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Bonus Podcast: Flip Expo 2018 - Jack Guarnieri - Olympic Goblin

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 48m·analyzed·Apr 17, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Flip Expo 2018 report featuring JJP's Jack Guarnieri defending Pirates of the Caribbean design changes.

Summary

Jonathan Yosten and Martin A. of Pinball News report on Flip Expo 2018 in Le Tréport, France, highlighting the show's expanded venue layout, vendor organization, and community atmosphere. They conduct an exclusive interview with Jack Guarnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball discussing the controversial removal of the triple spinning disc mechanism from Pirates of the Caribbean pinball, his rationale for design changes, and JJP's evolving approach to game announcements and quality assurance.

Key Claims

  • The triple spinning disc mechanism on Pirates of the Caribbean was removed because it was not reliable enough and would require extensive development time to perfect.

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri directly states: 'the triple spinning disc was a really wonderful and far-reaching mechanism... it has to cook until it's done... it's not reliable enough for us to put it in games'

  • The spinning disc will be replaced with a virtual wheel on the LCD screen requiring hundreds of hours of programming.

    high confidence · Jack: 'what's going into it is not just the commitment to make a great game, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of programming, because that wheel will live on the LCD'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball regrets showing Pirates of the Caribbean before it was sufficiently developed and plans to change how future games are announced.

    high confidence · Jack: 'I apologize for the fact that we even showed this game when we did... the days of showing a game and not shipping it for us are probably over'

  • Flip Expo 2018 was the 12th edition of the show and marked significant venue expansion from previous years.

    high confidence · Martin: 'this was the 12th edition of this show... when the show started... the entire show was in what we refer to as the concert hall... now that it is [expanded], it freed up a lot of space'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball's previous games (Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, Dialed In) all took longer to develop than initially projected.

    high confidence · Jack: 'Wizard of Oz... we expected to have a game in a year and a half... close to three years. Hobbit... took a year to redo... All of these games always take us longer than we think'

Notable Quotes

  • “I'd rather enjoy a little bit of criticism or a lot of criticism and some pain to make really a bulletproof game.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ Interview section — Core philosophy on quality vs. speed; explains JJP's design priority over delivery timeline

  • “When the game ships, it'll be judged on its own merit. It won't be judged on what I say. It'll be judged on reality, which is our customer's reality.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ Interview section — Directly addresses pre-order criticism; emphasizes customers will evaluate final product, not speculation

  • “It's not a money thing. It's a pinball thing. It's got nothing to do with money.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ Interview section — Deflects cost-cutting accusation; asserts design decisions driven by quality not profitability

  • “It's time for it to grow up, and I think part of that process is showing a game a year, building a game a year, making sure that what we ship works.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ Interview section — Signals strategic maturation in JJP's product launch cadence and QA commitment

  • “The people that decided not to buy it right now, look, they're not sales anyway. They're pre-orders.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ Interview section — Dismisses pre-order cancellations as non-binding; suggests confidence product will sell on merit

Entities

Jack GuarnieripersonJonathan YostenpersonMartin A.personJersey Jack PinballcompanyFlip Expo 2018eventPirates of the CaribbeangameWizard of OzgameHobbitgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball now using escrow accounts for pre-order deposits rather than spending customer deposits during development, indicating financial maturation

    medium · Jack: 'In this case, people put a $250 or $1,000 refundable deposit down. The money's in an escrow account. We're not using that money as we did in the very beginning'

  • ?

    community_signal: Despite controversy, distributors report some customers who cancelled Pirates pre-orders purchased Hobbit or Dialed In instead; net positive brand loyalty

    medium · Jack: 'I had distributors tell me... I had people cancel Pirates, and they ordered, and we delivered Hobbits. So net-net to us, it's not a marketing ploy'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pirates of the Caribbean triple spinning disc mechanism removal triggered significant community backlash; Jack Guarnieri acknowledges 'a lot of reaction, a lot of opinion, a lot of overreaction, a lot of criticism'

    high · Jack states: 'there was a lot of, let's call it noise on the Internet. There's been an announcement about the Pirates of the Caribbean game where two mechanisms are removed'

  • ?

    community_signal: Jack Guarnieri emphasizes company-wide commitment to quality across all departments (programming, engineering, design, assembly, parts, accounting)

    medium · Jack: 'all our programmers, our engineers, our designers, the people on the assembly line... the DNA of all those people is to make a really great product'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball establishing pattern of significant development delays (Wizard of Oz: 1.5 to 3 years; Hobbit: year-long redesign) informing current Pirates decision

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.326

0:00
Flip Expo Show Report We look at Phoenix Pinball's Olympic Goblin Game An exclusive interview with Jack Guarneri of Jersey Jack Pinball Hello and welcome to this second podcast by Pinball News and Pinball Magazine. My name is Jonathan Yosten, and on the other end of this Skype call is Martin A. of Pinball News. Welcome, Martin. Thank you very much, Jonathan. Great to talk to you again. Right. Obviously, we spent all weekend together. Well, sort of.
0:41
In a way. Yes, that's right. We both went to the Flip Expo show in Elettre-Port, France. Indeed, we did. Yes. And it was a lovely weekend we spent there.
0:55
Well, you were there for a bit longer than I was. I think you were there from, what, Friday through to Monday? Yes, I was. Okay, I was only there from Friday afternoon, and Christina and I left on Sunday afternoon, so we missed the very end of the show, but I think we saw a good deal of it. Yes. Did we miss anything exciting?
1:16
The weather cooling down Sunday afternoon, which was actually very welcome because it was pretty hot in both the halls.
1:25
It certainly was. To explain to the listeners a little bit about this show, this show is held in a venue that has like a gym and there is a hall with a stage that could be, let's refer to that as the concert hall because they do a lot of concerts in there as well.
Dialed In
game
Pimble Universecompany

high · Jack: 'All of these games always take us longer than we think or we project they're going to take... It's just the nature of engineering'

  • ?

    product_concern: Triple spinning disc deemed unreliable and unmaintainable for customer base; Jack explicitly rejected 'good enough' approach in favor of higher reliability standards

    high · Jack: 'it's not reliable enough for us to put it in games... we're aiming a little higher than that. We want things to work all the time'

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball shifting announcement strategy away from showing incomplete games; moving to one-game-per-year cadence with later announcement timing

    high · Jack: 'the days of showing a game and not shipping it for us are probably over... showing a game a year, building a game a year, making sure that what we ship works'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Virtual LCD-based wheel replacing physical spinning disc mechanism; representing shift toward digital solutions for mechanically complex features

    high · Jack: 'the wheel will live on the LCD... JP has a lot of work to do to make the wheel virtual on the screen, to make the rewards and awards come to life'

