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Ep 166 Hands on King Kong

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·59m 39s·analyzed·Apr 28, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Loser Kid reviews King Kong as exceptional Keith Elwin design with superior shot connectivity and playfield layout.

Summary

Josh Roop and Scott Larson of the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast discuss their hands-on experience with Stern's King Kong at a Chicago media event. Scott provides detailed analysis of the game's playfield design, shot connectivity, and mechanical differences between Pro and Premium tiers, praising Keith Elwin's design approach and ball path integration. The hosts also reflect on the Pinball Network's dissolution and celebrate the podcast's growth to 28,000 listens in 28 days.

Key Claims

  • King Kong has no pop bumpers by design choice

    high confidence · Scott describes Kong's design and explicitly states the absence of pop bumpers during playfield analysis

  • If King Kong and Godzilla released simultaneously, they would have sold equally well

    medium confidence · Scott's opinion comparing the games to Guns N' Roses' dual album strategy; stated as personal belief

  • George Gomez persuaded Keith Elwin to design Kong after Godzilla's success, over Elwin's initial reluctance

    high confidence · Scott directly references what Gomez and Elwin told him at the media event about the 4-day persuasion process

  • King Kong Premium features a spider magnet shot on lower left that's activated by magnet, not a coil

    high confidence · Scott describes the mechanic in detail; Keith Elwin mentioned this during podcast interview

  • The upper flipper on Kong can connect to 5+ different shots in sequence

    high confidence · Scott describes upper flipper shot connectivity as exceptionally flat and versatile compared to typical upper flippers

  • Loser Kid Pinball Podcast reached 28,000 listens in last 28 days (averaging ~1,000/day)

    high confidence · Josh explicitly states this metric, noting YouTube growth from 1,700 to 20,000+ monthly views

  • Pinball Network has officially disbanded

    high confidence · Josh references Dennis and Zach discussing this on 'This Week in Pinball' show

  • Scott is purchasing a King Kong Premium tier machine

    high confidence · Scott states 'I'm getting a Premium' when asked if he'd consider it for his collection

Notable Quotes

  • “Keith was like, no, I think I'm good. Let's try something else. But Gomez persisted on him for like four days. And so Keith's like, okay, all right, I'll go ahead and do Kong.”

    Scott Larson @ ~8:30 — Reveals the actual process behind Kong's designer assignment, contrasting assumptions with reality

  • “I truly believe if King Kong and Godzilla were released simultaneously at the same time, such as like when Guns N' Roses did Use Your Illusion 1 or Use Your Illusion 2, I think you would have sold an equal amount of Kong and Godzilla.”

    Scott Larson @ ~9:15 — Scott's strong endorsement of Kong's quality and market potential

  • “Pop bumpers are basically time extenders... pop bumper nests are kind of a thing of the past.”

    Scott Larson @ ~14:00 — Design philosophy commentary explaining Kong's design choice to exclude pop bumpers

  • “It's not like saying, hey, you can have the Avengers but you can't have Iron Man, right? It's like, hey, you want King Kong and you got the giant gorilla, that pretty much is all you need.”

    Scott Larson @ ~32:45 — Defends Kong's public domain status and unlicensed theme approach

  • “Elwin has a way of actually kind of welcoming the entry-level players in without completely overrewarding them with a high score. You have to know the rules to score high on Elwin.”

    Josh Roop @ ~10:30 — Characterizes Keith Elwin's design philosophy as accessible yet rewarding expert play

  • “We have officially hit 28,000 listens in the last 28 days. That means Loser Kid on average is getting about a thousand listens a day right now.”

    Josh Roop @ ~5:20 — Announcement of podcast's significant growth milestone

  • “If you like Godzilla, you're going to like King Kong. It has... It has so many elements of high-level ball path connectivity that is so good that will make you want to have both.”

    Scott Larson @ ~30:15 — Final verdict on Kong as complementary to Godzilla rather than redundant

Entities

Josh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonKing KonggameGeorge GomezpersonKeith ElwinpersonGodzillagameFlippin' Out Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Network officially disbanded after serving as platform for emerging podcasters; organization successfully accomplished its core mission

    high · Josh references Dennis and Zach discussing dissolution on 'This Week in Pinball'; Josh reflects positively on Network's accomplishments

  • ?

    community_signal: Loser Kid Podcast growth to 1,000 listens/day (28,000/28 days) demonstrates strong community audience expansion and YouTube platform success (1,700→20,000+ monthly views)

    high · Josh provides specific metrics; notes sustainable growth pattern with no dips below 10,000 YouTube monthly views

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pop bumpers intentionally excluded from Kong design; Scott defends this choice as reflecting shift away from pop bumper nests toward more integrated shot design

    high · Scott explains pop bumpers as 'time extenders' lacking modern design sophistication; describes Kong's alternative shot connectivity as superior

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Elwin's design approach prioritizes long ball paths with high shot connectivity and accessibility for entry-level players while rewarding competitive mastery

    high · Scott describes upper flipper connecting 5+ shots, extended ball paths similar to Godzilla, and Elwin's reputation for accessible-yet-deep rules

  • ?

    licensing_signal: King Kong is unlicensed/public domain property allowing Stern creative freedom but requiring custom LCD animations rather than movie assets

    high · Scott discusses functional custom animations vs potential for movie clips; emphasizes Kong and gorilla are sufficient IP elements for gameplay

