Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. This week on the Pinball Show, Dennis and I spark up some top-tier discussion and debate as we present updates to the Stern Pinball production schedule, new Stern Cornerstone game release and production timeline, a premonition on a future Stern Pinball remake, the forum controversy surrounding Godzilla's 70th black and white games, American Pinball delaying their next title, a most informative presentation by Professor Zach titled Intro to Marketing and Sales from a Psychological Perspective. We also discuss other news around the pen industry as well as pinball market trends. Official Pinball Show Club members this week are in for a treat. It's a new edition of Lifestyle Market Trends and one in particular downward trend that Dennis Creasel believes will have listeners yelling and screaming and writing in it. Sorry people, I'm just here to report the facts. This is the Pinball Show, episode 159, where Dennis says keep your emotion at the pressurized door while I say wear that emotion right on your sleeve. 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. Hey, Dennis, guess what? It's the Pinball Show, episode 159, and I am, how do they say, rearing to go. Are you? Is it rearing to go or rearing to go? What is it? You know, it probably depends whether or not you live in Oklahoma. Rearing to go. I've always said rearing. Rearing, like my steak, rare. Yeehaw! How's your week been? It's been good. Yeah? Well, I've been pretty busy, but I doubt as busy as Craig Bobby's surely been for this episode. Well, speaking of, I'm glad you mentioned those CP. You know what? The industry's changing. Times are changing. Oh, no. Something with the Rolling Stone and Moss. Is the table out to pasture? No, we're not pulling in cheap Ikea stuff yet. No, no, no, no. That's good because I don't want to put it together. The crooks and barbers. No, so things are changing. Craig is an evolution He's ever morphing Mutating some would even say Into something else Here in the future On the pinball show So stay tuned For the next iteration Of Craig Bobby And the pinball show Some really exciting stuff He's been pitching lately And I think here very soon We're going to see him reemerge From the Canadian wilderness as the syrup-sucking pinball enthusiast that we all love so much. So in the meantime, let's jump into the top stories of this week, such as Stern Pinball's production schedule. Oh, this one I'm sure is very exciting for me. We'll get to that. Yes, yes we will. But first, the last couple of weeks they have been building additional Godzilla 70s. I believe they are sold out now. They're done. I don't know when they're building them again. I would guess 2025. I still would guess some color additions prior to 2025, but nonetheless, they are saying 2025 for that too. John Wick Pros were on the line this last week. They were making some of those. We got some of those. And this week, I think it's going to be that small limited run of Mandalorian Pro and Premium. And also, I believe, this week, they will be starting on the line their next cornerstone game. That is their third 2024 cornerstone game for Stern Pinball. However, yes. Stern. Let me get my ear real close to the speaker here. Go on. So, Stern may have let me down. What? My analysis may have been a bit askew. A bit of the, what's that farm? What's that farm-based? Oh, yeah, bullshit. Okay. I thought it was just wrong. Wrong. No, I may have been wrong. Maybe I overshot. Maybe I overshot. Man, you know what? I don't know what the hell they've been building this month, But it looks... That small limited run of Mando Pro and Premium. The Godzilla 70th. You know, everything you've been saying they've been building all month, they've been building. Thank you, Ray Day. Thank you, Elwynn. So there's a good chance that I've been wrong on my prediction that we will see and have a reveal of the game, the Stern's next game here in August. We're down to our last week here. And frankly, I don't see it. Now, I could still be wrong. Possibly. Possibly Friday falls on the 30th, which is – but at that point, Samantha, do you call that a launch? I mean, it would still be August. I mean, I would say you were right and I was wrong if they do it on the 30th. Or even on Saturday. They could do the 31st. They won't do Saturday. Well, I think doing a Friday is weird. Don't they normally do Tuesdays? they usually do Tuesdays. I'm saying, what if it's just a teaser? Like a John Wick, like, it's John Wick and I am back. Is that a launch? I don't think so. Oh. I don't think it is. I don't know how to answer that. I'll leave that to you. I don't know how to answer that. Because I didn't think about the teaser trailer where you don't even see the game. Well, that doesn't seem like a reveal. Exactly. They're revealing what the game maybe is. But, you know, there's a difference between teasing me. And given me it all. Because under that logic, we'd be saying, like, before we saw any photos of the Alice in Wonderland game, that DPX had revealed Alice in Wonderland. Exactly. No, they just said they had the license. And they launched some picture, you know, so yeah. So it looks like I'm wrong, ladies and gentlemen. There it is. How about that? Well, I had to call in, like, every favor at Stern. You were really pulling some strings. I'm just like, I felt, and I really did feel bad about it. How many dinners do you owe people over there now? Because I don't know, because I'm going to probably have to buy some dinners. That's why I can't show my face in Chicago ever again. You know how many people I owe casserole deep dish pizzas? Because, I mean, it was the same thing with Jaws where I was like, we need to stall out this reveal. And they did. But, of course, the