All right, welcome back everybody to another episode of A Pinball Podcast. I appreciate you guys being here today. Hopefully you've had a wonderful week so far and let's just get right to it. So what I'm going to be talking about today or the value that I want to bring to you guys today, we're going to be discussing Avengers Infinity Quest, my impressions of it, what I think of it, and then we'll also slightly address a little bit more marketing, but not too much because I just want to be done with it. But it's just something I got to address at the top of this podcast because I got a couple of messages about it. Like, you know, hey, Canada was talking about this and he was wanting he was kind of characterizing it this way. Take a listen to it. So I listened to it. And honestly, it was kind of characterizing what I was saying wrong. And I did talk to Chris about it, you know, and everything. And I appreciate him analyzing it. Like, I fully do. I don't mind that at all. At all. But I just want to be clear that for anybody listening, I am of the stance, no doubt at all, that a pinball stream is by far the worst way to present a product, to do a reveal. That's by far. All right? And there's lots of reasons for that. And I don't want to get down in the weeds about this. this is just what I think and what I believe based on understanding the data and looking at the data. And so I, you know, the whole reason and the reason for all that is why I think a pre-produced reveal video releasing on YouTube would be the best way to go. And the reason for this is, is for several, just like I've talked about before, that a reveal event is only going to draw, Like if you're doing it live, on a stream, live, it is only going to draw your hardcore people. But a reveal event should be used to make the best broad appeal possible. How do you do that? You produce something in which it can stay on YouTube in perpetuity, where it can be discovered after the fact. If you look at any major reveal that's happened, you can look at anybody's YouTube channel, like even big products, Apple, Tesla, all that. Their reveals are always at the top of their page. It's always the most popular videos. And it's not because all of a sudden, like for instance, there was like a Apple iPod or something like that that has 25 million views, right? It's a little commercial, like a little blurb reveal. that's not because 25 30 million people tuned in at one time it's because it stays on the platform and it's discoverable that's what i'm getting at and that's why i don't think people are understanding at all and i i get it i understand why people don't understand it the only reason why that i'm talking about this is because i have experience in it i've had to actually do it i own several businesses i'm invested in several different products i've had to bring products to market. I've helped other people bring products to market. That's my background. I mean, that's what I understand. And I've had to read this data over a long period of time. And I've had to interpret this data in order to make correct decisions. And in order to do that, I have to understand what I'm reading. And I have to understand how I can apply that to refine my process over time to get it right. Because there's a lot of times I get it wrong. So anything that I'm talking about, it comes from experience. And the fact is, you know, when we talk about people that are consuming content, keep this in mind. Yes, somebody has to be interested in your content, but I think it is incredibly incorrect if anybody believes for a second that only people that just are all in on a certain industry or product are the ones tuning in, right? Because the data does not support that at all. Even for pinball, it doesn't support it. Right now, if you're listening to this, I will give you a prime example. So I'm just not talking out of my butt on this. If you're listening to this, or if you're even on YouTube right now, open up another tab or open up your YouTube app. I want you to go to either Deadflip, Straight Down the Middle, or Buffalo Pinball and subscribe to all of them. Like, go ahead. Like, I'll go ahead and advertise that now. but go to their videos, all right? Sort by most popular. What do you see? It's all reveals, all of them. And they all have a lot of views that outpace all their other videos. And the views on there outpace their subscriber base. Why is that? It's because the people that tune in to watch this stuff are curious about the product. They're not all in. They're curious. Something somewhere that they saw, whether it's a press release, which Stern does, you can look up Stern pinball press releases and you'll get over 500,000 hits back on Google, maybe even more than that. It might even be up to 2 million. I forget what it was exactly, but people are interested because they see something else. So they get curious, right? They're curious. They're not somebody that's just immediately like, oh, I got to fill up my whole house with this jack, like this jackass is doing with a microphone that has pinball machines behind them. No, they are just curious. Any hobby that you've ever gotten into, it started out with curiosity. That's what it started out with. Something hit in you to make you curious about that. That's the way human nature works. And then from there, you go from being curious to actually being invested in the hobby, like you're in the hobby now. And then you go from being that lead to that prime prospect to being a consumer. And that's what I'm talking about. And that's why I get on this reveal train. This is why I get on keeping your content as close to the best as possible and getting people to keep consuming within your ecosystem, right? I'm not just talking about this just randomly. Like this works. This works. The data is always there. And somebody eventually is going to figure this out. Like Stern they do a good job overall on certain aspects of their marketing that why there growth If you look back they had growth all right What I getting at is is now it time for the next step Now, because the demographics, right, of your consumer base, that demographic might stay static, it might, but you know what won't stay static? The people that enter that demographic. That