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.179

0:00
thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast we're on episode 166 i am josh roop with me my co-captain scott larson and scott we have an awesome episode today you and i are talking we're going to talk about kong and your visit up there but before we get into that if you want to buy king kong where are you getting yours from you know i'd call it contact zach and nicole many flipping out pinball they legitimately can like work a lot of deals for you uh so it's great um you know tell them we sent you that they'll be able to figure something out for you know great shipping great pricing and even if you're if you're not looking for kong hey if someone's unloading godzilla and you want to pick up a used you know they have used games they have accessories for everything so just contact them they're always good friends so we appreciate their uh their support of the podcast.
0:57
And also, they do free shipping. At least they do it for us. Shipping is usually still part of their package deal. On Stearns. That's something to consider.
1:11
Not on all things. By the way, I'm going to point out, someone was blasting me on our reviews that I was hoarding games or something. I don't really understand. maybe this person there was a troll there was a troll yeah i don't know what they were saying is like i was like actually i was buying these for you know i bought two medieval madnesses one for me and one for my friend who was buying that one he's paying for that one i'm not paying for it and we bought three uh uh ccr upgrade kits but again all three of us have the game so i don't really understand what they were thinking but anyway being greedy greedy It's like, yeah, I'm buying full-price stuff to use in my collection. Yeah, weird, huh? You got officially banned from Pinball Kingdom because of it. Oh, no. Oh, no, yeah. So you're no longer allowed to. I'm still buying stuff. So if you're still buying stuff, reach out to Zach and Nicole.
Zach Manny
person
Pinball Networkorganization
Kyle Spateriperson
Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization
Triple Drainorganization
Mike and Alanperson
99% Invisibleorganization
Silver Ball Swagcompany
Glenn Wechterperson
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
Stern Pinballcompany
John Borgperson
  • $

    market_signal: Scott predicts King Kong would have matched Godzilla sales if released simultaneously, indicating exceptional game quality and market appeal

    medium · Scott's comparative analysis using Guns N' Roses dual-album analogy; stated as personal conviction based on gameplay experience

  • ?

    personnel_signal: George Gomez required 4-day persuasion effort to convince Keith Elwin to design Kong after initial reluctance, despite Elwin's perfect fit as 'monster guy' designer

    high · Scott recounts Gomez and Elwin's conversation about the persuasion process; Gomez persisted after Elwin declined

  • ?

    announcement: Stern's King Kong officially revealed and playable at Chicago media event with detailed technical specifications provided by designer Keith Elwin

    high · Scott provides extensive hands-on gameplay analysis of Pro and Premium tiers with mechanical details (spider magnet, physical ball lock, upper flipper design)

  • ?

    product_strategy: King Kong Premium tier includes animated Kong figure movement and spider magnet shot; Pro tier removes these features but maintains playfield functionality and danger elements

    high · Scott explicitly details Premium features (spider magnet, physical ball lock, animated Kong) vs Pro tier (lacks danger on gong shot but no magnet spider)

  • ?

    technology_signal: King Kong's LCD screen uses custom animations rather than licensed movie footage, potentially limiting visual appeal vs Jersey Jack's prominent movie integration approach

    medium · Scott acknowledges functional LCD design but notes some players may prefer Jersey Jack's movie clip approach; Scott indicates this is acceptable trade-off

