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Episode 149 - Sorcerer's Hiatus Connected

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 30m·held·Sep 6, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Multimorphic announces Sorcerer's Apprentice, HomePen reveals Spinal Tap game, TWIP goes on hiatus amid sponsorship controversy.

Summary

Hosts discuss three major pinball industry developments: Multimorphic's Sorcerer's Apprentice game announcement ($499 DLC for Cosmic Kart Racing module), HomePen's Spinal Tap pinball machine with mixed expectations about the theme and manufacturer quality history, and This Week in Pinball's announcement of a hiatus with allegations of sponsorship relationships, anonymous threats, and unclear FTC compliance issues. The hosts debate whether HomePen's track record will deter buyers, discuss monetization and FTC disclosure requirements in pinball media, and analyze Jeff Teolis' vague hiatus announcement.

Key Claims

  • Sorcerer's Apprentice is an unlicensed game, not tied to Fantasia or Nicolas Cage film

    high confidence · Host explicitly corrects listener assumption, citing Multimorphic's Facebook teaser clarification

  • Sorcerer's Apprentice is the first Multimorphic game of this type—internally developed for existing module rather than requiring new hardware

    medium confidence · Host states 'I think this is the first that they've done one of these sort of internal developed for an existing module sort of things' with some uncertainty

  • HomePen container shipping costs are now tenfold what they used to be

    medium confidence · Attributed to Mike (HomePen owner) in Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast interview, host notes this may eliminate pricing advantage

  • New Stern game announcement expected Wednesday with $600 price increase for Pro model

    medium confidence · Host received unverified report: 'I've received a report from someone who heard from a higher-up at Stern' regarding price changes

  • Premium and LE tiers for upcoming Stern game are going up $1,000

    low confidence · Host notes 'I did not hear from my source, but I've heard from others' regarding this pricing

  • HomePen's Thunderbirds is 'probably the lowest rated game on Pinside' and 'despised'

    medium confidence · Host's assessment based on community reception, guest agrees this game is 'despised as a playing game'

  • This Week in Pinball received anonymous threatening messages described as 'borderline on blackmail'

    high confidence · Direct quote from Jeff Teolis' hiatus announcement, though hosts debate whether threats constitute actual blackmail

  • Jeff Teolis referenced a phone call with Robert of Deep Root Pinball in late 2020 about an FCC investigation

    high confidence · Host quotes hiatus announcement; hosts speculate this was likely SEC, not FCC misunderstanding

Notable Quotes

  • “nothing happens in pinball nothing ever happens in pinball for such a long time it's been months since anything happened in pinball and now, wave upon wave, it's like all of pinball is Blizzard”

    Host (Zach) @ ~6:00 — Sets up the episode's central theme of multiple major announcements/news hitting simultaneously

  • “there could be a guy sitting there with a bloody dagger in his hand going I got me a Goonies in the back of the van and when they go whoo here's my money I want to play Goonies”

    Tony @ ~28:30 — Hyperbolic expression that pinball collectors will buy based on IP regardless of manufacturer track record

  • “I have to turn off the stream I cannot stand the sorcerer and the voice of the sorcerer so is that not an indirect attack on me”

    Host (Zach) @ ~13:20 — Personal anecdote about community response to Sorcerer's Apprentice voice acting, shows vulnerability about hosting role in industry

  • “borderline on blackmail is like almost blackmail, though. someone's either blackmailing you or they're not blackmailing you I don't know what borderline on blackmail means”

    Tony @ ~44:00 — Logical deconstruction of ambiguous language in TWIP hiatus announcement regarding legal terminology

  • “the whole goal with a blackmail is you've got something that someone needs to keep secret. So what would be the secret?”

    Tony @ ~48:30 — Critical analysis suggesting Jeff's vague hiatus announcement actually undermines blackmail allegations by revealing everything

  • “if you're positioned yourself as a neutral arbiter and disseminator of pinball news you couldn't do it doesn't make sense to no longer cover a company because you don't like what they're doing”

    Host (Zach) @ ~51:00 — Raises editorial integrity question about whether cutting coverage of Deep Root indicates conflict of interest beyond simple disagreement

  • “in the world of pinball, this is half a topper. Basically.”

    Host (Zach) @ ~11:30 — Assessment of $499 Sorcerer's Apprentice game pricing in pinball market context—value comparison

Entities

MultimorphiccompanySorcerer's ApprenticegameHomePencompanySpinal TapgameThunderbirdsgameThis Week in PinballorganizationJeff Teolisperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: This Week in Pinball announcing hiatus due to sponsorship conflicts, alleged anonymous blackmail threats, and unclear FTC disclosure compliance

    high · Official hiatus announcement by Jeff Teolis citing Deep Root sponsorship, anonymous threatening messages described as 'borderline on blackmail,' and FTC/FCC compliance questions

  • ?

    business_signal: HomePen's prior pricing advantage (Thunderbirds cheaper than Stern Pro) likely eliminated by tenfold increase in shipping container costs

    medium · Mike (HomePen owner) described in Pinball News podcast interview as noting 'container costs are now massive' and 'tenfold what they used to be'

  • ?

    community_signal: Unclear whether Jeff Teolis cut coverage of Deep Root due to ethical disagreement or sponsorship conflict; raises editorial integrity questions about neutral news coverage

    medium · Host questions logic: 'if you're positioned yourself as a neutral arbiter and disseminator of pinball news you couldn't do it doesn't make sense to no longer cover a company because you don't like what they're doing'

  • ?

    community_signal: Incident where community member contacted host suggesting Sorcerer's Apprentice voice actor (possibly modulated version of host's voice) was ear-grating; indirect criticism of host's voice

    medium · Host recounts message saying 'I had to turn off the stream I cannot stand the sorcerer and the voice of the sorcerer'; hosts suspect it was another podcaster providing voice

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Negative community reception to Thunderbirds persists; hosts discuss whether better IP (Spinal Tap) will overcome manufacturer reputation issues

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.272

0:00
Welcome to the Collected Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 5th. This is episode 149. We're almost to the big. Almost. One, five, zero. Done.
0:27
Almost there. Should we end? Write into EclecticGamersPodcast at gmail.com and let us know if we should finally end. You know, we've lost a lot of podcasts this year. Of course, that's true every year. Yeah. Podcasts kind of fall by the wayside often. They flare. They burn bright like a star. And then they die like a star. Yeah. Then there's some that are just glowing embers that just sit there and you can't really see them, but they burn hot and they're there forever. And if you grab it, it hurts. And then there are us. We're like a red dwarf or something. We'll just be lit forever, but we're really not that bright. We're just kind of there. Just kind of there. So what's been going on for the last couple weeks, Tony?
1:08
I've spread my gaming out, so I'm not just playing Final Fantasy. I have played some ICBM, which is a very war games-y little would-you-like-to-play-a-game-type nuclear war simulator.
1:22
I've played some of the 2018 version of Master of Orion. and I started watching new person on YouTube, which has caused me to reinstall civilization six with all of the expansions. Not all of the expansions. Cause there's like a million, like here's a new, you know, country. Here's a new country. Here's a new, but all of the major gameplay changing expansions, cause I've not played with them before. I actually owned them. I got them from a Humble Bundle at one point But I've not actually played with any of those expansions So I've installed all of those Because I'm going to give it a shot Because I've been watching the over-analyzed videos From Potato McWhiskey And it's given me the itch To play some Civilization So that'll banish my soul for a while Yeah, you're not really there for the short-term games Not if you're playing Civ you're not Well that coupled with your MMO Right It's all very invested sort of Products Most of the games I play are very invested sort of products I'm not huge into the jump in And Frag a couple noobs and jump out Type gameplay Call of Duty, Gravy 6 Gravy Team 6 Yeah no So But yeah no that's all that's been going On again Other than I should be out Working on my lawnmower But you're stuck in here with me I'm stuck in here which is fine I'd rather be in here I just I know that my lawn Needs to be mowed it's getting to the Point where if I can't get the mower fixed Here real quick I'm going to have to go rent A lawnmower from the rental Place down the road That's the loudest bottle That was the loudest laugh I have ever heard. I don't know if the mic's picked up because you moved it like 20 feet away. I did. I figured, oh, I'll move it under the table and open my drink. It won't be that loud. And then it sounded like somebody knifed the tire of my car. It's just air blowing out. It's like, well, so much for trying to be, you know, so much for subtle.

This Week in Pinball had sponsorship ties with Deep Root Pinball that were severed

medium confidence · Host infers from hiatus announcement context discussing 'cutting ties with Deep Root' and monetization, but no explicit sponsorship acknowledged publicly

  • Balser designed HomePen's Spinal Tap game, but has already left the company

    medium confidence · Host states 'I believe this is a Balser design' and 'I have read that Balser has already come and gone from HomePen'

  • “Thunderbirds was cheap. It was less expensive than a Stern Pro to get into the U.S., I believe, by a few hundred.”

