Ah! After 10,000 years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth! Alpha, we just escaped. Recruit a team of teenagers with attitudes. Go, go, Power Rangers! Go, go, Power Rangers! Go, go Power Rangers. alert power rangersrito at fast score anxietyuet Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alan, host of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, joined by my normal co-host, Alex, the Waterboy. Hey, you didn't really like throw it to me, you know. I said your name. You just kind of said it. I didn't know where to go with that. It just dropped it on you, dude. Well, we're at the Waterboy's basement studio like we usually are. I'm excited for tonight because we're talking about Alan's favorite innovation in pinball in the last 50 some years. Since the invention of the flipper, he's calling it. I think it's even better than the invention of the flipper, personally. Yeah, if I had to give one up on a game, I know which one I'd take out. And it wouldn't be today's subject. Well, today's subject is Stern Insider Connected. For any of the listeners that don't know what Stern Insider Connected is, in 2021, Stern Pinball announced their newest pinball machine, Godzilla. Maybe you've heard of it. Maybe. Would come with their new Insider Connected platform installed from the factory. And since Godzilla, all models of every single game that they have released has come with their Insider Connected platform. It's a feature that was cooked up and developed by the Chief Creative Officer at Stern, Mr. George Gomez, legend of the pinball industry. The simplest way to kind of describe it is that it connects these machines to the internet, but it actually opens up kind of a wide variety of utility and usage cases for everyone. Stern gets benefits as the manufacturer, me as an operator we get benefits, and then there's obviously benefits to the players themselves, and we're going to discuss all that in depth on this episode. But first, I've got to introduce our guest on the episode. He's a good friend of mine, the king of the L.A. pinball scene. He's wrestled with alligators. He's tussled with a whale. He done handcuffed lightning and thrown thunder in jail. You know he's bad. Just last week, he murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. And he's so mean, he makes medicine sick. He's the one and only, a friend to the entire world and beyond. And importantly for today's show, he's Stern's Insider Connected biggest fan. Tyler Jerome White, a.k.a. Pinball Jesus, a.k.a. the real black Seth Rogen. Welcome to the show, Tyler. How the hell are you? Hold on. I'm making my own cheering. Oh, my God. That's the best. I feel amazing. That was the best intro I ever could have asked for. Well, you deserve it. Thanks for having me, boys. We're happy to have you here. You know, I'm glad Alan cooked up a good one for you. You deserve it. That is straight out of the oven, and I appreciate it. Well, we brought you on the show. you're a longtime friend of mine for any of the listeners that don't know the real black Seth Rogan that's not a joke that's your Instagram handle so look up Tyler follow him follow all of his pinball wheelings and dealings he is a good friend of mine like I said he's a pinball ambassador and one of the nicest people you ever meet and he's also we brought him on we're like we want to have you on the show for a while and one thing I noticed about you and following you is that I see you man you you're an early adopter of certain insider connected and I feel like you're always promoting it and you're making it look fucking cool on your stories. So, which I think is a big thing that this platform really needs is people to like make it look cool. Yeah. I like, what can I say? I like to stay connected. So I guess we should just start off with like a little description of what's insider connected to you. Like if you had to describe it, and I know Tyler has to do this all the time. You're the guy that just grabs people that's around that are not even there for pinball in the slightest. If you're at a bar and you're like, Hey, come play pinball with me. How do you sell people? How do you explain what Insider is and why it's cool? You're totally right, by the way, about me being that guy. I literally just did that with someone at a tournament last week. He wasn't going to play at all, and then he ended up getting third, which was so, so sick. I love that. How I explain Insider connected to people, you know, newbies, anyone, really. It's this platform, right? It's cool. You can scan in. You can log in with your phone, stuff like that. But the easiest way I explain it to people is that it keeps track for you. It keeps a record, right? It is a way for you to keep track of your scores. It's a way for you to keep track of like maybe stats that you don't think about, how many games you've played, where you've played them, as well as like achievements. And we'll get into achievements later and stuff like that. But yeah, it's basically this platform that welcomes players and challenges players and quote unquote, air quotes, connects players. It's connecting us right now. Oh, dude. So connected. We're so connected. Do you feel connected? No, I feel a little bit left out. I feel like you and Tyler are connected because I need to come clean right at the top of this episode. I don't have a Stern Insider connected account. Oh, my God. Dude, I've got the QR code. Dude, you are such a rebel. I'm just so cool, dude. He's a bad boy. This is like the fucking pinball. Oh, my God. This is like, you know, you can take the boy out of Portland. You can't take the Portland out of the boy. Portland's bad boy. I love it. Fucking pinball hipster bullshit. I'm going to ask you guys. Is it really pinball, dude? Like, is it really pinball? isn't it just kind of like scanning your groceries at the grocery store or like are you telling me you actually pay for your groceries you know that's a really good point i mean let me to alan's defense i will say i know a handful of players like talented players killers if you will that don't have an insider connected you know i mean that is that uncommon i wouldn't say that's uncommon no i think there's a lot of people that also start accounts but they don't use it a lot and which is what we're going to get into in this episode if anyone's going to get me like super on board the hype train it's going to be you so that's why i wanted to bring you on the show and talk about it but i also just want to explain to the listener that like we announced at the top godzilla's the first game to have it it's those little it's like a little white square in the bottom right side of the apron near your right flipper button where you go to plunge the ball you're going to see that and their signage on all of them it's like hey sign up for this thing some people even put toppers on the game telling you to sign up for the thing. Yeah. You can log in, you can create an account, and then Stern will give you your own QR code that's unique to you that you can sign into any game that's connected to the internet. They've made retro kits available to buy. It launched in every game since Godzilla, has come with it, already installed. Doesn't mean when you go on location that it's connected to the internet because the operator still has to do that, and some people don't do that. I'm sure that pisses Stern off. I can't imagine it doesn't. It's a domino of piss. It pisses a lot of people off. Yeah, it pisses everybody off. And I understand, like, that sucks, like, to put all this thing into a new product. But they also made retrofit kits available. So you as an operator, or me as an operator, or if you're a home collector and you buy a game and you want it connected, you can buy a