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Ep 69: Episode 69

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 4m·analyzed·Jun 5, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Haggis addresses Fathom Revisited demand; industry limited edition strategy debated.

Summary

In Episode 69 of Final Round Pinball Podcast, hosts Jeff Teolis and Marty Robbins discuss Haggis Pinball decision to produce additional Fathom Revisited machines beyond the original 250 limited editions following strong demand at Texas Pinball Festival. The conversation covers limited edition strategy across the industry, comparisons to Stern's precedent with The Walking Dead, and reactions to potential future remakes like Tron Vault. The episode also covers Teolis's fourth-place finish at the Allentown Stern Pro Circuit tournament, tournament dynamics, Led Zeppelin gameplay strategy, and commentary on James Bond's layout versus other George Gomez designs.

Key Claims

  • Fathom Revisited demand at TPF was overwhelming and led Haggis to pursue additional production beyond the original 250 limited editions

    high confidence · Marty Robbins (Haggis representative) stated directly that demand at TPF was huge and they attempted to respond to it

  • Keith Elwin's next game design is complete and he is already working on the game after that

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis cited Keith Elwin's direct statement during a Pinball Profile interview that his next game is 'done, done, done'

  • Stern's James Bond has received code updates that improve flow by changing gate mechanics for better side shot access

    medium confidence · Marty Robbins reported that code changes modified gate behavior to improve ball flow and side shot access on James Bond

  • Stern previously created a Premium version of The Walking Dead that played identically to the Limited Edition but without the limited tag

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis referenced historical precedent: 'They made a Limited Edition, too... They made a Pro version of The Walking Dead... they just don't have the tag on it'

  • Multiple pinball manufacturers have created variant versions of games (Batman, Elvira, Jersey Jack Wizard of Oz, AC/DC, Hobbit) with different editions

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis provided extensive historical examples of multi-version releases across the industry

  • Led Zeppelin requires sound awareness for optimal play, particularly knowing song structure and guitar solo timing for scoring

    medium confidence · Jeff Teolis requested volume increase from TD and wore headphones during play, stating 'you need to know the songs, you need to know when the guitar solos are'

  • James Bond has persistent drop target bricking issues that are worse than typical Bally machines

    medium confidence · Marty Robbins reported he had hit targets multiple times in succession with rejections and called it the worst he's seen on a Stern machine

Notable Quotes

  • “we went back from tpf and just went oh my god the demand was huge what can we do about it it was it was overwhelming and we tried to do something about it”

    Marty Robbins @ Early in episode — Direct statement about Haggis's decision-making process regarding Fathom Revisited additional production

  • “Give people what they want. Keep the line moving. Put money in the company. Make sure the company is strong so that we can do the next game. I'm all for it.”

    Jeff Teolis @ Mid-episode — Endorsement of Haggis's strategy and broader industry approach to limited edition variants

  • “yeah it's long since done I'm on my game after that now”

    Keith Elwin (cited by Jeff Teolis) @ Mid-episode — Confirmation that Keith Elwin's next game is complete but delayed in production/release

  • “one thing about james bond by stern is it does nothing to push pinball forward there's nothing really you look at and go oh wow that's new that's fresh it's different”

    Jeff Teolis @ Mid-episode — Critical assessment of James Bond's design innovation and forward-thinking elements

  • “Pinball is subjective. That's all it is.”

    Marty Robbins @ Late-episode — Summarizes the fundamental disagreement about James Bond's merits

  • “you shouldn't criticize it looks bad on you the commentator when you do that just just a little little tip for anybody commentating”

    Jeff Teolis @ Late-episode — Commentary on professional standards for tournament broadcasting

  • “please, sweet Satan, dark underlord, prince of the pentagram, please tell me what you need me to sacrifice”

    Jeff Teolis @ Late-episode — Humorous response to Eric Stone's on-stream prayer during Allentown tournament play

  • “It's not for me. It's not for me. It doesn't matter what I think about the situation. It's what everybody else thinks about it.”

Entities

Final Round Pinball PodcastorganizationJeff TeolispersonMarty RobbinspersonHaggis PinballcompanyFathom RevisitedgameKeith ElwinpersonGodzillagame

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Haggis Pinball expanding Fathom Revisited production beyond original 250 limited editions in response to overwhelming TPF demand, following historical industry precedent by Stern, Jersey Jack, and others

    high · Marty Robbins stated 'the demand was huge what can we do about it it was it was overwhelming and we tried to do something about it' and Jeff Teolis endorsed the strategy as beneficial to the company

  • $

    market_signal: Discussion of pinball's unusual appreciation in value compared to other hobbies, with concern from some collectors about variant versions potentially devaluing holdings

    medium · Jeff Teolis noted pinball appreciation is rare vs. motorcycles, sailboats, and golf clubs, but acknowledged limited edition variants could theoretically impact resale

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Keith Elwin's next game is already complete but remains in production queue, indicating potential bottleneck in Stern's manufacturing pipeline

    high · Keith Elwin directly told Jeff Teolis: 'yeah it's long since done I'm on my game after that now' during Pinball Profile interview

  • ?

    code_update: Stern James Bond received code updates modifying gate mechanics to improve flow and side shot access, addressing community concerns about playability

    medium · Marty Robbins reported 'they changed that in code' regarding gate behavior and 'the way that the gates bring the ball around' to improve side shot access

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Allentown Stern Pro Circuit tournament featured mixed modern and classic machines with player selection mechanics; format debate about order selection and TD independence

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.193

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round.
0:47
Welcome to episode 69. Ooh, that felt good. 69. Giggle, giggle. Get it out of our system right now. 69, 69. We do not care about the fact that it is episode 69. It means nothing to us. We are just as immature every episode, so don't look for anything extra. Okay. More so this episode more than ever. This is going to be the most puerile episode you'll ever listen to. So if you are not into adolescent humor, switch off right now. Go to something mature like Slam Tilt Podcast where they never. really really serious yeah yeah so listen the good thing about this show there's two things one you are producing this show and second because we were together at texas pinball festival we were actually going to record the show there you lost your voice i don't know something was caught in your throat but we took photos for episode 69 so the nice thing about you editing the show is you don't need to Photoshop the show. We've got real photos for you, baby. No. Can we also just give a big shout-out to Rodney Comerges? Yeah.
2:05
Because when you look at the photo, you think, wow, that's a really bizarre photo. And then you've got to think to yourself, oh, somebody actually must have taken that photo. Rodney C., you are the man. Thank you, Rodney. The legend. And thank you for the suggestions, too, for the photo, too. We had no idea what to do. That was all Rodney. Can I also just say, look, I know TPF has been a long time over now, but there was one person I forgot to really thank. And I genuinely mean this. There was one person there that made my show, and it wasn't you, better than it could have been. And I've just wanted to give a massive shout out to Justinado because she, the moment I arrived, she was like, right, do you need anything? Okay, here's an Escalara. Use this. Do you need gaffer tape? Do you need this? And I would say every two to three hours over that three or four days, she popped by our booth and said, can I get you something? Can I help you with anything? And there was so much that we needed and so much that she helped with. And I just wanted to shout out because she was absolutely phenomenal. Check out Soft Plunge, Jess DiNardo. Great. In fact, she helped me out too. Her and Robert at Double Danger. in fact I had a Roger Sharp signed movie poster that someone was going to pick up they didn't make it and Jess brought it back to Florida so she helped me out too thanks Jess she's freaking awesome so there you go love her and Robert was awesome as well so thanks guys so how are things my friend what's new with you how's your week been how's my week been nothing of event has happened in the past fortnight Jeff why would you ask how my week's been I don't know I've heard rumblings of things and so I kind of want to find out what's going on I contacted you first of all, again, go back to TPF for a second here Haggis was showing Keltz was showing Fathom 2.0 for the first time for many many people and I was there each day not the whole time like you were but every time I was there people were like wow this is great, love this game holy cow does it look good, it shoots good how do i get one right and so i even said to you and damien i'm like are you ever gonna like do more of these because look at the demand i've always said i'm not a the spokesperson for our company and you are the one that always brings this stuff up but i will say we we went back from tpf and just went oh my god the demand was huge what can we do about it it was it was overwhelming and we tried to do something about it heaven forbid a pinball company give people what they want in more machines my goodness how dare you marty how dare you damien no no i know look i will i will say this i will say i always try to have a balanced perspective on things and not just think about my own viewpoint but other people's viewpoints as well and I can understand why people would be frustrated. I don't. Explain.

