FREE SHOW: Episode 1157: "Stern, Don't Text Kaneda at 1am Ever Again...My Kids and Wife are Sleeping"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·20m 6s·analyzed·Nov 6, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Kaneda condemns Stern's art direction and leadership's dismissiveness of community feedback after late-night harassment.

Summary

Kaneda delivers a lengthy, emotionally charged critique of Stern Pinball's recent art direction and design choices, specifically condemning the over-colorization of King Kong, The Walking Dead Remastered, and Star Wars, arguing they misrepresent their themes and appear childish. He recounts receiving threatening text messages from Stern employees at 1am and expresses frustration that Stern leadership ignores community feedback despite having substantial resources, contrasting Stern's perceived decline with the rising momentum of competitors like Spooky, Jersey Jack, Barrels of Fun, and Dutch Pinball.

Key Claims

King Kong's art design looks like it belongs in a child's daycare classroom, not a 1930s King Kong theme
high confidence · Kaneda directly critiques King Kong visual aesthetic multiple times, calling it 'overly colorized' and 'My Little Pony'-like
The Walking Dead Remastered LE will rapidly depreciate from $13,000 to $10,000 due to poor art and lack of new features
medium confidence · Kaneda predicts market depreciation based on community sentiment; notes he was wrong about LE selling out due to art direction concerns
MXV is the code designer on Walking Dead Remastered, contrary to Stern's reluctance to promote this fact
medium confidence · Kaneda states 'MXV is on the code of this game. They don't want to tell you this. They don't want to promote this' and criticizes this choice
Stern employees texted Kaneda at 12:45am accusing him of destroying their families and careers
high confidence · Kaneda recounts direct experience receiving threatening messages; uses this as catalyst for entire episode's critique
Stern's best days are behind them; competitors (Spooky, Jersey Jack, Barrels of Fun, Dutch Pinball) have brighter futures ahead
medium confidence · Kaneda frames this as rhetorical question to audience but positions it as central thesis of his argument
Stern has done nothing in the past year to win back loyal LE collectors and rebuild brand loyalty
medium confidence · Kaneda challenges Stern to name one move made to rebuild collector trust; cites lack of exclusive code, toppers, or focus groups
Stern passed on Beetlejuice and Back to the Future licenses, which are now being made by competitors and selling instantly
high confidence · Kaneda lists these as examples of missed opportunities that competitors are capitalizing on
Star Wars playfield contains poor design choices: Yoda with annoying eye movement at flippers, AT-AT mech too small (described as 'micro penis')

Notable Quotes

“Maybe we're just tired of every single Stern game looking very similar. Maybe we're tired, Stern, of you taking every single theme, regardless of what it is, and it looks more like My Little Pony than it does look like the theme.”
Kaneda @ early — Core thesis of aesthetic complaint; frames community sentiment, not personal opinion
“King Kong looks like something that belongs in my kid's daycare classroom...That game looks so overly colorized, so much like a kid's version of King Kong.”
Kaneda @ middle — Most explicit example of Kaneda's design criticism; metaphorically dismisses game despite acknowledging it plays well
“I get a text message from someone over at Stern Pinball...telling me what a terrible person I am, how I've destroyed their family. And I've like, I'm the single reason why they wish they never worked in pinball.”
Kaneda @ middle — Central grievance; justifies entire tirade as response to unprofessional employee conduct
“You made the best damn pinball on planet Earth for $5,000 to $7,000...And it was those $5,000 to $7,000 games that became worth $18,000. And you don't get it. Now you want us to pay $13,000 for games that are half as good.”
Kaneda @ late — Core business critique; argues Stern has fundamentally misunderstood its own market value proposition
“John Borg in that video about the new game that he's been working on, The Walking Dead Remastered, it looks like he is held captive by Stern Pinball. He looks like he's more of a hostage than someone who's happy about his new game.”
Kaneda @ early-middle — Speculation about designer morale based on video presentation; suggests internal dissatisfaction at Stern
“You have the advantage, George Gomez, Seth Davis, Zombie Yeti, Jack Danger, MXV, John Borg. You guys have the advantage. It's your company. You can do whatever you want with every single product.”
Kaneda @ late — Names Stern leadership/key personnel; argues they have agency to fix problems but refuse to
“I feel like Obi-Wan screaming at you fools. What are you doing over there? You messed up Star Wars again. You make King Kong look like a My Little Pony game.”

