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Episode 220 - Damage Control Tour

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 13m·analyzed·May 26, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers discusses Stern's media damage control tour and John Wick pinball venue closure.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss their failed attempt to play John Wick pinball in Kansas City (venue closed for holiday weekend), their subsequent experience with Venom (Pro) instead, and Stern Pinball recent 'damage control tour' inviting content creators to Chicago after John Wick controversy. They also cover Pedretti Gaming's Funhouse remake announcement and address community backlash from content creators not invited to the Stern tour.

Key Claims

  • Pedretti Gaming (manufacturing arm of Pinball Brothers) is releasing a Funhouse remake at $7,500 (classic) and $10,000 (limited edition capped at 750 units)

    high confidence · Dennis cites article from Nap Arcade with specific pricing and unit cap

  • Stern Pinball invited multiple content creators to Chicago for all-expenses-paid John Wick factory tour, presentation on licensing, and swag

    high confidence · Dennis reports Loser Kid podcast and Nap Arcade have covered the event; mentions Zach and Greg from Straight Down the Middle were invited

  • Eclectic Gamers podcast was not invited to Stern's damage control tour

    high confidence · Dennis directly states 'we weren't invited as a collective gamers podcast'

  • Some pinball content creators expressed upset at not being included in Stern's media tour

    high confidence · Dennis notes 'a number of people...that like other pinball content creators who are very upset that they were not invited'

  • Funhouse remake features 21.5-inch LCD display in backbox (replacing original alphanumeric display) and auto plunger

    high confidence · Dennis provides technical specifications from Nap Arcade article

  • Limited edition Funhouse includes custom art package by Brian Allen and 'Rudy's Nightmare' 2.0 code, but not original Funhouse art

    high confidence · Dennis describes LE version features and custom art approach

  • The Pinball Show (Zach's operation) was not invited to Stern's media tour

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'The pinball show was not invited' based on his understanding

  • Stern's media tour was responsive to previous controversy where they invited non-pinball content creators for John Wick

    high confidence · Dennis characterizes tour as 'damage control' responding to backlash about 'ignoring the pinball media'

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't feel like blaming the parts for the build issues. That might be the case, but I have yet to see the evidence that that's the issue. So I will reserve judgment on this.”

    Tony @ Not provided — Shows cautious approach to Pinball Brothers/Pedretti quality concerns without rushing to judgment

  • “I'm assuming they targeted specific people that they thought would be friendly to the spin and would help them get the message out best that they wanted out.”

    Dennis @ Not provided — Dennis articulates likely motivation for selective content creator invitations on damage control tour

  • “I don't see any reason to care whether it was done as meant as a slight or meant as an oversight or meant as a they just had a different selection criteria. It is irrelevant.”

    Dennis @ Not provided — Dennis's philosophical stance on not being invited; advises against measuring success by external validation

  • “Don't use Stern inviting you as a measure of success. Just do your thing.”

    Dennis @ Not provided — Direct advice to community content creators not to internalize exclusion from Stern tour

  • “It's like, well, they're not going to be able to include everyone, guys. Don't freak out about it. Just be cool, man. Be cool.”

    Dennis @ Not provided — Dennis attempting to de-escalate community tension around Stern tour exclusions

  • “The ramps on Venom Pro are all pretty steep, though. They were. That center ramp was a struggle. I was on the struggle bus.”

    Tony @ Not provided — Technical feedback on Venom Pro playfield design and difficulty

  • “I hate that 180 ramp like that is just a little brick fest because of how tight it is on the left.”

    Tony @ Not provided — Criticism of Stern's recent trend toward 180 degree ramps; cites Zach from Pinball Show as having similar critique

  • “I think Funhouse is a perfect – I never plan to own Funhouse anyway because I don't want the Rudy head in my house.”

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyPedretti GamingcompanyPinball BrotherscompanyDennispersonTonypersonJason KnapppersonZachpersonGregperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Quality control issues with Pinball Brothers/Pedretti Gaming builds; blowback on recent releases though cause remains unclear

    medium · Tony: 'I have heard that...there's been a lot of blowback on a lot of what pinball brothers has been producing through pedretti gaming'

  • ?

    community_signal: Content creators upset about exclusion from Stern's media damage control tour; some viewing it as slight to their influence or coverage quality

    high · Dennis: 'a number of people...that like other pinball content creators who are very upset that they were not invited'

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern Pinball's damage control tour included factory tours, licensing presentation, all-expenses-paid invites, swag, and direct developer interaction

    high · Dennis: 'invited a host of content creators up to Chicago, all expenses paid...factory tour...presentation about how licensing in pinball works'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: 180-degree ramps becoming problematic design trend across recent Stern releases (Venom, Godzilla); tight angles cause brick/reject issues

    high · Tony: 'Stern is...doing a lot of these 180 ramps, and most of them suck...That center ramp was a struggle...brick fest'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Pinball conducting focused media tour with selected content creators post-John Wick controversy; strategic outreach to perceived friendly coverage sources

    high · Dennis: 'I'm assuming they targeted specific people that they thought would be friendly to the spin and would help them get the message out best'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.220

