Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, October 17th. This is episode 152. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. We got a few items. Yes, there are items. They exist. But, you know, before we go into said items, we go into said intro. The intro. This is the part where we talk about ourselves and everybody hits the fast forward button. So, unless we stick to pinball and video games in the intro, in which case they listen with I was going to say bated breath, but they can't be talking because we're talking. They listen astutely. You've been playing a new game I've been playing a new game But I can't remember the name of But that's okay Landlords of Legolas What is it called? I haven't installed it yet It's been addictive It's a little Like roguelike Slot machine game That our friend Eric sent me and it's actually kind of addictive. I should have been playing Final Fantasy XIV, but I was playing this instead. You have let your fantasy slide. I know. It's terrible. Well, not because of work. I have actually really let my Final Fantasy playing slide. I've only been playing in the mornings for a little bit. I saw an article talking about the number of players in Final Fantasy XIV now, and that Final Fantasy XIV has made them more money than any other Final Fantasy. Yeah, I did see that, which is, you know, good for them. They made a good game. Yeah. It's enjoyable. They remade a game into a good game. Yes. They definitely took a bad game and fixed it and made it work. And did it better than anyone. Like No Man's Sky. People can talk about how good that is now. It will never recover like Final Fantasy XIV recovered. No. There's no way it'll recover that. No. Not to that level. No. It'll be. Hashtag second fiddle. It's third or fourth fiddle. But it's still pretty impressive. Yeah, no, I'm just getting stuff lined out and ready for Chicago in two weeks. Yeah, about two weeks. Not quite, about a week and a half. Because we're going up on Wednesday. I think that is correct. The 27th is when we'll leave. So I've just been kind of getting stuff lined up. I heard the Stern tour got canceled. Did it? Turned into a virtual tour because they're worried about all these unvaccinated expo attendees giving everyone COVID. And they are far enough behind on production right now. As it is. They can't run that risk. Of course, I wasn't signed up for that. I wasn't either. Technically, I'm not signed up for anything because I went to pre-purchase my tickets one day, but I was doing it while I was at work and I got sidetracked doing something else. You're the only one who even asked me about what options we were protecting. And that was the day I was going to do it, and then I got sidetracked, and I never went back to it, so I'm going to have to buy tickets at the door. The door. I'm a plebe. I'm a filthy plebe. A filthy, filthy plebe. But that's okay. You played in the Pizza West tournament yesterday. I played in the Pizza West tournament. Well, played is a really strong word. I was present. I'm going to go with I was present for the Pizza West tournament because I was very badly beaten yesterday. It had been my hopes that everyone was going to be gone to District 82 where they've been doing a whole bunch of tournaments this weekend. Now, Kerry Wing is out there playing, and Adam McKinney and Sunshine, they're all out there. I'm like, okay, but everyone else was still here. Yeah, no, there were like 20 players. Yeah, I think 22 was our count, which was pretty high for Pizza West since post-pandemic. Yeah. No, it was a good time. So it was a three strike instead of a four because of the volume, which was smart. Yeah. Yeah, I think I tied at seventh is when I was eliminated. I got last. I was tied for last. It was three and out. It was rough. But I had fun, so that's okay. Yeah. And maybe, I mean, rumor mill is next month could be maybe two different game change-outs there. For the listeners that don't know, we've actually, for the last three of these, we've had the exact same lineup, which, historically speaking, was very unusual to not have a turn of games, at least one. So that'll be interesting. Now, also, though, afterwards, you got to play Godzilla. I did. The pro model. I got to play Godzilla Pro, and it's very enjoyable. I would say of all of the new games that I didn't get a chance to play due to the pandemic and everything up until just recently, it's the best. I enjoyed it the most. I went after it and played a game on it and then did a split flipper on two games on it. And yeah, shoots great, like we would expect from Elwynn. I got into one in the split flipper. We were able to activate the main multiball and get the Blue Oyster Cult Godzilla song going. and we were ready to unleash Mechagodzilla and lost our last ball at that point. I don't think the city rules are really integrated yet. We were able to choose a city and go to New York because New York needed a Godzilla lesson. Yeah, and the screen integration was a lot of fun with all the old-style Toho clips and everything. So, yeah, no, it's too bad the prices went up so high. Yeah, I mean, that's the heartbreaking thing is it's just so expensive. But it was nice to know that, you know, that the Pro model is a fun model. Oh, it is. It's very much so. I figured as much, but that Newton ball magnet thing gets a lot of use. It does. Yeah, that was good. That was pretty cool. I think my understanding is it must get used more on the pro even because on the premium and LEs, you go up into the building to bring it down. And that magnet got used a lot for the like horseshoe shots and stuff that this one has to rely on. Right. So that's pretty interesting too. Well, that part transitions into my intro. So besides that and the tournament, because my birthday was last weekend, I did get a few more video games. So I actually have been – I've played four new games since our last episode. One I started was like a Games with Gold, so I've had it for a while, called Arrow, which is like a rail shooter rhythm game that uses electronic tracks. So it's gotten pretty hard. I don't know when I'll go back to it. But I think I'm halfway through it or maybe a little over halfway through it. And then I got about a half dozen games for my birthday, and I've started three of them. So I started a game called Observer. I added that to my list because the main character is voiced by Rutger Hauer. The game setting is you're basically a detective in the future. Think Blade Runner. Okay. Except I'm not clear that there are going to be any replicants. Rutger Hauer is the detective. Unfortunately, I think it's like a, here, do one take. He's mumbling his lines. It's hard to hear him. I don't know if he was really sick before he passed away or not, but it's giving me – it's reminding me of like Marlon Brando lines at the end and how he just didn't try or how Orson Welles was. Anyway, so I started that. I got a game called Aliens Fireteam Elite. I think this is actually designed to be a co-op game where you basically just fight, do objectives and not really telling the story. You're just going and doing stuff. I've played a level of