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The Pinball Show Ep 6: Wrap It, Strap It, Set It, and Forget It

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 10m·analyzed·Mar 23, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

The Pinball Show discusses pandemic impact, Heist reveal, and dealer communication issues.

Summary

Episode 6 of The Pinball Show, hosted by Ken Cromwell and Zach Menne, covers industry news during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, including Deep Root Pinball's launch postponement, Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean code updates, Spooky Pinball's new factory relocation, and an in-depth discussion of Multimorphic's new P3 game 'Heist' featuring innovative mechanics like a telescoping crane and LCD playfield. The hosts note manufacturer communication failures with dealers regarding product reveals.

Key Claims

  • Deep Root Pinball postponed their launch due to COVID-19 supply chain disruptions and government closures

    high confidence · Chris Chandler Deep Root industry update citing Robert Mueller interview on This Week in Pinball

  • Deep Root was planning to outline the first of 13 licensed and unlicensed game titles

    high confidence · Robert Mueller quoted in Chris Chandler's report from TWiP interview

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is releasing a final wizard mode code update for Pirates of the Caribbean, moving from version .99 to 1.0

    high confidence · Ken Rudberg Jersey Jack update

  • Spooky Pinball moved into a new factory with consolidated production capabilities (powder coating, playfields, cabinets under one roof)

    high confidence · Dr. John Spooky/Haggis industry update

  • Multimorphic's Heist features a telescoping crane that moves left/right, extends toward player, and has player control capabilities in some modes

    high confidence · Zach Menne discussion of Heist playfield mechanics based on official reveal materials

  • Heist designed by Steven Silver with artwork by Jose Fernandez, features Grand Theft Auto-inspired aesthetics

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell and Zach Menne discussing revealed game specifications

  • Multimorphic's Heist entry price is approximately $10,000 for first-time buyers; promotional pricing available until April 19th

    high confidence · Zach Menne quoting distributor special offers and pricing

  • Multimorphic playfield swaps take approximately 30 seconds to perform

    high confidence · Zach Menne praising modular engineering design

  • Manufacturers revealed Heist and another recent product without pre-notification to dealers, causing information gaps

    high confidence · Zach Menne complaint about dealer notification process for product reveals

Notable Quotes

  • “it will take a long time for the economy and supply chains to recover”

    Robert Mueller (Deep Root Pinball) @ Industry News segment — Explanation for Deep Root launch postponement due to COVID-19 economic impacts

  • “We were planning to outline the first of 13 titles of licensed and unlicensed games. We may or may not still do that.”

    Robert Mueller (Deep Root Pinball) @ Deep Root update — Reveals Deep Root's planned game pipeline scope, now uncertain due to delays

  • “You son of a bitch, I'm in.”

    Zach Menne @ Heist discussion — Expression of enthusiasm about Heist's heist-film premise

  • “My prediction would be that this title alone sells more units than any title combined from Multimorphic.”

    Zach Menne @ Heist analysis — Bold prediction about Heist's market potential exceeding previous Multimorphic releases

  • “Set it and forget it.”

    Zach Menne @ Multimorphic engineering discussion — Catchphrase describing ease of playfield swaps in modular P3 system

  • “Shit or get off the pot. Are you guys selling direct or are dealers selling?”

    Zach Menne @ Dealer communication criticism — Criticism of manufacturer mixed direct/dealer sales strategy without proper dealer notification

  • “Pinball is a very emotional purchase. Like right when it's in your mind to buy it, you want to be able to buy it.”

    Ken Cromwell @ Dealer notification discussion — Explanation of why lack of dealer pricing information impairs customer purchasing decisions

  • “This crane is the Cadillac of pinball cranes.”

    Zach Menne @ Heist mechanics discussion — Emphasis on Heist crane as superior version of crane mechanic used in other machines

Entities

Ken CromwellpersonZach MennepersonDeep Root PinballcompanyRobert MuellerpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyMultimorphic/P3companyHeistgame

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community receptive to Heist based on forum discussions and social media; excitement driven by effective promotional video

    medium · Ken Cromwell: 'people are really excited about this pin. They are liking what they're seeing, and I still think a lot of it comes down to that well-placed and well-developed promo video'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts positioned pinball community as resilient during pandemic; encouraged operator and player support through carryout, league participation, and streaming engagement

    high · Ken Cromwell message: 'pinball land. We're going to get through this, everybody, as a community... we're all going to be okay'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Multimorphic positioning Heist as premium game with modular flexibility and advanced mechanics (telescoping crane, upper flipper, LCD integration)

    high · Entry pricing ~$10k; crane described as most advanced version; modular design enabling playfield swaps in 30 seconds; emphasis on engineering marvel

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Heist features innovative telescoping crane mechanic designed for versatile integration throughout gameplay with player control in some modes

    high · Zach Menne: 'It does have a magnet. It can catch a ball, pick up a ball. It can drop a ball. I think it may be player controllable on some modes' and 'The Cadillac of pinball cranes'

  • ?

    event_signal: Spooky Pinball relocated to new consolidated factory with increased production capacity during pandemic lockdown

    high · Dr. John update: 'just spent the weekend moving into their new factory, which is all geared up with increased production rates, maybe, but everything is really under one roof now with powder coating, play fields, cabinets'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.213