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, May 26th. This is episode 220. I am Tony. I am Dennis. All right. I don't feel like this is a particularly meaty episode. It's not. But we will deliver it with enthusiasm, I hope. I don't know. I have plenty of enthusiasm. I did. But because we had storms and I just came in. I'm covered in mud. Tony, thankfully, doesn't have to look because it's mostly on my legs. Picking up branches and limbs that were down in my yard. And so I already called the contractor about the chain link fence, which has some damage to it. So go ahead. And it's old. I mean, it's older. It's probably as old as the house is. So go ahead and see about getting that fixed up and then sent an email to my dad because he has a spare F-150. I'm like, hey, can I borrow the truck next weekend? I got some brush hauling to do. And the funny thing is we just – he brought his truck over last weekend, and we just had cleared everything that I had saved up over the winter. It was a half a truckload. Now I think I've got at least two. I don't know. That may be – I might be optimistic getting this done in two. I originally went out there with my yard, my like 80-gallon yard bin thinking, I'm going to just pick all this up and put it in the bin.
1:37
That was before I saw how it was out back where my big trees are. Because the trees out there, they're older than the house. At least one of them is. And it doesn't usually lose branches. It did today. There was a lot of wind though. There was a lot of wind. We didn't have much down at my place. but that's probably because the storm that happened last Sunday brought everything down, including a full tree. So I spent last Monday doing the same thing, going out there with my little, I just have a little like 12-inch electric chainsaw that I just use to trim branches and stuff that I was using to cut up like a whole tree. It wasn't like a huge tree. it was just like four or five inches around at its most round. It was just like a little tiny one. But, yeah, it was still – it's like, oh, yay, let's cut up the entirety of this tree that fell in the backyard. Luckily, it fell in such a way that it didn't damage fence. And it was short enough that it landed fully in the backyard without touching anything. So that got – that was good. It didn't take down the power line. That was the important part. Yeah. My lines are buried here, so I wasn't worried about that. Nothing hit the roof, but all my trees that were right, all but one, one of the neighbor trees, I've taken out years ago that were around the house. So the house behind me has a branch on their roof, and they might have some gutter damage. And I think that's from my massive tree. Yeah. But that sounds like a them problem. I guess we'll find out if they want to make an argument. I couldn't see much – I couldn't see any damage myself, but my other neighbor, my next-door neighbor was out looking at the hellscape that was now her yard because she had just finished cleaning her yard up like yesterday. She's like, I had done so much work, and I was like – I looked at the fence, and the fence part that got hit with my branch was the one that has popped out before. I've had branches land on it before. Yeah. It's never been really that greatly secured because the whole thing, the tree, it's a huge tree. The tree is growing at the corner of the property, so the fence doesn't really fit anymore because this tree is so old and huge that, I mean, it's old and huge. So anyway, but she pointed out that one of the posts right by that tree was damaged at the base. She's like, no, that snapped. That was okay. I saw it last weekend, and it was okay when I was out here. And I looked, and I saw, oh, there's rust damage down there. So just a little bit of pressure was enough to finally get it to pop most of the way out. So I was like, oh, okay. And I go – I've already known this because of where the posts are positioned. I think technically the – I'm doing air quotes. The nice side of it – it's a chain link fence, so how nice is it ever? But that's what I grew up with. The nice side of it with how it's installed, like the poster on my side, which my understanding is that's who owns the – because I was like, who owns the fence? I had when I bought the house I assumed I did because the other neighbor has a wood fence up except for where our line is shared and all of the connection parts are like the attractive side of the fence is on my side and but of course with the next door neighbor she's like oh yeah that's your fence I'm like well of course you'd say that no matter what she's like yeah dim your fence I remember when you first moved in here the the whole fence line was like hedgerow yes so the fence there was like the fence and then hedgerow like inside of the fence yes and i yeah and that was that neighbor and i had conflicts over the years because she i mean i didn't like the hedge but it's just a i still have it on the one side i've paid a couple times to get it clear cleared back that stuff's not like gonna damage anything right but it's just it's like yeah it's kind of like they grew that i assumed to kind of make take a cheap chain link fence and turn it more into a privacy fence but there were some branches and stuff that were growing and no one listening cares about any of this but there were some when i moved in that like there was a branch that was touching her roof so i took that i mean it took that tree it's like this long thin tree i took it out but you know once tony knows all about this but she dumped a bunch of branches in my yard one year and that was that was the worst uh we ever got until i went over i was pissed i was like you can that's where i made the joke about the fence because she said them your branches and i was like look she's like i i'm allowed to do it i'm like no you're allowed to cut anything back that's growing over like canopies over into your yard absolutely without my permission absolutely it is not my responsibility to haul away your yard waste that you chose to make like the only exception that i can think of and I'm not a legal expert on any of this, is if it was a noxious weed plant, I have an obligation to destroy it, like a thistle, because of agrarian concerns, but not like hedge stuff or mulberries or whatever it was. But anyway, I finally just took it all. She was sobbing. This was years and years and years ago. And anyway, I was like, look, I'm going to, for neighborly peace, I was like, this one time, I will go ahead and I will remove it. It was one truckload. Right. It was very leafy, so it looked worse than it was. Then I was just like, don't ever do it again. And I cut everything back. And so every year, there's always stuff that grows along that because of the chain link fence. I can't mow there. So every year, I keep it cleared back. So that side, I keep bare. At least as of the winter, it's bare. And the other side, I don't know. I've had like five neighbors over the years. At that point, it's a revolving door. So they've never said anything. But I've cut it back a few times. But it's at the point where some of that stuff is actually growing on the other person's property. or growing through the fence, which it's a little tricky because it's like, well, I could cut it on my end, but then the branch is going to fall on theirs, and I don't want to make them – I don't go out wanting to make people do work. Right. I don't want to do work. That's why I'm so grumpy because I had to haul branches and then my branches, and I'm mad about it. So let's go into something that I'm not mad about, Tony. Have you played any new games lately? I've been playing some more I've talked in the past about my basically XL sheet naval combat game there's a new game there's another game out that's similar called Ultimate Admiral's Dreadnoughts but it's got a much more modern and fancy graphical interface I've been playing some of that doing ship design and playing around with that some. No, my big thing wasn't even in playing games, but it has been taking my reading to the next level of lazy. Don't tell them this. Oh, it's so funny. I have to. Tell them then.

Dennis @ Not provided — Personal objection to owning Funhouse based on Rudy animatronic design; mentions doll-based horror media

Brian Allenperson
Funhouse (Pedretti remake)game
John Wickgame
Venom Progame
Loser Kid Podcastorganization
Straight Down the Middleorganization
Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
  • ?

    product_strategy: Funhouse remake modernizes classic with LCD display (21.5-inch in backbox), auto plunger, and optional Rudy's Nightmare 2.0 code; custom Brian Allen art package for LE

    high · Dennis details technical specifications: LCD display, auto plunger in both versions, 2.0 code exclusive to LE with custom art

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Measured/dismissive community attitude emerging toward Stern exclusions; Dennis actively discouraging outrage and positioning tour as normal industry practice

    medium · Dennis: 'Don't use Stern inviting you as a measure of success. Just do your thing...Don't freak out about it. Just be cool, man'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern's John Wick media strategy involved non-traditional pinball media, sparking controversy within pinball content creator community

    high · Dennis: damage control tour was Stern 'responding to the blowback of they went to a bunch of non-pinball content creators on John Wick'