    • 1:45
    The concert hall is set up as the free play area and there is also a tournament being run in front of the stage. So they line up all the pinball machines running in the tournament in front of the stage.
    1:59
    And the gym hall is referred to as the vendor hall. So all the vendors are in one hall, but it doesn't mean there are no games there because there's plenty of vendors with new games and old games at their stands or booths, whatever you want to call them, which makes it a very interesting mix, I think, at least. It does. I think it worked very well. The space given over to the vendors was plentiful, and they certainly took advantage of that because they didn't have some very large stands there with a very impressive selection of parts.
    2:37
    Most of these shows, you can imagine vendors saying, oh, I don't want to bring along all my different colored flipper buttons or different types of posts or different start button colours. But there you go along and you see a massive long table that's about five, six metres long, boxes after boxes of these things, all in different colours and different varieties. And on a personal level, I've been going to pinball shows for quite a while and trying to find one little part, which I'm sure I could buy online, but because it is just one little part, it's a little flipper octo, there's little U-shaped brackets that go on the flipper boards, it wasn't worth ordering online but I thought I'd pick it up at a pinball show and I've been to so many shows and none of them have actually had this available but this show did and in fact had several different types so congratulations to all the vendors who took the effort to bring out huge stocks of their parts and assorted I don't want to call it junk but it is because that makes it sound as if it's not worth anything but there's a lot of very interesting parts that you wouldn't see in other shows there Right. What's also interesting to note is that this was the 12th edition of this show. When the show started out, I think you were there even earlier to previous editions than I was. But when I got there the first time, and that was like, I think, five or six years ago, the entire show was in what we refer to as the concert hall. And the second hall, which is now the vendor hall, was not part of the show. In fact, we didn't even realize it was part of the same building.
    4:17
    Now that it is, obviously it freed up a lot of space in the concert hall for free play games. Because prior to that, everything had to be cramped in there. And one of the benefits is that this allows vendors to bring a lot of stuff because they have so much space.
    4:34
    Absolutely, yes. You're absolutely right. I was there quite some time ago. and I hadn't even been for five years. 2013 was the last time I went to that show. Right. And it was all in the one hall again and people were getting a bit fed up, I think, or visitors were and I suspect vendors were too, that they just didn't have the space. The vendors would maybe bring along a couple of games and they'd stick them on their stand but there really wasn't room for people to play them and with other people trying to mill around and get parts out of boxes and get boards fixed and all that kind of thing. That was another thing which I should have mentioned about the vendors. There were at least two board-fixing services available there where people could bring boards along which weren't working, and they'd be diagnosed, resoldered or components replaced as and when, and returned straight back to the person who brought them in a matter of minutes. I thought that was a very useful and impressive service, and it was certainly taken up by a lot of people. I saw queues of people with boards just waiting to get them fixed.
    5:35
    If I'd known, I'd have taken a board or two along myself. Not that I can't fix them, but sometimes it's easier just to let somebody else do it, isn't it? That's always easier, as long as they know what they're doing.
    5:49
    Well, it certainly looked like they did, and they have plenty of spares there to do all the repairs with. Right. So that was nice. But yes, it was certainly a much better, much more relaxed and much more spacious show this time and allowed there to be far more free-play games in the concert hall than there were last time. That was certainly a complaint that we had from some of the European visitors I spoke to about it. They were saying there was no space and the games that were there weren't necessarily working well. But this time, being able to concentrate on a dedicated free-play area, a dedicated vendor hall, really worked well. So congratulations to them and we're certainly looking forward to coming back next year. Right. So one little note on the games present in the free play area.
    6:38
    A couple of games were there with either no credits on them or not even a ball installed. So it's nice to bring a game, but then if nobody can use it, what's the use?
    6:49
    Yes, I saw that as well. I was wondering why. Certain games, you know, the older games particularly, which don't allow free play, and you have to put in a really low replay score in or look at some other method where you press the start button. It adds a credit too.
    7:04
    That's a bit of extra work. But obviously somebody brought the game along and as you say, if anything, put your balls in it and it can never be played.
    7:12
    There was one game that was in the vendor hall actually, wasn't there? It was on pay-per-play. Oh, really? Yeah, Guardians of the Galaxy was on, I think it was 50 cents a game or maybe it was a euro a game. Right. All the other games in the hall were on free play, and I don't think I ever saw anybody ever play Guardians of the Galaxy. So I'm not quite sure what the point of that being there was, unless it was to sell it as a new in-box or virtually new in-box unused game. Probably, yes.
    7:44
    It's a shame, because it's a good game, and I'd like to have played some more on it, but there you go. But there were plenty of games in the free play hall to enjoy. and on Sunday I think when I was playing it wasn't that hard to find a game that was free that I could play. Right. So certain games you'd see are available. You go up and press the start button, as you were saying, and nothing happens.
    8:07
    Either no credits or no balls in it. Right. But generally on Sunday you could find a game to play. Saturday I doubt that was the case. It was a lot busier in the halls. Right. So there's one interesting note that I have to add, because I think you left around 2 o'clock Sunday afternoon, something like that. Yeah, shortly after that. Yeah. The show was open until 6 in the afternoon. And the interesting thing was, Sunday afternoon it got busier and busier. There were people still coming in at 4.30. I mean, entrance to the show, the entrance fee is only 4 euro, which is something like $5, something like that.
    8:47
    And there's a different mentality with the people going there. The people visiting this show, the locals at least, are like, oh, sure, let's go play pinball. And they go there for two hours and they play some pinball and that's enough for them and then they leave. And that's why you see on Sunday afternoon, if people are bored with whatever they were doing and they figure, oh, let's go play some pinball, they just come in for two hours and that's enough for them. So in this... Yeah, and it's worth mentioning that that whole ability to be able to charge four euros for entry, I think it was three last time I was there, so that's a massive price hike.
    9:29
    Centres-wise, yes. Yeah, a whole euro more over five years. That's all down to the fact that the municipal council is farsighted enough to actually give them the use of the hall, both halls now, for free on the basis that they bring a lot of visitors and a lot of custom to the town and to the shops and the hotels and the whole place benefits from that. I just wish there were other places in the world, I've never heard of this before anywhere, that were as farsighted and thought in the long term and had a joined up plan where they give a show, a venue for free on the basis that it actually helps the overall economy of the town and that's something which would be nice to see elsewhere. Right, and let me chime in on that in the sense that what this show does that I haven't seen on any other shows in the world except for shows in France, what this show does is on Saturday evening they have a banquet which is mainly for the volunteers of the show and the people who bring games. they do sell tickets so if you want to be at the banquet you can buy a ticket and that's not even that expensive and this year the food was really good was they had a huge grill outside in which they were grilling chickens and hams and there were sausages they had vegetables and there were four types of meat and three types of vegetables and having been to previous of these banquets that they did all the ones that I've been to prior to this have been inside in in one of the halls mostly in the concert hall this year the weather was extremely sunny and warm for the especially for the time of the year so they decided to do it outside which was great yes the one I went to 5 years ago was indoors and it was excellent food but the whole thing did last quite a long time how was the timing on the one that you were at this weekend I think it took over 3 hours in total we're in France so that means like 7.30 they started off with a sort of happy hour which means that everybody is basically drinking alcoholic drinks or non-alcoholic drinks. There's all sorts of chips and snacks also available as a sort of appetizers, I would say.
    12:18
    And then I think around 8, 8.30, somebody gave us the note that luckily the table where I was sitting at was all the way at the end but we were the first to go um and line up for um grabbing a plate and um taking the meat and the vegetables and so on and then everybody else followed you know and that took quite a while because i think there were like probably 150 maybe even 200 people at that banquet it was it was yeah but it was great the atmosphere was great there was very a lot of camaraderie and everybody's having fun. I was at the table with Jack Warnieri. Even he couldn't stop talking about it on Sunday, how much fun he had. We had such a great night. It's difficult to describe. So let's just say it was absolutely a great night. Fantastic.
    13:13
    Wonderful. And there's something, I mean, European shows, I think, in general, and the French shows in particular, have a very much more relaxed and, I would say, laid-back attitude to alcohol in general. Not in a sort of bad way, but in a good way, in a way that it's not seen as such a demonic drink that has to be outlawed or pushed to the back, or anybody you've seen drinking is a terrible thing. We were there, well, we were on Saturday at about, what, 11 o'clock or something? Yeah, no, at noon. Oh, noon, was it? okay, let's have a toast. So out came the Ricard and the Martini. They had Bianco and Rosso there. They had Scorch even there and whiskey. Did they? I didn't see that. Yeah. And everyone has a little toast to mark the success of the show, the fact that it's all underway. And that's it, and you can move on. It's not inclusive of anything. You know, they have a champagne stand at the show, selling branded champagne.
    14:16
    I thought we could have a little taster if you wanted as well. But it was nice to know, I think probably our American listeners will probably not understand exactly how this is much more informal and laid back and casual event rather than alcohol being seen as something absolutely forbidden and you mustn't be seen drinking it, particularly not with kids around or anything like that. Well, I mean, it's France. They drink wine like lemonade. So for them it's more common than for other cultures or countries, you know. Yeah. But going back to what you were saying earlier, and you mentioned about sharing a table with Jack, and I'm sure a number of people would like to hear what Jack had to say to us. Do you want to tell us a little bit about how we came to talk to Jack over the weekend? Well, obviously we knew that Jack was going to be there, so we discussed ahead that we definitely wanted to see if we could get Jack to comment on the recent events around the Pirates of the Caribbean game where the three spinning discs mechanism is being pulled and replaced by a single disc.
    15:39
