Episode 1245: "My Hot Take on DCC & Ender's Game."

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·21m 27s·analyzed·Jul 28, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.022

TL;DR

Kaneda trashes Multimorphic's DCC/Ender's Game launch while hyping Barrels of Fun's imminent reveal.

Summary

Kaneda criticizes Multimorphic's launch strategy for Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game, arguing the presentation was poorly executed, the themes are niche and cringeworthy, and the lack of limited editions removes all FOMO/urgency. He anticipates Barrels of Fun will announce a new game (possibly Bon Jovi) today or Friday, and contrasts their expected quality against Multimorphic's missteps. He also addresses broader market trends: weak code on reveal, long wait times between order and delivery, and how newer games are being forgotten instantly due to incomplete software.

Key Claims

Barrels of Fun is revealing a new game today (Tuesday, July 28th) or Friday at Southern Fried Gaming Expo, possibly Bon Jovi themed
medium confidence · Kaneda received communication from David Van Ness the night before, indicating movement on a new reveal
Multimorphic customers who ordered Dungeon Crawler Carl at 12:03 PM (3 minutes after noon launch) are being told they may not receive their game until next year
medium confidence · Kaneda reports hearing from people who ordered early; reflects Multimorphic's historically long wait times
Multimorphic released Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game with no limited edition versions, exclusive toppers, inner art blades, or any FOMO mechanics
high confidence · Kaneda directly observes and criticizes the lack of limited edition strategy in the launch
Ender's Game code is further along in development than Dungeon Crawler Carl because Ender's Game was developed first
medium confidence · Kaneda deduces this from video presentations; not officially confirmed by Multimorphic
Spooky Pinball strategically times game reveals at the end of the year to avoid collision with other manufacturers
high confidence · Kaneda praises Spooky's reveal scheduling as smart strategy
Guns N' Roses sold 6,000+ units; Kaneda believes Barrels could hit 700 units easily with Bon Jovi if executed well
medium confidence · Kaneda makes comparative sales estimates based on theme strength and gameplay
Stern nearly rehired 'Big Al' but a leaked reality TV show pitch featuring Big Al in offensive behavior created a PR nightmare that prevented the hire
low confidence · Kaneda cites unverified hearsay: 'Not sure if that's fully true or not, but that's what I'm hearing'
Modern pinball buying is suffering because games reveal with incomplete code; buyers lose interest waiting 6+ months for delivery and further software updates
high confidence · Kaneda frames this as industry-wide trend affecting Pokemon, Dune, Sonic, and other recent releases

Notable Quotes

“When you step back and look at the like the launch of the game, like, is this what you visually want your game launch to look like? When you invite the VIPs into your company, I don't understand.”
Kaneda @ ~3:30 — Criticism of Multimorphic's poor presentation and venue choice for the Dungeon Crawler Carl / Ender's Game reveal
“It looked like a bunch of people going to see if their crazy uncle left them anything in the will. That's what the crowd looked like at Multimorphic.”
Kaneda @ ~4:15 — Harsh critique of the attendee demographics and vibe at Multimorphic's launch event
“I understand that this is a unique sense of humor. I understand that there are people that love this kind of stuff... I personally find it cringeworthy and it's not my sense of humor.”
Kaneda @ ~7:00 — Kaneda stakes a clear personal stance on the Dungeon Crawler Carl theme and tone
“There's absolutely no FOMO to order this game because there's no version of this game that is limited by any nature whatsoever.”
Kaneda @ ~9:30 — Core criticism of Multimorphic's product strategy: no limited editions, no urgency, no exclusivity
“When you're a boutique manufacturer, you need FOMO. You need to create urgency to order because you need the orders.”
Kaneda @ ~9:45 — Articulates fundamental business principle for small manufacturers in competitive market
“If you don't have a game that's ready to show everything the game is capable of, and we know the code is very early, you get forgotten instantly.”
Kaneda @ ~15:30 — Explains why early code state damages long-term hype and sales momentum
“We live in a world now in which people want immediate gratification and then pinball does the opposite. You reveal a game and you make people wait.”
Kaneda @ ~16:45 — Core complaint about pinball industry business model conflicting with modern consumer expectations