    • 2:06
    Oh, it's kind of hilarious. But before we get into Kong, one thing is Dennis and Zach talked on the last Pinball show that they have officially disbanded the Pinball Network, or TPN for short.
    2:21
    Go listen to the episode to get the full description on it. I just wanted to give some background. I don't know. I really enjoyed the Pinball Network. I think it's really cool what the creators of that were trying to do to help push and drive pinball content and help the community and the industry at large. um i'm going to share the story uh may it leaves it in the podcast may it doesn't i'll cut it off but scott do you remember when they officially announced the pinball network uh yeah it was like eight months after we started really yeah eight months or a year it was right something along those lines we we had we were just cutting our teeth trying to be able to break into the pinball podcasting because at the time it was interesting we had we had a few other podcasts out there yeah but it was like right around the time that we decided to start about four of them decided to retire yeah so it was interesting to see okay well we're hey josh and i are still going strong and interested in in talking about pinball so you know when when the pinball network announced, my theory was that they were just trying to get together a platform, kind of like, this analogy may or may not work, but think of it like TBS or TNT or something like that. So if you're interested in basketball, there'll be tons of shows on basketball. If you're interested in pinball, there'll be tons of shows on pinball, and you just have one location to go for it. So that's my theory behind what was going on. So they started like slightly before COVID. So at this point, we'd already been doing a little over a year now.
    4:07
    We had people like Eric Meunier, Keith Elwin, a handful of great interviews are under our belt. And it was funny because when they announced this, they never really talked to us about it. And I'm not going to lie. I was actually offended that they didn't approach us. Granted, this is like five years ago, Josh, and I have a lot more wisdom under my belt. Oh, okay. I thought it was fine. I was like, we have our thing. So I never really thought about it. I guess I had viewed it from a fact that like there was a bunch of people I felt like were our friends. Sure. And it was kind of like the friend club had started. Right. OK. We were invited.
    4:44
    But I quickly came because I talked to Zach behind the scenes about it. And that wasn't the case. Like this was he's like, you guys have already got an established brand. You have Keith Owen wearing your gear on like a reveal stream of his pinball machine. He's like, I didn't feel like TP on how much to offer you guys. And by the way, that was that we are flattered and grateful that he wears our stuff. So this is just a fun happenstance. So it was more of a place to help those that wanted to get into podcasting, get into streaming, give them a platform to be seen and be heard. And one of the hurdles can be you do have to pay for hosting. You have to pay for a website. That was all part of the package deal. There was nothing that cost to get you up and going with the Pinball Network. And so after we sat down and talked about it, I was like, oh, well, I just got my pennies in a bunch for no odd reason. It's one of the great things about Zach is if I've ever had an issue with him, I just sit down and I talk with him. And Zach has been great to us over the years. There's been so many times that he's – I mean, we're doing so well right now as Loser Kid because of some of the motivations he placed with us as our sponsor. and I just want to thank him personally because man he was one of the first people I reached out to after I did the pilot episode for Loser Kid and I sent it to him and said hey I respect what you do with at the time was this week in pinball what do you suggest and he actually suggested bringing on a co-captain which ended up being Scott so I mean if it wasn't for Zach the Loser Kid you know today wouldn't probably exist in the form that it is right now so and even I mean the pinball network brought us together with one of our best friends now, uh, triple drain. If you haven't subscribed to their new YouTube channel, go check them out. Uh, since pinball network has disbanded, they had to start up their own channel and they kind of reset and subs. And so to get monetized by YouTube, you have to hit a thousand subscribers. And so go, go help them out. It would be awesome. But, um, so reach out. Uh, I also, I am wearing the triple drain shirt today. So if, uh, I, I will tell you one funny story. I know that I don't think anyone knows except for maybe Scott. I don't know if you even know the story. Do you remember when we had Martine on from 99% Invisible Podcast? Yeah. No, I remember. That podcast, I mean, is insanely huge, like millions and millions of subscribers. And they did an episode. If you haven't listened to it, I'd have to look up the episode numbers. But they did one on pinball. It was kind of a revisit of one they had already done before. But it had been so long since they'd done it. They were like, well, this has obviously exploded in the last decade. We should do an update. So Martina had reached out to us to get – because we had the connections in pinball. And he's like, you've obviously had Keith Elwin on. And so he wanted to interview Keith and Roger. And so we kind of did all those, right? And it was funny because like at the end of it, I asked him. I said, hey, you're obviously involved with a giant podcast, someone that is monetized very well and whatnot. what would you recommend to help us grow as loser kid and he said you know did you know that there is a network dedicated just to pinball called the pinball network and i'm like i did and he's like you should check them out i think i think they could help grow your numbers yeah if if you go to them and it just kind of made me chuckle because like knowing behind the scenes like we've been best friends with zach and sure dennis and all those that started uh started the pinball network. It just made me chuckle. And, and Grant, we did that episode, what a year or two ago. So this has been a while. Yeah. But it just, yeah, it shows that in the effort to bring people together for an entertainment purpose and trying to reach out, trying to give a different shows with different styles, a platform, then it allows people to find them. And especially when you're starting out, finding people and finding content is one of the hardest things to do. It is because like right now we are lucky enough that over seven years we have at least developed some, some reputation, but in many ways that's with a combination of hard work and luck that we were able to, to get a connection with people. And I, I, I don't know how other people can do a similar thing just because a lot of time it's timing. It's, it's your content, it's your style, your perspective. And, and so I, I appreciate what they were trying to do. And I, it seems like it, it's at least accomplished many of the goals they set out to do. And it's time to, I guess, fold it and move on. Yep. So I just want to say, like I said, I want to say thanks to Zach again, we've hit so many different milestones in this last four months because of, some of the goals that we put in place with Zach and whatnot. The one that I wanted to share, I shared this with you this week, Scott was, we have officially hit 28,000 listens in the last 28 days. That means loser kid on average is getting about a thousand listens a day right now, whether it's being watching us on YouTube or listening to us via the podcast. And that doesn't include our shorts or anything like that. That is straight episodes. So, I mean, it's just really cool how, how the YouTube went from on average a month with 1700 views. And now we're, we're over 10,000 views per month and we haven't dipped underneath since. And now we're at 20,000 or 20, 20 something thousand for YouTube. So, and, and I will say that I, I appreciate that our show is, is in many ways, it's kind of an imaginary show where a group of three people and you're the, you're the invisible guest in our, in our chat group. And we hope that when we're talking and Josh and I are playing off each other, that there are things that you come up and say, well, I'm thinking of this because that tells us that we're having a genuine conversation. And it's a conversation that you would have with other people who are, you know, pinball people, because that's really how we connect. And it's one of our hobbies. We're husbands and fathers. That's tied for first in our priority list in life. And this is a great distraction for us to be able to still communicate with other people on something that in the grand scheme of things doesn't hold a candle to those primary goals, but it keeps me balanced. So I appreciate that. Definitely. Well, let's get to, you got to go to see King Kong released, man. I do want to say, I got some high tops. Oh, you did? Yep. I did too. I don't have mine with me. I got the grays. You got the teals. Yeah, I got the teal ones. They look really good. So I'm excited. But yes, so that was in Silver Ball Swag. And Josh is wearing one of our 8-bit shirts.
