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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 55: X-Men vs Avatar… Snip Snip

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 14m·held·Sep 21, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Triple Drain covers X-Men/Avatar releases, Tom's venue transition, and reveal stream importance.

Summary

Triple Drain hosts discuss major pinball releases X-Men and Avatar, Tom Graff's transition from District 82 streaming to independent tournament coverage, and the critical importance of reveal streams in shaping game perception and sales momentum. The conversation examines reveal stream quality, the pressure on streamers and manufacturers, and industry concerns about rushing games to market.

Key Claims

  • X-Men reveal stream likely hurt sales and perception of the game

    medium confidence · Tom Graff and Triple Drain hosts; Tom states 'it definitely probably hurt' and references Gary Stern acknowledging they 'dropped the ball on the stream' in a YouTube seminar

  • Gary Stern publicly acknowledged X-Men reveal stream was weak and that they're working on music and code improvements

    high confidence · Tom Graff references Gary Stern seminar on YouTube where Stern made these admissions

  • George Gomez has publicly stated X-Men was rushed to market

    medium confidence · Triple Drain host states Gomez said this 'publicly multiple times' on podcasts; specific podcast names not provided

  • X-Men may have been rushed to compete with Avatar's release timing

    low confidence · Host speculation: 'Avatar was coming out, so we had to' — stated as speculation, not confirmed

  • Avatar has UV/blacklight features that were difficult to capture on camera, which delayed gameplay reveals

    medium confidence · Joel reports conversation with JJP staff who said 'we were having a hard time capturing it' and discussed ISO, frame rate, and lighting challenges

  • District 82 traded Tom Graff's streaming setup for six pinball machines including Mata Hari, Jurassic Park (Pro), Six Million Dollar Man, The Shadow, Spider-Man, and Frontier

    high confidence · Tom Graff directly states the machines he was replaced with at District 82

  • Papa (pinball tournament) had approximately 3,350,000 viewers tune in and appeared on the front page of Switch

    medium confidence · Tom Graff cites viewership figures for Papa streaming event

  • X-Men has a unique layout with center post where 'every single shot basically returns to the flipper'

    high confidence · Triple Drain hosts describing X-Men playfield design based on reveal information

Notable Quotes

  • “It is everything nowadays. I can't explain to you how important it is because... your reveal stream is either going to increase the hype or flatline the hype.”

    Travis @ mid-episode — Dealer perspective on reveal stream criticality to sales and market perception

  • “For me personally, that's one of the only times in pinball that I get nervous. And I'm not even involved in it.”

    Travis @ mid-episode — Demonstrates emotional investment in industry success and pressure around product launches

  • “I don't want to be responsible for a negative feeling or a negative view on a game because I'm not making commission. I don't work for that person. I didn't spend two years of my life focused on every aspect of this game.”

    Joel @ late-episode — Captures tension between streamers' responsibility and lack of control over game quality/presentation

  • “They definitely probably hurt. Just go read Pennside. They know it hurt because Gary, on YouTube, there was that Gary Stern seminar. He even said, like, hey, we kind of dropped the ball on the string.”

    Tom Graff @ late-episode — Direct claim that Gary Stern publicly admitted X-Men reveal stream damage

  • “You don't want to fumble the ball. You want to maintain market share. You want to maintain momentum. You want to maintain all that positive vibe, all the hype.”

    Travis @ mid-episode — Industry-wide principle about launch momentum and competitive market dynamics

  • “If you lose out on that or miss out on that and you create that negative snowball effect, somebody else is going to be there to pick up the ball.”

    Travis @ mid-episode — Describes competitive stakes in crowded pinball manufacturer landscape

  • “Out of sight, out of mind. Look, I don't want to see District 82 go out of business. So, you know, I have no beef with Eric.”

    Tom Graff @ early-episode — Shows understanding of venue's business decisions despite personal impact on streaming

Entities

Jack DangerpersonTom GraffpersonJoel IngleberthpersonTravis MosemanpersonGary SternpersonGeorge GomezpersonDavid Van EspersonKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: X-Men reveal stream widely perceived as poor quality; Gary Stern acknowledged in seminar that they 'dropped the ball on the string' and are working on music and code improvements post-launch

    high · Tom Graff: 'it definitely probably hurt' and references Gary Stern's YouTube seminar admission; Host notes Gomez publicly stated game was rushed

  • ?

    business_signal: X-Men may have been rushed to market to compete with Avatar's simultaneous release timing

    low · Host speculation: 'My only guess could be Avatar was coming out, So we had to'

  • ?

    design_innovation: X-Men features unique dynamic layout with figure-eight ramp, offset flippers, danger room area, and center post design where shots return to flipper

    high · Tom Graff: 'how different the layout is' with 'figure eight, you know, ramp and all this stuff and the offset flippers'; hosts note center post and return-to-flipper mechanics

  • ?

    content_signal: Reveal streams are described as 'everything' for dealer sales and market perception; can increase or flatline hype and determine product momentum for months

    high · Travis: 'It is everything nowadays... your reveal stream is either going to increase the hype or flatline the hype'; discusses impact on ordering decisions

  • ?

    venue_signal: District 82 added arcade games to facility, displacing Tom Graff's streaming equipment and reducing tournament streaming consistency; tournaments continue but no longer streamed

    high · Tom Graff explains arcade games added to exact spot where streaming equipment was located; no longer streaming Friday tournaments; replaced with six pinball machines

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.405

0:00
the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right we are here we are back it is friday september 20th uh we are recording it's been another three weeks since we recorded last so sorry for the delay but we are here and um we We have lives, you know. Yeah, I know. We've got between – we try to record on Fridays and between people traveling for tournaments or vacations or family things or doctor's appointments or whatever. There's always – Modeling jobs. Yeah, yeah. Getting your nuts packed up. Yep. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I would like to have a moment of silence for Joel's balls.
0:49
I don't think you know – that's not a moment of silence. I don't think you guys know what a vasectomy is because the balls remain, okay?
1:00
Do they, though? They remain. Are you sure? The balls are there, yes. I love it. I just checked my dog, and my dog does not have any balls. Your dog did not have a vasectomy. I love it. Avatars come out. X-Men come out. No. 5,000 listeners out there are going to hear about us talk about Joel's balls getting chopped off. They're going to be left. Welcome to Triple Drain. All right, I'm hitting the button. We're three guys who like to talk and ball. So we came up with a clever name. We're a joy that's got no touch at all. And we call ourselves Triple Dream. Okay, we're here. Yeah, I don't know if our timing is just bad or what, but it's like last time we recorded, there's always something. It's like we record and then shortly thereafter. So, boom, new release. We got X-Men was announced, released, streamed. Avatar was announced, released, streamed. So we got a lot to cover. Our timing is perfect, Joel. We let everybody else have their first impressions immediately. We get all of that out of the way. Get all the fluff out of the way. Then the main event comes along. and talks about it. Yeah. Right, Tom? I think. Yeah. I mean, it's like watching Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant in WrestleMania 3. I don't want to say we have egos, but, you know, except for Joel, his ego, holy shit, let me tell you.

Stern's reveal stream quality is critical to game sales and market momentum

high confidence · Travis (pinball dealer) emphasizes: 'it is everything nowadays' and discusses how streams can 'increase the hype or flatline the hype'

  • Reveal stream day code updates create nervousness for manufacturers concerned about bugs affecting first impressions

    medium confidence · Joel describes receiving code update day-of for Labyrinth stream and notes David Van Es nervousness about hardware/software issues during initial public showing

  • “We were having a hard time capturing it. We were having a hard time capturing it in a way that they felt, you know, was going to be beneficial to sales.”

    Joel @ late-episode — JJP's hesitation to show Avatar gameplay due to lighting/capture challenges

  • “Why aren't we making it better before we show it off? Then why are we rushing it to the market?”

    Host (unknown name) @ late-episode — Questions Stern's strategy of releasing X-Men before polish complete

  • “I think it's a unique opportunity to keep growing the tournament pinball side.”

    Host (unknown name) @ mid-episode — Recognition of Tom's new tournament-focused streaming venture as industry opportunity

    • Raymond Davidson
    person
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Barrels of Funcompany
    District 82venue
    Lumberjack Johnny'svenue
    Uncanny X-Mengame
    Avatargame
    Labyrinthgame
    Flip N Out Pinballvenue/streaming_show
    Fox City Streamingorganization
    IFPAorganization
    Expoevent
    Papaevent
    Pinsidecommunity/publication
    [name withheld pending review]platform
    Ericperson
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Tom Graff transitioning from venue-based consistent streaming to independent traveling tournament streaming; launching new tournament-focused podcast/stream

    high · Tom explains new ventures: streaming outside state tournaments, X-Men launch party at Lumberjack Johnny's, new tournament-focused podcast for which he's already done first episode

  • $

    market_signal: X-Men's poor reveal stream created decision paralysis for home buyers; Joel mentions reconsidering Premium purchase in light of negative perception

    medium · Joel: 'I have money set aside for probably draws premium, but now all of a sudden it's like, wait, wait, wait, maybe I need to wait'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Avatar's UV/blacklight/eclipse mode features created technical challenges for capture and streaming; difficult to represent accurately on camera

    high · Joel reports JJP said 'we were having a hard time capturing it' and discussed ISO, frame rate, and lighting challenges; mentions buying UV flashlight for reveal stream

  • ?

    product_concern: Manufacturers pushing code updates on reveal stream days creates risk of bugs/crashes harming first impressions; day-of updates made developers nervous about initial public perception

    high · Joel received code update day-of during Labyrinth reveal stream; notes David Van Es was nervous; discusses risk of ball hangs, hardware issues during early streams affecting perception

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tournament pinball content underserved despite large audiences; Papa tournament had 3.35M+ viewers but some major podcasts didn't cover it; emerging dedicated tournament podcast from Hottie

    medium · Tom: 'some big shows that didn't even mention Papa' despite 3.35M viewers and front-page placement; references Hottie's new 'Wizards and something' tournament podcast with 4-hour episodes on TPN

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment shift toward holding manufacturers accountable for rushed releases and poor launch execution; public statements from Gary Stern and Gomez about X-Men missteps

    medium · Gary Stern publicly acknowledged weak reveal stream in YouTube seminar; Jack Gomez publicly stated game was rushed; community discussion on Pennside about impact; hosts discussing why rushing games to market is problematic

  • ?

    operational_signal: Streaming pinball machines requires significant technical preparation (lighting, OBS setup, graphics) plus dependent variables (game code stability, hardware reliability, player skill) that streamers cannot fully control

    high · Joel discusses managing lighting for UV features, OBS setup, day-of code updates; notes pressure on self even though developer determines code quality; mentions pressure from manufacturer reps during streams