    And actually, what happened was that I think we had a two-hour talk with Jack, completely off the record, which was great. Yeah, that's about right. He talked to us a lot about what's going on in the company, which gave us a lot of insights. And with that all being off the record, of course, we can't get into that. But it did help us because I told Jack we still need to go on the record and record something, which we did. but it helped us in getting out some questions and then leaving it up to Jack how much he wants to reveal or not. That's right. We didn't want to stray into areas that he definitely wouldn't be talking about because that would just be pointless, really. But we could, in a way, approach various issues in certain ways and give him the opportunity to say what he can about the situation regarding the change to both the speaking disc and the chest mechanism, which has also changed to being a fixed rather than an open and closed mechanism. Right.
    16:48
    So what we did was, as Jonathan said, we had a pre-chat about the situation, and then we went and hunted out a reasonably quiet place to have a talk and record the interview. And obviously, at a show like that, it's not that easy just to find a little room somewhere. And Jack is the guest at the show, and he needs to be out and about and meeting people, and he wants to be.
    17:16
    So we found a little sheltered, shaded area around the back of the gymnasium hall where we could sit down and just have that little interview in the open air. because it was pretty hot during the day. So the good thing about that was that nobody interrupted us during that. The downside is it was a bit breezy out there, and also you'll hear in the interview a few sort of background noises of birds and dogs and motor vehicles, which sound like somebody's coming in with a chainsaw, but it's not really. It's just a motorbike or something taking off. Right. But I think, well, personally, I think it went very well, and we got some useful information out of it. What was your impression after the end of it, Jonathan? No, I think you're right. Jack talked about the things that were going on. He addressed the issues. I don't think there was anything he didn't want to talk about, at least not in terms of what we asked him to discuss. Obviously, we knew what the subjects were not to touch, but when I was trying to lean into something, I gave him the space to either get into it or not. And I think that he did. And I was personally very happy to hear from Jack, to see him on Sunday. And obviously he replayed the whole thing in his mind as well, how it went. And he was very happy how it went. So I'm happy with that. Yeah, me too. The other thing I'll just add is that there was no point did Jack say to us, I can't talk about that, or did he ask us to take anything out of the interview afterwards? No. So what you're about to hear is verbatim what he told us and our questions as well. So we're not wasting any more time. For the record, I will say there's one edit that we're making in the interview, which is when your girlfriend called you which wasn't really necessary to keep in. That's fair, yeah. In fair disclosure, yes, my phone did go off in the middle of it just as we were ready to meet up after the interview. The thing about it was, as with all these things and with our last podcast, as I was going to say, we think it's going to be a 10-minute, 15-minute interview and then there we are, 15 minutes later, still talking. Right. So when I tell her, oh, I'll be finished in 10 minutes, of course that doesn't happen. So not her fault, my fault for misjudging exactly how long we could get this going for. But anyway, so we've got anything else to add before we lead into it? Yes, I do.
    20:10
    For the people, obviously, we're going into the Jack Guarnieri interview right now. But after that, we'll also be talking about the Olympic Goblin game from Phoenix Pinball, which was at the show.
    20:23
    Yes, indeed. Yeah. What else are we going to talk about? Well, we're going to keep this relatively short because this isn't our monthly update. This is just a one-off special to bring you this as quickly as possible.
    20:37
    So let's just play the interview. We'll work out what we're going to talk about later. But we have got the Olympic Goblin stuff. It was very interesting. It's my first time seeing the game, so I'll give you my impression of it. But that's still to come, and we do a wrap-up of the show as a whole. So anyway, let's listen to what Jack has to say.
    21:00
    Thanks again to Jack for doing the interview. And okay, over to you. So we're here in Let's Trade for France at Flip Expo 2018, which is a wonderful show. read our show reports if we haven't talked about that on either pinballmagazine.com or
    21:22
    pinballnews.com. We're here with a special guest at the show, Jack Guarnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball.
    21:31
    Thank you Jack for making time to talk to us. Well that's what I'm here for. I would do nothing else and it's not nice that we're sitting in a little garden in the shade because it's about, you know, I might be sweating a little bit, but it's not because of the questions that I anticipate you asking me. It's actually because it's pretty warm over here. Back home in New Jersey right now, it's freezing. So it's a nice change. It's beautiful people here. They're excited about pinball. The show is really big.
    22:02
    The organizers have done a great job. So it's all good. It's really a nice place to be. I'm happy to be here. Even with you guys. And before we start, we just apologise to anybody who may be listening, there's a certain amount of background noise here from various vehicles, which are part of the retro show they're doing at Flip Expo. Not to mention all the birds flying around. Yeah, we are right next to the port here at Le Treport. So you'll be seagulls and various other background noise. Yeah, that's not a soundtrack that was added to this. Yeah, we've got a Ford sound effect on this podcast. We've got to make it real big. We're actually in a bunker with Jack Hostage. And the sound effects CD, yes. Anyway.
    22:50
    So being here at the show and being on a European trip for you, because you've been here for over a week now.
    22:58
    Yeah, I started in Austria last weekend. We had a great show there too. Right. Then you went to Germany, you visited the Pimble Universe. Yes. Which is one of your new distributors here in Europe. Yes, that was a great time too, and they do an amazing job. We were really happy to be invited there, so that was a lot of fun.
    23:17
    Right, and all the time while you were in Europe, there was a lot of, let's call it noise on the Internet. There's been an announcement about the Pirates of the Caribbean game where two mechanisms are removed and replaced with substitutes, which not everybody may seem happy about.
    23:47
    Is there anything you would like to comment about that? Well, you know, first of all, I apologize for the fact that we even showed this game when we did. You know, I take responsibility for that. I think the days of showing a game and not shipping it for us are probably over.
    24:09
    You know, we always, the company was founded on an idea to try to do the impossible, to always innovate, have these amazing games. And that game, you know, I will say, yes, the triple spinning disc was a really wonderful and far-reaching mechanism. but you know like a meal that you would eat at a restaurant it has to it has to cook until it's done we kind of ran out of time to make that thing cook until it's done it's not reliable enough for us to put it in games i don't want to have an episode where uh like we had light boards failing and other issues that we didn't get to with other games that we had to correct later in the marketplace i'd rather enjoy a little bit of criticism or a lot of criticism and some pain to make really a bulletproof game. And believe me, when the game is done and we're building them this summer and they start shipping to customers, customers will say nothing less than, wow, the game is amazing. And, you know, the people that decided not to buy it right now, look, they're not sales anyway. They're pre-orders. They're really not sales until they ship. So when the game ships, it'll be judged on its own merit. It won't be judged on what I say. It'll be judged on reality, which is our customer's reality. We're very respectful of their loyalty and their money and their patience with us. And I just think, as always with Pinball that we all love, there's a lot of reaction, there's a lot of opinion, there's a lot of overreaction, there's a lot of criticism. And it goes with the territory. You know, we have a pretty thick skin and we've been through a lot worse. And we just want to make a really great product. So, you know, So that's really the first and foremost thing. And really, our games are stuffed with so much that if that spinning disc wasn't on the game ever, and I know it's hard to unsee it, the game was phenomenal without that item. Really, what goes into it now, and to answer the next question that you're going to ask me, you know, you took something out, are you putting something in? Probably. I know you pretty well. You're laughing. You know, what's going into it is not just the commitment to make a great game, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of programming, because that wheel will live on the LCD. So JP has a lot of work to do to make the wheel virtual on the screen, to make the rewards and awards come to life. And it'll be really a sensory overload experience. experience probably probably be able to better show it on the screen than you actually could show it on the place you're saying it would take takes longer than you have to actually develop that as a reliable functional mechanism but it going to take some time to do animations as well right so you are actually ruling out the chance of that ever making a return in any form It not going to be in a Black Pearl edition It's not going to be in anything to do with Pirates. Right. There's gold. Okay. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, have I said things before that were changed a little bit here and there? But this is something really that, you know, we're not going to be tricking our customer base or anything like that. You know, I wish I could tell you, yeah, it'll be in the CE game or it'll be somewhere else. Who knows? maybe in three or four years it'll be in a different game altogether. You know, I think the mechanism, if it could be perfected, and pinball we know the word perfected is not really a good word because 100% of the time things work 60%. You know, there's a lot of shots and mechanisms on toys and every kind of pinball machine made that really don't work all the time. We're kind of aiming a little higher than that. We want things to work all the time. So it's a lot more difficult to do it. I mean, I guess we could have said, you know, it's good enough, put it on the game, push it out the door. But I really don't think it's respectful of the customer base. They're paying a lot of money. They deserve a game that works. I don't want to see these mechanisms. And this is not something somebody is going to take apart, the average customer of ours, that buying a high-end machine, they deserve more respect than having to take something like this apart and service it or service department sending out advanced replacement parts and everything i went through that with the light boards on wizard of eyes of course there's hundreds of thousands of dollars and we warrantied those parts many many years after we're still sending some people like woods gratis on the company so you know certainly we want to stand behind it and and jonathan you know your other question you know is it a money thing it's not a money thing no i don't I don't know if you would ask that, but... I didn't, but... Yeah, you think it. I like the question. I don't know. You know, it's not a money thing. It's a pinball thing. It's got nothing to do with money. You know, we spend a lot of money. People see us do an unlicensed game, you know, like Dialed In, and at first they say, well, you don't have to pay all the license fees for that. It should be cheaper. Probably cost us more to do Dialed In than it cost us to do a game like Hobbit. So, what appears on the outside to be something, really when you get into it and you start doing it and you realize what's involved, it's a lot different. You were saying that you regret having shown the game that you did at that time. Has anything now changed with the company or the way in which you're going to promote future games as a result of that? Yeah, I believe it has. I believe, you know, it's, to me personally, having gone through, like so many of us, the whole Wizard of Oz thing, you know, where we expected to have a game in a year and a half, and it was, you know, close to three years.
    30:04
    Hobbit, you know, the pain that we went through in announcing the game and showing it, and then the backlash and taking a year to redo the game to make it a better game. dialed in.
    30:16
