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 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 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. 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.