    Host (Zach) @ ~29:00 — Establishes HomePen's prior pricing advantage that may no longer be viable due to shipping costs

    • Deep Root Pinball
    company
    Robertperson
    Mikeperson
    Balserperson
    Zachperson
    Tonyperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Buffalo Pinballperson|organization
    Cosmic Kart Racinggame
    Pinball News and Pinball Magazineorganization
    Pinsideorganization
    FTCorganization
    Cosmic Kart Racing moduleproduct

    high · Host asserts Thunderbirds 'might be the lowest rated game on pinside' and 'despised'; guest acknowledges this reality but predicts IP loyalty will drive Spinal Tap sales anyway

  • ?

    design_philosophy: HomePen's Mike committed to 90s-style ruleset design and code-complete release philosophy (99% complete at launch, no post-release updates)

    high · Quoted in Pinball News podcast interview; described as consistent philosophy across all HomePen games; contrasts with modern deep ruleset trend

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Spinal Tap pinball license acquisition by HomePen signals improved licensing prospects for mockumentary/cult film IP in pinball market

    medium · Host notes Spinal Tap 'has a great deal more potential to win over Americans' compared to Thunderbirds; acknowledges this fits 'Pinball's current trend of nostalgia all the things'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Pinball implementing $600 price increase for Pro model; Premium/LE tiers increasing $1,000; signaling broader industry cost pressure

    medium · Unverified report to host from 'someone who heard from a higher-up at Stern' about Wednesday announcement; corroborated by secondary report about LE/Premium increases

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Balser (experienced designer) designed HomePen's Spinal Tap but has already departed the company; raises questions about design continuity and execution

    medium · Host states 'I have read that Balser has already come and gone from HomePen so how much of the game might be his remains to be seen'

  • $

    market_signal: P3 Sorcerer's Apprentice $499 software DLC priced as 'half a topper' in pinball market terms; unlikely to drive new P3 system purchases without hardware module bundle incentive

    medium · Host assessment: 'in the world of pinball, this is half a topper' and prediction 'My guess is no' it gets anyone to buy a $10,000 system

  • ?

    announcement: Multimorphic announces Sorcerer's Apprentice, first internally-developed game software for existing P3 module (Cosmic Kart Racing) rather than requiring new hardware

    high · Official announcement with Pinball News coverage; gameplay reveal via Buffalo Pinball stream; $499 price point confirmed

  • ?

    technology_signal: Multimorphic pivoting toward add-on game software for existing modules as monetization strategy rather than selling new hardware modules only

    medium · Host notes this is 'the first that they've done one of these sort of internal developed for an existing module sort of things' and discusses value-add strategy for existing owners