    11:49
    So it's Silver Ball Swag still. You're wearing the Loser Kid Attacks. Yeah, I'm using the Loser Kid Attacks. We're swagging everything up today. So Glenn Wechter, friend of the podcast, has deemed our shoes – this is what he named them – is the losers. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Love it. And I'm totally – so the high tops are – it doesn't matter what shoes you get. You're getting the losers. The losers, yeah. They're amazingly comfortable. Yeah. We've gotten some pretty rave reviews, and I've enjoyed mine. I've already got mine dirty. I'm like, crap. Do I need to buy another pair or do I wash these? Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. But it is fun. as fun to do that but yep uh okay so i was able to go to chicago josh was not um now i i definitely want to give a shout out to the winter kids and so josh go ahead and tell tell people how the winter kids got to come to chicago with us go ahead you take it so so i wasn't able to attend And so I made an agreement to – I got to pick one show to go to.
    12:54
    And unfortunately, I didn't make it to either one of them because – Well, okay. It didn't work out timing. You had a vacation with your family. Exactly. And so it's funny. I won't give the whole long story of that. But yes, exactly. I had a vacation with my family. It just happened to land. The day I left for the vacation was the day for the Kong. So we have told you guys about our Patreon. And if you are in the winter kid tier, the top tier, you are automatically entered for a chance to join us on media days where they allow us to have guests.
    13:25
    Where I wasn't going, we only had two winter kids. And so far, I reached out to Zach and I said, Zach, where I'm not coming, can we just bring the other one as a guest and he can have my ticket essentially? And he's like, yeah, this time. Let's do it this time and see how it works out. so mike and alan are winner kids uh we told them both said you're both getting to join us and then scott had the great idea of you know what they're joining us why don't we give them some shirts too so you got them the new 8-bit loser kids i got the 8-bit shirts yeah so how did that go that's how i want to know how did that go i have meeting uh some friends of the podcast you know they were so nice uh and uh this is also as you know patreon is just a way that we can help support the podcast uh josh and i put in a lot of our own funds to do this stuff and and take time off work and also travel to to do media events so there is there is a cost associated with that so this was a way of allowing people to come so we asked them to donate some money to toward the show and they both uh donated so we we definitely appreciate that yep but that definitely keeps uh it certainly doesn't pay for the show so far, but it keeps things going. Now, the Patreon, by the way, if you guys are interested in giving us ideas for what would make you want to subscribe to Patreon let us know I know some people do calls they do chats They do something monthly I interested to know what would make you interested in throwing a few bucks to support the show because I think that would really help us out and help you out too because you get more of what you looking for So we contacted them. They both, I flew in the night before, got in about 1 a.m., checked into the hotel that's right across the street from Stern, and I went to sleep. And then in the morning, I got up, got ready, and met both of them, Mike and Ellen, and then we went over to Stern. And Stern, there was a lot of people there, so it was really nice. So you go and check in and go in.
    15:38
    And we immediately sat down in the big front room. So if you haven't been to Stern, I highly recommend they've done such a good job of setting it up that they have in the big entry room. They have lines of games. So there's a lot of games and I'll get to the games that I haven't played much of because they have them there. So they get up and then Gomez gets up and Elwin gets up and they talk about Kong and they talk about how the game came about.
    16:13
    Interesting, because we were joking about it a little behind the scenes. We're like, oh, well, Keith did Godzilla.
    16:21
    Keith is the monster guy. So obviously he's going to do King Kong. Well, that wasn't immediately actually in the cards. But when they announced – when Godzilla became such a huge hit, Gomez went over to Keith and was like, okay, so you're doing Kong now, right? Keith was like, no, I think I'm good. Let's try something else. But Gomez persisted on him for like four days.
    16:51
    And so Keith's like, okay, all right, I'll go ahead and do Kong. And this could not have been a better fit. for a game, for a designer, and also a perfect companion match to Godzilla.
    17:12
    So I've talked to Josh a little behind the scenes, and we'll talk a little bit more about his thoughts on King Kong. but I truly believe if King Kong and Godzilla were released simultaneously at the same time such as like when Guns N' Roses did Use Your Illusion 1 or Use Your Illusion 2 I think you would have sold an equal amount of Kong and Godzilla I truly believe this game is that good because the thing that makes Elwin so great is he's able to create long ball paths that are connected with multiple shots that you know it's high velocity ball moving that you are controlling and interacting with and at the same time having those high-end rule sets that that connect with tournament players yeah so it's it's kind of all along the spectrum borg is such a great designer he can also be very punishing for an entry-level player so elwynn has a way of actually kind of well welcoming the entry-level players in without completely over rewarding them with a high score you have to know the rules to score high on l1 yeah definitely uh so that that was that uh entering in um now we also had uh now i by the way this is me talking a lot so josh any questions up to this point what are your thoughts questions what are you thinking so you got in there they kind of told you about kong i know in times before when you go they kind of dive divvy up into groups and they only let somebody go back because they all want everyone to experience it and have time on the game. Was it kind of the same situation? Did you do the factory tour first? Like how did it all go? You're right. They did divide us into two main groups, and one was we walked the line and did the tour, and I went with Kyle, so that's what I did first. By the way, if you haven't met Kyle, he's awesome. Kyle Spiteri, right? What was that? last it's kyle spateri right really tall dude yeah tall dude yeah tall dude um and he uh so he took us on the tour and it is really fun watching the line go because when the line is in is in full mood you're seeing all the different um mechanisms that are going into the game and uh now a couple interesting things is kong doesn't have any pop bumpers but here's my question right they're Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There are some people who are talking about pulling stuff out. But pop bumpers like I've it. I've never gone up to a game and said it has the most amazing pop bumpers ever.
    20:14