reason why I'm saying this is not because I want to be right and you wrong, although I do love being right. It's that these are the objectively right answers for them as a company. there's really no point in revealing at the end of august if the game wasn't going to be in the hands of anyone in august i do still think there's a large likelihood that towards the end of this week they will start the production of pros in preparation you know honestly i was a and i guess uh i have no basis on it i would have thought they would have already been starting them before now and maybe they have but because it's always looked good for them when they are able to immediately start shipping out some of those products. And hell, they might have cabinets. They're already prepping. Maybe the playfields aren't on the line yet, but they could be in that process right as we speak. So as we look at September itself, we're going to have that third 2024 Stern Cornerstone game. Likely the pro and premium models will be built in September. The majority of September will be that. In late September, they are going to run. Actually, I think it's early September. Early mid-September, they're going to do some Rush Pro and Premiums as well. So they'll have those on the line too. And then in October 2024, we will likely see that new Cornerstone, the Premium model, start in early to mid-October, if I had to guess. And then Jurassic Park Pros are already also slated to be built in October. hopefully by the next Pinball Show episode. We'll have some updates as to what else will be built in October as well as November and finishing out the year of 2024 in December. Yes. CERN Pinball accessory production updates. We're still waiting for Venom accessories, John Wick accessories and the launch of Godzilla 70th. I thought they were going to be faster about these accessories nearer to launch. No, I've heard Q4 for Godzilla 70th. So I'm less concerned about that one, though. Like, I'm surprised about the Venom accessories. They're a V1.02. Like, the game is pretty much done. So I don't get that. Where's my splat rod? There was some discussion like, hey, if it really wasn't that great of a seller, then maybe they don't do accessories. And I don't believe that to be true. It doesn't make sense. I mean, but was it that bad? I mean, they've done accessories on other games that didn't do great. Yeah, we sold a lot of Venom. Sold a lot of John Wicks. Again, it's all relative people. They still sold a hell of a lot more than the majority of other manufactured games. But we're still waiting on that stuff. Speaking of accessories, Flip N Out Pinball just added the following back in stock. Stern Expression Speaker Lighting Kits and a whole slew of those things for your pro and premium style speakers. I was listening to the latest Triple Drain this morning. Didn't get all the way through it yet. But Joel was like really fishing to get some free kits or something. Yeah, he wants him some kit. He's got some on order, but he's got the LE style speaker, so he's waiting. Yeah, that's why he's been stuck waiting because he's like, I guess they're an inch larger or something. Yeah, like that's a whole thing. Technically, I think these work in there, but it looks better on the ones that are going to come out. But regardless, those things have been selling very well, too. Usually every day we sell one to multiple sets of Stern Expression Speaker Lighting Kits. There's also Black Knight toppers. They produce some more of those. I've already sold a lot of them. I only have one left again. And then Jaws toppers. We got some more Jaws toppers. And those things, for all the crap that they got, boy, oh, boy, sold more Jaws toppers. That's probably a top three topper seller for us thus far. It's been really big. Hey, Dennis. What? This isn't a riddle. But you know what's five years old and likes dancing to disco? I want to start a joke about DiCaprio's new girlfriend, but I don't think that's what you're looking for. What is it about people digging on my boy Leo? My wife's always digging on him. She's like, oh, what little teenager he got now. Look at that guy. What does he do wrong? He is not hurting anyone. Damn. He's got money, he's got boats, and he's got dad bod love. Like, the guy's in his 40s. Leave him alone. I want to party with you, Leo. Okay. No, what's older than five years? No, what's over five years old? This is off the rails. I'm sorry I mentioned it. The last new edition that we received of Batman 66, Pencil Machine. Oh, wow. I guess it has been quite a while. It was the first Spike 2. So, yeah, over five years old is the very last edition they did, which I believe was that Catwoman Premium Edition. It's like they re-upped the license. But they went back after that and did another run of the original premiums. Nonetheless, the reason I'm bringing that up is, man, there's just something in the air. I've been feeling something again. Maybe it doesn't happen in August. All right. Yeah, probably not. But I think within the next year, we are going to see, mark my word, not only maybe another run of Batman 66 premiums. I think there's a large likelihood we may see an anniversary premium edition or a special premium edition coming of Batman 66. Please, no. Oh, it's perfect. It's ripe. Stern. It's ripe. Stern, why are you doing this so much? Because they're awesome. Do you all really not know how to deal with the downturn in pinball? But they're so awesome. And this is the only thing. Let's just re-art scheme everything and hope that it'll... Is there enough demand for that game? God, it's a long player. I don't love Batman 66. I'm going to say it. I know a lot of people do. They love it. And it's got a ton of depth. And it's beautiful. People like to play it. Yeah, but I