    • 3:47
    We're leaving it in. That's what people want. But what people don't want is watch talk. I had someone contact me saying, could you talk less about watches in your intro? And then I had someone else contact me and say, I really liked all that stuff you talked about the watches with. So I'm not going to talk about them this time. So that just means you need to start a watch-centered thing, like maybe a YouTube channel. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. One can dream. but related to this show I played more Gears 5 I will finish this someday I swear to shit I will I gotta get you done Gears 32 comes out next week there are these open world sections so I just keep going off and having to deal with locusts ooh shaming yeah ooh shaming ooh jack gets an upgrade jack should be like the best killer robot by now given all the upgrades I've given him but I played that yesterday in fact other than that, just mostly work stuff and then, holy cow trying to keep track of all of this pinball stuff because there was just, nothing happens in pinball nothing ever happens in pinball for such a long time it's been months since anything happened in pinball and now, wave upon wave, it's like all of pinball is Blizzard how's that for a tie-in? There's a tie-in there it is. So, let's go ahead and jump right into it and I think I've got five categorical topics for pinball. Holy crap. Yeah. And not all of them are going to obviously need the same amount of attention, but let's start with a positive. Let's start with P3. That's the platform that Multimorphic produces. Okay. They announced a new game, Sorcerer's Apprentice. So I have a link in the show notes for anyone who wants to read up on it to an article that Pinball News has about the game. Just some real quick specifics. And in our internal notes, Tony, I've given you a screenshot of what the game looks like in multiball. But it's using the Cosmic Cart playfield module. It uses, other than that, oh, not uses, I should say, but rather what the player does in the game is as you make specific shots, you collect spells. You can gather items. There are keys that you pick up throughout the game. And then using the buttons on the side, you can activate those sorts of things at particular times in the game. And the game itself is a downloadable game. It's $499 for the game. But as I noted, you need the Cosmic Kart Racing module, which that bundle is $2,499 if you don't already have it. And, of course, you do need the P3 to be able to use the module. Right. which I think the normal price to get in on a P3 would be about $10,000, which you could probably get it with. I'm not going to spell. Look, it's complicated. Go to their website if you're interested in that platform. I'm not going to explain all the different options that you can do to buy because they're different deals at different times, and I don't want to get corrected. All right. So I'm assuming this is the licensed game tie-in to the Fantasia short.
    7:06
    No. So this is the licensed game tying in to the Nick Cage movie. No. You're not the first to suggest that, but no. This is not licensed at all.
    7:18
    This is not. And in their teaser stuff on their Facebook and such, they did make it clear. At least I thought they did make it clear this is an unlicensed game. But I do understand the confusion in the sense that they have been teasing their licensed game for longer than this. I was going to say, because everything I've heard of them talking about is the licensed game. Well, look, that's on the slow burn, apparently, because I was hearing about the licensed game before we even heard about Nick Baldrige's new game, which, as a third-party developer, I understand that he wasn't in the cycle of their promotions. Right. But this, I think, is the – I want to think I read – this is the first that they've done one of these sort of internal developed for an existing module sort of things.
    8:07
    So, you know, it's something different. It's the idea of wanting to add more value to people for the modules that they have already got. Which is the whole purpose. In part, I think it's a huge part of the concept, or what I would assume would have been the initial concept. Obviously, there's also the, hey, there's a new game with a new module, and buying new modules is cheaper than buying a whole new pinball machine. There's that angle as well. But being able to do more and more with the existing modules and not having to swap them all out for every single game, obviously, there's a lot of advantages to that. So I could really see that going. I don't know if you had any thoughts. I caught a little bit of Buffalo Pinball's stream of this game. Very little, though. The spell tooltips look very Diablo.
    8:56
    Diablo. What do you think of the, I don't know if you got a good feel for the graphics. Some people have been very complimentary that thinking these look like the best of the P3 graphics that they've seen so far.
    9:10
    I could see that argument. I think I'd want to see them moving more from a closer. My take was phone game.
    9:20
    Which is pretty much the graphics of everything. Yeah. But I'm not going to compare it to the other P3 stuff because I just don't remember well. I think you have a big challenge when you're using a screen. If you want it to be dynamic and just how much money it would cost to do Gears 5 level graphics. Right. That's where I'm wondering some people are wanting. And I'm like, think about what you see on the back of the LCD from a Stern game or a JJP game and just how much is actually moving and stuff. Now imagine that you had a whole section of the play field where you're wanting. You're wanting a full video game. They're not going to sell as many. It's not like Call of Duty where you know you could get a few million sales. Right. So there needs to be some realism here. but that's the general feel I get it kind of reminds me of a match three phone game style graphics effect it looks clean, it's easy to identify I think that that's from what I've been able to see knowing what to do has been pretty clearly spelled out by the game and that's something I think P3 has often emphasized is trying to make it very clear what you're supposed to do next of course that comes down to the people doing the rules and such but they take advantage of the screen in an educational fashion which I appreciate yeah I think it's very what it is yeah obviously this is not gonna because you're like dealing with a health bar and preserving again it's one of those is it too atypical for the traditional pinball enthusiast to want this you know like when Cosmic Kart Racing came out before they made a version where it was like a traditional game it was that kart racing style thing and it was you know it was cool but it wasn't pinball does that make sense right like yes no that was it didn't play like a traditional pinball game in terms of the rules obviously the physicality of it was pinball but but yeah no because i had that exact feel when we first played cosmic kart racing at uh tpf was this is interesting but it's not really pinball yeah that's where i think the excitement to heist besides the really cool crane toy which the mechanics in p3 stuff has all been the cool stuff. Right. But it was sort of, I think to a lot of people, especially those that did not know about, I still have not played the traditional cosmic kart racing rules. I've only played that heads up style thing. It was that, hey, look, finally a quote unquote traditional pinball game since Lexi. Like the first since Lexi. That's what it felt like. Yeah. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, because they have so many games. And most of them are quite frankly forgettable. Yeah. Because they're like mini games. So, I mean, it's just not Now the question is, will this $500 add-on for the Cosmic Kart Racing module make more people buy P3s?
    12:12
    Interesting question. My guess is no. That's where I think the licensed game will really come into effect. However, I do imagine most people who already own Cosmic Kart Racing's module will buy this game. I would think so. It might motivate some people who already have P3s to buy that module. Yeah. But I don't think it gets anyone to buy a $10,000 system. No. That's my guess. I can see if somebody's been on the edge of getting the module, like they're thinking about it, but they haven't quite been sold, this might push them over. Yes. Even though it increases the cost by $500. Right. But in the world of video games, this is a console. This is excessive. Yes. In the world of phone games, when we're talking about graphic fidelity, in the world of phone games, phone games don't get to know if they're going to sell a lot or not, and they still have to be like three bucks. Yeah. But we're not in either of those worlds. We're in the world of pinball. And in the world of pinball, this is half a topper.
    13:09
    Basically. Some of Stern's toppers is half a topper. For people who already own Cosmic Cart Racing, this is... I would rather... Oh, I found 500 bucks in the cushions of the couch. I mean, if I owned the Cosmic Cart Racing module, I would be hard-pressed not to buy this just so it had more functionality. Yes. Especially if I knew I was going to keep the system. Right. Because, obviously, you can't. It's not like a traditional pinball machine. I can't take my Sorcerer's Apprentice game if I ended up not liking it and selling it to another P3 owner. Yeah. Because that's part of the DLC stuff. So, anyway, I look forward to trying it. I'm more excited. I mean, my overall thought is this looks neat.
    13:55
    I'm more interested still to try Heist, but I want to try both. Does that make sense? Yeah. So. Now, I have a story about this. It's a sad story. Sad for me, not sad for P3. So, I was, actually, I think I was, it was the night Buffalo was revealing, or doing their gameplay reveal. and someone messaged me and asked me if I voiced the sorcerer in this game, which I do not. I've never voiced any pinball machine. So I said, no, I'm not the voice of the sorcerer. I went into the stream later that night, and I heard the voice of the sorcerer, which it's modulated, and it's just like, I don't know. I'm not going to. I was going to say, imagine my voice, but distorted really low. But I don't know if that's right or not. later that same person said I had to turn off the stream I cannot stand the sorcerer and the voice of the sorcerer so is that not an indirect attack on me it sounds like it is it sounds like someone doesn't like my voice maybe they like your voice but the modulation makes it ear grating to them so they can't handle the modulated Dennis voice I think that they don't like my voice very much. And they just decided to tell me that in this indirect way since it wasn't really... I actually think it's another podcaster who did end up... I think I heard... is the voice of it.
    15:29
    But... Oh, well. I don't know. It's only... So much for my feelings, Tony. I guess that's the moral. That's the moral. This is what happens when you don't have smooth, velvety tone. But we aren't all Jeff Teolis or Jeff Parsons or the other Jeffs with their smooth, velvety tones. We have to make do with what we have. We do.
    15:53
    I wasn't even in the game. Moving on. Topic number two. HomePen. We have not talked about HomePen in a long time, Tony. Who's HomePen? HomePen is a pinball manufacturer that often describes itself as an Australian pinball company. It was based out of mainland China when they released their first pinball machine, Thunderbirds Argo Pinball. Man, isn't that the one that they used like two liter bottles to make the ramps?
    16:25
    They had a very thin plastic ramp at one point, but those ramps were replaced with metal ramps based off of consumer feedback.
    16:33
    Consumer feedback did not change how many times you have to shoot said ramp to spell international rescue. But that ramp was improved. It was improved in post. We'll fix it in post. So now HomePen is building in Taiwan.
    16:51
    And they have announced this is Spinal Tap Pinball. I haven't seen any images of the game, nothing about the gameplay. I do have a link in the show notes to the relevant pin side thread discussing this. I believe this is a Balser design and that's based off Of that HomePen have been talking about how Balser Was working on their next game I have read that Balser Has already come and gone From HomePen so How much of the game might be His remains to be seen or Known Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast In their most recent episode did have An interview with Mike who owns HomePen talked a bit about the game I'm not quite sure yet exactly what they're doing in terms of like an electronic set. He still emphasized a lot of the stuff that was kind of his philosophy for Thunderbirds, which was that this is going to be basically code complete when it's released. I believe he described it as 99% code complete. He doesn't believe in putting out code updates after games are out, but they should go out finished. And also, if you are into these modern deep rule set games, this is not the game for you. this is going to be more along the lines of a 90s style rule set, which was his philosophy for Thunderbirds as well. It probably will be his philosophy for all games.
    18:14
    Judging from him. Which is fine. He can do what he wants. The market will decide. What are your thoughts on Spinal Tap as a pinball theme, Tony?
    18:24