kit for a couple hundred bucks. I think they're like 200 apiece, something like that. Yeah. And you can install it on your game, every game since Batman 66. So all of their Spike 2, which I think is what, like 25 plus games, something like that. Something like that. It's a bunch of games. So you can add it to just a bunch of games and it's just. Yeah. Everything with an LCD screen. Yeah. Everything with an LCD screen is the good way to look at it. If it has a TV screen in the back glass, you can add Stern Insider to it. It's got achievements for you, baby. I want to ask you, Tyler, as you're a pinball player, you play every single day, you play in tournaments, you play casually, you're a pinball ambassador. How do you use it? I heard your sales pitch, but like, what makes it cool to you? Like, why do you use it? Why do you go through the, through all the login and all that kind of stuff? I like using it because I myself am competitive. And in that way, I mean, I'm competitive primarily with myself. You know what I mean? Like I'm the nicest guy. Like I'm not here to like shame anyone's score. I'm not here to be like, oh, I got fucking 7 billion on Venom. You know what I mean? But for me personally, I want to do that in my own head against myself. I don't get any enjoyment doing that in front of human beings. I think that's really rude or it can be, you know what I mean? It's like, nothing's wrong with being proud of your score. That's great. Or being proud of yourself. That's dope. But you know, I don't play pinball to derive like my ego, right? Or like my sense of like pride or success. It's just fun. It's a hobby, right? It's a fun thing to do. So why I started using Insider Connected was because of literally initially almost just at a score bit level of being able to track my scores. You mentioned score bit real quick. Explain score bit to the listener that may not have heard of it. So score bit is essentially was made, if I'm not mistaken, independently by pinball players. It's a platform. It's a website. And I think it's an app. But basically, you can submit your score for a machine. You can enter in a photo. You can enter in where it happened, you know, stuff like that. And it's for like archiving scores and for comparing scores. Right. And that can be done on any machine. And that can be done on any machine. That doesn't have to have, you know, that is as simple as taking a photo, which for them is like the legitimacy. But even that is like there's a big variable there. there's a big you know you don't know if that person has like access to taking off the glass and doing whatever they want but if someone's doing that god they need a different hobby i know dude that'd be the lamest there's so much cooler shit you could do like start knitting like literally anything um would be better than like faking pinball scores like that's pretty low yeah you know i mean and what's nice about that or score but is that it breaks the boundary in the sense of manufacturer right so it's like now you can compare your scores with jersey jack games or you can put them on even Gottlieb or weird, you know, companies that don't exist anymore. You could play a game, take a picture of your score, submit it to a community and compare. Yeah. So I want to ask Alex a little bit, cause he's the other Insider Connected guy. Like, what do you use Insider for? Like, what's the draw to you? Kind of the same thing. I like seeing, like Tyler mentioned the stats that you do get to see. I wish there was a way to see more of it, but it's fun just seeing like the number of plays I have. Like I can see, I'm looking at it right now and I can see I've played like Black Knight Sword of Rage pro 104 times and i've played the premium twice shit like that is funny to see to me you're like oh damn like i never play the premium and then also just your historical scorekeeping i'm bad about like i can never remember what i did on a game and then it's so it's kind of nice to actually see like this is my gc on your guys's sort of rage at wedgehead or whatever right occasionally i really really wanted when they announced it i was like a big you know i was in middle school or whatever, when the Xbox 360 came out. So I was obsessed with hunting achievements. Exactly. I was really hoping they would do more with the achievements. In some games, they have a lot of the games. If you just play the game passively, you'll pick up almost all the achievements. But there are some oddball ones that you have to go out of your way to get. And I like that. Like right now I'm looking, I'm like, oh shit, I never have gotten a super jackpot on Triple Knight's Challenge on Black Knight, which it's like, that's something that I will go out of my way to try to do now. So that's kind of the use case for me is it's just like, it's just kind of random little things to shoot for sometimes. I like the historical, like, the stats it keeps. I do wish I could see more of that. It's really weird to me that they don't show, like, it should show my score on Black Knight over time. You know, like, there'd be so many easy ways to show that data that would be interesting that I think they're kind of dropping the ball on. But even the limited bit they do show, like, doing the year-end rewind and stuff, it's fun. So that's kind of why I do it. I compulsively log in, though. I log in every time I play an Insider Connected game. every fucking time i'm not gonna lie i'm a bit the same way now in the sense that you got on your apple watch or what do you have so that was like i'm not gonna take credit for starting that trend because i've 1000 saw someone else do it however a couple years ago that was like my favorite way of logging in primarily because i love the power rangers growing up so like any way to even you know resemble that was my idea of like badassery being able to walk up to this machine and be like Billy logged in you know I mean uh so yeah that was always really cool now you know Stern has got me in the sense that like I hate not being logged in because what if I pop the fuck off I'm like what if what if I put up a psycho score and the thing is what's nice is you can retroactively log in but only to a certain point I realized during the bonus countdown on ball three the other day when I GC'd my Godzilla that I wasn't logged in. And it's like... Did you log in right then? No, I couldn't. It was like, it was locked in. And I was like, come on, come on. I was panicking. I was like, come on, come on. And it's like, out of the out of the out, it's like, this worked for bonus. And I'm like, no, no, no. And it just fucking goes through. And I was like, oh, it may as well not happened. Like, that was a waste of fucking 45 minutes, I guess. See, that's what I mean. Kind of that weird FOMO. It's weird how that affects me. Like, yeah, you're like, oh, fuck, because it's like, I know, like, I got into way more shit than I normally do on that game. And you're like, God damn it. And I was like, I got to do it again, I guess. It's pretty funny. Well, the other thing I got to bring up is, like, we have a lot of we have customers that, like, really enjoy it and they like that. You know, it gives them I understand, like, the score tracking, like, because when I first got into pinball, sometimes I would like write scores down. I used to carry a notebook in my pocket all the time that I write prep lists for work on. and I would just always have like if I needed something I would just write shit down old school yeah fucking blues clues over there yeah dude I have my blues clues notebook yeah and my crayon and everything but it's called getting shit done but but when I was playing certain games of pinball like I would write down my best scores and so I could look back on it later