    • 2:36
    Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It does seem like we missed that, though, doesn't it? But, you know, it's okay. It wouldn't be triple drain if we didn't, you know? You kind of had your own thing last night. We'll talk about that real quick. Tom is doing a new. Tom has a new venture.
    2:52
    Fox City Streaming is still Fox City Streaming, but there was District 82 made some business decisions, and they felt the need to add arcade games to the facility. Which has not upset the pinball community at all. No. They're taking it very swell. Pinball people want more video games. We want more arcade cabinets. I mean, I like video games. Sure. Oh, yeah. When I go to a pinball facility, I want like an Xbox there. I want the VR headset. That's why I go to arcades and pinball facilities, just to do that. Yeah. So, unfortunately, the exact spot that they were going to put new pinball machines and video games happened to be the spot that Tom kept all of his streaming stuff. That is correct. And then on top of that, what was it? You used to stream every Friday, and now Friday is the new tournament. Every Friday, but I streamed a lot of Fridays. Okay. So instead of tournaments on Fridays now, once again, they make a decision. So there's still tournaments there. Okay. Yeah. There are still tournaments. I just am not streaming them. Got it. Because there's no room for me to physically stream. So, you know. Yeah. And what in your place? actually six pinball machines that were most of them were in the back room so now are they good pinball machines like we need to know the trade here what do you think they were for me when uh when i went to the last uh tilton tuesday but uh so what are they i want to know What is Tom Graff worth in a trade? Okay, so Tom Graff got traded for, let's see, Mata Hari,
    4:45
    Stern Jurassic Park Pro, Six Million Dollar Man. Okay, right there. I mean, you are a Six Million Dollar Man. The Shadow, Spider-Man, and Frontier. There's some, I mean, some decent games. I don't know if they're good games. I don't know if that adds up to Tom Graff, though. I don't know. Maybe Thorne got the better end of the deal. I don't know. Who knows? It's pretty good. I thought you were going to be like Palooka and then some shitty EM went in your place, too. But no, you named off a bunch of bangers. There is a tournament there this Saturday.
    5:23
    I know it's not doing as well as it was. I mean, sign-ups aren't as well as they were if I was streaming it, it seems like. But I, yeah.
    5:39
    It's tough, out of sight, out of mind. Look, I don't want to see District 82 go out of business. So, you know, I have no beef with Eric. He has no beef with me. I understand why he is trying something different. You know, but, you know, at the end of the day, unfortunately, I can't stream there. So new things have to be done for Fox Cities Pinball, and that's going to include some traveling.
    6:15
    So I've already lined up two other tournaments outside of the state to stream. I'm going to be at Lumberjack Johnny's a lot. We're already planning an X-Men heads-up. Nice. We're already planning a launch party.
    6:34
    I would like to run a bigger tournament there, which I'm sure we will. And I'll probably be streaming the new Avatar game as soon as I can.
    6:48
    Which you'll be the second person on our podcast to stream Avatar. That's true. Yeah. So we'll see. Like that segue right there? I mean, I wasn't done with the – what I want to say, to speak for the entire pinball community, specifically the tournament players, Tom, your streams at Distributed 82 have been incredible. Oh, yeah. It was a lot. There's been some amazing tournaments there. You've had quite a run, obviously, there doing everything. And, yeah, I think that was when you posted that you were taking this stuff out. I mean, the Facebook response was massive of, you know, the amount of people around the world, around the globe that would would watch those tournaments live or replay. So I have no doubt that you had a big part in growing District 82 to what it is. And I know we will miss we'll miss the consistency of the streams from there. But yeah, so you are doing your you're you're doing something new. So you're going to be streaming other things. Yeah, and I'm still streaming other stuff. Like, well, I just did Papa, which was huge. You know, so many people to thank for that. Andy Bagwell, Penny Epstein. Yep. You know, Papa, IFPA. It was awesome. All the people that let me stream them.
    8:05
    And then we're going to be at Expo for our fourth year doing the Expo tournament. That will be fun. Super excited about that. Joel, are you noticing this? Like, Tom has a glow about him this morning. He's got, like, either he's had, like, five Mountain Dews this morning, or he's just a happy fella. Just one. We've recorded at so many different times over the years, and we're trying to find that sweet spot, the best time. Where do you get Tom Graff in the most, you know, at apparently early? It is not past 1130 at night, I can tell you that much. This is high-level Tom Graff right now. What I was saying is the thing that you started last night, you're calling it a pinball players podcast, or the idea is kind of a – it's a stream? I want to focus more on tournament stuff.
    8:55
    Yes. Yeah, so I want to talk more about tournaments. I mean, we'll still talk about new releases and stuff. We'll just concentrate on more in-depth talk about it, shots and how they relate to tournaments and maybe how you could blow up a game or something like that at a tournament.
    9:17
    But, you know, I want to get guests on who are tournament players and just try to get that out there. Sure. Because I don't think there's enough talk about tournaments. Everybody seems to kind of poo-poo it in pinball for some reason.
    9:38
    It's true. Yeah, yeah. No, I understand. There were some big shows that didn't even mention Papa on their podcast.
    9:48
    And, I mean, we had quite a bit of people watching. I think it was like 3,350,000 people tuned in for it. It was on the front page. It was on the front page of Switch. Yeah, which is huge.
    10:05
    I mean. It's big. It's a big deal. And I get that there's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of pinball media creators. And, yeah, I understand that sometimes the tournament side of pinball doesn't get the love it deserves. I know, like, Hottie. Hottie started a new pinball podcast, Wizards and something. It's on TPN.
    10:29
    So that's a podcast solely dedicated to tournament streaming. I think his last episode was, like, four hours long. So there's some out there. What I will say is last night I was putting in my Stern expression lights for the speakers, and I was like, oh, Tom has this thing tonight. Let me tune into this. And I hop on, and the two of you idiots are on there. And you're watching me play Avatar. We were watching the, quote, unquote, one of the best players in pinball. Yes. Oh, so good. So good. Fantastic. Watching me criticizing my game play. We weren't criticizing. No, you watch back. You watch back. We did not critique your actual gameplay. It was more like, what are you doing? What's going on right now? What's he trying to do? What's this? And then the best part was he goes, here, I'm going to mute Joel for a second, which you don't get to do very often, Tom. So I think you enjoy this new power position. But, no, it was good. I'm excited. I'm excited for you guys. I mean, well, you say you guys. I was just a guest. You were, but you were. Yes. I was on there. Like, I just want to be removing himself from this in case it blows up. Well, no, no, no.
    11:41
    I just want to be crystal clear. Like, this is important to me. Right. Because I mean, I've been around the content game for a long time. You know, even before I started working with the pinball company, even before we did this, I had a YouTube channel, Marv Loco, all that. Then had my own podcast, a pinball podcast. Now I'm here. So, you know, and that's how we kind of all met. Right. Through pinball, through content. And we build up friendships. And I just want like I'm just trying to be clear that this is definitely Tom's thing, but it's not because I'm like, oh, I think it's complete shit. I think it's great. And he deserves like every bit of, you know, respect or whatever you want to call it. Like you like whatever comes with it. Like he deserves that. He's worked his ass off. And I know this is a transition for him from tournament pinball streaming all the time to just certain large events that's out and about the country. But I think that's important, too, because I see what Tom is going to be able to do. And I think it's a unique opportunity to keep growing the tournament pinball side. And I think, Joel, you, as much shit as I give you, I will hand it to you that you do a great job growing it from the pinball enthusiast side. Like your streams for Flippin' Out on Wednesday nights are fantastic. They're entertaining. It's fun to watch you and your brother, your dynamics and all that. And I know everybody's listening to this. They're like, oh, this is just a kiss-ass podcast. But that's just the truth. I'm just being honest. So, you know, at the end of the day, that's why I'm happy to see you both doing your thing. And, you know, I think if you're out there and you're a tournament player or you want to learn more, definitely tune in to what Tom's doing. But at the same time, that's a show that you could actually get on to because, you know, I think that's going to be well in Tom's future. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I think he will have the ability to have, like, three, four, five people on at the same time, right, through the way Twitch is implemented. That is correct. So there you go. So good times ahead.
    13:34
    Yep. I'm looking forward to it. That's what's fun about all this is there's – pinball is really fun for everyone and all your different skill levels and abilities and interests. And, you know, what's nice is there's plenty of media out there to consume, whether it's, you know, Travis's very impressive tutorials that he does on the pinball community. Or Kiss Ass. I love this. Like, why – we should just do a podcast with kissing each other's ass the whole time. We'll just go in a circle. So we'll just keep talking. That's great. Every time.
    14:03
    But, no, there's plenty out there, plenty out there. But, yes, what have we all been talking about, reviewing, looking at? And we'll just start with X-Men. X-Men came out first. It started as X-Men. It was announced, or it's the uncanny X-Men. The game is designed by Jack Danger.
    14:19
    This is nothing new. Everybody that listens to this podcast, I would assume they know all this. But the big thing was it was announced, and the layout is very unique, very, very unique. And it was – Is it unique, though? It is. It is unique. It is different than the typical fan layout type of or standard somewhat, you know, standard layout. It's very dynamic. It's a very dynamic layout. That's how I would call it. What surprised me, though, was the response was pretty much all positive on reveal day. At least what I was seeing. People were going nuts to the point where they're like, I think, has Jack Danger surpassed Keith Elwin? It was just one of those like, okay, all right, okay, time out.
    15:12
    Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got five incredible games. Jack's on his second. I mean, sure. Hey, that's Jurassic Park, the pen. It was, yeah. That must have been, like, such fire. Proof Fighters is awesome.
    15:26
    It is. We're not trying to downplay what Jack has done. Absolutely not. What are we, why are we jumping, like, why do we have to make this a company? People were just fired up. They were. They were super fired up. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like the music industry. Like, you know, a band comes out with their, like, their first album, and it's, like, fantastic. And then you're like, what's the second album going to be like? Sophomore Slump is a thing. and luckily this game looks awesome. I mentioned before that my dream thing was Turtles. Right behind that, Batman the Animated Series, X-Men the Animated Series. This is called the Uncanny X-Men but I think art-wise, theme-wise, it's about as close to X-Men the Animated Series that I'm going to get.
    16:16
    Honestly, I'm excited about it. I loved everything I saw. I was excited about having unique, this unique dynamic layout. I love the art. I love how colorful it is. Like in my mind, I was immediately one of those, like I have money set aside for probably draws premium, but now all of a sudden it's like, wait, wait, wait, maybe, maybe I need to wait. Maybe I need to wait and see. Um, so I know that's where I was at as a buyer where either you guys, um, you know, Tom, were you ready? Do you, you whip your wallet out? You're ready to buy? Oh, yeah. I mean, when I saw it, just how different the layout is, I was like, man, I really want to shoot this. I guess it is, you know, you think like, man, Jack Danger is freaking crazy, man. You know, like he's got this like figure eight, you know, ramp and all this stuff and the offset flippers and the danger room area. It looks really neat. I have to say, like, I am really excited to shoot it.
    17:18
    So, yeah. But I know, I mean, you guys have looked at enough play fields that you can kind of envision how the game's going to shoot just without even flipping it. And I know the thing that stood out to us was there's a center post, and every single shot basically returns to the flipper. So even me, like, I'm thinking, this looks like if you're hitting your shots, this could be a long playing game. This could be a safe shooter. this you know we'll have to wait and see on how this shoots yep and then we saw the stream didn't do it justice yeah i mean that's uh unfortunately but you know they were in costumes and stuff um i think that might have played a role in some of that you kind of question like were they taking it like maybe not seriously sure on the other aspect um you know questions are like is this game really in a finished state so and maybe they weren't trying to show it off good that's a valid point that is a valid point but let me ask travis because you have a unique perspective here. As somebody that sells pinball machines, a reveal stream, what do you want out of a reveal stream? How important is a reveal stream? Like, I feel like you look at a reveal stream totally different than Tom and I who are like, am I buying this or not? I can answer this, and I thank you so much for setting me up with a question that will not get me in trouble. You're welcome. Good deal. Yes.
    18:57
    So, yeah, a reveal stream. Like, this is my opinion, all right? My opinion only. I don't know what everybody else thinks. It's just me. In terms of on the dealer side, it is everything nowadays. It is everything. I can't explain to you how important it is because, obviously, when a game comes out, we just talked about it a second ago, right? X-Men came out. The trailer was out. Everybody was hyped. So if you're knowing that, your bill stream is either going to increase the hype or flatline the hype. It's always going to be that way. No matter what manufacturer you are, what game comes out. We've always seen this, right? This plays out the exact same. So I always go into it back in the day just before I got into the industry, just like, oh, yeah, I just want to see how it shoots. I want to do this, want to do that. And now I go into it like, oh, boy, let's hope. Like, I really want this to go well because, you know, it just it means everything because it changes the dynamics of the conversation. It changes the dynamics of how people view things and whether the eyeballs go elsewhere or the money goes elsewhere. It changes if people are going to decide to jump into the pool, buy the product or stay in with the product or, you know, cancel their order. It it means a lot. It means a lot. So without going into too much detail, I'll just say for me personally, that's one of the only times in pinball that I get nervous. And I'm not even involved in it. Like I legit get nervous. And you guys know that by me talking back and forth with you in private chats. I'm always like, oh, I hope this goes well because I want everybody in pinball to do well. Like I want people's hard work over 12 to 18 months, however long it took to bring this game to fruition. I want it to come off well to people. You know, because that's like all of us. It's when you look at the people that create pinball, they are creators. And you want people to to be happy with what you create. You want to feel, you know, I guess a sense of validation in terms of like your your hard work went over well. Like nobody wants to bomb out. So, you know, it's just like I'm always I'm nervous for that. I'm nervous for them. It's, you know, because it's something you want to be a celebration. You don't want it to end up being a hindrance to your product. So, yeah, I'm always nervous during it. So I've been fortunate. Zach, when we're flipping out, has been awesome at trying to get me games as soon as possible. And the last time I essentially kind of did a reveal stream for Avatar. And before that, there was a chance where Barrels of Fun. Barrels of Fun with Labyrinth. I brought one of the games home and kind of did one of the first big streams of Labyrinth. And I didn't really understand that moment until I was in it. And what I mean by that is really what Travis just said was, you know, to me it's like I technically I'm going to take ownership of that. I want the stream to look good. I want the stream to sound good. It's my job to, you know, create the graphics, make sure OBS, all that stuff, make sure it looks good. Tom's fully versed in how much work streaming a pinball machine.
    22:06
    Travis knows, too, from capturing for tutorials. But that's on me. That's on me. But the things that I can't control, one, my gameplay ability. You know, I try my best.
    22:18