Entities

Kanedaperson Multimorphiccompany Barrels of Funcompany[name withheld pending review]personJerrypersonJamiepersonCary Hardyperson

Signals

?
community_signal: Kaneda criticizes content creators for aggressively promoting Multimorphic games despite long histories of criticizing the company; calls them 'shills' and notes community fatigue with constant sales promotion messaging
high · Kaneda: 'we been talking smack about these guys for a decade and now we in bed as salespeople for them... it's going to be easy for a lot of us to just ignore the shills and the shills are just going to keep losing all their credibility'
?
product_strategy: Multimorphic released two P3 games with zero limited editions, exclusive toppers, special artwork, or production caps—eliminating all urgency and FOMO mechanisms critical to boutique manufacturer sales models
high · Kaneda: 'There's absolutely no FOMO to order this game... no version of this game that is limited by any nature whatsoever. Not only that, he didn't even say that any of these are limited'
$
market_signal: Pattern where games with incomplete code on reveal (Pokemon, Dune, Sonic) experience rapid hype decay; buyers lose interest waiting 6+ months for delivery and further code development, shifting attention to fully-featured games or future releases
high · Kaneda: 'If you don't have a game that's ready to show everything the game is capable of... you get forgotten instantly... Pokemon is a fart in the wind. Dune was a fart in the wind'
?
announcement: Barrels of Fun is announcing a new game today (July 28th) or Friday at Southern Fried Gaming Expo; high confidence based on direct contact with David Van Ness
medium · Kaneda: 'I have some information that things are moving today... I think stuff is moving today. I think they're going to just drop it on us... and then the full reveal is on Friday at Southern Fried Gaming Expo'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.014