and then go play I'm like oh what what did I do on that Pirates of the Caribbean the Stern Pirates you know like back when that game was new and I was playing that so like I can see that my biggest thing is like the fumbling of like I don want my phone at all when I playing pinball That like kind of like a big part of it to me And then the extra step of like printing something out or something like I understand it Don't get me wrong. It's not that hard. It's annoying, though. I'm just like one of those people where I'm just like printing something out is like that's doing way too much. Like you're not going to find anyone under 30 who's down to print something. I got a QR code keychain made like a little printed keychain when it first came out. but because it's not backlit if it was like a dim bar it wouldn't pick it up and if it fumbles like it doesn't sense it yeah if it doesn't see it in the first like five seconds you're like ah fuck this it's not worth it so now i have it on my phone home screen or whatever it's my part of my background i can see it like some players seem to like it there's some players that don't seem to care at all i think that's kind of how i am i'm like i'm indifferent yeah you don't actively campaign against it like some of the guys on pin side do people do that oh people bitch dude people make a point out of like i'm covering that thing like people sell little mods that stick over the little white people think it's like big brother they're like government's watching you my god we're talking about this a little bit before you hopped on tyler but it was it i think everyone was worried it's like the snowball effect like they were really worried when insider connected came out that dlc was coming soon and then when they when stern hired the pay-to-play or like like add-ons yep and then stern hired the guy that's you know ran disney plus and so they thought it was going to be subscription everyone everyone just kind of fear mongers on pin side and they all like hype each other up with like what could happen and like knock on wood they haven't monetized this in any way at all other than that they're using it as a selling point to sell more games and to yeah it's like an indirect selling point they're not like hey we're going to charge you for this thing it's like hey this is why you're going to think our new games are sick i can't log in on elton john so i don't give a shit about it yeah right yeah Mm-hmm. The other big thing from the player side, and then we'll go into the operator side, is the Insider Connected live leaderboards. And so if you go into a bar or an arcade or something, they can set up a feed to a TV screen or something that has a live feed on anyone that's Insider Connected, playing an Insider Connected game, and is logged in. If they get a high score, they can go on the high scoreboard. Yeah, within some configurable timeframe on that leaderboard. Right. Like you can set it up as operator to be like one month or one week or just this one day or whatever and then have the high score chase without wiping all the like scores that are like stored on the machine that are like the actual high scores. Yeah. The all time high scores. How do you guys like those? Do you guys get excited to get on the leaderboard? Alex, you want to take this one first? I'm trying not to sound cocky or like dismissive because I know some people like those and some people like daily high scores and shit. but to me i'm playing for the top five at minute like if it's not a gc it feels like a waste of time so getting like score of the week feels like a slap in the face your participation medal and i'm again like when you get into the hobby like i remember the first time i played a jjp i'm like oh cool i got a high score of the day and like now it's just like fucking quit making me put my initials in like stop taking my picture of this shit score i'm like embarrassed hiding my face it's the shittiest game of Eldon John you've played in your life it's like high score number two of today you're like fuck fuck fuck don't take the picture it puts you in with a little picture of slash and you're like god damn it so I don't pay attention to those live leaderboards but I have been with people that were like hunting those they're like oh I can beat that I can beat that and you're like well can you beat you know so I don't know what do you think Tyler do you go for him is it more competitive in some places the easiest way for me to explain it is like when incentivized i'll go for it that is rarely the reality and what i mean by that to say is like so for example like anyone who knows me knows that i'm like deeply affiliated with um not only waltz bar but currently revenge of we just host wrapped up our seventh season of league we have like 78 people in league this season it was honestly incredible but all that being said once and a while revenge of uh we'll do events where it's like hey we're gonna put on the board right we're gonna put on the leaderboard you know these xyz games will be on the board high score contest where it's like you know whoever's first place a game so they'll put like let's say like 10 games on the board so then there's like 10 first places a possible to be achieved so then like there's 10 winners like if you know i will say from the player's standpoint like in the community people come out like at revenge specifically people will come out people will try to like chase the leader boards i see you know my league mates you know i see some new people at the shop you'll definitely see some people entertaining it right but they're only entertaining it because of the prizes that revenge of is offering right is because revenge of as a you know as a location as an operator they're like hey yeah like come get on the board um you know we're gonna give out ten dollar gift cards you know i mean like there's some incentive other than for the listener who hasn't heard of this place revenge of tyler's located in la los angeles los angeles california big city boy but revenge of is a cool comic book shop with a bunch of pins also like a great location that's pretty close to waltz also on eagle rock or just off of eagle rock it's like the yin to waltz's yang right yeah it's kind of much like it's like neon and like really like sci-fi heavy like thematic whereas like waltz is like old school like dusty cowboy bar vibes almost they complement each other so well too it's cool absolutely it's we're we are spoiled that they're on the same friggin street like we're i remind our community all the time i'm constantly telling la players we're spoiled yeah i mean but just be appreciative not to feel bad but just to be like thank you to the operators to the people who you know curate pinball for the masses here yep but going back the stern boards it's like revenge of is using the boards as a tool to kind of do their own promotion exactly which is cool because it it is a nice tool for that stern is giving you which i guess That'll segue into our next segment where it's like from the operator. I'll talk kind of at length about that. To me, the insider leaderboards, and if anyone at Stern's listening, the reason why I don't have them up at Wedge is because it's not the real scores. And that will always fucking bother me. So I won't put it on a TV until it's the real scores. So I have no problem with the high score chases or whatever. But if somebody's not logged in and they put up a high score, it needs to go on the TV. Yeah. And until it does, to me, it's just like fate. Like it's not real. So I know that they – It's misleading. It's misleading. It's very misleading. And I understand it. It's an advertising thing, right? They're trying to get people bought into the system so that they'll want