    And then, you know, the software, the hardware, you know, is the machine coded? Is there bugs in the game? Am I going to have hardware difficulties? You know, I can't control those aspects. So what really stood out to me when I streamed Labyrinth for the first time was I was getting messages from people at Barrels of Fun. I was getting messages from Zach. Have you done this? Have you done that? Like, I had, I remember I got a code update, like, day of, and I didn't realize how nervous that made David Van Ness. Because it's like, this is the first showing of the game really in a good light to the world. I think that's big volumes. I mean, that's awesome that they care so much. Oh, yeah. But that was the worry, right? Because if all of a sudden this game crashes or I have a hardware issue or a ball hang up or something that's consistent, you know, you don't want to see somebody pulling the glass off during one of the initial streams. Like, it's just all of a sudden those little notches against the game, you know, oh, oops, that crashed. Oh, that didn't look like that's right. You know, you start to get that idea that something's wrong. Right. And what you're describing right now is a snowball effect, right? So if it starts cascading on itself like that, especially towards negativity, you never want to put yourself in a position, especially with a product launch, to have to recover perception. True. I've never agreed, and I've seen this in other industries. This isn't just pinball, right? So I'm not picking on anybody here. But I've never understood and have never agreed with, well, we'll just fix it. Oh, it's not a big deal. It just happens, right? It's like it's an incredible deal because it's millions of dollars on the line, right?
    24:02
    It's a massive industry thing. People are paying attention to it. And while there's still other people that could discover the product later on, that's going to really determine how your product gets out of the gate and the momentum it gets going into the next month or the next quarter or six months down the line or a year down the line. Because in this industry, there's so many different products that come out, either from Stern or from Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Spooky, Pedretti, everybody, right? Like everybody comes out with different products, different machines. So, you know, we're like barrels of fun, right? There's always something coming out. So it's like if you lose out on that or miss out on that and you create that negative snowball effect, somebody else is going to be there to pick up the ball. And where the industry is going right now, everybody's fighting for market share. And, yes, Stern is dominating it. At the same time, though, when we're just talking about just industry, and this could apply to any type of industry, you don't want to fumble the ball. You want to maintain market share. You want to maintain momentum. You want to maintain all that positive vibe, all the hype. You have to maintain it because people forget instantly. And if the hype goes, like, what do you do to recover it after that? Well, that's the thing is, you know, I go to do one of these streams, and the last thing I want to do is dig a hole for a company that I'm not a part of. Like, that was the main thing of, like, I don't want to be responsible for a negative feeling or a negative view on a game because I'm not making commission. I don't work for that person. I didn't spend two years of my life focused on every aspect of this game. I'm just some idiot in his basement that gets to play the game. And I'm bringing my brother, who barely thinks about pinball. So it's like he's the same thing. So I understand the challenge. It's a great representation, though. That's good. That's a great representation. When you have, I mean, like I said, no offense, Joel, but if you take an average player, right, that's very into pinball, that understands pinball. you do. It gives an accurate representation about what is actually going to happen. And then if you bring somebody that is a below average player, but great attitude, wants to learn, has fun with it, that gives an even like bigger perspective or a window in to how is this product going to be later on? How's it going to be to people on location or people that want to get the game that are new to pinball? So I think your stream provides that excellent point of view with that. And that's, honestly, that's pretty much the feedback that we get when we go to a show, was like, we like watching you because you suck as much as we do. It's like, all right, I'm glad I can be that person. And I understand that. I know, like, Stern has admitted before that they've done reveal streams before where they make the game really hard because if the people on the reveal stream are Raymond Davidson, Keith Elwin, you know, like, they're just going to, they could just blow up a game, and that's not a realistic perception of the game for most people, or then all of a sudden the game seems shallow because they're just whizzing through it. And I understand. I don't know the secret sauce to the perfect reveal stream. But what I was trying to get at is, like, I know the pressure. Maybe it's the pressure that I put on myself, but I'm assuming it's the pressure that any company puts on themselves when it comes to a reveal stream, to the point that when I was doing Avatar, like, I know to stream a game, to capture it well, you need a lot of light. And one of the big things about Avatar that they're trying to show is the fact that there's UV light. There's this whole black light effect. There's this eclipse mode. And, you know, talking to some of the people at JJP, I was like, why haven't you released any sort of gameplay yet? And they said, honestly, we were having a hard time capturing it. We were having a hard time capturing it in a way that they felt, you know, was going to be beneficial to sales. because all of a sudden if you go to capture that and you're not seeing the lighting effects and you're not, you know, they were talking about ISO and talking about frame rate and, you know, if we do this. So we had a short conversation. So I was nervous. I was nervous going into the avatar reveal stream of how do I show this without it being a negative against. So, like, I bought a UV flashlight. I bought a UV flashlight and tried to show that. Yeah, I know. We were like, what are you doing? And I'm like, you know, I turned all my lights off. I turned the UV on and I showed, you know, this would be a better representation of what you're going to see in your basement. Because, like I was saying, I personally, as a streamer, don't want to be responsible for a negative perception towards the game. I mean, it's an interesting point of view, but I can promise you 95% of people out there that are thinking about adopting Avatar or buying the game, they don't care about the UV lights. I'm telling you. They don't. I promise you they don't. It's just, I'm trying to know about that. If they're debating between L, E, C, E, they might, because the C has three UV lights. Right, if they're debating between that, but then that's just a whole other marketing thing, right? I think the UV light is a big selling point of this game, though. Well, here's the thing. If you're not going to, like, show the gameplay, like, why is the gameplay not important? Like, why is the lights the most important thing that you're like, oh, we're not going to show the gameplay because of lights? Like, think about this, guys. Think about this. Because you're not – the best way to show a game is gameplay. If you're worried about the UV and all that, guess what? There's pinball shows coming up. People will go see it. It'll get out on location. People will see it. If that's stopping you, you're showing off gameplay. But that's the other thing. Like, is the lighting at that pinball show going to be appropriate for the game? That's what I mean. It's like if you're advertising, like, the UV is important, and then people see it, and it's underwhelming, well, then you just wasted time anyways because you haven't shown off the gameplay. Do you see what I'm saying? It's like chewing your own foot. It's like you're pulling a Joel. Don't pull a Joel.
    29:58
    So what I was trying, with all that said, I'm not going to put you in this position, Travis, because I don't want to get you in trouble. Do it. I want to get in trouble. What's up? I've had a few coffees. Do you feel like Stern showed off X-Men in a positive light to help or assist you in sales? I plead the fifth. I do not want to be in trouble. That's what you said. Don't put you in trouble. Yes. I will say. I learned my lesson from Wick. I know if there's somebody, one particular person at Stern that's listening to this again, like, I'm shackled. I'm not going to say anything. I will say my opinion. Tom, what's your opinion? Do you feel like the X-Men stream helped sell X-Men? No, it definitely probably hurt. Oh, yeah. I think it hurt X-Men. Just go read Pennside. If you want to, go read Pennside. They know it hurt because Gary, on YouTube, there was that Gary Stern seminar. He even said, like, hey, we kind of dropped the ball on the string. Yep. And he said, we're working on the music. We're working on the code. You know, I mean, and I believe that. I mean, you know, to me, maybe this game was maybe a little rushed to the market. Well, I mean, Gomez has said that publicly multiple times. He's said that publicly on podcasts at this point. But here's the question. Then why are we rushing it to the market? Why aren't we making it better before we show it off? I listened to all the – Yeah, my only guess could be Avatar was coming out, So we had to. That's my guess. I listened to every single podcast that Gomez was on because I wanted to gain insight. Listen to everyone. And out of the three that it was, I think it was like Phantom Tilts, something like that. I'm getting this wrong. I listened to that one. I think Chris Kaneda, he did one, which is awesome. Thank you for Jersey Jack for allowing that to happen. And then Gonzo. Gonzo's Flipper-O-Rama. Right. Which I haven't listened to yet. Right. I think the Gonzo one is the best, personally. Okay. I have to check it out. From what was talked about. But what I'm most curious about is multiple times Gomez mentioned about it being, you know, I don't think he used the term rush, but I remember he said it's like a condensed timeline or 12 months. You know, he alluded to it multiple times. I think he said it went from 16 months down to 12. He basically said it was four months. Right. So that's out there public. Like it's completely out there public. So I would be curious, like, yeah, nobody really that I recall, maybe this happened, asked the question, like, why would you not go ahead and just skip and just settle and just go? Like, obviously, there's obvious answers to that that Stern knows. I'm just curious, you know, whether or not those answers will become public. So, yeah, it's an interesting thing that just rushing a game that everybody's like, OK, you know, resounding after the stream. It's like it felt like it was half-baked. You know, that's everybody's feeling on it. It's acknowledged by Stern. So it's like, OK, we're here. My only guess could be like maybe there was something else coming out and they had to postpone it. And this was more ready at this time. Well, he did say that. He did say that. Okay. Right. He did mention that. But it's kind of like, okay. Like, you know, it's just timelines, I guess. I don't know. It's like I'm not there. I don't know. I'd be curious to know the answer, though. I get it. Like you want to keep your line going and everything No That the way we do our podcast This is like the shit half every time We get it out every week It is clear I mean one of the Gomez interviews he said that you know Jack was so amped up about this design and he basically told Jack, like, I don't love doing crazy stuff with the flippers, but if you can show it to me, if you can prove it to me, you know, you'll get the green light. So I know Jack worked super hard on that layout, and that's where what he said is he felt Jack was far enough along that they could meet this accelerated deadline. Which, I mean, what needs to be done, right, is the physical side of the game. The game, the layout's done, the art is done, the mechs are done, all of that's done. They're done enough that they can make the game. They can physically make the game because software can just get finished with updates. but that stream, in my opinion, showed two big issues. And one of them I think we can write off, but one of the issues was it looked like the game was brutal. It looked like the layout was not nearly as great as everybody assumed it was. It looked like it's not a long player. And the reason we're saying that is because you have Zach Sharp, an incredible pinball player, and Jack Danger, the designer, This guy's lived and breathed this layout for, you know, a year and a half now. And both of them are missing shots, brick and shots. But they were wearing costume. So maybe it really was because Jack had gloves on. I don't know. Technically, we all wear costumes every day once you really spoil it down. But, you know, I guess I don't think necessarily if somebody is just missing shots a lot that that equates to a bad design. I mean, it could. Obviously. I mean, there is such thing as bad designs. That's my fear with my stream. That's what I've said before. If I'm doing a reveal stream, like when I streamed Avatar, my fear was if I'm breaking shots. Nobody's a stock shooter, though. Everybody can do that. But if I play Avatar for two hours and I'm just breaking shots left and right, I don't want people to blame Mark Seiden for a bad design. It's a tough thing because, like you mentioned earlier, if somebody just absolutely destroys the game, everybody's like, oh, it's easy. because everybody equates their own skill set to what they are seeing, right? Like reality doesn't hit until they're actually in front. So if Raymond or Keith or somebody blows up a Nick over at Stern, they're like, oh, yeah, I could do that too, right? And then it's like if Joel's bricking shots left and right, oh, yeah, I could do that too. It's hard to be in the in-between. So I think the only way that you could truly judge if it's a bad layout or not is just on an individual basis based on... You've got to play it. Yeah, based off your mental representations of your experience and your likes and dislikes. So something that might be the best layout of all time, to me, Tom might absolutely hate it. Something that Tom loves, you might absolutely hate it, Joel. That's just the way it is. It's very subjective. But at the end of the day, and yes, I'm going to say that cliche term, within two years, you know if a game is a bad layout or not because you just have to look at how many units has it moved. And that gives you an idea of how the market responded to it. Good point. I know Zach has mentioned before that it's like with every reveal that CERN has, L1 games just sell more. They do. Yeah. Absolutely. People are waiting for that next game, and then they see it, and they're like, let me go with the safe bet and then they buy Jurassic Park that's however many years I don't think Elwin's made a bad game I mean I know probably some people are arguing about that yeah but I literally don't think he's made a bad game I can confirm this is a real thing and I've even told Keith this directly at tournaments that it's like for whatever reason and this it doesn't matter who's coming out with the game somebody comes out with a new game and then all of a sudden we see L1 games jump up. Because it's almost like that's what everybody judges off of, right? They're like, well, am I going to get this new one or am I going to get the L1 that I've always wanted? And that's just like the reality. We have the data that backs it up. We've seen the pins that get moved. Just like you said, Joel, I mean, it's multiple dealers have reported this. It's just, it's the damnedest thing. I guess we can just put it in the pinball dictionary and just call it the L1 effect. Like it is the damnedest thing, but it happens. and I think it's going to keep happening the more games that he produces. Sure. And as long as Stern keeps them on the line, keeps them active, and doesn't retire them, I mean, it's going to keep happening. I mean, I saw it just this week. I think I sent you guys a picture of it. It's hilarious. We had like five or six machines going out. Yep. And they were all Elwins. They were all Elwins, all of them. So, yeah, that's what the market loves. Random side tangent question here. A new thing that I've learned is apparently if you buy a new Stern pinball machine, you're supposed to get a play field. What's this? What's going on, Travis? What's this? What is going on? What's this new incentive? So Stern's shipping all these distributors a bunch of play fields, so this is additional incentive to buy a new in-box? Is that what it's called? Yeah, I think so. Don't quote me on this because I don't run the sales channel for us. But overall, I think it's if you buy a new in-box game, it's a limited time promotion. Okay. that you can – it's not guaranteed because I think the dealer has to fill up something out for it. I was going to say Kingpin – yeah, Kingpin hit me up. Yeah, it's not guaranteed. Kingpin Games?
    39:26
    But you'll end up getting a play field sent to you. I think it's via the dealer is how that works. And it's a random play field too. You can't just have your pick of the litter. So, you know, that's how it's going. Yeah. somebody's going to order like for whatever reason I think like whoa Nelly, somebody's going to get like I can hang that up. An Avengers playfield would look really good on my wall. That's all I'm going to say.
    39:55