right there is dynamic. You know, not all of us are going to be middle-aged forever. Not all of us are going to be 20 years old forever. You have to future-proof your businesses when it comes to getting a footing on YouTube, when it comes to getting a footing on social, when it comes to making sure that people that consume your content three, four years from now are going to stay in your ecosystem. Like, there's a reason why Willy Wonka has 70,000 plus views. There's a reason for that. There's a reason why Jurassic Park, like making of, has hundreds of thousands of views. There's a reason why all these pinball reveals are the highest viewed videos across the board on all these channels. There's a reason why. It's not because all of a sudden just anybody and their mom that are hardcore pinball people are just showing up. No. The hardcore pinball people all show up for the lesser viewed stuff, for the code stuff, for all that. But the people that are curious, they show up after they see a press release. They look it up. They type in, hey, Stern Pinball, and then the name of the machine. Guess what shows up on the second or third search result, like right there in front? Videos. Guess what people want to do to find out about a product? Watch a video. That's how it works. That's how it works. It's rare that we fully get sold on something anymore in 2020 on just text alone. The data does not support that at all, like plain and simple. It just doesn't. So, you know, getting back to this, I still will say explain it like you're five. That's what you need to do to explain it. I mean, I know, Chris, I know you were going back and forth, but keep in mind, bud, another podcast, a couple of podcasts ago, you had mentioned that it was painful to listen to the never-ending communication. You know, you were mentioning it was hard to follow, head was spinning, and that just on some basic level, you wanted it just to be about the Avengers collecting the gems and then just keeping Thanos from snapping his fingers. So you and I, we're saying the same thing. It has to be kept simple to where the consumer or somebody that's curious that finally sees it, can understand it instantly because you only got 15 to 20 seconds to keep somebody engaged. If you, any of us, any of you guys that are still here watching this, think about how often you've got on a YouTube video, a commercial, anything, an article, and it didn't hook you in the first 10 seconds, that's it. You know, I mean, anybody that makes a YouTube video, You guys understand. You look at your analytics. You look at viewer retention rate. There's always a drop-off from that beginning. But if you don't have that hook, that drop-off just keeps going. It does not stabilize. And that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Something always causes people to show up to your content. And then your job from there is keeping your content very precise and on message to keep them engaged. Simple as that. But that being said We're going to move on a little bit more To Avengers So what I can say I did get a chance to see The replay Of Jack's stream that he did on I think it was a premium And honestly I thought he did great on it I do, I thought he did excellent on it He explained at the very beginning Hey here's what's going on We're going to have fun And then he went I mean I thought that was great I wish they would have did that at the initial reveal it would have cleared up a lot from the get-go. But they did it, and it doesn't matter now, because he did great on that. So now, just giving my general impressions of this game. Thinking about it, and I've watched a lot of videos on it overall, a lot. And it pretty much, to be honest with you guys, from what I'm getting out of this, it looks like an incredibly tough shooter. to me. And I know that a lot of people have been talking about, I think even Elwin might have said it himself. Don't quote me on it. I think this is what I heard from somebody else that he was looking at going for something between Iron Maiden and Jurassic Park. And I don't know if he said that on another podcast or what, but that's just what I've heard. And just watching several hours of this, I feel like that it's like, I feel like it's kind of exceeded Jurassic Park in a way. And it's for a lot of reasons. Now, I still think it's going to be a fun pin. Don't get me wrong. I'm not like, oh no, we can never, nobody could play this or anything like that. I just think it's going to play more difficult than anything else. Because even watching Jack during his stream, I believe the rubbers were on. Obviously the tilt was a little bit loose. It was like the end joke that the tilt bob was on. I mean, he was making some essays and some crazy ass moves. But it didn't look like it was easy. And I know a lot of people have seen the Captain Marvel ramp. And there's a lot of half ramps going on. But, you know, judging that overall, what I've noticed about that, and I'm trying to find a way to break this down completely that makes sense. What I've noticed about the Captain Marvel ramp, which is basically on the right side that just goes 90-degree vertical and does its little twist, that pretty much watching all the videos on slow motion when the ball's going there, you have to hit it flush. If the ball rattles off the sides at all, it's not going to make it up there. Now, the one thing that I am concerned about is there's been multiple times I've seen to where the ball's just fell out of the loop. I'm sure you guys have seen that as well. It makes it up and then it just falls back to the play field after it goes through past the plastic part through the loop So I wondering if they going to do something about that to fix that in before they ship all these off Or maybe there's a guard that might help it. I don't know. I need to, like, really be able to see it in person to really make that determination. But that was a little bit of cause for concern because I'm sure out of anything you want to be able to complete that ramp. And we all know that it's very frustrating if you feel like you can't complete a ramp. I think another thing that's going to make that play a little bit difficult as well is that's the skinniest ramp around, right? And you're having to hit