to log in so that they can see their name on the TV screen. I understand that. I just look at them as like those are fake scores. I'm going for the real score on the machine. It's like that awkward moment of like someone being like, oh, yeah, I got high score number one. Yeah. It's like, yeah, you'll get there. Yeah. It's like, nice job, champ. what do you mean you're like yeah nice try it gets number one or here yeah it's just silly i think part of that too is that you guys at wedge do your own high score chase where you manually wipe the leaderboards on your game of the month oh yeah yeah and so it's like like other people are doing that on a bigger scale using these tools and stuff it's there's different ways around i think the leaderboard is super cool and it looks super slick it does look good stern's whole thing and like tyler said he's like i like feel like a power ranger man i go bong and it makes the sound like the sounds are good sounds are good like it sounds good whoever did the fucking sound effects they like must have like tested that with enough groups they nailed it yeah it's good so it's like the whole thing's good and and the leaderboard is great the only thing that they need to tweak for me to use it not that they need to be fucking following what one person is thinking but it's like dude just make it so where all the scores can be sent if an unlogged in player puts up a better score during that same month that needs to be on the leaderboard and just color it do it like apple does with android text where it just turns it green or whatever like make it so they're like they're like look at this loser who's not an insider they got this great score apparently but they're not logged in like you can still do it where somehow where you're still like incentivizing people to sign up for the platform but you make them look lame what an idiot all right so here i need to say this one thing before we move on just as someone who i mean like alan you're completely right i mean the amount of times i know you can already imagine it the amount of times i'm like completely jolly i'm in front of machines i'm like teaching someone how to create an insider connected account someone's asking me what I'm doing. I'm filling them in right. But let me just like walk you through the stages of grief because this happens, God, I want to say half the time, at least half the time, at least. And it's like, do I have a solution for it? Absolutely not. Uh, but I'm still going to describe it. I will be in front of a machine with someone. I will show them. I'll point to the back glass where there's the QR as well as on the apron. But I'll be like, yeah, scan that. Take like 30 seconds, 60 seconds just fill in your info start your account so they'll do that they'll start their account once they fill that out it'll send them back to be like all right cool log in and then they go to log in and then they're like oh it's like not working like oh i have to like confirm my email first oh i like forgot my yeah i cannot tell you how many people have been stumped like that i'm just like oh no it's super easy like all you have to do is this and then they're just like you know i mean i'm just like it's just like speed bump after speed bump yeah i'm like oh no it's fine it's uh yeah just you know but it it gets awkward it gets to the point where it's like okay like you have to actually do this on your own time yeah go home do your homework yeah bring it back to class go sit in the corner go take five go outside go go sit on a bench figure that shit out and then come back and check in with the real boys and fucking play with the big dogs Those insider-connected chivos. And that's the thing. The thing is, I do want to point out, too, still just while we're on a consumer or a player perspective, there is little to no incentive to doing anything or to doing any of this. And I'll describe it in a few ways. So one is, like, if you're not an achievement hunter. Like, my tech sound used to be the 360 achievement noise. either like that or like a Zelda ringtone or like a Metal Gear sound. You know what I mean? It's just like I grew up being very gamer, right? But even these achievements, I'm not going to lie, 360 achievements kind of hit harder than these. Like some of these achievements, it's like they're – yeah. You'll see me post because it's like I'm honestly just doing it for the flex or doing it to be like, hey, look, like I did this. I'm challenging you or I'm challenging my community. I have a lot of people – and I say this super modestly because it's an honor but i have a lot of pot of ones i got a lot of homies i got a lot of people looking up to me i have a lot of people looking towards me for guidance right for advice for direction and yeah i'm one of those people i'm always looking to you for advice and direction i don't take that lightly and i don't take that for granted you know it's an honor to be a mentor for someone in people's lives as people have been for me but all that being said it's like like i just did this recently it's like okay so they just announced like these venom badges right right and something i do as a pinball mentor something i do as a pinball teacher is teach mode stacking i bring up stacking every goddamn week like every week at league people's like if you know something comes to me they're like how do i get better i'm like you start stacking you stacking dog where you stacking yeah what's up the stack yeah what's this what's the stack what's what's the flop what's the river you know i'm just like just like learned how to triple stack in black knight and like figure out different mode manipulations and stuff like that so anyways they came out with this thing it's called like do you even stack it's a venom achievement for basically stacking four things at once it's the mayhem multiball it's the carnage multiball it's also starting doppelganger as well as using your spidey sense hurry up so if you can do all of those four things relatively simultaneously you get this achievement okay and like and i go to my instagram and i post like i see this thing so i post i'm like give me one day and i say that not for and i'm not trying to say like there's this flex or like there's this show or this pop or pomp or circumstance or anything like this i'm doing that for me yeah it's getting you excited it's putting the fire under my own ass yeah you're like i'm gonna post this and then everyone's gonna ask me about it i'm on the record so like it's gonna give me the fire on the record yeah i'm gonna do this give me one day yep just so you guys know public service announcement 24 hours and you know so then i come back 21 hours later i took some time But, you know, I come back and I post the thing. Oh, yeah, you got it. I almost did, like, the time clock comparison post, but I was like, it's not that serious. But the thing is, me doing this, you know what happened? A bunch of people go out hunting for it? Other players start hitting me up. I got Kevin, my homie, he hits me up. He's like, oh, Ben, I can do this. Easy. I can do it. I was like, he said, he's like, this is light work. did you see that he was he was like this is light work and i was like first off i love that shit like i love i love that like i want to teach everyone to be able to look at some shit like that and be like this is light yeah easy you know i mean it's just like that's so sick because like pinball for people is something where it like that impossible how do you do that i garbage I suck Yeah that the hardest part Yeah I think so much of it is the mentality dude that was my homie like i you know we all sucked at one point but seriously i seen this dude go from like how the fuck do you make the flippers to now he like that light