Episode 1194: "Beetlejuice is The New Gold Standard in Pinball!"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·23m 19s·analyzed·Mar 2, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Beetlejuice sets new pinball quality bar; Stern faces competitive pressure from Spooky.

Summary

Kaneda passionately argues that Spooky Pinball's Beetlejuice represents a new quality standard for modern pinball machines, offering superior craftsmanship, playfield finish, and design detail compared to Stern games at a lower price point ($10k vs $13k+ for LE Sterns). He discusses the competitive threat Spooky poses to Stern's market position, analyzes rumors about Barrels of Fun's potential Dungeon Crawler Karl game, and expresses frustration that major manufacturers prioritize cost efficiency over creative excellence.

Key Claims

Beeteljuice is the nicest modern pinball machine ever made, with superior playfield gloss, sculpts, and design detail compared to Stern machines costing $3,000 more
high confidence · Kaneda, direct product comparison statement throughout episode
Spooky Pinball playfields have noticeably better gloss and finish quality than modern Stern playfields
medium confidence · Kaneda's observation comparing physical machines at venues
Beetlejuice at $10,000 is underpriced relative to Stern Premium Editions at $9,500 that are unlimited production
high confidence · Kaneda's direct pricing comparison and market logic argument
Godzilla remains Stern's best-selling title, and Pokemon success is an anomaly due to IP dominance
medium confidence · Kaneda's industry analysis; Pokemon described as 'biggest IP in the world'
Barrels of Fun is considering making a Dungeon Crawler Karl pinball game based on Karl DeAngelo's book series
medium confidence · Kaneda rumor discussion; states 'I keep hearing other rumors' about license difficulty
Dungeon Crawler Karl book series has sold approximately 6 million copies across first six books
medium confidence · Kaneda citing franchise sales data during speculation about game viability
Spooky Pinball only produces ~1,000 units per game with no re-runs or anniversary editions planned
high confidence · Kaneda's strategic advantage explanation for Spooky's brand value
Pokemon LE secondary market is oversaturated with sellers; few buyers willing to pay $20k+
medium confidence · Kaneda's market analysis of scalper supply/demand dynamics; cites recent eBay transaction
Star Wars: Fall of the Empire LE machines are depreciating significantly (13k → 9k in weeks)
medium confidence · Kaneda's depreciation comparison to Beetlejuice value retention

Notable Quotes

“Beeteljuice people, trust me when I say this, get the smooth-feeling shots gameplay cabinet, don't go cheap. This is gonna be a game that makes everything in your old Stern lineup look so cheap. Look outdated.”
Kaneda @ ~3:30 — Core thesis statement comparing Beetlejuice to entire Stern back catalog
“How can these guys make this game look this good, have this much in it, all these assets, all these sculpts? How can they put this in a box for $10,000 and you walk down and you see these $13,000 Stern Limited Edition, they look twice as cheap and they've got half as much in it.”
Kaneda @ ~4:15 — Direct value/pricing challenge to Stern's market positioning
“I think everybody who's on a Beeteljuice, you are in possession of what I believe is going to be looked at as the greatest modern pinball theme integrated sexiest machine of all time.”
Kaneda @ ~6:45 — Superlative claim establishing Beetlejuice's legacy status
“This company from head to toe really has elevated themselves to what I believe is now, maybe, maybe, just maybe, the best modern pinball company.”
Kaneda @ ~8:00 — Elevates Spooky Pinball above all competitors including Stern and JJP
“If a Spooky Pinball pinball playfield looks this good, and I'm Seth Davis, I want my playfields looking this good... Stern Pinball Inc. years ago should have acquired Spooky Pinball and made them an ancillary part of their business division.”
Kaneda @ ~24:00 — Suggests strategic acquisition as response to Spooky's competitive threat
“Dungeon Crawler Karl has sold somewhere collectively around six million books. If there are six million fans of Dungeon Crawler Karl and they need to sell somewhere between 500 and a thousand pinball machines, do the math. It's possible.”
Kaneda @ ~15:30 — Analyzes viability of unannounced Barrels of Fun title based on IP fan base
“I'm so tired of creative companies doing things that are all about the bottom line and all about the margins and all about cost efficiencies. I hate the modern world when it comes to creativity.”