    I just told somebody it's just like it's like getting a toy, a mystery toy in a cereal box except the cereal box is $7,000. An X-Men playfield would look really good on my wall. A zombie Eddie Art. That's a side tangent. I just remember seeing one distributor in the Chicago area posted it, and I was like, that's an interesting way to try to stir up some business. And then I go to here and I'm like, no, this is every. I was giving him credit thinking that's a unique. I did see Tilt Amusements. Yeah. Yeah, there's been multiple people posted. I thought it was just the Tilt Amusements thing. No, that's what I mean. It's like multiple things went up, and, yeah, That's why we got a couple of questions about it. They're just like, is this an actual promotion for everybody? Is this this and that's that? I mean, yeah, it's kind of confusing for people, but at the same time, it's something out there. There's going to be this, like, play field swap where all of a sudden people are, yeah, what'd I get? What'd I get? I don't want a John Webb because it does not have guns. That's all I'm going to say. It probably does. If Stern really wants to move units, show us the play field that has the guns on it. Man, you'll be moving units nonstop. I mean, at the same time, it could be like a Willy Wonka thing where you get the golden ticket all of a sudden. Somebody gets, you know, the Elvira Blood Red Kiss Edition, you know, play field that's all sparkly and beautiful. You could get some cool stuff. Joel, you're on to something because I've honestly thought that this could always be a pretty cool promotion. I mean, it's dumb as hell, but I think it'd still be cool. If they did something like that to where – this is my idea, so I'm calling my own idea dumb as hell. Let me be clear about that. Okay, okay, yeah. Yeah. I thought it would always be cool if Stern or Jersey Jack or somebody had some type of promotion like that to where, yeah, they're doing these media days and everything, but they put like 10 VIP things in random games that get sent around. And if you get it, that's like your all expenses paid trip to come for a private tour at a date that's all together at the factory. You get to meet everybody. You get to do stuff like that. So, I mean, stuff like that, that you can ingrain a brand into the ecosystem, into the community. I've always been fascinated about that. But that's also, that's a lot of expense going out to. I know Gomez did, he had like signed katanas that he put in a handful of Deadpools, which was pretty sick. That's huge. If they did something like that, like just little things like that, I mean, it plays a lot. You build up a lot of customer loyalty by doing stuff like that. You definitely do. Well, to get back, so, okay, so I had mentioned with the X-Men reveal stream, the game did not look like it shot like everybody assumed it did. It didn't look like this crazy long-playing flow monster. It didn't shoot like that. And I understand, you know, Zach Sharp was wearing a Wolverine mask with white mesh eyes. Like, you could probably barely see the ball. Can I ask you something, Joel? I don't mean to cut you off, but what did you think it was going to shoot like? I'm curious. What did you two think? I really thought, you know, looking at that layout, I just thought we'd be seeing, like, Foo Fighters comboed so well and such unique, you know, with Foo Fighters, that upper spinner and then whip around and this and this. Like, I was expecting to see, even Jack said on the stream, technically you can have an eight-way combo in the game. I was, and so it's one thing it didn't look like it. I wasn't seeing the combos, but the bigger issue was they weren't beating modes. like that's the thing where it's like whoa there's you know there's it's it was early code but like they kept playing this wolverine mode multiple people and they couldn't nobody could beat it nobody can beat the mode something joel how many modes on avatar did you beat all of them all 22 i got i just rolled them you know no problems no problems at all uh i think i beat uh i don't Less than five. So, okay. Well, we'll get to that, too. But, yeah, I was just asking because, honestly, the pen shot the way I thought it was going to shoot. Okay. That's why I don't, like, I'm not saying it's a bad design, right? But, you know, I've played Gold Wings enough to kind of understand, okay, how that is. And I've played Circus Voltaire to understand enough, like, what happens with that geometry towards, like, the ringmaster, right? So you got this sentinel head that's in a similar spot. and it just, I don't know, like for me watching it, it shot as expected. Yeah, there's probably some shots that were missed a lot more than what they should have been, but I don't know. It didn't when I look at the actual geometry of the pin and my expectations it fell in line with what I thought. Is there an upper flipper on this game? No. No. Okay. Three flippers all at the bottom. Gotcha. So, okay. So that's interesting.
    44:53
    Did you guys think it was going to be like a massive flow monster just automatically because of Foo? Or what gave you that idea? Maybe I'm focused on the wrong thing. The ball times were short. So that's what I meant. It's just it wasn't when every single shot ends up essentially in a wire form that returns the ball to a flipper, I really thought the ball times would be a lot longer. The game seemed, I don't know if they had it. Was it really jacked up or did they set it up? Well, there's three things. So there's three things on the play field that give you a firm indication that this is possibly not a long player for some people, for some players. Okay. What do you think those three things could be? Off the flippers.
    45:36
    Okay, four things. You're right. I totally agree with that. Maybe the Danger Room because it's like a freaking dangerous area that you could drain your ball. That could be it. But offset flippers.
    45:52
    Center post. No, I don't think. Center post, I think. Honestly, guys, I don't think the Danger Room is going to be that difficult at all. You look at it, it's going to play very similar to Golden Wings. You have to try very hard to drain on that side. Let me show you how hard I can try. I'm just telling you. Look at the geometry, Joel. I'm telling you, the way that you see it, you could probably hold that flipper up on the lower flipper and be able to just keep control. You can do something similar on golden wings. This isn't any different, and the gap even looks smaller. So I'm just putting it out there. Why didn't you tell us what you think? Can't wait for Travis to be in some important tournament and drain in that freaking danger room. Oh, I'm never getting in that danger room. I'm going to nudge it out.
    46:35
    So, yeah, offset flippers. Okay. Then you got the post in the middle. Which I feel like a lot of people were trying to use and failed. Like, there were a lot of people like, oh, yeah, oh, no. The game will not have a center post unless it's specifically there for a reason. And you're not going to put it there if you think your game is just going to take forever. Okay. Like, it's just not realistic. I don't think anyways. True. So that's a couple things. What else do you guys think? I thought one thing we saw was the sentinel hands very very cool it like threw the ball down the middle more than once maybe five yeah I was just thinking just pro maybe you should just go through your list and then we'll tag on no you're absolutely right that is one but I was just thinking just for the pro you're absolutely right though that is another one on the list things on it that make you feel make this game Well, there's two other things. It's very simple. Just where the pop bumpers are at, it's going to cause chaos. The pop bumper all the way at the bottom? Yeah, it's going to cause chaos. Oh, and there's one on the right. Yeah, yeah. Sure. It's going to cause chaos constantly down there. And then where the fentanyl head is, if you're bashing something, right, the ball has to come back. It's not flowing back unless you get it around the horseshoe area. So, you know, I think this design is specifically set up to play defense a lot and then try to go on offense. I think that's what you're going to see. And so that's why just looking at this design and this layout, that's why the reveal stream fit into my expectations of what I was going to see. That's the reasons. And you're making me want to play this now. I think it'll be fun. I honestly, like, if I'm just looking at it just from a Whitewood perspective, I'm ignoring the modes. I'm ignoring sound, right? Like, we can all agree it's woefully undercooked. Like the whole pinball industry, Stern's admitted that, like we all know that. So we're not going to like pretend it's anything other than that. But the layout is interesting to me enough that I think like I want to shoot it. I want to see what happens. I'm with you a hundred percent. And what I will say is there was a few of the media people that were invited to J.J.P. Media Day that ended up going to Stern as well. And every one of them that I talked to that played X-Men, they spoke very highly of it. They said it actually shoots really well. So, and I know some of those people are good. Some, you know, are very talented players. Other people are more average. And for all of them to say, no, X-Men actually shoots very well, does make me feel better about what I saw on the stream. Let me ask you a question. Okay, I'll let Tom go first. Getting back to the, because you mentioned the whole media thing. what did you think of people going to Stern being invited by Jersey Jack and then going to Stern to check out X-Men I personally I don't like it and the reason being it's interesting honestly I don't blame them for doing it but when we had the three of us were invited to the Stern media day And when we were there, I received a text message from somebody inviting us to go to another manufacturer in the Chicago area. And I remember seeing that thinking, oh, cool. And I remember turning to the two of you, and I was like, hey, they said it would be cool. And I think it was Travis that pointed out, he goes, no, we're not doing that. And I said, why? And he goes, if Stern is paying for us to be here, we are not going to let another manufacturer take advantage of that. That is correct. And I remember, but I honestly, when initially I got that text, I was like, yeah. And then Travis pointed that out, and I was like, that is the right move. That is the professional. That is the considerate move. That is the appropriate way to approach this. Yeah. I mean, to me, if somebody's paying for you to be there, it'd be different if you were randomly there and you were in town. You're like, hey, call up Jersey Jack. Hey, can I take a tour of your facility? Sure. Yes. And what I will say is there are some of the media people, they did the tour, and they did not promote it. As in they went to Stern, but they didn't blast it out there. They were being considerate of, you know, I'm here on JJP's dime. I'm going to make sure I give the attention to JJP. I'm better with that. But with all that said, the hotel that we stayed at was directly across the street from Stern. I mean directly across the street from Stern. That's tough. we had a there was like a three hour break the JJP event kind of ended at 2 and then we were going to meet at 5.30 directly across from start I have to say that's tough that's a tough three hour gap this reminds me of a Chris Rock quote and I know I might trigger some people so apologies ahead of time but he had a joke or a bit where he's like a man is only faithful as his options I'm like, so yeah, if any of the media people, we all go back to the hotel, and you're like, well, what am I going to do for three hours? And you look out your window, and you see Stern Pinball right there. You go, that seems like a good use of time. Do you think the whole Stern team is just standing outside the plane? They're all just like looking, just staring across the street. I don't know. So I get it. I mean, but then again, there are people that went the day before. There are people that had actually planned and did Stern things before the J.J.P. tour. Like, so I don't know. I could see why they take advantage of being in town, but at the same time, I do think they're taking advantage of J.J.P. and J.J.P.'s dime to have them there.
    52:34
    If we're wrong or you disagree with these, you know, write in at TripleDragon.com. Like, I don't know if other industries take advantage of this kind of stuff. Well, I will say, because I've done this before outside of pinball, I'm not going to name it, but, you know, it very much, there's a reason why I told you no. Just because I've gone through the same scenario before and to where I was sponsored in such a way that I was like, okay, I'm going to honor that sponsorship, even though there's no contractual obligation that would prevent me from doing it. It's just ethically for me, I thought that that was the correct way to go. And that's not to say other people are unethical. Like, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying for me personally. So, like, I get it. We're all human. It's exciting to get to play a machine. And I know me as a dealer that primarily sells Stern. It's like, yeah, I'm extremely happy that there was a lot of content people that went out there and just praised X-Men nonstop. Like, it was universal praise. And, yeah, it's, I don't know. I mean, hopefully there's a little bit more Avatar stuff that comes out of it, but it's kind of weird because it's like stuff, you know, you would think Avatar would be placed up on a pedestal to try to drive that and everything, but it seemed like the other direction to where, like, Stern got to stay relevant in that, you know, in that area, and they just got built back up. Well, it definitely wasn't the other way around, as in when we were all there for the Stern tour, there was not a bunch of media content created out of JJP from that event. You know, there was not, or American Pinball or anything, or Chicago. There was none. And looking back on this now, there were multiple interviews. There was plenty of photos. There was a lot. How did Stern know people were going to be there for Jersey Pack? How did they know that? I, you know, I get it. If I'm like, hey, I'm going to be in the area. Is there any way I can swing by the facility? Sure. Come on. Let's actually do an interview. I don't. So I just, it is what it is. I just feel bad. Like I know Ken Cromwell is the guy at JGP that arranged all this.
    54:47
    You know, it was an interesting group. It wasn't the same group of people that went to the CERN one as the JGP one. No. Unfortunately. Travis and I were invited. Unfortunately, you guys were not invited. I was surprised by that. I was messaged directly by Ken on Facebook with the invite, and then I asked about the two of you. And honestly, what I'm getting is I'm assuming I was invited because of Flippin' Out. I don't think I was invited because of Triple Train. Hey, I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm sure everybody else that was invited, I'm sure their company saw a lot of JJP games. So, yeah, I get it. I'll be honest, even if I was invited, I wouldn't have gone because I already had plans to go to Cleapin. Sure. I wouldn't have been able to go either, Tom. So, see? Yeah. It all could have been avoided. Don't have to take that day or something. But I'll just say, Jersey Jack Pinball, you're screwed now.
    55:40
    As he looks straight in the camera. No, I do feel bad. I do feel like I know when the invite happened, like, Tom, you've bought a lot of J.J.P. games. You would have been a great representation of the collectors that could have been there. I've bought two. Remember Toy Story? I know. And then you sold it and your kids haven't talked to you since. Hey, it's fine. It's fine. But no, like, you know, it is what it is, but here's the good thing about it. Now we get to ask you all the questions we would ask privately, and now we get to ask you publicly. Before you ask all those questions, are we done with X-Men? Are we, like, what does Stern do now? I know Gomez is kind of – We'll talk about X-Men again. I mean, we're going to wait for him to finish the code. We're just jumping back and forth. We're just doing this. We're doing that. Okay. They haven't really released the game yet. So we'll come back.
    56:35
    We're done today. We're done. Okay. Well, maybe I'll ask you this. This is my last question. Travis, as a distributor, as a seller of X-Men, what is the best thing that Stern could do for you now to help get that motivation going or get the momentum going or help with sales? Are you trying to get me in trouble right now? Hookers and Bulls. No, I like if you said, hey, if they could film a video, you know, showing it off, they could do another stream. If they could, do they do nothing? I mean, Travis has kind of talked about this before, honestly. Right, right. And I will just say this. I'll say this, okay? Yeah. I'm not going to answer directly just because, you know, I personally, I know what the answer is. I'm not going to say it because that's up to Stern. Right. Okay. I'm just starting to get what they do. But I will say what I wish would happen at the very beginning for all manufacturers when they show a game, I firmly believe, because this was proven with Jaws, it was proven with that, that if you can put the designer with the game and show the gameplay under controlled conditions, you don't have to have fancy editing. I mean, it does help to have an extremely professional presentation like Jersey Jack has had. Those are extra videos that they do or that they have. I firmly believe that puts the game in the best light. And then if you want to show off a live stream of the gameplay, why not do that when it's a celebration that games are shipping, like the LEs are shipping, they're getting to homes. Then you could be as goofy as you want then because all the hard work's been done and you're saying, hey, this is time to come hang out with us in the stream. ask all your questions, that you're not, there's no pressure to present the game at that point. Because you're just having fun, right? And that's like, to me, when people watch something, and this is anything, right? Of course, we want to see if the product does well. But then you want to see if people are having fun. You want to make that connection. And if you can see that the designer, the people that have been with the game, that they're having a blast, they're having an excellent time, that positive vibe attracts people. It's an emotional connection.
    58:56
    That's what I think would work well for anybody out there. And that's the sole opinion of the pinball company, right? That is what... No, that's just me.
    59:08