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching The Pinball Show. Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for The Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Joining us live, well, recorded live here on episode number six of The Pinball Show. I'm Ken Cromwell along with Zach Menne. Today, we broadcast our podcast as it flies through the airwaves to your computer or your car, wherever you might be listening. We are going to do our best to keep you. If you could be in there, too, we're going to do our best to keep you informed and entertained for the next hour or two. Let's check in with Zach. What's going on, Zach? How are you, man? Oh, Ken, it's so wonderful to hear your voice. I only hear it a couple times a day on the phone, but whenever I get to see you visually on Skype, I wish people could see you in Studio C in all your glory, your cubby hat on, just rocking and rolling and entertaining me. So thanks. You know what I think we should do? Maybe next week or the week after, because we're making some changes here on our streaming channels. We're able to incorporate Skypes. Maybe we do an episode recorded live, Oh, yeah. And that's kind of the unedited version. People can see how we do it behind the scenes. And then we can do the edited version that we upload up for the podcast waves. Now, that arguably could be our very last podcast we ever do if people hear the unedited versions. But it would still be kind of fun to do. I think I would be interested in doing it. Well, absolutely. And, Ken, when you and I were starting the formulation of the Pinball Network, and in particular the Pinball Show, We kind of had that idea, didn't we, where we wanted to make it possibly an audio-video experience.
1:51
And upon further discussion, we thought, you know what, that's probably something we are going to do in the future. But on the onset, since there was a lot of changes last minute, let's just roll with the audio. But, yeah, pretty soon I think we should try the video thing out. People would appreciate that. Maybe not so much looking at me, but you know they'd love to see some Dennis Creasel in Cromwell. I don't know about that. But, well, I mean, obviously the joke is I've got a face for podcasting, and I said that to Dennis Creasel, and I think he said he has a voice for print or something like that. It was pretty funny. I like how he twisted it around. But, listen, before we deep dive into this episode, because there's some news to talk about and there's some everyday life changes that are being made, I think it's important that we let everybody know that, listen, we are going to do our best to kind of have some fun on the episode. Under the circumstances, we're completely sensitive to the global issues that are happening right now with COVID-19. So by us kind of offering a little bit of an escape and some sense of normalcy, it's not because we're not sensitive to the global issues. So please keep that in mind because we do intend to have a little bit of fun here for a little bit of time. So hopefully you guys do, too. It's a good retreat from all of the scares because, man, all you got to do is pop on to CNN or Fox, man, and some scary stuff going on there. It is. How has everything impacted you? Let's get into this for a couple minutes, and then we'll get into the TPN industry news. But how has your life been impacted so far? Are you under any type of a shelter-in-place or self-quarantine? I know we're all kind of practicing social distancing. We're trying to do the self-distancing. That being said, we're still doing the carryout. We'll go and try to support our local businesses by doing some of the carryout foods. The wife, it was her birthday on the 21st. Happy birthday, Nicole. Right? What better way to celebrate than to add people to our family in such a time of peril? And we added not one but two dogs, puppies, into the mix. Nicely done, man. What kind of dogs were those? They were expensive mutts is what I call them. They're miniature golden doodles for any of you dog nerds out there. So, yeah, they're just cross-bred, hybrid, fancy mutts. Now, when you said you were adding to your family, I immediately was thinking something completely different. So I'm glad that you brought the dogs into the season. We've been having sex all week. There's going to be a baby boom in nine months from now, I guarantee it. This has been great. I'm sure if the mini family was increasing. Well, congratulations. You know what we have been able to do, Ken? It's a nice time for me because you know me. I run 100 miles an hour all the way up to one or two in the morning every single night with two different jobs and such. But this has given me the opportunity. It has forced me to slow down, to stop. I've gotten more quality time with the kids, with the wife, and now with some pooches. So we thought, what better time to train a dog? Because I'm a psychologist by trade. So dogs in the past, I will train using bells. I train the hell out of some dogs with some conditioning. A little Pavlov going on there. Yeah, shout out to Pavlov and a little BF Skinner out there. Nice. But no, so it's forced me to slow down, which is tough. What about you? Are you stir crazy? Well, and you're supposed to be on vacation right now. You're supposed to be in Florida. Yeah. So that was canceled on your own accord, right? You just decided not to go? Absolutely. Yeah. I didn't want to be. Plus, have you seen the video of the Spring Breakers on the beach? Yeah, I have. It's unbelievable. Doing shots through their butt and stuff, funneling beers. I didn't see those. I didn't want that to be me. I mean, come on. Everybody would be like, oh, he is the worst. It's a little concerning when you see kind of the lax attitude on Spring Break. And I can just only chalk it up to ignorance, not like horrible human beings. But, you know, what do I know? I know. So as you hear, this podcast is being uploaded on a Monday. On Saturday, our governor had issued a shelter in place like a lockdown of the state. So now everything is shut down with the exception of essential like retail food. Laundromats are open like your local Lowe's is open. Plumbers and electricians can report to work and people on the front line. So, yeah, it's a little bit of a change of pace. really not anything different that we've been doing over the past week because we've been just being careful with the kids being home from school and and you know practicing our social distancing but just knowing that some of your liberties that you take advantage of on a day-to-day basis are now kind of restrained or cut back or taken away it really took me about two days to kind of just process it and now there's this weird kind of sense of freedom that within my house I'm paying attention to more things I'm making sure things are more clean and organized because I know there's really no escape for me I'm not going to go out and go to the movies or I'm not going to go to a baseball game so we've been in our own little areas and the first couple days we were kind of at each other's throats and I wasn't sure if we were going to get out of the house ever again alive I'm not as much of a liberal wiper nowadays in the last two weeks that is true too I'm very efficient with my wiping now one must be efficient Okay. I do not blame you one bit. I don't know where to segue from that, buddy. Neither do I. A couple things went through my head there, and probably not appropriate for the podcast. But all in all, listen, this is the thing. Listen, pinball land. We're going to get through this, everybody, as a community and outside of the community. Everything's going to be fine. You might have some ups and downs. Stay the course. If there's anything that we can do, just reach out to us at the pinballnetwork at gmail.com. We're happy to take your correspondence. And if there's something that we can do to help, happy to do that, too. I know there's some concerns about barcades and whatnot, and we can talk about that a little bit later down in the show. But, you know, we're all in this together, and we're all going to be okay. So let's just weather the storm. You're such a good pimpastid. Yes, yes, as are you, Mr. Many. I appreciate it. But let's get the show going, man. I'm talking about having sex and wiping butts. Yeah, let's get it rolling. Let's get into the news. You ready? It's time for TPN Industry News. Chris Chandler here with your Deep Root industry update. After years of build-up leading to a much-anticipated launch, Deep Root announced on March 16th that they would have to postpone their launch. In an interview with Jeff Patterson on This Week in Pinball, Robert Mueller cited a few reasons for the delay. He mentioned, quote, it will take a long time for the economy and supply chains to recover, end quote. As to whether Deep Root is eager to continue with the launch, Roberts said, quote, Which means that even if they pressed ahead with the launch, they wouldn't be able to manufacture any pins anyway.

  • Non-licensed/unlicensed pinball themes consistently underperform sales compared to licensed IP games

    medium confidence · Ken Cromwell and Zach Menne discussing market performance patterns, though presented as observation rather than hard data

    • Steven Silverperson
    Jose Fernandezperson
    Jeff Pattersonperson
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Nick Baldridgeperson
    Butch Peelperson
    Damienperson
    Haggis Pinballcompany
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Heist (Multimorphic)game
    The Pinball Showorganization
    Kingpin (distributor)company
  • $

    market_signal: Non-licensed/unlicensed pinball themes underperform in market compared to licensed IP games across all manufacturers

    medium · Ken Cromwell: 'non-licensed themes seem to start behind the rest of the pack and compared to licensed themes... unlicensed things just do not sell as well'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Nick Baldridge identified as Multimorphic platform advocate developing homebrew P3 machine with access to Heist for soft reveal streaming

    medium · Zach Menne: 'Nick is really adamant about the system in itself. He's friends with Jerry. He's even developing his own homebrew, essentially, for the Multimorphic'

  • $

    market_signal: Multimorphic Heist entry price approximately $10,000 for first-time P3 buyers; promotional bundles available reducing per-machine cost to ~$5,000 when purchasing three-game package

    high · Zach Menne provided detailed pricing: entry at $9,995 plus shipping, promotional pricing through April 19, three-game bundle at $14,995

  • ?

    announcement: Multimorphic officially revealed Heist P3 game with LCD under-glass cityscape playfield, telescoping crane, and modular architecture

    high · Nick Baldridge soft reveal stream; Jeff Patterson deep dive analysis; promotional pricing announced through April 19

  • ?

    product_strategy: Deep Root Pinball postponed launch indefinitely citing COVID-19 supply chain disruption and government closure of non-essential businesses

    high · Robert Mueller stated 'it will take a long time for the economy and supply chains to recover' and confirmed virtual-only launch format

  • ?

    product_concern: Multimorphic streaming quality for Heist reveal was suboptimal due to technical limitations of LCD playfield overhead viewing and platform complexity

    medium · Ken Cromwell: 'the stream was a bit rough. It was hard, really, to tell what was going on. So not the strongest showing there'

  • ?

    business_signal: Manufacturer reveal process did not include dealer pre-notification, causing distributor information gaps and sales readiness issues

    high · Zach Menne complaint: 'this is the second reveal from a manufacturer in a row that dealers didn't know about it prior to just coming out i had to jump on facebook again'