don't know something about it. I think it just plays too long. I cannot really enjoy it. I do not get into that game whatsoever. But it is one of those capstone classic certain titles for people. They have to work out the thing with the kapows. Was Batman 66 the TV series? I know a lot of it was in color. Was any of it in black and white? No. None of it? I don't believe so. I think it was all in color. Okay. That's making sense. But hey, don't let that stop you, Stern. when has it before they all and you know what it'll have red accents it'll have foil decals i'm sorry the approach is so paint by number now oh shiny that's what i want for my batman remember the sle and the le had that i'm just saying i don't know just uh premonition here just just feeling a little something sad i was listening to the loser kid pinball podcast hello loser kids love you guys over there and they were saying that they're hearing that the upcoming Metallica remake thingy, when it will be, who knows, but, you know, is going to be offered as a premium-only model. Huh. When I first heard that, I thought, no, that doesn't make any sense. Because Metallica Pro is where it was at, right? Why would they just do a premium? It's one of those where I think that the Pro is a really good experience and a lot of people I think were very happy. It wasn't like a hard pick. Yeah, you're not losing a lot of them. I like both, but the pro's fine. Yeah. So, they said that and it... I don't know. And what does that say? Does that say that... Because, I mean, whenever they did these special anniversary editions of whether it's the latest Godzilla 70th or... Those are premium only it's not like they're doing that to the pro brian um well i here's what i i'm gonna say you're gonna disagree with this but here's what i'm gonna say you're wrong no no i i could see them only doing the premiums but i think the motivation for it would be that uh they want to consolidate the sales on it especially if they don't think this is going to fly off the shelf okay i will i will add to that then and i would say that while i don't believe it to be true that they're bringing back just a premium model if in fact they do uh to add to what you're saying i think it will be just merely another run a refresh rather than its own kind of new style of game so uh well what what have you been thinking like if the if the metallica rumor is true what have you been thinking because i have been thinking that it would be exactly the same game but with a different display. And so different animations and stuff, but the same rules, the same layout, the same toys. I was thinking it was going to be the soft entrance to a Spike 3 system where it may be the same layout-ish. Maybe some tweaking, all new artwork, LCD integration, and then some of the toys may be refreshed. So essentially still a new game. That's why I thought it would be the entrance into Spike 3, giving them a warm-up for a full-blown standalone game from their new operating system. So I thought it was going to be like the in-between kind of thing there. So premium only doesn't make sense to that, though. I don't understand doing an in-between. I understand doing a completely different Metallica game, and I understand vaulting. I don't understand an in-between. That's a very, like, who is that supposed to appeal to? If you make a single change that's inferior, the new version becomes the sucky version. But by doing a halfsy thing, are you really distinguishing it enough for people to want to buy it? Honestly, I think doing a Metallica that if I were them and I was doing a Metallica, I want it to be a wholly new game. I think that changing the entirety of the artwork and adding all new LCD integration, those two in and of themselves are enough to make lovers of that game think this is pretty significantly different it's got insider connected now like this is pretty different i i don't think it's different enough to it for it to be a big hit i think there will be people who would buy it but they made a lot of metallicas and that's where i get to the whole the whole godzilla 70th what's the biggest problem with godzilla 70th everyone already owns godzilla so why buy it and they still sold a shitload. I'm sure they sold a decent amount. They sold a lot. And that's just in the first couple of months here. Yeah, so we'll see. I don't know. Speaking of Godzilla 70, there has been a little bit of controversy over on the forums, the pinball forums, about these premium games from Stern Pinball. Godzilla 70, some buyers are saying that the translight lighting, So the back glass lighting, the temperature of those bulbs is making the artwork on that trans light a little bit warmer than they would like compared to the play field lighting. So they're calling it sepia gate, which is pretty clever. I'll give them that. And so I don't know if you're aware, Dennis, but for the listener that may not be, what lights that trans light on a Stern game or a back glass for LEs is there are LED lights embedded into the actual CPU or the driver board or whatever of the game. So it's not like an LED strip back there. It's not a ballast and a fluorescent tube like in years past. None of that. or the Bally Williams day where you have an actual whole wooden plate of bulbs that is in front of and hinges out to show the board sets behind. So it's about, I don't know, 10 or so LEDs embedded onto the CPU themselves. They're saying that those LEDs are warmer than they're supposed to be or warmer than they would like them to be, rendering that artwork on the Translight a little bit warmer than the black and white tone of the play field. All right. So I'm assuming these embedded LEDs are single color, like they're not RGB. Correct. Correct. So therein lies the problem. And