Marty Robbins @ Early-mid episode — Explains his position as company representative and defers to community perspective

Pin Clash Godzilla
event
Carl D'Angeloperson
James Bondgame
George Gomezperson
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Allentown Stern Pro Circuit Tournamentevent
Eric Stoneperson
Raymond Davidsonperson
Jason Zollerperson
Jess DiNardoperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Rodney C.person
Damienperson
Led Zeppelingame
Stephen Bowdenperson
Andy Bagwellperson
Brian O'Neillperson

medium · Jeff Teolis described order selection mechanics (4-2-1-0 scoring) and dispute with TD Levy over Whirlwind game start timing

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Comparison of George Gomez layouts across machines; James Bond considered functional but least favorite of Gomez designs despite strong shooting mechanics

    medium · Marty Robbins stated 'out of all of george gomez's games this by far is my least favorite layout even more so than his original avengers'

  • ?

    product_concern: James Bond exhibits persistent drop target bricking issues reported as worse than typical Bally machines, with multiple consecutive rejections observed

    medium · Marty Robbins reported 'I hit it four times in a row' with rejections and 'I've never seen a stern machine brick on drop targets more than bond'

  • ?

    content_signal: Final Round Podcast utilizing in-person event coverage (TPF photos, Allentown tournament attendance) to generate exclusive content unavailable on other platforms

    high · Hosts discussed recording at TPF despite voice issues, obtained exclusive photos from Rodney C., and covered Allentown tournament details firsthand

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Led Zeppelin pinball requires active sound awareness for optimal strategy, with song timing and guitar solo recognition affecting scoring decisions

    high · Jeff Teolis requested volume increase from TD and wore headphones during play, stating game requires 'knowing the songs' and 'when the guitar solos are'

  • ?

    community_signal: Community division over Fathom Revisited variant strategy with some collectors expressing concern about limited edition devaluation despite historical precedent

    medium · Marty Robbins noted 'I was a little concerned' among collector friends but defended strategy by historical comparison and immutable limited edition count (250)

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival demonstrated overwhelming player interest in Fathom Revisited with consistent positive feedback and demand for production increase

    high · Marty Robbins observed 'every time I was there people were like wow this is great, love this game holy cow does it look good, it shoots good how do i get one right'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Event operations excellence demonstrated by Jess DiNardo (Soft Plunge/Double Danger) with proactive vendor support and assistance during multi-day expo

    high · Jeff Teolis praised DiNardo for checking every 2-3 hours asking 'can I get you something?' and handling logistics including item transportation post-event