    Like pop pop upers are basically time extenders. They there. It's this. Hey, you get it up there and it bounces around a little bit and probably adds 10 seconds to your game. and people feel like something's doing a lot but when really it's not doing much when i first was into pinball first couple years of pinball i actually loved pop bumper nests from a competitive standpoint i know it's kind of boring but like when you start a multi-ball and you get a ball up in the pop bumper nest yeah that gives you more time on a single ball but you're still getting points the other thing too i really loved at that point in time when i first started um modes that incorporated pop bumper nests like the mummy from monster bash yeah you have to hit so many pop bumpers and then it starts the mummy right yep um as time has went on it's kind of something i avoid now it's not my favorite thing but i can see where people can love pop bumper nests from a perspective of maybe a newbie or novice that gets points from that and it's not hard to get up into those and stay inside of them. There are things about pop bumpers that you can integrate in interesting ways. So I'll give you Iron Maiden, the shot through the pop bumpers. That's a hard shot. It's not easy to get up there. And so there can be some danger, some challenge. Godzilla, that pop bumper down on the lower right, that can be a dangerous pop bumper. Like you can actually hit that and it can drain your ball. and i would argue a well-placed pop bumper is awesome the pop bumper nests are kind of a thing of the past yes yeah i and i and i would say that too so he didn't put that in but there are you know some some amazing paths if you look at the play field it is divided somewhat on the left side it feels a lot more jungle a lot more organic there is a river shot over there which is really fun because it has a diverter that will bring the ball over to an upper flipper. But sometimes that diverter can be down too. And it actually takes the ball down the river on the left and it actually cuts across the out lane and gets into your left flipper. So a little, you know, it, it is a little weird at first to get used to that just because you're not, you're, when you're typically think of the out lane you don't typically think of a safe lane beyond the out lane so it's kind of similar to jersey jack's pirates of the yes in many ways that vibe is there um with with that that in lane out lane yeah yeah yeah so there's also but that upper shot it's it's pretty smooth getting that upper shot because what it can do is it can connect to about three or four different shots so if you if you pull up the play field and look at it the you know that upper flippers actually probably it's beyond halfway on the play field and it is it's pretty flat as opposed to a lot of upper flipper shots if you look at most upper flipper shots they're angled pretty far down right because a lot of times it's it's kind of associated with like an orbit shot or something and so it has to have that angle so it can go down to the bottom flipper but this one's a lot flatter and what it does is it you shoot up to a shot that that carries around and then it can you can end up on the left or excuse me the right upper flipper and you can take that too and so there's about five different shots that you can connect to that shot so it's kind of like upper flipper to upper flipper where you can kind of crazy eight back and forth you can get some but i i would say if you look at godzilla the the connection of many godzilla shots would be you can do left ramp right ramp and then you can actually go right back to the left ramp right um there's also and sometimes you can do like a left ramp right ramp you could do a uh you know a building shot you know you can do the magnet save you can do the tail whip so even on godzilla there are some levels of connecting multiple shots but this one takes it to an even extended level so it it's just like you can you can hit so many great balls on the fly without trapping up so is the is the flipper to flipper is it similar to like the squeeze box combo on weird owl uh i haven't had enough time on weird owl to to make that call okay but it's uh it is interesting though that they that that upper flipper though it just it does make it um it it does make it different and if you look at the premium so on the there is actually a physical ball lock on the premium at slash le and and that's with the uh the car the the trolley car shot or i'm not sure exactly the subway the subway yeah okay whatever that is and that's cool it is a physical ball lock And so when you get it, Kong can knock it and drop all the balls out of the physical ball lock. Cool.
    25:49
    Two main differences is if you look at the play field, on the premium, there is a spider that will grab the ball on the lower left side. And it's activated with a magnet, so it actually slows the ball down. yeah when we talked to keith he's like i can't believe i didn't mention this on the podcast the spider's not on a coil it's it's it's actually activated by the magnet the magnet pulls it down and draws it in yeah and so it's actually it's pretty cool and it does a little bit of a stop thing and this is genius i i'm not sure it's intentional but this is genius because on the premium you have the ball that grabs it or the spider that grabs the ball and slows it down a little bit on the left side but on the right side you have a gong um that's that's a lot like the acdc bell shot it's more advanced and actually does pull up and you can put balls behind it but that can be a very dangerous shot because if you shoot it up there and the gong hits it it can ricochet back down the middle.
    27:00
    So now on the flip side, on the pro, you don't have that danger on the gong shot, but you don't have the benefit of the spider on the magnet shot.
    27:13
    So you're still getting some danger there. It's just a different side of the danger. Yeah. So overall, did you enjoy the game? Like, did you play both premium pro? What did you think?
    27:30
    Okay. Legit. This is, this is definitely, if you like Godzilla, you're going to like King Kong. It has a, now it is not the same game. And so I don't want you to feel that, uh, that I'm just saying, if you have one, you don't need the other one. No, it's not the same game, But it has so many elements of high level ball path connectivity that is is so good that will make you want to have both. And the way you approach the different games are they are going to be slightly different.
    28:06
    And and I didn't feel any difference with people like, oh, it's an unlicensed thing. It's like, OK, technically it's a public domain theme, but it is off the book. and so you know it is it is something that is based on something that we all know okay it's just funny to me because like king kong is very um in the cultural zeitgeist because it's been around forever i think the iconic kong climbing the empire state building sure but the funny part is i don't know if i've actually outside of kong skull island which is not really yeah i mean it is a kong movie don't get me wrong i don't i didn't see the one with jack black i haven't seen the original black and white it's just it's not a theme it's something that i've always known about because it's been referenced and shown in other cultural aspects between pop culture and stuff like that honestly it doesn't bother me that it's an it's a public domain license right it's okay name one character besides king kong that is necessary for the story uh the girl okay but okay what's the girl's name is it jane okay i don't know no okay exactly but that's my point my point is there it's it's not like saying hey you can have the avengers but you can't have iron man right and it's like hey you uh you want king kong and you got the you got the giant gorilla that that pretty much all you need yeah and you can create your storyline with that So in many ways it a very similar approach to the storyline It does cover the it covers the book but it almost like hey we still in the King Kong world like you in the Jurassic Park world and you could even argue like hey you're in the godzilla world because um i i've never seen any of the godzilla films other than the new ones not the the toho ones i haven't seen except for maybe it was godzilla plus one that was a toho one right the minus one yes yeah the minus one yeah but the plus one this is godzilla i mean my plus one's yeah and his date godzilla godzilla and his date we just you know it's how they make more godzillas um yeah but it's a if you look at it i i didn't watch any of the godzilla movies they're campy they're fun but it doesn't take away from the story for me yeah so that there's nothing thematically that i feel like we are missing by having a public domain theme out of a book that we're all familiar with yeah so so anyway went on the we went on the big tour uh able to see cool things underneath the play field afterwards we came in and that's when you know uh keith and gomez were talking about you know the game they were talking about you know how they were integrating that in and then we got a chance to play it we also got a chance um i had 15 minutes alone with the game and I brought both Alan and Mike in there. And it was fun. Alan's a really good player, by the way. He was playing a lot. So I was able to watch him play and see a lot of the ball paths and be able to get up close. You definitely will take advantage of this in a home environment. The sound is great. They do have custom animations for this. Now, you're always, the LCD is probably the last thing you're going to care about most in a game, right? Most of the time, the LCD, the whole purpose of it is to provide information for your game.