    And I was going to say, and Home Pin doing it. Let's start with the theme. Let's start with Spinal Tap as a pinball theme. I have to say, I can't really comment much on this. My dad showed me Spinal Tap one time. I don't remember how old I was, and I can't really remember a movie. So all I know is I have seen it, and it didn't really click with me at the time. So I am completely indifferent. I know people love it. Obviously, we have played the Flash Gordon that's been rethemed as a Spinal Tap game. Right. It shows. So there's clearly people who love this theme. What do you think of the theme, though? I don't care. Oh, I full on don't care. Have you seen the movie? I have. Okay. But for me, it's not the kind of touchstone for me that it is for certain people. It's just like the people clamoring over, you know, Goonies or Harry Potter or all these other things that they want. I mean, Goonies is a pretty solid touchstone for me. I loved the movie as a kid, but I still don't care enough that it's not something I'm clamoring for. Well, Goonies was our generation. I think Final Tap sort of predates this. It does.
    19:34
    But yeah, no, it's not. I know there's going to be people out there who are all about it just because of that touchstone. And it's full on Pinball's current trend of nostalgia all the things.
    19:49
    So that'll help probably more than Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds was, I know, and Mike emphasized this when he was promoting it, was he knew that wasn't great for American audiences, but he kept insisting in Australia and in Europe, Thunderbirds was a huge touchstone, and he wasn't trying to win over Americans. Obviously, he has a great deal more potential to win over Americans with Spinal Tap. Right. But I'm going to have quality control issues.
    20:20
    And that's what I wanted to touch on next. The Home Pin asked. So it's not just the theme. We agree that the theme is better overall than Thunderbirds. Yes. Home Pin.
    20:32
    Thunderbirds as a game, last I looked, might be the lowest rated game on pin side. It is despised. Acknowledged as a functional game, but despised as a playing game. Despised. So, do you think that people who might otherwise be in on Spinal Tap are either going to be slow to adopt it or outright refuse to get it because Home Pin's behind it? Oh god no No I don't think so I used to think stuff like that But after the whole deep root debacle And Zidware And Skipbee and everything Nah I think people will go all over something If it tackles the right button for them I mean It could be a guy Offering candy in the back of his van if it's the right offer pinball people are going to go in there could be a guy sitting there with a bloody dagger in his hand going I got me a Goonies in the back of the van and when they go whoo here's my money I want to play Goonies where are all these bodies I mean no I have no respect or expectation for people not to get hurt Okay. Well, I mean, the thing is, they do have a track record of producing the game. They do. So it's not the, you know, they're not the fly-by-night that the startups are all inherently kind of in. No, they're not. Yeah, the, I think, I think, I think I have to agree broadly. Yeah, there probably are a few people who are more indifferent about the theme that might have been willing, that won't because it's Home Fan, but I think the people that are Spinal Tap fans are going to end up buying it. I think so. and like it or hate it. And there's some people who will buy it, and they will keep it, even if it's just a giant, stinky turd. Oh, sure. Because it's a Spinal Tap game. I know people that don love how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles plays but they such turtle fanatics that they going to keep that game And that awesome for them Yeah No that fine The one thing is Thunderbirds was cheap It was less expensive than a Stern Pro to get into the U.S., I believe, by a few hundred. I don't know if they'll be able to pull that off this go. Now, I've received a report from someone who heard from a higher-up at Stern that the new Stern game, which is expected to be announced on Wednesday, will be $600 more for a Pro. I did not hear from my source, but I've heard from others that the premium in L.E.s are going up a grand.
    23:11
    HomePen could be typically, I would have thought, in a very good position to offer a low-cost option, which even if it is an inferior experience, people might be willing to embrace. However, in that Pinball News, Pinball Magazine podcast interview, Mike did note the shipping container costs now are massive. They are. And obviously he being overseas from the U.S. means there would be significant cost. I think he was talking like container costs are tenfold what they used to be. So if that's indeed true, whatever savings might have been available may be eaten up by the boats.
    23:48
    We'll see. I mean, I hope that it works out for them. I hope the quality is better and it's more enjoyable than Thunderbirds. Now, the thing is, if Balser really did design it, an experienced designer like him should be able to execute. We never found out who designed Thunderbirds. Mike was coy about it. He was always like it was a secret. It sounded like maybe it was a – a lot of these things are collaborative, but there's usually one lead. And he never named who it was. And after it came out, whoever it was probably didn't want to be named. I heard you made Thunderbirds. Nope. I ain't never made a pinball machine for my life. Don't know what you're talking about.
    24:27
    So, yeah, we will have to wait and see. Item number three in the pinball section, this week in pinball. It has announced, and I should say Jeff, who runs this week in pinball, has announced a hiatus. I have a link in the show notes to the actual announcement of said hiatus. I'm not going to read it because it's fairly lengthy, but it is something, obviously, that's newsworthy and deserves to be talked about. I have not reached out to Jeff for comment on any of this because my assumption is what he wanted public, he put in this article. Well, I mean, that makes sense. So, you know, he said what he said.
    25:06
    There were a number of noteworthy claims in the announcement, so I want to touch on a few pieces of it, and then we can go through this because you and I have discussed this a little bit off air. Uh, so in the, uh, announcement, uh, is the discussion of the monetization of TWIP. It's referenced several times, actually, monetization. Uh, Jeff described a, uh, a phone call with Robert of Deep Root Pinball that occurred in late 2020 and references what he thought at the time was an FCC investigation. There are references to a phone call with two other unnamed individuals about cutting ties with Deep Root that he notes getting anonymous cryptic messages that, quote, borderline on blackmail, end quote, threatening to destroy Twip with information that they possessed. And that Jeff's assumption is that it relates to that phone call, though I'll touch on my questions later. And then it notes that Twip will go on hiatus, but also denotes that that's not just because of the Deep Root issue that most of this article was going over. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to guess that when Jeff wrote this, he was probably upset because, quite frankly, this is all over the place. I had a really hard time interpreting what's being said. It was definitely... The hiatus is clear. The hiatus. I mean, that part's clear. However, the storytelling, the narrative thread of this, it's sort of chronological, but it's like it's jumping all over. And I just I read it three times and I'm not quite sure what he's saying. I'm not I just I'm not sure. And I didn't want to bug him and say, Jeff, what are you saying? I don't know. I didn't want to make him defensive about it. But so, like, for example, one of the things that I noted in my in my summary is that he mentioned this.
    27:03
    This phone call with a friend and a third person and then and cutting ties with Deep Root. But he doesn't say what the ties are. I'm guessing sponsorship ties because he spends all these other parts talking about monetization, but never really says exactly what the arrangement was with Deep Root. So I'm assuming they were a sponsor. Now, based off of this, separate from this, I had heard repeatedly that there was a sponsorship at one point with Deep Root Pinball. But there was never anything explicitly stated. And this is something – and I went back because I remember – oh, gosh, this is like episode 120-something. You did a big thing on – excuse me. I hit my can. On FTC, Federal Trade Commission, and there are requirements that exist for U.S.-based entities if they're promoting products essentially is the idea. and I'll include a link in the show notes to your – you linked a social media guide at the time. Right. And, yeah, that was one of the things that got me – this got me thinking back about that piece that you did on it because, as you mentioned, we were talking a little bit indirectly at the start about my watch YouTube. If I were to get a free watch, for example, and do a review of it, I need to declare that I got the product for free. Right. It's a requirement. because that's essentially a paid promotion. But in that social media guide from the FTC, it specifies like if you get any, even if it's not to promote a specific product, the importance of specifying that a relationship like that exists when you cover the topic so that people can judge for themselves whether or not you're really being neutral, even if you mean to be neutral. Right. But I'm not sure that that's what, like I'd heard about that stuff like years ago. So this I don't think you know, I think this FCC thing that that has been brought up by Jeff and his piece is about mishearing the SEC thing that Robert was was going on about. So let's talk about the blackmail. OK. All right. Now, first of all, I don't know what borderline on blackmail means. So that's almost blackmail. That's like almost pregnant, though. someone's either blackmailing you or they're not blackmailing you I don't know what borderline on blackmail means blackmail is normally asking for money or some other consideration in exchange for not going public with your criminal or embarrassing action so if someone knows that you did something wrong and they tell you they're going to go forward that isn't almost blackmail that's giving you a heads up that they're about to expose you Right, which would be, I mean, it's just... Now, if they're doing it to harass you, that's harassment, but that's not blackmail. Yeah, because did they ask for anything? And if they ask for anything, it's not almost blackmail. It is blackmail. And you should report it. You should report it. So I don't know. And again, there are no screenshots of any of this, so I don't know.
    30:13
    I mean, maybe consider since they were threatening to destroy Twip, that was the blackmail because it's something he's done. It's something he's created. So the threat of its destruction could be. To me, that would just make it blackmail, not borderline blackmail. That's literally just blackmail. But it would only be if they asked for something to keep it quiet. Right. But why would they be saying that stuff otherwise? Otherwise, yeah. Well, it could be, and again, if someone wanted to just be mean and harass him. But that's harassment. See, blackmail implies it gives a connotation of something nefarious in the sense that someone was trying to get paid out of it. Right. But he didn't say blackmail. He said this borderline. So he wasn't calling it blackmail either. And again, without like screenshots to see any of the messages or anything, I can't. I just I don't know. I don't know exactly. It could just be a wording thing. Sure. But again, I was like, because when I saw that, I thought, what are they? Why are they asking? First, because I focused on blackmail. I didn't focus on the borderline part. And then when I went back, I'm like, oh, wait. He's hedged the language a bit.
    31:29
    Because obviously harassment, that's not appropriate. Now, if someone has something. Well, blackmail is not appropriate either. Exactly.
    31:37
    I'm just trying to say that I'm not trying to de-emphasize that someone should not be anonymously bothering Jeff by making threats. Right. But if someone has information of something that they thought was wrong, there's nothing that, you know, like whistleblower style going forward. That's not a problem to do. Right. And again, normally it seemed like in this very roundabout way in this hiatus announcement, Jeff was covering all of the topics. If he's putting everything out there, there's nothing to be harassed or blackmailed over. The whole goal with a blackmail is you've got something that someone needs to keep secret. So what would be the secret? I'm not like, based off of this, it's to me one of two things. One would be that there was a sponsorship arrangement between Twip and Deep Root, which that should have always been known if it existed. It should have. and that's where when he talks about the other, not the Robert phone call but the phone call with the other two people Jeff mentions something about telling them that he cut ties with Deep Root the only thing that makes sense to me is sponsorship ties does cut ties mean you're not going to report on them anymore because if you're positioned yourself as a neutral arbiter and disseminator of pinball news you couldn't do it doesn't make sense Right. That makes sense to no longer cover a company because you don't like what they're doing.
