You've got to look sharp. You've got to look sharp, sharp. And now the conclusion to our interview with Mr. Roger Sharp, pinball licensing and beyond. Thank you. What do you think the future holds for licensing? You know, as far as what people are doing in digging up old licensing and stuff that's going on new, I mean, it's difficult to predict what's coming down the road. But people are going to, you know, pick the barrel of what's been done before. What do you think is ripe to revisit in the future? Well, I think the challenge is that as a society, we're going to be in a time out. We already are. And the problem that you have, let's look at what have been the most enduring and successful licenses during that period of time where we had multiple companies producing arguably massively more games than currently. We were looking at things, at least I was, what's the development lead times? When does the movie come out? Christopher, I shared a picture with you before. A lot of the stuff that you saw in that office were scripts. I'd get a script. It was a year and a half out or so. The timing was okay. I can be there. during filming. I can get access to the talent right there and then. So everything worked out according to what our schedules were in releasing a game, developing a game, and being there kind of like day and date, or if not day and date, knowing that there was going to be a follow-up, a second movie, or that the sports season was going to happen. So we can kind of tailor our marketing approach to everything, and more importantly, the accessibility to athletes or talent. NBA is going to have all the rookies coming in and the pros because they're doing headshots for trading cards. Awesome. Thank you. We can use that for, you know, NBA Jam. That's great. You know, the other derivatives. And I think that going back to it, we have a situation now where there hasn't been a heck of a lot done in the last few years with what I call contemporarily themed content. We talked before, mentioned about Stranger Things still on the air, Rick and Morty still on the air. The big budget movies nobody has really kind of looked at and I think that the hesitancy has been some of them have just been one time only forgetting about superhero movies and whatever else I'm just talking about looking at the range of content that potentially could be out there nobody jumped and did a Bourne Identity it's like wow I don't need James Bond I got the Bourne Identity are you kidding me? and now we have these multiple movies and it's kick ass nobody's done Fast and Furious and now there's the last movie that's coming and it's going to be dead per se but not really because somebody will do it. Ultimately, I'm sure. And I think that the problem that we have now is, and we touched upon this before, we are as much a victim as well as an ally in what is happening in the world of entertainment. And in the world of entertainment, we have Warner Brothers that is saying, hi, we're going to release stuff on HBO Max and the theaters. And sorry if you didn't see Tenet, which is going to be our huge best movie, but, you know, did 300 million. supposed to do a billion, but hey, what the heck, and we're taking it somewhere in the tushy with Wonder Woman. You know, what is going to be that opportunity for people to head back into movie theaters and have a population out there that winds up in some ways resurrecting that category? Because if everything is going to be insulated within the home, and people watching through whatever the services that they have or premium channels or whatever else, it is going to be much more difficult to differentiate what would be appropriate for your target audience and whatever that shifting is of that target audience. So in looking ahead, I think that, yes, there are going to be opportunities to go back and, I won't say dredge the well, but go back and take a look at evergreens. I mean, the monsters, okay, but the monsters were never the Ennis family. I mean, whatever the rationale and justification was in terms of doing that, and I thought the game was a very nice game. Don't get me wrong, and I know that... It looked pretty. Yeah, it did. It was beautiful. But I don't think that it measured up to whatever the expectation was at Stern, thinking that, okay, we have this rich, rich, wonderful thing, and by the way, some of the talents are still alive, they're growing up, but we can get them to participate. I mean, it was all of the right ingredients absolutely put together. And I think that, you know, it missed the mark because it wasn't something that people were dying to have. And more importantly, and this becomes really interesting, and maybe it's something that you guys have thought of or haven't or the listeners have, you don't have the ability to pre-sell anything. You know, part of the success of the Adams family, not only the timing and the wonder of the game and what Larry and Pat and the rest of the team were able to do, we had machines on commercial locations that people could touch and feel. We're talking about thousands of locations, not hundreds. For the Munsters, using that as an example, you maybe had dozens of locations where people could be exposed to it, and you're hoping that you can get people to jump up and down because it's this designer, this artist, this person, this commodity, this theme, and it's automatically going to sell itself. So the problem becomes, going forward, how do I work within the context of what the new world order is going to be? I'll be here right now to say something that probably is not the most politically correct thing to