work i was like you're a silver ball assassin you're my boy i love that you know i mean so i wanna i like i think that's such a dope feeling i think you know everyone deserves to feel like that everyone deserves to have obviously a hobby or a passion you were criticizing the achievements but you sound like that you're like but that one's dope so like it seems like they do better sometimes they're good and sometimes they're just good but they're it's all up to like us in the sense of like everything i've described it's like i feel like it's just because of like the community portions sure now is that them inspiring that maybe yeah i think you You know what I mean? It is what you make of it in the same way that everything is. Like, you can have a game – if you have a game at your house and you beat the factory GC and then you're like, well, that's that. I'm never going to touch it again. You're like, well, what the fuck? I know that I've heard George Gomez talk about how it does gangbusters for operators. And some operators – I know Rachel and Kale, the electric bat – they're like, those gangbusters. They also promote it a lot, just like you do. And so they follow them and they're like, hey, this is cool. And then other people are like, hey, this is cool. Like, we're jumping in. I know that our friend AJ, who we interviewed on the show at Flip a Coin, he's like, when I put up the leaderboards, we got more play. You know, like those games got more play. And I was like, so all those things are cool. They're all tools, which is sort of the next transition here is like from an operator, right? Like I'm an operator. I run a location. Wedgehead, by the way, in Portland, Oregon. You might want to check it out. In case you didn't know, judging by the podcast name. It's kind of a mid spot. It's the same name. It's a little mid. It is the best goddamn pinball bar in America. Oh, thank you, Tyler. Dude, I stand by that. I stand by that. That shit's going to be on my fucking tombstone. Oh, we appreciate you. We love seeing you come to town. But as an operator, when Gomez initially launched this like three years ago, right, I saw an interview that he gave where the interviewer or he's starting off. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone's asking me, is it going to connect to the Internet? Yeah, yeah. Like it will. And like, does that mean does that mean automatic code updates? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like downplaying the code update. Like a lot of the shit that I'm like, that makes it immediately 100% I'm bought in as an operator. Dude, the automatic code updates is so best. It's so nice. That's a game changer. The best. And nobody talks about this. That's why I want to talk about a couple of things from the operator's perspective. It's like the automatic code updates are the absolute shit. They used to be Stern would drop code. You would have to fucking take a USB stick. You'd have to plug it in your computer. You'd have to download the code. You'd have to throw it on and then you'd have to open up your back glass, plug it in, turn it on, find the code. And so many times I think there was probably a 30 to 40 percent failure rate where like the code wouldn't read right or get 50 percent or 80 percent there. You'd have to draw it off your current code, dude. And it was just like you have to like restart it. We have to restart and like all those things. And like they've eliminated that with it being connected to the Internet. So like, thank you. Like truly, like just for me, that as an operator, like it's always worth it. If we ever get an old spike to game, we've already done it on all of our old spike to games. But if we get one in a trade or buy one, you secondhand, whatever in the future, and it doesn't have insider, we're absolutely going to make it insider connected because it's worth it just for that. And then there's the contention of players that as we've discussed already, you guys both log in. Tyler hypes it up. He's like, he's getting all the homies involved. He gets people excited to play. And so, like, me as an operator is like, if people are excited to play, that's fucking cool. If you only want to play Insider Connected games, cool. Well, we got them. You know what I mean? Like, so, like, that's chill. It doesn't cost me anything. I just have to connect it to Insider. And it does give you some tech alerts. Those I don't find useful or I don't use them because we have a lot of games and they're not all sterns. So I have, like, a system where we have a tech line set up. There's posters on the walls. just number on all the games everyone knows me that comes into wedge the regular so those come out alan this flipper this whatever the tech alerts on there but i could see how like if you're a route runner it could be helpful if you don't get a lot of engagement from the community that that could actually be very helpful uh pinball machines have had that for a long time like a hey technician alert like hey check me out type of thing and you go in when you open the coin door uh but this is sort of like oh they'll email it to you or you can go on the on the website or whatever and log into your operator account and like all that stuff is sick so i really do like i want to give stern a lot of credit for like from the operator it's pretty sick like even if like myself like i don't use it as a player it's pretty sick and the best part is it's still free it's still free users and operator or like for both sides of it there is an account an operator account that I think you do. I don't know if you just have to apply for it or if it does cost money. Yeah. Yeah. You just have to apply for it. Right. It's like, I know you have to have a different account on their insider connected for being an operator. Yeah. I just wasn't sure if it was like, you just need to do that to get the green check marks on your achievements. Oh, that's the difference. Yep. So that's like a verified. Yep. It's a verified location. Then you get a green check mark instead of white. yeah which my my business partner he has one uh because you know he has those games so and he's running them on route and whatever so from the operator i'm happy man it's cool uh it works pretty good the only thing i don't like is sometimes like the games it seems less now but it still happens it used to happen a lot versus like the games would just go offline and then people like hey this game's not connected and you're like fuck it was connected it was connected earlier today like wi-fi connection if like i understand wi-fi connection issues the problem that i had with it and maybe it's been solved feels like it's better it used to happen so much but people like that game's off usually i could power cycle the game and it would come back on what i was frustrated with i was like can't this thing realize that the internet cut out the signal cut out for a second can it just check every minute or three minutes or five minutes or whatever like sort of like a ball search quote unquote for the internet like it was just connected i'm not connected keep trying type of thing and it didn't seem like it would want to do that at first it does feel like it's gotten better one of the downsides is like you're saying like tyler's like what the fuck man now now i'm hooked on my achievements i'm hooked on playing with my insider it sucks as an operator the only thing that sucks about it is like when people will get pissed because it's just another thing for them to be upset about on yeah it's one more thing that cannot work on the game yeah and you're like oh this isn't connected i'm like that's so frustrating as an operator it's terrible on route which is why you go out on routed games and you'll just see like almost none