    33:10
    And if it was a sponsorship, OK. That's fine. Cutting ties. But again, I went back and looked at some of the prior because I don't know what the time frames were. I went back and look at some of the prior Deep Root articles on Twip this last week. I didn't see disclaimers denoting that there was sponsorship at the top of those articles. And again, per FTC, you are supposed to be very upfront. You can't just put it on a homepage or whatever and say – You need to make it very clear. But again, I don't think that's it because social media not completely – I know it really bothers you because you were pretty steamed when you covered the FTC stuff. That said, social media people from blogs to YouTube and all that, they violate the FTC requirement on that a lot. Most of the time, it's just – if anyone reports to you, I think they go in and they just correct and they say, hey, you're not doing it right. This is your warning. Get your act together. Here's a guide. It's a four-page guide. It's not hard. And just start doing this sort of stuff. So I don't think that's it. I think what they were threatening was this stuff, this FCC, because he spent so much time talking about how he wrote down FCC and we're going to assume SEC. Is he saying that Robert told him months ago, like last year, that he was under SEC investigation?
    34:34
    Because I could see where it could be interpreted by this anonymous harasser slash quasi blackmailer that it would be embarrassing to say Twip knew about this months ago and didn't report on it. Yeah. Because then if you know that there's a financial consideration, a sponsorship that exists, people might naturally assume you sat on it to protect your paycheck. And that's exactly what it would look like. So even if you cut ties immediately, the whole not reporting it thing for a place that it's talking about being, you know, the home of the news, that's huge news with that much of how it tied into the actual day to day operations of Deep Root. and what it turns out to be from what we've seen now. I mean, it's another level completely of covering. And even if it was just, oh, I just don't understand. I thought I said FCC. That doesn't make sense. I'll just ignore it. It's like, why would you ignore something like that? He's talking about an investigation by a governmental group into, yeah. Well, and I mean, there are a lot of legitimate reasons that one might decide not to that aren't related to the sponsorship. But it would look real bad. It would look like a sponsorship. But for example, if the company in question has a reputation for being litigious and you're worried that there would be a lawsuit, that could create a lot of pressure unrelated to financial consideration. That would be like, I can't go on a rumor. on the flip side if you hear it from the head of the company it's probably obviously that's not really a rumor right right you know you know obviously there's things like allegedly and stuff but you know it's just i i could that's why that's what it seems like to me and that's why i i think that jeff wrote about this explanation of this call with robert was uh in a way i mean putting that out there is is a good way to defang the harasser slash black because if you've got it I mean, there's nothing to expose if you've put it all out there. But the way it was phrased was just not as clear-cut to me as I would have. I still don't understand. See, that's the thing. With the cut ties and how deeply involved in the deep six thing that Twip was, and then the cut ties thing, it to me just screams that basically that there was a sponsorship and that it was not disclosed, which is something that has been rumored. And to me, that means that anything they ever said on this thing is trash. It doesn't mean anything. It's used toilet paper. I mean, because it can't be trusted for anything. Yeah. And it's again, and I don't I don't know. I mean, I know a number of companies, for example, have supplied products for the giveaways to the to the consumers or the people donating and stuff, which, you know, declaring that on that page with that's not stuff that's kept by the entity. Right. That sort of stuff's one thing. Sponsor. And it's not that it's wrong to. Well, you have to make the decision about news media has to deal with this all the time. The decision to take sponsorships. But this is why you see things like when ABC is covering, it'll be like, oh, by the way, you know, Disney literally owns us. Whenever they report on Disney, they just have to put a throwaway line in there to make it clear so you know of the relationship, even if it's meant to still be neutral.
    38:06
    And you don't have to say what the deal was. We don't have a right to know. Jeff doesn't have to tell us how much sponsors give him every month. No, but we have a right to know that there is something in place. It's just the same thing why when we made the arrangement with Roanoke Pinball Museum when they gave you that pinball machine. Yeah. And so we agreed, okay, well, that was the equivalent of a year's worth of sponsorship. And we had the announcement at the start of every episode. Not only was that for people who enjoy stupid, goofy voices, that was also to satisfy an FTC requirement. That's why it was done that way. And now the sponsorship doesn't exist anymore. We don't have to keep doing that. Because there is a limit to how long you have to do these things. But yeah, no, that's a good point. A couple other items that sort of came up with this.
    38:59
    You know, there was a part in here where the borderline blackmail paragraph is that Jeff wrote, quote, the only thing I can think of is that it is linked to that phone call, end quote. I couldn't tell if this was linked to the Robert phone call or linked to the phone call with the friend and the other person who he doesn't name. So we can't ask them about what that because I assumed the former that it's about the call with Robert because that's the one where he talks about the FCC stuff. And the other one sounded like it was just a call where he told a couple of people he was cutting ties with the fruit. Right. But again, no names are listed, so you can't follow up with anyone to, you know, if you wanted to try. I mean, I don't know if we want to sort it out more or not. Maybe it doesn't matter.
    39:48
    One of the interesting things I think to to denote with with stuff like this is how it, you know, talking about the considerations and stuff and how sort of a how far does the tendril or the tentacle go with this sort of sort of thing? And so as a just so people that maybe are engaged in other content creation, you know, it only goes out basically that one level, the relationship between the creator and the sponsor. And I say that because, for example, I wrote some articles for Twip back in the day. and while I did not do those to get paid by TWIB, two times I did get issued payments from Jeff from This Week in Pinball that he just sent me saying, you know, the articles, they had a lot of views. He appreciated me doing them and while I didn't have to on the show, I did announce that each of those were $100 and that that was my declaration because we, just like we are right now covering TWIB, But given the immediacy of that, I thought it was important for FTC reasons and just to keep it honest with people to know that, hey, I got money from This Week in Pinball. We cover This Week in Pinball. We talk about them. Yes. So it's important at the time that that happened that people knew that I had received consideration from This Week in Pinball. Now, here's an interesting what if. Was back then Deep Root Paying This Week in Pinball? Did I get deep root money? Maybe, but it's moot. Because, yeah. The deal with the sponsors was with This Week in Pinball, not with me. Correct. It does not matter. You wouldn't have known where the money was coming from. Well, even if I did, I'm not obligated to treat them like my sponsor because that's out of my control. Right. Their arrangement isn't with me. So whatever this is doesn't really go further than This Week in Pinball. So the reason I bring this up is this came up in discussion with like there's the promoter's database thing where I think Twip's been sending payments. We decide we declined. We didn't want to because that creates a sponsorship arrangement and we didn't want to do that. But a lot of content creators have been getting money from This Week in Pinball. You guys, if you're listening, no, you do not have to worry about, oh, gosh, well, like, you know, 10% of my money is Deep Root and 10% is Stern. I don't know what the arrangements are. No, you have one sponsor. It's This Week in Pinball. None of y'all have to worry about that. All you need to do is make sure people know. Only TWiP has to worry about that. You have to worry about, and if you aren't, don't make Tony Madden do another FTC episode. You should be declaring that you are getting paid, that people have a right to know. You don't have to say how much. But if you're getting money, even if it's not to endorse a specific product, it creates the perception of conflict. Right. And again, like, you only need, I mean, it's not like you need to make it clear when you're talking about washing your car over the weekend. No, no, no. But when you're talking about anything related to TWIP or you mentioned that, oh, hey, we got this information from TWIP, you need to make sure that it's known that there is a relationship there. Yeah, and you should always do it when the, so like if you're covering that portion, it's good to say it at the start of that segment. When people are live streaming, it's encouraged that on occasion they mention the sponsorship. If they're talking about the entity that sponsors them or about the particular product, if it was a product. And it's preferred to have it as a vocal mention, not just something that occasionally pops on the screen when you hit the button. Yes, yeah. I mean, again, we'll have it in the show notes. There's a whole guide.
    43:24
    It's easy to trip up, but it's really easy to comply with. Yeah. It is. It's really easy to comply with. It's one of those things. It's kind of like. I feel like we've turned this into this educational FTC thing. But there's so much money that was flowing, not just what we're touching on with this possible relationship between Deep Root and Twip, but rather the whole promotion database, Twip as a sponsor to so many entities. And I'm not sure they're all playing by the proper rules. And they could get – I don't think you'll get in super-duper bad trouble, but you can get in trouble for it. You can. And it's something that's just – Fix it going forward. Yeah, just fix it. Yeah. it's kind of like if you ever listen to the radio they always you know say what station they are and they give their little numbers whatever case you are K or whatever they are and that's an FCC requirement they have to do that every so often they have to put out their number and their station identification it's the same thing like if you're a ham radio operator You can be on a ham radio and you can talk for 30 hours, but you still have to identify every so often during your thing.
    44:36
    And so a lot of operators like will have a thing that will tone over them and give their identifier in Morris while they're talking about stuff. Because.
    44:48
    They don't want to forget. Right. Yeah. I've not dealt with ham radio since my license expired like 10 years ago, but it was a thing at one point in time.
    45:00
    I guess the last thing on this section, back more on topic. So the hiatus itself. How long do you think Jeff goes on hiatus? I don't think he comes back. I agree. I think he's done. I think all this stuff everything that come up and depending upon what this background pseudo blackmail yada yada yada I don think it comes back I don think it comes back but I don think because of that. I think if he wanted to come back, whatever this is it would blow over. Eventually, yeah. Eventually. In fact, most of the online stuff hasn't been hard. Guys, this can. I keep moving it further away and I keep hitting it. You know, it's because people have found it as a useful resource. But Again, he spent a lot of time talking about monetization in his hiatus article. And one of the things he noted is that last year was a break-even year, but he'd been trying to monetize. And actually back, I don't communicate a lot with Jeff, but from time to time we have. And back in the day, he asked me some thoughts on certain monetization strategies and things that they were considering. And none of that's relevant or particularly interesting for this discussion. The only thing is that I know that as he expresses in this article, he has expressed to me statements that made it clear he was really trying to figure out a way to get this so that it could actually generate income. And obviously, it's been quite a struggle. I think having the hiatus, having the break, not having the stress of doing the work, not having the expense of doing the work. and he's going to be like, wow, it's going to be so much more enjoyable to be in this hobby and not do this. And I think that will be the thing. Now, maybe he still does the Twippies, but that's a huge expense too. They're really, really popular and people are going to pressure him big time to do them. So I could see maybe those still continuing, though, honestly, I mean, if I were him, I'd drop all of it. I'd drop all of it and then see if you can enjoy the hobby without doing that stuff. And if so, and you're not bleeding money out on this passion project sort of thing.