that. It actually got pretty hard. I played with just some bots because I don't know how popular that game is. I hadn't heard of it, but I saw Aliens, and I thought, whoosh, that's my Alien sound. So I thought, I better get it. And then a game you know quite well, Hades. Yes. And that's the one I've been putting the most time in. It's because it's the most fun. Because, yeah, I would say it is the best roguelike. I'm not a huge roguelike fan. It's the best one I have played since Binding of Isaac And I would actually say this is better than Binding of Isaac Yes, I would agree with you I think they have better designed The incentives to keep trying And making it feel like You're making progress Incrementally improving your character And then the voicing And the story stuff that they've got Is pretty deep, I'm surprised I'm not hearing a bunch of repeat stuff Anyway, so that's what I've been doing That game Luck be a landlord Oh What a clever little song tie in It's luck be a landlord It's been fun I've spent a lot Of time on it Well we're going to spend Maybe not a lot of time but we got some time To spend on pinball So I have Three main areas to focus on The first one is Stern Pinball just recently announced that they have hired a new president. And that is someone named Seth Davis. I do have a link in the show notes to the Stern Pinball News announcement. So my understanding is the way this has been working is Stern hasn't had an independent president. This isn't a board president. This is an executive position. So what's happened is Gary Stern, he's still the chairman of the board of directors and he's also still the ceo of the company however seth is now assuming some of his duties and will be titled president and seth will report to gary i wasn't familiar with this for because in my non-profit world presidents are is a board position so i had to do some research because i don't really know corporate structures apparently president being second in command in the staff hierarchy is a common corporate strategy but smaller companies often have that duty rolled in with CEO, which clearly was what Stern was doing. Correct. But now has carved it out. So what's been catching a lot of people's eyes is, because Seth isn't very old. Seth's my age. He's 43. He spent 13 years at Disney, and he was on the executive team responsible for the subscription-based streaming services, Disney Plus and ESPN Plus. So my question to you would be, what are your thoughts on what this means for Stern Pinball? Because I'll tell you what a lot of the community thinks, and that is that maybe we'll get lucky, and this just means DLC, but maybe we won't get lucky, and we're going to see Rothrill's Big Buck Hunter $40 a month subscription stuff. Well, that's my fear. Or maybe it's somewhere in between. I think if you bring in somebody who spent that many years working on one style of project, it's because you want the experience with that style of system, in my opinion. So I think it's something to be afraid of. Because I know when I went and played Godzilla, all the Kinect stuff was all over it, and I didn't sign up. I'm not a stern insider. Yeah, or stern pinball insider. Yeah, Sir Pinball Insider Connected, I think is the full name of it. And I am signed up, but because I went in and I was like, I didn't have it loaded on my phone ahead of time. And I was like, I started to go to the site and it was just like, no. It's taking too long. I'm afraid someone else is going to go up to the game and put money in. And I'm sitting there not starting it. So if anyone was waiting behind me, I wasn't sure because it's nubs, it's crowded, that I was going to look like I was being an a-hole, not starting my game, but sitting there playing with my phone. Had I thought about it, I would have had the QR code loaded as a photo or something on my phone and ready to go. I should sign up. It would make sense with how much it's going to be spread around. And as it becomes the future, and that's what they concentrate on. I have my special icon and my stern me bow that I have to create. I'll have to buy cosmetics for, in addition to the free cosmetics, that'll come with my $14.99 a month subscription fee to be part of the Stern Insider thing. Well, it's free for now. For now. At least. Until they get everything, until they get the, they're really. It's charging to be able to, for the players, I personally think would be a tremendous mistake. I think you'll just see a huge fall off in use because to a lot of people, who cares? Because you'll always need the option if you're going to operate to allow people to play without signing in. Right. So where I think they may try and make their money would be on the operators. But they have to make it a big enough incentive that the operators think it's worth the money. And currently, it's not there yet. So maybe in the future. Well, then maybe if they make it So if you're the special Stern insider, you can scan your QR code and you can just key up games and play. And then they'll reimburse the operators at a later date for the play time. And it just goes on to your Stern account. Well, but some of the stuff that people have been wondering about, and maybe with Seth coming on board, is, are they going to maybe one of the things some people have asked about is different ways, like being able to start particular modes as a game and say, hey, that's going to be like an added rule thing and it's going to be DLC and you're going to pay for it. Maybe you want to do it. Maybe you want to put it on your home game or if the operator for some reason wants to put it on the operator game. So there's some of that stuff and I don't know. Again, I point to Raw Thrills because I know that they do this for Big Buck Hunter. I mean, there's a whole thing, though, because the tournament system is all integrated. It's like three. If you want to play in a Big Buck Hunter and have your score count to the tournament, you like drop three dollars on the location. One of those dollars goes back to Raw Thrills. They also have it set up in such a way, I believe, allegedly, allegedly, that they get a share of the coin drop. The company gets a share of the coin drop and the system keeps track of this stuff. and the operators that want to participate in this and this has been a barrier to a lot of people in terms of not getting new big buck hunters for their home is the only way to integrate online is to pay the subscription fee and the subscription fee is 40 per month which is huge now i'm gonna let me go i'm gonna get off on a rant here but i'm gonna rant a little bit because i'm seeing this more and more with with pinball and look i know pinball is expensive compared to a lot of home entertainment options. And lately it's gotten really expensive. To me, and this is my curmudgeonly coming from video game perspective, this idea that you can just like charge hundreds of dollars for shareware level programming is beyond me, completely beyond me. Because here's the thing, here's the fundamental difference. I get the argument, we can't sell to as many people. Okay, fair enough, but here's the thing. The dude