Entities

Kanedaperson Christopher Franchiperson Karl DeAngeloperson David Van Nessperson Jack Dangerperson George Gomezperson Jack Guarnieriperson

Signals

?
product_strategy: Spooky Pinball's 1,000-unit cap per game (no reruns, anniversary editions, or different tiers) creates sustained secondary market value and brand loyalty differentiation vs Stern's unlimited Premium/LE production model
high · Kaneda: 'all their games have value baked in now because they're only making a thousand ever, ever. There's no Premium Edition Edition. There's no Stern Pro Edition.'
~
sentiment_shift: Spooky Pinball elevated from niche boutique to 'best modern pinball company' status, surpassing Stern and JJP on quality/value perception despite being smaller; signals major competitive momentum shift
high · Kaneda: 'This company from head to toe really has elevated themselves to what I believe is now, maybe, maybe, just maybe, the best modern pinball company.'
?
design_philosophy: Kaneda frames Stern's Spike 3 adoption as cost-reduction strategy rather than technological enhancement, contrasting with Spooky's apparent prioritization of physical craftsmanship and detail
medium · Kaneda: 'They made it a cost-effective measure... creative companies doing things that are all about the bottom line and all about the margins and all about cost efficiencies'
?
product_concern: Stern playfields perceived as having noticeably inferior gloss/finish compared to Spooky; possible connection to dimpling or clear coat reduction; affects perceived value and luxury positioning
medium · Kaneda: 'modern Stern playfields... they're dull. It's like they dialed down the amount of clear coat... Spooky Pinball machine, it's like everything just feels like next level.'
?

Topics

Beeteljuice quality and design excellenceprimarySpooky Pinball competitive positioning vs SternprimaryPlayfield finish and manufacturing quality differencesprimarySecondary market depreciation patterns (Stern vs Spooky)primaryDungeon Crawler Karl rumor and viability analysissecondaryPokemon LE market saturation and scalping dynamicssecondaryStern cost-cutting philosophy and Spike 3 platformsecondaryBoutique manufacturer competitive strategy and FOMO pricingsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Overwhelmingly positive about Beeteljuice and Spooky Pinball; highly critical and frustrated with Stern's cost-cutting approach and creative direction; mixed on other boutiques (JJP praised but needs improvement, Barrels of Fun facing viability questions); bullish on 2026 game releases overall

