looking forward to a stream. We can talk more about the actual game. We'll sit on it next episode. Let's move on. Yeah. Let's just all go outside and just have a good old scream at this guy, and it'll be fine. We should try to get Keith on as an extra ball and be like, why'd you sell out?
    97:23
    And then he just clicks off. Oh, you mean like I did my job and designed a game? Okay. No. What was I going to say? Indisc. No, we're serious. All three of us are serious competitive players. I just hope I can get there weather-wise. Why won't you be able to get there, Tom? Because of freaking weather around here. I don't know if it's going to snow or sleet or rain. Well, you'll be able to. So before Indisc, though, you do have states. So you will be able to play. No, that is incorrect. No. I don't know what you're saying.
    98:00
    So, Joel, Mr. IFBA over here. I don't know. I'm trying to keep a conversation going. Travis, yeah. Joel. I don't know if that's better or worse. I don't mind. I haven't looked at a calendar. I don't know. I assume states were before Indisc. No. I look at Indisc like the Super Bowl. You're lucky Tom and I are even still here right now. You're a serious competitive player. How do you not know? Like, you tell me all the time. Josh Sharper's rolling around as proverbial second place grave right now. Carl's never coming back on here to replace me now. You don't know when Indus goes. We love Carl.
    98:39
    Not enough to know when Indus goes. He was so prepared when he was on. His camera worked the whole time.
    98:46
    And he wore a shirt on. He bought a shirt, and he wore it on stream. I just think that's the coolest thing ever. That was awesome. Yeah. Anyways. Thank you, Carl. The hilarious thing was I was watching and I didn't even notice it. Somebody in chat mentioned it. And I'm like, oh, yeah, nice shirt. Well, that's because we watched the play field and we're like, oh, how the hell is Carl doing this with this ball now? And, oh, okay, it's hitting that shot now. Exactly. Like, yeah, it's fantastic to watch play. 1.2 billion on T-Rex multiball. Tom, you know what we need to set up? like we need to set up a pin clash competition between Carl and Joel why?
    99:31
    this is going to be hilarious Joel that's why how much of a handicap would Joel need? I would need 10 minutes I would oh that's right it's pin clash it's how quickly you can do something how quickly do you think there's anything on Godzilla that you could beat Carl at, like in a pin clash way? I could probably turn the machine on quicker than you can because I've got some long arms.
    100:00
    I could turn the pinball machine on quicker. I think I could. I think Carl probably has his voice activated. He'll bust that myth really fast. Well, you know, I have mine. I have a circuit for this entire wall, and it's on a light switch. So I could turn all the games on with a flicker. But I'm saying if you're standing in front of the game, hands on the flippers, who turns it on first? I think I'm winning. My arms are longer. That's all I'm saying. But besides that, no, if you're actually talking about playing the game, I don't think there's a single thing involved in playing Godzilla that I can do better than Carl. Well, okay, is there any one thing at Godzilla do you think you could beat him at just once? Like just one time out of like 100?
    100:43
    Maybe who can hit the skill shot first. Like plunge, like maybe, maybe. I don't know. We need to build up that confidence, Joel. I think you could do it. I think you could beat Carl in a skill shot competition at least once out of a hundred. The only skill I feel like I've ever had in pinball involves hitting the upper flipper shot on Led Zeppelin. And that's just because the two of you and Randy Davidson legitimately were surprised at how well I could hit that shot. That's the only shot in pinball that I feel like I might actually be above average at. My favorite part to the whole thing is that you didn't realize how difficult that shot was. I mean, for some.
    101:27
    We were all mesmerized by it, and Joel's like, what? I just assumed everybody did it. We're like, no, that's not normal, Joel. And then realizing how much it helps with points because it activates the super modes or whatever, and Raymond's like, oh, you did it again. Oh, you did it again. Oh, oh, you. And he's like, you have three super modes going, oh, you drained. Like, in his world, it's like, if I had that, I would have capitalized and got blah, blah, blah. But it's like, I don't know. That's the only thing. That's literally the only skill that I think I have. But anyway, InDisc is coming up. You guys are both going. I know Travis or Tom Holtz is going. Rush is going to be in it. Oh, I don't know the games. Rush being in it is pretty awesome.
    102:04
    Dalton's going to be stoked. Dalton's not even there. Oh. But he'll probably be stoked out in Georgia, wherever he's from. Yeah. Carl did stream rush the other day and just destroyed it to an insane level. Didn't he get billions on the one mode because he had everything going and he hit all 12 shots perfectly? No big deal. No, no big deal. He knew it was going to happen. It was like a 12-way Lovilla with, what, like 750% boost or 900%? It was something crazy. Try that at InDisc. Is Halloween in it?