sitting at home who makes a phone game has to sell it for $2.99 no matter and has no knowledge if he's going to sell any copies or not. Yeah. Okay. So and the reason I do that comparison is the program like the rules pinball is not we talk about depth in pinball and pinball is deeper than it has ever been before It not video game deep at all And you can tell this modern video game you can tell this by how few people are programming it They're still pretty small teams. Those teams get tons, if those were video game programmers with one to three people working on them, those are the ones that get the focus studies by IGN going, look at how incredible this game with no one working on it is. Cuphead was like that. Look at how amazing Cuphead is. This is a baby team, just an itty-bitty baby team. And they don't know how – it took them years. And it's like they chuck it out there at $60 and they hope for the best. They had no guaranteed money is my point. So to me, the thing is you can do DLC, and I would rather it be DLC than subscription. That's the first thing. Like paying for individual added – like added work for added money. we already had that debate in video games so the dlc won and i'm fine with it winning in pinball because it's optional and obviously a subscription would most likely remain optional too it's just they might do better if they're selling the individual like here you're in your stern connected account and you have your game tied to you and now you can buy these new rules and new deals kind of like what multimorphic does with the you know you can go and you can buy the individual software packages and install them if you've got the proper play field. Now, I mean, the question is, at what price point can you get away with that? We know that the Multimorphic stuff's a few hundred dollars usually, like a couple hundred on up. Maybe that's the sweet spot, but it depends. You know, with Multimorphic, I can go and buy a whole new game using the existing play field. I don't think you can charge $200 to be able to play the mini wizard modes as a separate, you know, as a separate option. Not quite sure that's there. If it was a whole new rule set. But you see, that reminds me of Deep Root. And remember, they had talked about subscription service on their site. And one of the things they talked about even before that was, like with interviews with Steven Bowden, there was the talk about, well, you know, we could release a rule set for Raza and then a whole new rule set for Raza. And I'm like, to me, it was always you could, but how much money can you make investing your programmer and doing all this stuff over and over? Yeah. I mean, I don't, I, it didn't make any sense to me. Like people don't take video games and redo the rule set. Right. How many, and how many people playing pinball are going to want to not ever really quite know what rule set they have when they sit down to a pinball machine. So and that's where like having dramatically different rules I just don't think there's a market for that At that point I think people would be like Yeah but I'd rather have dramatically different rules And a dramatically different layout at the same time And just have you know what we call a new game Yeah what we in the industry call a game Yeah so I don't know Something simple My guess here you know tying it back to Seth Davis is And this is you know my total guess So obviously Gary He's in his 70s He'd already stepped back Some stuff before this So he's going to be continuing to step back My thought is This is to train Seth up to become the CEO So they created the president position I bet once Gary decides He's not going to be And my next guess is Gary will give up CEO next And stay chairman of the board And Seth will become CEO The president position will be eliminated alternatively they could keep the president position and just constantly kind of use that as a sort of a succession planning thing i know some people are upset that gomez george gomez wasn't made president there's no reason to be upset about that because we have no idea if he wanted it yeah so i think some people were just surprised they weren't trying to promote from within and it's like well but who yeah and you have to factor in if they want it or not i know people like I know computer programmers who either tried or know that they don't want to do management they want to stay making code they don't want to be bossing people around George Gomez might like working with the design teams and not want to do all the other sales and you know going out to all these shows and never you know who knows so some people I think immediately jump to that oh going outside and hiring Seth is a slight to everyone at Stern and it's like I don't know enough to be able to claim that Right They could have just simply wanted an administration Specialist which is something They don't really have at Stern So we'll have to see But yeah My main thought is That yeah this is mostly succession planning work It is possible given Seth's background That they're bringing him in because Of the connected And maybe that does mean subscription stuff Like Disney Plus But we will have to wait and see. We'll have to see what happens. Next topic, but still sticking in the realm of Stern, is they've announced a new pinball machine. Yay! This happened this last week. Yeah. So Jurassic Park Pin, because it's one of the pins, which is confusing to say. So for those that are not familiar, the pins are the home version games, or I think on the Stern website it calls them affordable home games. And then you can, like, there's a Star Wars version. Right. There's now this Jurassic Park version. And they've done pins for a while of varying approaches. So if you go way back to, like, the Transformers pin and stuff, they were much more toy-like and smaller. And now the current iteration of the pins are more, they moved it more in the direction of commercial games without going commercial game. so I do have a link in the show notes to the game trailer I do want to note there is also a video for those that are interested I don't have a link to it but there is also a feature video that basically walks through all the rules of the game so just some quick some quick stats or data points on this so the MSRP for the game is $4,599 game features it does have a captive ball that has the main toy is the T-Rex head. The T-Rex head doesn't eat the balls, but it does spit them back out, at least for the multiball. It has a jump ramp. I believe the left ramp actually has a gap, and so the ball can either drop back into the pop section or it can actually jump over. And it does have two spinners on the game, and the art is hand-drawn. As noted as a home version, this does not have coin mechs in it. It's not designed for route. It's designed for home customers. Jack Danger is credited with doing the playfield design. Mechanics are credited to Robert Blakeman. Jerry Thompson did the sound. He does a lot of sound for Stern. And then I hope I say his name right. Jim Weisz and Chang handled software for it. So overall, from what I have read online, the buzz has been very