    • 8:34
    And that, of course, discounts whether or not the city of San Antonio would even let them keep the doors open, as the governor of Texas has forced closure of many non-essential businesses.
    8:44
    Regarding what the launch would look like, Robert said, I expect our postponed launch will be virtual only next time, with multiple media outlets providing follow-ups.
    8:55
    So, make sure to stay tuned to the Pinball Show's future coverage. We did have a roundtable-style panel prepped prior to the cancellation, so we hope to get you some great interview content as soon as the Deep Room team is ready. Robert also mentioned in the TWiP interview that, quote, We were planning to outline the first of 13 titles of licensed and unlicensed games. We may or may not still do that. We'll see how things go between now and the postponed launch date, end quote. To quote my esteemed colleague Craig Bobby, we shall wait and see.
    9:31
    With your Deep Root Industry update, this is Chris Chandler. Stay safe, pinball land. Hi, this is Ken Rudberg with your Jersey Jack update. It looks like there's another Pirates of the Caribbean code update coming. It looks like this is set to be a large update, with several of the characters being tweaked, and some of the less popular characters being boosted for more game time play. It also looks like this might include a long-awaited addition of a final wizard mode. This would take their code version from .99 to 1.0. Let's hope that that final complete code version is released soon. Jersey Jack proclaims Butch Peel to be their pinball tech wizard, and he's recently released another video on the Jersey Jack Facebook website. This video is part of a series on the basics of common playfield assemblies and is focused on slingshots. He provides an in-depth look at the slingshot, how it works, how it functions, and how he's incorporated it into Jersey Jack machines. definitely worth a view for the pinball show this has been ken rudberg with your jersey jack update hello again for dr john and welcome this week's spooky haggis industry talk well it's all about the virus out there and how it's affecting everybody including spooky with the state of illinois being put on lockdown so no parts coming in no games going out which is a great shame because Spooky's just spent the weekend moving into their new factory, which is all geared up with increased production rates, maybe, but everything is really under one roof now with powder coating, play fields, cabinets, all going on in the one location. Don't expect many leaks from Spooky in the future with titles coming out. Damien, luckily, is hard at work down at Haggis producing more production games and fulfilling orders as they are coming in. don't forget that show special is still on and with our dollar being tanking around the 55 we are like the us dollars coming in thank you very much so remember that's about 6 250 for a fully featured haggis game well hopefully things will look better and pinball will pick up but keep streaming keep watching the streams and keep playing pinball see you later always good hearing from the correspondents thanks guys for your submissions we'll discuss everything here on the show. I did want to go ahead and jump to Jerry in Multimorphic P3. Jerry. I don't care what you think, Jerry. There it is. So essentially, we've got a new game from P3 now. It's something that he's been hyping over the last several weeks with TPF now coming to fruition. He wasn't able to bring that game for the reveal, but the name of the game is Heist. And I know, Zach, you've kind of really looked into this game. As a distributor, I don't know what your plans are with the game. But what did you think of Heist when you first saw it? We saw kind of a teaser video that was released a couple days ago, and then just recently we saw a soft reveal stream of Heist. We did by Nick Baldridge, I believe. So go check that out. EM only bingo podcast. Sorry, man. And a special shout out to Jeff Patterson at This Week in Pinball. He did a deep dive on this. That's what I'm looking at right now. An in-depth overview of the machine, some features, rules, et cetera, et cetera. So as I'm looking at this, we've got a brand new P3 Multimorphic game with a new playfield in the back, and it is a world under glass. It is a cityscape. You can interact with buildings. You can lock balls. You can go up ramps that look like railways. There's a crane that moves. There's a third flipper for a Multimorphic game. Holy crap. And for those of you that may not be familiar with P3 Multimorphic, the playfield is an actual LCD screen. in which you've got graphical overlays, and then typically you've got mechs that are on the top half of the play field that will interact with the ball, and then you've got your flippers on the bottom third of the play field, custom-made, like an Italian bottom. And there are sensors along that play field, so not only is it an LCD screen, but the ball can interact with items placed on the LCD screen, which is really cool. Ball trails, it can track the ball. A really cool system that just, in my opinion, hasn't caught that killer game yet. Is Heist it? What do you think, Craig Bobby? We'll have to wait and see. Now, Heist is a non-licensed theme. And I think the call recently, or at least based on what we've seen as far as games performing, non-licensed themes seem to start behind the rest of the pack and compared to licensed themes. So with Heist being the newest and greatest from Multimorphic. Yeah, and you said they start late, and sales-wise, I don't think they do as well. All around, it doesn't matter what the manufacturer is, unlicensed things just do not sell as well. Jeff Patterson has in the deep dive here the story of Heist. I'm going to read this. It says, The play field is an intricate build of Ocean City, which has been taken over by Mr. Big, an evil overlord that controls everything in town, including the police. Your goal is to help the heroine Maggie Machado recruit the crew, run various jobs, avoid the cops, and teach Mr. Big a long overdue lesson.
    14:56
    How about that? Are you hyped for Heist? Yeah, it's pretty exciting. So as I'm looking at the play field here, I see some pretty cool shots, especially with that upper third flipper. Now this upper third flipper, once you install it, to my knowledge, you can leave it in there. It is a $250 upgrade, but you can leave it in there and just disable it for the other platforms that don't utilize that upper flipper. Oh, cool. It is World Under Glass. It was designed by Steven Silver, who I don't know if he's new to pinball. I don't know enough about Steven Silver's background. Artwork is Jose Fernandez, and my ignorance here is shining through. I'm not sure. It looks like the newer Lexi Lightspeed artwork, similar to that. so if you guys are fans of that you'll like this type of original artwork looking at the game itself when i'm looking at the art ken if we're starting just with art really quick i think it's that's good you know it reminds me of kind of like a grand theft auto almost feel to it maybe a little bit more cartoony but like there's that stylistic approach i i think so grand theft auto and dialed in had a baby they'd have a little heist baby that could be it man i like that Yeah, so RGB throughout, which I think is really neat. I like the premise of the game. The premise of the game is basically just like anyone's favorite heist film. You son of a bitch, I'm in. So you're trying to build this crew up, and then each crew is in and of itself, I think, a mode. There's four multiballs in the game as well, but you're trying to build this crew up, and once you have everybody assembled, then you go after Mr. Big. Now, every time I think of Mr. Big, unfortunately, I think of...
    16:35
    Hold on, little girl. Broken head could come to you. Stand up, little girl. I love how you start this song. I'm watching you on Skype. You grab the studio headphones like you're in a recording studio. You got them both covering the ears. Come on, baby. Come on over. Holy cow, man. That was awesome. Hey, Ken, look, I'm the one that wants to be with you. I mean, that's what I think of when I think of Mr. Bean. Thanks, man. Is that Mr. I think that was Mr. Bean.
    17:08
    So, The Crane. Do we need another Crane in pinball? Ken Cromwell. Is The Crane, is that the big, unbelievable mech that Jerry had been teasing? That he said it has never been done? So, okay. I mean, the thing that's impressive about The Crane is that it goes left and right, but it also extends like telescopically comes towards the player and back it grows yeah it grows it does grow there sweeps we pitch and extension so listen so when i look at these pinball machines and i just so recently think of like hot wheels right like my the first kind of glance at it uh you kind of just just take it all in without really seeing the shot Now in the teaser video that I saw it was kind of like quick takes You couldn't really get an overall... it wasn't like a pinball stream. It was just like a teaser, like a preview of the game. I like those promo videos. Yeah, because it generates excitement, and guess what? It makes you want to find out more about the pin. When I look at what's on the playfield, though, there's something about a cityscape for me that I like. I like skylines. I like seeing stuff kind of packed in a city format. And this is like a city under glass. I'm really impressed with what I'm looking at on the upper third of the play field. It's packed. It's got a lot of cool things going on. It's got tunnels. It's got ramps. It's got wire forms. It looks like you're playing into a city. And when you look at the LCD image and you kind of see how you're going over a cityscape. Yeah, the roads and stuff. It presents pretty well in my opinion. Now, again, I'm not in front of the game. I'm not flipping the game. I don't know how fun it is to flip. But, again, from what I expect out of Multimorphic and what they've shown on other populated play fields, this has at least met my expectations and probably surpassed them on what I was thinking was going to happen with this next release. From far back, you think, oh, this looks like a blast to shoot, so I'm excited about that. When you do the original theming or the unlicensed theme, it all still falls. I don't think it falls on code. It all falls on do you feel swept up by the characters, by the storyline. That's what's going to make this thing either hit a home run or it's just going to be another mediocre release from P3 Multimorphic and Jerry over there. So if we can fall in love with the mastermind, Maggie Machado, if you can fall in love with them, it seems like every character has their own little power. I don't know. I will say, though, just reading different forums on Facebook and Pinside, people are really excited about this pin. They are liking what they're seeing, and I still think a lot of it comes down to that well-placed and well-developed promo