Girls don't like boys, girls like cards and money. Boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny. Oh my gosh, what a day in the pinball world. I just spent about 40 minutes watching all of this This content on YouTube about Sonic the Hedgehog content creator. Ralph did a huge featurette on it. Clearly it was like an infomercial for the game. He's paid in the game. So of course it's going to be something along those lines. Zach did a shorter six minute thing. Vic did another thing. I saw the one minute and 15 second video, which was Jersey Jack's official thing. Lots of colors. Lots of lights, lots of stuff coming at us. And I just want to tell you right now, after seeing it all, after being bombarded with the so-called fastest Steve Ritchie, most colorful game and the most approachable and adorable game ever, I just want to say I'm overwhelmed and not in necessarily the right way. And I'm reading the room and I'm reading people's commentary both on the live that I did and on Pinside and other places. People are sharing me text images of dealers already giving discounts on collector's editions. And I'm just feeling like I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'll start by saying this. This game is not having the launch day excitement that Pokemon had. It's also not having the launch day excitement that Harry Potter had. It's also not having the launch day excitement that Beetlejuice had. So as a marketer, I am a little bit curious what happened, like what went wrong today that the overwhelming reaction to the game isn't in line with those other games. And I'm really just trying to figure this out because I haven't played the game yet, so you know that, but I've seen the game and I've seen pinball launch days before and I've seen how the community responds on a launch day. And I haven't quite seen something so, I don't know, polarizing like today because we all knew it was Sonic. We knew it was Steve Ritchie. We knew there was like a loop-de-loop. We knew there was a topper. We've had the tease-out of the cabinet sparkles. And so I think what's happening, and I mean this when I say this, I think what's happened on this launch day is a series of things that have all happened sort of in the near, Sort of present and they've sort of I think taken some of the thunder away from this launch. I think we're a little bit just like oversaturated with new games recently. I mean that's just what's happened in Pinball. We've had from Pokemon and then Transformers and then another Tales game is coming out, Tales of the Arabian Nights and we know about Back to the Future and we know about Goonies and we know about Fifth Element and so we know all this stuff is happening. We knew it was going to be Sonic. And so there's just like something happening in all of our heads where there's just so much information swirling around. And these companies want you to order games on day one. But here's the big problem with this game on day one in terms of creating any urgency to order it right now. Because if I were to ask you right now, why would you order this game right now when there is an unlimited number of collector's editions? This is not Harry Potter. This is not a game nobody ever thought they would see in pinball format. People had waited 20 years for Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling said she would never let there be a Harry Potter pinball machine and they pulled off the impossible. Okay, so this is not that. This is not even close to being as big as that IP. And also the Harry Potter CE, the art package on it, was so unique. It was so distinctively different than the other editions that there was a lot more of like, I need to have that version of the game. And here the other thing people forget When they revealed Harry Potter they said at the beginning that the CE orders were open for a specific window of time So they were inserting a little bit of urgency And I tried to tell this to my friends over at Jersey Jack I tried to tell them that this unlimited CE thing is a little bit of a gamble. Because if you don't hit on the right cord and create a frenzy of orders the way G&R did, Because G&R launched with way more enthusiasm than this game did today. I mean, you can't deny that. And if you don't launch with that level of enthusiasm, you're going to be stuck in a really bad place. Because now you've got like a lot of people that are just going to wait. And they're going to be patient. And you know what kills pinball sales is patience. What kills pinball sales is indifference. And what kills pinball sales on week one is basically an overall apathetic approach to having to order it. Because what's going to happen now is this. The more time goes by, people are going to be like, well, maybe I'll just wait to see Fallout. And maybe I'll wait to play Transformers again. Or maybe I'll wait to see if Pokemon code gets any better. So there is just a, I think, a mistake in the marketing department at Jersey Jack that this unlimited CE approach, while it was smart on Potter, will not work with every single theme. And I think they might be feeling that a little bit, hence why I'm seeing some dealers already offer a little bit of a discount because some of them probably overordered already because they thought they were going to have another Harry Potter situation. So there's that part of it. The other part is this. I, like many of you, waited until noon Eastern time to see the first glimpse of this game. And I watched that one minute and 15 second video, which was Jersey Jack's official video to get all of us excited about the game. And OMG, after watching it the first time, I was utterly confused. It was all moving too fast. It was all too colorful. And the point of view of the pinball, they're using like AI for sure to create this stuff. It's so annoying. And I think they need to stop. Like not everything, not every whiz bang tool is required to sell me and get me excited on a pinball machine. What whiz bang tool was used to sell out of Beetlejuice on day one? Zero. What whiz bang tool sold all those Pokemons on day one? Zero. What whiz-bang tool, first-person point of view