    47:12
    My advice would be drop Twip and everything associated with it and keep doing Silver Ball Swag. I think the merch store that he and Will are doing, that can keep going probably without stress. I'm assuming that portion is one of the portions that generates income. So there's your end. You've used Twip to help build up a lot of podcasts in pinball use silver ball swag. So you've used this platform to help promote your shop. So now you don't need this to help promote it anymore, and it can kind of self-sustain. Right. That's my thought. That's my free advice. I would just get out of it. I don't disagree with that at all. I think you're in the exact right place with it. I think that it'd probably be better overall. Yeah, I just, I mean, he mentioned at the start of his piece that they were getting ready to look at bringing in a marketing consultant to help with ideas. I think it's just easier not to have ideas and just not do it. Yeah.
    48:15
    It's clearly been very difficult to monetize in the way that he was hoping. So I would just, I think at this point, you feel like, and I don't know if he's like me, but for me, this reminds me of my old MMO days and when I was getting ready to leave Final Fantasy XI and when I was getting ready to leave WoW and the big things in both of those instances because I was doing so much for the in-game groups was I felt like I was letting people down by stopping. But I felt so much better when I finally did.
    48:44
    So... It's one of those things when the hobby becomes a job. Yeah. So I'm like... I think right now he is planning to come back but I think once he realizes that he... I think he's going to feel a lot better when he's not doing it. That's just my that's just my pop 101 interpretation yeah but every person's different so we will see and I will wish him luck regardless I always have very much appreciated what he's done and you know he really gave me a chance to put out a number of articles and I appreciated that it gave me a platform to engage this hobby in a way other than using the microphone because as you know recording podcasts is the absolute easiest way to create content in this hobby but anyway But that's not it for pinball, Tony. I'm not done yet. We're only halfway through. But how are we so – there's so much pinball. We're actually a little over halfway through. I only got two more sections. All right. Topic number four, Tony.
    49:37
    A little more optimistic topic. Stern Pinball. They've launched Insider Connected Platform. Did they already have a platform?
    49:46
    Did they already have a whole special program? They have the Stern Insider Program. This is different. This ties to it. This is Inside Connected. Fusion. I'm doing a handshake. So is it like a special Patreon for people who already pay for the Patreon? Why does everything have to become Patreon? Why don't we have a Patreon? Do you think we'd get like millions of dollars? No. Yeah, I don't think so either. I guess we could put together an OnlyFans.
    50:17
    Oh, yeah. Yeah. oh that's right oh you know we're number one now oh billy oh my god oh god this is gone this is going off the rails all right i'm gonna re-rail us um so i do have a link in the show notes uh to the actual announcement that stern has about this so people can go and read up on it. But the way this works is, at least for the users, for the players, it's free registration. You will be able to go up to a Stern pinball machine that is in this system, and you can scan it. You can scan the QR code off of the pinball machine, which will like, or go to the website to get signed up and registered. You as a player will get a QR code. And then what this will do is it will allow the pinball machine to scan you in when you're going to play a game. So now pinball machines are going to have scanners? Yes.
    51:23
    So what's happening? Because the cameras watching us as we eat our pizza and then walk up to play machine isn't creepy enough? Correct. It's not. So the way this is going to be is these cameras, these scan cameras, are going to be in a window on the apron. So they're not going to look out from the back box. So they're going to look at my crotch.
    51:43
    How tall are you? You're sunk on the apron of the pinball machine. There's people in Stern just looking at everybody's junk. Okay, so an elephant's crotch, perhaps. I'm sorry. You ain't that tall. There's not going to be a problem. There's not going to be a problem for you. I mean, it'll give you a new way to engage the action button. I agree.
    52:13
    Let's be honest. You're right. As I have my fat roll up on top of the apron for extra support and controlling machine shake, because I can give my belly the old jelly roll slap and get the right shake on the machine.
    52:30
    The camera, I think, will be a little bit further away from the lockdown bar. It's in a special window area. All right. So I'll get back to that part in a moment. In terms of what the system will do, what it's going to mean for you as a player is it'll track your progress for you. There will be game-specific achievements that you'll be able to earn.
    52:51
    Locations can set up promotions that are using the system. There can be challenge quests. This will be for all Spike 2 systems. Those are the LCD systems. Okay. Now, I think when this comes out this month, there's going to be something like, I don't remember how many, six to eight, I think, games. But they expect by the end of this year that all, I believe, 17 spike two games. So going all the way back to Batman 66 and Aerosmith will have this. We'll have their achievements and we'll have these capabilities enabled. So from this point on, when Stern games leave the factory, those aprons are going to have the QR scanners in them by default. It's not an option. If you want to retrofit an existing game, because obviously Stern games were not like the Jersey Jacks. They don't have the cameras in them looking at you already. They are going to sell kits. The kit prices are not yet announced, at least that I've heard. for premium and le games i guess it's pretty straightforward because there's already like a window in the apron where the camera can go on pros it's a little trickier they're having to sell like an arch so you're going to basically get like a new apron george gomez has emphasized the plan that this the retrofit kits are supposed to not be a big money-making idea for them so the idea is it's supposed to be this is why the new machines are a thousand dollars more expensive My reports on that are most of that is driven by the cost of materials and shipping going up, and they're trying to keep their profit margin the same, so they're bumping those up. But obviously some portion of this increase is going to be this kit. The built-in cameras are going to be more than an apron that didn't do anything. I think we can all accept that that logically makes sense.
    54:42
    It's not yet clear to me if the operator features are going to have a cost associated with them or not, because this has got things like being able to pull your audit reports, also do diagnostics report remotely, things of that nature. So there will be features like that. And then there will be other features rolling out as time goes by. I believe code updates through the base system are included already. But, you know, the idea is they'll be able to build on this as it goes forward. An interesting thing that I think could be useful for location pinball is to get full experience for earning, when you get your achievements, I guess you're also earning experience points.
    55:21
    Only verified ones will give you full experience. So the only way to full clear a Stern pinball machine is to play a verified pin, and those will be location pins, not homeowner pins.
    55:34
    And so anyway. You don't want to write this timestamp down. So why can't I just make it read the... Oh my God.
    55:51
    That is beeped and it wasn't even profane. We just can't have it. So I told you to write the time stamp down before you said it. It was a good joke. We ain't keeping it in. Oh no. God no. I know that. Okay. Our only fan would suffer so badly. Our only fan would suffer. Do you have other thoughts?
    56:15
    What do you think? Do you want to earn achievements on your Stern pin? I've never cared about that I used to I went for Oh no I did I always have loved earning blukes You've always been a bloke guy And I like blukes but it's never been that whole All encompassing search thing for me It comes up to another one of those Sometimes I just want to play pinball And I don't have to walk up to the machine Oh it's my turn? bleep myself in and play my game and all that. Well, they say that you won't have to. You can still go and always play it the traditional way that you want. Well, that's good. I think I can't really think of any huge negatives as long as it's not something that's required. Yeah. The only negative I can overall think is a positive. I'm glad they finally got the light. I think online code updates and stuff have been woefully behind where we should be, I mean, technologically, it's quite frankly been embarrassing that it's taken this long. Though I still think even those should probably have to be manually initiated instead of just automatically initiating themselves. Yeah, and maybe it's set to do it by default on startup of the game or something. You know, it can take a while for an update. I mean, even with a USB, it can take a few minutes to install. That's why I think it needs to be something where the operator has to key in and force it to happen. It'll do it all online, but it's not an automatic. Maybe they'll give them a choice. Yeah. Like you can choose. Do you want automatic or do you want manual? Yeah. As long as it's not a choice like my work Windows updates where it's like, here's the choice. You can update now or you can update in four hours in the middle of a meeting. Your choice. You have to do one or the other. Well, those are only for the most vulnerable security operators, Tony. The most of the vulnerable.
    58:01
    Yeah. No. The only real negative I have with this, in my view, is the associated price increase that will inevitably have to be embedded with it. And it's just pinball is getting really expensive. And I understand that you can get most, if not all, of your money back when you sell. But it's still requiring more and more of a cash commitment to get a new game. Now, here's the important thing. And this is just like some of the conversation we had back during the joys of the pinbar talk. Pinbar? is are we going to have the good thing where you create your custom avatar and you'll earn XP and it unlocks special. Like, can I put on the Black Knight's helmet on my avatar? We could call it, I don't know, a sternotaur.
    58:44
    And we can have it all. Because you know that's the type of thing people like. They like to play Mooka Mooka Dress Up. That's true. Lots of dress up. Okay. So our last pinball section topic is an email that kind of relates to the Stern Insider Connected. So I wanted to bring it up here and it relates to video games. So I wanted to use it as a transitory topic to our next major section. So Chad H. wrote to us. I'm going to go ahead and read the email. Hey, guys. Greetings from Wichita. Oh, he's close. Yay. I feel like you two fellows will have the most insightful opinion about video game themes for pinball as it pertains to Stern's newest feature with internet connectivity. I wonder if now is the time for Stern to delve back into video game themes. It's not difficult to imagine a title that is extremely popular and recognizable to the general population. Fortnite, Overwatch, Call of Duty, or Halo come to mind. I think George Gomez understands how important trophies and achievements can be to gamers. You spent enough time on the video game side of things to get it. As the Stern Connected platform grows, what if they do a video game themed pinball machine and figure out a way to tie the achievements together between the video game and the pinball machine? They could make certain achievements that can only be unlocked in the video game by playing and earning awards while playing the pinball machine. At that point, you're luring the gamers to the pinball and to locations to play the games, maybe even gaining new pinball fans along the way. The amount of attention that could be drawn to pinball by having some celebrity gamers playing a Stern video game themed pinball machine could be huge. There would certainly be technical and probably licensing hurdles to get to that point, but I see some opportunity for Stern to tap into a much larger audience. Video games have a much larger female demographic than pinball, and I'm sure Stern would be keen to gain access to that audience in particular. Stern must be looking to the future and wondering how to lure the younger generations to pinball. Maybe a platform that connects different types of games to each other is the way. Sometimes it is all it takes is one time in front of a pinball machine to get a person hooked. Cheers. Well, thank you, Chad, for the email. Tony.
    60:59
    So, now, I tried to think of when was the last video game theme that Stern did, and I believe it was Roller Coaster Tycoon.
    61:10