    • 8:24
    Guys, if you think this is as ridiculous as you know, I'm not going to say how ridiculous. You're going to hear it and you're going to go, Dennis will think this is stupid. If you agree, email eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com and just say, Dennis is right tony you've gone too far i've got i i'm not gonna say you're wrong i might have gone too far but i have been seeing these ads on social media uh for a remote control page turner for your kindle and i bought one and now i have a rig set up that holds my kindle so i can like lay on the couch or lay in bed and my kindle's held right there and i just have a remote control clicker in my hand and i read and i finish the page and i click the button in my hand and the kindle changes pages and i was like this is silly but it was cheap let's see how let's see how it is and now i'm like this is amazing i'm just laying here under the blankets all comfortable reading and going click i finished a page click i finished a page click i've i have successfully managed to make reading one of the laziest things ever i don't even hold the book anymore i got rid of those carrying holding those big heavy books you know because i've got just the kindle now and and now i don't even hold the kindle something else holds it and i just click a button i get a workout with my thumb okay like i said i wasn't gonna say anything else about it people you have the email address you know what you have to do to do it they have to go buy their own because they're like oh this is amazing yeah no they they won't be doing that i can just set it on my little holder on my desk and i'm sitting there on my desk and it's just click well i have been playing a new game new to me it was one i got for christmas that i finally started called gun grave gore or g.o.r.e so this is the second gun grave game i i guess was there a first i mean i don't know i don't know what gore stands for let me this is a this is a japanese hack and slash with well with guns right follows hack and slash stylings um here's all you need to know the title basically describes it you play as a guy named grave he has a giant coffin looking weapon that he carries on chains hooked to him that he has slung behind his back like a messenger bag and he fights with guns get it gun grave and then everybody that you shoot explodes into red mist G-O-R-E Gore. Okay? There you go. That's all you need to know about the game. I don't know what the plot is. I go around. I have stylish glasses. It's all the stylish anime style stuff in my black outfit. Never saying anything. I just take orders and I go around and I dual wield guns and strike poses and make things explode into red mist. And that's Gun Grave Gore. I'm about, I don't know how far through I am. I haven't finished it yet. Gore stands for Gunslinger of Resurrection.
    11:38
    Okay, so I guess maybe I am the undead. All right, well, it fits his aesthetic, which is very vampile.
    11:45
    Vampire. Yeah, apparently there's like four or more of them. Okay, well, it's fine. Like, it's got combos and stuff. You know, it's like all the hack and slash mechanics that I don't normally ever really worry about. But anyway, that's what I'm playing. So, pinball.
    12:00
    Tony, we were, because we knew this was going to be a light episode for a variety of reasons. You had the, I thought, quite brilliant idea of let's just go yesterday and play John Wick because John Wick's in Kansas City. Yeah, it's at a local bar. So tell the listeners about what we thought of our John Wick experience. It was – here's the thing. It was awesome in a way. It was awesome because the owners of that bar and grill, which is a wonderful bar and grill and has amazing food and fun pinball, are good owners and gave the entirety of their staff the entire weekend off for the holiday. so the bar and grill was closed yesterday when we showed up to play pinball i didn't even think it's like oh saturday they're gonna be open why why would i check to be sure that they're open on saturday so i drove all the way up there and i was sitting out front waiting and dennis was on his way and i'm looking around i'm like there are no cars in this parking lot and so i got up to go inside and yeah they have a big sign it's like oh we gave the staff the weekend off for the holiday weekend and we'll reopen on Tuesday. And I'm like, well, crap. So we had to reshuffle plans. There is another John Wick somewhere in Kansas City, but it said I'm not. We weren't positive of the location of the other one. So instead of hunting, we just went to the pizza place full of pinball machines down the way and played Venom. Yes. Venom Pro, which we had never played before. and what were your thoughts on Venom Pro? We might as well tell the people something. He says we can't tell them, John Wick.
    13:51
    I mean, I'm actually, Venom's not been bad. There's some things on Venom that I really like. I like the quick reaction ball release on the shots. That's fun. I do think the premium had a lot of cool stuff that you can tell there's a, You know, sometimes with Sterns, the differences between the pros and premiums aren't huge. I feel like Invenom, it is a pretty good size difference. Yeah, I played it multiple times, obviously. It was the newest. It was the only game there that I had never played that version of before. Like half the games there you own. No, I, well, okay, kind of. Well, they had like a, I mean, they had like a premium or an LE of Star Trek, which I have a pro. So that plays there. I didn't play their version. They had Toy Story 4, which I still don't really like very much. They have Deadpool Pro. So I have a premium, but they play very similar. So I did a little bit on that. They have Party Zone, which is an awful game. Yeah. You have three copies. So I didn't play that. And they have Harlem Globetrotters, which used to be over at the Bar and Grill. Right. So I didn't play that because, well, I ended up running out of money and didn't even have a quarter left. So I couldn't play it. um venom yeah no the premium experience was a lot better i the rules though they were still fun trying to level and do the stuff so you know like the i think the code's there but that layout is pretty uninspired and i hate that 180 ramp like that is just a little brick fest because of how tight it is on the left and i'm just like i'm getting uh i have to give zach many credit from the pinball show on this one. But Stern is, I assume, to get more shots, and they are doing a lot of these 180 ramps, and most of them suck. Yeah. It's just like there's, you know, that's the biggest, most frustrating shot on Godzilla is that 180 for the left ramp because if it bricks and it's easy to brick, the ball is going to reject. The ramps on Venom Pro are all pretty steep, though. They were. That center ramp was a struggle. I was on the struggle bus, you know, one-way ticket to Limville because I had to pick up branches. That's what I'm mad about. Rage. But the rule set, I kept playing it.
    16:19
    Anyway, so yeah, it was enjoyable, but not a game I would plan to own. No, I don't think so. Not in that configuration. No, I think if I was going to own one, it would be a premium. But even then, I don't think. There are so many games above it on my list.
    16:32
    But that was our attempt to play John Wick. Yes. We tried. We did. Well, news. Not a whole lot. There is a new game, a new remake that's come out, Pedretti Gaming, which is the manufacturing arm, I guess, of the Pinball Brothers. Pinball Brothers uses Pedretti Gaming to do their builds. However, Pedretti can do their own stuff. Pedretti is doing the remake to the Williams classic hit Funhouse. So I do have a link in the show notes to an article that Nap Arcade has if you'd like to read up on this. Here are the basics. If you know Funhouse, then I mean, I'm not going to recap everything layout wise about Funhouse. The classic edition of the game is seventy five hundred dollars. The limited edition version is ten thousand dollars. It's capped at seven hundred and fifty units. The limited edition comes with the Funhaus 2.0 code called Rudy's Nightmare in addition to the regular code. However, both the classic and the LE version do have the auto plunger feature and the mini screen included in both versions. This was an alphanumeric game, but they have a 21.5 inch LCD display in the back box. So given the auto plunger and mini screen, I'm assuming that there will be an option or could be an option in the future for the if it's not been announced already, that the classic edition would allow you later to buy the 2.0 code like as an add on. Because why else would you need those? I mean, it runs on the fast board set. So so some of that stuff might be necessary just to navigate menus and things. The LE version also does not have the original Funhaus art. That comes with a Brian Allen custom art package which is very well done but it really leans into the creep factor of Rudy It like extra creepy It nightmare fuel Yeah It nightmare fuel So what are your thoughts overall I guess I mean, what do you think of Funhaus in general? You've played it a lot. I've played it a lot. I mean, it's not my favorite game. It's not a game I would own, but it's also not a game that I'm going to just not play. If it's like, oh, here's Funhaus. You want to play Funhaus? Yeah, sure. I mean, it's not one of those games. Hey, do you want to play WWE?
    18:49