video. It shows you everything you need to know. It shows you everything you need to see to get excited. with not too much and not too little. Yeah. And I'm thinking because you're able to kind of bring a little bit more of a gaming, video gaming aspect to this type of a pinball machine using the LCD, you think about a lot of video games, some of the more successful video games, and I just took Grand Theft Auto for an example. That wasn't a licensed theme. I mean, that was an individually constructed kind of game. So I can see, and I can't predict, but I wouldn't be shocked if the storyline behind these characters appealed to a lot of people. Because there is kind of a video gaming aspect. And the point that there's also pinball being integrated within this game, or vice versa. Maybe this game not being licensed performs a little bit better than some other unlicensed pins that we're used to seeing that are just solely pinball dedicated. My prediction would be that this title alone sells more units than any title combined from Multimorphic. The thing that holds me back on Multimorphic is right now, because this is a game that I would like to play, right? But it's like, what do you need to invest in order to get yourself going with a Multimorphic machine? You're not going to get in at $5,700 and start playing Heist. you are in for, what is it, $10,000, $12,000 to get yourself into a... Well, I'm glad you asked, Ken. Okay. Well, I mean, I wasn't segwaying for you to sell games, and I know you know that, but this is the advantage of having a distributor here because you do distribute for Multimorphic. Get one from Kingpin, JJ. If I want to buy Heist, if I want this to be my first Multimorphic pin, I don't need to have an existing Multimorphic pin where I'm just buying the add-on. I can jump in on a heist, multimorphic combo, correct? Like this can be my first game. Absolutely. You can start out with the main system, the P3, with one game. You can choose that game to be heist, Cosmic Cart Racing, Lexi Lightspeed, Cannon Lagoon, whatever you would like, and that's $99.95 plus shipping. So you're in right at about $10,000. Now he does have some specials going on right now, I think, until April 19th where you can buy Heist as your first multi-morphic game, get the machine and everything, and they will throw in the LCD screen on the back box as an added benefit for, you know, included in that price. And that is a big savings. You get all this for just $19.95, but call in the next 20 minutes and we'll supersize your OxyClean from a 2.5-pound tub to a whopping 6-pound bucket. And then he has some specials like you buy two-game bundle with the back box display. That's $12,995. I don't understand the back box display. Are you talking about like there's typically not an LCD? So it's a trans light. Yeah, it's a regular trans light. But if you want to, you can put an LCD screen very similar and akin to Jersey Jack pinball. You can upgrade your back box display to have an LCD screen back there. So does it animate or does it just let you change the image for the trans light on the LCD? No, it's fully animated. So it's going to give you information up there as well. Gotcha. I don't know. I don't know. Here's the kicker. If he can get enough games that people enjoy, Heist might be one of them. Now that Cosmic Kart Racing, as a reminder to the listener, has a 2.0 code system, where instead of being that typical racer format, video game format, it is geared more towards a pinball player with modes and different things. So if you take those two into account, plus your Lexi Lightspeed, which is, all intents and purposes, that's a good game. I did enjoy Lexi Lightspeed. That's a good game. A lot of fun modes there. But if you take those three games, you bundle them together with the back box display, a special 14995, you split that up between three, we're now at $5,000 a machine, plus you're saving the space of three machines. We're not getting bad at that point. But you've got to call now. Here's how to order. That's true. That's true because you're at, what, $2,500 for a modular add-on for the pin. Is that how that works? $2,500 for the extra play field. For Heist, it's $27.50 because you're adding that $250 upper flipper assembly. But yeah, you're at $5,000. Every game you add thereafter is going to be about $2,500. So those are much cheaper than even the lowest on the market right now, CERN Pro. But you've got to love these games. Yeah, right. That's the thing. Do you have any experience in swap and play fields? Like about how long does it take? I do. So if I want to go from Heist to Lexi Lightspeed and back to Heist, I mean, what am I looking at? I always commend Jerry for creating the ultimately engineered pinball machine because it literally is maybe 30 seconds. I mean, it's not much at all. Oh, wow. Yeah, you unplug a couple wires, you flip a couple clips, pull it right out. That's it. Set it and forget it. You just set it and forget it. I'll give him credit there. It is an engineering marvel. It's too bad that he wasn't able to reveal a TPF, because then we saw Nick Baldrige, like the soft reveal stream.
    25:03
    Is that kind of what they're doing then? Is Nick going to be kind of the guy that's going to be streaming the game? Well, Nick is really adamant about the system in itself. He's friends with Jerry.
    25:13
    He's even developing his own homebrew, essentially, for the Multimorphic. So I'm sure he has a machine. He has access to Heist, and it made the most sense for him to stream it. And even Nick said he's not an expert streamer or anything. So the stream was a bit rough. It was hard, really, to tell what was going on. So not the strongest showing there.
    25:36
    Well, it's hard to stream Multimorphic, too, because there's a lot of variables that you have to take into. Jason Fowler used to stream Multimorphic over at Slab Save. And, again, even though you're kind of looking at everything, everything kind of flattens out on an overhead view. So I think you really benefit from the depth of being in front of the game, just like you do on any other machine, I suppose. But this one with the LCD play field adds a whole other variable into the stream. I guess the big feature is the crane. It does have a magnet. It can catch a ball, pick up a ball. It can drop a ball. I think it may be player controllable on some modes. I'm not sure. It just says something about this being an extremely versatile mech that's integrated in many ways throughout the gameplay. That's exciting. I just, man, if other games didn't already utilize a damn crane, that feels just a little bit, I don't know, lackluster. It fits this better than any game. Yeah, because you think of Batman, Batman 66.
    26:38
    Yeah, you think of Last Action Hero. Yep, Last Action Hero. So, well, this crane is silver. It's not yellow. So there's that going for it. I mean, it does a lot more.
    26:48
    Junkyard, I think, has a crane. Yeah, that's right. That's right. There are a lot of cranes in games. This was like a super crane, though. It's the Cadillac of pinball cranes. There's no doubt about it. So I don't know, man. Again, too bad TPF wasn't there for people to kind of get on the game, because we don't know when the next pinball show is going to take place, and I don't know where else Jerry travels to bring P3. I think a lot of times. Once this security lift is up for Illinois, why wouldn't he just send King Cromwell one to stream? Yeah, I'll take one to stream. I don't know that that's how that works, though. because I know there's... You would stream the hell out of that game. I'll stream the hell out of anything, assuming that people want to see it. That's just how it is. And the exciting thing, Ken, is that I think they're ready to ship. Okay. So, I mean, you can grab one pretty quickly, huh? So I do think they're on the line, but right now Multimorphic's employees are at home. So when I asked about availability, they said as soon as they get back, they'll be ready to start shipping out. The one thing I did want to bring up, and we bring that we're media so we need to bring this up is the rollout was a little bit weird again especially from a dealer standpoint this is the second reveal from a manufacturer in a row that dealers didn't know about it prior to just coming out i had to jump on facebook again and be like holy crap i wasn't prepped for this i don't know what this costs i don't know the availability and i was scrambling again and maybe it's just me being a whiny but i don't know man it's just Can dealers not – because it feels like it's like, well, they sell direct, plus they sell through dealers. I almost want to tell some of these manufacturers, shit or get off the pot. Are you guys selling direct or are dealers selling? Because why do you guys get a head start on selling all these things before you give us the information? Oh, I see what you're saying. Is that petty of me to bring up? They sell everything they can and then they pass off the remainder. Is that how that works? I don't even know. It just felt weird. It felt like that. So I don't know. Maybe it's just me being petty. It just feels like if I'm selling a product, I need to know about the product before everybody else does. Well, and I'm just looking at it from a customer standpoint, right? So if I see, for instance, I see a reveal stream or a reveal video, and I'm like, wow, I think pinball is a very emotional purchase. Like right when it's in your mind to buy it, you want to be able to buy it. So then I call my distributor, and they're like, well, we don't have pricing. And I'm like, all right, well, my distributor is out of the loop, so I'm going to call another distributor who doesn't have pricing. and then I call a third distributor who doesn't have pricing. Now I'm like, wow, I can't even buy this thing. So then you kind of sit and wait. You lose some excitement. There's not that sense of urgency anymore because you tried to buy a game that was revealed and you just simply can't do it. And I can see where it would put a distributor on the spot too because it makes you look like you're not prepared, right? It makes you look like you're not adequate and able to kind of take care of my order. And damn it, I'm prepared. What did you say? The first thing you said was I go to my distributor and I ask about it and they don't have pricing. I think, well, my distributor's out of the loop. That's never a good thing for us dealers. What the hell do we do? We don't need that. So, yeah, that's troubling. But they're still for sale, and everybody can go out and get one now. So you talk about how there might be delays in getting the game out with the manufacturing core maybe not being able to work or being sent home. But that's happening industry-wide right now as we take a look. Stern Pinball just recently said, hey, listen, we've got to shut it down, and that's because of the governor-ordered Illinois order that says, hey, unless you're an essential business, you've got to shut it down. Spooky Pinball's in Wisconsin, and they can't really continue with their manufacturing once they run out of their source parts because Pinball Life, which is a huge supply chain for them, resides in Illinois. Now, Pinball Life also has to shut down, so now Spooky doesn't have their supply chain. Jersey Jack Pinball, they are in a state – well, they are moving right now. They're in a move, yeah. They're getting ready to move, so that's on hiatus, I'm assuming.