of these insiders work and sometimes and you know like but even in our arcade like ourselves where it's like i'm trying to stay up to date on all this shit like all these games should be insider connected always it's still very frustrating to be like why the fuck sometimes it'll even show the wi-fi bars dude it'll show the signal on the screen and it's not connected and you're like what the fuck man like you know so honestly in my experience i can't tell you how many times i've been there this sounds dumb and it for some it may be insanity but that's my style literally just logging in over and over and over and like it'll say machine's not connected right not the red bar comes up yep the scary sound comes up oh the scary sound it's the worst yeah it's like a miniature version of the thx sound i just started screaming for alan immediately but i swear to god like literally i've done it where it's like not connected not connected not connected not connected not and then it'll like i've just had to do it over and over yeah the insanity, insanity style. Yeah, you just tank it. Yeah, you're just like, I'm just going to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. And then it happens. So that, you know, and take that for what you will, however many grains of salt that counts for, you know, it's like that or like, yeah, like you said, like power cycling, you know, can be annoying and can take time, but is obviously better than it not being connected at all or not being able to establish. And the only thing that sucks about it is like for a location player playing at a place and they found a couple games in a coffee shop or something. It's clearly on route. It's not connected. Employees will get pissed at the CU power cycle a game or something, right? Like they might not know that you should be doing that. I think there's a really big etiquette to that. I think there's – and like pinball etiquette is like a whole other – We've done – yeah. We'll need to do like a full pinball etiquette episode. We've touched on it in some previous ones. That's a whole nother, you know, thing. But what I mean is it's like, and sometimes I think players don't see it from this perspective, but like from an operator perspective, from an amusement perspective, and this really might sound like a hyperbole, but just hear me out. Walking into a place and like turning off a pinball machine and turning it back on to the untrained eye, or let's say, you know, you're at the pizza spot. This guy does this or whatever. To some people, especially owners, it's like, okay, that's an amusement attraction. That's a thing. That's like the same as like going and like turning on and off like the ATM or like the jukebox. Yeah. Or like another facet of the, you know, the spot. Yeah. Be like if you like reach it'd be like reaching across the bar and fucking with someone's well. And you're like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. It matters. You got to matter on what spot you're at. And, you know, as the biggest thing is, if you know the owners and stuff or if you're if it's a spot you're at regularly, then it's usually like they're like, well, Obviously, they're like, Tyler, we know Tyler. He's not fucking with the games. Yeah, that's the whole thing. We did a whole episode called How to Talk to an Operator, and it's about building relationships with your local operators because it's very helpful in these situations where nobody knows that, you know. But I want to talk about sort of to finish up this episode is like I want to talk about what feature does Stern Insider Connected not have right now that you wish you would have in the future? Man. So let me just start by saying I've been having a mental crisis about this. And what I mean by that is like anyone who knows me knows that like I'm probably going to design a fucking pinball game someday in some scale, whether, you know, because like first off, like shout out Sean Irby. he is such an inspiration to me right now he's doing something that like honestly i didn't think was like possible right now like i kind of feel like i kind of feel like i have to work for stern because it's like well yeah like you either like go up to the big leagues you know i mean like you to like the pros or you join one of these professional teams because like being your own designer you know being your own manufacturer being your own that's tough right that's tough and you know stern is obviously the industry giant or i'm just like man well fuck i'd go work for stern i'd do that so i was really excited for this opportunity because i was like oh man like i've got all these ideas like this this that i'm gonna lay it all out and then i was gonna be like in stern this is your opportunity to hire me and not steal my ideas but i don't think i want to roll that dice i don't i don't think i want to roll that die So I'll give like a maybe like a little bit like I'll give like a little like sample idea. But like I'm kind of afraid to hear me out, you know, to put too much out there because these motherfuckers are going to take it. High level. What kind of like what kind of idea is it like more specific goals or. It's an idea that could it's me making my job at Stern. you know like i i gen because the thing is one it's very very connected and two shout out to alan and to water boy but genuinely like we need somebody in pinball to make pinball cool yeah totally i'm not saying that it's me or has to be me i'm having a good time doing it no no we're saying that's why don't worry you know you can preserve your fake modesty because we're we're saying it for you yeah it's like that thing where it's like oh i was like born to do this like you know i mean it's like i like i feel so at peace with that that sounds like that is i think my dream job is to genuinely just be able to eat once a day and pay my rent off of my enthusiasm for pinball like i've been i've been doing that with craft beer for the past decade so i'm just trying to like switch it over to there so yeah there's my little like existential crisis of like I don't want to put out too many golden eggs. But one thing that you guys always hammer, we, I think, have already talked about a good amount this episode, and something that is just absolutely inescapable in pinball, right? It's community. Yeah. It's community. And I just want to say that, like, in the same regards, like, I'm a huge fan of Stern. You know, thank you, George Gomez. Thank you, all these other people that are, like, you know, bringing innovation, working their hardest, doing really cool stuff. I don't want to make it seem like I'm just a critic standing on my soapbox being like, da-da-da-da-da, I'm not coding this shit at home. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not making it better. They're putting in a lot of hard work to make this. They're putting in a lot of hard work. Yeah, for sure. So I want to make that very clear that, like, I think that's dope. I think that's a, you know, it's obviously very appreciated. But it's a few different things. Like, Alan, I don't know if you remember this, but there's a video of George Gomez online where he first kind of announces this. I'll send you the video later because if you look at the video, it almost kind of looks like he's being held hostage. Like he's like kind of in like a darkly dim lit room. He looks kind of bummed. And then at the very end of this video, he's like, all right, this is going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait. And it's like I'm just like, oh, my. Sometimes it's like the visionary isn't the salesman, right? Like we were talking about it with Absolutely Like with Apple like Steve Jobs was the guy that sold the vision but woj was the guy that made all the shit actually work right and so it could be like gomez is like he's not the hype man he's the guy behind the scenes that's like pulling the strings and has the great ideas and knows how to get shit done because he's been in the pinball industry and in the coin op industry for a long fucking time and he has good ideas but it sounds like they could use a good man like you at stern pinball so yeah and it sounds like you're you're telling them that you'd be happy to join so i uh i definitely am aside from that that community aspect is something that i think that they can just really expound on i think they've done a really great job scratching the surface because for example like little to nobody does this so i don't know if even either of you guys know this you can add people as like friends on insider connected you can like follow people i follow like two people i don't know if it exactly yeah like does anything on there like i don't see them i'm looking at it now and it's like i i mean frankly i i don't remember how to find them back on i had to remind myself of this two hours ago before like i like trust me like i'm struggling to find where you can find that back on the app which kind of bodes like that speaks to the problem yeah it's like um it's definitely not at the forefront right right it's not like obvious you're not like oh yeah like this like the app kind of like feels like i want to say like half dead but like in the announcements there's like three four announcements and then like the rest are all from like 2023 there's like one from 2021 it's just like it doesn't feel very like it doesn't do anything it doesn't do anything past what we've discussed in this episode and there was a lot like there was a lot of little stuff where it's like oh we're gonna have like forums that you access through here we're gonna have like tutorials on gameplays we're gonna have all these like special events where you can like win prizes from stern and they kind of like they had hyped all this shit up and none of these like challenges yeah and none of it came through we had a little section in here to talk about was like the items that they promised and like have they delivered now looking back three years and it's like like the with the achievements when they announced that they're like it's gonna be like a rule set on top of the rule set and that's kind of what achievements were on like the xbox 360 like what we keep going back to and you're like I don't think like sometimes they deliver that but it's notable when they do when it's not something you would just go out of your way to do and like you said the app does feel like dead it feels like they're not really like it it's weird because you're like isn't this going well like everyone seems to be using it so maybe they've just realized like oh it's they're getting what they need with it as is but it seems like wasted potential. I do think that right now they're having a problem with pinball. We need to recognize, as we all know, we should know, but some people in the community like to be like, it's more popular than it's ever been. Pinball is a small hobby. It's gotten better in the last 10 years. It's gotten a lot better in the last 10 years, a lot more popular in the last 10 years, but it's nowhere near what it was in the nineties. And it's not even on the same fucking universe as it was in the seventies. So to get back there, it's an uphill battle. stern they don't release their production numbers but they're not making the runs of games that bally made in the late 70s right or gottlieb made like they're not making those runs right they're not doing 12 000 14 000 units of the day out the gate even with godzilla right how many john wicks are in the world right and so it's like we got to realize that like they're trying to be a major manufacturing company which is fucking so hard to do they're trying to design games and program them and build them and ship them all over the world. And so they're having this thing that they added on themselves that they challenged themselves with to reinvent pinball. And I think that they're doing a decent job at it. Like I said, just for me as the operator, it's great. For some people, leaderboards, it gives you a tool as an operator to incentivize people. I hope that they just build on it. The one I want, my dream feature, which is probably so ridiculously hard as far as like, Not how to code it, but just like liability, I think, would be I wish I could have a wallet on my insider account where I can load money. I could scan it and it would coin up a game for me. And then they would send that. If it was a payment service, that would. Don't even get me started on that. Like if they did that. And I understand that that's probably the most ridiculous thing to say, even though it's a great idea. No, it's not. It's not. It's so. It's. That is something I myself have wondered. You know, it's not like an if. It's a when. I mean, if you can get a little fucking thing, a square plug-in for your iPhone and sit there and, you know. I think Stern probably doesn't want to be, like, held responsible for data breaches and things like that. That's what I'm estimating. I don't know. But I'm just saying, like, for me, what would make me instantly get an account from never having one, not being particularly interested as a player, would be, oh, you can load up money. and then any stern machine i see on route that's connected instead of having to be like oh do i have fucking quarters do i have dollars like where do i get this right like i go bloop if i went to a bar and it was like you know five bally williams games on quarter drop in one on like with insider connected payment available i would probably play that one versus like going and breaking quarters like it's insane how big of a difference that would have on me because i fucking hate having to have cash in breaking quarters. Look at Apple Pay. Look at all that Apple Pay stuff. I mean, and that was what I was going to bring up earlier really quick, just to tie back when you're talking about printing out your QR code. The smoothest thing or the coolest thing that Stern has done with Insider Connected is the Apple Wallet or the wallet integration. And the fact that, you know, I pull out my phone, I double click the home button, it pops right up. I hit it. It is easy. it is accessible once you've gone through that you know once you've gotten to that stage once you've gone through those steps instructions to be able to like create your account add it to your wallet in my opinion it's incredibly accessible i know i neandered a bunch but if i were to throw out like one small thing kind of like you mentioned the payment systems i would put out matchmaking as as in like head-to-head play as in like oh cool alan you're playing your 70th at the bar i'm playing my 70th at my house let's go totally yeah let's go toe to toe let's let's play a game right now let's play a head to play let's play a two-player online pinball match even if it was passive that would be fucking sick like if i could just see my scores in the last day compared to your scores in the last day or whatever totally it'd be fun and that's where i think there's so much potential for doing or like specific challenges like if stern put out some challenge where it's like hey here like you're gonna do king of the monsters mode you get three tries at it and like that's it and it posted that and it was like oh here's how tyler did with his three tries on that here's what alex did with his three tries on that that'd be fucking rad i think my big takeaway with stern insider is it's it's fun it is like it's like i like it i like the stuff they have on there it's free most importantly that's the single biggest thing but it's just a lot of