    All of these games always take us longer than we think or we project they're going to take. It's just the nature of engineering and releasing parts and having vendors make parts and getting the parts through the assembly line. And of course we joke, you know, the most important part is the part we don't have. But, you know, it's not really a joke when you have, you know, a hundred people working for a company and you have to keep an assembly line running and you have to fulfill game orders from customers that want to buy your games. I mean, we've had people, we've had some people knee-jerk react and cancel Pirates, and I've had distributors tell me, Jack, I've got news for you. You know, I had people cancel Pirates, and they ordered, and we delivered Hobbits. So net-net to us, it's not a marketing ploy that we did this to Pirates to sell more Hobbits or dial in, but people love our games. They want us to succeed. They love that we've raised the bar. They love that we've helped other companies create better products because of what we're doing. And look, when you aim really high, as we do, and all the people in the company are committed to this, all our programmers, our engineers, our designers, the people on the assembly line, the people in the parts department, the people in accounting, everybody in the company, the DNA of all those people is to make a really great product and make something spectacular for our customers. You know, when you aim high, sometimes it happens that you miss that target, but you're still pretty high up there. And I'm not going to apologize for pirates. I think once the game ships and everything, go back and listen to this interview, and you're going to love the game. So you're saying it's more of a case of, you're still going to be producing the top premium quality game, you will show it later. You'll show it in a more complete and more ready-to-ship version rather than something that's still a work in progress. Yes. I think some people, even from the beginning, we had to show something at the very beginning. People put their money down. In this case, people put a $250 or $1,000 refundable deposit down. The money's in an escrow account. We're not using that money as we did in the very beginning. If you gave me $10, I'd probably spend $11 in the beginning. So it was a different thing.
    32:32
    We want to grow as a company. The company is seven years old, going on eight years old. It's time for it to grow up, and I think part of that process is showing a game a year, building a game a year, making sure that what we ship works.
    32:51
    Not that in the after-sale process we say, well, we probably shouldn't have shipped this because we knew this didn't work exactly right. We don't want to be saying that. We want your experience to be a great experience. And remember, if we talk about pinball shows and all the shows that there are and the growing marketplace, the growing customer base, the growing hobby base, thousands more people come into pinball every year. The people that might buy Pirates of the Caribbean walk into one of our distributors, let's say, this year in the fourth quarter around holiday time, they don't know of any of the drama, whether there was the three spinning discs or eight spinning discs on the game. They're gonna play the game and love the game and see Pirates of the Caribbean. They can say give me that game I want that game for Christmas. I want that game for Whatever occasion or just from no occasion the game is gonna sell It's a spectacular game. So I'm not not gonna make an apology about what the game is and I'm apologetic about the fact that we
    33:49
    You know that we did things the way we did them and I take responsibility for that. I'm sorry about it No, just think in terms of you've always shown your new games at Pinball Expert every year.
    34:02
    Is it time to maybe give you more breathing space before you announce the next one? Yeah, I think there were some game designers on the video game side of our industry that used to say, you know, we'll show the game when it's ready. I think that's a better plan, but the plan is to internalize and figure out when we want the game to be ready, not that the game is ready on its own.
    34:28
    You know, here we are, it's spring, and all the trees flower, right? Because Mother Nature knows that when it gets warm, the birds are coming back and bees are flying around. We have to be more exact like that. We have to have a plan and get it together, and we will.
    34:46
    So that makes me wonder. the current mechanism that's been taken out of the three discs, due to showing the game and having it at shows, these technical issues occurred. Aren't you afraid that you're not going to run into those if you're not going to be showing off the game until it's ready? Exactly. That's exactly right. And, you know, this is what it is. I mean, years ago, we all know the history of pinball, what pinball companies would do in the past. Remember, there was no social media. There wasn't the home sales. There wasn't the enthusiasm there is now. There were operators like me that, you know, they tested these mechanisms, and we do internally. We test them as well, and they fail. We test things, pushing them over the usage to try to get them to fail. So, you know, part of the advantage of having games and going to shows with them and everything is that, yes, people get to see them and they get to understand them. You know, last week in Austria, I would say most of the people there never, you know, played Pirates of the Caribbean or even some of our other games.
    36:02
    That's the upside. The downside is, you know what, if it's not going to be on the game, don't put it on the game. All right. You know, figure that out beforehand. It's like showing somebody a gift they're going to get for their birthday. By the way, happy birthday tomorrow, Jonathan. Thank you. I'll have to get your birthday gift. I could show you a birthday gift and then take it away. I saw that violin with a red ribbon around it. Thank you so much. Enjoy it. You can use it today and tomorrow. Just the red ribbon, not the gift. Yeah, but, exactly. Martin, you're always my diplomat for that. Yeah, so, you know, there is a danger in that and you have to balance those things. Because there's still the risk that if you implement whatever mechanism, if it hasn't been tested well enough, then you start shipping games and problems will occur. Well, how about, you know, if you tested something in a certain way and it passed, you know, one, two, three, four tests and it failed in five, six, seven, you know, in somebody's home, you know, a year from now. Who knows? I mean, we need to do our best, which is really the goal to get better every day and to learn from mistakes and yeah it's always true that you're better off learning from other people's mistakes but when you make the mistakes they hurt a lot more so you don't want to make them again. To be fair you're not exactly the first company to do something like that are you? My life cast back to the early 90s and I came from Judge Dredd with the Dead World, another spinning disc, which is the Pimble, where they tried to lock balls on it and the arm to take the balls off wasn't powerful enough so they had to change the whole mech and not lock balls. Right. But that's a historical footnote. It probably wasn't a real-time live, you know, social media discussion at the time. You know, no operator probably didn't pass on a Judge because the spinning disc wasn't on the cam. People didn't know the difference. I mean, look, you know, we know that people have taken things... Yeah, anyway, we were just talking about Judge Dredd. Yeah, well, you know... And you say people didn't not buy it. I mean, you know, you didn't have social media, so you didn't have the influencers, people. You know, it's kind of funny on different sites. People get to weigh in with a poll, you know, will you cancel it, will you buy it? buy it. We don't know if they bought it, we don't know if they cancelled it. You know, there's a piling on when things are great and there's a piling on when things are not so great, so we wear a little out of storms. I just think what we really need to do is do what we do and make really great games and just do it instead of talking about it. Is there, this might be a tough question, management-wise, anything that could or should have been done differently to avoid this? Well, the answer is yes, but every company has different things that they do where things could have been better or could have been worse. So look, you learn from those things and you improve on it and you try not to make the same mistakes again. Right.
    39:26
    This is a perfect editing point anyway. Is there anything you want to address about Joe's situation? And I'll ask a proper question when we go back on the record. But is that something you don't want to discuss? You know, people don't know him. They know somebody was brought in. So, you know, like saying he's there or not there, it's kind of like not even a, you know, it's not even like a talking point, really. It's just, I think people are more comfortable of the fact that I'm still there to be honest with you.
    40:10
    Well, that was good. My next question, actually, is not whether you're still there, but what exactly your role is at the moment, because you've been around quite a few shows recently and away from the factory.
    40:23
    You know, my role in the company, look, I'm the chief cheerleader. You know, the company wears my name, which is really very humbled and proud of that. You know, I get to go to shows and interact with our customer base, our distributors. and I have a hand in developing the products, deciding what the products are going to be. The licensing for the company, I do that. So working on licenses and ideas, what we're doing, I still believe I'm the visionary of the company and I don't know everything. I still like to learn things. being out there with the customer base really gives me a different perspective on what's happening on the ground real time. Because I don't take what I know or what I think I know. I listen to everybody. You know, I came here and the customer said to me right away, it's a pleasure to meet you. I have a problem with my dialed in. And we walked over to his game and we found we had a connector that was a little bit loose on it. So he was kind like shocked that A, you know, I said, yeah, let's go look at the game and B, you know, that we found a problem. So he was happy.
    41:39
    You know, I like to do everything I can to support the people in the company and to work for the success of the company. Look, it's my baby. I started it and I want to see it do really well. I want to see the people in the company do really well. And I want to see all of our customers and our distributors be really happy with everything we built.
    42:01
    And you have an increased number of distributors now, is that right? Yeah, I think since probably November we've added about 17 distributors worldwide. You know, you guys saw me at the show in London. We added many new experienced European distributors. I think since November I was looking the other day in the system and we sold something like close to 800 games to those 17 new distributors, of which about half have shipped already.
    42:37
    So it's really great. You know, people want our games. They know we're here. They know we're here to stay. There's no question about our commitment to the industry and reliability of games or playability of games. So, you know, it's good. You know, rising tide lifts all boats, as they say. Since we're near the seashore, I kind of think of that. and us doing what we did, I think it enabled a lot of other people to get involved with pinball and designing pinball and building pinball and it's good for everybody. Since you've been in the business of building pinball machines, you've raised the bar quite a bit, which resulted in other companies also raising the bar. But there's also the risk of the games being overly complicated, that the public for who you're actually building the games, you risk losing. Yeah, you know, you have a good point. I mean, the market was different when Wizard of Oz was a twinkle in my eye. I wanted a game with sensory overload. I didn't say no to anything that was added. The company mantra was, we're not building games with a calculator, we're building them with passion. Of course, my people took that literally and we wound up with really a spectacular game tactical game that we're going to continue to build for many years to come. We sell Wizard of Oz games every day, and we're very proud of the game. However, part of that is, you're right, with the growing amount of people coming into pinball, they're not that skilled, and that is the word, you know, the casual players, they're not that skilled to climb into the extremely deep rule sets, and we don't want them to be frustrated when they play a game on a location, and we want them to come back, we want them to feel challenged, and we want them to feel that if they play more and they get better at the game, they're going to get further in the game and see more of the cool things that our games do. So, yes, our program is mindful of that, and, you know, they're making adjustments to what they do and how they do it. A lot of us creative people create things that we like. So I guess if you... What kind of ice cream did you have before, by the way? It was kind of local brandy flavor. Yeah, right.