positive towards the layout. like if I were to summarize and people hadn't played it yet but if I were to summarize the general thoughts the general consensus it is this is the best looking pin layout of any of them looking at it I would agree yeah I think I think it looks like it's a fun shooter now as a reminder for people Star Wars the pin the latest one they still make was also really well received for its layout that it's a fun pin I've still not had a chance to play it and they had modified that for you when you look at the star wars pin i feel you can still see spider-man home game dna in it yeah but they moved it from that this feels much fresher than that like this looks like uh essentially a wholly new uh layout and actually again i don't have a link on it but if you're going to youtube you want to search for uh travis murray's a pinball podcast he walks through the the trailer or the feature video one of them and talks about the shots and what he likes and what he doesn't, which some of you, he's a big tournament player, so some of you might be interested in that. My thoughts are, and I actually, I sent a message to Jack and congratulated him because this is his first game and he's really excited, which makes sense. He should be. I think that the T-Rex head is great. Like, that's going to be the attention grabber. And the fact that it does have ball interaction, I mean, that's more than the pro had. The pro's head didn't do anything It was just a static thing Miss, okay yeah it doesn't eat the ball But it spits it back out, that's something The captive ball I mean it's okay They have it right next to the right ramp So the captive ball is more like Oops you bricked your shot Maybe you get to hit that and get a hurry up going I think is what it does It's got some good, in my opinion good Old school solid state style rules to it So in terms of how some of the scoring works like getting temporary multiplier to the play field and things like that. And fan layout, but again, for these home-style pins, I think doing a fan layout makes a lot of sense. You play it safe. Fan layouts almost always shoot well. And again, we need to remember that this pin, being a the pin, is targeting a different group than what we would be classified as. Like right collectors pinball collectors don't normally look at pins. There are exceptions, but they don't normally look at the pin line because it's home grade. It's the playfield and cabinet or MDF that bothers some people. You know, size wise, it's essentially the dimension playfield dimensions, I believe, are standard to any other playfield Stern would do. But the rules like I don't expect to be other unless there's a bug. I don't expect to be any code updates because you wouldn't expect a home person to do code ups. There's no Stern Insider connected integration to this. And some have said they felt this is deep, maybe for a pin. But the rules are pretty much shoot the like three shots and then you have your, you know, all easy to understand, which, again, makes sense for the target audience. The thing is, I don't know how well home pins sell. like I heard someone say that their understanding of Star Wars the pin sold great which could explain why Stern Greenlit doing a Jurassic Park one and incidentally great theme idea yes for a home audience people that might not normally buy pinballs from like the typical pinball distributors my understanding is the pins do not sell well at all but again their market's different like you could have great home pin sales and they're selling them straight through Stern's website or if they have arrangement with Costco or whatnot. I don't know. I think the biggest issue that I see is – I know this will come as a total shock to you, Tony. It's the price. So, I mean, I'm not aware of there really being discount on this. I think I heard one distributor was selling them at MSRP but covering the shipping to your door. I had heard a report that some distributors Were looking at actually charging More than MSRP on these And I don't know if that's because they expect homeowners Not to know any better That's weird Well if they could take some stock and have it available As something hey we can promise we'll get this to you Before Christmas I don't know I think We're in a world now where it's very difficult to charge More than MSRP when it's not an LE game But I mean Here's my argument and it's been a while since I went around. I know there's high end stuff. There's ranges and stuff. This isn't new to the Jurassic Park pen. I think I said these same things with Star Wars except now the price is a little higher now. I think it's the same price as Star Wars but prices have gone up over time. My issue is when I think about a game room and I think like let's say I just have this big basement and I just want to have a game room and I'm not a pinball person I'm just a game room person and I'm thinking you're you're talking like a multi-arcade cabinet a foosball table air hockey billiards dartboard this is like the most expensive of all of that it is I mean I yeah I know they're like high-end pool tables and stuff but I mean like you can get a full-size pool table for less than this new and everything I think I think I last I checked because I think I checked it because I was like am I right or am I just making crap up because sometimes I just make up stuff because it sounds good. I know for sure you can get foosball less. You can get air hockey less. You can get arcade games, multi or old or new or whatever. Let you say aside like fancy pants, raw thrill stuff. Dart boards, of course, are less TV for the game room and seats less, less, less. It's like so. It's just so expensive that I don't know. I mean, obviously, there are people that are of means, and that's not going to be a big deal. It's just if I were some, I'm trying to put myself in the position of, I don't know if I ever discussed this or not before, but so my pinball room that I have here downstairs, I have seven pinball machines in it. That was not the original plan. When I cleaned out that room and repainted it, my plan was to make it a game room and I was going to have a mix of stuff. So at the time, I owned like three or four pinball machines. But my thought was, well, I could put in a multi-cade. I could have like the virtual pin in there, maybe one or two other pinball machines. I was going to have a TV down there with a couch and an air hockey table. Now, dimensionally, that did not all work out well. And I never got all that in there. And then ultimately, I decided pinball was fun enough to just have it be all pinball. And most of that other stuff is now either sold or in the garage. A poker table, that's also less. You know, one of those where you could flip it over and play cards. That's in the garage now. So my point is that this is just, I mean, and part of it, it's hard for me because I've been in pinball so long. I bought my first new in-box game in 2015. It was $200 more than this to my door. Yeah And again Some of this is just how pricey I mean We already talked about it On the When we talked about Godzilla On the prior episode Just