of the ball, and it's like firing. No, no one wakes up and says, I wonder what it feels like to be a pinball today. I wonder what the point of view is as I go into a pinball loop-de-loop. Okay, nobody. And that's how they started out the video. And it's almost like they're in love with their own tools and just exploring what is possible with pinball marketing versus doing the pinball marketing that works. Like, don't get too cute. I felt the same way watching Ralph's video with the whole like storyline in the beginning of Steve Ritchie, like leaving him Sonic. I'm like, what happened? What are we doing here? What is this? This does not help. When you put your employees in these corny situations, I know you're just having fun. It's just too much. It's like everybody's trying really, really hard to just make an impact. Okay, so whatever, man. I don't really care about the content. It doesn't matter. If the game is great, the game is going to do well. But here's the other part that I think, and again, I'm trying to figure out how did a game, which seemingly has a lot more in it, land with a lot less enthusiasm than Pokemon? And you think about Pokemon, what did they do, right? We knew it was Pokemon. We knew it was Jack Danger. They didn't do some fancy schmancy video. They did the same stuff Stern always does, but they had all those people over there. And it definitely felt like a launch day at Stern. They brought him into the Stern Gallery. All these people were there. They were all making content. The order banks opened up. And, you know, there were only 750 Pokemon LEs available. And they looked so much different than the other versions of the game And I going to say this right now That helps When you see those L sell out right away Your next option is the pro and the premium and you just want to be a part of something And the problem now is because they removed all that, you don't really feel any urgency to be a part of any momentum going, any speed to get one, Which is ironic considering it's Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest character in all of Pinball, and yet for some reason you almost feel you can move the slowest when it comes to your decision making on whether or not you want to get one. So there's that. I also think it really helped Stern having all those people over there having a good time hanging out with Jack Danger and George Gomes and the crew over at Stern. When you think about today over at Jersey Jack, nobody's over there. They didn't invite anybody over there. They snuck them in a few weeks ago when people were over at Stern to see Transformers and then they made this content weeks ago and there's no real excitement on launch day being created. You've got just people going on live being like, I played the game three weeks ago. What's that? That doesn't speak as well as being at Stern and enjoying the game in real time. So I think removing the FOMO hurts. Not having people there hurts. And I think, you know, you got to look at each game independently. And I do think this is the new reality. In an extremely oversaturated pinball space, these games will not fly off the shelf anymore unless it's like a theme you never thought you were going to get, dream theme, because at these prices, especially the Jersey Jack prices, they're not going to fly off the shelf because you're not going to run to go buy a $15,000 CE of Sonic if you might be waiting for it. Or a $15,000 Back to the Future. Or a Fifth Element. Or a Fallout from Keith Elwin. And so let's look at this game also. I think the big issue, and I mean this, I think the big issue with so much going on on these videos and so much going on in the game with that big upper play field, I think this game is really, really hard to sort of transfer what it's like to play it through the medium of video and through YouTube. And I think them making the video so sped up and chaotic did not help. What I think we really need to see is a good player that hasn't been maybe paid by Jersey Jack or maybe it is Steve Ritchie himself. I think they needed a live from Jersey Jack gameplay experience because I think that's what everybody's missing right now is just getting a sensation of what it's like to play this game. No, I don't believe what Zach Manny says it's like to play this game. No, I don't believe him because he's just selling me games. I don't believe what Retro Ralph is going to tell me because he got paid in a game. What we need is, and I don't even want like opinions, I just want to see what it's like to play this game With one of the biggest upper playfields of all time, when most people in pinball are very, very skeptical of upper playfields. And as I was watching the videos, I did feel like, wow, first of all, wow, there's like as many shots on this upper playfield as there is in all of Pokemon. But then you start to look at like, all right, these shots are happening off of these flippers and they're far apart. There's a post in the middle. And I get there's like definitely going to be like orbits and stuff happening up there and targets and Dr. Robotnik you can bash. But man, those are like short shots. And when you think about the sensation of Steve Ritchie flow that you truly, truly love, It's like that like right to left, the horizontal action. Imagine that shot in Elton John, right? The shot in Star Trek. I'm not sure you're going to get that same level of like across the whole game into a wire form up and around, back to the flipper, back in play sensation if you're spending a lot of time in the upper play field. So again I need to see gameplay And then I think about the shots below the upper plate field And you know it seems to be a lot less interesting in my opinion And I think the big miss and again I just going to say this I been saying this because it Sonic the Hedgehog loop It's the thing everybody wants. And every game now needs like a big thing of wow or else we're on to the next because there's 20 games a year. I think the big miss for me right now, and I might, you know, feel differently when I play it, is the loop-de-loop. You've got this iconic loop-de-loop in Sonic. And it's the environment