    45:24
    So you might have picked chocolate because that's your favorite flavor. But trying something new is good too. So while we could make something simple all the time, I think we do need to challenge the player base to get them to get further in the game. So, you know, we talk about all these things all the time. This is an ongoing conversation in the company. And, you know, when you can respond to the marketplace when you're making any product, you're going to be more successful. So I definitely agree with what you're saying. Is there ever going to be a chance that Jersey Jack might be making pinball games that are in a lower economical segment to cater to a different market? Possibly. I would never say never. I mean, it's, you know, my standard answer to the show when I get to ask that question is, you know, why would I do that? Because there are companies doing that already. And it's not to be a smug or a wise guy, but there are a lot of companies making games in that space, and there are a lot of options to buyers, whether it's some new product in that space or some good-use product in that space. We're in a little different place because there's a lot of stuff in our games. I put stuff in quotes. There's a lot in our games. It costs a lot of money to make that and we need to charge more for it. Could we develop a game later on that has less? The question I typically get is worded with your spirit of the question but a little differently. People are asking, can I get your game for six grand? That's like saying, you know, I want to buy, you know, a Bugatti for 20 grand. It's not going to happen. So, yeah, compromise would be a big word. A different brand, you know, years ago, right, General Motors, they had the Cadillac at the high end and the Chevy at the low end and they used the same chassis and a lot of the same parts between the brands. It was cosmetic. I don't know that we're there yet. We have some great things that we could work on, but you know, we have to get by some simpler things that we're working on to get there.
    47:58
    Maybe, maybe. In the same sort of topic, while you're probably not going to be revealing what other games are currently being worked on, but if you, since you're into the licensing and the company, When you get a certain theme, is that like you're thinking like we can go really deep with that or is that not so much the factor? In the sense that obviously you have programmers that love to go deep in a game, but certain themes may not be suitable to go deep. I mean, if you have a theme that's more appealing to a younger audience that's not that familiar with pinball, maybe you should just keep it simple. Right. And that's true. Different things are going to call for different levels of work.
    48:55
    But so far, we've put a lot of work into everything. We've put a lot of work into everything. There hasn't been anything where we said, let's not do that. I mean, The Hobbit is getting another big software update. We've been working on that. So, you know, it's a commitment to make the best products that we could possibly make. And when I think about titles, licenses, subjects, different genres of product, a different thing lends itself to how it's going to be developed and the depth of it. And, you know, we have a lot of great things coming. I mean, the pipeline right now is extremely exciting. We have some great products coming and you know what else would you expect me to say but it's true. It's true.
    49:50
    Your company is quite unusual in the way, one of the ways which is unusual to say is the way you're actually physically spread out. You have your main manufacturing facility in New Jersey, but you also have your campus up in Illinois, and then you also have JP working over in the Netherlands doing the art. I'm not sure there are other people that we may not even know about working on other aspects of the game, but we've got David Healds who's done some of the sound in Seattle. How does that work out? Do you think it would be better if everybody could be together in one location? Well, we have some people that could sit next to each other and not communicate with each other, and we have some people that are on opposite ends of planet Earth that speak all the time.
    50:41
    So some of it is based on personalities and how much people interact with other people in the jobs they do. Some of it is based on location.
    50:53
    You know, I've thought about this now and then, when I started the company, I thought better of all the people that work for the company and that with today's technology and communicating, FaceTime and Skype and instant messaging and all kinds of different ways to do it, if people are in different time zones in different places, they still could collaborate easily.
    51:17
    And that happens for the most part. But, you know, we do have people that could communicate better, and we have people that seemingly communicate all the time. So you keep working at that as a company. We have a lot of different meetings and a lot of different communications in effect. So I think when people are passionate about what they do and they collaborate with each other as a team, they're really excited and they want to share ideas with each other.
    51:52
    Eric started working on a new game, and he's working with his team, and I see communications many times a day about what's going on.
    52:08
    Pat's working on his game. I see some of it. I don't see all of it. Pat works differently than Eric as though many other designers have their own style they develop.
    52:22
    But as long as they're staying on target for what they need to do, you know, it works out. So it didn't really matter to me in the end that part of the company was in one place and part was in the other.
    52:39
    I don't know that it would really have made a difference because, again, you know, the communications is available to everybody. So instantly connect with somebody.
    52:52
    And I guess you're also able to get some of the talent on board that you may not otherwise have been able to persuade to move. Yeah, I mean, that's a very... Physically uproot. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I felt more for the people and their families.
    53:05
    You know, they have relatives and grandparents and things like that in different places. Because, you know, JP being in Holland, it never hurt. You know, he's always ahead of his work. He turns in everything beautifully.
    53:18
    He submits things to some of the licensors and properties that he's working on. And, you know, he's just a few hours ahead of us. And, you know, when he's got to get me, he knows that I'm up at the crack of dawn, four in the morning or whatever. It's only 10 o'clock in the morning for him. and you know he knows he's got to get me you know so it works out it works out
    53:47
    um you've been here in europe now for over a week a little over a week um you're well you got a busy touring schedule you're on the road a lot Are you still enjoying it? How do I look? Well, we're sitting here in a garden in the shade of sunny... Beautiful. Right. Beautiful. Right You know I very blessed and very lucky and very happy and yeah I love it You know I love sometimes I don love to travel as much Because you know airports and trains and things like that it a pain in the neck But, you know, aside from that, you know, like the other day I landed in Vienna. You know, people on my Facebook, oh Vienna, have some sausages, have some Vienna fingers, have this. So I landed in Vienna. I got off the plane. I carried on. I didn't have a check bag. I walked, I don't know, half a mile to the train station, which was, you know, covered area. I got on the train, and I headed three hours to, you know, Austria, the other part of Austria. So much for Vienna. The show was, right. It's fine. It's okay. You know, it's kind of like, wow, so glamorous. You know, last year I did 120,000 miles in the air, And I have no complaint about it at all.
    55:13
    You know, when I go home, there'll be a bag of garbage for me to take out. My wife is happy if I go. She's a lot happier when I come home. You know, I miss everybody. You know, extending a trip like this is a little unusual. But, you know, you had two trips, two shows one weekend after another. So it definitely didn't make sense for me to go back home. I got to visit distributors and customers. And, you know, I got to go to the Louvre one day. So, say Wednesday I went to the Louvre, or Wednesday was like my Saturday. So, what was wrong with that? I'm having a blast. It's a great thing to be able to do. And it's just wonderful to come and meet customers that I've talked to for years and haven't met them. And maybe share a picture or share some memory of something or create new memories. So, it's really great. You mentioned your company is now in its seventh year of existence. Your role in the company slightly changed when a new investor came on board. How do you like your current position in the company? Is there anything you would like to change? Well, you know, I'm still doing a lot of important things to guide and grow and support everything that's happening in the company. So in any role that I'm needed for, I'm willing to do it.
    56:51
    You know, I think I'm a pretty good resource for the company in many levels. And I don't have a problem with anything right now. I'm happy. I'm fine. Some things, not having to do everything, is not a bad thing. In the beginning, I had to do everything. Everything was on me. It was unbelievable pressure to do a lot of things. Not just financial pressure, but timelines and deadlines and things like that. So I get to move to a place where I like, in a space that I like, and do what I like. I mean, there's nobody bothering me in the company, if that's what you're saying. Nobody. Not so much that, but it could be that you'd like to be more involved in certain aspects of the company. Things that I like to be more involved with, I step up and I get more involved with. Things that I want to be less involved with, I step back and I get less involved with. It's that simple for me. and when there's a problem, you know, I run into the fire. I don't run away from the fire. So, you know, whatever it is that the company needs me to do and our customer base needs me to do and our vendors and our distributors, I'm there to do, whatever it is.
    58:13
    You know, whether it's taking the garbage out in the building, here we go again, or whether it's, you know, being at shows, being at licensing shows, being anywhere I can be of help.
    58:28
    That's what I want to do. Speaking of licensing, we might get into a little nitpicky area here, but since you came on to the scene,
    58:40
    certain aspects in licensing for pinball changed, as in that all of a sudden there were two companies interested in a certain theme, and more companies started getting interested in licensing and now there are more companies interested. And from what I hear, many of these licensing companies, all they care about is like, let's get the most money for our license. So it's no longer that you get a cheap license because there's nobody else interested in it. Now there's three or four parties that might be interested in a license. How is that affecting pinball in a business sense and in general?
    59:47
    logos, but I've been credited or blamed with that. We gave rise to the fact that other people said, well, if Jack can do that, I can do that, so that's good. I think it's great. Let the better companies and people making the products rise to the occasion. Competition is great. I thought that years ago. And with the licensing companies, there licenses that I looked for that are already gone. Great licenses don't necessarily equal a great game. I think we know it's what you put into it and what you make it be. Certainly people thought I was a little crazy when I said I was going to make a game without a license on the level that we made dialed in. Yes, it took a lot longer for the game to catch on and it probably cost us the same amount of money to do that as what we did with Hobbit. But look, the funny thing about licenses, most of the companies licensing things, they call around. They try to get an auction going. So I do get calls from different licensors saying, hey, how you doing? Good. So-and-so is looking at this license. Do you I have an interest in it. And it's probably not the most ethical thing, but look, they're trying to do what you said. They're trying to get the most for their license. And some things are too difficult to get. They don't have enough assets for me. You know, I want video. I need to license music. I need to license video. I might need to license animation. I might need to license, you know, other assets to go in our games. And if I think that those things are either going to be way too expensive or way too difficult to like nail all the jello to the wall to make them happen, I won't give up. I'll just say, no, okay, that's not for us. We'll go do something different. Let somebody else choke on that chicken bone. It's not for me.