    30:47
    CGC's got to go on hiatus. Again, they're not something that's life-saving business. So pinball, for all intents and purposes, has shut down. You've got Deep Root that said, we're not even going to do our reveal thing at this point. It doesn't really make sense. I think that was smart. It was the safe thing to do for not only their staff, but anybody that might have attended. Yeah, it's just really weird times. Essentially, pinball manufacturing shut down. for indefinitely. Now, depending on what happens in the United States and how we are able to adapt and kind of slow the curve, so to speak, maybe we see manufacturing up and running. I would say the most optimistically would be maybe three or four weeks. But I would say probably looking at least 90 days before you really are able to kind of get back into the swing of things. There are games that are... And then it brings me back into like, it's got to be tough because think about this right american pinball they show hot wheels and i want to talk about american pinball for a second um multimorphic shows heist but now you can't really make them if you've got something that's made and you can get them out the door you got to do it fast but then there's going to be this wait this hiatus and uh we talk about 90 days from announcing a pin to getting it in your house now this is kind of different because you're not going to have another manufacturer that's going to sneak a release in while you're waiting to get yours but now does your game become old news because it's just been sitting on the pile for months and months and months potentially american pinball what can they do at this point they went ahead and and tpf again canceling so they don't have that reveal we did see another teaser video and some kind of facebook or cell phone footage of the game what if you let's just say if you're american pinball at this point what's your next step what do you do do you pull the game and say, hey, we're not going to talk about this again until we can get the production line going? Are there games made at American Pimaltry and they ship some out? I think that the cat's out of the bag. You can't stuff the cat back in the box, nor should you. That's cruel. What they do is they need to get some marketing materials out and they need to find a way to make these games. Now, that's easier said than done when Illinois is essentially shut down, but I do know for fact that there appears to be some hot wheels on the line there over at American Pinball. I don't know if that's at the new factory, that's at the old factory. I'm so confused with that move. We do have pricing as well on hot wheels. It's $62.95 plus shipping and a pretty commendable price there. Now we're flirting with the Stern Pros of the world and a licensed theme that may be not heralded by everyone, but it's still a licensed theme that some would argue is better than their other two non-licensed themes. I don't know what American Pinball does with this second reveal, because the first one didn't feel like much of a reveal. I do know this, Ken. You and I have been talking with American Pinball and the individuals over there about assisting with some media stuff, haven't we? Yeah, it's exciting to be able to potentially help, but at this point, I don't know what even makes sense. I think it would be kind of fun if during this time, if they did have some things that they could kind of trickle out just to kind of allow further interest and kind of get to know more and more about the game. But, I mean, you're kind of handcuffed. I mean, you're at the mercy of what the state's going to allow you to do. I don't even know if you can ship games out of the state, right? So, for instance, let's say they have 20 of these ready to go. I mean, nobody can go to American Pinball and set up a shipment where a truck's going to come out of a dock and ship these pinball machines. So, I mean, they're just kind of there. I can just see Joe Balser by himself just building these games day after day. I know. Hello. I don't know how that works either. As a pinball manufacturer, like if you're on the line, it's not like you're going to take home and build wire harnesses out of your house over the next few weeks or months. But the coders can still work. Code. Yes, and that's where I was going to go. Why not take this time, get that code where it needs to be? This is even more reason to get that code where it needs to be whenever these start shipping. And then have a plan in action. None of this confusion and planning once you get back to work. Now is the time to start planning for your media to come up and do whatever they need to do to help promote this game. Now is your time to set up scheduling for what games are going out. Now is your time to contact these dealers and saying, hey, how many are we looking at right now, trying to get a gauge on how many to build, how many parts to order if they not already been ordered Now is the planning time and it the perfect time to start And a lot of times you don have that opportunity to kind of take two or three weeks without worrying about your supply chain or without worrying about your manufacturing You can do a lot of behind the scenes stuff. You're putting out fires. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, interesting point. That's a way to spin a positive out of a negative.
    35:44
    And I think some discussion in the pinball circuit or world has been concerned, Do these manufacturers survive a workforce stoppage, a manufacturing halt? And I would say that they all potentially can pull out of this. It's just I think that we may see – Depends on how long. Yeah, and that's the thing. There's a lot of variables. There's not any company that I think of right now that's making pinball machines where I'm like, oh, well, they're never going to get out of there doomed. There just isn't. I think that there's got to be some type of a long-term plan in place. And if we're talking weeks versus months, that makes a big difference too. So do you have any unforeseeable concerns about anything that's out there pinball-wise as not coming back from something like this? I think most directly impacted, probably more so, distributors, operators, and barcade owners. It's probably where your main concerns are. If those are livelihoods for any of those individuals, that's going to be tough. Man, these operators, I don't know how they're doing it. From a dealing perspective, it's tough. It's really tough because we get a memo from Stern Pinball that says, hey, we're delaying heavy metal. We are delaying and halting all production right now. And there's no games going out. Even if we've got inventory, there's no games going out. So then it's if you have been lean throughout the beginning of the year trying to have a low inventory prepping for that next title, uh-oh. Now what are you going to do whenever a customer says, hey, do you have an Iron Man? Do you have a Deadpool? that's where there there seems to be even more for better or worse separation between your big dealers that have these big loads of inventory versus your smaller guys and gals that don't have as much but try to do as much quality work as they can so that's terrifying i think can if this thing for some odd reason goes six months then i think we quest then we i i don't know whose left standing CERN pinball will be. But, you know, Jersey Jack, sure they would be if they decide they want to continue with that. That's the thing, if they choose to. If they choose to. How lucrative is pinball after six months of doing nothing? I don't know either. That's a tough call. Even Haggis, think about Haggis pinball, Damien and them over there in Australia. They've been, like, this is the climax right now. A TPF showing a couple production-ready machines show specials. This is killer. Now, did you hear Dr. John, would he call into your stream the other night?
    38:22
    I heard him teasing more about that third option on a play field. Yeah, he did tease a little bit about that. It kind of interests me because he sounds like you've got your wood, you've got your acrylic that doesn't yellow or dimple. And this is for Kelts, their play field options, right? Yeah, he said a third option that would make myself very happy, and we kind of guessed it. He wouldn't let us know if it's true, but it is. He said the third option may sound like a clear-coated over the acrylic.
    38:56
    Makes sense. Wait a minute. Clear-coat over acrylic that doesn't damage? So it plays like a regular pinball machine? Clear-coat over wood? Holy shit! I'm in! It makes a lot of sense because the ball is interacting with that clear-coat. It's more so than going directly on bare wood. So it's pretty interesting. It's kind of a genius move. I don't know why I never even thought of that as an option, but good for them. I could care less for the theme, but now I'm excited. Now, Damien, you got me excited. I don't know why you're offering the two other levels, to be honest with you. Just throw that shit out. This is the paramount. This is the best. And there's no extra cost, so why not just do all clear-coated acrylic playfield kelts? Stop wasting your time on the other stuff. I would love to be able to kind of have all three versions lined up on three different machines and then be able to play all three and then really see what the main difference is. That would be fun to do. I don't have a lot of experience playing on hard tops and whatnot, but I have done it before. I don't know. Every machine plays different anyway, so it would be a good comparison side by side by side. Yeah, I'm just thinking about all these people. Spooky, they're moving to a bigger facility. Maybe timing was perfect there. But, like you said, my Rick and Morty is delayed.
    40:05
    That makes me sad. And that was interesting, too. I didn't know that Spooky was in the process of moving. I guess they can move their whole facility in a matter of days. And now they've got kind of a shutdown. So Spooky, if anything else. Easy for you to say. I was ready for my Rick and Morty. I know. Well, I'm sure a lot of people were waiting. And they were hoping to put in before lock, so to speak, right? It's like you want to get that game. And if you're going to go to statewide lockdown, at least you've got a game that you can deep dive into. So as far as I know, Spooky is still shipping games, right? because Wisconsin's not in any type of a statewide lockdown, so games can still be shipped. That's a good point, yeah. I don't know how that... And they do have parts ordered.