    That's just me. If I knew I was coming out with a pinball... I'm just putting myself in the shoes. If I was a designer and I spent 16 months focusing on a game, and whether I like the theme or not, And that's another question I want to ask you guys after we talk about Avatar. But whether I like the theme or not, I want the game to do great. So I want it to be in the best possible state that it can be in, and I want it to be presented to the general public in the best possible way. I want it to look as finished and as polished as possible. That's what I would personally want out of my own creation. And it doesn't guarantee it, but I want to at least attempt that. The best way to do that is you can control that because if you have a terrible two first balls, you just reset and nobody sees that. Or I know that was what I voiced earlier. When I'm streaming a game, doing a reveal essentially for a game, the stuff that I can't control, you know, a crash, a ball hang up. You know, I've been filming these little tutorials and I just try to do them in one take. And normally it takes two or three takes because I'll tell you what, boy, do I look dumb when I'm trying to throw a ball around a play field and I'm missing shots. Like if I miss a shot three times in a row trying to throw the ball, I'm like, all right, got to start filming this over. Well, even why not this? Why not record the gameplay ahead of time? You get the excellent gameplay that you want. You highlight the shots that you want. It's a well-edited video. And then you go ahead and have a premiere on YouTube or you have a premiere anywhere. You could live stream it, and then you have your whole design team, your whole software team there, like doing live commentary with it and highlighting things because then you can be completely prepared for it. You have your notes. You have your talking points. You can interact with people.
    60:57
    That's what I would personally do. If I had a company, I would do that. First impressions are everything. And there's just so many games coming out from different manufacturers. You just want to come out of the game. You'll do it right. You want to do it right. That's it. Labyrinth had, I think it was one, maybe two videos that Bowen, they were recorded videos of Bowen playing the game before they did a live stream. And then obviously Elwynn, which we came to learn, that Elwynn video of Jaws was recorded at like 11 o'clock at night right before he went out. So, I mean, even it's – I'm with you. I definitely see value there.
    61:36
    It's different strategies. Let's just put it that way. It's different strategies. Every company has a different way of doing things. And, you know, it could be successful. It could not be. That's just my own personal opinion. What Stern can do now, I'm not going to say publicly. Let's just hope that it goes that direction. And if not, guess what? Well, there's another game that will get released within, like, three to five months. That's how it works. I know the goal right now is if Zach gets his LE next week, if he can get it to me by Wednesday, I'm going to try to stream it Wednesday I don't and I hope I can show it in a positive light I hope it goes well I don't know Tom are you before we go to Avatar Tom are you going to get an X-Man early on or are you going to wait I am going to get the pro you're thinking by my stance of not getting Ellie's look at you respectable Look at that. Tom's all in on pros now. And you've done that for the past game and a half. One review. Yeah.
    62:47
    And remember, he's done it twice. We're at Stern. He was, man, he was drooling over those John Wicksellies. They look really nice. They look really nice, man. They look good. It's hard to turn it down, but, man, my wallet feels better. Look at you.
    63:04
    Okay. Well, I went to the media event. I was invited to the media event. What do you guys want to know? What can I share? Media event.
    63:16
    Just ran for a second. Well, there's, you know, I don't really have questions about the media event. It's more or less like questions about the game itself. Anybody tell you how to operate a pinball machine? No, no, there is no. There was a person that offered to teach all of us how to make money with a J.J.P. game. But I did. I heard that. Yeah, I, you know, I don't know. Just real quick side note, Cale was there with Electric Bat Arcade. Cale's about as chill as they come. Such a nice guy. Yeah, he's an awesome dude. Such an awesome dude. And it's very clear what Cale and Rachel have going at Electric Bat Arcade, they're doing it right. They have an arcade that so many people would want to emulate. And the long and short of it is Cale just asked a question. The idea was the SE. The last SE version that was made was Guns N' Roses. And so that idea was, can we have an $8,000 game? Can we have a game that's a little friendlier for the operators that they could buy? And he had asked about that. And they were quick to point out that SEs don't sell.
    64:23
    There was, I think it was less than 150 GNR SEs sold. Ooh, Travis bought one. He did. But that's not 150 is not much. So for them to have to design for that, code for that, buy parts for that, they decided, no, that doesn't fit their model. And that's something I'll get to that. It's very clear that JJP has this. They have a we do things our way. I don't think they really or they don't admit or they don't say they're competing. But it's like we're going to do things the way we feel they need done, period.
    64:58
    And the cost is the cost. These are expensive games, but they're going to be loaded. They're going to have everything in it. Our clientele may be a different clientele than other manufacturers. That's kind of their view. But anyways, what Cale said was he had asked about the Z, and what he said is Electric Bat had bought the last two J.J.P. games, and they felt like – I'm trying to think of the exact wording he said, but I think he said we've lost money with them.
    65:26
    And what he went on to clarify on his own podcast. They weren't earning compared to their other games. is he said J.J.P. games, they earn great at the beginning, but they drop off like every other game. But he just feels like the drop-off they experience with a J.J.P. game is a lot more drastic than a Stern. A brand-new Stern, they're the most popular game, but then it slowly fades off, and that was his view. And so that's his idea. Did he say the reason for that? I could tell you the reason for it. Yeah, yeah. You want to say it, Tom? Insider Connect.
    66:03
    Oh. Yeah, it's two things. It's Insider Connect, right? The ability to log in. Okay. And also. Achievements and all that, yeah. Well, not only that, if you play a game and there's no, like, pathway to where the gameplay is in front and fun modes are in front, why is somebody going to want to keep coming back to that game over and over again? Okay. They won't. They'll just want to experience it a couple of times, and then that's it. They have all these other options. That's just the reality of it. Yeah, I'm just trying to think of if there was a Toy Story or an Elton John or something like that in an arcade, what would incentivize me to go over and play it? And it would be, yeah. Honestly, it's like there's a lot of stern games that I want to play at an arcade because I know, hey, I haven't gotten the achievements in that, or I haven't, like, oh, I remember this fun mode. Let me just – I want to experience that real quick. So that's a good point, but what – so, yes. What's the power of the achievement, though, before we go forward? The power of the achievement – The achievement, there's – they mean nothing, but they give you that – It forces you to think about how to do it, though. It forces you to learn the thing and actually think about it. Well, not only that, but leaderboards, too. I mean everyone It okay to have a leaderboard in it But you are right The leaderboards I have been one of the arcades I went up to in West Africa I saw the leaderboard I think it was like the score on Venom or something I was like, I can beat that. You're like, I can get that, right? And I put three or four games on it just to get on the board, yeah. Yep, that's huge. All right, so what happened now? Good night, everybody. Good night. You were right. Cale, so somebody asked. They said, is JGP, are you currently in works of trying to build in some sort online achievement system? And the answer became, it was Tom. I don't know. Tom, he's the guy that wants all their names. It starts with a K. Compare? Compare. Yeah. The answer is yes, right? He said his answer was, here at JJP, we are always innovating.
    68:08
    That was it. That was it? That was the answer? He just said, we're always innovating. We're always working on what we feel is the next best thing. So they might be working on something. I mean, they're innovating. That innovation could take five years. I'm surprised you didn't know who that was, Joel. Isn't it Tom Capera?
    68:28
    I know who you're talking about. I can't pronounce the name. I can't pronounce words anyway. Isn't Capera? I could be making that up. You own one of his games, right?
    68:37
    What? Ooh. Look at him. He's like, what? The game behind you. Cactus Canyon was designed by this dude? Yes. Let me freaking read the play field talk amongst myself. Are you sure? This is going to be on the first. Tom Capera. Thank you. I was right. Tom knows things, guys. Tom Capera. He used to work for Stern. I think he was like, what do you mean? You're right, Joel. Are you just saying you're right? Because you remember the name? No, I mean, he was right. Tom was right. I was also I did say Capera. Yes.
    69:10
    So everybody in this group was right, except for Travis, because he's an idiot. We are really floating out this story between Kel and whoever. Like, OK. Well, anyways, yes, that was the side note. I don't know. I would assume, I hope, I think there's value that I would hope that J.J.P. would be getting, yes, because their games are connected to the Internet. They already have that. They had that with Scorebit, though, right? And then they just. That was relying on Score, I don't know. Is everybody left-handed at Jersey Jack? No, no, no. Did anybody ask why Natiri, or whatever that character is, is shooting the bow right-handed? See, this is why these stories take so long. Because you guys are throwing me down other ways. And I'll acknowledge it. Let's focus. Story. Sorry. Apparently in the Avatar lore. Lure. Lore? Lore. Lure. What's your words? All Na'vi are left-handed. And they said. Except. They said. Except for that character on the back box. Yes. They said they had multiple art rejections because the Leah Faske, I think is her name, which is beautiful art, but she would draw a character shooting with their right hand, and they're like, no, no, except for – so we hear this whole thing. We hear this whole thing to the point where Mark Seiden actually thought about moving the plunger to the left side because everything's left-handed. That would have been a cool idea, actually. The problem was they were too far along. They were too far along to move the plunger. But that's how serious the left-handed lure is. Did they just, like, send in so much that it kept getting turned down that finally it's like, you know, the awesome Thor is just like, F it. That one's right-handed. But what I will say is there's one of – it's one of their art pieces is – yeah, one got through because there's one of the art pieces where it's a female Na'vi character and she's shooting right-handed. That's on the limited edition. And that is why Cale asked the question. So basically, Kale said that, and they answered the SE questions, and we went on, and there was additional conversation. And then towards the end, Jersey Jack, who was on, Jack Guarneri, he was on like a Skype call the whole time. And he tunes in, and he's like, hey, I just want to say something. And he's like, you know, thanks all for coming. We really appreciate all the content you do, blah, blah, blah. He said other stuff. But then he's like, I just want to let you know, here's my number, 1-800-JERSEY-JACK. If anybody ever needs help on knowing how to make money with my games, I will gladly show you and something, something, something. But, I mean, he said it, and I immediately thought I was like, ooh, because Cale was sitting right next to me. I was like, that would be Cale. He just said that unprompted or like right after Cale asked the question? It wasn't right after. This was like five minutes after. Like it was – he was kind of wrapping it up. And that's what he said. But I remember hearing it. I was like, ooh. Did Kale just, like, get up and say, I'm going to Stern City, guys. Chill dude. Quiet dude. And, yeah, that was that. And so it surprised. It didn't surprise. When I watched the Electric Bat Arcade podcast and heard Kale, you know, kind of share what actually went on through his head and his additional feelings of said comment, I understood. I was like, okay, that's valid. You know, that's valid. I could understand why you were upset by that comment, because when I heard the comment, I felt like that only really applied to one person in that room, and it happened to be Kale, because there were no other. He was the only operator there? Well, Manu was there, MPT3K. He was there, and he does a ton of stuff with Free Gold Watch, which is another. Okay. So I don't think. Is he an operator? He's not an operator. I think he's just highly involved. So how do you make money on a game that's $12,500? Well, let's clarify that. Did Cale make money? Yes, he made money from the game, but that game takes forever to pay itself off. And I think the idea is if we have $12K to invest in a pinball machine, our return on investment is going to be a lot better with a Stern game than it is with a JGP game. And so that's where he feels – like I talked to him later about it, and he's like, you know, honestly, the JGP, they held up well. It wasn't like a mechanical issue. It wasn't a we lost issues because it was down so much. It wasn't that at all. It's just when that price point, which is why he brought up the question of the SE, when the price point is at 12K minimum, like, how do we – and they've seen that trail off on how much they get played. It's hard to commit to that. All that said, apparently they're buying an avatar. So there will be an avatar at Electric Bat. When I see JJP, I've just never thought of that location games. Is there bread and butter? I always feel like it's the retail home collector. It is definitely the home collector.
    74:09
    And that's something that at the event, the way they talk is very clear. Like this. This is sent. Hear that on the audio podcast. This is sent with every Avatar, Ellie, and scene. Joel is holding an avatar flowchart. It is a massive, like, Translight-type printed instruction guide, and the idea is they're like, we assume a lot of our owners will, like, frame this and put it next to the game. That's the idea of, like, this is the cheat sheet. This is how you get through the game. Super helpful, by the way. But it's when you need this, when you need this to get through the game,
    74:49
    that to me is like, this is not a location game. This is for the person that is going to have this in their basement for the next five years, and they're going to see these things and be like, oh, I've never experienced Willow Glade destruction. What five shots do I need to hit to start that mode? And they can do that, and they can look, and they can do that.
    75:08
    My gripe with, like, I enjoy a flow chart and all that. That's cool. But I remember when you first showed me that, Joel, I was, and I pride myself on understanding rules, figuring out a game. I could not even figure out what the modes were on that flow chart. You had to explain everything to me. It was so confusing. Yeah, I'll hold your hand. This is fine. So what are the modes then? How many modes are in the game? Let's just start from there. Okay, so that's the thing is the ideas that we've seen in the movie. In the second, there's different types of modes. How many modes? There are 22 song chord modes. But then there's also eight Savaco modes. Savaco? You're telling me there's 30 modes in the game? There's 30 unique modes. I'm actually trying to look for the flowchart on their website. Joel, Joel. I would like it in my position. Ken did email me the PDF. I could send you that if you want. This isn't me effing with you. Are you serious? There's 30? I don't want anything for the 30 day. Like just a feature that starts, you know, kind of like just a side quest. Like we're talking 30 actual modes. Yes. So if you hit, there are eight shots that if you hit them three times, it will automatically start a mode based on that shot. And those are called Savaco modes. If you play all of them, you get a milestone. If you win one of them, you get a milestone. So those modes entirely, those are part of these milestones deal with in Avatar. You have this, I think it's called the song chord, and there's different beads, and each bead represents an important moment of your life. And so you can get all the beads. That's how you get to the ultimate wizard mode. You're saying you've got to hit 24 shots outside of modes in order just to get a milestone. So, yes, to play, you're right. So there's eight shots. Each one takes three, and you'd have to play all of them to get a milestone. And then you'd also have to win one to get a milestone. Like, besides Carl, who is doing that? Me. No problem. I think the milestones also deal with No, that's just Pandora letters So the milestones are needed These milestones are the big things 1, 2, 3, 4 I think there's 11 To get to the ultimate, ultimate wizard mode The wizard mode Besides the ultimate, ultimate wizard mode Is this Ewa Ewing, which is you spell Pandora It's A-O-Y There you go, perfect, nailed it To spell Pandora You, like, just to play one Savaco mode gets you a Pandora letter.
    77:51
    It's a whole thing. There's a whole thing. Just all the arrows, you know? Yeah. So to get a milestone from an Avatar song chord is you have to win. You have to play three or win one of both movies. Are these wizard modes coded in the game? No. That's a right. So believe it or not, this kid, this guy, I've already spelled Pandora. I've spelled Pandora. The E-W-A-E-G-I-N-G or whatever, E-W-A-whatever, Tom nailed it. That insert lit up. It's definitely E-W-A. No, it's E-W-A now, Tom. Yeah, E-W-A. Yeah, that one. That insert, it lit up. It lit up. It was on the scoop. I hit the scoop, and you know what happened?
    78:36
    Nothing. Nothing happened. My Pandora letters, they went away. All right. Just go play Godfather. Try to get to that wizard mode. Yeah, I'm not going to. Anyway, so, Avatar, what do you want to – I'll just finish that. The media – I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, there are some games from Jersey Jack that do not have a wizard mode code in them. Nick with Buffalo Pinball, I just listened to that episode. Great. You know the Buffalo Pinball guys love Jersey Jack. They're big fans of Jersey Jack. Nick said, fool me once, jam on me. Fool me twice, or that's jam on me. Anyways, what he was saying was he owns Pirates and he owns Godfather. He loves them both, but neither of them are finished. So he said, he goes, I will not buy.
    79:20