that ramp mainly with your non-dominant hand, which is from your left flipper. I assume most people that play pinball are right-hand dominant, as is most of society. So that's something else to consider as well. Other things that are indicating to me that this is going to be a difficult player is the simple fact that in order to start your modes, your gym quest and all that, you have to hit that disc spinner, the Dr. Strange disc. Well, when you're hitting that, it's automatically going to send your ball out of control. Automatically. So that's creating chaos. For me personally, I think that's fun. I think that's a fun thing. Anything that I'm saying about this being difficult, this is not negative talk. I want a difficult pin. You know, I want a difficult pin. This is just my assessment based off watching this pin now for several hours. I haven't been on it yet. I'm getting one. I'll know for sure then. This is just my initial assessment. Obviously, the ball going out of control, you're going to have to figure it out from there. The other thing that's going to make it a little bit more difficult as well is because it's not a fan layout. It has an upper flipper. So you're going to be encouraged a lot of the times to make the ball go horizontal, right? And doing that, if you miss a shot, obviously, again, ball's out of control, but it's out of control horizontal. So there's a lot of other things that could go wrong with that. Another thing I noticed, too, was any time you hit the right orbit, if it went all the way around and you didn't make it up that left ramp, there's a chance that that ball's going to feed back into the flippers. Well, if that ball feeds back into, or not into the flippers, sorry, the ball will feed back into the pops, into the pop bumpers. once it did that a lot of times that ball has a chance to come back straight down the middle or to where you have to make a move to keep it alive i noticed a lot of the players doing that and so if you're playing on a game that's tight tilt and you're having to deal with straight down the middle drains that's another thing to be aware of so you're going to have to really be aware of your nudges coming out of those pops and i don't know if there's an easy way to prevent that i don't know and let's see other things i noticed that are going to be tricky i think going up into the avengers tower is going to be tricky that looks like a fun shot but it looks like a tight shot and then when it does that little tower of terror drop where the ball comes to the flipper the upper flipper and you got to flip it real quick for it might be a hawkeye challenge i forget exactly what it is that right there that looks like a fun shot still looks difficult you got to have your timing down, but that looks like an incredibly fun shot. And then also the left ramp, which is essentially the, it's up the middle, but it's the left ramp. Technically that's the black widow ramp. I saw a lot of half ramps go up there and come back down towards the middle. That's something that's dangerous as well. Again, that's probably relative to what your setup is. If you have steep setups, you might get some half ramps. You might. So just be aware of that. With the grid, the grid looks great. The grid looks fun. But at the same time, you're encouraged to hit that grid, to hit those side targets. Thus, you're encouraged to make the ball go horizontal. And we all know ball goes horizontal. That's a lot more difficult to deal with than vertical. So that's another aspect that I think makes this pin very challenging. And overall, I don't know if I can really comment too much on the inlanes and outlanes. It doesn't look like to me that where the, where I guess the plastic is for the slings, it doesn't look like it's too much above where the left outlane post is. When I'm looking at the photo right now, it might be like a nick above it, but I don't recall. I don't know if Jurassic Park was like that, and I don't think Iron Maiden was like that, I know some games are a little bit more elevated, like Hot Wheels, for instance. That inside area is elevated above the outer post, so it does make it a little bit more difficult to keep the ball alive. But it looks like it's close to being even. So I'm curious to see how that plays out. It would not surprise me one bit if these pins were shipped with the outlanes kind of lowered down a little bit. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I think most games get shipped like that anyways, but I could see this being the type of game where people will want to keep their outlines or their outlines semi-closed is what it appears to me. But overall, though, watching it and figuring out the rule set, I'm super excited. I think it's going to be a fun player for me personally. You know, the rule set is layered, but it's not complicated once you really start breaking it down. And we'll have another podcast that will break down this rule set a little bit easier and to where I'll explain how to start figuring out a rule set and how to really bring it all together. Because I know for some people it could be overwhelming. You know, it's very hard. And what I tell people all the time is when you look at a rule set, just think of it like you're in school, like whether it's high school or college, and you see a textbook, you're not going to know the whole thing from day one. You don't have to know the whole thing. All you've got to do is just learn bits and pieces of it. And honestly, it's not that difficult to do. I think a lot of people just psych themselves out and you could pretty much figure out this whole rule set, especially if you buy the game, like you'll figure it out anyways, just playing it. But even if you don't have the game, you could still figure out a rule set in less than like two or three days easily with minimal amount of time spent on it. There's ways that you could do that. And I will go ahead and give those tips on probably the next podcast or maybe a couple of podcasts from now that we talk about that a little bit more but yeah overall I like that the shots are challenging i like that there is a lot of flow in this i think that the stops are where they need to be you know in terms of the mystery scoop with the i guess that's the pim