    40:44
    Yeah, I'm sure that they just didn't run out of their very last part to build a pinball machine. I'm sure they can still assemble some games. Stupid spaceship is probably what they're waiting on. But it's amazing. Think about all the things that are happening news-wide in pinball and then globally and how each one impacts one another. There's just a lot of variables, a lot of... Everything's just going to shit. No, it's not. Everything's going to be fine. Yes, it is. It's a little bit. If anything else. I'm just thinking of pinball market trends right now, and I'm like, trending. Oh, my God. That's what it feels like. No, it doesn't. It's going to be okay. You okay? Can you relax? Don't worry. It's not like you're a pinball distributor or anything. Han, give me a Xanax. Oh, no. And a bottle of Malort. Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, man. Thanks, sweetie. That's when you're low times, when you're tapping off on the bottle of Malort.
    41:42
    He spoke about code and programmers being able to kind of sit home and work from home. Dwight Sullivan called into the stream the other night, and he said that's exactly what he's doing. He's packing up his computer, or he's got a laptop on the way that's going to come, and he's going to be working from home. So he's currently working on his next game. Did he say what he's working on? He did not say what he was working on. Oh, man. But programmers are able to do that. But guess what? There are other people that are not professionally employed by pinball manufacturers that are also hard at work, and that's going to be like your mod makers. And, for instance, there was a pin-side thread that I saw with an announcement. A new Cleland audio mod for Stranger Things is not only being worked on, but has kind of a release going on right now, too, and that's pretty exciting.
    42:29
    Kevin Cleland at Mac.com. Can we give that out, or should we give that out? I think we should because here's the thing. If anybody owns a game with a Cleland Sound mod on it, i.e. Can you explain what that is? Because we know what it is. But I guarantee there's somebody out there in a Cleland Sound mod. What does that even mean? What does that do? Would you mind going through that? So on a lot of these newer pinball machines, at times it can be tough, I would think, I'm guessing, to get some of the assets like songs from a film or from a TV show, call-outs from a film or a TV show. So individuals on Pinside will make their own sound ROMs where you can upload different sounds, different songs, to be integrated into that game that maybe you weren't as happy with or that you want to fill out even more with some of your favorite moments from the film or TV show. So Cleland, Cleland is kind of the Pinside's favorite sound mod guy because he creates these full mixes. I remember Guardians of the Galaxy, everybody was like, Stern, we love that you gave us some of those 80s songs, but damn it, we want more. We want call-outs from the film, not the sound alike. So what Cleland does is he painstakingly goes through, and it is a difficult process because I learned more about it during the Guardians release as a beta coder, But he goes through and he enhances the entire sound package so that you get those call-outs that you're accustomed to. You get these songs from the film. You get the sound effects from the film. And it totally transforms in a lot of situations. Totally transforms that gameplay. So we had Guardians of the Galaxy. Walking Dead was a Cleland masterpiece. And now when he announces that he's doing it for Stranger Things, a game, Ken, that you and I are both in love with. I'm so thankful, but the reason that we should give out his email, because he doesn't ask for money. There's so much freaking time that goes into this, and I don't want Cleland going anywhere. So I asked him on the pin side thread, I said, Cleland, do you mind giving us your PayPal address? That way, if anybody owns one of these games, they can show you a little thank you. It doesn't matter if it's a dollar. It doesn't matter if it's $50. But these things can and have the ability to transform a game, whether it's your game room or on location. So Kevin Cleland, K-E-V-I-N-C-L-E-L-A-N-D at Mac.com is a PayPal address. Shoot him a thank you if you have that because you guys know how special some of these mixes are. And he will just continue. He said it's a .86 code stranger things. He'll continue to enhance it all the way past 1.0 because he's dedicated and already, Ken, we've got things like the music, right? We didn't get a lot of the music from the Stern pin. It would have been impossible to just get all the licensing for all the music. Oh, yeah, of course. Because it's a strong audio package on Stranger Things. I mean, as is, especially the fact that it sounds – It's killer. It really, really is. Yeah. And he just enhances it. Absolutely. So we get things like Devo's Whip It. Whip it. Whip it good. During Quarter Hunt. So each mode is like a song from the series. I love the high score music, Don't Mess Around With Jim. It's a lot of people's cult favorite song during that film. But even the call-outs, instead of things like, okay, you get, why don't you go ahead and go home?
    45:52
    Remember? Wasn't that Nancy? I don't know. I didn't know what the hell was going on there for a second. There was a pause, and then you started spouting off some stuff. I was waiting for your head to spin around and throw up all over the place. It was borderline. I don't know. But he did remark, sorry, I geek out about this kind of stuff because I love these Cleveland mods. He did say it does contain some expletives, so it might not be suitable for all home environments. Dustin, for example, says we're in deep shit. Lucas says don't be such a p***. I mean, come on. Yeah, but you know what? And for instance, if that's not your cup of tea, you can reach out to him and be like, hey, is there anything that I can do to maybe help, maybe alter some of that so it can be more family friendly? And I guarantee he would be able to help you out, and you can help him out at the email address that he gave you. And so he does custom requests, and I think those are maybe – I don't know how that transaction works out, but reach out to him because you're essentially changing what's going on on your SD card. So you can swap out your original SD card with another game image that has those audio files uploaded so that you can kind of swap your SD cards in and out back to the original and back to the modified. You're not negatively affecting the factory. Nope. He doesn't ask anything for that. It's absolutely free, and it's fun, and it's different. Whereas on the older Bally Williams stuff, an easy way to do that would be getting a Pin Sound board. Pin Sound is like a $400 board that goes in, and then you're kind of dragging and dropping files and doing your own mix. This is already for you. It doesn't require another board. Yeah, this is something that is for us. Truth be told, I freaking love Pin Sound. I've had a ton of fun with Pin Sound. But changing the audio package or just changing call-outs or swapping different songs can really change the whole way in which you experience Pinball Machine. and I think it'll really make you understand how important that audio package is. So hats off to the sound engineers that are working at the pinball companies and hats off to Kevin Cleland for expanding on what the sound engineers are kind of handcuffed with regarding the license.
    47:47
    Yeah, and if you like what he's doing, go ahead and just throw him a little tip. I guarantee he will greatly appreciate it. He even said in the forum, he's like, look, guys, there's so much going on right now, I don't need any money. He's like, but that being said, I did get, he's like laid off a month or something or he's been out of work a month because of all this stuff. So thank you, Kevin Cleland. Yeah, man. The one thing I know about Kevin Cleland and his audio packages, that guy, he's been trending up for a long time.
    48:11
    How did I do this without you? Come one, come all, the Pinball Show presents Pinball Market Trends. Still has the pizzazz. I didn't know. I thought I'd been down a little bit. I'm on the record officially. I do enjoy the Pinball Market Trends. There was a question on the inside. That was my fault. about my loyalty and appreciation of the pinball market trends.
    48:37
    Read my lips. I enjoy pinball market trends. Ken Cromwell, The Pinball Show. You kind of fooled us last week a little bit.
    48:45
    No, it's good. I'm on board. It's good-ish. Speaking of on board, trending up this week is actually holistically pinball machine rentals. Have you seen this, Cromwell? Yeah. A lot of your bar caves, a lot of your dealers in the showrooms, they are saying, you know what? I know it's not a great time to be buying pinball machines for some of you. Some of you are worried, so we're going to help you out. When you're bunkered up, you've got nowhere to go, you've got nothing to do, we'll make sure you can play pinball. Not by selling you a pinball machine, we'd love to do that, but we'll rent you a pinball machine. So you see different people like JJ from Game Exchange renting pinball machines. These are like newer machines. Monthly rentals. Some of them do like a rent-to-own. Some of these barcades, it's really smart for them to do that as well because if you're shut down, there's nothing to do. Those are just collecting dust. Why not try to keep revenue up by getting some of those pinball machines into local homes so that they can rent them? It's a win-win for everybody. So training up is the idea of renting out pinball machines. So much so, I think if this is successful, Cromwell, we might see this post-COVID-19 kind of stuff. This might be a thing from now on. You know, and arguably, some gentle home use isn't going to put the wear and tear on a machine that it's going to take on while it's en route. So, I mean, it's a good way to kind of maintain a little bit of cash flow while times are down, and I could totally see me doing that. I also think it's fun that when you do have money that, let's say you've rented a pinball machine for two, three months, and you've got $600, $700 in rentals, if you're able to take that rental and use it as a deposit towards purchasing that pin or another pin, I think is also a pretty fun way to kind of like a rent-to-own type of thing, where essentially you're almost on like a little mini payment plan before you get that pinball machine in your possession. So it's a great idea. I like it. A lot of these people are even doing setup and delivery for free as well. So you might look to local operators, bar cases, see if they're having this type of program. I think it's great. You guys thought I was going to trend the entire pinball industry and secondary market down. No, no, no. See, this week, if you look at the numbers, and ladies