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyKanedaperson George Gomezperson King Konggame The Walking Dead Remasteredgame Star WarsgameSpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

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business_signal: Stern organizational leadership appears disconnected from community feedback despite claiming commitment to understanding player needs; refuses to implement suggested improvements like focus groups
medium · Kaneda challenges Stern to implement constructive feedback mechanisms; notes company has hundreds of employees yet somehow missed visual design flaws caught by community
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community_signal: Anonymous Stern employee(s) sent harassing text messages to Kaneda at 1:45am accusing him of destroying their families and careers over art criticism
high · Kaneda recounts specific time (12:45am) and content of messages; uses this as justification for entire episode; expresses anger at unprofessional conduct
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community_signal: Kaneda positions himself as amplifier of existing community sentiment rather than original opinion driver; claims text accusations mischaracterize his role
high · Kaneda states 'I am not putting these thoughts in people's heads' and 'I am simply reading that time and time again'; references Pinside forum posts and community observations
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competitive_signal: Stern strategically lost or passed on high-demand licenses (Beetlejuice, Back to the Future) that competitors are now executing successfully
high · Kaneda cites both Beetlejuice and Back to the Future as examples of licenses Stern declined that are now instant sell-outs with competitors
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design_philosophy: Stern's King Kong art direction fundamentally misaligned with 1930s aesthetic; overly colorized and cartoonish appearance contradicts dark, serious tone of original IP

Topics

Stern Pinball art direction and visual aestheticprimaryLE pricing sustainability and secondary market depreciationprimaryDesigner morale and organizational dysfunction at SternprimaryCommunity feedback reception and corporate accountabilityprimaryCompetitive positioning among pinball manufacturersprimaryLicensing strategy and missed opportunities (Beetlejuice, Back to the Future)secondarySpecific mechanical design flaws (Star Wars AT-AT, Yoda animation)secondaryCommunity harassment and professional conduct of Stern employeessecondary

Sentiment

negative(-0.85)— Kaneda is highly critical of Stern's creative direction, organizational leadership, and business strategy. While he explicitly states respect for George Gomez and acknowledges Stern's historical excellence, the overall tone is frustrated, angry, and dismissive of recent output. The episode is framed as a response to perceived harassment and driven by exasperation with repeated mistakes. Kaneda is not attacking individuals personally (beyond the anonymous texter) but rather organizational decisions and creative choices.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.060