    Pirates is not finished yet? Pirates does not have the final Wizard mode. It doesn't have the final one. Like the one that came out like in 2019 or whenever? Yeah, that one. How long ago was it? It was that one. That was the long, yep. So that Pirates doesn't have the final Wizard mode and Godfather doesn't have the final Wizard mode. So he said, I love Keith Johnson. He said, I think Keith Johnson is probably my favorite designer. but I am not going to buy a third game coder, I'm not going to buy a third game until they complete one of the other twos he owns which is valid, like he said the Godfather one, there's I think the Final Wizard mode is in it, but there's a bug that keeps you from getting to it, so it's there so I need to fix that bug so it's, so yes, anyways it's okay, so we're, this is just we're swerving all over the road here, but what I just complete my experience. We're just figuring out. To complete the experience of the media day, I will say it was, it was, it was great. I'm glad I went. It was awesome seeing a bunch of the other creators. The tour was impressive. I will say it's, it's, it's hard not to compare to Stern. I was going to say how big is their facility compared to Stern? I'm assuming it's smaller. Well, Stern has like all the office space and all that other, Like that whole entryway, that whole forum area, the arcade room, all that. I mean, that alone is bigger than the whole Jersey Jack facility. But then I would say the Jersey Jack warehouse is maybe a fourth of the size of CERN. I mean, it is definitely smaller. That was the thing that I saw. It was just like this facility is smaller. There are less people. It is less busy. It's quieter. like, but when you, I mean, it's smaller, it's just, it's smaller in stern, but with, you know, what we saw is just like the amount of people that were working on the line and the games are just flying. Um, but this is, you know, I probably, I don't know, I, there was probably 20 people working on the line in different areas. Um, and, but it was same thing. I mean, it was the same concept. You know, this is where we store all of our parts. This is where, this is where harnesses are made. This is where sub-assemblies are made. This is where the back box and the cabinet decals are applied. This is, and I will say the rad cows, brilliant. The fact that I'm so surprised CERN hasn't gone to that yet, because you guys have seen, or you may have even applied your own decals on the side of a cabinet. I mean, the chances of you messing those up, bubbling,
    81:56
    you know, scratching them, something like that. Like, I don't know how often CERN has to reject the cabinet because they mess that up. Or, I mean, I know a buddy of mine who's really particular about how his cabinets come out. He's getting decals from Zach flipping out all the time because they're scratched or whatever. Like, the cost to go from a standard printed decal to a Radcal can't be that much more expensive. Like, the Radcals, it's just a huge plastic sticker. They don't scratch. They just stick them on and they're done. Really impressive. They look awesome in person. But, I mean, I would just say what I saw at JGP was manufacturing-wise, it looked very similar to Stern, just smaller. Just smaller.
    82:37
    But then talking to them, and they just, they very much have this view of, like, our games, yeah, we're going to get every, like, license-wise, we're not going to work with a licensor unless we can have everything. Like, they, and they spoke so highly of the Avatar licensor that they're, like, even from the get-go, It was like the owner. The owner is like close friends all the way at the top with James Cameron. So they got everything. They had this game has, I mean, Sigourney Weaver's in it. Sam, what's his name? He's in it. They got permission for that. They have access to anything that's 100% CG rendered. They have access to.
    83:17
    I mean, that's their view. It's just like I keep punching my mic. We're not going to do a license unless we can have everything. and I heard a very interesting stat which was, you know, I know, I think Stern had said that Beatles was the most expensive license they've ever had, right? At like a million dollars and I don't know, we've heard this before that when you get a license, there's like an upfront cost, but then there's also an additional cost per game so what I had heard was the amount of money that they've given to GNR is millions of dollars like it's so I thought that was interesting of like they've they pay for the license it's not like they're just giving to them but they understand like we will pay because we feel that's how important it is to have as much as possible with a license um so yeah I was I don't know I came away from there like this a passionate group of people um it's very clear Eric Minyer is essentially the new George Gomez of of JJP he's involved in every game in a lot of the creative direction um Mark Seiden obviously this was his first game you could tell how nervous and excited and anxious he was um um but yeah it was I mean it was a fun time it was a fun time they were all good people I was glad I could go um you can tell they're passionate but they also are very I don't mean arrogant in a bad way but like they are very comfortable with who they are how they view themselves, what their goals are. They're going to do it their way.
    84:49
    And their games are expensive. They know it's expensive. What is their goal? Their goal, one of the things that I think it was Jack, or I don't remember who said it, but they're like, we understand that our games are expensive. And somebody asked the questions about CEs. Would you ever go with less than 1,000 CEs? You know, Stern just went down to 811 with LEs. And they basically said, we have a very – we kind of have this – we just have a very high-end clientele. They were like CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, actors, professional athletes. Like, we have this group that they basically buy every CE, and they don't feel the need to make less. That's kind of their view. If it's just like maybe in their head they're like, okay, out of 1,000, we have a Rolodex of people. Like we kind of know 500 of those are guaranteed going to sell. I don't know. Maybe it's 20 of those are going to be sold. I don't know. Yeah, this puts me in a place that like this is the question I would ask there. So I guess I get to ask it publicly.
    85:50
    Is that very much due to what their strategy is in terms of selling direct? Because it's obvious that they sell a lot more direct games than what Stern does. So it's like it's really not a comparison. in that way, regardless of who's actually the end user buying the game, but what's the functionality of that channel?
    86:10
    I don't know that. Nobody asked that? That was their media day? Well, no, you remember there weren't distributors there, Travis.
    86:18
    In the industry, thinking about it, like, hey. We're all here to play the game. How pretty is it? Who did you? Like, if they were talking about that stuff, that's what interests me. It's like, okay, you know, what's your goals? What are your strategies moving forward? Well, not just that, because you're talking about scalability of a business, right? That's essentially what we're talking about. And when we talk about scalability of a business, we're talking about pinball increasing in awareness for everybody, right? That's why CERN is going to Costco and, you know, the whole nine-dollar. I forget what was always asked that. I know I talked to the owner a little bit, real nice guy, and he's super ambitious. and he was talking about like he's trying to get on like he wants to get on like some of the big podcasts out there not pinball but like big pod hopefully it won't be this one he just feels like he's like so much of the world doesn't know that pinball is still a thing it's still being made so that's what I think he feels like don't get on a podcast for it here's the thing Okay. If he was on Joe Rogan, you don't think that would bring in sales? No. Who cares? If you want to know, honestly, and I get it. This is insane. It's not going to happen. It's just the reality. This is just the reality. The biggest arbitrage that you could possibly do. That's a big word, arbitrage. It's a huge game, but we're getting our business cap on. Okay. If you're paying for a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl, If you seriously want people to know about pinball and you want them to know that this industry still exists, what podcast is going to reach 120 million people? If you're already paying millions of dollars in royalties, if you're thinking long term, if you're thinking on that level and you happen to have the money to be able to do that, to me, that would be the ultimate. Now, granted, it's probably impossible. It's probably not affordable. I get it. But that would be by far the like the biggest thing that could possibly be done because then overnight everybody realizes it exists. but you don't even have to advertise Stern or Jersey Jack. Why can't you try to partner with a company and say, hey, we have this product. If you're ever thinking about doing some type of commercial, we would love for our product to be in there in the background or whatever, help you out with that, just to say, hey, this exists still. I don't know. I know Jason Sudeikis with Ted Lasso was playing a Wizard of Oz multiple times in multiple episodes, and that probably brought a decent amount of exposure. Yeah, well, there's lots of people that play pinball. I see it all the time with who we sell to. Like, I'm not going to name drop, but, yeah, it's not just, like, you would recognize the name. You see these people consistently in the news. Like, people really enjoy pinball. I'm aware of, like, A-list Hollywood stars that are huge Elwynn fans, like, because they've told us directly. So, yeah, like, just like Jersey Jack said, CEOs, athletes, like, those people spend money, too. You know? So, yeah, I'd just be curious about that. But what about 30 modes? We've got to talk about that. So somebody asked about that because they're like 22, 22. Like, Keith, you've done 22 in other games, and he just said it was an arbitrary number. There's nothing to that. I think they just – I mean, it's 11 modes from the first movie, 11 modes from the second movie.
    89:46
    My – well, maybe we can get into that. What I like or don't like about the game. I want to get into that. Yeah, let's do that. What I like or don't like about the game. I'll start with the don't like because we're already on it, the modes. And what I mean by the modes, it's not that I don't mind the modes. When I'm in a mode, the modes are fun. I do not like how you have to start a mode. The way that it's designed is there are 15. There are 15 different shots on the game that all could give you a token. And then different combinations of tokens will qualify different modes. So imagine if you've played Hobbit. Maybe people can relate to this. But Hobbit, the different modes related to there were four characters on the play field. So if you hit one of the character shots, it's only going to allow you to play a mode that that character was in. So like a point in the story where that character was in. So you could kind of steer what modes you want to play based on what character you pick out of four. This is kind of the same thing where it's like, okay, if I want to play First Awakening, I need to hit the RDA shot, which represents the flying vehicles, and I need to hit the Jake and the Tiri targets. And so that event includes the flying vehicles and Jake and the Tiri. So there's kind of some correlation there, but you have to hit those and then you have to hit the scoop.
    91:08
    So it's just like, okay, it's kind of like records in a way on the rush. Well, what gets more complicated, though, is so if I hit the RDA and the Jake and the Tiri target, that would be qualified. But if I want to go further and happen to also hit the rainforest target, then Thanator Chase is qualified. Okay, so then you're just automatically in that mode then, right? Nope, you have to hit Scoop. Well, I mean, that mode's just automatically qualified. It would be qualified if you hit those three. But what gets complicated is if you happen to hit the wrong shot. So if you get this assortment of some of these modes take six tokens. so you might accidentally hit like four shots that don't qualify for a mode like that combination of four don't work and this is in single ball play but there might be a fifth this is me, we're talking about me in my play, not your play but some of these shots are like stand up targets they're not ramps, they're like if you raise a stand up target that's one of the shots, like the spider shot is a stand-up target on the lower left. You hit a stand-up? Okay. The kids is one of the token. Kids, those are the four stand-up targets on the far right. And the kids, you want to hit the kids because that's how you get all the in-lane, out-lane perks. Okay. So if you're focusing on that, then all of a sudden you are now restricting yourself to only the modes that the kid token is used. So if you happen to hit a shot you don't want, what you have to do is you have to push and hold the action button and you'll give the token back. And so you see these tokens on the screen, and it's almost like you're looking at the tokens, and I'm like, I have those three tokens, but what modes do those correspond to? You could look at the chart, or you can go to Instant Info, and then you realize, like, oh, that's not a mode I want to play, so let me give up one of those tokens and hit this other shot, which might give me the mode I want to play. But then if you accidentally graze the wrong shot, then you have to give up that token. So that was the game that Jared and I found ourselves in. Just to be clear. Yes. Okay. Just to be clear. It's clear. It's right here. It's on the flow chart. It's right here. So there's 22. I'm just trying to repeat this back. Yes. There's 22 modes. And in order to qualify a mode, you have to hit a certain combination of shots that are represented by tokens. And then if you F up, then you have to use your action button to do what with the token? To discard it? To give it away. So you lose it. To give it away. Okay. And then some of the shots take upwards of six tokens.
    93:54
    You don't have to combo them together, but that means you would have to have hit those six particular shots without possibly hitting a wrong shot.
    94:04
    Okay. Because if you hit the wrong shot, then you got the wrong token. And then you still have to hit a scoop to start it. Yeah. And my biggest frustration is when you hit a token shot, the start song chord insert, which is in front of the scoop, does this rainbow color effect. So out of the corner of your eye, you see the rainbow color effect, and you're like, sweet, I got a mode qualified. And so you go to trap up to hit the scoop, and then the insert goes off. And you realize, oh, no, it was just telling me I got another token. So let me look up and see what tokens I have. And they do try to help because initially when you start and you have no tokens, like pretty much every shot is kind of giving you this rainbow color effect. And then whatever first token you hit, if there are shots that won't correspond with that token, that insert goes off. So only the inserts that still have a rainbow color effect would possibly get you to a mode. So it kind of tells you hit these because that might get you to a mode. but sometimes you're cradled up and you're like okay where on this play field am I seeing rainbow because I don't or should I just give up a token and go back and then maybe see another shot that I can hit there are mystery modes where you can just hit the action button and it will spot you a song chord token but this is my biggest issue is the modes there's 22 of them and they're all unique and they all have unique music and they're all they are all fun to play they're all fun to play the ones that I've played All 22 modes. I haven't played all 22. But the ones that I've played are enjoyable, but the challenge is it is very complicated on how to get into a mode. No shit. It sounds complicated. Just so you know. Okay.
    95:45
    So just to be clear then, you are going on the record as saying, because you've played the CM enough. Yes. I have about maybe three hours of gameplay. Right. But understanding the modes and getting into it, you're saying that the modes are differentiated enough from each other that they're all fun to play on their own. There's no, like, modes that, like, it's clear.
    96:06
    I'm just asking. No, I cannot confirm that all 22 modes are an absolute blast. The modes that you've played. Because in my head canon, in my head canon, I've never once played a game to where I absolutely love every single mode in the game. Even if there's only, like, five. And I'm thinking there's 22. How in the world? How do you have 22 unique modes? Of the modes that I've played, some of them are very story. Some of them are very story-based as in, like, oh, this scene, they're clearly trying to get up the tree, so you need to hit the tree shot. And then when they're in the shot, they're kind of hiding, so you need to hit over here. Like, you're hitting areas of the play field. That's the Vuck. The Vuck. Okay, gotcha. So there are some modes where it's like you are following, because the play field's laid out as in these different locations or different people, so you're following shots that represent what's going on in the scene. There are some of those. Then there's other ones where it's like you're flying and you just want to keep your thing aloft. So to do that, you just need to hit ramps. Then there's other modes where it's like, oh, it's an underwater thing. So it wants you to get down to the lower play field and hit the pop bumper a bunch of times. You know, so they are unique. That's an exciting mode for you? That one I was a little confused by, the dive mode. Going down to the lower play field and just watching the single pop bumper? That one I didn't. Well, it was doing something weird. I think it's called learning to dive is that mode. It's probably the one I played. but it was, yeah, I ended up, I don't know. So there's, the multi-balls, easy to understand how to start, easy to understand how to play. We talked about this before. The first ten minutes of the game, what do you show somebody that they can have a great time in that first ten minutes or first five minutes of the game? If somebody walked up to Avatar right now, what I would tell them is, get to the lower play field. You're going to hit the dive shot once. The scoop's going to come up. You're going to get in there. You're going to get to the lower play fields. If you beat the upper lower play field and then you beat the lower lower play field, you're in a multi-ball. So that coached him for that. How do you beat the upper lower play field? The upper lower play field is a single pop bumper with four targets down there. Initially, they had it coded where you hit the flipper button and you're making the pop bumper pop. But apparently it sucked.