    • 5:20
    Well, it's not for me. It's not for me. It doesn't matter what I think about the situation. It's what everybody else thinks about it. So, Jeff, over to you. What do you think? I could give two flying fucks if you really want to know the truth, but I also don't care. I think it's great that you're making more of these. There should be more of these out. If more people want them, great. Yeah, it's too bad you missed it. It's not like you're giving them a fucking LE and added to the LE collection. You're adding these kind of upgrade things and a few new machines. But it's not whatever. If you bought the LEs, you're getting the LEs. This is not an LE. I get that. And by the way, let's look at a little history, shall we? Okay. Do you remember years ago, Stern made a pro version of The Walking Dead? You remember that? I do remember that. They made an LE, too. and these things, especially once Lyman got his hands on it. Boy, we need to make more of those. Okay. We're going to do a premium. Wait a second. You told me the LE was the LE. Well, this is a premium. It plays just like the LE. It just doesn't have the tag on it. Oh, how dare you? How dare you? Who fucking cares? Good on you, Stern. Good for doing it. Good for putting those out there. Because you know how I feel about LEs, if you want my honest opinion. That's great. That's fine. If that's something you collect, good for you. If you're buying them to flip them, I could care less. Good on you for doing that, too. It's your right to do that. But it's kind of what's driving up the price, if you really want to be honest.
    6:50
    And I think of other things. I mean, I remember when Batman came out, and I was like, oh, shit, they're done all those Batmans. And they came out with the Catwoman version. It's been done lots of times. Elvira did it with House of Horrors for a different version. Jersey Jack's done it. Wizard of Oz. There was the Yellow Brick Road, wasn't there? and there was some sort of Australian Down Under thing. Yeah. Hobbit, they had... I think it was Black Arrow.
    7:16
    They also had the special edition, which was... It was special, but it wasn't limited. I can't remember. Anyway, yeah.
    7:26
    By the way... ACDC, Lucy. Yep, sure. Good on all those companies. And I'm fine with you doing it as well, too, because, again, you're not getting the LE version. If you care about I'm number one through, what did you do, 250 or something like that? I don't even know the number. 250. That number is not changing. It's now not 300. It's still 250. These are different versions. You can tell they're different. So you still have the limited edition. I do not understand if anyone is upset. And I've talked to friends, and one was a little concerned. I said, I'm sorry, I don't get it. I don't see it. I heard, well, that was one of the reasons on deciding on purchasing it. I sincerely agree. Sure, that would make sense. But it's still not wrecking your game. Is it hurting even your resale value? Probably not the way pinball prices are going. Unless, of course, the bubble's bursting. I've been told it isn't.
    8:20
    Well, the jury's out on that one. Jury is out. Anyway, if you got any flack over it, you know what? Honest to God, put it in one ear, out the other. I'm not at Haggis. I'm not living it every day. But when Stern did it, I didn't blink an eye. when Jersey Jack does it, I don't care. That's good. Good, good. Give people what they want. Keep the line moving. Put money in the company. Make sure the company is strong so that we can do the next game. I'm all for it. Okay. Oh, you're not going to say anything, are you? You're not the spokesperson. I get it. Well, I'm not. And as I said, it doesn't matter what I think because I work for the company. So no matter what I say, people are going to say, well, that's just the company line and that's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're evil. Whatever it is. that people would say evil fuck off no no did i ever tell you about that when when i went to it was a party and i asked somebody what they thought and they said the quote was this is a party to somebody i'd never met said you're evil and what you're doing is wrong this is recently like this week no this was two years ago this is before this is when when we just announced the product and as to announce evil that's awesome yeah you're evil and what you're doing is wrong to my face I don't mind if you do it online that stuff I go, keyboard warrior when you do it at my face, I'm like well, hang on my response to him was first of all, I'm actually not evil second of all, yeah, okay subjective give me a name, because I need contestants for Who Will Marty Save this week come on, give me a name I have no idea who the person, I've never met him before already dead, don't worry about it already taken care of so, you know what That was when we announced Fathom, like just doing a remake of Fathom where evil and what you're doing is wrong. So it was all going up from there. Learn a lesson, Stern. Be careful. If you're going to do Tron Vault, be careful.
    10:14
    Whoa. Right? Oh, now. Okay. So that's an interesting question because, like, the two games that people are saying that Stern should remake, go back and remake, are Tron and Lord of the Rings. Now, my understanding is both of those games, certainly, yeah, I'm pretty sure both of them came as a Pro and a Limited Edition. In fact, they didn't call them Pros. They just called them the Normal Edition, and then they had an LE. So let's use Tron in this example. Would they vault the Pro, or would they vault – well, they wouldn't vault an LE because they don't really vault LEs. They would vault the LE layout with the Daft Punk multiball, and who knows what they do to the display. And with the lighting. Oh, of course, yeah. So what does that mean? If they do that. I guess your LEs are worth absolutely zero. Throw them in the garbage. Make them firewood. They're useless.
    11:08
    Or they're still valuable because they are still LEs. One of those two is true. Yeah. I think it's, I don't know. I'm trying to be very balanced here. I think it affects probably pro owners that are like, well, I couldn't afford an LA, so I got a pro, and now you've got a premium that's got Daft Punk multiball in it and the extra lighting. Well, actually, no, the extra lighting people can put on their pro. Yeah.
    11:35
    I don't know. All I'm saying is all opinions and all feelings are valid. It's tough to speculate what anyone will do in the future, right? I remember when Spider-Man Vault came out. Now, it was different. It was comic book art and different call-outs and stuff. But I remember some Spider-Man owners going, oh, fuck, that's going to ruin my Spider-Man. No, it's not. Not in this market. You're fine. Well, you just – do you know what? You don't know. And I think that's what people – people are reacting to what if. What if it does devalue my game? What if my game that I've already got up for sale, people won't buy now because, you know. You answered your own question there. You're kind of funny.
    12:19
    What happens to my game that's up for sale? Do you mean you're kind of talking about greed there a little bit? Like, I don't care. Hey, man, there's no set price. It's amazing that pinball prices go up. Are you worried it didn't go up enough? Like, name another hobby where you can buy something. Can you go buy a motorbike and then sell it for more? Can you buy a sailboat and sell it for more? Can you buy golf clubs and sell it for more? Yeah, you can. No, you can't. No, of course you can't. You don't usually, right? There's major depreciation, whereas pinball, there isn't. Well, again, it depends on how many of them are made. If there are only 250 sets of limited edition golf clubs made, and then there's one that looks the same, but there's unlimited versions of it, the limited ones are going to hold their value. I guess if you're talking limited edition, okay. Fine, maybe. Yeah. Maybe. I just know every time you drive a new car off the lot, it loses money.
    13:17
    Unless somehow it's a limited edition. And that brings us to our old sponsor of the week thing. Marty, tell us what car you bought this week.
    13:26