    32:10
    And the plus and minus of having an unlicensed game is that you don't really have assets to draw from. as in like, hey, I'm just pulling a movie clip and I'm dropping it in. So they have their own animations. They have their own ways of doing that stuff. And so you can look at that and you can like that it's their own animations. You could be disappointed that it's not going to be like movie clips from like Kong versus Godzilla or something like that. But I would say that it's functional. It gets everything done. and that still conveys all the information that you need in the game. But I never really watch an LCD, especially while I'm playing a game.
    32:55
    Yeah. But if you are going to have a take on it, there are going to be people who are like, hey, I like the Jersey Jack approach where it's like you are flooded with this giant screen that you're watching the movie and it has other stuff too. Because they approach it differently. with the LCD. They make it more of a prominent feature in their games. And so I would focus, I would argue that Stern games, they tend to take the attitude that the LCD is there to provide information and to do like a quick little animation if something happens, like a ball gets locked or something.
    33:38
    So did you enjoy King Kong overall? Yes. Yeah. Are you in on one? Is this a game that you'd consider in on your collection? What? I'm getting a premium. I know that many people were saying, hey, the pro's good. And I agree with them. I am in the camp that I tend to buy the toppers. I tend to do stuff like that, right? Yeah. And my attitude is there's enough cool stuff that is functional in the game that the premium offers that the pro does not to make it worth it for my money. A couple of things that I think are pretty darn cool. The King Kong moves a lot with the premium. It is an integrated animated feature in the game. So he will actually move his arms up and down. I did ask specifically that, hey, we've had issues with toys that have arms that can hold the ball, right? Like the Hulk arms. That's immediately what I was thinking of.
    34:48
    The King Kong is so tucked back in the upper right-hand side that it would be pretty hard to do that. he actually hits when they start the multi-ball he hits that trolley cart and tips it and so it's a cool physical interaction also you can set it i don't know if it's a default setting or something you add but he can actually punch the glass with his fist which is that's really cool yeah it's kind of a fun thing right unless people really never want their invisible glass touched but it is a it's just a cool feature um so the physical ball lock i just think it's cool it's just again again another fun aspect that i like and the spider down the bottom and the gong so you know the four main things that i would say um but keith is very good about making sure the pro is a packed pro if you are a pro buyer you do not have anything to worry about because this thing it's not like hey the major thing's gone from the gameplay no actually the major thing is still pretty there so the other question i have too i don't know they've only done this we've only been to wick kong and metallica releases okay and i know they didn't do this with metallica did they pull aside the media content creators and do because remember we went to wick we all went into a conference room yeah and they gave us kind of a deep dive of it No, it seemed like with WIC was more of a, hey, this is the approach. You guys ask us how we make games. And so let's talk about this. You know, this was a we it takes two years to really get a game. You know, it takes at least a year and a half from when the initial part to release time. and then you also have like you know six months of negotiating like licensing and all that kind of stuff so you're basically looking about two years so so what the reason i bring this up is because there's some information that was given in that meeting that we could talk about and there was something that wasn't then there was nothing there was no there was nothing that they said hey don't talk about this yeah and by and by the way there wasn't anything terrible that they revealed in the other one. This was more of just, hey, we're going to tell you how complex licensing really is. And most of the things that you have questions about as a fan, well, why didn't they do that? Guess what? They have those same questions. And there were some things that they couldn't do because they couldn't get the licensing to line up on it. So the reason I bring this up is because some of the comments that we've had on this past episode when we we we recorded with keith elwynn at 2 30 in the afternoon our time yeah got done by what four o'clock our time i sat down edited everything down went back to work came back while it was all rendering and uh uploaded it got it pushed out and published and then we recorded the dune episode at 8 30 our time correct yeah it was kind of a brain like brain fry because it was a it was definitely drinking from a fire hose so much yeah but um the point being going back to the l1 episode okay so he talked about uh with this being a public domain license um just some of the different challenges that they had and you had asked something on the financial side pretty much like since there's not much of a cost public domain wise right you get to put more into the game yeah and elwin had said no it's kind of like two separate uh spreadsheets It's the best way to put it. I know we talk bomb, but then people go, well, it's bomb, and then there's confusion. We're just going to pretend it's spreadsheets, right? So there is a spreadsheet financially for building the game, and there is a spreadsheet financially for licensing.
    38:48
    If you run a business, maybe it's fixed costs versus fluctuating costs, stuff like that. and and i bring this up because some of the comments were like well stern's just cheaping out on us with the license if they're not giving ellen more to put into the game because they're not paying as much for a license whatnot and one of the things that they had explained to us was because it wouldn't be fair to the other designers as well let's say they did do a public domain license or they did an un you know unlicensed theme and all that extra cash that would go towards a license was then dumped into a pinball machine yeah i mean when you're comparing sterns apples to apples one would look wildly different than the other and granted l1 games do look different they do um but i don't know mechanically on ball paths it's because he he really is an expert on the way the the kinetic movement of the ball he moves the ball different than other players other designers he really does well and not only that this is a man that did pinball service and tech work for years and years and years so he also looks at it as like do we really need to use six or seven different screws we could use one of the same screw keep the cost down that way like it is amazing to see how keith looks at building a game when and he even alluded to this someone on this episode when he was talking about i ran out of my coils like i can't use any more spaces or any more stuff on it because we've tapped out every single terminal you can use that's why you can't use a pop bumper nest because pop bumper nests use three coils yeah that's three coils that are now not you know unless you're unless you're tied together like bond or jurassic park home but then