some of the pictures I will say, yes, it does look different. It's tough to take a picture because you don't know. But people are saying in person it's more yellowish, whereas it's pretty Zac Stark cooler black and white on the play field, which I would have concern with too. The issue is that you can't just change an LED bulb. I just know from repair stuff as a dealer, if somebody's lighting goes out in their backbox, you have to swap out the whole CPU, which is not efficient at all. So people are calling for warranties to replace the entirety of the CPU just because of the coloring temperature on the bulbs. But do they have a – are all the CPUs the same color temperature? There's going to be some variation they've found as people are now going back and looking. But I mean it's not like Stern for different games gets different CPUs, right, with different colors. It's always sort of a quote-unquote white. Yes, correct. And this is just what met their QC standard. Yeah, as they were over in China, they were just making these CPUs. So some people are saying theirs is okay, and other people are saying, no, mine's warmer than this other. Okay, so there's a discrepancy is what the argument is. Mixtures, yes. And then, so the issue was people were like, well, you know, I'm submitting it for warranty. I want a cooler one. And then I think that Kerry Hardy reached out to George Gomez, and George Gomez then said something like, yeah, we're going to swap those from warranty. But now they're saying that they've got enough back in warranty. They're going to try to figure out the problem and issue a solution. So give them some time and they'll come back. So it's a bit of a mess. But my thought was like, couldn't this just be fixed with either like some stage lighting lens or photography lenses, like adding a blue film in front of those LEDs or something just to cool it down? I don't know if you have to replace the whole CPU on something like this. Wouldn't that be a fix? Maybe. Maybe. How many lights are there? There's like a little row of five and a little row of five. I haven't really looked at mine to see what the lights look like. Is it easy to put little bulb condoms on them? They might be too small for that. I don't know. Swapping the CPU isn't a hard task on these new systems, is it? No, it's not hard to do, but it's expensive. So it might be just the easiest kind of idiot-proof way to do it. You know how pricey that would be? Well, it's not like the CPUs they get back are bad. they can just throw those into some other game that wants warmer lighting. That's my recommendation to people who have the issue and they have 10 other sterns sitting beside it. It's like, guys, just swap out the same CPU for one that looks cooler. That would be what I would try. If I was like, my Godzilla is too warm, well, let me just swap the CPU with Deadpool. Yeah, just swap it. I mean, I'd do that first just because I wouldn't want to wait. My other thought is in the settings, you can turn those LEDs off just to get like a 12 or whatever it runs off of. Just get an LED strip, 3D print, and mount it in the backbox. No one wants to go to that much trouble for a premium new mod. If someone's selling a mod, I think people would buy those. I think after paying that much money, they don't think they should have to buy a mod to get the backbox right. I totally get the argument. I'm saying if I'm a consumer and I want a – Why are you just trying to stop people from doing warranty swaps with you? No, that's fine. We've already submitted a lot of them, so we're good with that. All right. I'm just trying to find – You're kind of a little mule-ing here. Well, I'm just a jaded pinball collector, though. I was talking to Greg about this. I should care more about what I get if there's stuff wrong. I should care more. I just don't. I probably would never have noticed personally I always like yeah okay Is there i like is there a 12 mod all right i just i want it now let fix it not a big deal um so yeah that the other controversy is that some people are upset that the cabinet foils on those godzilla 70th are uh metallic right so they're like a thicker foil uh and they're really nice looking but there's like it's bubbling around the hardware and around the bolts or it's rippling. If the, the, the bolt turned and production and it ripples with the foil, it's not like the foil rips, but it like it warps or skews a little bit, show some wrinkles and a little bit. So people are wanting some cabinet decals and same kind of thing for me. Listener. I'm like, okay. I, on some of them, I get it. All right. But there's not an easy solution there. And the other part of me is like, it's weird that, For me, it's weird being in pinball as long as I have now, seeing issues with something like a foil decal on a cabinet. I've seen this type of thing bubbling or rippling around a bolt. I've seen it for fucking 12 years. I've seen it back to the Iron Man vault. It's the same shit. I see these imperfections on every one of the cabinets. Why is it a thing now? It's the pricing. People want a luxury good at these prices. Well, in the past, they were all on mostly LEs, these type of foil things. But it was a different era. Yeah. So that's what's odd to me because I'm like, well, Newsflash, I've seen James Bond, what was it, 70th anniversary? I had seen those expensive games with these things. And here's the issue. Sure, you can be more meticulous and hep kind of stuff on these cabinets. This is a mass manufacturing company. They're just not going to do that. If you want foil cabinet decals, this is how it's going to be. If you don't want these little ripples and stuff, then they'll stop putting them in games. They're not going to take more time. I hate to tell you guys. But the thing is, with this type of material, the thickness of this material, guys, that's what they do. Right now, Dennis, if you went to your Iron Man vault, look around every black bolt on that cabinet vault or where the coin door is or the housing in the shooter rod. See if this – I could almost put money on that is bubbling or rippling. It's just what these thick cabinet decals do. That's my – I'm not saying it's – I'm just saying. I just can't be bothered to check. No, no, no. I'm not expecting you to. I don't care. But I can go out to all my alleys. If there's an Iron Maiden – my Iron Maiden alley had it. Every one of my damn things has it. It's just the type of material that they use. Not to say you shouldn't get a replacement. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying. I would go to, if you have another Stern Spike 2, I would swap the decals with the other game. That's the hard part, is what do you do? We have customers wanting to get some decals, and they were like, well, how are we going to change the decals? I'm like, your guess is as good as mine. We're going to have a restoration person come in and sand down that? No, that's not going to. We offered them a full refund on the game if they would like, because that makes more sense as a business than hiring somebody to come in and redo an entire cabinet. Or I told the guy, I was like, I could send you a brand new game. The problem is the likelihood of that having the same thing. It's probably pretty high. It's a foil cabinet decal conundrum that we all are in. You know what I say? Enjoy your game. It's pretty. There's new code. Did you enjoy new code on Jaws v. .94? I haven't played the new code on Jaws, so no. I have not enjoyed it. I've not played this new mode, but people are raving about this thing. They do. Have you heard good things? I've only heard good things. I have heard great things about this new thing called Jaws the Revenge. It's like a challenge mode, which is available through the game mode menu as an option to play. If you're logged into Insider Connected and you've got enough shark teeth to play it, I don't know how many shark teeth you need, but you take your revenge on the bounty hunters that are trying to hunt you in this 8-bit inspired challenge mode. So think the UI on Deadpool, the pinball machine. So you've got that Nintendo-esque graphics, graphics and it's basically almost like a video mode but you're playing the game and the video mode's responding uh up ahead so there's like different phases and levels but essentially you're trying to kill people you're trying to eat people dennis as the shark you're playing the shark that's cool and it's like a lane system thing so like if you see if uh what's that missile command or something like you hit the left lane that's if there's a person over the left he eats that person. Then you hit the action bar because you've got to chomp them a couple times to get the person down your gullet. It looks pretty awesome. So there's different phases, different levels. And then coming soon is once the shark bounty value reaches $10,000, just like on the film, Quint, you ask for $10,000 to get that damn shark, Quint and the orca will be dispatched to come after you for the final boss battle. That's awesome. So download it now or go to your favorite establishment and play Jaws Pinball, Jaws the Revenge, mini-mode, challenge mode. Also new code for Venom V1.02, where they unlocked the Venomized Wolverine for everybody from August 16th through September 6th to celebrate the success of Deadpool and Wolverine the film. Other tweaks and adjustments to that. And if you want additional content, right now on the Flip N Out Pinball YouTube channel, there are new tutorials by Joel Engelberth. He did a tutorial on Stranger Things, and Iron Maiden Pinball. Go check them out. Last episode, Dennis, we gave a nice, juicy, members-only, subscriber pinball show club membership content, exclusive content. And it was so good that we saw many new club members added, even some manufacturers in there. Welcome aboard. But I wanted to, you know, to tease people Because we gave basically a tentative scheduling outline over the next year as to kind of what manufacturers are going to be releasing games, when, what might they be. And what I thought was fun, without giving too much detail, you have to go to sign up to patreon.com slash the pinball show if you want more details of this. But we kind of outlined, and pretty much every month we'd seen at least one new pinball machine released, didn't we? if we were hypothesizing correctly. It's always tentative. Right. Well, it's hypothesizing. Yes. But even like September, maybe JJP coming in September, October a couple of games, November we might see a game, maybe it's a Stern release, December maybe a Spooky release, what that might be, January comes along, February you don't think games are going to come out. Yeah. See games then and even in March, a little log jam in March, even April, May, you name it. Yeah, you're going to want to go over and check that out. That's pretty cool. And I think we're not going to be far off, actually. I mean, I'm doing better than you, but... Man. Thank you, Next Cornerstone. I'm going to rub it in. I'm just saying. I feel really bad that I screw this and we're dropping it Monday. Like, oh. I'll rejoice. Hopefully my Spike 3 predictions will come to fruition. We'll see. Speaking of releases, American Pinball, after our last episode, Nap Arcade reporting that AP is going to be pushing back the launch of their next game, Past Expo, in efforts to not be logjammed by other manufacturers' titles. Yeah, I read that. Yeah, so the rumored Cuphead is what people think that they have over at American Pinball. They're saying that, nah, too much coming out