    With all that new haggis. I kid. I remember a long time ago I said this. And I was referring to Damien. I'm going to refer to Damien and myself. What you've got to understand here is we're just people trying to run a business, trying to give people what they want, trying to manufacture the best possible product that we can. And, you know, we're just humans behind it just trying to do our best. And, you know, we were responding to the feedback that we were given. And there you go. Don't change a thing. Love what you're doing. You have a great product. Next, speaking of great products. Did you hear the Pinball Profile video or audio I did with Keith Elwin? Of course you didn't. You don't listen to any of my shit. Yes, I did. You did not. Yeah, no, I didn't. Well, he did mention, we were talking about Pin Clash Godzilla, which it's Friday night in about 15 hours it's going to air, so it'll have already aired by the time you hear this. But Carl D'Angelo, i.e. Pinball, I'm sure you can check the old VODs and stuff. Pin Clash is the third one. It's great. 24 players from really around the world. there's not just chicago you've got people from sweden canada of course the u.s england it's going to be it's quite something to see anyway i interviewed keith about how godzilla just when you think you know the game carl comes up with this carnage bonus challenge and it makes the game even more exciting i know you're not a big godzilla fan but the game is fucking deep it's Got a lot of good stuff in there. Oh, for sure. And it's fun. And as Keith likes to say, one of those games, I wanted to make a game where you wanted to play another game. Okay. For a lot of people, myself included, it's like that. As long as you don't play super long games. I don't want to play any games after a long game. But with this Carnage bonus challenge, there was a lot of restarts and trying, and it was fun. Anyway, so I was talking to him about, so you've got all this time off now with your next game. I mean, you come up with the rules. your next game must be ready to go basically and he said yeah it's long since done I'm on my game after that now which when I just said give the people what they want fuck me we need some can somebody just manufacture pinball machines please because if he's got a game out and we're waiting I mean hey listen I glad Foo Fighters is doing well for Stern I glad all the companies are doing well with their recent games Really a banner year for pinball But wouldn it be nice to maybe have another Keith game I know I'd like to play one. I guess I just have to wait. But it just blew me away that, oh my God, it's done. And like done, done, done, done, done. And we have to wait.
    16:19
    Hopefully, you know, the games are great like Foo Fighters. Maybe, you know, hopefully they're not like James Bond. I can't get into that game. I can't get into Bond. I said it. I'm sorry. As in normal Bond or the 60th anniversary one? Just normal Bond. 60th anniversary is fine and stuff. I'm not going to be purchasing that anytime soon. Still haven't played that. It's great. But the other one, they keep doing code updates, and I keep wanting to like it. I don't know what I'm missing. It's just... I love it. I loved it. It was one of my highlights of games. I was not expecting it to be as enjoyable as... I think I said this last time, and I'll say it again. one thing about james bond by stern is it does nothing to push pinball forward there's nothing really you look at and go oh wow that's new that's fresh it's different what it is it's a fantastic george gomez layout that is just fun to shoot and it was fun to shoot with the code that was at tpf now and i've been hearing reports from people that have got bond saying it is now just even better and that's that's all you want and we've said this many times give us a good layout first and foremost because you can fix everything else in code that's true that being said i'm a huge fan of george gomez i really like all of his games including james bond do i love james bond no and i will say that out of all of george gomez's games this by far is my least favorite layout even more so than his original avengers the avengers is uh if you take away that one center ramp shot that was the weak thing and well you got a good point there the hulk thing it got stuck in the arms a lot i hated absolutely hated avenger the original avengers the gomez avengers in tournaments just because it was and remember so this is back before it had that massive code update so scoring on it was just it wasn't that it was imbalanced it was the only thing you could really go for to get points was to get hulk multi-ball and even that was low points anything else was just tough tough tough okay avengers the things i didn't like about avengers that were the two things. It was that, I can't remember, I never play Avengers anymore. It's that center ramp shot that takes... Black Widow ramp? Black Widow ramp. You go up immediately and turn left. Didn't work. He fixed it. Yep. On Deadpool. Deadpool, correct. Didn't like that, and the Hulk arms, balls would get stuck in there. Kind of like, even Champion Pub, sometimes balls get stuck in the big boxer guy. I also think the third thing was when you would finally get a shot up there to get into the, drop into the scoop, into the saucer, and then it would fall out of the saucer. That was the worst. I haven't played it enough to see that happen. But okay, here's my bond problems. Again, that left scuba shot is such wasted real estate. Right below the left upper flipper where it falls in and it kicks it out to the Dr. No Dragon. Just wasted real estate. Also, I have never seen a stern machine, and I've played a few models. I hope it's not with all of them. I've never seen a stern machine brick on drop targets more than bond the ones in front of the dildo or whatever you want to call the silo thing you can hit those and they're worse than bally bricks the way they reject you could I've had one target several I hit it four times in a row and I was like really is what am I doing wrong I don't know if that's a problem anyway it's just not it's I don't know. Just can't get into it. Okay. I will summarize it by saying this.
    19:44
    Pinball is subjective. That's all it is. I just have an affinity for Gomez layouts. So when I was shooting it, I was going, hang on, I don't get the hate. This is really fun to flip. And apparently they've changed in code some of the gates so you can now get that side shot a lot more than you used to. So it's actually got better flow now as well. They changed that in code? Yeah, just the way that the gates bring the ball around. So, yeah, as I say, look, I look at it and I think art-wise, it's not special. Code-wise, it was fine. Layout, great. It's just fine. So I can understand why you would play it and go, I'm not feeling it, whereas someone like me plays it and goes, oh, I totally feel this. And I've spoken to people that own them and they love them. And that's all you want is for people that when they spend a lot of money, and let's face it, Bond was a lot of money. When you spend a lot of money on these games, I just want people to enjoy it. So it's funny because I was in a tournament. It was called Allentown. It's part of the Stern Pro Circuit. I kind of did well there. I finished fourth.
    21:00
    And that includes modern machines. It's not all classics this time. Okay, listener. It's funny because he goes, oh, you know, I finished fourth.
    21:08
    So I don't know how many days it was. Three or four days ago, he goes, oh, by the way, Allentown finished fourth. But, you know, it's no big deal. Don't talk about it. You know, but a fourth. I'm like, okay, you came fourth. What I actually said to you was, yeah, but did you come first? Because remember, with tournaments, you're either first or you're a loser. No, I'm quite happy with fourth. The point is they had a lot of modern machines and a few solid states and maybe a few EMs. and you were allowed to play 12 games out of 18. I didn't play all the classics, and I didn't play all the moderns. I did a mix. But the two moderns I didn't play, I didn't play AFM, which I love. I just sometimes with the remake, it takes me a while to figure out where the shots are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wound up having to play that in the playoffs and won that game against Jason Zoller and Levy and Raymond Davidson. and I was like, oh, okay, that's pretty good, considering I hadn't played it yet. The other game I didn't play, I didn't play it once, was Bond. And I chose not to because I was just like, eh, codes kind of, eh. Shots are, eh. So I chose not to play those. But anyway, that was fun. Allentown. The reason I want to bring up Allentown is not because I was in fourth. Whatever, get over it. Yes, I know.
    22:24
    You get a trophy and it's big for the Stern Pro Circuit. Whatever. Enough. It's not about that. Let's just not talk about that. I want to explain some things. Stop bringing it up. As soon as you're done talking about it, I will stop.
    22:38
    Quit sending me texts. Talk more Allentown. I do want to explain things because some of the games I played, I was listening to the commentating and I was reading the chats. I saw this after the fact. One of the games that Raymond picked was Led Zeppelin. And it's funny. He said, I don't know if I want to play this because Teolis knows it. I was in his group. He did pick it because you had to pick Banks and that was the first game. I didn't win the game. but I knew what I was doing. The whole time, because it's a big, big, big show, I was wearing headphones. And the headphones had nothing on while I was playing. It had disco on while I was getting ready to play. But when Led Zeppelin came on, I put the headphones on top of my hat. And people were like, hey, that's not where your headphones go. You look like Mickey Mouse, blah, blah, blah. And it just made me think, every time someone said that, and some pretty good players, Andy Bagwell, were like, what's he doing? Well, let me tell you what you're doing. In that game, which, by the way, I asked the TD before the tournament started, can you turn the volume up on that? Because that is the most important game you'll ever play, ever, where sound matters. You need to know the songs. You need to know when the guitar solos are. You need to know when the song's almost over. All those things matter for scoring. And I did well because of that. So that's why I wasn't wearing headphones. The big thing that happened, and tons of people have texted me, it was on stream. After winning that Attack from Mars game, this is me, Jason Zoller, Raymond,
    24:06