    No. Right. You want to play Rob Zombie? We're not friends anymore. I'm sorry. No. If you actively wanted to play Rob Zombie, we're no longer friends. I'm sorry. It's tough. Yeah, similar. Funhouse is a game like if I see it, I usually like to put a game, maybe two on it. That's about it, though. It's okay. I've always felt that it's a weird Lawler layout. And I say weird in the sense that all of the shots feel like they're in the wrong place on the flipper to me. Like everything feels early or something. I don't know. I've never really – I've never been comfortable shooting the game because it just – it doesn't feel like the typical positioning that you might think of to land the shots with. It's weird. If you haven't played it, just play it. I mean it's an older game. So they mix things up in that in terms of where the shots were versus where the flipper position for the ball would be more than I think they do nowadays. where fan layouts have become very popular.
    19:45
    I don't think there was any need to make the art creepier. Yeah, a weird decision. I don't know if there's enough demand for that. I'm sure they sell a few. I can't imagine them selling 750 LEs at $10,000 for this game. Yeah, that's... Unless the 2.0 rule set... But honestly, I don't think an improved rule set can save this layout. in the it's not a horrible layout but it ain't winning any awards right so i yeah i just it's okay um i have questions about the build quality on it because there's been a lot of blowback on a lot of what pinball brothers has been producing through pedretti gaming i have heard that in this case pedretti is using a lot more standardized williams parts not all the weird custom stuff that has been necessary part-wise for doing the alien builds and stuff. But I'm not going to just say it's the parts. I don't feel like blaming the parts for the build issues. That might be the case, but I have yet to see the evidence that that's the issue. So I will reserve judgment on this. I think Funhouse is a perfect – I never plan to own Funhouse anyway because I don't want the Rudy head in my house. Right. and it's still on the games. So I don't want it. You're not willing to tempt the fate that if some weird sci-fi thing happens and the stuff in your house comes alive, that means Rudy's coming alive. I mean, I've seen like what Doll Master, like all of them. I've seen all that. So, you know, that might be a Dennis problem, but the problem exists. So we're just going to have to live with that. Dennis has a shotgun behind glass in the bedroom that just says, in case of dolls.
    21:40
    Damage control. Hey, Tony. I don't know if you've heard, but Stern Pinball has been playing some damage control. Amazing. That's right. We've talked about the John Wick controversy on our last episode. And we'll actually get to a number of listener emails here after we get through this segment. But Stern has just recently, just as of a couple days ago, had invited a host of content creators up to Chicago, all expenses paid is my understanding. And they got to play John Wick games, I believe, at the factory. They had a factory tour. there was a presentation that was put on about how licensing in pinball works for stern pinball to kind of deep dive the the those notions and a whole bunch of others like swag bags and and all this others you know they got to talk with a lot of people who work at stern and and that sort of thing i don't have any links for anyone you there y'all are gonna find loser kid already has an episode out about it i know uh jason with nap arcade had a write-up it looked like uh he had lost what he had originally written so he had to like rewrite part of it so so um so i don't know that uh a more detailed one's up yet or not but he still had quite a bit that was about so there are a few options like just go and check your favorite content creators and and check that out uh i before diving into uh us discussing the move there was another thing that kind of caught me by surprise there have been a number of people i've heard some of them i've read about a number of them that like other pinball content creators who are very upset that they were not invited to be a part of the damage control tour right is what i'm calling it the damage control tour um and you know i don't i don't know if it'll make people feel any better or maybe it'll make them feel worse but uh we weren't invited as a collective gamers podcast no we we weren't so i'm not surprised i've been pretty vocal about not signing NDAs and not necessarily towing the company lines when it comes to stuff like that. I think we've been very vocal about that. I've also been extremely vocal about making sure that people know when there's a conflict of interest. I've been extremely vocal about how important that is, specifically in what we do. so there's no surprise for me that we didn't get invited now I would have expected like you and Zach to go well I believe Zach and Greg straight down the middle were invited I don't think they went I'm not sure my understanding was that Zach didn't have an intention of going the pinball show was not invited so maybe it wasn't me what's the Maybe it wasn't. It's like, what's the difference between Straight Down the Middle's hosting setup and the pinball show's hosting setup?
    24:44
    But no, it's a good point. But I do not care. And it's hard. I don't know what I would say, and I don't know how many content creators might even listen to us. But the only thing I could advise is don't – if you – I guess the nice thing about the pinball show not being invited is if you were worried, like if you were using this as a measurement for how many people consume your content or something, Stern was doing something other than that metric, I think, pretty clearly. I'm assuming the metric was how much they can – I'm assuming they targeted specific people that they thought would be friendly to the spin and would help them get the message out best that they wanted out. It could be. I don't – since I don't know what their motive – because I don't even know everyone that got invited, much less – we'll know who went when they put out their stuff. Right. Versus like how many people turned it down, if any. I mean, again, I think Zach and Greg didn't end up doing it, but that would be the only one. But, of course, I haven't talked to a bunch of people about it. I wasn't having conversations with very many content creators about this.
    25:54
    So when I heard it was happening, I was just like – I think Zach told me when we were recording straight down the middle, he'd mentioned something about it. And I guess because we as a group didn't get an invite, and I don't know if he was maybe thinking that I had known. I didn't know anything about it at the time.
    26:15
    But I was pretty dismissive of it because I didn't really care. And I guess that would be my – yeah, everyone's going to react their own way, I suppose. But we do the podcasting. I do both podcasts because I want to do content creation in a hobby that I participate in, and that is the motivation. And it's not to get invited to things. And so I don't see any reason to care whether it was done as meant as a slight or meant as an oversight or meant as a they just had a different selection criteria. It is irrelevant. Why would I let a company that I don't own shares of and don't work for and have never worked for determine what I feel about my own content creation? But it's not they're not relevant. stern survival is not relevant to me right because pinball as a hobby would endure if there were zero create uh zero manufacturers or 12 it doesn't matter um i know people can't really envision it but it used to be like that i mean when i first got into buying pinball jersey jack was just spinning up stern was the only game in town and their game wasn't very strong so i just anyway i guess my advice to to people as uh everyone's going to react the way they are But don't read too much into these sort of things. I would advise, if at all possible, don't – it started to feel to me like some people were kind of treating it like how the Twippies were with the whole – like being nominated was so important to people. Like they're using it as a measure of success. Don't use Stern inviting you as a measure of success. Just do your thing. Yeah. I think the only thing – I don't think you really – and this is hard for some people. but I don't think you need to step out and use others as a measure of your success. It's like, Oh, how do I compare to the pinball show? How do I compare to, to loser? Cause how do I compare to, to whatever? I, none of that matters. Here's, here's the important thing. Are you having fun? Are you doing something you enjoy?
    28:23
    What more do you need? And that's our Ted talk. just think about the smile you bring on the face of every child who watches your stream or listens to your podcast or reads your articles. Let's not get so – That's not – the children. Think of the children. Let's not get so crazy. Think of the children. It doesn't matter what the children think. That's true. They don't have any money to buy pinball machines.
    28:45
    Poor little suckers. Stern probably didn't invite any children. You'll need the shoes that I have. So – I want a Hot Wheels. No.
    28:56
    Excuse me. No one was going to say that. Okay. All right. That was me. I'm a galactic tank force. I'm putting you up for adoption. I was just a little surprised. There was the blowback. This seemed like part of the reason why I'm calling it the damage control tour is it seemed like this was Stern responding to the blowback of they went to a bunch of non-pinball content creators on John Wick and, quote, unquote, ignored the pinball media. So now they've gone to the pinball media, and then there were pinball media people that were upset that they weren't included in that group. It's like, well, they're not going to be able to include everyone, guys. Don't freak out about it. Just be cool, man. Be cool.
    29:37