    In fact, that might be the only one they've done. Yeah, it could be But saying that aside You and I have, I think on multiple episodes At this point Discussed the idea And our perceived viability Of video game themes in pinball I did note, not all that long ago I did have a pinball manufacturer Contact me Wanting me to NDA To discuss video game themes Which I declined to do So definitely there are some in this space that are looking at it. I guess what I'm going to focus on first is the game slash pinball tie-in, which is very clever but could be very challenging. With the interconnectivity, there's probably a path. I don't know if achievements are that path. I don't know what the rules are, for example, with, say, Steam or PlayStation.
    62:06
    Microsoft's Xbox, at least back in the day, had certain rules on achievements, Like they had to be earnable in the game on that platform. I think there was one point where, yeah, there were certain things related even to the balance of multiplayer versus single player ones. They used to actually hard cap the amount of gamer score. That's probably still the case that you could get for a given thing. That's not as much of a big deal. However, what I'm kind of thinking of is sort of a, if not an achievement per se, you could do. We've seen a lot of this with people watching Twitch streams and drops are enabled for Overwatch and you get outfits or sprays or stuff. I could definitely see with the internet connectivity, say, if you were to go and play the Call of Duty Stern pinball machine, that that gets you a new skin for a gun in Call of Duty or unlocks an item or something or a new outfit. Oh, yeah, definitely. The dress-up, playing the dress-up. Playing more of the dress-up game. So even if you couldn't necessarily be like, because I don't think the gaming systems, at least the console systems, would be keen on saying, hey, you have to play this non-console product to full clear. That would create, the gamers would object. But if you wanted it to be an ability to earn usable consumables or certain special items, that's already really common to do outside of the games. So why not tie that to pinball? I could see that happening.
    63:32
    You could. I think that it would probably work pretty well if you had the right tie-ins, you got the right sponsorship and kind of celebrity people to help push it. I got to tell you, the first thing I thought of when I was talking about celebrity gamers playing a pinball machine, the first thing I thought of was our, as we've spoken about it in the past, an Overwatch-based pinball. I just would love to see the voice actors playing an Overwatch-themed pinball machine. Yeah, it would be fun. It would be so great. It would be fun. And, I mean, for example, I think fairly recently, just a few weeks ago, I think there was something that I saw Jack Danger with Deadflip announced that Shroud had done some pinball. Yeah. Streamed some pinball and had been talking to him. So, you know, big streamers like that. You'd get a Tim the Tapman to play a pinball machine.
    64:34
    Again, the closest that I could come up with, and obviously it's not the same as a live stream, but look at how popular the Slow Mo Guys video on Willy Wonka was. I mean, it was huge because it's so neat to watch. And that was not pinball people that were making that have over a million views. That was because of Slow Mo Guys.
    64:54
    So yeah, no, I think there's potential there. I like this idea. I actually don't think that there are a ton of licensing. I think video games are used to like from Funko Pops, everything else. I think they might, if anything, actually get it a little more than Hollywood, which it seems like movies and TV. A lot of times when there are licensing struggles, you hear from when the pinball developers are talking about. Well, yeah, the problem is the licensing group with the property doesn't understand pinball and they get confused. Why are we asking for all these video assets and why are we asking for voice rights? and they don't understand why we want people to say jackpot. And with video game people, they're going to be like, oh, yeah, well, we can give you clips from the game.
    65:37
    I don't think that's – I think the reason why we don't see video game themes done from companies like Stern is they don't – in their mind, they don't associate that audience with having the money to buy pinball machines. And I think that's what it is because we're still sitting at the point where look at the nostalgia licensing and the dab rock and that is the primary themes that we see rolling in pinball anymore. Yeah. And I think that's something that is going to eventually change. I think it – I'm not going to say it has to, but logically it should. when you consider that people like us who are in our 40s, we grew up with Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, NES. So at the very least, you'd think the dad rock philosophy would start to spill over into Mario, Zelda, Metroid. The thing is, these properties are still going today. So it's not just relevant to old geezers like us. It's relevant to young people. And something that I think there's a certain group that does not realize is just how much money certain segments of the younger generations have. Those people, I mean, look at the number of people that are on Twitch, that are on YouTube, that have managed to cut out their little niche and are making large money while being in their low 20s.
    67:14
    Yeah. It is a group that exists, and it's a group that if you can get them to like what you're creating, are going to share it into their followers. And another thing to remember for a lot of people is you don't need to find the people that are going to buy and fill a room full of pinball machines. There are plenty of people that would be willing to buy one. Yes. Spend the money one time. Right. For the right thing. and so yes I think that this is a logical path I think that Chad's point about like an integration is a really cool way if for no other reason that might not drive sales it would definitely be interesting for location play though if they could go in and associate their call of duty profile i mean like i remember i have a profile for dice battlefield series like in the website for a sign-in where they track all the stats and stuff you could integrate that through some api to whatever stern's doing yeah their battlefield game so that i can get a new rpg that says stern on it when i shoot yeah it just is it shoots and explodes pinballs at people? I don't know. It should be just like when you link your Prime account to your Twitch account so that you can do your Prime logins and get your special Prime thing. Yeah, just do some links. Or link your Steam account to Discord so that whenever you're playing on Steam it shows everybody that you're playing Happy Fun Bags.
    68:42
    I mean, it's one of the... Those are things that happen. Yes. That's the sequel to our favorite Beanbag game.
    68:59
    Yes. That one's staying in. Turned it into a chair. We're okay. It's okay. This is fine. I'm glad we're doing this.
    69:12
    So, yes, good point and a good idea, Chad. I love it. Also, just throwing it out there for the pinball people. If you could get Darren DePaul to voice your pinball machines, that'd be cool because he's awesome. Why not just have me do it? They already did, I thought.
    69:35
    It was you. And people had to shut it off. Turn it off. I'm sorry, Jerry. I'm sorry. Jackpot. Ooh, jackpot. My 24 press is pretty good. Ooh, jackpot. I started saying that at the 403 Club during the tournament yesterday. It's what I do to distract people so I can win. Go for a tube shot. Try a tube shot.
    70:01
    I don't know why my Xenon voice is the same as my Chloe 24 voice. It's because I only have one voice. I'm not Mark Silk. I only got so much to work with here. Oh, man. So, video games, Tony. I've given us the transition. We are transitioning to video games. So, what do you got? You have a few things for us. We have a couple things. I saw the pinball section I narrowed video games down a little bit We're going to start off with continuing Sad Blizzard news Because we're Blizzard people I mean we talk about Overwatch enough And various things The state of California Has made an amendment to their Accusation of Blizzard Now they're saying that Blizzard is destroying documentation Related to staff complaints In internal investigations Not good at all Tony Uh, Blizzard has responded that they have complied with every proper request in support of its review. And they claim that they have not been shredding documents and that they have taken appropriate steps to preserve information relevant to the investigation. So basically it's, we're not shredding the stuff you want. Oh. It's other stuff we're shredding. It's cool. Just, just, uh, just the usual, just the random shred shreds. So we'll see how that continues to work out in this ever growing saga. They have also announced That the next season of Overwatch League Will start in April 22 And as I recall we talked a little bit I don't remember Was it on the episode or was it just us talking About If, when and how the next season of Overwatch Was going to happen You know I can't remember if it was on air or not But This is what happens when we talk for an hour and a half Then we record an episode and then we talk for another hour. They don't want to hear all that. No, they don't. Nobody wants to hear all of that. I'm just saying. But it gets to the point where it all kind of blends together. We don't have the mental capability to sort all through this like we did when we were young. Yeah. So let's assume that we didn't mention it. Okay. Well, yes. We weren't sure, but they have now announced for sure that the next season of Overwatch, which is season five, as I recall. I believe you're correct. Yes. will be starting in April of 22,
    72:17
    and it has been reported from people at Blizzard that it will be playing an early build of Overwatch 2. This is good. This is very smart. They need this. They have to. Yes. And starting in April, which is also good. Yes. They've caused so much. There have been so many issues and so much pushback, And the whole status of Overwatch 2 has kind of just been in limbo for a while. That getting even an early build out there is vitally important. Yes, I agree. To me, it also means that more likely than not, that game will hit in 22. Yeah, no, I think that's a very good sign. And I mean, I've been hearing that development's going along fine. It's going well. But yeah the problem As we I know we've talked about before Is the league The buy in the amount of money people poured Into the league was very significant And the viewership numbers Now I read actually viewer counts Are better this year than they were last year Which is good Probably partly driven by You know drops and stuff Which were kind of a mess to hammer out Last year because of the transition to YouTube From Twitch plus the pandemic was just super disruptive to all the like production and everything's been a lot better this year yeah the games have been better too quite frankly when I've actually been like paying attention to them I've been like wow they it's you know goats was so grueling it was and post goats this it's like you're seeing different teams that are not running mirrors all the time in fact it's like an exception when it's a true mirror and very yeah but the problem is of course as we've noted has been this whole thing was designed to kind of be stadium style with people there and going virtual has meant a lot of the revenue that the teams thought they would get. We're going to be from ticket sales. There ain't been no ticket sales. Right. Other than a handful of tournaments in Asia. And so, and not even that's gone now. So, so this getting the new game in, we'll get eyeballs back and new people into it because that I, Let's be frank. Overwatch never expected to still be playing Overwatch 1 in the league. No. It was not. They know. This is not football. We expect new versions to come out on all of this stuff. It's the same thing with Evo. It's the same thing with watching Call of Duty tournaments. You expect new versions. That's how they keep it. It's not. And they could have gotten away with possibly maintaining better interest in Overwatch League had they still been actively putting out new stuff in the game. But there ain't new characters. There ain't any new competitive maps. It's all been deathmatch stuff, which is irrelevant to the league. Yep. So it's just like I'm watching the same thing I watched two years ago.
    75:15
    And the thing is, when you're talking about the monetization, man, we're talking about monetization. Well, it comes up. But we're talking about the monetization and the cost to the teams going to an early build of Overwatch 2 lets them cut a slot because the teams are down a person. That's true because it's going to be five-person teams instead of six. Yeah. So that's going to be yet another amount of savings. I mean, it's a lot because every player gets at least $50,000. Right. Which is the reason why with how things have gotten So many of the big players And the teams Some of the teams that were the big teams Have cut and gone to like nobodies Because they can pay the minimums Instead of the money that the big names would Sure NYXL went and pulled a whole bunch of people Up from contenders And it showed Yeah I was going to say how'd they do this year Well they ain't in the finals I know that's what my Spitfire did They dumped everybody and they've never been the same since. In fact, some people are, I think, being like, you know what? I think Shock made some moves too that have shown that they ain't nearly as good now. Right. Obviously they aren't. They haven't won a single semi, whatever we call these, like summer showdown and stuff. I don't think they won any of those. Yeah, but a little tournament, their monthly to-dos. Yeah, in fact, they didn't even qualify for one of them. It's, yeah. Which, I mean, I'm glad because I don't like that team. Right, but I mean We all have to have our villains Sorry, Super That's not Super now, are you?