Welcome to Canadian Pinball Podcast, ladies and gentlemen, the only pinball podcaster receiving, threatening. They're not threatening. They're just really annoying letters on my phone, text messages from Stern employees about how disappointed they am, how disappointed they are. We're doing this live. How disappointed they are in the things I'm saying about their games. Am I saying anything radical? Am I saying anything that the community is not feeling? Maybe we're just tired of every single Stern game looking very similar. Maybe we're tired, Stern, of you taking every single theme, regardless of what it is, and it looks more like My Little Pony than it does look like the theme. What about the King Kong world has all of those rainbow colors in it? What about The Walking Dead feels this bright and colorful? And in just one day, people on the Pinside community are taking those art packages. They're sort of toning down the colors. And then the games look so much better. But you know what? It's Kaneda's fault. Kaneda's ruining my peace of mind. Kaneda's ruining my family. Kaneda's the reason why I didn't want to get into pinball. This is the stuff I'm hearing. I'm the reason why you want to leave pinball. A little blowhard podcaster who's like basically just covering this hobby for the last 12 years. For 12 years, I've been covering this hobby and I've seen Stern make so many tremendous games, so many of them. And doesn't it feel like if I were to ask each and every one of you right now, listening right now on Canada's Pinball Podcast, right here on Facebook Live, I'm doing this like a dual show, baby. All edits, all mistakes, no editing happening. I'm just going to put this thing up with every single issue of the show. I don't even care because you can see I don't need editing. I don't need notes. I don't need anything. All I need to do is ask you guys one simple question. Which company in the pinball world feels like their best days are ahead of them? Which companies feel like the future looks brighter than the past? And which company feels like the best days are behind them? The best themes they're ever going to get are behind them. The best value they're ever going to give us is behind them. And when you think about it like that, does anybody in all of pinball right now think that the best days for Stern are in front of us? The best value they're going to give us is in front of us? I don't think anybody's feeling that way at all. And this company, which we all love, like not for a second have I ever, have I ever lost an iota of respect for George Gomez. Not for a second. You know, you got to look at George Gomez and his totality in coming over from Cuba. The stuff the man has done, what he's built is absolutely the greatest individual in the history of all of pinball. More than George. I'm sorry, not more than George. Again, we're not getting out of this out more than Gary, more than anybody else. George Gomez will be and always is the man. But now it's looking like as an organization, not even George. I don't know who can even steer the ship right because they just feel like they've done everything they're ever going to do. That's amazing. And the best years are behind them. when we look at companies like spooky pinball the best years look to be in front of them when we look at jersey jack i think the best years are in front of them based on like the themes they have how much fun their games are to play when we look at companies like barrels of fun the best years are easily in front of them because any man with a ding dong doesn't want to own labyrinth that was a bad choice. And any man who's got another ding dong doesn't want to have a dune pinball machine. And so they finally made a game based on something that most grown men and women like, haunted houses. And look, instantly sells out in two days. Hasn't even sold 500 dunes. Okay, so in my honest opinion the best years of barrels of fun are in front of them And when you look at the pinball world everybody else the best years of Dutch pinball right They got back to the future coming So the best years of Dutch pinball are in front of them. And so what I think is happening now at Stern Pinball, you've got the biggest company in all of pinball. They employ the most people in all of pinball. And it should be, if you think about it, the greatest job to have in all of pinball, because you get to work for a pinball company that releases three to four games a year, three cornerstones and like one remastered and maybe one anniversary edition. They really release five games a year. And that would seemingly be the place you want to be where everybody else, you might have to wait. You might have to wait a long time to get your product into market. But nowadays, look at what's happening. Everybody at Stern Pinball seems on edge. Like John Borg in that video about the new game that he's been working on, The Walking Dead remastered, it looks like he is like held captive by Stern Pinball. He looks like he's more of a hostage than someone who's happy about his new game. Remember that old scene in Airplane, the movie where the guy's holding the gun to the Soviet Union's news reporter? That's what John Borg looks like as he's trying to sell us on his new game. And so if they're not excited and they're not happy, how do they expect us to feel? And so I'm hearing from big distributors, you know how many LEs are selling? Not many, because everybody now knows that if you buy an LE of The Walking Dead for $13,000, you're screwed. You're screwed. This game is going to sink down to 10 real fast. And I know that I said, and I was wrong, and I'm always the first to admit when I'm wrong. I know I