    98:16
    It wasn't fun. So now the pop bumper is a normal pop bumper. But what you're doing is you're moving the light around on the targets, and you're trying to hit the light. So if you're saying the ball is kind of at the upper side of the pop bumper, you want to make sure the lit targets are the ones at the upper side of the pop bumper. Once you understand it, it's pretty easy to do, actually. Yeah, it sounds like a blast. I can't wait.
    98:41
    Beating that is not terrible. And then you get to the lower play field. The lower play field has two flippers, and you're bashing the crab or hitting the orbits. The orbit shots are harder, and you have to do that when you get to, like, the second or third multiball. But getting into multiball, like, I do think with that little bit of education or coaching, most people will experience that multiball on their first go. And the ball is smaller, though, right, on the lower play field? Yes, it's three-quarters of an inch compared to an inch.
    99:11
    Don't you have an appointment soon, Joel? No, I've got to end by noon. So what is the, okay, so you get into multiball. Right. So what is the goal of the multiball then? What's the rule set to? As of right now, the other multiball, by the way, you hit stand-ups in the middle. It'll say light lock, and then you lock on the orbits. You do that three times, you're in a multiball. As of right now, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty confident both multiballs are the same or act very similar, which is pretty much every shot is lit for a jackpot. You hit enough of those, it's going to light one area of the play field that's red, which normally ends up being the stand-up targets in the middle or the spider shot on the left. You hit that, and you do that enough that it will light a super jackpot shot, which I think is the RDA ramp, the ramp on the far left. And if you hit that, that's how you complete a phase. And there's three phases to each multi-ball. and if you complete all three phases then you get to victory laps um so it's kind of a hit everything we joked around with the woody hit everything shoot everything that's what he said and there was the navi lady at one point told me shoot everything so yeah those call outs are or something we could talk about that in a few but yeah so you're shooting everything you're shooting everything uh and every time you hit a red shot or a jackpot shot it'll throw out another ball so like an add a ball okay add a ball so it's it was i i have gotten to i think the third phase on one of the multi balls but i know like carl played this at ace gogi and he he blew through it and then was in victor laps and could essentially stay there forever because um every time you hit a jackpot shot it throws in another ball um i i have no doubt that they they will tweak that they to have to tweak that. So outside of that then,
    101:03
    so then how does the Eclipse jackpot work with that Because it seems like the way you describing it and kind of what I generally seen the whole entire meta right now is just getting a multiple ball eclipse jackpot 1 billion points Mic drop.
    101:19
    I'm not trying to sit here and poo-poo the game, but my biggest frustration with the game currently is the complexity of getting into the modes and the light in front of the scoop telling me because I think a mode is lit, I get excited and it's not. That's my biggest complaint. The layout, I actually like. I like the layout. I find the layout fun. Before the layout, the Eclipse Jackpot, how does that work? So the layout, yes. The layout, there are some frustrating shots. To me, the hardest shot in the game is the back right ramp, which is this kind of jump ramp into a spinner. And the spinner, that is the Eclipse Jackpot shot.
    101:57
    How the Eclipse Jackpot works is a certain number of switch hits will start the eclipse. And that's where the black lights come on and it's slowly working its way across the play field. The lighting effect in this mode is actually really, really cool. So it's kind of like upside down in a way, like Stranger Things. In a way, yes. It kind of stands across the play field. And the eclipse is long. When you're in the eclipse, it's long. But every point that you earn while in an eclipse is going into this eclipse jackpot. There's a very unique multiplier situation in Avatar where you collect arrows before you get into a mode or a multiball. You collect arrows by going through the inlanes. There is a perk of unlimited arrows. That's what you want. So the big strat there would be you want to hit the kids' targets, which will give you an inlane perk, and then you can change that with your flippers, and you'll want to roll over the right inlane, which will give you unlimited arrows. If you do that, basically what that means is you're guaranteed 4X, 4X multiplier for that entire mode. Just to be clear, I want to make sure I'm following you here, Joel. Yes. This is new to me, Tom. We're learning rules through Joel. Isn't it great? This is interesting. Unlimited arrows. Unlimited arrows right in lane. So just to be clear, there's a feature in the game with unlimited multipliers. Yep. There's easy multiball to get to, and there's a massive jackpot in the game that's activated via switch hits.
    103:27
    So to start the – yes. So in a perfect world, you would want to get your unlimited arrows. There's max toxin. That's a whole other thing I think that deals with bonus. But you would probably prioritize that. In the process of getting those lit, you would probably be working your way towards getting enough switch hits to start an eclipse. Once you get into an eclipse, though, in a perfect world, you would stack a mode and a multiball. That way you can get double points. You have to start the mode first. But once you're in that multi-ball, everything you're earning, all the points you're earning for both the mode and the multi-ball is just going up into that eclipse jackpot. And it's just building and building and building and building. How many of those eclipse jackpots can you collect in a game? Well, it's just like it's a moment. It's an event when the eclipse is over or once you've collected it, the eclipse is over. And then one time a game then, right? I don't. No, no. You would, as you get enough, like if you build up a whole enough, if you play the game long enough, another eclipse could happen. You could have multiple eclipses in a game. So then the whole entire game is just that then? Why even play the modes?
    104:36
    Because that's where the points are. The points are the modes. But no, the points would all be in the multiball, right? Well, I just know the eclipse I don't think, I know the eclipse goes for a certain number of time, but I don't think if you cash out, though, if you get the eclipse in your pot... Yes, and I know this is probably painful for you and everybody else listening because you will understand it when you play it. But I don't think if you get the Eclipse jackpot, I don't know if it just ends the Eclipse or if there's a chance you can get more than one. But the idea is you want to build. You want to build, build, build, build, build, build, build. It would have to end it. Okay. I think it would have to. I would just think it would have to. Because if not, the whole entire game would just keep hitting it. Yeah, the whole entire game is just multipliers, multiball, Eclipse jackpot. What is cool is let's say you have a mode going, you have that perfect stack, you're blowing up a multiple, and then you look up and you see, I got 2 million points, 200 million points just sitting there, just sitting there. One shot, just sitting there. And then you hear, like, the eclipse is ending, you know, that you're warning and the lights are starting to come back on, so you get that anticipation or anxiety of just sitting there. I could double my score. I could double my score right now, essentially, if I just hit that one shot. And so when you do hit it, it feels great. I actually, my high score, I have like a 700 million point game. I actually hit it, didn't know I hit it. I did not know I hit it because I was flailing away in multi-ball. So the biggest shot moment in the game, you don't realize that you even hit it. Well, there's a lot of sound. There's a lot going on. I didn't notice until I saw all my points were higher. But you can watch back in the stream. I thought I missed it. I remember seeing there was 200 or 300 million points sitting there, and the eclipse ended. And I was like, oh, man, I lost all that. And then I actually looked at my – I didn't know I had hit it. So, okay. So I know, Tom, you're going to have a chance. You're going to stream this this weekend, right, Tom? Because you're going to Lumberjack Johnny's to play, right? It depends. I don't know when it's going to be set up, so I might not have time. Oh, dang. Because I'm leaving for UK. But have you figured all this out, Tom? Like, what's going to be your strategy now that you know?
    106:46
    Like, are you just going to, like, jam out on shop? I'm going to fly like Joel, I mean. Yeah, get all those points. You want to hit the get targets. Collect all those song chords. You want to get unlimited. So let me talk about that real quick. The multiplier, if you don't have unlimited arrows, it's actually really cool. You have a certain number of shots, so every time you flip a flipper, you're shooting a shot. What is cool, though, is if you shoot and you actually hit your shot, you have the ability to pick your arrow back up. So you have to hit the action button to pick up your arrow. If you miss your shot, the arrow is gone. and as once you've depleted your arrows if you start if you're at 4x you'll go down to like 3.75 then you deplete you go down to 3.5 so like it keeps you from just going nuts on the flippers like you you're cautious of how many flippers you have there are there are targets on the play field where you can get arrows back but it's just a unique it's not a timed multiplier it's a like a controlled base multiplier of you just keep building keep building four is the most you can have. Okay. 4X is the most you can have. But if you have unlimited arrows, you don't have to worry about it. You're going to stay in that multiplier for your whole order. There's no reason to do anything else other than, I guess, what did you say? Focus on them? There's no other reason. Hit the kid targets. Once you've done that, it'll light a lane award, and then you can hit that right end lane for unlimited arrows.
    108:05
    I feel like we've been... Let's get the game open, Tom. We got it. I'm not trying to... Honestly, I will say I'm actually having a lot of fun with Avatar. The light show is really good. I don't think it's the, you know, Jersey Jack's been accused before of because every light's on, you have no idea what you're hitting. No, they've actually done a really good job. When you're in a mode, it's going to light red. You just hit the red shots. Like red is what you want to hit. Hit the red shots in a mode. Even when you're in a multi-ball, if you see a red shot, hit the red shot. so I do actually think the shots I mean we talked about how complex the mode starting is but like it is trying to help you out with the rainbow colored inserts on what will give you a useful token or not so I do think the light show is really good when it comes to telling us what to do there is a ton to do that's what they're saying they're trying to make it a very wide game so once I knew like Viper Wolves was a mode I really enjoyed It had these fire inserts. So once I knew that, it's like, oh, I just need to hit Rainforest and the Jake and Neaton Tierry targets, and boom, I got it qualified. I hit the scoop. So it's like once you know the modes you like to play, you can remember that combo, and you can get into it. Right. Then there's the Savaka modes. The Savaka modes are fun, where you realize like, oh, I've hit that shot two times. I only have to hit it one more, and I'd be in a mode, you know? Okay. So I got a good question then. Just, you know, kind of going back into this, Tom, you've had a lot of Jersey Jacks. So you've, I mean, what all Jersey Jacks have you had? I've had Godfather.
    109:43
    That's it. No, just kidding. Godfather, Guns N' Roses, Daldin, Pirates, Wizard of Oz. Have you ever had Hobbit?
    109:56
    No, I never had it. So Hobbit might be the only one. sounds like Toy Story. Did you ever get that? No. Okay, so Toy Story and then Avatar. So knowing that, you're hearing all this, right? Avatar and everything. Like,
    110:13
    what, like, how does this pen appeal to you if at all in terms of like what the layout is, what the rules are, what the theme is, just the whole package. It seems like there's a lot going on and I think I have to sit down and actually play one before I make any rash decisions. All right, let's take a first impression based off you watching Joel play and explain the rules. It seems like it's a brick fest with Joel playing it. No, I'm just kidding.
    110:48
    Jeez. I love it. First impressions, I mean, obviously, fantastic light show. I'm really not into the lower play field stuff but maybe if I play it I'll change my mind seems like there's a lot of shots up in that upper left hand corner and yeah I mean I haven't analyzed the game that much so I'm just more looking forward to like just sitting down and playing it and figuring stuff out for myself. Okay. So then nothing's like just grabbed you immediately though. No, maybe that eclipse spinner shot like that. That seems cool. But yeah, nothing, you know, nothing shot wise is really grabbing me right now. Like I'm not like, I'm not like super enthralled with the layout. So, but again, you know, sometimes it's just, that's first impression, but then you play the game and your impressions change. So I'm just waiting to play it. Right. And I'm kind of, yeah, I'm kind of getting the same vibe too. I think, I mean, looking at the layout, the thing that stands out to me as, you know, cool would be the far left ramp and that kickback that goes back up above it to the mini flipper. I kind of like that. But I think I don't know if I talked to you guys about this or somebody else, but I felt the same way that when I look at this layout, it almost feels like the upper flippers should be reversed.
    112:30
    Like the upper right one should have the mini flipper, but at the same time it's like that buck return to the upper flipper is so fast that it just looks so difficult. And I know because we talked about this a lot, what Travis was referring to is there's a shot that's the scram shot. So it's the scoop ramp, scram, that on the right side, so to get to the lower play field, this scoop will pop up. Well, if that is up, there's actually this very tight inner loop, and it'll go up the backside of the scoop, which is a ramp, and then it goes around this kind of 180 wire form all the way to feed your right flipper. Well, there's a full-size flipper on that right side, and that shot is just very early. It's very early, but I remember Travis thinking, like, that shot isn't going to work or it's impossible. Like, there's no way that's going to work. Well, I think you can still be hit. Yeah, hit. I just think you're going to have, like, a 5% to 10% success rate. What's your success rate on it? At least 90. No. It's good. Like, I felt good. I actually felt good about that. If I hit the tree shot, which is the buck, it'll feed that upright flipper. I don't know. Maybe, like, 40%, 50%. Like, I felt like I could hit it. Really? 50%? It felt good. Honestly, it was because I know it's a tough shot. I was calling you out during the stream. Like, boom, nailed it. And you can hit it. See, now I want to go back and see how many shots he actually hit. I want to know the actual percentage. Oh, yeah, probably 65. No, I don't know. Maybe it's like 25 or 30. But it's enough where I wasn't frustrated by the shot. With that said, though, there are some modes where I would see that that shot, that shot's called Metcaina. that shot is, when I would see that shot was included in a mode, I was like, oof, I might struggle to get through this mode. But why? You're hitting 65%. That's like a high end for 65%. That's a joke. It's probably more like, it's not what you're saying, like 5%. It's way more than that. But it is a tough shot, but it feels good when you hit it. I just look at it, and honestly, I think it looks like one of the toughest shots in modern pinball. When I look at it and I've seen other people play it, I have not seen it hit all that much. There is an upper loop in the upper left side that you hit with the mini flipper. That loop I hit way less than the others. Well, yeah, because there's a mini flipper there. That's what I mean. That's why I was saying I feel like it should be flipped around because the way that that kickback or whatever on the out lane, right, that kicks it back up, it's dependent on game set up that, you know, it could have some rattle away from the mini flipper to where you're just either whiffing or you're just simply not used to the mini flipper right there and you're going to whiff anyways, because the timing is very difficult to do. So, you know, it's just, it's just one of those things that I'm just curious because without something, without like a post stopping the ball before it gets to the mini flipper. So kind of think of like Iron Maiden, right? Has an up post that comes up to where it can give you like a shot on the mini loop with that mini flipper. So That's the only reason why I say, like, it almost feels like those two flippers could have been switched. But, obviously, I'm sure that was probably shot here in the white wood, and they decided that didn't work. So, yeah, I'm curious.
    115:48