0:00

Daddy a girl left fast, all the things he couldn't say. Ooh, she's a little runaway. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. It's going to be a busy week over here at Kaneda's Pinball Podcast as we are now anticipating that today, yes, today, Tuesday, July 28th, 28th could be the day we see the new game from Barrels of Fun. I have some information that things are moving today, that we are going to see the game today. Maybe it's just a theme, but I think we're going to see all of it today, which gave Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game one day in the spotlight to generate excitement and sales. With so many days in the year, it is comical that these pinball companies collide on top of each other and give nobody any window of opportunity. Still, the only company that is carved out the right time of year is Spooky Pinball. Like nobody sits on top of their reveal schedule at the end of the year. Super smart. All right, so here's the thing. I've been doing a lot of thinking about Dungeon Crawler, Carl. I've watched the video a bunch of times. You have to go see Jamie's video at the JBS show because his video to me is the authentic video. It is like what it would have felt like if any of us had made a wrong turn and ended up at Multimorphic for the day. And then you find yourself inside this pinball company that is billing themselves as Pinball Evolved. Even if the showroom looks like it's a college dorm room and they've got pipe and draping going on that looks like it was set up the night before by a little handyman intern. And then you've got Jamie who's like absolutely confused about both titles. He has no idea about anything Dungeon Crawler Carl or Ender's Gabe. So talk about the right guy to invite to just capture what it would be like for just the average Joe to walk through Multimorphic. And in the end, you know, watching Jamie's video. And by the way, like it was funny seeing who was there. When you step back and look at the like the launch of the game, like, is this what you visually want your game launch to look like? When you invite the VIPs into your company, I don't understand. It's like there's no effort made. Like how about maybe because our showroom looks like a kitchen cafeteria or like some dorm room kitchen. Maybe we don't do it here. Maybe we bring these two games, which we've been working on for a long time, and go get a private room at a local steakhouse and make it more of a moment. Maybe we do that. Maybe we ask people not to dress. Now, you can't do a dress code in pinball. You know, I'm just joking. But yeah, it was like to the T what you expect a pinball audience to look like. It looked like a bunch of people going to see if their crazy uncle left them anything in the will. That's what the crowd looked like at Multimorphic. Okay, but here's the thing. After watching the Multimorphic videos, which were good videos, I will say those three and a half minute videos were actually well shot. They were well produced. They gave you a great sense of what's in both games. And they did a good job of explaining, you know, all the different sort of vibes of each theme in pinball, Multimorphic, Evolved, Pinball form. And they were good. Like, that's all they needed. Like that's all they needed. They didn't need to invite anybody. They didn't need a VIP moment. They didn't need any of that because then you go and you watch like the Kerry Hardy video. You watch the Jamie video and then, you know, you go watch like Zach's now making a 40 minute show. Look, I just want to say this. I just want to say this. If you're going to buy this game from a distro, why not support a distro that's been supporting Jerry for all of the years that it's been tough, that it's been difficult? You know what I saying It like this whole turncoat is a bad look for Jerry and the guys over at Flippin Out don need another game to sell It just a bad look and you can see it in the way they making the content Like we been talking smack about these guys for a decade and now we in bed as salespeople for them I just saying show support to the people that have supported these companies through the tough years That is how it supposed to work But anyway it doesn matter man whether you ordered from them or directly You're going to wait an eternity to get these games. I'm hearing from people that ordered the game at 12.03. If the launch was at noon, three minutes in, and they already have been told that they might not get their game until next year. All right, so there's that. There's the long delay. We knew that. That's how it is with Multimorphic. You're not going to get it right away. The more I look at the dungeon crawler Carl and the Ender's Game sort of presentation and the call outs and the visuals and the humor and the campiness, it's like this. Let me just say this analogy and I'm just going to say this because I'm tired. I don't want to be fake to either you or me or to anyone who's listening. I'm just going to tell you how I really feel. I understand that this is a unique sense of humor. I understand that there are people that love this kind of stuff. It would be like me in high school kicking open the door to the Dungeons and Dragons room and being like, ha ha, you're all a bunch of losers. Like you could be that jerk and I'm not going to be that jerk. What I will do is this. I will say that me, just 49-year-old Kaneda listening to this stuff, I personally find it cringeworthy and it's not my sense of humor. Like, I get it. Are we going to throw a fireball or are we going to throw custard? Like, that's just not my sense of humor. Like, I get it. I understand why some of you think this is hilarious. I just don't. It's like this. There are certain people out there that will watch like Monty Python over and over and over again and think it's the funniest thing ever. I don't. It's like a certain type of sense of humor. And again, it's