    Levy. The next game was Whirlwind. And with Whirlwind, because I won the last game, I was going first. And what nobody saw was I asked, tell me when you want me to start. Because it was being streamed, I didn't want to jump the stream, all that kind of stuff. I got the go-ahead, I start playing, I immediately get quick multiball, and Levy, who was the TD, and in my group, walked up and turned off the machine. Would you do that, Marty? Would you do that? Why did you turn off the machine? Because he said, even though I asked, am I okay to go? I didn't ask Levy. I asked somebody else who was at the tournament running it, and they said yeah. The order hadn't been picked. And with these tournaments, you know, it's 4-2-1-0 scoring, but the order of the next game is determined by who came last. They get choice of order. and 95% of the time most people go, I'll always pick whatever's last available, right? See what my opponents are doing, see what points I need to get. So that would mean because I won the game, I'm going first. Sure. He turned off the game and said, nope, the order isn't done. It hasn't been selected yet. The order was selected. I was still first. So I kind of got screwed out of a quick multi-ball.
    25:20
    Yeah. Chat didn't enjoy that, but I just wanted to let you know what happened from my side. Oh, you know what? I'm just going to say I feel for you. I didn't flip out. I went, okay, whatever. Yeah, but I think the right call was made. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know. You know it is. But, yeah. I didn't care. The way I looked, I was, okay, got a little bit of practice in. All right. Well, I mean, obviously, I haven't been in a tournament for some time. But I am known for picking first regardless. I like picking first. well just to let you know the game before the order was whoever was top seed always went last so the assumption was it's going to continue and it basically did somebody who went last chose third instead of last that was the only difference but i was going first no matter what didn't matter whatever yeah no i know but rules are rules man i know that's why i didn't complain chat went nuts and said levy shouldn't have done it because he was in my group okay i'll give you that. Get another TD to do it, right? That's maybe... That is actually that is true. You would get somebody independent to do that. Yes. I'll give you that. I played Stars. Stars is an interesting game. Now,
    26:35
    Stars is... can beat the hell out of you. And I needed to do a lot. And I'm watching the stream and I've got four stars and the one I needed was in the middle and I'm trapped up on the left. And the chat and the commentator was like, go for the star, go for the star, and then get the wow. Where the spinner was good and it was worth $800 to spin, I chose not to go for the star and try to get the wow. And the reason I did that is because I looked up on the display and it said only one wow per ball. If it was multiple, like it's $100,000 every time you hit the red light, well, you only get one. So I'm like, ah, screw that, I'll just rip the spinner. There's no guarantee I'm going to get it anyway, where I can definitely hit the spinner and get, I don't know, 30,000 off the spin? Yep, easier points, yep. What I'm getting at is, if you're commentating, you shouldn't second-guess the player. One, you're sitting in the booth, they're playing.
    27:36
    Don't you think? Fair point. It's like me saying before, hey, I always choose to go first, yet I'm not a top player. those things might be linked you know what i mean you shouldn't criticize it looks bad on you the commentator when you do that just just a little little tip for anybody commentating and i suggest trying commentating you know what was good was brian o'neill was there and he said yeah hey i think i would go for the spinner because there's no guarantee you're going to get the 100 000 but the reason i didn't go for the 100 000 because there was only one yeah i mean there's there's there's rules commentating and then there's situational commentating and the best commentators are those people that can do both stephen bowden for sure now here is my favorite thing and i can only explain this on final round final round is the perfect format to explain this i lost in the tiebreaker to the great eric stone so he got third i got fourth we were playing a game where he just blew it up now he picked the game so he went first and as he got up there and i'm not making fun just please hear me out this whole thing. He, being a God-fearing man and a very religious person, was praying to God on microphone, like, please, Lord, help me, you know, give me an inline, blah, blah, blah, and did it over, and the chat was kind of relentless on him, right? Like, whatever, you know, their thoughts of somebody who believes in God or whatever the case may be. So, just keep in mind, so he did that. So what, I'm up next. I'm now playing Eric Stone, and basically I'm playing God. I'm playing two against one. Yeah, yeah, he literally has God on his side, making sure that he's going to win. So, yeah, you are at a massive disadvantage. He had the first draft, he picked God. What am I left with? So I get up there, and I say on microphone, I'm like,
    29:28
    please, sweet Satan, dark underlord, prince of the pentagram, please tell me what you need me to sacrifice, whether it be a child, whether it be an animal, please. Prince of the Pentagram. I had no other choice. He picked God. I had nothing left. What am I going to do? Correct. You've got to go with the equal and opposite, right? I had to. So I was Team Satan. Yeah, you'd have to. You were left with no choice, really. I would have picked God first if I was Player One. I didn't have that opportunity. Of course you would have. Yeah, of course you would have. And just in case you think I'm being sacrilegious, A little tidbit about me, I don't believe in Satan. Oh, that's funny. There you go. So that was Allentown. That was fun. Allentown's a show as well. Great show. Holy shit. Yeah. I saw the pins. Yes, I know. I know Dr. Pin and Mrs. Pin were there. For us, being over the other side of the world, it's not like we can just put everything into a van and travel across America to go to all these shows. We can really only pick one, maybe two if we're lucky.
    30:37
    And so really, for us, we would look at the big shows like TPF and Expo. But you've got Allentown would be a big one. What's the one, the New England one? What's that one? Fantastic. That's in September this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're the ones that we'd love to go as well. Well, I wasn't planning on going. I've never actually been before because it's more – I've heard the tournament is okay, and I want to say Greg Pavarelli and Levy did a fine job running the tournament. Really, really good job. Where is Allentown? An hour away from Philadelphia, so it's in Pennsylvania. Yeah, yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. So I wasn't going, but then a couple things happened. My wife was away. I was like, well, what am I doing sitting at home? Maybe there's something I can do. Oh, there's Allentown, but it's just one tournament. I'm not a big gun going anywhere where there's just one tournament. But I looked. I went to a baseball game, a AAA baseball game the night before Allentown. Did Allentown, played it Friday, played Saturday morning, and then Saturday night I drove to Philadelphia, saw another baseball game, drove to Pittsburgh after that, saw another baseball game. Understand this. I went because there were three baseball games. The pinball was secondary. But the show is great, and the farmer's market across the street. I think I'd have to go back. It was a lot of fun. Just one point I want to mention as well. You talked about the fact that you played whirlwind. Did you see that Whirlwind 2 has been revealed Yeah I have I don know much about it What is it Total Chaos Is it Well that what it is I can remember But yeah so same people that did Rudy Nightmare for Funhaus Sure. I'm botching all of this, but all I'm saying is, Whirlwind 2.0 has been revealed. Let me tell you why, me personally, I think this is a fantastic, fantastic thing. I played Whirlwind to death when it came out but I don't think it's aged that well and let me explain this to you I don't think there's anything wrong with the rules I just think that games have gotten more forgiving in more recent times ball saves, auto plunge, etc it had none of those so it was pretty brutal so I think this is a for me, people say oh, you know, I've got a Whirlwind for sale, I'd say, no, you can keep it because it's just, I don't have fun playing it anymore. I would now have fun playing it, is what I'm saying. And I think a lot of people who've got Whirlwinds, who know that it's a brutal game, would probably have a new lease of life in it. There you go. That's all I wanted to say. I have a love-hate thing for Whirlwind, because when it came out, I thought it was great. The modes were pretty fun, the cellar, the way the ramp went up, went down, the locking balls. And then I began to hate it because I started going for the skill shot, and I would hit the skill shot, and then it would immediately drain. Drain. And I would say, fuck you, Lawler. I got so mad. Like, how do you design a game where you hit the skill shot and you get punished? No good golfers, same thing. So that pissed me off. And then I thought, well, I guess you can kind of short plunge and hopefully get it on a flipper, avoid this skill shot. Okay. And then I started to love it again. And I have to say I'm more on the side of I really like the game versus don't like it. I think it's one of his favorite games ever, actually. But I'm curious what the new one will do. I played Funhaus 2.0. I thought it was kind of neat. I want to play it again. It's definitely a different game, a different strategy, whereas the, I want to call it the seller. It's not the seller, but whatever the top scoop is, is very important. And, of course, popping it into Rudy's mouth. I remind you, you're listening to Episode 69 here on Final Round. Popping it into his mouth is the most important thing. Always is. in this 2.0, I remember the ramp was kind of everything, which is something you didn't go for that often. Really, the steps. I'd like to see what Whirlwind does. They had Pulp Fiction at Allentown. Do you think I got to play it? Hell no. Oh, really? Just queues a mile long? 15 minutes is all I'll wait. And the lineups were really big. I talked to Josh Sharp actually this week, and he said, whenever you want, come on over. And I'm like, okay, next time I'm there. So I'll get to play it. It looks fun. I mean, if the lineups are that long, it says it looks pretty good. And that stream that Jack Danger did was fun with Mark Ritchie with Josh.