yeah exactly like oh yeah look they're all tied together that's how cheap they are no so it's just really funny to me it's just really funny to me but you know you you can you can be keyboard warriors all you want uh i just you got to give a little bit of a I get the prices are high on pinball machines right now. I get the things in the used market are down. I just – to use justification of saying, hey, like Stern cheaped out by doing an unlicensed theme or a public domain theme and they're just trying to make an extra buck. I just – I don't think that's the case. Maybe it is. I don't know. But like – Well, okay. Here's the bottom line. What is Stern's main job? if you were owning Stern as a company, what is your overall goal? To make money. You want to make money. And you want, you know, just, I've always said it before, the first time I met Steve Ritchie, how he introduced himself in the seminar was, I'm Steve Ritchie and I sell pinball machines. Specifically, sell pinball machines. And they have a big factory. Now, if you look at it in the overall scheme, do you want the monster licenses to gain access to people? Of course you do. You want these things that – you want things like the Matrix. You want bands. You want the dad rock bands that the people who are buying pinball machines want to buy. So you're going to be going after these licenses. However, it is also counter to their overall goal to make a good machine every time if they penalized a designer for giving them an elite license. Right? if the license costs so much that all you had was a single pop bumper in the middle of the play field and two flippers you're not going to want to do the license yeah and so it is this it's this walk that they they definitely have to figure out okay so we are going to have a licensing budget for our entire company and we are going to have a build budget for each game And the hope is that each game is going to provide an equivalent value for what you're going to see.
    43:07
    Well, kind of what I was trying to get to is, so we had a couple of complaints of people like, why didn't you grill Keith more on price? Like, why didn't you grill more on like the BOM and stuff like that? And here's the reality of the situation. We can ask Keith those questions. he can't answer because he doesn't know. So when you're a designer, there's two different departments. There's actually a couple more than two departments. There's a financial department and there is a design department. The game designers, they might have some clue of what goes in cost-wise, but if we're going to ask those questions, we're going to do it with Seth Davis on. That's a Seth Davis question.
    43:46
    If I ask him that, he's going to be like, I can't talk about that. And I have – I don't have as much detail on it that I can give anyway. So to those that ask, like, why didn't you ask more about price? The dude makes the game. Like he doesn't – He's the designer. Didn't he call them the bean counters on our episode? Yeah, absolutely. The bean counters wanted to take this out. And it's like, well, I already added a rule for that. Yeah. Now – If anything, he's fighting the bean – he's fighting the financial people to keep stuff in. Right. But however, I will argue and this is in my own main job. OK, there are tons of problems with health care and costs. I totally get it. OK, but the bottom line is there are people there are health care organizations that have gone under because they have not been financially solvent. OK, so Stern is going to be the same way. Like they want their design team to be focusing on designing and they give them a budget that they can work with and says we have already analyzed our production We've already projected our sales, and this is what we are going to do, and we have this amount. Now, they have also increased the BOM, and it does show, by the way. I don't see what people are saying when they think they're cheapening out because if you look at the presentation of the game now, it is more impressive. Yeah. Are there ways that have increased the presentation and also decreased costs? Absolutely. Being able to do LED bulbs. like LED bulbs are actually they're cheaper to manufacture than incandescent and you can do them in a better integrated way the LCD screen is actually cheaper than the DMD it's cheaper because it's more of a mass produced product I don't know of anybody who's like wow I really wish they'd start making DMD games again because that shows they're spending more money on the games yeah you know it's this this is how it is but you you are 100 right those uh the industry questions are questions we will ask gomez there we are going to ask set davis and i actually did see set davis by the way and i talked to him about hey are your episode with us was great we had so many people who liked hearing your uh your philosophy on behind the scenes of how to steer a pinball company so i wouldn't be surprised if we're able to get him back on and talk a little bit more probably between games that seems like a more in in between games interview definitely definitely and i'd be more than happy to have seth is a great guy um and granted i am only taking honestly like there's five or six comments out of the hundreds sure sure to receive yeah it's amazing how much more comments we've been receiving over the last year yeah like i said it just the The growth has been exponential, and I'm shocked at how many people actually want to listen to us.
    47:01
    Well, okay. I'm more relieved that we're doing something. It's Friday night, and it's 1040, and this is what we're talking about. Or Saturday night. Excuse me. One of those nights. One of those nights, yeah. It's been a long day. Yeah.
    47:16
    But no. So overall, you're getting a Kong. I will get a Kong, too, if someone will buy my Foo Fighters. Yeah, who wants a Foo Fighters? Foo Fighters Pro, come on It's up for sale What are you interested in? Are you interested in a premium or a pro? Because I would argue, Josh You could be satisfied with either So if I have to choose Between a pro or a premium I really think the premium is the way to go I just think I'm a unique player in the fact that I do like competitive play I do like faster games and stuff like that But I also like games I can explore And enjoy moments And Keith Elwin seems to make moments in his games and they don't seem to hang up the game. And I guess you could argue that with Godzilla in the building, right? Like that's obviously when you get all three balls up there, it kind of sticks, right? Like you're going to have to wait for that building to come down.
    48:07
    But overall, I just, I think the premium is the way to go on this. You played them both. Which one do you think is the way to go, Scott?
    48:14
    You could be totally solid with getting a pro. if you're the type that i just want the biggest uh the biggest bargain for the bang the pro is the way to go because you're going to get all the ball paths you're going to get all the the functionality of the game you're going to essentially the same rule set if you like having the extra stuff i tend to like the extra stuff i buy the toppers um i don't buy every accessory for the game, but there are things that make it cool enough that I'm willing to spend that money for it. The premium is mine because I like the mechanical gorilla that moves around. I don't know. Is Kong a gorilla? I think he's a gorilla.
    49:04
    I think so too. It provides something that's the interactivity of the game. It's like Jurassic Park. People like having the dinosaur that moves side to side and up and down.
    49:21
    And you could argue the same thing with like a... Okay, actually, this is a good analogy. Dungeons and Dragons. The Pro is a great game. It actually has many of the things that you're going to look for.
    49:36
    The Premium, the dragon goes up and down and side to side. In the Pro, it just goes up and down. But it's still a really cool effect, right? Yep. and so if you're willing to say, no, I'm willing to pay the extra money. If you're the type that's going to buy any sort of mod for this, if you're going to buy something that's like $500, like a, an illuminated, I don't know, an illuminated Kong hunter van or something, and you're going to put it in the game, just pay the money, get the premium because it actually provides a functional eye candy that is designed for the game. But you could, I, I am not going to criticize anybody for going to the pro because I think the pro is still fun. And quite honestly, I played more of the pro during the event because there was a longer line for the premium. And so I had a great time.