from now till Expo. So we're going to push it back some. But I think we'd still see it before March. So maybe they're trying to land in December. But December is usually spooky. Do you think this is a good decision, bad decision? What is this all about? I don't know whether or not. I guess it's a question of is it so much about being log jammed or is there maybe like if the rules aren't as fleshed out yet? Like that could be a if that's the case, then I think it definitely is a smart decision. You don't want to take it to a show with with really basic code where even a halfway decent player is going to all of a sudden get to the end of it being able to do anything because it just doesn't click well that way. So so overall, I'm going to speculate that there's probably more to it than the log jamming. and I'm thus going to say I do think this is probably a good decision for them. The thing is for AP that they do definitely need to get it to a show because while I'm going to tip my hat and say Cuphead is a licensed theme and I'm glad that they would be doing a licensed theme, it's not one that a lot of pinball people are going to connect to. It's a new game. The video game is a newer product. There's not nostalgia for it. It's very hard and it is a very niche category of video games. So they need to get the pinball machine in front of people. There's not going to be a lot of people in my mind that are going to spend the money for a pinball machine because they happen to enjoy the video game Cuphead. And I know that AP has been calling barbecue restaurants around the world trying to sell burritos. I know that. I've already explained why that doesn't even make sense. I live in the heart of barbecue country. The way those stores are set up, the demand would be very limited. That space is for tables because the turn rate on barbecue is fast, and that's how they make all their money. A pizzeria where people are hanging out and you don't have these massive queues can make sense for having a little nook where you'll stick pinball machines in. It does not work for barbecue. This last week, AP had been advertising Hot Wheels to car dealerships around the country to put in their waiting rooms. I don't know if you saw those, to put in their waiting rooms. I hadn't, but you see, that makes more sense to me than the barbecue. They have plenty of space in a dealership to have games. Yeah, but the Hot Wheels is – But how many people go into a car dealership and are stuck waiting around and are playing pinball? That's the second part of the equation that doesn't work for me. Usually those salespeople swoop in and are like, what is it going to take to get you in one of these babies? And they smack the hood. And they were trying to sell it as like selling it to dealerships saying the cars on the lot that you're trying to sell, you can have representations of those cars in the actual Hot Wheels game. You just swap them out for that Chevy Suburban. So, okay. It's still more of a Hot Wheels title than a car title. Well, yeah, Hot Wheels, I mean, most of them aren't. Hey, look, do you want to take the Land Rover up through the loop-de-loop? Orange loop-de-loop we have out back. Dragon Mobile. That's not how it works. Squid Mobile. Williams Corvette at a Chevy dealer. Yeah, that makes sense. I think if it is Cuphead, they need to go on a video game convention tour and just take that thing to every video game convention known to man. Oh, I mean, there's lots of things from getting, obviously, to video game industry events to maybe just having it there in the hallways of Games Done Quick in January if it's out by then. That's a big speed running convention. So people are there to speed run, but they will know Cuphead. And just there's thousands of people who attend that, and some of them are big-time streamers and maybe have the money from their subs and stuff to be able to actually buy a pinball machine. Yeah, so I think overall it's a good decision if they are in fact doing it because of code development. The head scratcher is if it is just logjaminess, my thought is, like it's weird that david fix is so enmeshed into the chicago expo and for him to run a company like american pinball not have their new title out there man something significant uh i think would prevent fixie from having it there and the other thing being like if it's a log jam thing we're predicting that jjp comes out with their game prior to expo like right a month prior we're predicting stern almost two months prior like i what's log jamming alice and wonder gives a shit it does nothing compared to what american pinball would like to sell of their titles that's where i that's where i've been like i'm not i haven't heard anything that if i were ap that i would be quote unquote scared to everything will be all the next by then so it actually would make sense to come to expo and boom there you go especially a game that maybe not as hyped up as a larger manufacturer game. So, I mean, if it is a code thing, I get it. If not, then I don't know. I don't know. And weirdly enough, this whole theme of Cuphead is really warming up to me. I don't know why. Have you played it? Played the video? Yes. I've played the video game, and I think stylistically I'm just in love with that style. Well, and that's what most people who like, I mean, honestly, that's the biggest appeal to Cuphead. That boss rush style, super hard gameplay format, a lot of gamers hate that format. And I mean, I stopped playing video games just very little after that style of play, that platforming kind of stuff. So it is kind of nostalgic to me, just the styling of it as a video game. And then you take in the visual illustration stuff. It's such a gorgeous piece of work as a property that it is hard not for me to