    62:01
    Did you grill me enough? I think so. Am I well done? Sorry. Well, that depends. Is there anything that you would like to add? Oh, I get an editorial commentary for the show. Well, look, you know, I just, I appreciate what both of you do. I mean, it's a mutual admiration society here in a way.
    62:25
    It's really cool that you come to all these shows and that you write and that you report. You know, you do, you know, your magazine is not a magazine. I mean, it's a novella. I mean, it's just unbelievable commitment to what you do. New people coming into pinball to discover what pinball is. I mean, I visited the French Pinball Museum the other day. Yesterday I was there. And to see, you know, hundreds of vintage games and the condition they're in, and to stand there and see pictures on the wall of, you know, Ray Maloney and David Gottlieb, You know, I don't expect that my picture is going to go up on the wall. I expect, you know, like a brass bust of me or something like that, you know, really. I don't want a black and white picture of me. You know, they better do something good when I'm gone, for goodness sake. No, I'm only kidding. But, you know, it's really very humbling to be part of that kind of history because my intent in 2010, when I was thinking of this, in 2011 when we launched it, was just to make great games. I didn't know all the baggage that would go with it. I didn't know all the social media part of it, the criticism, the good, the bad, the really good, the really bad. It's been a great ride, and it's made us stronger as a company. And I think pinball is something really great. None of us own it. We get to contribute our part to it. and it's really cool that so many young people are getting into it, especially women. You know, you come to these shows around the world. I remember going to the few shows that there were years ago, and, you know, it was just the freaks and geeks, and like me, I was one of them, and now you have whole families, and it's just spectacular. It's just really a great time. I think we're really at the beginning of the boom for pinball. I think we're just scratching the surface until the beginning of it. Maybe all the companies that start out, maybe not everybody will be successful in the long term. All of them, I wish all of them the best. I'd like to see a few more get in there too with some more great ideas. It makes it better for everybody, really. So, just thank you. I really appreciate it very much. Everybody listening, I get a lot of emails from a lot of people. I get a lot of texts. I get a lot of phone calls. And you can keep them coming. I value all the opinions, all the criticisms. I answer everybody. And I respect everybody for everything that they put into it because it's their heart and their passion for pinball. Well, thank you for taking the time to sit down with us. Thank you. Well, that was interesting, wasn't it? I think there's a lot of useful information from that. a certain amount of reading between the lines as well could also be done from listening to what Jack said there. But I think the key thing is that he's very keen to do what has to be done in order to get the game into production to produce the best game he possibly can, the most reliable game.
    65:44
    And the last thing he wants is a repeat of what happened with Wizard of Oz with the light boards there where they had to go around replacing parts afterwards. And they still replaced them, as he said. Right. So, no, there were definitely... He said some very interesting things.
    66:04
    And I think, in the end, even if they replaced the three spinning disks and the chest not opening but being constantly open, the game is still action-packed with stuff. So you're still getting good value for your money, I think.
    66:28
    It would seem so. We'll have to see the final product and see how well integrated the disk is into the rules. But I've no doubt that JP is going to do some great graphics. I've seen a taster of that in the little podcast that they did.
    66:43
    So I don't think the rules themselves are going to change. It's just merely a means of displaying them to the player rather than it being three tiny little words that line up on the playfield in a relatively dark area, which you can't see that well. It'll be up there on the big 27-inch display to tell you what the award is. So, yeah, I mean, from a value-for-money perspective, I guess you're not getting a mechanism that you would have got, but from a gameplay perspective, you're probably seeing it exactly in the way you would have seen it before and getting some different kind of action from the spinning disc, which they're going to do different things with to what they could have done with the three concentric rings. Right. So there's one thing about the chest being open constantly that actually might allow for changes in the software that might actually benefit the game.
    67:36
    I suggested this to Jack, and hopefully this might get implemented. Obviously, I don't work at Jersey Jack Pinball, but I figured since the chest will be open, that will allow you to see how many balls are locked, which basically allows you to go for a lock-stealing scenario similar to total nuclear annihilation. So if you go into multiplayer, if you can constantly lock balls in the chest, then you can go to a quick multi-ball and maybe steal one from other players, make it interesting as a multiple player game. I think that would actually be very welcome to the game because right now the game as I've played it you really have to just start flipping until something obvious or until something lights up that it's obvious to you what you're actually going for. But at the beginning there isn't.
    68:40
    And novice players might need something like what am I going to shoot for? Having the chest being open and able to lock balls and get into a quick multiple, that might actually be something that novice players might appreciate and just be what they need. So if they would implement that, I would obviously advocate for that being or turning something bad into a good. But that's just me. I think you're right. But bear in mind that at the start of the game, you pick a character and you can choose various, well, two characters to choose from, and each of them brings an attribute to the game. And one of them could be that that kind of feature is enabled. Now, you can steal locks from other players if you choose a particular character. So it would be easy to add from that perspective. It sort of sits well with the existing rule set, I think. Right. So it's up to the team of Jersey Jack to see what they do with that. But I really would like to make that suggestion, like, see if you can add that or implement that into the game. I think it would be a benefit for everybody.
    69:51
    Yeah, okay. So that's probably enough about parts of the Caribbean, or Caribbean, depending on where you're living.
    69:59
    Shall we have a talk about... Is that your phone? I think it is. Or is it Mark's? Hang on, let me check.
    70:12
    No, it's not mine. No, it must be yours. Yeah, it's me. It's me. I'm sorry about that. Terribly sorry. Well, in the middle of the podcast. I mean, who would ring you in the middle of a podcast? Who's calling? It's Gary.
    70:23
    Jerry? Jerry Stellenberg? No, no. Gary. Oh, Gary. Gary Stern. No. Oh, right. Not Gary Stern. Gary Flower. Gary Flower? Well, he's always calling. But what did you give him your number for? that was a yeah that was a mistake i know i know but now he so yeah you've got any idea what you might be calling about i have no idea he tried calling me a couple of times earlier um but i uh i wasn't here i left my phone here on the charger and i have no idea why he called i tried calling i did try calling him back and then he didn't answer so that didn't get me anywhere and they call you right now in the middle of a podcast like this what what great timing uh Do you think it's worth picking up the phone? Do you think you should find out what it is he actually wants to talk about? Well, if you say so. But, oh, hang on. I think he hung up.
    71:17
    Oh, are you going to call him back? No, we're in the middle of a podcast. Why would I call him back?
    71:23
    Well, I'm sure everybody listening wants to know what it was he was ringing about. It must be very important to ring him. He's rung you three times now. Well, I'm very curious, but let's finish this first, and then I'll call him back later. If it's important, people will find out. Okay, we'll put it in the next broadcast. Yeah, okay. Excellent. So where were we? The other new game, I suppose, that was at the show, which isn't actually in production, and that is Olympic Goblin from Phoenix Pinball. Right. Now, I know you covered that in your monthly updates on Pinball Magazine. It's not actually a production game yet. There isn't a manufacturer yet, as far as I'm aware. Or is there? Well, they will be doing the manufacturing themselves.
    72:12
    So that could be very interesting. The game has been in development for a little over two years, I'd say, because I'd seen it two years ago at Flip Expo when it was still a whitewood and just the first iterations that were made public, I'd say. you couldn't play it but the game was there and you could ask questions about it and a lot of people already commented on it that I think they had at that point only the back glass and they made a topper out of the Olympic Goblin that was featured on the back glass as a topper as well but it was all very well it didn't look that professional I'd say and some might say that it still does well art is well you can have lots of debate about art but it's still art I guess it wouldn't be my preferred artwork to be honest but I'll get back to that because there's something interesting to report on that as well ok well let me have a little discussion as well then about something which i've had some experience with in my real time job and that is the use of um the word olympic uh you think it's a sort of generic public domain phrase or word but actually it's very closely controlled by the international olympic committee and their licensing branch and you cannot just go putting the word olympic on anything, particularly not anything to do with games of any kind.
    74:09
    Now, when we were doing a pinball tournament format in London, the Pipeline, it was in 2012, and London was also the host city for the Olympic Games in 2012. So we wanted to do a kind of pinball Olympics, but we could not call or could not use the word Olympics or games even in relation to anything that was going on. It was actually illegal.
    74:42
    Laws were passed to stop anybody sort of cashing in on the Olympic brand without paying the International Olympic Committee their licensing fee. So we could not do that. So we had to call it Summer Games or something like that, you know, which was some of the pinball games which we did and it was good fun we did sort of like tech in different disciplines like a decathlon on different styles you know sometimes using your feet to flip all kinds of various things but this is something I think Phoenix Pinball might run into problems with because they have called their thing you know Olympic Goblin and it's got a goblin holding a torch running you know just like an Olympic mascot and I think they will not be able to take it into production with that name that's my opinion, I'm not a lawyer but I do know how very tightly the IOC defend and pursue those who try to cash in on the Olympic brand without getting a licensing deal from them and I don't think Phoenix Pimple would be in a position to do that so they may need to think about changing the name of the game well maybe they do that's only my opinion right well maybe they do I do have to say they did not use the five rings or anything that I mean they could even do something with five pinballs and they didn't do that so there is the green mascot carrying a torch but yeah you don't see them suing the statue of liberty for carrying a torch as well. You can't use the word Olympic, that's the problem. So, well, that could be an issue. Then there's two solutions.