like I understand why people like D&D and would waste their lives away playing it the same way I understand why some people out there or like how this creates a community around this type of theme. Now, here's what I think is going to happen. It's still going to be very niche. There's not going to be hundreds of these things sold. It's not happening. The other thing that I think was just a colossal mistake by Jerry. Why didn't he on either trim or either theme have any way to measure sales or like a sellout moment? I am shocked that he doesn't have any version of either game that is limited, that comes with an exclusive topper, inner art blades, maybe exclusive artwork, nothing. There's absolutely no FOMO to order this game because there's no version of this game that is limited by any nature whatsoever. Not only that, he didn't even say that any of these are limited, right? Think about that for a minute. So you're going to say Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's game and it's just forever unlimited. That removes all of the urgency, all of the FOMO. There's absolutely no number connected to this game. Name me the last time you saw a game from a boutique manufacturer. And these guys are more than a boutique. These guys are a nano boutique manufacturer. When you're a boutique manufacturer, you need FOMO. You need to create urgency to order because you need the orders. And so it is crazy to me that Jerry doesn't think he should have done like, I don't know, 250 LEs of Dungeon Crawler Carl and 250 of Enders. And then he could have said, hey, we sold all the LEs of Dungeon Crawler Carl and it's a sellout. The reason why you want that is you want to create a lease sales for the LE versions. And you also, when those sell out, it creates urgency to get in on some of the other units because people will feel like you're not going to make it forever. So he removed all of that. So there's absolutely zero urgency. And then on top of that, knowing that you're not going to get your game for like six to eight months, maybe more. What's the point? What is the point to order right away? And again, I think what's going to happen with this game is the same thing that happened with Portal, the same thing that happened with The Princess Bride, the same thing that happened with Final Resistance, the same thing that happened with Heist, the same thing. These games have like a tiny window in which a few people will geek out announce they ordered it and then there no like follow up And because the gap between ordering and getting it and ordering it and people being able to experience it is so big the enthusiasm and the hype is gone instantly And what Jerry should have done, especially with these themes, he should have made about 50 of each and then revealed it. And you can see in the video itself, Ender's Game was in development first. And that is why Ender's Game's code is further along than Dungeon Crawler Carl's. They're still very early. This is the issue with some of these tiny boutiques. You have to take money eight months before the game goes on the line or six months and people stop. It's not like that at Spooky. It's not like that at Jersey Jack. It's not like that at Stern. It's not like that at American Pinball. It's not like that anywhere else. This is a nano boutique company. So it's interesting from a mechanical standpoint. It's got a quirky sense of humor that some of you might love. I think the majority of the pinball buying demographic will find it somewhat cringe worthy. They won't be able to say it because you have to be nice. Well, I'm the not nice guy in this hobby, apparently. And look, this is going to scratch the itch of the Dungeon Crawler Carl fan base. I think some of you out there, though, are delusional. If you think this is one of the biggest themes and IPs happening in culture right now, there's a level of delusion that I can't even like put into words. Delusional. OK, delusional. Yeah, it's a nerdy geek thing that's growing in popularity. Rarity. Awesome. What do you think it's going to become? You think this is going to be the next big thing in culture? I hope you're right. Then you got in early on a multimorphic dungeon crawler, Carl. Ender's game to me is just like a total miss. I mean, because like Ender's as a theme is a lot more serious, the books and the game just looks so childlike. And I can see what they did. They made more of like a family friendly version of Ender's game. And then you got the game with the swearing and the R-rated callouts. The callouts, man, it's like this is the thing. It's like some people love them, man. Some of you guys love this thing like audiobooks. I'm not into audiobooks. I don't want to spend my time listening to a book. I find it hard to pay attention to an audiobook. I think it's better to read. There's something about seeing the words and using your imagination. That's how people have engaged with books for thousands of years. So good on you guys that can just listen to the audio books and the call outs are exciting you because it comes from the voice actor. Great. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. But I highly doubt that they are going to sell like 300 of these or more. And if any other pinball company released a game that struggled to sell 300, you would call it a failure. But because it's multimorphic, it'll somehow be looked at as some sort of success. Now look, now that we've got Barrels of Fun coming out with their new game today, I heard from David Van Ness last night. He's like, are you excited? And I responded at three in the morning because I was sleeping. Yes, I am excited to see any new pinball machine. But Barrels, man, I don't think they're going to mess this up. I don't. And if it is Bon Jovi and there's a lot of arrows pointing in that direction, I would love it to be Bon Jovi because you heard it here first. And then I can go back and read all of those pin side critics who said, you know, the emperor is going to have no clothes and Canada is always wrong. We're going to see today. I still think that Bon Jovi is a way better theme for pinball than dungeon crawler Carl. I think the numbers don't lie. I think the fan base is way bigger. And I think about Bon Jovi like this. If they can make a game that's as cool as Guns N' Roses, but shoots so much better than Guns N' Roses, this pin will do just fine. And yes, I know that Guns N' Roses is way cooler than Bon Jovi. Yes, I know that to a lot of you, Bon Jovi is cringe. But when you hear the catalog of Bon Jovi music and you think about the intensity and the gameplay energy of pinball, it is great music for pinball. Will that translate over into sales And here the thing If they only need to sell 700 I think they going to hit that easily with a theme like Bon Jovi Guns N Roses sold like 6 or more So if they do Bon Jovi right and remember they got the two screens And here the thing that I hope they get I hope if they do Bon Jovi that we somehow get the classic music videos from the 80s I think that's where the win is. No one's ever given us the music videos. I know it's difficult because of the licensing rights and who owns the music videos is often different than who owns the music catalog. But man, that's what people want to see. One of the reasons why Guns N' Roses after a while, you just don't want to see overweight Axl up there all the time. Guns N' Roses music videos were iconic and I'm still shocked that they didn't have some of them be unlocks in the game. That would have been amazing if you could unlock the November Rain music video, unlock the Don't Cry music video, right? All right there, unlock the Sweet Child of Mine music video. That should have been something that was unlockable and achievable in G&R. And you're telling me Slash couldn't get you that stuff? Come on, you know he could. Also, like, who's going to sue you? If you just put it in, who's going to sue you? You're in with the band. All right, so we should see, I think, today the next game from Barrels of Fun. What time? Anybody's guess. I think stuff is moving today. I think they're going to just drop it on us. Maybe they're going to drop the theme on us today. And then the full reveal is on Friday at Southern Fried Gaming Expo. But man, it's feeling like Dungeon Crawler Carl is going to be a little bit of a fart in the wind come the end of this week. And this is the challenge. If you don't have a game that's ready to show everything the game is capable of, and we know the code is very early, you get forgotten instantly. And it's not just Dungeon Crawler Carl. Pokemon is a fart in the wind. Dune was a fart in the wind when it came out. Sonic the Hedgehog is almost quickly becoming a little bit forgotten because there's not enough software that's wowing people. This is not just because of what Jerry's got. This is what modern pinball buying is feeling like to everybody. If you don't have enough on day one reveal to blow me away, I am on to the next. My imagination is going to go to what's in Fallout, what's in Goonies, what's in Back to the Future, what's in Fifth Element. My imagination is going to go there. I'm going to start dreaming about playing Transformers the movie mode. You know, that's where we go. We are not going to stay along on this arduous, long marathon journey to see what your vision was six months after I ordered a game. We live in a world now in which people want immediate gratification and then pinball does the opposite. You reveal a game and you make people wait. You make people wait half a year to get it, maybe two years for the code to be complete. That doesn't work anymore. There's too many games right now that are code complete that are amazing that you could buy that are less money than the new stuff where we don't know it's great. We don't know what direction it's going to go in and we're not sure if it's even worth it. And if you do buy it new, you're losing a ton of money. All right. So it's going to be a very, very interesting week. Again, it's going to be easy for a lot of us to just ignore the shills and the shills are just going to keep losing all their credibility because everyone's tired of it. It's just, you know, it's just like spamming everybody that this thing is now available to order. Talk to me when it's available. All right. Don't talk to me when it's available to order. Talk to me when it's available. And the only time that's even worth going in early is if you know that that game won't be available ever if you don't move now. If I don't pull the trigger on Goonies SLE right away, I won't be able to get it again for anywhere near the manufacturer price. Same thing with Back to the Future SLE. That's it. Do I think it's going to be impossible to get a fallout LE? Probably not. Not the way Stern's been going. Also heard this crazy thing. Did you see that like Stern reality TV show pitch that they put together from years ago where it was like Big Al wearing a kimono with his junk hanging out? And basically the whole pitch was like, we're a company filled with middle-aged or older sexist men who have made working here for women a nightmare. Shocking that nobody picked up that show. And it was like Orange County Choppers meets Stern Pinball. But here's the crazy part. Here's the crazy part. And you heard it here. I heard that Stern was about to hire back Big Al. But because this thing launched and leaked and showed people Big Al in his, you know, old school mentality that now they have a PR nightmare and they can't hire Big Al back. Not sure if that's fully true or not, but that's what I'm hearing. Everybody, more content is coming today. I think we're going to see it. Think it's Bon Jovi. I can't wait to see what Barrels does. And I think this company is going to nail it. I do. I think they're going to get it right. Kaneda out.