just love that. So I'm kind of, I don't know, pretty warm on that, actually, if it's done right. If it's not done right, like there's a margin of error there that is slim. And if it's not done right, it is going to fall flat on its face, just like the slapstick comedy of animation of old. also involving American Pinball. After our last episode, listener, American Pinball launched their official trailer for Barry O's Barbecue Challenge Hot Sauce and Hot Rods. That's the whole name of it. Yes. What? What? What? Why do you? You love trailers, especially official ones. I do when the game comes out. Uh, what we had, um, look, I'm not trying to beat a dead pig here, Dennis. I don't know if you see what I did there, but I did. But look, the impetus of sales of new products such as new pinball machine. Typically these are done at our one of the launch of that product. True. Our one, not our 4,082. Do the math. It's, it's pretty close. Um, timing. Very weird here. I'm not going to beat up on them too much just because ultimately it's a title that I don't think matters. But very strange. I don't know why this happened. Do you think it's just like, hey, we should probably get around to making one of those? Or the person making it was like, guys, I'm just – this editing. This editing is more than I can handle. You turn them like a freshman in high school. Here's what I think, Zach. I think someone there probably said, you know what? This game isn't selling very well. oh wait we never had a trailer maybe if we put one out now it will help move units absolutely i think that's right so i i don't think it was so much that it necessarily fell behind but it's more of a is there anything we could possibly do to sell some of these things and it's like well we might as well try a trailer but why wasn't it made beforehand there i don't know the answer to that i mean it's maybe i know that they weren't they wanted to get it further along like when it I've heard it's not just the stock footage of roasting meats now. That's my favorite part. Maybe it was the code progression. It was so scary. It was creepy. Texas Chainsaw Massacre's animations were less scary than those creepy meats. You can work around. So this is like full transparency behind the curtain kind of stuff. We had to work around that a little bit on Spooky Pinball's last launch of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and of Looney Tunes, particularly of Looney Tunes when we were filming it. We knew that a lot of the cuts from the different classic cartoons were not approved for marketing the promotional materials. So we had to work around that. And a lot of that code was not completed yet, so we had to work around that. So it is a bit of a setback, and you can't tell the story as much, but it can still be done. I would think I'd be hard-pressed to ever be in a situation where I said, you know what? We don't have enough of the UI, so let's – you just got to work on it. Well, and again, it wasn't – there's not – it's not licensed. It's not like Big Brisket came in and said that you're not allowed to use – Big Brisket business? Yeah, they're not allowed to use – you know, Big Brisket's going to clamp down on American Pinball and stop them from using their juicy, long-cooked, slow-roasted beef footage. Oh, my gosh. So I thought, you know what, this is going to be the final headliner of this pinball show episode 159. I want to invite people to have a seat. If you're sitting already, then thank you for listening. But have a seat as Professor Zach provides for our listeners an intro class to marketing and sales. class if i could have your attention um i'm not here to preach i'm just here to educate you should have said teach it would have rhymed i could have then this is our the ta for this class you should have said to teach this editing man i'm in the wrong class i hope big brisket doesn't find out about us all right so i thought it would be nice to give you know an educational session here and i think uh people would like to hear this and manufacturers out there probably know all of this already they know much more than me i assure you i'm just a simpleton here behind a microphone and a salesman and a marketer and a producer whatever i'm here as professor zach talking to you today and many of you might ask you know what sells a new pinball machine at launch if we take away the title itself, because Harry Potter in and of itself, that sells a pinball machine, Jurassic Park, that sells a pinball machine, Star Wars sells by itself. But if we take that away, if we take the title away and all that, what sells a new product, a new pinball machine at launch? Well, the first impression is what sells it the best. It's likely the most pivotal moment of sales or general level of interest. The first impression. Socially, it's the same way for a lot of you. When your first impression, it really does stick. And you can build a bad first impression and then really work through, you know what? They were an okay guy. But it takes a while compared to if your first impression was just great of that person. Most of you would say, you know, it matters what the game looks like, the first impression, or what toys and mechs are in it, what the layout looks like, who designed it, All of these very much true. But keep in mind, student, that when you see a new product for the first time, it's typically not in Viva. It's not in person. You're not standing over it at a convention, generally speaking, right there in front. You're not. So how do you usually see it? TA, how do you usually see a brand new pinball machine product? Online. Exactly. You see it through things such as promotional materials that come out. That is the very first time you see it. You see it two-dimensionally. In class, you