    76:36
    Well, the interesting thing is these people hardly speak any English. So good luck sending your notification that...
    76:50
    I'm sure the International Olympic Committee would have lawyers in France as well. Right. So, and then let me get to what I was hinting at earlier, because I've played the game, and we'll get into the gameplay a little bit later on. There were a few comments I had about the current gameplay,
    77:16
    especially the sounds, the background music, and the sounds effects and if there were any voice calls.
    77:27
    I would say those were definitely up for debate, as well as the artwork of the game, because a lot of people criticized that.
    77:38
    And the interesting thing was, I spoke with, trying to remember the guy's name, don't remember it right now, but it's a team of two people, Christian Petit and this other guy, I think his name starts with a J, but I'm not sure.
    77:54
    And he told me that anything is customizable with this game. The soundboard is a pin soundboard and you can customize any sounds. Currently, there is one background tune that is running constantly, but the game has, I think, four or five different modes. So I suggested, why not have a different soundtrack for each mode? You can do that. They already made that possible in the software, that you can change those tunes, put in whatever you like, and customize the game that way. Same goes for sound effects and that kind of stuff.
    78:39
    Okay, it's probably worth, at that point, just having a little recap exactly what the game is for those who haven't been following it that closely. It's running on Pascal Janine's Gottlieb-style board, hasn't it? Yes. Or isn't it? And with a pin sound sound card. It uses LED seven-segment displays. Right. Very much in the style of Gottlieb games.
    79:06
    So, you know, when you drain, when the ball saver's going, it says chance on it in exactly the same way as the Pascal training boards for Gottlieb games would say. Right. It's a simple layout. It's got three pop bumpers and three banks of three drop targets, I think. Is that right? Yes, that's right. It's almost a symmetrical playfield layout,
    79:33
    except for the fact that there is a spinner on the top left, which is not on the top right. And there's also four rollover lanes at the top, which you didn't mention yet. And that's about it. The entire layout looks very Gottlieb-like, which isn't that strange, because Gottlieb was very, very popular in France in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. And the idea behind this game is, as far as I understood it, bring back the simplicity of the electromechanical rule sets from those games, but in a modern-day cabinet with running on modern-day electronics. I think that's the best way to simply describe it. But we're not looking at a Keith Johnson rule set here. The gameplay on this game is extremely simple. It's easy to understand. It might not be difficult.
    80:33
    For a seasoned player, it might maybe be easy to master. but for a novice player not. Sorry. With the current artwork, you might think that it's aiming at children, and maybe it is. But funny enough, as simple as the game is, I think that's the game I played most all weekend. I kept coming back to it.
    81:01
    I played it on two separate occasions. The first time I played it, I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't think the rules or the game didn't kind of explain to me what I was meant to be doing very well.
    81:14
    That's probably because of the lack of any kind of speech to it. But afterwards I had a discussion with you about it, and you told me what the basic idea is, and once I done that I actually found it enjoyable but quite simple you know I actually got through all the four stages right in in my very next game right so let explain for our listeners briefly what the idea is and I'll give it my best shot so there's a couple of modes the first mode is called get the pigs and you have to see the artwork to understand but together there's an image of the Olympic goblin character grabbing two pigs.
    82:01
    That's the best way I can describe it. So there's two pigs on there, and what happens is when you start a game, you start in that mode, and you have three banks of three drop targets each. One bank is on the left, one is in the center, and one is on the right, all at the top of the play field. what happens is of the nine targets that you have there's one target blanking on the left drop target bank and one opposite on the right which represents two pigs and basically what you have to do is knock those two blinking specific drop targets down when you do that you will hear a ta-da! fanfare and you instantly move on to the next mode, if you want to call it that. You don't have to qualify for something first or you don't have to start anything by shooting a ball into a lock or a scoop to start the mode. You're instantly in there. The second mode is win the race. and I think there's three drop targets being lit in that mode, if you want to call it. So you shoot those down and... Yeah, I think it's one on each of the three target banks. It's a different one to the first one. Yes. And then in the next mode, which is actually interesting, the next mode is called Eat Them All,
    83:36
    which I think should be reversed with the mode after that, which is beat them all because I figured okay first you grab the pigs then you win the race if you see the artwork on the game then you beat them all and after you've beaten them then you can eat them because that's sort of the idea what I got because you see a picture of the goblin on the playfield eating the pigs and the other animals that it has been beating in that other round so that should technically that should be reversed but okay that's nitpicky stuff I guess kids won't mind so the third mode I think there's four or five drop targets on the left side that light up and once you've completed those you go to the other mode and then it's five drop targets on the right side that light up that you have to knock down and then you get already to the winner stage and there's three stages on that there's like third, second and first I think the third is completing all nine drop targets and that will allow you a double bonus, award a double bonus. Then there is an extra ball awarded if you do it another time and then the last time you have to do it, it scores a special.
    84:59
    That's the main gameplay and then at the top there's the four rollover lanes that you have And on top of that, it says corrupted judges. Each rollover lane represents a corrupted judge. So there's four characters which apparently are these judges who are corrupt. And what's interesting here is that you try to obviously collect all four of them, But each one, which is lane changeable, is tied in with extra high scoring on certain lanes on the playfield. So if you get, let's say you get the most right rollover lane at the top,
    85:48
    once that's lit, it will light certain lanes on the playfield for extra scoring. and that will light up from below.
    85:58
    So it doesn't say like 1,000 when lit. Instead, 1,000 will light up above that lane, indicating that it's worth extra points.
    86:12
    Because you can't see it until it's lit. That's what you're saying. Yes, yes. And the interesting thing is, as far as I understood it, because the top lanes are lane changeable. But when you do that, you also change the position of the lit lanes that award extra points.
    86:31
    Obviously, when you complete all four, then every lane on the playfield will be awarding extra points. But if you don't have all four, then you can still flip around the extra high scoring to the lanes where the ball is near.
    86:48
    Sure, sure. Right. Okay, so something there which was maybe not obvious, but was almost taken for granted, I think, is that although this is a French game and has a very French feel to it, all the playfield writing is in English, isn't it?
    87:07
    Yeah, I think so. Although it mostly was also the rules were almost like a sort of puzzle with symbols. There's not much writing in the rules. it's more like symbols with the animals being drawn and all that kind of stuff. But I don't remember that much. But Corrupted Judges was in English. That's correct. And the Moe titles, you know, the Win the Race. Yes. That was all in English as well. Yes.
    87:37
    Okay. So, yeah, it was a fun game. The question is, who's it going to appeal to? I mean, that's one of the things that really confused me a bit because you think it would be a good home game. or it would be a good, cheap on-location game. You know, if it was priced at a very low price, almost like an EM game would be, you know, 50 cents, 25 cents even per game, then you can imagine it doing well. It's one of those games where you could have a short ball time, but if it was cheap, you wouldn't worry about it too much. But for the home aspect of it, that confused me a bit, because I thought the ultimate aim is to beat the third stage of the wizard mode, and when you do, what do you get? A special. Well, that's worth nothing in a home environment. You want to have something better than that. So maybe that's something you need to rethink as well, or at least have an alternative possibility, giving you either an extra large points award or some other kind of bonus. Right. So what I suggested to them, being this appealing to kids and being this simple,
    88:51
    I asked them, why not put in a redemption ticket dispenser and go for the arcades that are full of this type of redemption games, you know, and just award tickets for each mode that is completed. Yeah, it's very simple to do, I imagine. Right. the thing is ticket dispensing games are illegal in France so they haven't thought about that because that's unfamiliar territory for them because it's illegal they like the idea and they can see how it could work internationally but they have to get into that and see how the regulations are on that and what they can do you know so they're not there yet I've spoken to them a bit more than I have. So what's your impression of who they think, or what their ambitions are with this game? Are they intending to sell hundreds of them, thousands of them? Or just want to make 30 or 50 or something, just to sell them to homebuyers? I'm not sure whether they are aiming at homebuyers.
    90:04
    It's difficult to say. I think they're more aiming at operators. and they probably, and that's just an assumption on my end, but France used to have a lot of pinball machines in public areas like bars and cafes and that kind of stuff. That mostly disappeared and partly because games have become rather expensive.
    90:27
    This is a very simple game with a very low bill of materials, I would say. I mean, the slingshots didn't even have kickers and still they sort of acted like they were supposed to. What I understood, I talked to them and while nothing is official, I can't express that enough, but they are looking to price this game under 5,000 euros, including taxes.
    90:54
    So that would be like, I'd say, at least 1,000 euros under the cheapest pro version of any Stern game that you can currently find. that might make it interesting for operators plus it's made in France and the French like stuff that's made in France so that could work for them as well yeah I think so very patriotic when it comes to buying produce not sure whether that differentiation between if you compare that game to an Iron Maiden Pro it's hard to see that you can get away with less than about 1500 euros difference in price given all the extra features and displays and everything that you get in a Stern game but on the other hand how many youngsters are going to be able to walk up to an Iron Maiden game and have fun playing it from scratch as opposed to that game which anybody can play, a couple of games on, or three or four, and instantly understand, well, once it's pointed out a little more obviously, instantly understand what the aim is and what the targets are and what the rewards are. So, yeah, it could work. A simple game can work, but it has to be priced right, and that will get it back into cafes and family entertainment centres and places where a big scary multi-layered, multi-ball, multi-rule game would scare players off. Right.
    92:37
    What I also understood is from talking to the team that they are working on a second game. The second game will be more complex playfield-wise and probably also rule-wise, but they still want to keep the price, quote-unquote, under 5,000 euros, including VAT, or whatever the taxes you want to call them, sales tax, or whatever they are.
    93:04
    So you could see this as a first game that they would just make to test the waters. I'd still say, if you want to put it out on location, if they're going to allow customers to provide their own custom artwork, which is what they told me,