    Well, that was a whole – he said he went with different size flippers because Navi, the animals in the Avatar world, they have six arms, and so six flippers, and then there's no symmetry. That was one thing that they were – they kept getting from the licensor. No metal, no straight lines, no symmetry. like so this was they're saying the licensor impacted some of this because it's supposed to look more organic and unique. Are you saying that's why the mini flippers on that side or that's just why they're six flippers? He said that's why they had different flippers was different flippers was because of the no symmetry and yeah. I can see what you're saying of like when you're on the right side the upper right flipper there's really only you can do a big loop or you can do a mini loop that's it. There's like two shots with that big flipper while on the left side there's multiple stand-ups and multiple shots you can hit with that um yeah because i think the sequence that of the kickback to the mini flipper and hitting the ramp i think that is a cool sequence right there that's probably my favorite one in the game the turnback ramp that turnback ramp or the fat ramp is what i kept referring to it as you can actually hit that with three flippers that is a satisfying shot like it's it's nice to hit or it's more consistent reliable shot for multiple flippers but honestly i i would say when i saw the initial layout i was like that layout looks very unique and complex and I'm probably not going to shoot it very well. I actually feel like I can shoot the game better than I expected to. I do like the way it shoots. Somebody did ask me compared to other JGP games, oh, the flippers are just as strong as Elton John. So whatever they did in Elton John, these flippers are just as strong. But, like, what JGP games shoot the best? Just like Elton John and Toy Story shoot better than this. And that's nothing against Mark. It's just those are safer, more, you know, easily accessible layouts. But I do think it shoots well, and I do think the code, like, I would put this in my top four JJP games, where it is right now. Out of 10? Out of 10. Is that what you're saying? Well, what would you rank ahead of it? Me, personally, I think Elton John is probably their number one, and if I had to choose between this and Hobbit, I think they're comparable in, like, the amount of modes and the immersion and everything. I prefer Hobbit. I really like Hobbit. That might be a hot take right there, buddy. I know. And then Toy Story. I still, I really like the way Toy Story shoots. So in my opinion, my personal opinion, I would probably do, those are my top three with this at four.
    118:14
    Tom, I actually respect this. Joel actually had a hot take. He got his ass off the fence and he went for it. I can respect that. People know I like Hobbit. But it's a good game. I think this is a good game. I think if people are in on an avatar, on the fence about avatar, please, if you have a chance to play it, play it. But there's a lot here, and I think if you're going to be a collector, it would be a challenge, in my opinion, to experience all 22 modes. There's going to be a lot there for you to digest over time. I can't talk from a tournament strategy. It sounds like it might kind of be focused on what we're talking about right now. It's not a tournament game. We don't have to talk tournament strategy on it. It's not a tournament game. So my question is, my big question is, because I do like the Avatar theme. Watch the first movie several times, second movie, whatever. But first movie's badass.
    119:08
    Why is there no Tree of Souls, like, sculpt or neck in this game? Like, why does that not exist? Like, they have the stabby guy, right? Stabby guy's there.
    119:20
    But why is there no, like, because that's everything in Avatar, right? At least to me it is. I don't know. Somebody else probably doesn't think so. But the Tree of Souls, that's like Avatar. It's valid. That's their whole culture. That's everything. In the first movie, yes, it is. But I know all the toys in the game are McFarlane toys, I think is the word, or Mc-something toys. So I need to blame McFarlane for creating that. So maybe they don't have a tree that's in that scale. But I know they did talk. There is a bomb.
    119:50
    I don't know if one was designed. But when I mentioned it, I was like, you know, back here, modders are going to go to town making tree mods or whatever that are going to fit in this back area. And their response is like, I hope they do so I can add it to my game. You know, it's kind of like – Yeah. I'm just curious because they got Navi McQueen in the lower play field there, and I just – you know, I really want the Tree of Souls guy to be – Yeah. Or the Tree of – They have everything when it comes to the – but it's – I don't know. I know. I feel like I don't – I mean, let us know what you think. Comment on the YouTube video or write us at tripledrain.gmail.com. I'm not trying to be negative. This goal with the whole episode, even though, you know, we're kind of negative against the X-Men stream, but it's – honestly, this game, I'm actually – I still view this game in a very positive light. I'm just being honest about my mode complexity issues. But with that said, I can still play the game and have a lot of fun. I just know, you know, once I've gone through two, you know, I've gone through both multi balls. I've played some sabaco modes. I got, you know, five letters in my mind. I'm like, well, I want to get into another mode. But then it's like, well, what have I played? What would be the easiest route? What's the easiest way to get into a mode to just keep progressing, progressing? And when I find myself pulling out this cheat sheet to try to comprehend my next step, that's where it's like, this might be a little more complex. You know, when you compare it to other games where it's like, I want to get into a mode. Okay, spell Eddie. Oh, spell Van. Oh, hit ramp, ramp. The mode's lit. You know, it's just, it's a lot easier to know how do I get back in. Yeah, this whole thing, it seems, I mean, it's interesting because, I mean, just offhand, just seeing what the rules are and how much of it there is and seeing what this design is, it doesn't really feel like those two things gel together, in my opinion. But, again, I haven't played it yet, so I don't know for sure. That's just firsthand just kind of trying to process everything. But I don't know. What do you think, Tom? What mode are you going to play first, Tom? Are you going to do like Joel, like just multiple? Whichever one just shows up. You're just going to hit whatever. Well, it's all the instant info. Oh, and the CE, the CE has a ridiculous topper. All that information is on basically all your instant info information is just up there in the CE topper with like a heads-up display. So that was something that we saw when we were playing it at the factory. And you cradle up when you look up? You cradle up and look up? You could look up at the topper and it's just like, oh, okay, this is what's going on with this and that and this. I mean, all the info is just there. Does the topper do anything or is it just like the info? It's a video screen.
    122:26
    It looks like you're flying in there like it's just crazy heads up. It kind of looks like the Mando one, but a lot bigger. It's like Mando. It's like the Mando holographic screen. if you get a warning it goes boom like warning real big on the screen it's actually really cool I don't know if you guys want to know more or have any more questions about my experience you can always email us or write it on Facebook but I am having a lot of fun with this game please go watch the stream you can watch we streamed it the other day on Flippin' Out but I do still think very positively of this game I just don't want to come off as being negative towards it. Sure. You want to be able to go back to J.J.P. again. That's what it is. No, I just, I mean, you ask tough questions, and, yes, the questions you ask are valid. The rules are very complex. I do ask the tough questions. Oh, yeah, we do. I do have a quick question, though, before you have to get off, Joel. Yeah, no, he's like, really? Two hours. Say goodbye to your balls. Yeah. So, okay. Question for you guys that we talked about before the podcast. I'll go through this real quick. This was really interesting to me because I heard George Gomez mention this on a podcast, but then he actually put this up on Facebook also. And it's kind of an interesting discussion that we've had before in the past. And so my question to you guys and the whole basis was, how does a designer choose a theme or like, you know, then like the designer has to be fully invested in the theme or passionate about the theme. I forget the exact wording. But I would ask you guys this.
    124:04
    Like, which would you rather have? Would you rather have a theme that is just a banger for a pinball machine that's just awesome, but it's something the designer doesn't care about, right? Would you rather have that made or a theme that is just not very good for pinball, not interesting, but the designer is super passionate about?
    124:24
    So you would give us the thought here. I would rather have something with worldwide appeal, even if it meant I didn't like the theme.
    124:35
    Yes. So what I've thought about. Because I want to sell units, not. Yeah. Right. But I mean, even then, yeah, as a dealer, yeah, of course. But as a player, right, which would you rather have? Like if you're just going to go play something on location and you get past the whole theme stage and you're just like fun gameplay. Okay. Which would you rather have? What would you prioritize? So the assumption, right, is if a designer is super passionate about the theme, he's going to make a better game. He's going to make a better game if he's super passionate about the theme than if he's just putting in work. That's the assumption. Yeah. I guess we can say that. So the example I try to think of is Ray Day, Raymond Davidson, who listens. Hi, Ray.
    125:19
    He is a huge Banjo-Kazooie fan. Huge. Like almost every shirt he wears is Banjo-Kazooie. If you don't know, it's a rareware game made for the N64. It's actually a fantastic game. I really enjoyed Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. If Ray had the option to make a Banjo-Kazooie game, he would. He would, and he'd love it. With that said, if they approach Ray and they're like, Ray, do you want to make Banjo-Kazooie, or do you want to make, I don't know, Super Mario or Pokemon?
    125:47
    Maybe Ray has never cared for Pokemon, but I personally want Ray making Pokemon. I want Ray to make a Pokemon because that's going to sell so many more. So many people are going to play that game. So many people are going to, like, Pokemon would be so huge for the pinball hobby. And I just have faith that even though Ray was more passionate about Banjo-Kazooie, I think Ray would give it his all and make a really, really good Pokemon. So I think the example you were getting at was Stern passed on Back to the Future because nobody was super pumped about it.
    126:19
    Yeah, I mean, it could have been that. Yeah, there's other reasons for that, but I won't say it publicly. But, you know, what I'm just trying to figure out is, is what would you guys value in that? Because me personally, like I would just rather see the theme that's excellent for pinball, because I truly do believe everybody that creates pinball are professionals and they would still give it a thousand percent. You know, because, I mean, a job's a job at the end of the day. So I was just curious about that. what you guys thought. I agree with that, but I think there is some aspect like, okay, I've got to work on this for 12 to 16 months and I absolutely hate this theme.
    127:01
    I don't want to go into work and work on this piece of crap. I could see that as a human element. Like, I just have no passion for this, whereas if it's a theme I truly love, you know, I'm going to be more gung-ho about it.
    127:26
    Do you think that just helps out process more then, you think? I think, but then you've got to look at, too, the licensor and think, well, are they going to let me use all those assets that I really want to use and not hamstring me? while I'm trying to make this game. So I think there's some of that too. There's like a lot of, I guess, a lot of variables.
    127:52
    So it's like, it's a tough question, but I think if we're being just like generic about it, I would say I would want a theme that is going to sell and I want a theme that's going to have absolutely the most reach.
    128:10
    Yeah. Even if it's not Rush. I agree I think because I thought about this before and we've had this conversation before even before Gomez mentioned it but yeah I feel exactly the same it's like if I was a designer if there's some ultimate reality that I was I would like I would I told you guys this I would design Adventures of Pluto Nash if I had to if they told me this is the pinball theme this is like what we got to do yeah and I would put everything into it and I just yeah it's just curious because I'm just curious if the pinball industry can handle, like, multiple people passing on themes that would have been just absolute banger themes, you know. Yeah, like, Back to the Future is a hard one to swallow. Like, for somebody like me, I'm like, I love that whole movie series. But there might be more to it, as in, like, hey, we can have Back to the Future, And that's what I was alluding to. There's Michael J. Fox.
    129:15
    There's no way a company would pass on Back to the Future as full assets. There's zero chance of that. You can read between the lines. If there's something else to it, but we don't have X or Y. You can't have a DeLorean in it. You can't have Michael J. Fox. You can do Oberlo. You can't have this. You can't have that. You can do Pokemon, but no Ash Ketchum. I don't want that. You don't have Ash Ketchum. No Pikachu.
    129:45
    You can only, like... You just get the dog Einstein in the film. That's all you get. The Einstein Ellie edition. All right. Well, Joel, I know you've got to get your balls chopped off now, so, you know, we've probably got to speed up to the end here. I appreciate the users, you know, thinking about that. No, they will still be there. They will be intact. They will just not be fully connected. That's how that works.
    130:11
    Won't be fully connected. Gotcha. Yeah. The band's deaf friend or something? I don't know. I'm not. Just be dangling in a sack. That's the next podcast. You'll have a flow chart of your vasectomy. That way we can point all this out. See right here? They went in here and snip, snip. And they went over here and snip, snip. And no more babies. You know what? We should have streamed it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that would have. Joel, why are you getting a vasectomy? Explain to us. Do you have to shave or do they shave for you? I took care of that already. You know, you got to prep. That was the only prep. I hope he's the one doing it. My God. I don't want anybody getting close to my balls with the razor. That is scary. It is scary, even when you're in control, you know. So it's, I don't know. It's going to be, apparently it's a 15 to 30 minute procedure. I'm awake the whole time. So they suggest bringing headphones.
    131:08
    Why? You've been going an hour early because you're awake the whole time. So did you want to listen to that? You want to listen to Snip Snip? You want to listen? Oh, okay. That's why. Do you not have any anesthesia or anything like that? Apparently it's a local numbing. Yeah, it's going to hurt. I'm so curious about this. Are you like on a chair? Episode 56. Are you like on a chair with your legs? 50 states, I'll be happy to give all the listeners all the deets. You know, why not? That's just where we are. You know, honest opinions of pinball, honest opinions of medical procedures. Half of our listener base has already had this done, so they know. Yeah. They know. Me, I haven't had it done. Well, we should put up a poll. We should put up a poll. How many? Joel's going to have a frozen bag of peas on his sack. I'm going to be sitting doing nothing, really. Hopefully I can stand and play some pinball. Why did we not record this podcast afterwards? Yeah, I'm glad.
    132:10
    I'll probably be editing this podcast with a stack of peas on my nuts. So, frozen peas. We're going to see a picture of Joel in two days. He's in the hospital, just like bad procedures. It's going to go great. It's all going to go great. It's going to be so great. You're going to get through it, Joel. we're all here for you buddy yeah I can tell so supportive alright let's plug it up Tom go for it I'm Tom you can find me here on Triple Drain as well as my other channel Fox City Spinball which I'll be streaming expo next month and some Lumberjack Johnnies we're going to be at Lumberjack Johnnies for sure Yes. Are you – so you'll all be there Friday, Saturday at Expo. You're going to be there during the whole – Travis, are you going to Expo?
    133:03
    I have to. Fun house. I'll be there. Okay. And I'll be there all week. I would assume we will record before Expo, kind of do a pre-Expo one like we normally do. Maybe even at Expo. Maybe we should have a live recording there. Yeah. We'll see.
    133:19
    Did you sign up for the Colin thing? I'm only getting there Friday, Saturday. So I'm not going to be there at the Media Mixer. So just Travis and I represent the sign up.
    133:32
    I'll try to show up if I can. Yeah, represent. Okay. What'd you say, Joel? This is where you plug all the things you do. Oh, okay, yeah. And this is for that one commenter that says it's cringe every single time I plug, and I'm a grifter and all that. This is for you especially. I forget the name. But Pinball Company on YouTube. I do tutorials, stuff like that. So you can come check that out. And I'm also an occasional guest on Tom's new podcast every now and again, checking on Fox Cities there. And I am also a co-host of Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. You can find me on YouTube and, I guess, whatever podcast catcher you may have, audio. Joel handles all that. So, yes, that's me.
    134:12
    And I am Joel. I do the Flippin' Out Pinball stream every Wednesday night from 10 to midnight. Check that out on YouTube and then, obviously, here at Triple Drain. And you can see them in the new ad, Vasectomies and You. Yeah. You and your balls. I'll say lots of prayers, but by the time you guys all hear this, it's already going to be done.
    134:33
    So, all right. Like always, and I'm very curious to see where this is going to go, but Tom, you get the last words. Play more pinball.
    134:48
    you