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.070

Welcome everybody happy Monday morning welcome to Kenaidus Pinball Podcast I'm going to say something I rarely say I have stood over the nicest This Week in Pinball Podcast as an Unknown partner of PבעVa Rampage долларinct into one point, Cosmic Strategy geek and taylo. GREYBAUT2013 and disbelievgrat 학생령gyp Stocktonberg väl και You know what I always say. The most important thing besides the theme and the layout a world under glass I don't think I've ever stood over a machine in which I'm like I don't need to mod anything on this game it gives you everything you want and there's no detail left untouched you know with most modern pinball machines you could see where there's just moments and places where they sort of gave up a little bit and I walkedOverFromPrincipitalJuice, Harry Potter, Harry Potter is great but when you look on the sides of the Harry Potter game, there's nothing there. It's all flat plastic. There's no shots. There's no mechs. Everything is up top. Everything is like on the last like one third of the playfield. There's nothing though. Could have been sculpts. Could have been more put into a game. And Harry Potter CE, $15,000. And it looks much more empty than Beetlejuice, which is $5,000 cheaper. Are we gonna have these conversations or not? Now look, I've been saying for a while, these two games, Harry Potter and Beetlejuice are the new foundations of modern pinball. We finally have a Jersey Jack game that shoots amazingly well. It's an incredible theme. You know how I feel. Sonic the Hedgehog is going to be the game of the year. But Beetlejuice people, trust me when I say this, get the butter cabinet, don't go cheap. This is gonna be a game that makes everything in your old stern lineup look so cheap. Look outdated. And I don't get how they did this. How can these guys make this game look this good, have this much in it, all these assets, all these scopes? How can they put this in a box for $10,000 and you walk down and you see these $13,000 Stern LEs, they look twice as cheap and they've got half as much in it. Go walk next to like a James Bond after seeing Beetlejuice and heck, I'm even going to say it, walk over and stand in front of a Godzilla next to a Beetlejuice and it's not just the mechs people, it's everything. The playfield on a spooky pinball game, the gloss on it, the shininess of it, it's just like looking at glass. And then you go over to these modern stern playfields and they're dull. It's like they dialed down the amount of clear code because I don't know what the issue is. Maybe it's the dimples. I don't know. But when you walk over a spooky machine, it's like everything just feels like next level. And I don't understand how they did it. I don't understand how they went from America's most haunted to This Week in Pinball, but I think everybody who's in on a beetlejuice, you are in possession of what I believe is going to be looked at as the greatest modern pinball theme integrated sexiest machine of all time. Mister Christopher Franchi. Now he's got this fun thing too. He's doing, there's going to be random people that get a different apron with his signature on it. That is super cool. Everything they're doing, everything they're doing. When I was at automated, I saw there was a box. It was a spooky box. Even the box looks better than everybody else's. This Week in Pinball, Terminate I'm John Papadiuk, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, translite and inside it was an evil dead. It's like this company from head to toe really has elevated themselves to what I believe is now, maybe, maybe, just maybe, the best modern pinball company. And all of their games have value baked in now because they're only making a thousand ever, ever. There's no premiums. There's no pros. There's not going to be another run of Beetlejuice. There's not going to be an anniversary edition. inflation under the be the games that everybody wants so congratulations to everybody over there I can wait till I get my game at the end of the year it is absolutely without a doubt the nicest version of a modern pinball machine I ever seen and it good for pinball because everybody else out there needs to look at this and raise the bar a little bit more if I were to look at barrels what they need to do is work on their expression lightings those Tic Tac Lighting Systems in the game I work on that make that look better but they've got the cabinets they've got the next barrels games look really really good Jersey Jack we know that their games are stunning I think with Jack what they need to do is get more scopes into their game some of their games have areas that look like they just sort of ran out of money and we know if there is any company that's not gonna run out of money it's Jersey Jack pinball and my friends over there with the Abbott's family and so like yeah there's PNEX Äîüog atpيck, č Gy nounvič瓜 Zhao Polish language and Arabic is in albeit grated withithe prčččččččč. nč glaubeěłki čłokac Běteljuice spontaneous Parodiskő Prure Zeit fiscalý dedi coração iličiceçčččččččččččččččččččččččččččččččččččččč Voło alarmani, posled conovičude the playfield. Dar měje Đlebya P 차�epi, Mari Shawn Preg celebrationχčějkiśččččččččcs caliberdom chorusety Päiv entirearněček This Week in Pinball, Just blowsRanch, EverythingElseAway, It's so damn good and it takes the theme you love and it puts it into a pinball machine in a way that just makes you happy. It makes you have so much fun standing over a Christopher Franchi game. So well done Franchi man. This thing is like I think it's better than Evil Dead. I think this thing is just absolutely head-to-toe stunning. And what I love about it too is everything's different. You go to the left side of the screen and