    Sternflue, every pinball influencer in for a giant tour. They bring in Mr. Beast. Yeah. So anyway, but I didn't want to belabor that. I was just kind of like, you know, guys, I just want to, for what few, if it helps, just don't read too much into it. Hey, just hang out virtually with us. We weren't invited either. Yeah. And we're pretty cool. So let's talk about the move itself, the decision to do this. So what do you think about Stern bringing in hobbyist media like this? I saw Jason Knapp of Knapp Arcade actually in a thread on Pennside Post that his experience in the automotive industry is this is very commonplace in that industry to bring in the media and give them tours and things like that. And so to him, not to put words in his mouth, but if I was to summarize it, it would be this is a natural progression for pinball if they want to be like the big boys in the more popular industries. I can see that. It's not uncommon.
    30:42
    I mean, you see it all the time, especially where brands will grab certain influencers and bring them in for special event type things just because it helps. Oh, we've got this new what's it that we want to make sure people know about and think is really cool, so we're going to bring somebody in that has a lot of views and gets seen. It's a pretty common tactic. I don't have a problem with it. It's just one of those things that I hope that everybody is being very open and blatant that they were brought in and it was an all expenses paid thing. Full disclosure sort of thing. Yeah, that's a good point. Again, I get the – as a move, after reading what Jason wrote, I think he's probably right. It is probably, from Stern's perspective, it is probably smart for them to do this, and they probably should continue to do it. I don't work in a field where this really happens for a variety of reasons. However, we've seen it in video games. This is pretty common.
    31:51
    It's not maybe as common as it is in automotive because video games are so easy to electronically transfer to someone. But giving them advanced copies and keeping them in the loop and just having them embargoed until it's time to let the stuff come out, that's pretty common. In the wristwatch hobby, I do see watch media because there is a media that does exist in watches. It's far more matured than it is in pinball but way less than what you see in video games because the market is so much smaller. But they're often brought out especially for events or invited to private things to schmooze with the brand. The brands are trying to build these relationships and so I do see it from Stern's perspective. Do you think this helps John Wick sales? Just John Wick, nothing else. Because this is the game that's on the line, and we know from Gary Stern that his favorite game is always the game that's on the line. And so do you think bringing in influencers, media, whatever you want to call it, pinball people, this is going to help those sales? I don't think so. I think that John Wick sales, from what I've seen, sound to be low. But I don't honestly know how much of it is from the controversy. I don't actually think as much as some people think, just because sales have been getting soft. Not just in pinball. You see it across the way in hobbies. I've been reading and noticing that sales are dropping just because people are hitting the point where they can no longer continue to do the spending they were doing as the economy continues to be in its current condition. Yeah, I think it's – I agree with you broadly. I don't think this really moves the needle on – I mean, all right, the people that go out there might end up saying some more positive things about John Wick, and that's where the reader or the listener or whatever will have to evaluate. wait, are they saying this because they got to be invited and play at the factory or just getting a bunch of people and ensuring they had hands on time and they finally could review it and appreciate it? I mean, looking at John Wick, it didn't look like a bad layout. It looked competent. I imagine it will play quite actually most of the feedback I had been hearing before the damage control tour was that it shoots well. And I don't the rules are still not all that far along. I think it's technically .8 code, but I've heard it doesn't feel very advanced. Well, and I think we've seen this return before where games have launched soft.
    34:32
    And once they hit, you know, 1.0, 1.4 on code, they suddenly become super popular. Yeah, I think part of the thing with John Wick is like we saw Stranger Things sort of recover and come from a controversial game because of, I think, a very fair issue with the Demogorgon toy not working right and then recovering into being a pretty popular game. That said, that was a very good license to run with. John Wick, it's a very successful movie franchise. Stranger Things, I think, and I've not watched Stranger Things, but my understanding is the reason why I believe Stranger Things works is even though it's a newer show, all it is is lean into nostalgia. Oh, yeah. John Wick has no nostalgia. The oldest movie is 10 years old. There's no nostalgia for John Wick. So it's just not running with that. And Stern's done that before. Walking Dead didn't rely on nostalgia. But that was a different era as well, really. It was. And it was one of their not-so-well-performing games. It ended up becoming popular with people who knew. But it's not all that well-rated on Pennside. Because when it first came out, the rules were trash. Yeah. Well, and I think it's this whole nostalgia thing. I do find it interesting. There's been this kind of run of it lately that there's new shows coming out, though, but they're very nostalgia heavy. So you kind of exchange your things. Or in the books for the Ready Player One, I know there's been an enormous renaissance of the, I don't know what you want to call them, the period dramas. The, the, the, the, the Bridgerton's like the other 12 shows that my wife watches. There, there's just been a whole lot of that kind of thing lately. Uh and it all been extremely popular and but they all nostalgia for different times So I just think that what is pretty popular right now Okay Well that all I really had to say about the Damage Control Tour unless you wanted to add anything else. I love calling it the Damage Control Tour. Yeah, I think. Damage Control 2024.
    36:56
    You know, if they had done it in conjunction with Taylor Swift, I think they'd have been even more successful. But they did not, alas. Maybe next time she'll get an invite. Yeah, well, you know, it just depends on who gets the license to put out the Taylor Swift music pen and, quite frankly, probably become the most profitable pinball company in existence. Wouldn't it be funny if Home Pin got it?
    37:23
    And then they could use the Meteor Layout that they originally tried to claim for Blues Brothers instead of Stars. They could use the Meteor Layout and do Taylor Swift.
    37:34
    That would be hilarious. Okay. Well, before we jump to video games, we do have a few emails that I want to go over. We always appreciate emails at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. They are all pinball oriented. That's why I'm covering them all now. First email I'm going to briefly mention, but not read, was from Scott G. It was actually in reference to the May 2024 Babies First that was done on Patreon, which, spoiler alert, involved John Wick pinball. so since it involves patreon and most of the listeners have no idea what the baby's first is i'm not going to read the email here however you can see what the baby's first is by joining patreon for as low as a dollar a month at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers next email i will read and it comes in from greg v who writes hey guys love the podcast i enjoyed the discussion about the pinball market and just wanted to second a lot of the stuff you were saying applies to me. For me, there's a few things that have slowed down my purchasing. I've got eight games, and that's max capacity. All are pretty amazing. Stern is kind of a victim of their own success. For me to sell a game, it needs to be better than Foo Fighters, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Iron Maiden, or Walking Dead. That is a much higher bar than 2017 when it just had to be better than walking dead and total nuclear annihilation the secondary market is just slightly too soft if i'd only lose a thousand dollars on the sale of a premium i'd take more risks if my salary went up 25 like pinball prices since 2021 then i wouldn't sweat the softer secondary market great discussion as always well thanks greg tony was uh snickering with the uh request for a 25 pay bump i would also like a 25 pay bump and i would quite probably find room to put more pinball machines if i had a 25 pay bump but i think that's probably something that a lot of people could say and and i will echo uh the sympathy with his argument about the issue of victims of their own success and lineup concerns so my game room holds seven pinball machines i'm currently at nine because i have two operationally set up in the garage i'm not comfortable being over seven it annoys me i'm reluctant to list games right now because the secondary market is pretty soft so it's like even when it's not a particularly like my most likely game that i would get rid of is buck rogers but do i really want to go to the effort of dealing with all the tire kickers that i always have to deal with and taking 30 photos and then getting asked to take another 15 for a game that's not even going to get me 2 000 bucks right just like i'll just let it I'll just let it sit. Just let it ride for now. So, but, likewise, it's getting harder and harder. Like, okay, well, let's pretend I wanted a John Wick for some reason. Or Venom, let's say. I played Venom, and I'm like, you know what? I would