    76:55
    So Yeah, no, like you said I think it's a good sign Yeah, yeah And finishing with another Blizzard good sign Is they have confirmed That they're going to be renaming McCree Though they haven't said what they're going to rename him to I like Shooty McShooty Face I don't think they're doing that It's a little too boaty McBoatface. Another recommendation I saw that I quite liked was generic cowboy character number one. That way, if they have to, they can rename Ash generic female cowboy character number one. And then if they bring in other cowboy characters, they just change the numbers. They're also going to be Removing references In other games to Former employees That have been brought up in these various allegations Yeah, no, that's smart Not that I ever Get asked this advice But I share it from time to time anyway With governments, it's don't name Roads and bridges after anyone who's still alive Yeah. Because if they let you down, you end up having to do a rename. And we've seen it a lot. So I was like, just wait. Wait until they're dead at the very least. Then usually you've figured out most of anything you're going to find out about them. Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully you've got the most of it. You don't get burned with your John Wayne Gacy viaduct. Yeah.
    78:22
    Start hurrying. What's the time? This is a total aside. I apologize. But the Kansas City Star area paper, you know, regional newspaper, had a thing because a circus was coming to town. And they put, the clowns are coming. And they put a Gacy clown photo as the picture, the generic picture of the clown.
    78:43
    Oh, no. Oh, it was like a full-page thing. And it was just like, aw, you look so happy. You need to double-check your stock photos. You look so happy. Well, you know, tying back to Overwatch. That happened during Mother's Day. Yes, it did. There was a couple that were serial killers, I believe, in Britain. Yeah. Someone said, thanks for everything, Mom and Dad, and put their photo into the Twitter feed and ended up constantly looping on Twitch with the Mother's Day celebration.
    79:14
    Oh, I admit I did laugh at that. I did, too. Now, I had to look that one up. I didn't know about that. No, but from what I heard, people from Britain knew because it was a well-known. Yeah, we're not talking like the 1800s here.
    79:29
    They also announced that they are no longer going to allow the naming of characters and places after employees. Yeah, no, that's good business. That's just, you know what, they got burned. They learned they're going to find some other way to get burned, but it hopefully won't be the exact same way.
    79:50
    We'll segue from that into Saints Row. I talked about Saints Row because I was a big fan. That was on the air last year. Yeah, because I was a big fan of Saints Row. The new game is, like, I'm not surprised at all. It's a reboot because it was just too crazy. It had gotten too insane to really do anything else with. Yeah, someone told me they, like, cracked the earth or destroyed it or something. Oh, yeah, no, they destroyed the earth, and one of the characters, like, fought Satan and nailed his daughter. Yeah, there was all sorts of stuff going on. Yeah, it's difficult to do Saints Row 5. Yeah so it is a reboot They are going for something That is slightly more grounded than where It was where your character was basically an evil Superhero or I guess That'd be a super villain but They're bringing it Back to more Slightly more reality grounded More contemporary And believable stuff But it's still supposed to have the same Kind of your crew's taking over a city and you're building a criminal empire and there's other criminal factions that you're fighting for territory and all that from. I wonder if they'll do it like Saints Row 2, which was the first I played. That one was where they decided to go ahead and go goofy instead of being like... The first Saints Row, which I did not play, my understanding is it was very much sort of like a GTA clone. Yeah. And so Saints Row 2 was goofy, but they weren't like weird superpower. As of Saints Row 3, I think it was like within three missions I had an attack helicopter. Right. It was like, okay. And then in Saints Row 4 you literally got superpowers. Okay. So I liked it too a lot. It was fun. Yeah. Because Saints Row 4 is the one where you hit the point where after like 15 minutes of play, you didn't actually steal cars anymore because it was faster just to run than to drive a car. So now there has been a lot of backlash. Really? A lot of people who are complaining that the game looks super generic and that it's just kind of a clone of all the other little games like that that are out there. And that the name is being just tagged on it to give it something to stand out from what it would otherwise be. So have they shown more than just like that trailer thing? Not really. You can't really tell anything from a trailer. It was a car, and they were driving in weird things, and there were explosions. It wasn't any gameplay. So I find that claim presumptuous. I agree. And I think there's a lot of people out there that just hate any change. It's like the new Advanced Wars that are coming out on Switch. They're remakes of the original Game Boy Advance Wars, but they changed the art. so there's people who are up in arms and it's the worst thing ever that they took one of the greatest games ever and destroyed it because they changed the art style. And there's just people are going to complain. I mean, there's always going to be some people out there. We'll see how it turns out.
    83:04
    As I want it to keep some of the goofy. Right, right. Yeah. I don't, it doesn't have, you're going to run too much into the grand theft auto. You don't want to play in that sandbox though. Right. You don't want to play in that sandbox. Although I kind of wish Rockstar would maybe make a new game.
    83:20
    But why should they? I don't know. Why would they ever make a game? I wonder if Rockstar will ever take a chance like they did with L.A. Noire again. I doubt it. It's too bad. I know that wasn't the greatest game, but it was a neat idea. Yeah. No, I doubt they will. Whatever they come up with next will probably be just a new story and modernized stuff of a GTA V. So it'll just be... Honestly, I only expect that and Red Deads out of them. Yeah.
    83:57
    Maybe someday Bethesda will put out something that's not just Skyrim on some other device. Maybe. Our last little bit here in the video game section Is There's been some ongoing harassment And stuff in Twitch It's Twitch So that's not a deep surprise But apparently some people started using The Twitch client's raid feature To organize And then raid people that they don't like And harass them Oh yeah, hate raids So yeah, there have been hate raids going on And so a bunch of content creators went ahead and put together another blackout like they did last year. They did that Twitch blackout day. They did this one again. It was a one-day thing. It was on the first. And there was some pretty good response. Yeah, it did better. This was, yeah, I believe everyone in the Pinball Network streamer group participated. The Fliptronic let everyone know about the blackout because I hadn't read about the blackout until after the fact other than that. And then I think they all either streamed on other platforms or didn't stream at all that day. So that cost Twitch 250 views. Yeah, I know. With pinball, it didn't mean much. And at the time, I was a little – I'm often skeptical of the – like I didn't know – well, some of this – I don't want to go down a weird rabbit hole of, like, have they been negotiating with Twitch? Normally, protests are when you don't get what you want via other means. Right. And I heard major streamers weren't participating in this, so I was very skeptical that this was going to be very impactful. But it sounds like actually a lot of viewers didn't watch. So it actually had a lot bigger play than I had assumed it would. Yeah. From third-party stat trackers, the viewership on that day was down about a million. And we had our EGP email, got an email from Twitch about what they're planning to do after this happened. Right. So FYI, it was just an update, so there wasn't anything for us to do. So a lot of the tools aren't ready yet, and they don't want to say what the tools will do because they don't want people to start doing workarounds. Right. And that was one of the things that had been going on leading into this when people were talking about the problem is that all they were getting from Twitch was we're working on it. I know, and that's super unsatisfying. Right. And that's an ongoing problem Twitch has had in their communications with their creators is that if there's a problem, people are like, well, what are you doing about it? And they're like, ah, we got some people looking at it. Right. Like, well, what are you looking at? What are you doing? We've got top men working on it.
    86:43
    Top men. And it feels like, are they just giving you a line or is it real? Right. And where's the timeline? Professionally, I run into this a lot. I hear people say, yeah, we send it to such and such, which is true. But then I never know if such and such is going to do anything with it. And there's things I've done professionally, which honestly should be able to be reviewed in like 10 minutes. And I've waited weeks. And it's like, this was a priority to my organization. It clearly isn't a priority to you.
    87:15
    Yeah, sometimes it's too late after a period of time. I had a thing. I spent hours on it and I didn't send it out ultimately because it took so long for the state. I needed it before school opened. They didn't bother. I should have just bypassed them. Oh well, lesson learned. I got their feedback which I didn't really like. Well, I mean, they disagreed with some of the stuff and I'm like, I don't even know why I let them review it. But by then it was so late I was just like, whatever. No one remembers anymore. No one remembers school started a month ago. I mean, it's whatever. I waste my time on plenty of stuff so that's okay. Oh yeah, that's like half a lot. It's sort of, if people were really counting on that I mean, I was getting annoyed because I'm like because I'm getting the same line of, oh yeah we haven't heard, we haven't heard, we haven't heard And I'm like, can you make them here? Can you make them talk? I mean, have you asked? I know you haven't heard, but did you ask for an update? This stuff happens. And this is with groups of people that talk to each other. So when you're like this, where you're a small, especially if you're a small streamer, like you're sending it off to whoever at Twitch and they're just like, yeah, we're looking. Top men.
    88:22
    So, yeah. So yeah, it's – anyway, they're being a little more public about it. I don't know ultimately what they're going to – I don't know. I don't know what you can really do about it. Making it harder for people to – it sounds like one of the big things is it's real easy to make multiple Twitch accounts with the same email. So going to more of a model where it's one account per email would slow it to some degree. Maybe putting in, I've seen where some people, I've read where some streamers have created panic buttons where if they're in the middle of streaming, they can hit a single button and it purges all of chat that happened prior to that button being hit and it kicks them into subscriber only mode. and so it goes, you know, subscriber only mode, slow mode, purge all of chat, so all of the stuff that was there is gone.
    89:22
    They've already made that using stuff that's already available, but something more like that, that Twitch can build for itself internally, or I mean, I could even see them having a panic button that does something like that and just auto kicks the raiders. Because the raiders should be tagged, or be able to be tagged that they came in as part of a raid. Right. So it should be, if you can hit a panic button, they just, just kick some, I don't know, just throwing spitball and ideas, but we'll see. It'll be interesting. That's the thing with this whole streaming thing is it's so new, even though it's been going on for years, but it's just constantly changing and everything. We just, it's kind of interesting to see how it goes forward. Yeah. And eventually nobody will make any money from it. Yeah. Oh, well. Well, if you want to spitball some stuff to us, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com or contact us at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. Or available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks where, rumor has it, we will have a new Stern pinball machine to talk about. Of course we will, because they'll announce it immediately after this episode comes out, because that's how our timing works. Yep. But until then, I am Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See ya