said I thought the Walking Dead LE would sell out instantly because it's only 500 sterns. I just did not expect them to do another overly bright, overly colorful game. I also did not expect them to get no clips like nothing new is in this game. It's also the fact that Wison is on the code of this game. They don't want to tell you this. They don't want to promote this. But Weissan was the last guy on this planet that Lyman Sheets Jr. would ever have wanted to touch his product, his masterpiece, his code. And so you have Weissan, this new artist. And again, I just think they over-colorized it. I don't think the art's bad. I don't. I just don't think it's The Walking Dead. It's the same reason I just don't think that looks like King Kong. and I don't understand why they don't get this. They just don't get it. And you step back and you look at these Stern machines and it's like, they're not bad, but they're not great. And they're not what they should be. And they're not indicative of a company that has so many people, so much resource, so many abilities to connect to the community. They just don't care to listen. It's like they think they can make the decisions that will motivate most of us to buy their games. And I went over there a year ago and I said, the thing they need to do the most is to win back the Ellie buyer of their product, win back the collector, do stuff that sort of like reestablishes some loyalty between the people that have been buying their high-end products and the company itself. And they've done nothing. Name me one move. I'm just serious. Name me one move that Stern Pinball has done in an entire year to win back the loyal Stern LE buyer. One move. Did they give you any exclusive code in an LE machine? No. Did they give you an exclusive topper? No. Did they do anything? Did they call you into Stern and do a focus group with people that have bought $100,000 in Stern products? No. don't give me this King Kong is a great game. King Kong, it doesn't matter if King Kong plays well. King Kong looks like something that belongs in my kid's daycare classroom. And so King Kong got nothing on Kaneda. That game looks so overly colorized, so much like a kid's version of King Kong. So it's a great game. Fine. And you ruined a great game by putting on top of it artwork that looks like it comes from K-pop demon hunters. That looks like it comes from My Little Pony. And so nobody stood over that machine and said, hey, man, this is looking like way too colorful. This doesn't feel like King Kong. Like this is not what people think of when they think of King Kong Nobody at Stern walked by the game and said that And so now what you have is you have an entire community out there that sees it right away Like we see it right away And you telling me that that big company with hundreds of employees, nobody saw what we see. And so then Canada's got to wake up at 1245 in the morning. I get a text message, message from someone over at Stern Pinball. You could probably guess who it was, you know, telling me what a terrible person I am, how I've destroyed their family. And I've like, I'm the single reason why they wish they never worked in pinball. So what you get, you should get to send that to me. You know, I've lost family members to cancer. I lost a baby, you know, in a second trimester. You want to talk about family destruction because I'm just critiquing art on a pinball machine. And I get that that's your job. You didn't even do the damn art on walking dead. Star Wars. So don't come at me with such dramatic hyperbole. Don't do that. If you want to call me up, call me up. You want to have a conversation about it? Have a conversation about it. But don't text me at one in the morning. I got to wake up and read this while I'm in the ready for I'm ready for like a new business pitch. I got to be in there. I don't care, man. You're a paid employee. You're a paid employee of an organization. And I know you got feelings, but stop, maybe stop blaming me. Maybe stop blaming the community. Maybe stop blaming Pinside. Maybe stop getting so upset every time someone uses the phrase rainbow puke. Maybe stop, maybe stop for a minute and say, hey, why don't I just like ask for feedback in a constructive way? Why don't you, if your job is to direct the art of Storm Pinball, why don't you bring in a focus group? Why don't you say what I'm gonna do differently this time because I'm tired of the community. I'm tired of them railing on my stuff and my decisions. Here's what we're going to do. Instead of guessing, why don't we bring in a certain number of people under NDA to see different artistic options we're thinking for games and get some feedback? Because you obviously, as an organization, are not nailing it. And if you think it's me just saying this, fine. You can make me the bad guy. You can throw the arrows in my back. But it's not just me. all I am ever doing. Wake up, Stern employees. If you don't know what Canada is about by now, you need to check yourselves. All I'm doing is I'm speaking on behalf of what I'm reading from the community. I am not putting these thoughts in people's heads. I am not the first person that said Stern games are looking like My Little Pony or Rainbow Puke. I am simply reading that time and time again. And so when I say it, how dare you? How dare you come at me like I'm the one that's leading an army of people to feel this way about your product? This is what the community is feeling. I am simply I am simply reacting to what they are saying. OK, and I'm tired. I'm tired of how when we look at Star Wars artwork and it's something we grew up with and it's something we love and it looks like ass. It looks terrible. And