    50:30
    So I really think if I do, like I said, I want the premium. But the thing I need to do is sell my Foo Fighters Pro. So if anyone out there wants a Foo Fighters Pro, hit me up. I definitely want to trade it out. Home use only. That's great. It's a great condition. Well, it was hilarious. So you and I have talked about this, and you're like, well, if you really want Kong, I know someone that wants your Shadow. But I'm like, it's Shadow.
    50:51
    It's the hard part, right? We've talked about this before. You're like, well, they're still making Foo Fighters, or they're kind of putting them in the vault or whatever it is. You can still get a Foo Fighter. But it's still available. Yeah, it's still available. There are more Foo Fighters on the market than there are Shadows. And this is the supply and demand curve. And we've talked about it before that the people who are concerned about the secondary market, that's kind of a victim of the success of being able to sell a lot of games. Because if you have the potential of more games that will go out on the secondary market, then you're going to be competing with different people for pricing. If you are the only person who bought that one, if you have Pinball Circus and you're going to sell it, you're going to command a bigger price than a Foo Fighters Pro. Yeah. And I would argue a Foo Fighters Pro is a much better game. Exactly. Right. And so it's just, it is what it is. This is the reality of being in a business hobby that has a lot of supply out there. And you're right. We are coming down from COVID. Maybe some people are unloading some extra games. But it's still, in the grand scheme of things, making $1,000, maybe even $2,000 hit. if you've had it for a long time, I guess I would still say that's, that's still entertainment value there. If you go out to a bar, a typical person is going to spend $50 at a bar in a night. And so if you have a, if you have a for a year and you've been able to get 20 uses out of it for a night, you've actually paid for it and had a better, a better environment to hear everything than you would have by going to a bar. well it's funny too because like so at my house my games are kind of on a totem pole right yeah and maybe this is like everyone else's and everyone looks at the bottom like what's going out for the next thing to come in right yeah and so food's on the bottom at least the like out of all the games i have besides it's funny because my kids are like well do we have to get rid of food fighters let me get rid of the orange one i'm like well that one scott's so we can't sell that one yeah you can sell the genie go genie and then uh i have a riviera in the corner which is 1971 it's an em and i told the kids like that's not gonna work like we could sell it but it's not we don't get king kong at that point either yeah don't sell your car dad sell your bicycle and buy a new car exactly you know what and if everyone could do that they would right it's not gonna work yeah but um but no that's kind of the situation so yeah if you want a foo fighters pro 1300 plays wonderful game like i said it's it really is a great playing game and the code is amazing. Raymond Davidson is amazing at code. I'm calling it now. Raymond is on track to be a Lyman Sheets level coder because he does think on that next level. He knows how to make a game fun for me. I'm not a tournament player, but he also makes, he knows how to make a game rewarding for the tournament players. So if you know the rules and you know what you're going to do, you're going to score higher and significantly higher than your average uh you know chimp flipper hacker i think i think the problem with code 2 is you got to find a good balance versus feeling rewarded right yeah you don't want wood chopping you don't want wood chopping you need some sort of way of blowing up the game and you also need to be able to find ways that doesn't lock you into one path. Yeah. That is the magic. And I would say that Raymond is certainly well on his way to being an elite coder. You know, one thing that Elwynn does that I'm surprised, I don't think anyone else has adopted this. I mean, I'm just wrong. But Elwynn has something going on in the background of all of his games. With Iron Maiden, it's doing like the power triangles. um jaws it's it's the uh reeling in the shark it's it's the bounty hunt with godzilla it's doing the the power-ups i just i think that's a great way to take a wood chopping element and stick it in the background so you're still doing it without feeling like i am forced to do this it just happens naturally right and i wish more people would integrate that with their games If you look at most successful long-term shows, they have an A plot and a B plot. They actually do. So if you haven't ever thought about it like that, once I tell you this, you can't unsee it. Because they will have parallel plots going, but one of them, an hour show is like 42 minutes. So one story will take about 30 minutes. And the other story is like 12 minutes. But it is spliced in there. And so sometimes the A story and the B story also have some interactivity. But for the most part, they're kind of parallel stories. And so when coding is able to have an A goal and a B goal, then absolutely, you're going to be. And yes, I did say B goal. Not Matt, but yes. so if you can have two things you're working for simultaneously that's where the magic happens well i'm going to wrap this up scott i want to one thing that i have forgot to mention that we were both going to talk about this episode we'll just do it really quickly we want to congratulate colin mccall pine so apparently this man worked on portal yep he has now worked on dune i i hear he did some work on king kong really and then uh i i hear he's he might be associated with a jersey jack game coming out and maybe even an american game i hear that man is everywhere when it comes to creating games for pinball companies the problem with colin is he is genuinely one of the nicest people that you've ever met and he is a high high level player and also is super committed to his family and has everything balanced right uh i i want to be the world would be better with more collins in there i just want to razz a little bit so there were some misconceptions some misinformation that colin had worked on dune colin is not working on dune colin worked on portal for multimorphic he is not associated with barrels of fun but he may want to play it maybe maybe he does want to go in and play maybe that's where the misconception may he went to media day and they just i don't know but yeah he he he just wanted us to let everyone know he's not associated with dune he's he's also starting his own pinball company yes he is looking for employees so go ahead and hit him up collins pinballs love the name of the company exactly it's gonna sell billions call balls yeah call balls that man has balls of steel balls of steel yeah all righty uh anything else before we wrap this up scott you know i'm just if you didn't see my picture, I did get home a Sparky. Old school Sparky, Dirty Donnie.
    58:13
    That's fun. It's going over into my pinball menagerie. Wrapping things up. Great stuff on Silver Ball Swag again. Check it out. We have new stuff.
    58:27
    Thanks again for listening. We'll see you guys soon. If you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com. We are on all the socials. at LoserKidPinball is how you find us. Like Scott alluded to, silverballswag.com slash LoserKid. Got plenty of great stuff there. And our friends at Flippin' Out Pinball. If you want that new King Kong, Dune, or pretty much any other game you can think or fathom of, give Zach and Nicole many a call or text or email them. They are amazing at responding and customer service. Give us our last word, Scott. You know, I want to know what our audience is buying. if they're buying a pro or a premium Kong, or if you're going to get the LE, tell us what you like about the LE. Or if you're getting a Dune. Yeah, okay, sure. We were talking about Kong recently, so we will definitely do a follow-up episode on Dune when we have a chance to play it. I didn't get my hands on it this weekend. Yep, sure. All righty.
    59:34
    Thank you.