about how much more I mean they raised it Seven hundred dollars And back when I bought My Star Trek I was like In my mind I was like I don't think I'll ever pay Over five thousand dollars For a pinball machine And now it's like If you want something new You will I mean Yeah It's a requirement At this point I have before My TNA was more But that was the only one I ever went that high on. And, and it's like, so I just, I don't know. In fact, on pin side, I saw some of the discussion about this was oriented around the, well, you know, there is almost a $2,000 difference now. That's another thing to remember. I mean, there is a pretty big gap. It was different when like start star Wars, the pen was like a hundred less than this or 200 less, but the pros hadn't gone up $700 yet either. And that, so the, that range was closer to 1,000 to 1,500-ish. And now it's more like 16 to 2,000. And so normally I would say that would be a big help. And I've seen some people on Pinside go, you know, I am really considering this because it's affordable in the sense that it's under five grand. And they think that their family will like the theme. Most don't seem to be buying on that. One of the distributors I talked to told me, at least that they hadn't been yet 24 hours, but the first day they're the pin sales of this Jurassic Park were two. Two units So it not these don have the same hype that Operationally Commercial grade machines get Which again Given who they typically sell to Not a surprise So I mean I don't know Do you have thoughts on how it will sell Or on the pricing The pricing It makes sense With what has happened to the pricing Overall But the fact that it is in the realm of what prose used to be is just painful, especially to people who know what it was. We'll see how it does. With the sheer amount of issue they have getting tables out right now, getting machines out right now, I don't understand The purpose Of putting out this game At this time That is an excellent And that's the other I'm glad you brought it up Because that's the other big thing You want to talk about complaints about Jurassic Park It hasn't been the layout It hasn't been the rules It has been What the heck are you doing Stern I'm still waiting for Mandalorian That's what it's been Why would you do this when you are so far behind. And it's extra, I guess, it's extra salty with this, Tony, because there are people that are, as unfair as it may be, going, what? This is a toy. Why are you not prioritizing the real pins? The real pins. The real pins that you are supposed to be making. Like, you come out with this, and you're already so far behind. and I get it because like I mean I understand that some of their production decisions may be hey we have these parts so we're able to do Deadpools and we're missing this other part so we can't do Mandalorian right now so I guess there's some world where they have the stuff that they can do Jurassic Park pin and not be able to do Godzilla's and Mando's or whatever I don't know it's all weird because they're so far behind and I did hear an interview on final round pinball podcast with Zach Sharp, who does the marketing at Stern. And he sort of acknowledged the, it sounded like the main issue with why do the pins keep coming out? Has in part been different parts come in at different times. We're able to keep building certain machines when we can't build other ones that might be a higher priority. Coupled with what I had, you know, I think a lot of people had suspected was licensure agreements. Like we have timelines on the licensure agreement. So there's still this need to announce and release. so that we can have our production time be what it is. I wonder, with seeing this and the reaction and just how far behind they are, I'd like to know your thoughts. Do you think Stern's strategy is that they think eventually they're just going to catch up to these like thousands and thousands of orders and just keep doing what they're doing? Or have they already taken steps to maybe slow up on license acquisition so that eventually they'll slow on the releases where there's not that pressure in order to make sure they're catching up on everything they've already done and then start to resume like the three-corner stone cycle? I think that's a very real possibility. I also, it crossed my mind while we're sitting here talking about it, I am wondering if the pen isn't, if they weren't able to get more, call it local, locally sourced or easier to locate parts for it. So it's something that can be put together even when they can't get the stuff. So it's something to keep a line going. Right, right. No matter what. I mean, using MDF. Yeah, that might be a good example. I mean, if the mechanics are something that can be sourced without having to have their – it might just be something that can be thrown together. Sure. And maybe the – because I don't – who knows what the – like if the delays are on getting plywood, maybe there's plenty of MDF because it's used for less stuff. Sure, possibly. Most of the components are identical To what are used on the main games Like pop bumpers and stuff But you would think that line would be That component line Since it's so standardized Like they've got bags of them everywhere Right And that might not be the shortage The shortage could be the particular toys And maybe they're using a different toy builder To make the T-Rex head here Versus the toy builder who makes the Static not moving baby Yoda I don't know yeah that's just but regardless people are pissed just like they were pissed when Godzilla got announced if they were waiting for something else right but Godzilla makes to me more sense because it's a full-up machine right right now I I would be less pissed about this about uh this game because I don't think I regardless of what I've heard I don't think it sells that many compared to what they've been selling on the operator grade side. Just because most collectors, if it doesn't have a coin door with coin mechs, it's not a real pinball. And I just think it's a weird. Well, I mean, it's like the, well, because it's, again, I just think that's the roots of the game. The game was meant to be operated. It's been a criticism of other, well, it doesn't even have a real coin door. I mean, that's just a criticism people have. And I almost think it's a somewhat arbitrary threshold. Some of them could be the sizing The OCD types You know, Zach Minney, for example He's really obsessive, in my view, about Winning games Like, I think he organizes his rooms So that all the lineups are such so that the games Are all the same level and match So, this is a weird shape Well, not a weird shape It's different size In fact, one of the TPN members That I know Has ordered this Jurassic Park pin Has also been trying to source a cabinet because they want to swap it and put it in a full-size cabinet. And I don't think it's OCD in their case. I think it's a just-because project. I want to see if they can do it. Because the playfield is regular full-size stern playfield. Yeah. Interesting. But congratulations to Jack. I hope there'll be some at Expo so I can get a