and gentlemen, the numbers do not lie. I only report the facts here at the Pinball Show. Pinball market trends holding steady this week is the secondary market on pinball machines. We haven't seen the drop yet. No, people are selling them. I'll give you that. But the actual trend, I don't know if it's polynomial analysis. Is it Dennis Creasel? Yeah, Dennis is in here. He stepped out. He's been a whole week. It's his week off. But no, the secondary market is still holding steady. You're not seeing rock-bottom prices, people freaking out and sell, sell, sell everything they've got. No, they're holding steady, but we may, if this becomes an even bigger issue than it is already, Ken, we may see them start to drop. I don't want to think about that. It'll give me nightmares. All right. No, I understand. But for now, it's holding steady. So you're not seeing any oversaturation of games that are just sitting? Because immediately I think to myself, if I'm in what I think is a predicament and I need to generate some cash, what's my non-essential item that's in my house that can command the most money that I may not have my life directly impacted on, and it's a pinball machine. And these pinball machines, depending on how you purchase them, they're like little mini piggy banks. And a lot of times you have made money on pinball, but even if you were to lose some money on a pin, it's an opportunity for you to get thousands of dollars potentially out of something that's in your house, and you could always get it back again. You're not seeing any type of play there where people are starting to sell out of concern for maybe finances, and you're not seeing the market hold off on buying? Because the other thing is this, man. Do I want to spend a few thousand dollars right now on a pinball machine? Yes. Me personally, I can do that. Just a gut reaction there. Are there people that are maybe thinking to themselves, I don't know if I want to spend $3,000 right now? I don't know. I think people wake up out of bed and they go, bye, bye, bye. Bye, bye, bye. Numbers right now are suggesting still a holding steady pattern. Now, you are seeing more and more pins being listed, probably to a significant degree over the last two weeks, but they're still selling for what they need to sell for, so I can't say the price is dropping out. Having said that, over time, if we continue to see this trend, then yes, it very well could be trending down. But what you are seeing trending down this week is the higher-end and restored pinball machines. That where you start to see a little bit of a dip My dumb ass is getting a Tales of the Arabian Nights right now fully done Oh such an idiot I thought you were selling that I thought you had something for sale Was that a player's condition? Yeah, I bought the player's condition thinking I was going to get it restored by my boy Schmitty, but then I found Bud Somerville over in Indianapolis. He is showing off and creating the world's nicest Tales of the Arabian Nights, and three weeks ago I thought, hey, that's a great idea. Why don't I just sell this used one and buy that top-line one that's going to cost me way too much money that my wife doesn't know about? So I committed to that, and I don't want to back out of it. So, yeah, I'm in on that. But, no, trending down this week is the higher-end stuff. Your Cactus Canyon Continued. Your over-the-top Big Lebowskis. Your Alien Pinballs. Your Pirates of the Caribbean, even. You're starting to see trend down a little bit. So what it is is, I think, in my hypothesis, is that these collectors see these big collections. They say, what is going to do the least harm? So they take a big chunk out of that one really expensive pin, and they feel a little bit better instead of dropping three, four. Once you drop three or four pins, you've got holes in your collections. You can always fill one. You sell something for $15,000, a high-end thing. You put a $5,000 pin in there. You benefit from $10,000. You still filled your hole. It's a win-win. yeah trending down is the higher end restored pinball you know what it is too like when you get out when you have a high-end restored pin you're so happy to have it because it's it's so fresh it's better than new in most cases and you're so happy to show it off to everybody to come over and be like look at this look at this but then after you've had that for a while there's no more wow or shock factor as far as sharing like something that's exciting so i can see where you're ready to move it along so that somebody else can have that same experience for a while so i can see where that works yeah people are like look i get that your totem lamp is brassed out but your flippers got a little covid bruh i ain't coming over there so you can't even show them off no no no no oh man before i get too depressed and anxious let's get into this week's deals of the week bye bye bye bye bye bye indeed because there's a couple of uh there's a couple of couple winners out there on the internet right now to buy right now i'm going to focus on a black knight sword of Rage Pro over in Pinson, Alabama by Greg C. from Pinside. He's got a $4,900 Oboe offer on this Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro. You might say, well, wait a minute. That's not that great. Well, hold steady there, maybe, because the topper is included. That's right. The Stern topper is included on this Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro, as well as some other, I see, speaker lighting mods. I see some side art. That's Stern Black Knight Sword of Rage topper, man. I still is like it's got to be the most incredible topper that i've seen in person in a long time it's it's awesome and i think this could be the side art pin graphics is selling that illuminates as well so for 4900 oboe for the the topper in itself is going to be 500 with shipping yeah you're gonna get the side art for 100 to 200 if it's the illuminated ones the speaker light kits for another hundred dollars this is a really good deal i would buy buy buy this son of a bitch all day long buy buy buy oh another deal of the week this week is a johnny new monic now this one is selfish. It's out of Corona, California. I always find the Cali pins, because I can't get them shipped because it's too much money, but Pinman909 is selling a Johnny Mnemonic for $4,100. He's firm. It's kind of a turn-off there, Pinman. Firm. Bet you're not. Bet you $4,000 cash. Somebody could take that home. Firm. Firm my ass. This is an absolute stunner, he says. By far the cleanest Johnny Mnemonic I've ever seen. New cabinet art. full LED lighting, a color DMD and a lot more now what's beneficial about this at $4,100 we got Johnny's coming in decent nice Johnny's around $3,000 a little bit over but once you add that $400 plus color DMD the decals are already done for you and they look very very good it's all cleaned out the hands working well and to top all that he says shipping is not really a problem he's willing to wrap it and strap it and mile our up for free onto a pallet. So why not? Oh, he's going to pallet it for free. He's not shipping it for free. Yes. No, he's going to wrap it and strap it, baby. Don't those shipping companies come out and just kind of do that for you anyways? Or no? Well, no, they do not. Unless you're shipping fast enough or something. But, like, anytime I've had STI come out to the house, I prefer them to kind of do all that on their end because I don't want any problems because I did something that was – And I want them to be able to kind of see the pin, too, before it is wrapped up, because if there's any damage, they'll note that. That's just kind of my quirks on that. Well, my thing is if he's willing to wrap it, he's willing to strap it, he's willing to pallet it, then there's a large likelihood that you could talk him into taking it to a local terminal and dock to ship it out rather than residential. You're going to save $100 just one way right there. If you pick it up from another dock, it's probably going to save you even more money. So the shipping, you don't have to. A lot of people are like, well, no, I'm not willing to ship it, period. You're going to have to ship it STI with the legs on, and you're going to sweat and have diarrhea the entire week while you're waiting on it. No, this is palleted and good. $4,100. That's a deal of the week. Buy, buy, buy. As your pinball show presents, pinball market trends. Woo-hoo.
    58:28
    Kim Cromwell endorses this segment. That's right. Yeah, I'm used to listening to that segment. So when you kind of go into it, I'm waiting for Dennis to give you some feedback. And then at some point during that segment, I was like, oh, I probably should start doing that myself. Yeah, rapid-ing and strapping. It's really expensive, let me tell you, Zach.
    58:47
    Yeah, man, before we wrap this up, obviously we're going to keep everything going every single week here on the Pinball Network, right? So we've got shows that will be coming up. I know yesterday we just had Orbital Albert. Orby did his top three. His top three this week was top three things you can do to help your local barcade kind of survive this. Ooh, that's a good one. I like that. Yeah, it's good and timely. Yeah, to piggyback off that, just everybody stay safe. Just because we can't go to a location to play pinball, just because we can't go to a show, just because we can't maybe afford to buy a brand new pinball machine, you can still support the industry by continuing communication and support of one another. Hell, that's why half of us are in this thing anyway. It's because of the camaraderie. It's listening to podcasts. It's watching videos. It's going to the forums, supporting one another. Maybe get to know your fellow pinball buddy a little bit more now that you've got the time. Yeah, and I would also say this. Please, let's use some common sense, right? It's not going to be in anybody's benefit if you run out and you buy 24 packs of toilet paper or if you go out and you buy a case of hand sanitizer. Take what you need. Let's let everybody else get in on some of this because, I mean, times are tough out here when you go to the stores. I mean, there's a lot of the vital things that you would want that are kind of taken, and I know that stores right now are starting to limit your ability to purchase things. And this really aggravated me the other day. I walked into my local Meyers grocery store, and they had cases of water, which is great. And the limit was two. So what I see is I see a family of four come in. They each grab a cart. Yes, there you go. They each put two cases of water in each of their carts, and they each get in line. So essentially, the family that should have been limited to two cases of water are walking out with eight cases. and then somebody else comes in later, there's no water in there. I mean, guys, it's just – that's horrible. Like unless there is some circumstance that I don't know about, let's look out for each other here for the next few weeks