    102:46
    No I don't think Remember Tom, that was a question we had for Carl Yeah, we had a question for Carl What is it, the Jim Velsito Yeah, he said He could possibly put it in I mean, there's still four more games to come Like so far in the main It's Deadpool, Firepower, Flash Gordon High Speed, Joker Poker Revenge from Mars, which is a really Interesting pick in there Rush, Space Station, Star Trek Next Gen, Street Fighter 2 another interesting one, Surf and Safari, Tommy, Tron, and World Cup Soccer I got a prediction so last year, remember Zack had a hernie because Mystery Castle was the last game picked, and that was the last game played and decided the whole thing, this year it's going to be Street Fighter 2 will be the final. If there's a topper, I think Zach's fine with it. Well, didn't they change it kind of to where, okay, so if you pick a game, it's completely burned, right? Right. Like you can't pick it again. Right.
    103:55
    So, yeah. I mean, that was the whole thing. It was like that last year, though, too, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we're going to end up with Revenge from Mars. That could happen.
    104:08
    If you're the number one seed, you can replace the game, right, from either the women's or the classics? Oh, yeah. You can take a game out. Well, and then it entirely depends on who gets that number one seed. I mean, the odds are pretty good that it's going to be a stern that's going to get pulled. Unless it's Escher. Unless it's Escher, yeah. If it's anybody that can legally buy alcohol, I think it's probably. I think Kaylee was number one seed last year, and he put in Doctor Who.
    104:43
    Yeah. Pretty sure. I think that sounds about right, because Doctor Who was not in qualifying. Yeah, it was in the women's division. When is in disc? How soon is this?
    104:54
    Week and a half. Well, I'm flying out on Wednesday, so. Sure. Yeah. Next week. That's exciting. No, I'm... Next week. That'll be really cool. I know... Tune in on IE Pinball to watch all the action. Oh, I'm ready. It's so well done. It's a big deal, too, because it is a major world championship. Yeah, and Travis and I intend to win all the tournaments. Oh, yeah, yeah. I've already announced, like... I'll take Classics 1. You take Classics 2. That's fine. And, yeah. Yeah.
    105:29
    And we'll just figure it out along the way for Maine. But, I mean, here's the thing. Joel, it is a pretty big deal, though. There's people from Europe coming in to play. There's people from across the country coming in to play. All the top players will be there. So it'll be exciting. It's so fun to watch. And then I guess this would be a good time to plug. I don't know what the website is, though. Tim Sexton's Fantasy Pinball Day does. Oh, he does like a fantasy football, but for pinball. Oh, yeah, but for pinball. So I bet on you guys. Well, you can't. You don't bet. But, yeah, you can play. It's like, so each player is assigned a value, right? Yeah. I mean, you probably don't need to do this because you already bagged on Tim earlier, you know, about Rush and all that. He'll probably just put your entry in the trash. Yeah, Tim's having a go. Isn't that pinballstatistics? Oh, that might be it. Pinballstatistics.com, I think. So, yeah, you get like a $250 budget. and then each player has a money value associated with them and you get five players total. And then there's a point total according to where they finish in the tournament. Nice. That sounds fun. Yeah, pinballstatistics.com. Nice. So, Joel, who do you think is number one?
    106:43
    Either Escher or Raymond. Pretty good. See, you pay attention. I'm not an idiot. You pay attention. I didn't say you're an idiot. you just you didn't know when in disk was so i just i don't know i'm not going looking at the calendar okay so index in disk is next week or week and a half that's awesome uh just side note mark everybody mark their calendar for the 28th 28th of january is the the pinball awards so the pinball industry awards we changed the name to the pinball awards we now have included um a public vote, as well as the committee vote. So this is probably going to come out after the fact, but if you're hearing this on Friday, if you want to be a judge, please apply. But Pinball Awards, that'll be fun. I will be at that. That's actually going to be filmed at the Flippin' Out barn, and a bunch of TPN people will be there, and it's going to be a good time. So if you want to watch another live pinball event, that's on the 28th. But you skipped over another week. What's the other one, Joel, that's coming up? I don't know. State, Joel. I'm not playing in State, neither are you. You're not playing in State. Everybody thinks I am, but I'm not. Hey, Tom. How's that? No, Tom State is very interesting. Yeah, very interesting. Tom State is like 1.5 IFPA up that way. So who's all going to Wisconsin, Tom? There's a lot of players. Didn't we read these off last time? We did, but now people are confirmed. We've all had to decide. So, myself, Neil, Dave DeLuga, Josh Sharp, Zach Sharp.
    108:26
    They live in Chicago. Some kid named Escher Lefkoff. Escher lives in Colorado. Yeah. And they're coming. Yeah, Tim Saxton. Chicago.