chance to play it. Yeah, no, that's hopeful. Because it'll never be routed. So my only real hope to play it is at a show. But I mean. You're not buying one? You know, unlike a lot of collectors, I could see myself getting a pin style pin, but not at $4,600. Right. See, and to me, that's it. I almost wonder if it's not. Partially them trying to get something back in at that old pro price point. And that could part of their logic could be, hey, this will this will resonate with the Dennis's of the world that remember that, you know, have the member berries of Pepperidge farm style. And remember five years ago, six years ago, getting games pros at this price could work, but you know, there are other things like, I don't know how easy is it to service. I know some of the stuff is top mounted because MDF has issues with taking and putting screws back in and out. You know, I, I mean, it uses spike and I'm sure it's, it is serviceable, which is something that the old pins had an issue with, but I, You know, it's like I just at that. Here's the other thing. The thing that people, cheapos like me always remember is my money isn't just for the new market. I can look at the used market. And even though prices have gotten way high on the used market, there's a lot of pinball I can get for under $4,600. Yeah. A lot of pinball. And maybe the rules are basically the same depth as Jurassic Park pin. but it's full grade commercial, real pinball, historic legacy stuff, well-known, easy-to-service style thing. So, I mean, we're talking like most of the Data East stuff is all available at that price point from the 90s. I think you could get a lot of the B tier and below Williams games at or below that price. It's just, you know, that's the competition for it. again, for a home buyer who doesn't want to worry about old electronics and all of that or know about that, this makes more sense than someone like me who would be like, you know what? For $4,600, I would absolutely consider a pinball machine. But there's more than just Star Wars and Jurassic Park that's at that point at this stage that I could. I mean, heck, I just got an email from Pinside, an automated email on Friday. Someone was selling a Lethal Weapon 3 for $2,600. Everybody dance now? Yeah I'm just saying There's a lot when you're willing to consider use And most collectors will So yeah, I don't know Last pinball topic I have, just a quick one Jersey Jack pinball We talked about It was the last episode we talked about that They had achievements released Via the Scorebit platform which they have Integrated into their games at this point For Wonka And I was all like, why didn't they do GNR? Well, here are the achievements of GNR. So I guess. There you go. I guess. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a fan. They're like, oh, man, he's so smart. Why didn't we do that? No, they're all like, oh, Dennis wants it. Let us give him what he wants. I don't know if that's going to change my opinion of GNR, but I think it's smart that they got achievements added to that game as well. So kudos to Jersey Jack. Now, Tony, we can go into video games. Are we going to open with something happy? Like optimistic? Is there happy and optimistic? I don't think I have anything like that. I literally didn't put anything happy or optimistic in this. No. It's sad to say that this is almost what I expect out of you now. It's like this cynicism dripping list of video games. It's kind of where I am right now. Of sorrows. I see things that spark joy And I'm just like No You know like that person I was like Does this bring you Do you pick up an object And you're like Does this bring me joy Yes Trash Exactly That's where I'm sitting right now We're open with what's probably The biggest thing That's happened in the last two weeks In my personal opinion The Twitch hack Oh Now this is actually This is kind of good Because it's been very informative It's been very informative It's been interesting. Yes, interesting. It's bad for Twitch. Oh, it's terrible. I didn't enjoy having to change my password. And now they claim that you didn't have to because the passwords weren't compromised. Though apparently the seeding for the two-factor was in it. But this was a major hack. They released 125 gig worth of data. Did you download all of it? No. I didn't even get a chance to download the parts that I probably should have when it first came out just so that I could have talked about all of it. But it included source code for all versions of the Twitch. I mean, for the Xboxes, for the consoles, for mobile, on the computer, with the comments in the code. They really, everything. It included streamer payouts since 2019. and let me tell you it's getting hard to find that stuff they're smacking that stuff down fast that was the one part I looked into because that was the interesting part yeah they've had information in there on Amazon's competitor for Steam that has not been released yet all of their internal security tools were in there a lot of their internal services were in there it's pretty impressive. I think the big thing for most people is going to be the streamer payouts. Oh, yeah. From an entrance level. Number one. Your favorite. Well, yeah. It's someone I watch. It's one of my comments. It's Critical Role. They made $9.6 million between August of 19 and October of 21. And that's... Remember, that doesn't include biddies. That doesn't include donations. That doesn't include merch. That doesn't include Patreons or anything else. It might include bits, actually. I thought they said it did. I'd have to go back and check and see what the columns and the data were. Because I thought it was just subscription payouts. But it could include bits. I'm not positive. Actually, I looked at something. I think I looked at something on Critical Role, and not all of their columns had numbers. so maybe in their case it wasn't there. And it's possible. Because almost all of theirs were subs. Yes. Because they didn't have very much on ad revenue, if I remember. They don't run ads. Oh, well, that would explain why I didn't see anything. Yeah. I don't actually watch Critical Role on Twitch. I watch it on YouTube. And that should be a thing that shows just how big Critical Role is. The fact that they simultaneously stream on Twitch and YouTube when they put out a new show live, it is available on both. Oh, they have permission to do that. That's how big they are. Their only rule is all of the YouTube stream doesn't have chat or comments when it's being shown live. which is fine because I don't want to watch chat. That's why when I actually watch it live, I watch it on YouTube because I hate Twitch chat. So, and then number two, XQC is number two. I guess, well, you know, I've seen some of this in pinball too, so I shouldn't be surprised at just how far toxicity can get you. Apparently, 8.4 million. And just to roll it round out the top three, Summit was number three at 5.8 million. So there was quite a drop off there. Some of the other interesting things I saw was considering all of the complaints and stuff that has been online over the years about, let's call them, what is