like squandered potential right now like there's so much potential there is so much potential so so much potential you guys are both regular users so it's gotten better right like it's it and do you see it in the next couple of years being like even better or do you feel like it's stagnating? I guess, like I said, I've, I've been, you know, I've been running tournaments for, you know, I guess now, which is hard to imagine like four or five fucking years. But aside from that, you know, I'm kind of getting back into the swing of things and re associating myself with a lot of this tech. And it's like, how can you be the biggest pinball manufacturer? You know, you have this huge stance in the community huge control on the or grip i would say you know influence on the scene the community the players and you have no tournament ios you have no tournament systems you have nothing to encourage people to continue to enable it to make it easier for them to compete and play against each other with each other on your platform on on your stern stuff like it blows my mind that there is no like stern tournament app why it's how i think that would be such that's such a missed opportunity you think it would be like head-to-head on the only problem with that which i agree with you is just i don't want the leaderboard situation where it's like okay we can only play sterns to use stern software like that's kind of the problem right like it's like well they've created that monopoly within themselves that's why i even hear that term you know everyone says uh what like sternaments do people say that yeah people say that up in Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm in like a Sturnament League down here. And here's the thing is like, I understand we've talked about this on like why people buy certain games, why Sterns are everywhere. Quick rundown from the operator's perspective before we close up this episode. The reason why you buy them as a home collector or as an operator. One, they make the most. Okay, that's good because parts are available. Two, they're very reliable. Three, they get the best themes. Four, they have the best talent. They're the most fun. They're giving you cool things like Insider Connected, right? Like the other companies are lesser versions of all that, and they're more expensive. You know, like Sterns are more reliable. So the reason why you see them on Route, they're the best games, they're the cheapest to buy, they're the most reliable, and they have Star Wars and Deadpool and Stranger Things and all that kind of stuff. So you end up with sometimes you end up with Sternaments, which is a somewhat derogatory word, but it's also like… They happen for a reason. They happen for a reason. I understand why. It can be annoying when you're in the hobby for a while and you want to play other stuff. any sternament is better than having no alternative like no tournament or no pins on location or no pinball absolutely yeah absolutely and i would like to bring up really quick like just because i just want to highlight for like the listener how initially sternament to me just like you said like a derogatory word or like was like a kind of like a negative connotation obviously kind of like oh okay it's like you know you have to fit this bill or be this type of player but as stern has been like releasing titles you know it's been and i don't know if it's also just like my relativity but like maybe as i individually as a player have just been becoming like more comfortable playing sterns more adjusted to playing sterns i mean i we do it all the time now so i'm a bit more used to it it's not as negative as a term anymore it doesn't have to necessarily be derogatory it's just it's just descriptive if it's yeah exactly it's just like letting you know like just being real it is yeah it's just being real it's like hey it's all these style games yeah you're not gonna play adam's family you're not gonna play paragon you're not gonna play you're not gonna play an em you're not gonna you're not gonna play old fucking you know chicago you know old chicago or whatever yeah i can play jack in the box and that's the thing you know having an eclectic lineup for me will always be the thing i mean like if i can fit one more just cheeky little love to wedge head i mean god damn it the lineup like you motherfuckers in portland are so spoiled i mean we are too don't get me wrong but fuck man like to have that type of lineup that type of variety and to that type of rotation among those eras is just like alan when i was just there in the beginning of the month um i'm not gonna lie that was like a soul recharge like i They like needed that. Like it was, I, and I didn't know, I thought I was doing pretty good. I got to Wedget and I was like, holy shit. I, this is what's been missing my whole life. Every time I go to Wedget, I'm like, fuck, should I just move here? Every single time, dude, every single time. We'd love to have you, man. No, I appreciate it. I mean, we are, you know, we're, we're running along on this episode, but I'll close it up. But I just want to say like, yeah, we're, if you listen to this podcast, you listening, you already know, like that's our whole game, right? Like we don't even really spend a lot of time talking about Sterns because we did kind of one episode. We talk about them sparingly, but we're not like other shows where we recover news and rumors, which just means you're covering Stern and you're kind of pointing. The news and rumors, they focus way more on the boutiques than they should because it's like they're just looking for more stuff to talk about. We like games of all eras. So, you know, if you've listened to the show, you already know that. And that's what Wedget is. We rotate. We don't have the biggest location. We have 24 games on the floor at any time, but my business partner has over 150 games of all eras. So we rotate three or four pins a month at Wedgehead. So the rotation is always fresh, and it's a lot more work to do that, but it's also what keeps it fresh and exciting and keeps it dynamic. So I appreciate your nice words. Let me tell you, it is so appreciated. It is so appreciated. You guys go above and beyond in that way. We got lots of great regulars, a lot of great community members here, just like what you're saying, community is the most important thing. I think Stern Insider can be a great tool for operators or for just organizers in the scene to use to build that community because it's one extra tool in the toolbox that can be used very effectively. So if any of the things that we discussed on this show sound good to you, go ahead and do it. Yeah, reach out to Tyler for help with getting it set up. Please reach out to me. I'm not even joking. He's the official unofficial Stern Insider Connected ambassador, soon to be on the payroll. Well, hopefully they'll like the content of this episode. I figure if he's just doing the job already, it won't be a hard transition to start sending him a paycheck. Yeah, there you go. But for everyone else, we're going to close this episode out. I'm going to end this with a call to action to go play some Insider Connected games, go find some games on location. This might be the only episode where I might go out and play some new Sturgs. I didn't think I'd ever see the day where you said, go play an insider connected machine here's the good thing it's like they're everywhere hopefully they're connected hopefully you can get logged in and maybe you'll like it if you come into wedge head every stern that is eligible has it yep always has it it's always on for everyone else listening we thank you for listening to another episode of the wedge head pinball podcast until next time good luck don't suck Stumble You Might Fall