    35:01
    Pretty impressive game. I just love that people can appreciate single-level playfields. I have for years and years and years, you don't need to have a ramp. There's a lot you can do. Bond 60th shows you that. Definitely this Pulp Fiction shows you that. TNA shows you that. You don't have to have ramps. Ramps are fine. Fathoms.
    35:22
    TELTS, Fathoms, same thing. Great games. you don't need ramps and i'm obviously very thankful for that because you know we've got a another one coming out soon so we want people to also enjoy those and keep listening at the end of the show we'll tell you what it is so don't go anywhere but i mentioned pin clash that's going on that's good and what's neat about that is have you noticed all the pinball in the media lately no i haven't seen any articles in the media you're being serious no i saw that you've got an article in the media? Is that what you're alluding to? I'll get to that. That's actually not what I was talking about. When I was talking about Pin Clash, TV did a nice ad on Stephanie Traub from the DC area. They did one on the Horniac Brothers from Minnesota and then they did one on Neil Graff from Wisconsin. And yes, they did one for me going to the European Pinball Championships, IFPA Olympics, IFPA 18 in Germany in really a week's time. We'll talk more about that in a second. But a lot of pinball in the media, and as my recent pinball profile episode talked about, every single time you're in the media, you can expect a few things to be said by the people doing the interview. I know. Can you tell me what that would be? The number one is, are you a pinball wizard?
    36:42
    Yep. Number one, without a doubt. So every one of these articles had that. Yep. I did like eight radio interviews every time they did that. and I don't know what they're saying to me beforehand.
    36:56
    TV, he alluded to it by quoting the song. When he wrote up the article, he sent it to me actually in advance. I said, can you change Pinball Wizard to just Pinball Champ or Pinball Pro or something different? Yep. And he goes, why? Wizard works so well. I said, just trust me. It'll get a lot of flack. People are tired of it. It's just I get why you say that, but it's anyway. So listen to my Pinball Profile episode. further explanation of what pinball is to the media who has no idea what pinball is, and we have to accept it. We just have to not groan as much and just be thankful that they're covering it, to be honest. No, you're exactly right. What we've got to understand is... Oh, my God. What we've got to understand is that these people are making that joke for the first time. They have no idea that we've heard it a thousand times, and they think they're very clever by going, oh, Pinball Wizard, do you play a mean silver ball? You know, I know he listens to every one of these episodes, but I'm guessing, once or twice, Todd McCulloch has been asked, what's the weather like up there?
    38:12
    Fucking cunts, all these people. If I was Todd, I'd be, oh, it looks like rain, and then I'd spit on them. That's just me, though. Yeah. Yeah, you know, everyone's a comedian. Some of them have made a career out of it. Oh, so actually, funny you should say that. It was asked of me in the interview, the TV interview, because the guy interviewing me has seen me do stand-up comedy in London, but it didn't make the cutting point. Oh, one of the three people? Listen, fucko, just because you're in Australia and the year is 2023, There was a time when I did this years ago and for quite some time.
    38:52
    You know what, Josh Sharp, he posted the TV interview on IFPA. Thank you, Josh, for doing that. And it was funny because he goes, CTV News in London, Ontario, Canada interviewed the IFPA's people's president. And I said, well, that's funny. He goes, I thought about doing former stand-up comedian.
    39:14
    Come on, bloody hell. Well, that would have been it. Two inside. Josh hit the winner there. Well done. Yeah. Fucking awesome. So let's talk big news, all right? Okay. This is definitely up your alley. Sure. Big pinball news. Mm-hmm. And I'm kidding. Let's talk Zelda. Okay, the new Zelda that's being released, yep. Yeah, what is it? What? Do you not know this? I remember the old Link thing years and years ago on the Nintendo, and I guess it's been maintained and upgraded and all that kind of good stuff. But when I'm looking at Keith Elwin's page and he's like, oh, thank God, Zelda's here. I can turn my Switch on. I'm like, wow, fuck it, this guy a game out already, will you? So he's not playing Zelda. Okay, so yes, so the Nintendo Switch has been out for, I don't know how many years, maybe five, six years, something like that. It's one of these consoles that doesn't have a lot of game. I think they go for quality, not quantity. I think maybe at the time or shortly after Zelda Breath of the Wild came out. And this is now the latest Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. And it's a big deal. I am just going to go out there and say, I have not enjoyed a Zelda game since Wind Waker. So shoot me down if you like. I played Zelda Breath of the Wild and I thought it was okay. It was fine. But I think it jumped the shark. There you go. Said it. What else do you want to know? I've seen the popularity of it, obviously. I don't know how much the young people are into Zelda. I would say it's probably more nostalgic for older people. Sure. Not as old as you, of course, but just a little older.
    40:51
    But it does bring me back to pinball. I'm like, that's a pretty popular title. I mean, I know they made a Super Mario Brothers game that was not very good. They made two. It is a movie that has made a billion dollars. They now come up with this Zelda game. halo is huge all the fortnite all these things why are we not seeing this in pinball i you okay jeff teolis i'm being serious i don't even i'm not a guy i'm not even a gamer but i think that would be very attractive it's oh well you know what i mean i think i make a valid point it's just why are people not doing this you're exactly right I know there's a homebrew Sonic right and they've got somebody a full time job why are there not people tapping it I would say the main reason is this money I would say if you've got a really popular gaming franchise that makes shitloads of money, are they really going to care about, oh, okay, we'll make $50,000 by signing over a pinball license? Do you know what I mean? I just don't think there's enough money in it for them to care because, okay, I've said this many times.
    42:24
    These pinball companies, I'm not putting myself in this, I'm just saying pinball companies in general, are smart people. They are really clever people. Just letting you know, they're clever people. Far smarter than us. And they've been in this industry a lot longer than us, so they know it deeper than us. So if we sit here and we think, this is ridiculous. Why are people not doing pinball machines based on video game franchises? There's probably a reason for it. It doesn't make me not want it. I would love a Zelda game. I would love another Mario. I'd love a decent. They made two Mario pinball machines, if you count Super Mario Mushroom World, which I do. I don't remember that. Oh, no, it's a little novelty one. So it's, you know, Punchy the Clown. I remember Punchy the Clown. But, I mean, listen, we're not talking about the Defender pinball machine. We're not talking about the Joust, you know, two-player game, which is a cool novelty. Definitely we're not talking Baby Pac-Man, which I still find fun. They have it at District 82. we're talking about some legendary games that are out there right now you know I mean Hitman you could have anything you could have I know VR has kind of taken over but again like I say Fortnite I just think is brilliant it's certainly dated now but the fact they gave it to everyone for free and everyone can play it and get hooked I mean my goodness like and Halo is doing really well look at what Rothwell is doing with their Halo machine it's Why not a pinball machine? Okay, here we go. You ready? Here we go. So I've just casually Googled, and this is subjective. This is an IGN article.