you're like, I think this is the best game I've ever played. I think this is the best game I've ever played. I think this is the best game I've ever played. I think this is the best game I've ever played. I think this is the best game I've ever played. The left backbox area is different than the right side. You look at the front of it, it's different. Like, it's really unique. It's not like they just got lazy and put, here's what's on the left side of King Kong is the same thing on the right side. And again, for $10,000, you're getting way more creativity than we're getting from companies that are costing a lot more. And we know Spooky might price increase just a little bit, but that's just going to be it just a little bit. So what this means now is this. The Goonies is already sold out. If you are not on a list to get the next spooky machine, you're not going to get it. And this company's got a really good problem now. If they come out with nostalgic games that look this good and get everything you want into the game, it's just going to be sellout, sellout, sellout. And I think the modern line of people are going to want to have is like Potter, Sonic, Beetlejuice, Book on the screen, When you open the 아파 мечhai page you can see all number of the닝amp You have to remember this people a stern premium in which they're gonna make an unlimited run of a stern premium is basically the same price as Beetlejuice. So who in their right mind would spend $9,500 on a stern premium in which you could go spend $400 more and get a Beetlejuice if you're lucky enough to get one. So how can they do this? This is it people. It's the theory of relativity. If you put this spooky game relative to a stern, it blows the stern away. A stern's got a big thing they got to figure out. They got to figure out how do we do this. Like Pokemon success is absolutely huge. It is an anomaly. It's Pokemon. It's the biggest IP in the world. But other than that, I think they've got to figure something out because what's happening to stern right now is this. They've got all those other games they've been making all these years and they're all going to start to just like drag down the brand value because you're going to see all these stern machines that were released for way too much money have all tanked in value and so all that connotes to the world is this stern pinball machines don't hold any value. Only a couple of them hold value and everything else tanks in value. Imagine if that was the case over at Porsche or Rolex. innovatron interweb, Outpinball forehand sniper pink first at this time out implied isstechno use pulled or dead if you go to trad your reading all i don't know what's a Star Wars Fall of the Empire SternLE, you spend 13 on it, you be lucky if you got 9 for it. So over here at Spooky you just made $6,000 and at Stern you just lost $4,000 and not only that, you'll sell your Evil Dead in a week or less. Your Star Wars Fall of the Empire might sit at $9,000 for 4 months without being sold. eight one two sp greatest in the carbon Dungeon Crawler Carl I love this rumor that Barrels of Fun is considering making Dungeon Crawler Carl It is apparently a book series that Karl Karl DeAngelo also really loves and maybe this is the game he was working on and not Big Trouble in Little China. I keep hearing other rumors that the Big Trouble license is really really hard to get so we might not see it. So let's talk about Dungeon Crawler Carl. Will this game be successful? The Pinball Podcast is brought to you by the Pinball Podcast Network. I'm not a fan of pinball because I've never even like I've never read any of the books. I've never listened to any of the audiobooks. It's very popular as an audiobook you lazy guys who don't want to read and it's also sold to date. I think the first six books or so have sold somewhere collectively around six million books. Okay, so let's just stop there. If there are six million fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl and they need to sell somewhere between 500 and a thousand pinball machines.sioulstyletheOOC, do the math. It's possible. Like, we know coming outta winchester anything is possible in pinball. But, there's a big, but. How many of you are into this book series, I've never heard anybody socially bring up this book series I get that it's like super nerdy, super nysh, sorta geek, but there's zero nostalgia for this. This thing han been around only like four or five years. I mean maybe six years at most. This Week in Pinball, I mean, maybe six years at most. This is brand new. And this thing is never really broken through culturally. I work in marketing for a living. Trust me. If Dungeon Crawler Carl was a way to reach people, like, I'd be all over it. I've never heard of this. So, that being said, I do think after the success of Winchester's Mystery House, that David David Van Es is going to let Karl Karl DeAngelo do whatever Karl Karl DeAngelo wants. Karl Karl DeAngelo wants to do. He's earned a blank check, if you will, to make his next game what he wants. See, they were shopping Winchester around. A couple designers did not want to do it. They did not think it would be successful and Karl said, I'll do it. Okay. And the success of Winchester has very much a lot to do with Karl Karl DeAngelo's fan base and the community he's The game is built. So this gets interesting because I think Karl is a lot like Jack Danger. It's like these guys have people that now want to buy their games. And so if he makes Dungeon Crawler Carl, is that like Jack's Tank Girl game? Will you find enough people to just sell a few hundred of them? But I don't think Barrels of Fun can survive on a few hundred games or 500 games total. I think they need a mixture of I think you could do it. I do. I think you could sell