that is the checkered brown. It's the light and the dark brown. The loop-de-loop with the grass on top. And you're telling me, with all the engineers, all the video game source material to pull from, that is what is most iconic. And you look at the loop-de-loop and it's just a wire form. So instead of bringing the iconic Sonic loop-de-loop that everybody is expecting, you bring a loop-de-loop that is just a pinball visual loop-de-loop. That is a pinball item, the wire form. I feel like they needed to go further and make the loop-de-loop look like it's from the universe of Sonic more. And then the magnetic charge. I think a lot of us, the magnetic ball accelerator, were truly expecting a little bit more of like the hyperdrive from Star Wars, high speed, getaway to NASCAR. You know, something that really, the more Sonic goes around the orbit, the more he speeds up. We were all expecting that and we didn't get it. The way it just like stops the ball and then magnetically shoots it over the loop-de-loop. It's not very dramatic. It's not very visually stunning. It doesn't feel like what I thought would be here, which is Sonic running around this game. I mean, think about the hyperdrive in this game. It makes more sense to have the hyperdrive in this game where Sonic's running around the playfield as fast as he can. It makes more sense to have that NASCAR supercharger in this game where Sonic keeps speeding up the more and more he keeps going around and around and around. And the other thing about Sonic that's so iconic are those moments in the game where he hits those pop bumper like items and he's bouncing boing, boing, boing, boing. I mean, where is that? Where is that? Yeah, you could put targets that look like those things, but there's none of that springy action that Sonic is so famously known for. And again, I think there should have been more of an effort to kind of create those sort of things under the glass. And because of that, you know, again, it's very, very early on. But I think when you think about why, why is this game? It's so colorful. It's so visually stunning. It's got all those LEDs in the emeralds and the jewels of this game. It's something like over 2,000 LEDs. And, you know, you start to just get a sense of like, there's got to be a middle ground, man. It's like, I think Beetlejuice is a good middle ground. When I look at Beetlejuice, I'm much more drawn in to the mechs of that game, to the artwork of the game, to the inserts and the LEDs. When I look at Sonic, it's overload. There's just too much. There's a problem with that. If you're always trying to add too much, sometimes it's better to get more simple. That the loop-de-loop, I feel like, should have been more prominently in this game. That the Sonic pop bumpers boinging him around should have been in this game. So much of Sonic is when you hit something and he springs through the air and flies through the air. There should have been like a milk can shot sort of a la Houdini that fires Sonic. I mean, how cool would it be to fire him from down by the apron up onto the upper playfield? Make that a dramatic moment in the game. Again, all of this is we could do this on every game. And you're like, Kaneda, what are you doing? You could do this on any game. I could go into any game and complain that the Jaws, you know, the shark doesn't eat the ball, that King Kong doesn't climb the Empire State Building, that Godzilla doesn't breathe fire, that Optimus doesn't transform. You can go down a list of all of these games that don't do the very thing you'd expect the game to do because of the theme. But you know what? This is it. When you want to charge us $10,000 to $15,000, I want a game that exceeds my expectations. And I think that's just it. I think this game is just not exceeding expectations. And because of that, it slides down quickly, especially because there's no FOMO. Like if I knew there were... Only a thousand of these CEs, I'd be really thinking about buying one right now. If I knew there were only 750 of these CEs, I bet they'd be sold out right now because there's no limit. I think they might have a hard time selling even a thousand CEs at this price. It's just that kind of climate. And I don't know, maybe they've sold already that many. I don't know. I think what's going to happen is this. I think dealers are going to over order. And I think dealers are going to be spamming us with this content for the next few weeks. I can't wait to play it. I will have a different opinion after I play it for sure. But this is just my observation of Sonic the Hedgehog coming out on Sonic's birthday. And the response I'm reading from the community is not as strong as Pokemon, as Harry Potter, as Guns N' Roses. It's not as strong as Beetlejuice. And so this is, I think, going to be a little bit of an eye-opening moment for Jersey Jack and the marketers over there because you gotta think a little bit differently. You know, FOMO works. You can try and get rid of it if you've got a Harry Potter banger. But after Potter, I also think it's getting to the point at this much money as people's space is truly limited. Does this theme, does this have enough for me to put it in my game room and spend this much money? The other big elephant in the room is if you are a Sega Genesis Sonic fanatic of Sonic 1 2 and 3 the way this game comes at you is much more later generation Sonic So that also a difficult pill for some people to swallow The fun I love about this hobby is this. We have so many options. We're all going to get to play this game before we have to make up our mind. But I think we're all feeling the same thing. If there's no urgency and I'm not an operator, why would I need to buy this right now? Give me one good reason. I'm not going to die tomorrow. You know, most of you have enough machines you haven't even fully explored yet. You probably haven't got to the end of Harry Potter. So it's going to be, I think, an easy wait and see for a lot of people. More to come. Join me tonight at 8 o'clock. Patreon Live. Let's talk about Sonic. Kaneda out. Girls don't like boys. Girls like cars in my head. Gives, Back to the Future. Outro Music