    44:01
    It's actually the top 100 video games of all time. So I'm just going to go through, until we get bored of it, names of these games, starting with number one. And then, Shotgun, I want you to tell me, do you think it would make a great pinball machine, and would it sell? Number one, Legend of Zelda. Yeah. Yep, cool, you've already said that. Number two, Super Mario. A new version for sure. Yeah. Number three, Portal. Oh, for sure. Yeah. The cool things you could do. Just think. My God. Think of that game. Oh, my God. What's that game that was a novelty game that was kind of like mastermind? You know which one I'm talking about? Spectrum. You know how like you lock a ball in, but the ball comes down there? You could do Portal trickery with that kind of stuff, right? Oh, Super Metroid. I think I saw a Metroid homebrew game. Yeah. There you go. At Pentastic, actually, years ago. Mass Effect. Absolutely. If you're going to do fucking Guardians of the Galaxy, you would do Mass Effect. Red Dead Redemption? Don't know. Oh, it's like Grand Theft Auto, but it's Western. Okay. Yep. Half-Life. Don't know it. Oh, my God.
    45:08
    Okay. Grand Theft Auto. I'm surprised that hasn't been done. Grand Theft Auto. Fucking Auto. Come on. Castlevania. I'm missing some because you've got Hades, which I don't know. Halo. we talked about The Witcher yeah it's got a TV show too why not again I just would you rather see something fresh and new like this or would you like to see another 70s band or a movie that you know might not identify with everyone I mean I personally love the idea of Godfather you were on the show Ryan was on the show you go I haven't seen the movie I'm like holy fuck yeah I still haven't seen it I know. It's so good. Even my son, who's 18, has seen it.
    45:52
    Bioshock. Oh, my God. That would make a fantastic people machine. Bloodborne. So even like all the Souls games, if you've ever played the Souls games.
    46:02
    What about The Last of Us? They got another TV show for that. Yeah, The Last of Us was just there. I don't know what that would make. I mean, Street Fighter. Could they do another one? Maybe.
    46:13
    Tough to say. But again. God of War. Come on, guys. fucking somebody make these fucking pinball machines these they okay as i'm saying they they are you look at this list and you go that is so obvious they would sell they would sell hundreds so mass effect there is a pinball machine for mass effect i interviewed him on pinball profile recently his name's anthony van winkle in fact he uses fast pinball to use this and he did that and he said one of the easiest things was the assets were already there because of the video game. Yes, correct. So, you know, you don't have to recreate characters. You can use some video images. You've got sound call-outs. Pretty cool. Sounds like, I don't know, it just sounds like there's a possibility there. Maybe that's where we're going to see the next thing. Are we running out of rock bands? Are we running out of movies and pop culture things? Because that's all that we seem to be getting right now. I'm not saying it's bad. I've said over again, I like everything new that's come out I like seeing people be creative with Final Resistance for P3 I've heard a lot of people loving Galactic Tank Force people that are playing it and enjoying it and that's very original but you've got to play it before you're going to buy it well, okay, the thing of it is you've got to make sure that there's new IP that's being done okay, there's a show I'm just in the middle of season 2 called Shadow and Bone Have you seen that show? Haven't heard of it.
    47:44
    Watch it. You might like it. I love it. It would make a great pinball thing. But it needs to be, it probably just needs to be a bit more popular. It needs to be in the zeitgeist. Whereas it's a popular show. What else is there? The Wheel of Time. Season 2 is about to land. That would make a great pinball machine Rosamund Pike The Peripheral Did you watch The Peripheral No Have you got Amazon Prime movies? Sure, yeah. Okay. Watch The Peripheral. Fantastic. I don't watch a lot of TV or movies. Yeah, you should.
    48:22
    They should make The Great British Bake Off. It's what I'm currently binging. The Great British Bake Off. It's fantastic. Surprised they haven't done a Real Housewives game.
    48:34
    Okay, so, okay, let's extend this conversation just a little bit. You can shut me down and close this conversation off if you want to, but... Are you going to say Eurovision? Oh, my God, Eurovision. Okay, guys, just type in Croatia Eurovision 2023 and watch the band that comes up. The other one that I can recommend... Finland was the best. ...is Finland Eurovision 2023. Just cha-cha-cha is awesome. And then obviously look up Australia because it's fantastic. I was saying to you, like this is for me and for a few people that I know, Ryan Seabing being one of them, and Greg Silby is another one, another one of my Eurovision fans. In Australia, Eurovision is huge and has been for 40, 50 years. So this is our – I say that collectively. This is my Super Bowl. This is my weekend where everything is Eurovision. We've just had the two semifinals, and the finals are about to go live. I think they – 5 o'clock in the morning, Sunday morning is when we can watch them live. And do you get up and watch them live? Yeah, I do. Wow. And Australia has made the finals. So it's a big deal. But honestly, guys, I played some clips to Jeff before he started because I just want you to understand what it's about. Again, it's like somebody playing American football to me going, you know, this is why Super Bowl is fantastic. Show me the halftime act and then I'll get involved. So for those that don't know, and I don't know much about Eurovision, but here it is in a nutshell. Think of American Idol, but think of if you had the best from each country. So each country has qualifying. They've determined this is the best for Finland, this is the best for Croatia, the best for Australia. Don't know how Australia is in Europe. But anyway, here's the best. And you're getting top quality. But the production is off the charts. It's really off the charts. The bands can be so-so, but the production, the stage is just crazy. And if you listen to the show, you know we like to open with Frankie Goes to Hollywood. God bless Eurovision, which was filmed in Liverpool this year. They usually hold it in the winners, winning country. but Ukraine won so they're not holding it in Ukraine.
    51:00
    So Liverpool stepped in and because Frankie is from Liverpool for the first time in 30 some odd years they got back together and did Welcome to the Pleasure Dome. It was awesome.
    51:13
    I can't tell you how many times I've watched it. It's just, it's everything. Oh, I hope they do a tour.
    51:19
    I do. They also, what was announced two days later is that there's apparently like a documentary on, No, I don't think it's a documentary. It's like a... What do you call those things? It's like the Elton John movie or the Queen movie. Bio? A biopic or whatever it is. They're just reenacting the Frankie Goes the Holidays. I don't give a fuck. I just want them to tour because I never got to see them live. And from what I've heard, people have said that they are one of the best live bands you will ever see. I always liked their albums because they were great studio musicians and just really well produced. So fingers crossed. Yep. It's funny because I'm going to Germany and I look, I've got some days off and I look to see who's playing in concert nearby because you never know. Like the last two times I've been to England, by chance, Ricky Gervais, my idol in comedy, has played both times and I've been able to see him in concert, which is heaven. so I'm kind of checking to see is anybody you know is Jumerica Ray playing I see Wolf Mothers playing but they're a few weeks after I'm gone but they're coming to Toronto anyway in the fall so that's good I look for things like that are usually like there's a lot of bands that only stay in Europe so yeah well look you are luckier than me because we very rarely get bands coming to Australia because we're so far away it's really cost prohibitive for people to come out so we We don't see a lot of live bands. But Kylie Minogue plays every other weekend, so that's kind of nice. There's that. But my actual favorite band, which is Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, OMD, just so you know. Enola Gay. Yeah, correct. What did you call me? They won't tour here because they're not popular enough, so they can't have big enough venues. But if they go to America or UK, they'll have 10,000 venues, whereas in Australia it's like 300, 400. And they did actually, oh, it was so frustrating. Like I saw them live, I think in maybe 87, 88, and they were scheduled to come back in 2021 supporting Simple Minds. So imagine that, Simple Minds, Orchestral Moves of the Dark concert. COVID happened, Ian, you fuck. And so they had to then defer 12 months to 2022. Then it got cancelled. So I still haven't seen them. And that's just because we're so freaking small. Did you hear that? You're caring. Did you hear the people turning out after we started spending a lot of time on Eurovision and OMD? No, people have tuned out because they are currently watching Croatia for Eurovision going, what the fuck is that? Yeah, that was something to