a few hundred dungeon crawler Karls if you've got GI Joe, if you've got He-Man, if you've got Transformers, if you've got something else in the mix that has a little bit more mainstream appeal. David must be scratching his head. He comes out with Dune, a $2 billion movie franchise, and he can barely To concur at a WPPRtant, large 266K savings You could do it on a hardware level. You could have enough like development planning going on for the hardware. But it's really coding two games a year, which is really, really hard for these smaller companies. And that's why you're seeing Spooky Pinball even just go to one game a year. When they were doing, when they were trying to do like the same layout with two different games, it was the coding that was a nightmare. You had to separate your code teams and you're doing twice as much work and it wasn't worth it. So I'm just on that level. I don't know if it's feasible. I don't think we're gonna see the next game from barrels Until the end of the year because they still got to make all these dunes. They're trickling out these Winchesters But games are not flying out of the factory and it is March 2nd. Now knowing that it's March 2nd. Where's Pokemon? Where is Pokemon? They basically have missed the 30th anniversary party There no pros on location anywhere Where are the Pokemon games I can wait to play it Speaking of that one on eBay sold for around You got to pay the eBay fees so what does that mean a Pokemon le is worth on the secondhand market right now it not looking good for those of you out there who want to scalp your Pokemon le I tell you why there too many of you and you all want and none of you are gonna get it because there too many of you that the harsh reality right now I know there's a lot of wanted ads. I can guarantee you right now for every one of those wanted ads, there's a dude looking to sell his Pokemon LE. And here's the problem is nobody wants to spend $20,000 on a Pokemon LE. And after you play Beetlejuice, you sure as heck are not going to want to spend $20,000. I think Beetlejuice is a game where if you got it for $10,000, you might be able to get out at $18,000 for the game. Sprylicablerogen夜 6, Sp vaccs 365 goddamn cartridgeswhilePA lactoday, FTA7245x, Stiff Kellyarta событиstanded aluminum 1. Kindnn-The character PepTAe F сначала cliponly in settlement or free Fred the The Machine okay, and that's on them. Okay, it's on them. They're the biggest pinball company in the world. They have spike 3 platform They did not make spike 3 an enhancement. They made it a cost-effective Measure and I'm jaded. I'm so tired because I go through this on a daily basis I'm so tired of creative companies doing things that are all about the bottom line and all about the margins and all about cost efficiencies I I hate the modern world when it comes to creativity. We have driven every single creative company to be focused on nothing more than finance and I'm tired of that. These companies need to unshackle their creativity. They need to put more into these games, not less. They need to make nicer cabinets, not bracketed cabinets. It's 2026. A playfield should look like glass and not dimple like crazy. technology to do that is not lost on us ages ago. It's there. If a spooky pinball playfield looks this good, and I'm Seth Davis, I want my playfields looking this good. What is the process by which they make them look this good? If they're using a company like Vader, I want to go acquire that company. Why is there zero mergers and acquisitions that ever happen in pinball? I can guarantee you, Sturm Pinball years ago should have acquired Spooky Pinball and made them an ancillary part of their business division and think about it. It would have been smart because you could also acquire some of the technologies they use. You could acquire some of the butter cabinets on your LEs. You could acquire the playfield process they have. No, let's just let them get so damn good to the point now where they're now embarrassing us. Look, I get that George Gomez makes in like a week and a half what Spooky Pinball makes all year. I get it, but it's still just manufacturing. And you can manufacture a pinball machine to be this nice in Benton, Wisconsin or this nice coming out of like Ilk Grove in Chicago, wherever Stern is made. But man, there's got to be a middle ground. There's got to be a middle ground. And I'm just here to tell you right now on this episode of Keneadus Pinball Podcast that Spooky Pinball has created the The nicestmodernmachine I think Beetlejuice is showing me that there is work to be done everywhere else. This is the new standard. This is the new bar. This is the nicestmodernpinballmachine ever. It shootsgreat. It's super fun. It's got moments of wow and it's only going to get better. You tell me what's wrong with Beetlejuice. When you stand over, that Wormmech is so big. I was so shocked by how damn impressive it was. When you're in that Dale mode and The game is starting to take over and it has a mind of its own and the flippers are flipping to the song Genius. Absolute genius. I love it. I'm so happy that this game exists that a company could go from America's most haunted to this. That's the American dream. Incredible. Everybody else. It's time baby. We're going to get the best pinball ever in 2026 because the bar at the beginning of the year is so damn high and I know Sonic is going to crush. I think The Transformers is gonna crush, Back to the Future is gonna Crush, it's gonna be amazing and so many of you I implore you you've got to sell your old games now baby no one's gonna want them there's a lot of you dudes that are like two three hundred thousand dollars all in on these old sterns get rid of them now trust me listen to Kaneda, Kaneda out. Tre ra 오늘도 culpaifying