like to have a Venom. It's like, okay, well, what am I going to get rid of? Hoops? I'm not going to find another one, most likely, if I get rid of Hoops. So I probably can't get rid of that. Sinbad? It's my favorite. I mean, I really, I play Sinbad more than most of my other games, because it's such a brutal, short game time game. star trek my first new inbox game which is still one of my most favorite layouts ever walking dead with one of the best rule sets ever or godzilla the best game ever made i'm like deadpool i really enjoy playing so it's like it's like it's tough it's every it has to be every new game has to beat something and that what this reminds me of his his comment greg's comment about stern being a victim of their own success it reminds me the issue when diamond plate clear coat first came out in in the industry because all of a sudden operators had games and thanks to that clear coat they weren't blowing out the play field in two to three years anymore and then it was like you know what i can still make money on this older game for longer now a victim of their own success in some ways adding clear coat to pinball was one of the worst things the industry ever did because it slowed the churn because it was well and let's say an arcade was like i gotta have the latest and greatest stuff the 7-elevens were more than happy to take the clear-coated old stuff because kids coming in to get their slurpee are going to be totally cool playing high speed instead of playing whirlwind it's it's so anyway yeah very so i agree with pretty much everything that greg has pointed out that that's a decent lineup too i mean Godzilla Foo Fighters. Solid.
    42:12
    Very, very, very fun games. So, speaking of fun, I want to move on to another email. This one comes from Brian J.
    42:22
    Why do you think they went with a new designer on this game when they have four designers for a three games a year release schedule? Should we expect more than three cornerstones along with a vault each year? Curious about your thoughts. Thanks. Well, thank you, Brian. he's referring to Stern Pinball and their decision to use a new designer for John Wick what are your thoughts on this you gotta have the new guys do some more your old designers aren't going to be around forever you have to start building your bullpen early ok I mean that's what it is you have to start preparing for transition there's going to be a point when people are retiring and you need to have people who can step into their place. And I think it's solid to make, yeah, they might only make three cornerstones, but this lets them give each individual designer, especially the primary designers, more time to work on projects so they're not quite as rushed, and it lets them try out some new hands.
    43:27
    I've heard this argument from others as well, and so you all are probably correct. Personally, I – and some of this is just, again, a victim of Stern changing up what they did. I think it would have made more sense to not start a new designer on a cornerstone. Had they still been doing the home pin additions like how they started Jack Danger with one of those, that would have been the route I would have gone. Since they don't seem to be making those anymore, I guess, yes, it makes sense. though maybe it would make sense to start doing more of like a master and apprentice style approach to the journeyman this thing and and do the and maybe that happens behind the scenes but while we give a lot of credit to multiple programmers for doing rules and stuff we don't on design on design generally now that's not always true in the past like daddy east would often list three different uh designers for playfield uh and it was just different so well Well, and it's also always possible that that's the system they've been working on is the whole master and apprentice style thing. But eventually that apprentice has to put their own mark on something. They have to have their own. They have to do a final project. They have to prove that they've learned from the master. So, yes. But I didn't hear that that was what was done here. It sounded like they had someone who was just a veteran mechanical engineer and they let him do a play field. And maybe it's that simple. I don't know. In regards to Brian's question, so I do agree. Yes, the why is probably you got to build up the bullpen. You can't just have the old blood. So I think that's the why. Where I think they botched it is there was no effort. And maybe that will come out of the disaster control tour, the damage control tour. But so far, I've not seen any effort to in any way really introduce this designer to the hardcore hobbyist collector community who so often latch on to designers as their motivation to buy particular games.
    45:30
    I'm not seeing interviews. I'm not seeing any effort to build up the designer in a way. Jack Danger was already a known entity from the streaming side. He's sort of a pinball rock star would be a way to describe it. He already had these bona fides that were established from his Twitch career. And just like Keith Elwin was the goat on playing, and then he turned out to be this awesome designer, which is icing on the cake. And then pretty much everyone else has either earned their chops, like Scott Denisey with his music and his interesting layouts, and Eric Minier, who kind of did the engineering jump and became the darling of JJP for bringing in these new concepts with toy integration. And then everyone else has a stable of games, So they already have their fanboys and fangirls, so to speak. So there just seems to be zero effort to do that with the design. I mean, maybe Stern doesn't like that. Maybe they don't like this whole cult worship of the designer by designer that it's a team effort and it shouldn't be about it. Because after all, what happens when people worship a designer and the designer turns out to be Trudeau? True. I mean, so there are risks when you build things around an individual's personality. but I think just given how prolific that is where people attach to – I mean I know plenty of people that buy every Elwynn game because it's Elwynn and they love his design. And there were people like that in the past that were like, if it's a Steve Ritchie game, I'm interested. If it's a Lawler game, I'm interested.
    46:57
    I think they didn't do a good job building up the new designer in the public eye. That's where I think they botched it. And I wonder if how much of that is because of the other blowback and they've gone, we're just going to protect and shield. Maybe. I will say on the second portion of his question, no, they're not going to. In this soft economy, they're not going to release. They're not going to increase the number of games they make a year. Sales are too soft. If anything, I expect them to drop a game. I don't think they're vaulting this year. Yeah. I know there's been rumors of Metallica going around. I do not think they are vaulting this year. And maybe they do what they did when they did the special edition Jurassic Park, and they do a special edition Godzilla. That's not a vault. Godzilla is still being built. It's not a vault.
    47:50
    I think what we might end up seeing, as long as sales remain as soft as they have, is they might start alternating between a three-cornerstone year and a two-cornerstone and a vault year. just depending upon how things go. But I think it's too early to tell. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if there's enough cost savings versus the people they have on payroll that are probably salary to warrant just not doing more corners. I don't think it's any cheaper to do vaults. Right. I can see that. Because I think they're just paying flat salaries to pretty much everyone on the design team. Now, if I were them, I would definitely be freaking out about moving into this larger facility and maybe it's not particularly more expensive than their last facility, but I just don't see how they can honestly take full advantage. Maybe they never plan to take full advantage of it. But now that, you know, it's different when you feel like you're busting at the seams during the pandemic and we ain't in that anymore. And now you've got this huge space and all these, I mean, they employ a lot of people and I don't know that they're going to be able to keep all of them busy enough to work. I think there'll be cuts is what I'm saying.
    48:58
    Wordily saying, I think they're going to be cuts. I don't think that it makes sense for them to carry this many designers on staff at this point. But we'll see what happens. Given how much profit price gouging is built into the pens right now, maybe they can sustain it. Right. Maybe they're making enough profit. They're getting to a point where they don't have a lot of designers who are approaching retirement. Right, right. Because they've transitioned a lot of that already. Yeah. our last email comes in from scott g and actually this one was uh very detailed and i'm not going to read all of it let me let me go ahead and read part of it at first gentlemen day fix has put out the word to call your local barbecue joints to see if they want a seven thousand dollar plus paperweight in their establishment not sure why that's been placed on hobbyists and not the sales for us but let's see how this goes the continued missteps would be comical if not for people's jobs on the line i always thought a segment on these lunatics would be a good segment if you felt extra snarky now this dennis pausing pausing from reading the email i'm not going to read the rest of this all on air however there's one last part that i thought because okay we we tony we can go with this idea of of doing a segment in the future of basically going over like uh jerry seinfeld I was like, what's the matter with home? What's up with this home? Yeah, we could do something like that. However, I want to go ahead and do the spooky one that he mentioned. So here's the rest of the email regarding that part. But the biggest mystery to me is spooky. Why did Charlie Emery disappear? I've never heard it addressed. Odd, because he put his heart and soul into building it. Hope he is OK and just wanted to step back. Thank you. OK, well, thank you, Scott. Tony, spooky. Charlie in particular. So Bug, his son, broadly seen as the face of Spooky Pinball now for years at this point and by all accounts is basically running the company.