and let's do what we need to do. But let's not be greedy. Let's think about – I mean, pinball is important to all of us. It's what we all have in common. It's why we're all here right now talking and listening to one another. But there's also life that we need to be concerned with. So let's support our pinball community. Let's be there for everybody else. But, you know, let's also support ourselves as human beings and people that are, you know, trying to get through something that's a pandemic. So let's just use your common sense. We're all smart for the most part. Use your common sense. And having said that, my kids and now puppies and wife have to eat. So there is some really special pricing on anything pre-owned at Flippin' Out Pinball, as well as a really large inventory right now that I would love to ship you out today. to call Flippin' Out Pinball at 812-457-9711. Don't hate. Come on, guys. Can you blame me? I've got inventory here. It's waiting to go to your home. What are you? You're just sitting on the couch anyway. Would you rather watch pinball or play pinball? Exactly. My point. Let's ship it out today. How about that? Zach at FlippinOutPinball.com. Hey, everybody's got to survive here. That being said, there's nothing wrong with watching pinball because on Monday night, myself and Steve Beattie are going to continue the Flippin' Out streams. and you can catch us at twitch.tv slash flip the letter N out pinball. Follow the channel there because every Monday we're there. Now, it's an interesting situation now because we're in lockdown, right? So Steve can't just wander over to my house and jump in Studio Z and stream. Yeah, what are you going to do with that? Yeah, so I think we have this set up where I want a very big shout out to George at Don't Panic Flip. I had some questions on how I was going to try to do some remote streaming where I can bring Steve into the stream from his Studio B location while I'm in Studio C. And there's ways that I knew that it would go about it, but there was a streamlined way in which he helped me to do. So we're going to try this out Monday. And if it works, happy to pass the information along. If it doesn't work, I don't want to get anybody excited. But from trials, it looks like it's awesome. We've got some new overlays that we're kind of incorporating to kind of make it seem like we're both there. So come in and hang out because you're getting an opportunity to watch some pinball being played. But more importantly, you're part of the community where you've got a lot of podcasters and streamers, and we've got a pretty nice family base over at Flippin' Out. So come in, say hi, hang out, and support your streamers. Have a drink. Check out all these people. Have a couple drinks. Absolutely.
    63:13
    Surf the stream. And if you're in after hours, have about ten shots. Yeah, well, after hours got a little out of hand last week, and that was because we were trying to just kind of absorb as much as we could. and uh so much so much singing a little fuzzy going on and we had a lot of music going on last week but you know my we talked about busting out the guitars at some point so next time we're together maybe we'll get some guitars out and uh and play something well i don't know we'll play name that tune pinball acoustics we'll just that'd be kind of fun you know i think that's going to wrap up the episode man it's going to be episode number six of uh the pinball show you can reach us at the pinball show at gmail.com for all correspondence uh we will get back to you so So if you've got anything on your mind, and seriously, if you guys need help with something and you think that we can help out, don't hesitate to reach out because we're happy to try to do so. Speaking of, we cannot end this show without a rest in peace to my man Kenny Rogers. Did you see Kenny Rogers passed away this last week? Yeah, I did. That was unfortunate. At 81. Oh, man. 81 years old. Yeah. Yeah, for that, Ken, I'm going to – Cue in the music there, huh? Yeah, I'm going to fade us out with a little bit of this. This goes out to you, Kenny. Oh, Kenny. Ken Cromwell and Kenny Rogers Oh this is so for you Ken Baby when I met you there was peace I know There we go guys we're going to wrap this up Episode number 6 On the Pinball Show For Zach Benny I am Ken Cromwell Always practice safe pinball And training And don't forget to take some time out of your day And play some pinball so long everybody
    64:50
    And I feel no pain Oh, man. That was fun. God, I loved it. I should have cracked open a beer or two.
    65:00
    I feel stiff today. I feel a little stiff today. Do you? I don't know why. You didn't come across as that. I don't know. I feel like I'm just kind of a little more reserved. Fatigued, maybe.
    65:10
    Stiff in a bad way, right? Yeah, right. Exactly. Hey, at 44, I'm not complaining if I feel stiff most of the time. Oh! I should have cracked a beer. Speaking of islands in the stream. Oh, jeez.
    65:25
    You know what my favorite Kenny Rogers movie is? What's that? Six Pack. You ever see that movie? Oh, I've not seen that one. You've never seen Six Pack? No, never heard of it. With the kids that are like the little pit crew for a racing team. And Kenny Rogers plays Brewster Baker. Oh, my gosh. You've got to watch Six Pack. Listen, you're going to have some time on your hands. You've got to watch Six Pack. Kenny Rogers. It's awesome. You know what? I'm going to take it back. I saw that so long ago, it might not have held up over the time. It might suck. But the last time I saw it, and I've seen it probably 80 times, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. It might be horrible. Rooster Baker.
    66:05
    Oh, man, it's such a great movie. I think. That was a Rocky Top wedding dance. Yeah, no, we don't have that out here. You guys don't do fried chicken up there at weddings? We did. No, we don't do fried chicken. Chicken cordon bleu and all this bullshit. Weddings are a little more elegant, probably, out here. Yeah, it's so stiff. There's no Rocky Top. Speaking of stiff. There's no fried chicken. That being said, I wouldn't have any. Yeah. Would you not love? I'll go through tunnels and things on Rocky Top. People smoking and drinking outside. I mean, it's fantastic. Sometimes there's fights, depending on what families get together. But look, it's a good old Southern wedding. There's a lot of instant tindering going on at weddings and receptions out here. Oh, really? Yeah, man. It's a good thing. Wedding receptions are known for late-night relations, especially if you're staying at the hotel.
    66:56
    It makes me think of Will Ferrell on Wedding Crash. He's like, no, it's funerals, baby. They're mourning.
    67:05
    Totally different atmosphere out here for funerals and weddings. It is what it is, man. No, they call them wakes there. They call them wakes, right? No, there's a wake and a funeral. A wake is where you go in to pay your last respects, and it's usually the day before you go to the burial, which is the funeral. So like the wakes, everybody that wants to pay their respects goes to, but usually the funeral is just those that are more close to the family. So it's over two days. You don't have wakes in Indiana? No, we have what we call showings. Okay, it's probably the same thing. I don't know why they call it wakes. Wakes are weird because there's a sleeping going on. Yeah, opposite of wake. Right, exactly. Yeah, I just went to the wake and he wasn't saying much in there. Yeah, wasn't much of a wake. Yeah. So the showing is the same thing, right? Like, you just go in. You can have open casket, closed casket. I'm telling you right now, I don't know how you feel about this. Not to get too morbid and get you into a panic attack like Steve Beatty on a Monday After Hours. But I'm not too... I think the whole showing thing's a bit strange. A bit odd.
    68:06
    Yeah, I'm sure that's been passed down. Why are we showing dead people? Like, my kids are always freaked out. I never know how to... Oh, I'm not digging dead people. but recently because i've been exposed to more wakes and funerals like it doesn't bother me as much but like i had a fear two things i did i'd like like i have a fear of uh dead dead people like corpses and like uh dog shit like that's why i don't have a dog anymore i don't like dog poo in my yard because i always think i'm going to step in it and then if i step in oh that's the worst i feel like i gotta throw my shoes out no right it's like i don't want to do it yeah so So it's like if dogs used litter boxes, I would have dogs. Oh, so you're scared of dead people. Not scared. Yeah, just don't feel comfortable around dead people. Like I would have been a horrible mortician. I'm more frightened by alive people. They can hurt you. Yeah, they can do more harm, absolutely. But it's like, I don't know. I'm just always waiting for something. I'm in a showing. My kids are running around. I'm just waiting for something bad to happen. I hate it. Let me ask you this. Do you feel comfortable like in a cemetery, just walking in a cemetery, walking over graves where there's coffins buried six feet below? See, that's the other thing. I'm like – I don't like that. I don't know where to walk because – yeah, why are you walking on the – I don't like it. I don't. I don't like death. I don't like it either. I don't like corpses. I don't like death. I don't like coffins. No. I don't like funerals. I don't like wakes. You think my house is haunted, you and my wife. I lived in a haunted house before, so I can understand some of the things and the concerns that she told me. So, yes. I believe there's haunted houses, man.
    69:45
    Hashtag fake news. Whatever it is. But you know me. I'm a pretty level-headed guy, right? I'm not too out there.
    69:53
    100% convinced I lived in a haunted house. If you've got any haunted house stories, let me know. But, I mean, you haven't seen any apparitions or anything like that. And I never saw apparitions. But just when things are feeling off a little bit and there's too much coincidence in play, you start wondering what's going on. What's going on? Meh. I always think it's weird. What is it about ghosts that are always trying to be frightening? Why are they going to be so scary? It's not like you're sleeping and all of a sudden you get a tug and you're like, whoa, hello. No, but they're not always scary. It's just a lot of times people think ghosts are just kind of like memories on the ether or like some interdimensional gap where there's something out there that's going on. It's coinciding with your existence, but we can't see. But then sometimes there's gaps and you catch on to something and you see something that is stunning or shocking, I mean, hey, I don't know. There's a lot of theories on that. A lot of theories. If I have a ghost come back, I want it to be like Uncle Marty. And all of a sudden I see him and he accidentally runs into the wall and he's like, whoa!
    70:54
    Like, hey there, bucko.