    108:38
    Jason Wardrick. He picked Ohio. Okay. Where he's from. Yeah. But that's the IFPA rules. It doesn't go by boundaries. It goes by where you've played and where you qualify.
    108:55
    So if you qualify in a state, you have the right to pick it. So, Travis, you've qualified in multiple states, and you are picking none of them. None of them. No, I just didn't feel like playing this year. I've told a lot of people before, heads up is my least favorite format. of all. I'm having to convince myself to even play in the Stern Pro Circuit finals because they changed it to Heads Up.
    109:22
    I'm just not a big fan of it. If I can make an exception just because it's a world championship, lots of great competition out there, I want to go play in that. Heads Up, it just doesn't do anything for me. Please explain Heads Up and why you don't like it. Heads Up means you're playing against somebody. One versus one. Head to head. Oh, it's on four people. No, it's just like 1v1. So kind of like what happened at Expo, where we were all playing, oh, is it the best of five or something like that? So with this, it's the best of seven. And I've done it a couple times, and I've gone on to play nationals. I mean, it was fun then, but now at this point, I've just gotten to where if I know I'm not going to have fun with a certain format, like I just feel better just sitting out and taking a break. Yeah, you want to have fun. Just taking a breather. Yeah, and so I'm still going to go down to Oklahoma and still, like, cheer my friends on, and then Monica's going to play in the women's state the day after. So, I mean, I'm still going to go down and hang out. You're going to cheer her on, too?
    110:25
    I don't know. I still have a lot of women friends down there, too, that will be playing against her. I'll be cheering for everybody. So many women friends, yeah. So many. Hi, Carolyn. Shout out to you because I know she's listening. We are approaching the two-hour mark. Oh, I want to say one other thing. Go for it. So Cassidy Milonowski is playing in both the Wisconsin State and the women's state. Nice. Is that at the same spot or is the women's state somewhere else? It's somewhere else. That is at Dave Anderson's place. So I've showed you his collection before. He's got, like, all the spooky games and a bunch of other ones, too. So it's a pretty good, diverse collection. Nice. Well, good for her. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah. Is there anything else? I'm looking at our notes. We said Twippy Nom. Again, thank you for all the people that nominated us for the Twippy. Feel free to vote. Thank you very much.
    111:31
    And I wanted to mention the Gomez interview, which apparently I've, you know, rubbed in your face too many times at this point.
    111:37
    What interview? you? Bond 60th. So I think, check, check, check. I think we nailed all those. Crushed it. I think it's probably time to plug it up. So, Travis, let's hear you plug the podcast. Yeah, you guys can find me on YouTube now at whatever this is. Triple Drain. At Triple Drain. Do we have a number score? Nope. It's just Triple Drain.
    112:03
    You guys are watching this, hit the subscribe button, hit the bell, do all that stuff. And if you're listening to us on the audios, thank you. Appreciate it. So to clarify that, we do, we did start a YouTube channel. We've actually had it for a little while now. We've just never had anything on it. So the thought eventually is we're going to have these videos be exclusive to the Patreon people and then maybe like two weeks after, then we'll put them on our YouTube so that people could find them after the fact. So you could see them. It will just be potentially a little out of date. so yes feel free to join that find that subscribe to it and yeah videos will be trickling out on there they will just be slightly delayed based on the audio and Patreon release so that's our YouTube channel so thank you Travis for plugging that Tom you can find me at the triple green and also Fox Cities Pinball on YouTube and Twitch and Instagram Facebook OnlyFans all the things wonderful and yes to the people that are watching this on video I hope you enjoyed it I hope you enjoyed the video this was it's a lot more fun to talk to these guys and look at them hopefully looking at us is more enjoyable I don't know if you enjoyed the video I'm glad you enjoyed the video and if you like it feel free to join the Patreon Patreon's triple underscore drink on patreon.com and you'll have access to all the videos we have moving forward otherwise if you're not watching the video and you enjoy listening to the podcast Thank you. I'm glad you enjoy listening. And we'll continue to release that same way we have been. Yeah. And I'm Joel and I am streaming now. I stream and entirely for flipping out. And we're streaming on YouTube. We're trying something new. YouTube streaming is growing. We think it's a it's a platform that that has more growth opportunity for people outside of the kind of the Twitch group. Nothing against Twitch. Enjoy streaming on Twitch, but just trying something new, really. So that is every Wednesday night from 10 to midnight Eastern Standard Time. And I'll alternate between a chatting stream like we did last night and playing pinball stream. And all those videos will immediately be up on YouTube so you can watch them later. And speaking, it's time. It's time to stop because that is, what, the third or fourth time that Travis's camera has shut down. So third. So this is a perfect time. He's probably not even going to turn it back on. Nope. Yeah. so like always Tom you have the last words peace and pinball everybody