    51:02
    What happened to Charlie? You seen Saw? Oh, no. But no, really. I have no idea. I've actually wondered the same thing because he used to be everywhere.
    51:23
    And we know he started backing off, but it's just, I don't know. Is it just taking a back seat, having something, letting the kids go and be on their own? Is it taking more time for himself? Is it pseudo-retirement or full retirement? I don't know. But it is a question that has crossed my mind a few times because he has kind of just vanished. Yeah, I don't have an answer either. So sorry, Scott. I don't know the truth behind exactly what's gone on. Everything I had heard is just that it's a transition over to Bug and the rest of the family. and that's not necessary. I don't know how involved Charlie still is, is the thing. Now, what I have assumed, and again, this is an assumption. I do not know that this is true, but I will go ahead and share it since the request seemed to be for a solicitation of thought, that I kind of see it as legacy building. I see Charlie as taking a company and started and built it up And this sort of homegrown, from the ground up, spun up, Wisconsin-based pinball company, he was able to establish that in a town and make it a main employer there. And then I think he was like, well, I don't know how old Charlie is, but I'm assuming he's probably like, you know what? I can retire at this point. I've got kids. Let me hand this over. Like what greater transfer of asset wealth than giving them a company that I've built and then seeing what they go ahead and do with it? And I'm guessing Bug in particular, who has seemed to be really involved with a lot of the stuff in pinball with his dad for years, was the natural leader in the sense that he just is really enthusiastic about pinball. So that's what I think is I think he was just like, I built this kind of like so many other small businesses. And it's like I'm giving the family farm over to my kid to run now. That's how it's the family pinball business. Right. Well, that's what I think happened. I mean, and it's just that simple. Yeah. And I can totally see that. I mean, it used to be fairly common before we got to the point where almost everything was huge, massive corporations. Even back in the day, I recall I used to work for a place that was like that. It was started in the 30s by a family.
    54:01
    The dad ran it and then handed it off to his three kids in the late 60s, early 70s. And they ran it. And I started working there as they were coming up on retirement. And not a single one of their kids or grandkids had any interest in taking over the family business. So they sold it to a huge corporation. So it was a family-owned business for two full generations and then got sold off to a huge corporation. but that's used to be pretty common for smaller businesses to do that kind of thing just pass within a family for a generation or two and then be bought out or sold off or or or full yeah i think to me the only real surprising aspect is i thought there would have been a more public transition period where it seemed more like uh and i'm not saying this didn't happen we just didn see it publicly like where okay charlie and bug started to do a lot more joint events and then bug started taking lead in the like in interviews and stuff with charlie still there and just saying less right or moving more to like junior partner status and then kind of like with gary stern where we've seen as he started to moved into his retirement phase he started to drop more and more responsibilities but he'd still be involved and now it you know when people look they just bug and a lot of this there were a lot of staff changes too so bug started to put i think put his stamp on the way he wanted spooky to be which was not in agreement with everything that charlie was doing and i think some of the moves bug has made i think were probably smart moves and some of the moves i think he made were really bad moves so but again it's all it's it's all subjective in a way so anyway but i yeah i've never i've never heard like anything like like concerns about that charlie had to step down. I just figure it was, hey, you know what? I've done it long enough and I got family that actually are interested in it, which as you noted, it's not uncommon for you to end up with a bunch of kids that don't want to be in the family business.
    56:07
    Especially with a successful family business, it gets up those kids to create their own identities and their own careers. That's the thing. It's not that the business is bad it's just but i'd say i was like just in my personal my personal stance i was always liked it better seeing where they where families don't force the kids to feel like they have to do what the like be a be a farmer forever yeah run a shoe store forever it's like letting people kind of find their own way and do what interests them i don't know i just thought that was cooler than saying well we're restaurateurs so you're going to run a restaurant right like well great except I hate food. No one really hates food.
    56:52
    Restaurants are hard, though. They are. But that's just one of those things. As much fun as the drama is to watch of stuff like Succession and the fall of House of Usher, not every business is that where there's the one giant leader, family patriarch who raises up all of the children to fight each other to become so i can put the best one in control and it's a again being in the in the watch hoppy one of the biggest luxury uh conglomerates is lvmh which owns a number of and that's all nepotism throughout it like the guy is getting ready to retire he's got his kids in charge of all the various divisions and i'm just like do they all really love this crap or are they doing it honestly because he holds so much of it uh it's publicly traded but they own so many shares It's like you don't say no to that level of – I mean that's like godhood money. Yeah. So I guess you just do it. I can be bought into doing something I don't like if the dollar signs are high enough. Well, yeah, I know. I mean most people can.
    58:00
    Speaking of dollar signs, video games, Tony, what's going on in that world? Well, they did confirm that Helldivers 2 was the highest selling or fastest selling PlayStation game ever. So it has done well even with their issues earlier this month, but their player base has dropped 60% since launch. So since it came out in February, they've dropped from having an average concurrent in the 200,000 range to having an average concurrent in the 70,000 range. so they've definitely dropped some and the development team has said that they're looking at slowing down their update releases and after a couple missteps here and there they're looking at focusing on some higher quality update releases they've taken a lot of blowback with some game balancing where people feel like they may have overbalanced it and taken some of the fun out of the game by trying to balance it. Which it's interesting to me to go too heavy on balancing when you're playing a game that is completely PvE.
    59:19
    It is co-op PvE. There's no PvP. So why would there be a need to overly balance? Why would you need to nerf?
    59:30
    Yeah, I don't understand why you need to go so far as to nerf. Well, the game's too easy. Okay. There's things you can do to make the game less easy. Yeah, balance. Yeah, but you don't necessarily have to nerf all the weapons by huge percentages like they have in some cases. Especially in a game that's about dealing with swarms of enemies, sometimes you can just make the enemy stronger or add a few more enemies to balance it without necessarily removing the parts that people enjoy by making their gun suddenly not work. um and the original console war is over it's done it's completed that's nice atari purchased in television you were an atari guy you had an atari i did i didn't know there was a war though i hadn't in television as a kid okay that's why we don't get along that's yes that that's why we don't get along that that's definitely it but uh that was back in the day the original console war was a television and atari uh just even before this point atari had won atari had won years and years and years ago they were by far the better selling machine but uh it's just kind of humorous that we are at a point where yeah atari bought in television there's actually in television they still uh uh have been putting out a new version of the old in television system that did retro games and just played like a lot of the old retro style games. So like one of those little plug into your TV things that got so popular there for a while. But no, now Atari owns the rights to all of the Intellivision games, which is funny because like 75% of them were knockoffs of Atari games, but it was the original console war. The current console war Has definitely also been having one side Obviously winning PlayStation sold five times more machines Than Xbox did last quarter But sales of both are soft They're both down People can get them now We don't have backlogs anymore So, and I mean, it's been a number of years that they've been out, but PlayStation is still heavily outselling. So that's not. That's far more popular. It is. And we've talked about that several times lately.