a nice word to use for our current thing? Uh, uh, skin showing streamers, uh, of the female variety, the ones who are playing the, the, the, the Maxim and FHM, uh, Laddie mag style stuff. Uh, they weren't in the tops. I think you had to go down into like the 20s or 30s to find There's no money in flesh anymore But It's I think it's painful for Twitch to have this information out Why? More because so much of their internals are out From the people I've seen And the reports coming from the comments and the source code there's been a lot of stuff learned about not just this but other hacks that have been that have been learned from comments about stuff in the source codes okay so you meant broadly I thought maybe you were meaning that you thought that the financial I work for a government The financials being known doesn And that where it's interesting to me. If I think... I don't think there's going to be any real big change-ups. There might be some people that will look at some of the... I'm sure there are a lot of naive Twitch watchers that had no idea that it was this volume of... But for example, I could see some people going, I'm not going to give my Twitch Prime to Critical Role anymore. They don't need it. Let me give it to someone else who's not making over a million dollars a year. Right, which is what I do. I could see that. I could see some people going, I had no idea that XQC was pulling millions of dollars a year. Maybe I'll support a different streamer of mine instead because they're not making nearly as much money. Yeah, because I've always used my Prime sub to support smaller streamers that I watch because I watch a lot of niche streamers. Now, to be fair, it turns out one of the streamers that I watch that I have supported, I mean, I never thought he was a niche streamer. He had way too many subscribers for that, but he's still like 25 or 26, Admiral Barhu. And I've thrown Twitch to him when I was watching his satisfactory streams like daily for a while when he was doing them. So I'd thrown my primed hand at that time because I kind of move it around. But no, I don't think there'll be any major repercussions from that. Yeah, unless some big – and I haven't read anyone that's noted this, so I don't think it's been an issue. But it'd be like unless there was some big streamer that was like feigning they weren't getting a lot of money in than they were. Yeah, I've not heard of anybody like that. Most just don't talk about it. Yeah. But, you know, again, coming from, I'd been governmental for like 16 years, and we were just, it was a standard. You knew how much everyone made. Yeah, it's just known. It's just, it's out there. It's, so to me, it's nothing. That doesn't. How many millions does pinball make, Tony? Not a lot. Not a lot. Not a lot. Yeah, I saw, I've seen a lot of the bigger pinball streamers. Most of the pinball streamers make under $500 a month. Yeah. Even the largest, other than Deadflip. And I will say that was pulling less than I thought it was. Yeah. I just, because I know a lot of pinball people have sort of rallied behind Deadflip as the first and just give them a lot of subs. but I could see why it would be interesting to, or maybe thinking about doing a let's design pinball machines. You'd make more money. Yeah. And I mean, that's the thing is some of these, I mean, some of these people like just insane amounts of money, but then also some of them, when you, uh, like I saw a thing talking about critical role, they made, you know, $9.6 million. but when you factor in the size of their company, where they're based, their level of production and everything they do, Twitch basically pays for their rent and their salaries for their employees. It has been what a lot of the estimates have been because they use full-up, high-grade, movie-quality equipment with cameramen and sound crews, and they've got a staff of like 50, and you know none of them are making below union scale for their positions. So that alone, over three years, would eat most of that money, combined with renting a large space in L.A. because that's where they're based out of. So it's just interesting because not everybody's just, you know, making games in mommy and daddy's basement or making streaming from mommy and daddy's basement. Yeah. So. Yeah, I probably would have been able to make more if I had used mirrorless cameras. Yeah. Well, yeah, because then the vampires would appear and you wouldn't just look like you were talking to yourself all the time. But, no, going on from the Twitch hat, what I think is a fairly interesting thing is EA might be rebranding FIFA. I saw a headline about this, but I didn't read the article. Oh, what it amounts to is their current deal with FIFA runs, They run four years, basically a World Cup round. Right, okay. Makes sense. And they've been negotiating for the last two years with FIFA for the next round, and FIFA wants to more than double their licensure fee, which will move the cost of using the FIFA naming rights to a billion dollars every four years. And they're also wanting to put a bunch of restrictions on what EA can do, like to monetize the game outside of just general game sales because of the naming. Oh. Hmm. And it gets more interesting because if EA dumps the FIFA name, they still get to use the players and everything because that's a separate licensing deal that has been signed with the union. Oh, you know, especially with that, I definitely could see EA entertaining it. Yeah. A billion is an awful lot of money for a name. Yeah. I know they make a ton of bank on FIFA. Right. But I didn't write the number down. I should have, but I want to say the current licensure is like just under $500 million for every four years. Here's the thing I would run through my head is, let's say you were FIFA and I was EA, and now you're thinking, maybe EA isn't going to pay up. Who are you going to find that would give you a billion? Anyone? Right. Because almost everyone else might have to design the whole game from scratch. Right. Well, and depending upon how EA's deal with the players union is, even if FIFA found somebody else to do it, those people might not be able to use actual players, likenesses and names. Because that's a totally separate signed deal with a separate group. That is interesting. Yeah. Because at first I thought a billion dollars for likenesses and names and all that stuff and everything. It's like, okay, I can see that with them. But knowing that those are two separate deals with two separate groups, I don't see why EA wouldn't want to just walk away from it. A billion. A billion. A billion dollars for four years. Four years. I mean, I, wow. Wow, I mean, yeah. I'm not normally someone to side with EA, but I don't think you should pay them a billion dollars. This is ridiculous. Yeah. Absolutely ridiculous. Especially with them trying to put other restrictions onto the stuff on top of it. So we'll see how that turns out. I'm kind of interested. I'm really interested in this. It's always interesting to see a good sports game shake up. It's been a while since we've seen a good sports game bloodletting, where different companies