laboratory uh scoop or whatever they're calling it i like that right there just because of the animate or not the animation but just the pop-up coming onto the wire form and bringing it back down to your right flipper like literally right to your right flipper. I really like that. I like the Thor captive ball. Anytime I can hit a captive ball and make that go, I personally like that type of shot. And that Hulk spinner, oh my God, that right there, I love that. The fact that they have a mini mode in there to where you can just rip the spinner for huge points is excellent. And I like how that's not something that can be spammy. Like it's obviously something that's built in the real set. I believe it's after you get Hulk level one, which is where you have to do so many spins and you eventually get them there. But I like how that's not something that can necessarily be exploited just yet. I'm sure there's a cool stack that you can do with it. And I haven't really dove into the whole meta of everything to see what would stack with what. Now I bet people are going to figure it out pretty quick once this starts coming around. So I'm very excited about that. But overall, I mean, looking at the pen, I feel like it's going to be a winner. And I've talked to several different dealers slash distributors, and this pen is one of their better selling pens in recent memory. Like from what I hear, premiums are flying. Obviously, LEs are all spoken for. I know that there's some pros that showed up, but I think Stern took the strategy to where they weren't putting out many pros for people to buy right now. They just went straight to premiums and LEs. And they're, I mean, from what I understand, they're selling at a very rapid rate. So I'm glad to hear that for Stern. I'm glad to hear that for the industry. And I'm glad to hear that for the people that are either interested in this theme or just interested in the pen in general. I think people are going to get a winner out of this, you know. And I think it's the main part is if you are getting this pen and you get frustrated by it, like, don't freak out. Don't freak out. welcome it as an opportunity to get better. Welcome it as a challenge. I mean, it's no fun to get a pen that you just absolutely just crush from day one, because then you've got to find ways to make it challenging and find different ways. But the great thing about Elwin pens, you can always find a nuance in it to get to where you want to be. You don't have to always play it the same exact way. You can branch off into three or four different paths and get to the spot where you want to be. And that's what is a lot of fun as rule set. So keep that into consideration. If you ever feel overwhelmed or anything like that, pick out spots on this pen to attack, like focus on completing a certain Avenger and get good at that. Focus on starting a certain multiball and then get good with that multiball. You you'll be able to put it all together after that for sure. It just looks like a great player to me. And I really do like how they do the Ironman in lane and out lane. And again, The reason why I like it is because it's more difficult than usual. It's not as simple as just hitting the flippers and moving that insert light or that lit insert around. You have to legitimately hit the Doctor Strange disc in order to move it. I really like that. And a lot of this game centers around that disc, and a lot of it makes it to where you have to really decide risk-reward in this game. And that's what I like to hear out of a pinball machine. I want to be able to make those decisions. I want to have agency to make those decisions in order to blow up the game. And then finally, you know, I like the art personally. I know there's some people that are kind of, eh, on the art, but I like it. I'm not going to judge it too much because, I mean, it's zombie Yeti art. When I look at it, it reminds me of comics. When I look at the font, you could tell it was inspired from comics. You know, I don't know. I'm all in. I really do like how the artwork is. Now, other people have been talking about animations. And to me, it's kind of a weird thing to talk about. I think, of course, I think the animations are on the weaker side. But I think about that, you know, across the board. But for me, I don't play a pinball machine because of great animations. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to fault other people for doing that. I play based on what's under the glass. Like, what am I looking at? I judge it based off shot geometry, code, and how much fun I'm having with that. If I want a backbox or an LCD that has great animations and all that, like if I'm that worried about animations, I'll just simply go downstairs and I'll watch Disney Plus with my children. That's just the way I feel about it. I can understand if somebody is all about that, that's fine, but I don't watch it that often. The only time I look up is to get information on what I need to do next. It never dawns on me. I'm like, oh, that's a cool animation. Oh, that's a cool animation. I honestly have never been anywhere where I'm just in awe of the animations. I mean, I'm not going to fault other people for being like that. That's just not me. I am more into what's underneath the glass and how that's playing. But that's where we're going to wrap it up, guys. Tomorrow's going to be an exciting day. Apparently, Deep Root is really close to showing everything. We keep hearing that Jersey Jack is just right around the corner. Who knows when exactly, but I'm sure it's coming. I bet we'll have some content to talk about, if not tomorrow. Definitely by this weekend. Also, too, I am starting to do a live show on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. U.S. Central Standard Time on my YouTube channel. That's really enjoyable. So if you guys want to drop by for about, I'm going to be on for probably about an hour or so starting next week to really just connect with the community, chit-chat and all that. I enjoy catching up, and we can talk some pinball. But other than that, though, guys, I appreciate you guys listening. I appreciate you guys being here. You guys have an awesome weekend if I don't talk to you before. And that's about it. All right. Later, guys.