    61:59
    There's an aggregator website out there that has been keeping track of video game industry layoffs for the last several years. And as of like last week, we've crossed 10,000 layoffs this year. Well, it's felt like it. Yeah. And the thing is, is for 2023, they only had a little bit more than that for the entire year. So it has been heavy. The latest round coming out of Square. Nobody knows how big or how many, but Square has announced layoffs.
    62:35
    So they're reshuffling. Maybe they're just getting rid of all of the blockchain people. Maybe. We could hope Yes Microsoft Has also Decided to integrate Its new Co-pilot AI that they've been Working on and talking about Lately has been integrated Or is going to be integrated into Minecraft as an advisor So It's some so instead of It's basically like a an active help screen, except for it helps you get ideas for what you need to do. Like in the demonstration I saw, they were like being attacked by a zombie and the AI is like, hey man, you need to run.
    63:33
    Okay. Or it would give ideas. It's like you need to run, you need like sprint away or you need to build a, just jump up and build a vertical tower to get you out of its reach. and like helping with creating stuff. It's like, hey, you really need a sword, and you don't have everything to make a sword. You need this kind of stuff. You should probably go find this kind of stuff. So more of the introduction of AI into day-to-day stuff, which has been becoming pretty major in the last year, really. So And because like I said I don't have a whole lot I saved this last big one For the end The families of the Of all the victims Have put out lawsuits Against Activision Meta and Daniel Defense Who is the firearms maker that made the weapon That was used at Evaldi Specifically saying that Activision's Call of Duty Trained the shooter Meta's ownership of Instagram because Daniel Defense sold their stuff via social media on Instagram had ads that were targeted specifically to teenagers who played those games those style of games all worked together to create a specific allowance for that to happen. Specifically, they said that the lawsuit says the gunman was simultaneously the subject of aggressive marketing by Daniel Defense, which targeted the teen with ads on Instagram. Instagram creates a connection between an adolescent and the gun and a gun company.
    65:24
    They're also talking about taking other more, filing more suits in addition to what they've filed already. so we're back to the do video games make kids violent uh issues from the 90s and early 2000s yeah i was just thinking about couldn't remember the guy's name jack something jack walsh i think you're right um who was the big pie you know he's the crusader might be the word i think that is the word against uh against video games for years because i i remember when it was called you know with mortal combat because it was so violent. And, and, and when the first generations of first person shooters came out and, uh, that, that was, it was a very common thing. And it's always been a very common thing. You wouldn't even go back to the eighties, uh, when there was the backlash against dungeons and dragons, uh, because, you know, it was promoted Satanism and the chick tracks and, and all of those things. there's just always kind of a, oh, this thing is corrupting the youth. And I'll be honest, I think that's always existed in one form or another. I'm sure if you look back in the 50s, it would have been, oh, rock and roll is corrupting the youth. And in the 70s, it was drugs and rock and roll are corrupting the youth. And if you go farther back, it's, oh, kids are spending all their time reading books. So that's corrupting the youth instead of working on the farm or working in the factory. year. I'm sure that's something that's just there's always a boogeyman that's corrupting the youth. Yeah, I'm I'd be pretty skeptical that any of these lawsuits are going to be successful. I know that we've seen gun manufacturer lawsuits go forward before. That was a little tricky. There's a law that that protects them from being held responsible for crimes with their use, I think from the early 2000s, but but they can be held liable for negligence. But I think it's very it's very hard to prove. But that I was doing some quick checking here that Sandy Hook families did. The Supreme Court let them move forward with their Remington Arms lawsuit. Oh, yeah. I don't know what happened with the result of it or that's still ongoing, but they were allowed to do their negligence lawsuit legally. Right. That wasn't that wasn't prohibited under the protection of lawful commerce and arms act.
    67:55
    That protection doesn't exist for video games or social media in terms of the crime aspect. But that being said, the blaming the video game thing, since that's the focus of our show, that's the one I'll lean in on. I just don't see how they'll be able to prove that – because even if you want to say that they learned how to shoot from – like they were trained in how to shoot from a video game, there's nothing inherently that I know of illegal about having military training. No, there's not. I don't – I just – On things like this, it's always a mixed bag for me because on one hand, I feel like it's super ridiculous to want to go and blame video games for this. On the other hand, when you have this level of tragedy, I sympathize that there's a lot of rage and rage needs a victim. And I think that the families who have been so frustrated by all of the failings that happened, and as I think anyone who's looked into this knows, there was a tremendous quantity of failing that happened with Uvalde, in particular Uvalde, that it's just – and when you find out that you can't get justice or what you perceive to be justice from a variety of avenues, you just start looking anywhere you can.
    69:22
    So that someone's held responsible. because the person they mostly want to hold responsible is already dead. Yeah. And so it's tough, but I don't think any of this succeeds. I think you're right. I don't think, especially I don't see how, like you said, the video game section. I don't even know if they let that one move forward. Yeah, I don't see how that one really has a chance. I don't see, there's no laws against advertising firearms on the Internet. Yeah. So I don't see how that one goes because it's a legal company doing legal things. Unless they found an ad that seemed deliberately designed to appeal to a school shooter. Like, and I'm guessing that there's not such an ad. It'd have to be where you could argue the negligence. Like, this is designed to deliberately appeal to people who are disturbed. Like, you'd have to make a claim like that, I would think. And I'm very skeptical that that is the, you know, I could see that, for example, if someone was, And I don't know anything about Daniel Defense, but if it was a company that went around about 3D printing plastic guns, someone making a claim there, this is designed to subvert security. So it's already designed to appeal to a particular type of person, a person who's trying to violate the law. Like maybe an argument there, but just like a general firearms manufacturer where there are just so many purposes that – because a firearm is a tool. There are so many purposes, legitimate purposes for a firearm.
    70:52
    I just don't see it. So no, I just don't think any of these – I don't think any of these go forward.
    71:00
    And I looked and double-checked when we were talking about the Sandy Hook. They settled. Okay. There was a settlement of $73 million.
    71:10
    And that settlement happened two years after Remington filed bankruptcy. It was broken up and sold. Okay. Well, on that note, do you have anything else for us?
    71:24
    One of these days there'll be happy video game news. I mean, Helldivers being the fastest selling game ever is happy for Helldivers. It is happy for Helldivers. And I didn't really talk about it. I know there's a couple of listeners out there who are going to be probably upset with me for not really talking about it. But there has been some really good news coming out since the Switch release of the Paper Mario game. It has sold extremely well and has been doing very good for Nintendo. And it has been a huge return to form for those older Mario games. but it's a Mario game and they always sell well I mean it's Mario I mean it's going to be there we'll see we will be here over the next couple of weeks so if folks want to reach out to us they can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com we're also available at facebook.com eclecticgamerspodcast once again, got to stick in the Patreon plug if you want to support us on Patreon We're at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're at Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And there might be happier news next week. There might be a new pinball release. I don't think so. In the next couple of weeks. You know, talking about pinball releases, that is one thing that I will definitely give stern props on, is between the official announcement of a game and games being on site where you can play them is such a short time that that is something I think other companies could strive for. Yeah. Jersey Jack used to do that. They abandoned it for Elton John for some reason. Yeah. I don't know why. But anyway, if you guys have thoughts on that, email us about them, and we would love to read about it. Yeah, because you listen to us all the way to the end. That's right. That's how we know the truth. So anyway, until next time, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See you.