say. I don't think we're going to be back to a semblance of normalcy until 2023. Next year? No, I'm sorry. And I know Texas is already canceled until whatever. And I just got notification of another particular event that was going to take place sometime in May that's now been postponed until 2022. I think until we get a handle on everything societally, world, globally. And it's not just the pandemic. It's all of the repercussions and aftermath. and that goes to the heart of where we are with commercial locations. I still think that commercial locations are the future for the industry. There's only so many home people that you can sell to. That's finite space. And yes, there's a new generation that comes and whatever else, but if those people are not employed anymore, if they've had to cut back on expenses, if the schooling for their children isn't what it used to be, I mean, if the cost of living has changed fundamentally and the career path has changed fundamentally, Well, then what happens with discretionary income? So the lifeblood for the industry has been the home. Let's face it, that's been about 85%, 95% of all the market for the past 20 years. Well, you need to have, and I know that at least locally here, and I haven't been out and about, I guess finally, and I take my hat off to Stern in particular, they got Dave & Buster's to open up their doors again to pinball. Dave & Buster's used to be a thriving test location for us as an industry 25, 30 years ago. when they were first opening up. We did gala events at Williams Valley at Dave and Buster's out on Lake. Wow. And Dave and Buster's that was in the city. And then suddenly there was, oh, sorry, there's this mandate, this edict, no pinball. Are you kidding? That's your audience. Oh, my God. That is the prime audience to expose people to pinball. Right. And it was gone. And now we're looking at locations that have folded their tent, that may never come back, others that might. I took my hat off, truthfully, to the commercial locations out there who created an incredible business model. I will lease you. I'll rent you my games. They're just sitting here. My store is closed. Do you want that? Are you kidding? Can you give me like $25 a week? Sure. Can you give me a hundred? Whatever it is. I don't care if it's a video game, pinball machine, whatever it is. They have managed to create some kind of a lifeline. Well, there's going to be a period of time where we have to get people comfortable again, not only in traveling, but also going out socially. And I'm not just talking about going to the bar or the local restaurant or the bowling alley or even the movie theater. It's a question of, you know, what's going to happen. And I guess I'm saying this in the context of how will it influence what content you pursue as a manufacturer for a particular scene. and if that movie never hits to the extent that you wanted it to, is it so that it's fine? Right. I think a lesson to learn there is, like, you know, you mentioned Wonder Woman earlier. Here you have a case where, like, I did some artwork based on the original Linda Carter Wonder Woman, which I love, and everyone always says, if you did Wonder Woman, which one would you do? And I'd say Linda Carter. A very successful slot machine, by the way. Yeah. Some people are like, you know, oh, yeah, but that Wonder Woman movie, you know, and Gal Gadot, it was so great and all that. Imagine if somebody came along and said, okay, well, you know, Wonder Woman 84 is coming out. First movie was awesome. And, you know, you got the TV show as sort of like a minor support role in there. Yeah, let's do a Wonder Woman, you know, current Wonder Woman movie theme game based on the new movie. The new movie tanked, you know. It didn't roll, right? Yeah, you know. You're rolling the dice. You're saying like, well, it hasn't come out yet. It's not proven to be successful. But based on its past, we're going to buy into it. If anybody bought into it and made a Wonder Woman 1984 pinball machine, it would have tanked, you know. That's why it seemed so attractive to go with the tried and true. You know, Linda Carter was out. It was successful. It was a big hit. It's nostalgia now. That's not going to change. So you've got a guaranteed audience for that. I think that's why, you know, people like Stern and whatnot, they look at these classic games and say, well, maybe there was a, you know, Star Wars before, but let's make a new one. You know, maybe there was a Batman game or let's make a new one, you know, whatever. All these different things. When you see the failure of something, and lately, with the way society is, there's more failures than there are successes. Because nobody's got money, everybody's staying in. To your point, you made a comment, and I haven't seen it because I haven't signed on. I forget what the numbers were, but the amount of subscribers to HBO Max has been massive. And I know that you said that the new movie has been a failure. It actually hasn't. It's helped launch HBO Max. I think to the extent that we are going to be living, again, in this fractured society going forward, anything that's new that's going to be coming out. I mean, there's a new James Bond movie for next year. I mean, do we really think it's going to be as big a blockbuster as it was before if I'm only at 40% capacity in the theaters? Or if I'm relying on some type of a service to kind of bring it home for me? How much Disney Plus do you really want to spend? Do you want to spend $50 or $100 a month to get every freaking service so that you can be right there, front and center, watching on your 80-screen