    93:26
    I think the game could use different artwork. And if one of the customers comes up with a very nice art package, who knows, they might offer that to others as well.
    93:38
    Yeah, I think that's definitely getting into the territory of the enthusiast market, though, isn't it? Rather than an operator who wants to buy a game. Well, but even for an operator... An operator's not going to want to re-theme it. Well, no, but for an operator, the game has to look appealing as well, and if you put this game in a lineup next to an Iron Maiden or a Ghostbusters or a Pirates of the Caribbean or a Dialed In, I think the other games might be more appealing to the eye and might get the quarters. Oh absolutely, I can't disagree with you there but I think that the company, the manufacturer had to come out with an attractive package, not rely on some third party somebody who's bought the game and decided on their own time to go ahead and work out a better package the Phoenix Pinball should be doing that, they should come out with something which is great right from the off, they shouldn't need anything extra added to it by an operator, because an operator as we know, is not going to be bothered spending time. Time is money. They're not going to be bothered doing all that. They want to put it out there, earn the money, get the cost back, and start making money on their investment. Right. What might be an idea for them is see if they can do some sort of contest. Any artist that wants to provide pinball artwork, here's your chance. And the best one gets his artwork on a game, and who knows how it will end up, you know. I mean, there's plenty of artists out there that might be interested in doing something like that and this could be a good opportunity.
    95:20
    Well, absolutely. You might actually end up with them getting, you know, getting invitations from other pinball companies to do pinball art because there's more and more companies now making games and, you know, all those games need complex and comprehensive art packages, and there's a limited number of people currently producing that, so we need to get some new talent in, as Stern has done very recently. So if it brings people out from wherever they are into the pinball market, then it could be a good thing for everyone. Right. But aside from, okay, obviously there's still a little bit of work, and there are certain things that you can discuss whether you like them taste-wise or not. I'm happy to see that at least they are trying and they are very serious about it.
    96:18
    Yeah, absolutely. It's an interesting project. We'll have to wait and see how far they want to go with it. Is it going to manufacture themselves? That would suggest they're talking about small numbers, at least initially.
    96:35
    Which again probably is the best way. I mean as a small company you don't want to have immediately 500 orders because that might be scary. So let them develop this and grow into whatever they want to do and get better at it. Iron out all the kids diseases that might pop up when going into production and all that kind of stuff.
    97:05
    and then see what they come up with next ok, jolly good that's Phoenix Pinball's Olympic Goblin Game to mention I'm going to have some pictures up of that on my report from the show in the next couple of days along with a whole overview of the Flip Expo show we're going to have over 100 high risk pictures now, unfortunately it's been a lot of work and it's going to take a little while to download I expect when you actually look at the report but it did come out very nicely so I'm very pleased with the way the pictures turned out but that report should be up in the next day or two and if you're listening to this a day or two after we've actually put this podcast online it'll be online now so anything else to add about the FlipExpo show? What I would like to add is that I will be publishing my own report as well. Actually, on Olympic Goblin, I already wrote a report, which is already on the Pinball Magazine website. Currently, the pictures are missing. I will be adding those later, but I just got home a couple of hours ago, and I'm working my way through a pile of email and all that kind of stuff.
    98:26
    So there will be pictures of Olympic Goblin, which I took with the glass off and detailed areas and such. So for those interested in looking at what we just discussed, go to pinball-magazine.com and you'll find it over there.
    98:47
    There is one thing I'd like to add. We mentioned the banquet at the French shows in general, I'd say, because I've been to other shows in France and they had similar banquets. I think it's a great way to appreciate or to say thank you as an organization to the people who are bringing games to the show, to the volunteers that are helping them to make it a great show, to give them something back that is not accessible to the ordinary public unless they pay for it. But it's a very nice gesture and it sure helps to motivate volunteers to either help out at the show or bring games. You know, I think it's a very nice gesture to do. And I can see how other show organizations are being organized, but I would strongly suggest, like, take this into consideration.
    99:50
    Couldn't hurt. I think that's a very good point, because these shows live or die by whether or not people bring games to them. Right. And in defense of other shows, the organizers of which probably listen to this are going, but we do this, we do that. I absolutely know that, like, at Texas, every game that's brought gives the person who brings it a ticket into a prize draw, which is drawn at the end of the show. I know that in Northwest Show, for instance, as well, they also do reward the people who bring the games.
    100:28
    And they give them a free breakfast there, I think, on the Saturday mornings. So, yeah, there are probably other rewards as well, which I'm forgetting about. But, yeah. No, I'm not saying that other shows aren't doing that. I'm aware of, I think every show has their own way of showing their appreciation to those who help out and who bring games to the show but for those listening that are organizing shows I'd like just to see what they are doing in France and if you like what they do then see if it can work for you, if you have something else and that works for you that's also fine yeah absolutely I agree because as I said, shows primarily, when they start up, are all about having a wonderful selection of games that people wouldn't otherwise have access to and people take out of their home collections or operators bring along and rewarding those people who make the extra effort. It's so easy just to do what I did in that case, which was just to rock up at a show, pay my four euros per day, go in, play the games, take a lot of pictures, write a report and leave and effectively contribute very little to it other than helping to publicize it and hopefully bring more people along in future years and you yourself did actually bring a couple of games you and adianka together brought um we make the matrix and the big and the big lebowski exactly so two very sought after and much appreciated games i'm sure so yeah i think it's absolutely right that people should be rewarded and appreciation shown for the extra effort that goes into doing that because it's not just a case of for most people it's not just a case of just stick it in the back of a van drive it to the show and unload it and leave it there for the weekend it's get it prepared make it bulletproof and make it look the best it possibly can take it to the show set it up level it clean it make no things happen in transit as well you You know, things break, things that are never broken in their life. We put the machine in the back of a van, drive it 10 feet, unload it, something's broken. And then look after it the entire weekend as well. And then, you know, when everybody else has gone home at the end of the show, you're still there with the leg spanner, taking the legs off, folding the game up, packing it away, putting it in the van, the bit that nobody ever gets to see. So I think, yeah, all power to those shows that thoroughly reward those people make that effort and it sounds like Keflexlo did a very good job with that. Right, so what I also would like to mention is that in the vendor hall there was an interesting selection of newer games I would say we had quite a good representation of Jersey Jack pinball games, I think there were two of each game, Wizard of Oz, A Hobbit two dialed in, three even I think two pirates with three discs of course Spooky Pinball was even represented with Total Nuclear Annihilation a Rob Zombie game and the Jetsons which is technically by the Pinball Company but built by Spooky Pinball and the Big Lebowski which I brought which has nothing to do with Dutch Pinball but I asked them and they wouldn't be attending the show. But I asked, can we borrow a game, bring it to the show, and then we'll bring it back to you afterwards. And I'm very appreciative for that they allowed us to do that because it certainly was a nice, an eye-catching game at the show. And a lot of people were very happy to being able to play that finally.
    104:25
    Yes, and you had the nice big banner behind it with the rug and the wording on it. so yeah that was slightly offset from the other games it had it's own space and it looked very nice and I'm glad you were able to keep it going for the majority of the show I know you had little problems here or there which you were able to fix a connector fell off or something but something minor but yeah I think people even though that game's been out for well been out in various forms for a while and obviously isn't in production at this moment. There's still a huge level of interest in playing it. It's not,
    105:05
    even after all this time, it's not people haven't got tired of it. The cues there were huge. Actually, a lot of people who played it for the first time, they were really surprised with what a great game it is.
    105:18
    At least that's the feeling that I got over the weekend. So I really hope that that's where people get their things together with their site tech company. and that they will have production games coming off the line soon.
    105:33
    Yeah, indeed. I think we all hope that. Anyway, anything else to wrap up about Flixpo? Before we call this special podcast to an end? No, I think this is it. Yeah, excellent.
    105:50
    Okay, well, in that case, let me close by saying thank you very much to our special guest this time, Jack Gunnery of Jersey Jack Pinball and doing our special interview. It was good fun. We had a good time at the show, I think, and Jack certainly seemed to enjoy himself and loved the banquet. And I think the whole atmosphere there was very, very positive and enjoyable, and the weather only went to help that as well.
    106:17
    The whole area, I think. It's a good show, and I'm kind of kicking myself for not having been there for five years.
    106:25
    It's such an easy show for me, to get to, really. It's like an hour and a half's drive from my house to the ferry to get across to France, and then another hour and a half's drive to get to Calais, to the Trepo. And it's a lovely little village, so we'll be very keen on going back again. And congratulations to Frank and everybody who helped organise that show. And thanks to Jonathan as well for his assistance over the weekend. Yeah, OK, well, my pleasure. well I guess this is it for now we'll be back at the beginning of next month with our monthly recap of the news of what will be April 2018 yes I think we will we did the last month there was a sort of one off just to see how it went and whether people were interested in it and well people seem to like it so I guess we're going to have to keep doing it aren't we? Yeah I guess so We can always stop, but let's continue for now and let's see how people feel about this. Again, if there's any feedback that you guys have listening now,
    107:34
    please do let us know what you like, what you don't like. We both have email addresses on our websites, which are easy to find. So just drop us a line and we look forward to any feedback, any constructive feedback as well if there's anything that you think that we can improve then just say so and we might take it into consideration yeah absolutely this is new stuff for us so we're still learning what to do and what not to do so your guidance on that would be very much appreciated thank you and thank you for listening to this one if you got all the way through it then well award yourself a gold medal from the Olympic Goblin right okay so i'm gonna say thank you for now and i hope you enjoyed this and hopefully you'll be back with our next podcast yeah beginning of next month okay thank you very much thank you bye