are going to have different control over who can say what. And then on top of all that is which ones actually have the better games, which we used to see that sort of conflict. What was it with the basketball games and stuff? Yeah, there were like three or four different basketball games at one point in time. Yeah, it'll be, I mean, I don't care that much for sports games. I used to play some of them, but. Yeah, I don't regularly play any. The one I most commonly play actually is a sport I never watch, and that's tennis. Mario Tennis. It's-a me. It's-a me, a lob. No, you didn't voice him right. It's Chris Pratt now. Oh, that's right. It's Chris Pratt now. Oh, I don't have... Blue. Blue Luigi, don't. Don't bite me with your serve. I trained you. I raised you like I'm your mom. I raised you like I'm your mom. I'm Star-Lord. Oh, Luigi. They call me Star-Lord because I get all the invincibility stars. Oh, man. Now I want to see them redo Passengers, but with Peach and Mario in the places. Okay. And now, to end it on what is yet another sad note. Blizzard! Do it. I didn't include it in the notes but there is Blizzard news the dark side would be complete fine I'll leave it for last I wasn't going to do it I know but there's been stuff there's been stuff alright what's your non-Blizzard stuff oh it's your other favorite Avengers Avengers Avengers Avengers has decided They're in such a good place financially and the game is doing so well that they're going to break their promises to only have cosmetic monetization. And now you can use real money to purchase XP boosts and in-game item boosting. So you know The stuff that they promised When they were released the game The stuff they talked about in 2019 Where they literally said I promise no pay to win Yeah and now Because I remember a few episodes ago Probably more than a few at this point You talked about how they were worried Everyone was leveling too much Yes that was back in March Wow okay I do remember that because you were like Because at the time I was like eh you know It's like if they want to reduce the leveling It's fair, it's across the playfield So other than the people that were already leveled up Who really cares They reduced it back in March And now you can pay five bucks And get that XP level back to where it was Do you think That they think Hey, we pulled it off with Final Fantasy XIV We're square, we can save this And they're just like trying really hard But it's not the same team So they don't know what they're doing you know it's entirely possible or it could just be that they're just grasping at straws at this point because the game doesn't have the thorough print they thought it would have it doesn't have the player base they thought it would have it's just what can they do to maintain the viability of the game at this point and I guess pay to win they think will do it or at least maybe they'll get some whales to help fund the expenses that the game has incurred I don't know Okay, well, that's strange. All right. So back to Blizzard. Blizzard. I was just going to leave it alone. No, you weren't. I was going to have an episode. It's not even in the notes, man. I know it's not, but I could see it in the invisible ink. All right. So here we are. The state of California complained that EEOC's settlement hurt their case and set a bad precedent. Right. And then the EEOC came back and was like, well, you guys have a conflict of interest. And the conflict of interest is that the lawyers leading the California suit had been originally working for the EEOC on the Blizzard investigation that led to the settlement that the EEOC just did with Blizzard. And then they left and went to California And filed this suit Which is going to just Really Make things interesting once it gets To court in California Things have been All along this I think looking really bad For Blizzard but now I saw about this and I was like Oh this one I mean Maybe Blizzard has a point that California is going more aggro than they should have because there's this agenda tied to the attorneys. That is one of the claims that Blizzard has put out. EEOC seems to be supporting that. I did think it was really weird for California to basically be telling the feds, hey, don't settle on this other topic because we think it's hurting us. And it's like, and again, I'm not an attorney. On the surface, I was confused. I'm like, why would the settlement hurt you? I guess because they wanted more stuff to come out in the court in discovery or something. But the settlement in and of itself is an admission that things needed to be approved. So I would have thought, if anything, it'd be like, look, they settled the EOC jury. Look, they know they've done wrong. They've done wrong. but yeah no it is it's going to be interesting oh yeah i mean things it's very obvious blizzard has done wrong oh yeah now it's starting to like is did is california going harder than they need yeah did they have are they have they for reasons related to either whatever was going on with those attorneys and like it could be i say it went a couple ways one is do these attorneys know something because of what they used to do and they're now trying to pursue it through California now that they work for California instead of letting the feds handle it. Right. The other thing is during the course of their investigation with Blizzard do they just like have a grudge against Blizzard because of how Blizzard behaved with them when they were over with the feds and so now they're like we're going to take our pound of flesh. Which it very well could be because humans are humans. It's so exciting. It's so exciting. try to have one episode without Square. Yeah. Or Square, without Blue. Yeah. But no. Maybe next episode. Because next episode's due out at Expo. At Expo. Expo. Expo. TX. TX. So, next episode might be a little late. Might be. We'll have to see. I'll bring my recorder in case we feel like trying to do that. Because I know we talked about doing some like little record sessions and stitching stuff together. Yeah, we might try after that. I mean, it just depends. We've always talked a good game internally about that at Texas, and every single time it's always like, I'm too tired. I've had too much to drink. Yeah. We're driving back, and there are people listlessly walking in the middle of the highway that I almost hit, and I can't bear to think about hooking up a recorder now because I've gone the backwards ways through Oklahoma instead of the interstate because Google Maps decided, hey, he wants to avoid a toll road. No, I didn't want to avoid a tall road. I want to avoid drunk people who stand in the middle of a highway. I want the fast, easy route. And then everyone in Oklahoma has never seen LED lights, so they're flashing at me. So let's pull over and see if there's something wrong with it. And while I'm doing that, the pickup truck near the passenger side can offer Tony drugs. Hey, man, you need some blow? No, I'm good. I'm real good right now. But anyway so we will be back in Two weeks possibly Not right on the Sunday We'll see but until then I'm Dennis I'm Tony Goodbye everybody see ya