TV? I mean, that becomes, I think that becomes the serious thing. And I understand what you're saying. And I don't disagree. I think that there is absolutely fertile content. Look, it's no secret that, yes, I did do the license for Hot Wheels. I think the game has been well-received. I think it could have been done differently. but Hot Wheels was something I was ready to do 30 years ago, and nobody wanted to step up. Oh, Roger, it's a toy. Are you serious? Are you kidding me? It was the same resistance that I had, other than John, to wanting to do the Beatles 25 years ago before they made their comeback with a new album and before Cirque du Soleil started. It was like, are you kidding me? I mean, let me just have my mind just explode. So I think that there are some things that you can absolutely look at that are past and present. It's not a question of going back and saying, well, let's be Charlie's Angels with a new cast and not do it based on, you know, the original. I mean, sometimes you have to really kind of look and say, all right, is this going to be worthwhile for us? Does it show its age or has it timed nicely? And we've all lived through, look, we talked before very briefly about Harry Potter. We lived through the change of some of the talents. Some people passed away and got replaced and grew long white beards. And it was like you didn't care all that much. Yes, really, or even knew. I'm thinking like what a chip why is mine whiter than yours I think I'm a few years younger so I guess what I'm saying is there's going to be some challenges going forward and I think that what is going to be a necessity what I'm about to say I absolutely agree and believe with my heart of hearts I want every license to be as successful as it can be unconditionally unequivocally whether it was back in the day and it was Premier doing something I wanted Stargate to be the best I want everybody to be as successful as possible. Why? Because once you have a hiccup, once something isn't successful, it casts a pallor on anybody else coming in. And I lived through a period of time specifically with slot machines where almost every casino out in that world pulled off their license games. Other than Monopoly, other than Wheel of Fortune, they didn't want anything. Why? Because there were some failures. There were some unmitigated disasters that should never have seen the light of day. Unfortunately, they did. The marketplace soured on them. Players were turned off. And effectively, a lot of it was math models and all of those. We don't have to get into that. But effectively, anything with a license suddenly was tainted. I'm not going to go play that because I know that's not good. I want to go back and play black and white. Right. Go back and play Wonderful Sevens, whatever it was. I don't want this other stuff because this is just going to take my money and screw me. Huh. That's interesting. What winds up happening specifically in pinball is pinball is so fragile right now. It really is. We can talk about how successful everything is and all the companies coming in and whatever. It's very fragile. We can't afford anybody to have a misstep where it's not only a black mark on them, but it's on everybody else. And that goes for, forget about the thing, it goes to play field shipping. It goes to all these other issues of things as to the reliability, the functionality, the durability of things. Everybody has to step up and do the best that they possibly can because it not only enforces them successfully and profitably, but it also helps everybody else to become that much better and to achieve what they possibly can. And so, again, not wanting to stray too far from the question and the answer, I think it's going to be a daunting task going forward when it comes to looking at licensed content. And a corollary to that is the relative acceptance or not of original content and whether or not that is seen as a deficiency. It's not a license? Oh, forget it. I don't care who designed it. It's not a license? No, no, no, no, no. Some of this slow burns. You need some herb appeal. Anyway, yeah, go ahead. Like, Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars weren't licensed properties, but they have been the most celebrated pinball machines probably of all time. So do you feel like you were there when these machines were being sold? Were they huge commercial successes? Or is the nostalgia for the games bigger than the launch of the games? They were very successful as a matter of fact. Extremely so. In terms of quantity and numbers, relative to games that had come out three or five years earlier, no, because the market had diminished. Okay. So we can say, did we not sell as many or produce as many as we might have? For that period of time, where businesses were, with many of them that were cresting and closing down, with the DUIs increasing and bars not doing happy hours and no longer wanting to have a pinball machine in there, we're going to do a countertop video game instead because it doesn't take room. we wound up losing a lot of flexes. You know, there was a period of time back in prehistory where there were about 2.5 to 3 million pinball machines in active operation worldwide. Right now, I think, well, right now, pre-COVID, you're probably at about 150,000. That too old or whatever worldwide There used to be over 2 million video games in active operation and that number shrunk Why Because most commercial locations that were family entertainment centers strayed away from games that needed maintenance and went to novelty redemption games, ticket spitters, swats for tots, as we called them.