see. Yeah. Let's, as we wrap it up, let's talk a little bit about this massive event that is happening in Germany. When you think of the five pinball majors, two are kind of in hiatus in Pinberg and Papa, but the three that are still happening are Indisc, the Open, the Championship, which happened in January. That leaves two, the IFPA World Championship and the European Pinball Championship. Well, guess what? Those two are happening within a week apart of each other, and they're putting in between them the IFPA Olympics. this is happening at Bulls and Balls and also Freddy's in Germany so two different places all action can be seen on JDL Pinball on Twitch but it's a lot of pinball normally I play pinball on Friday nights we're recording on a Friday night I chose not to I said I think I've got enough pinball coming up in the next little while I can take some downtime but the European Pinball Championship 256 players They've given exemptions for the 80 players playing in the World Championships. If they wanted to play, they could play. And then in less than a minute, the rest of the slots sold out. It's kind of like you remember the old Pimberg days, F5, F5. Same thing for the European Pinball Championship. And I believe, I hope I'm not wrong, but I think you're in groups of 16, and you play 15 rounds, 15 head-to-head rounds with the people in your group. And you're seated. Each group basically has the same weight. You've got a top player, then you go down the list, and I think every group has six or seven players in the top 200. It's just in the world. That's the European Pinball Championships, and then the top four will go on to the finals. That tournament, Whopper-wise, is worth 392%. Remember when tournaments were like, wow, this is worth 150 because it's a major. That's nothing now. Yeah, okay.
    56:07
    392. Wow. Then they have the IFPA Olympics, and those are individual events. It might be a pin golf. It might be a frenzy. It might be just match play. It might be strikes, things like that, those kind of events before we get to the IFPA World Championships. What happens at the IFPA World Championships, it kicks off with the Epstein Cup. So that's Team North America versus Team Europe slash World. The top eight players from each play different matches. It might be a four-player group. It might be head-to-head. And it's kind of like the Ryder Cup, I guess, or the President's Cup in golf. You know, you've got a captain. They pick who you're playing, what games you're going to play, things like that. So that's on Thursday. And then the IFPA World Championship. And, again, what that is, they take the top two players from each country, and there are 20 countries participating. So that only gets you 40 people. Then they go down the ranking list and see who's available and, you know, top down. So you've got basically the top 80 players in the world at this event. It's match play. You're going to be playing. Oh, it's a groups of four. I can't remember. It's groups of four, but I just can't remember if it's three games or four games. And I really can't remember. It might be four, but I can't remember. I should probably read this. It's happening in a week. But think of Pinnberg, right? You were in a group and you'd play different games. I think you played four different games. I think this one you play three, and it's three different eras, right? and then you get reseated and it's kind of like a tiered Swiss thing. So by the end of the tournament, you're playing against people with the same points you have. And it's exciting this year because it's always been 64 people. It's now 80 people. They are now including the world's women's champion, although Kerry Wing had already qualified for it. So they go to the next highest person. That'll be Leslie Ruckman from San Francisco. And you've got the European champion there. You've got the North American champion. I know you've got some Australian mates there. There are four of us Canadians going. It's pretty big. So top 80 players and the top 32 make the playoffs. So it's high pressure.
    58:14
    And all this is streamed on JDL. JDL pinball, yeah. Honestly, it's going to be a real come down after this 11 days. It's going to be exhausting. But they even have a midnight madness tour. If you're not getting enough pinball in 11 days, when a tournament ends at midnight, they're going to have another one that goes midnight to 5 before the next one starts at 10 a.m. People will do it, but it's just crazy what's going on.
    58:43
    It's go, go, go. It's a lot of pinball. You've got to be on your A game. You've got to make sure you're hydrated, get off your feet when you need to, and make sure you eat. It's little things you don't think of when you're doing endurance pinball. Do you want me to talk Eurovision again? Sorry, did I lose you there, Marty? You did. These endurance ones. I still think, for me, the toughest tournament I've ever been in was Pimberg. It was insane. Did you make the playoffs? Well, everyone makes the playoffs. No, everyone makes day two, and you're either in A, B, C, but then if you're top 40, you would make the playoffs after that day two. No. Okay. I think the first Pimberg I finished 70th or something. That's good. Yeah. And second one, I was just, you know, I was too drunk, hungover. So I didn't do so well. The writing was on the wall. You saw the end of your pinball competition career. Correct. That's exactly right. The toughest tournament I've been in, definitely the 24-hour at the Sanctum, was a novelty. it was painful more so the days after as opposed to during. It was fine if you kept playing. It was, you know, the top, because a lot of tournaments, especially match play, will use Swiss, which means you're playing, like if you win your game, you're playing against people that won the last game. If you lost your game, you're playing against people who lose. So as the tournament goes on, you've got these powerhouse groups at the top, and they're usually the last ones to play. so I'm not one of those people. So there's a lot of waiting for that top group to be done, and the waiting was the hard part. You know, just go, go, go. I remember Joe Lemaire and I just doing dollar games, and I did it not to make money or lose money. I did it more to keep awake. Well, look, I look forward to seeing all the stuff that comes out from the IFPA. Did you meet Simon Peel? Definitely, a couple times. Yeah, so he'll be there.
    60:47
    Lambeau, Jason Lambert, they're the people that have been put down. So two fantastic guys, two fantastic players. I hope they do Australia proud like Voyager are doing in Eurovision. Just FYI. So there's that. Have we covered everything? You want a short show, don't you? You do. I do want to. I said let's do a 15-minute show. It's, yeah, it's enough. It's good enough. And the nice thing is Marty's producing it, so there's a good chance it'll be out in time. and hopefully before I head off to Germany. Yeah, well, genuinely good luck. I hope you do well. I hope I don't see you in the commentator's booth.
    61:27
    I'm already booked to do it the first day. The first day of the European Pinball Championship, you have slots, so I'm not playing the first day. I'm in the booth. Okay, well, that's okay. Too bad. As long as you're in the booth because you're not kicked out. I'm okay with that. Don't hold your breath there, buddy. Okay, fair enough. 69's in the books. Ah yes Where can people reach us? They can reach us at Twitter at Final Round Pin I think Final Round Pinball Podcast on Instagram FinalRoundPinball at gmail.com if you want to email us Did we get any emails? Oh yes we did actually We should read them Michael Rausch told us He recommended the TV show Peacemaker it's really funny it's boys like it's john have you seen it oh i loved it i'd watch it again i'd watch again it was fantastic you have to watch it okay so he said it's a superhero one but it's funny as hell okay so he said i know you both like the boys and i know at least jeff likes still panther so i hope you are watching peacemaker okay i will have to do that yeah it's pretty good that's about it for emails our listeners much like us have been slacking off There is actually another email from a friend of the show, Glenn Wachter. Okay, well, here's the scenario. So put your TD hat on. So this person was playing Alien Poker, had only one drop target remaining to collect his 400K point shot. On ball three, he hits the target and drains, but tilts the machine before it gives him the points. What's the ruling? You tilted, you do not get the points. That game is specifically designed to award points much after the fact. every player who plays Alien Poker knows don't tilt after you get your jackpot he does not get the points and that was my response sorry I said I would say the points don't count until they are on the screen if you tilt before they are registered then they don't count it's tilting bonus yeah exact same thing Alien Poker is a game that is at District 82 and I've seen people do that in tournaments and like, oh, you got to wait, you got to wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there you go. It's a slow counter. Yep, there you go. So glad we got to that email. Okay, now we're done. Now we're done. Thanks, everybody. Go Australia.
    63:58
    Go Croatia. No, honestly, everybody, really. Croatia, Eurovision 2023. You will thank me later. Marty, have a good one. Talk to you soon. Thanks, mate. Bye. Bye, everyone. you