I know what you're capable of, Stern, but then you want to shove this thing in front of us and then you want to have this sob story about what is how hard it is to work with license. I don't care how hard it is to work with licensors. I can look all the way in the world and see so much better Star Wars artwork that was approved by the license holder. So why is it so hard for you to get it right? And if it is so hard, let me just throw this out there. If you can't make the game the best possible way that you want to make the game with King Kong clips, with the right Star Wars artwork. If you can't make the game that's worthy of how much you're charging us for your product, then don't effing make the game. then go get a license that will allow you the freedom to make the game the right way. You know, I'm so tired of this. Like you guys are the victims of like us. You're not a victim. Anyone who works over at Stern, you are a paid employee that gets to wake up every day and do something amazing. If you can't shut out the Canadian and you can't turn off Pinside and just do your job and enjoy it, then you're broken, not me. I'm allowed to have free speech. I'm allowed to have an opinion about your product. I'm allowed to say what I want without you telling me that I'm destroying your world. You have the advantage. You have the advantage, George Gomez, Seth Davis, Zombie Yeti, Jack Danger, Wison, John Borg. You guys have the advantage It your company You can do whatever you want with every single product And you think that we want to see you fail Do you think we want to see every Stern game look the same? Do you think we want to feel this way about your product? You are the chosen ones, Stern. You have the high ground. I feel like Obi-Wan screaming at you fools. What are you doing over there. You messed up Star Wars again. You make King Kong look like a My Little Pony game. You know, you make Venom. You make John Wick. What are you doing? You passed on Beetlejuice. You passed on Back to the Future. You passed on all these games that everybody's like snapping up now instantly. And it's our fault that no designer over there wanted to make Beetlejuice. And I got to wake up in November and I got to do a show like this. And I'm going to do more shows like this if you're going to hit me with text messages at one in the morning accusing me of destroying your world. I haven't destroyed anything. Take some freaking accountability for the games you're putting out. Take some freaking responsibility for what you think is worth $13,000. I'm tired of this and you should be more tired of it. And instead of coming at me, why don't you work within what I'm saying? Why don't you invite me back there? It's been a year. It's been a year. I'll tell you exactly what you need to do. And for some reason, it shouldn't be that hard. How is it that hard to find art that is appropriate for the theme? How is it that hard? How is it that hard to understand what King Kong should look like? How is it that hard to make it so you don't put Yoda down by the flippers with his eyes going back and forth? That looks terrible. Like nobody walked in front of that machine and said, this is annoying. This is annoying. You have hundreds of employees and this is good enough. How is it that hard to realize that you have one of the biggest weapons or vehicles in Star Wars, the AT-AT? Right? Huge, huge AT-AT. And you make one this big. How hard is it for someone to walk by and be like, if we put that micro penis into this game, it's going to look stupid. Everyone's going to make fun of us. If we're going to make an AT-AT, it has to be bigger. We can't do this. And that's it. That's it. I don't care anymore. I don't understand what Stern thinks they're doing. I really don't care anymore. Like they literally keep going, boys. Keep going with the same playbook, the same release videos, the same everything, the same look, the same way to launch. And everyone else is going to start to just chip away significantly. Now, the excitement is with Beetlejuice. It's with Winchester. It's everywhere else. It's with Harry Potter. And how dare you text me and tell me that? And I mean this. How dare you throw into the mix of games that are also Rainbow Puke, Evil Dead and Harry Potter? You want to try to take down the art packages of Harry Potter and Evil Dead and you want to put the Stern stuff next to that? How dare you come at me with that and just try to hit me at one in the morning with with such inaneness. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. And hey, and I mean it when I say this to everybody over at Stern that might hear this or might listen to this. Gang, look, we love Stern Pinball. We root for Stern Pinball. We root for every new Stern game to really blow us away. But I feel like you need a timeout. You need to start listening to people a little bit more and you need to stop acting like everything you do is just going to work without making any changes. It's not working anymore. Your company was never set up to sell consistently $10,000 to $13,000 products. And Stern, the part that you just can't seem to understand, the only reason why your games were ever worth $10,000 to $13,000 to $15,000 to $18,000 because you made the best damn pinball on planet Earth for $5,000 to $7,000. Let me repeat that. You All right. And it was those $5,000 to $7,000 games that became worth $18,000. And you don't get it. Now you want us to pay $13,000 for games that are half as good. I got to go. Peace out. All right. You ready, Sarah? Jump on. Fire. Fire. My sister-in-law has to make a phone call. That's why that ended. Love you guys. To jump To shake To go now Grab your bow tie Bump