might want to take some notes here. So what promotional materials are we talking about? Well, it is my opinion as a professor and expert in this topic that the sizzle or trailer, as we call it, the trailer feature and pictures in general are the greatest sales potentiators. That is, those are going to stir up the biggest amount of sales for you. the sizzle trailer and general pictures, detailed pictures of the game. Then textual information about the game. That is just the data. Who's designing it? How many coils it's got? How many flippers? How many ramps? How many units are produced? When it's been just data, textual data. And maybe a featurette piece in there. Maybe even some gameplay video. But I will say there is some caution that should be exercised when applying gameplay videos, whether it's a stream or pre-recorded gameplay video. We'll talk about that soon. So you've got those promotional materials. That's what's selling a product. You also have just general terms and conditions. So people want to know, well, how soon is the consumer, can they receive the product? Or what's the reputation of the manufacturer? That's going to kind of weigh into, even if I love this, you know, when am I going to get it? Is there going to be a non-refundable deposit? Is there any perceptions of exclusivity, rarity, or limited time of a purchasing window? All of that goes into it. But first and foremost, that first impression is the sizzle and trailer as well as pictures. And then you've got some gameplay videos, maybe a feature ad, textual information, that kind of stuff. Terms and conditions, then follow that. So if you're in a hobby, student, then by default, you are a consumer of the output of that hobby or industry's products, right? Just by default alone, if you are in said hobby, then whatever is produced in that hobby, you are going to be a consumer of. Some of you are saying, well, that's bullshit. I don't see, and I'm a cool professor, so I can curse like that. That's bullshit. I don't buy every game even if I like it. No, not necessarily a sale. Ultimately, that's the manufacturer, the distributor, the salespeople's goals is a sale. But this consumption can come in the general form of interest. That counts too. Just interest. Thoughts about it. Your focus as a consumer on the product alone isn't of itself a form of consumption. Even your use of the product may be at the arcade or at a friend's house. Any use of the product at all is part of the consumption. It doesn't have to be. You don't have to purchase the whole thing. It all counts. Thus, maximizing that first impression is still the most efficient way to render sales, whether it is immediate sales or even future sales That first impression is important And it goes back to more psychology Learning something new cognitively speaking you forming the structure upon how your future interpretations of that concept will be perceived or will be used. In other words, the first time you see something, you are going to be sucked in because it is new and novel to you. So your brain is like, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. So it is sucking it all up and it is building nice neuronal foundation foundation and a little center for that in particular thing. And then you're going to modify and add to that over time. But learning something new is very important to how something sticks in your memory. So for pinball, this is done to the best effect by utilizing multiple modalities. Dennis, if you want to hand out those handouts on my desk to individuals here, different modalities, multiple modalities for doing this. We've got things that we're going to term general visual, detailed visual, movement presentation, and detailed movement, and then full consumption. But just general visual, right? These are the two-dimensional form, color, illustration. It's like the quick overall look. You see a flyer. You see a picture of the game. These pictures do a really good job of this, like a far shot of the cabinet of the pinball machine, overhead of the play field, and the back glass. Boom. Those three pictures alone, that is a general visual in this category. That is the first impression kind of material. Also, another subset of modality here is what I call detailed visual. This is more so the design, more complex form analysis. How does that general, how does that mechanism toy work? Where is it placed? How does it look? What size is it? How is it integrated into the theme? So you go from general visual of that, holy crap, that's a pretty pinball machine. That's a cool toy. to a detailed visual where you're looking at more detailed pictures. What size is that? How does that match up to the other things that I've seen in the past? What are the shot patterns? What does that ramp do? So you're looking at more detailed pics. That does a good job of this modality, detailed visual. Then we moved into another modality that we call movement presentation. This is a big one, people. Pinball is physical. Pinball is movement. pinball is auditory. So the movement presentation modality is not only a moving visual, which in and of itself, you're seeing instead of just a stagnant picture, you're seeing a ball move around, go up a ramp. You're seeing a drop target falling. You're seeing a spinner spinning. So you get all of that movement visual, but not only that, but also the introduction of audio into the consumer's first experience of the product. Holy shit. This, in my opinion, is why the sizzle slash trailer promotional video is paramount in the sales and overall success of a product. Pictures will be consumed repetitively for reference. That's why they are so important pictures. But the sizzle trailer that taps into more. That is visual movement. It's audio accompaniment. and if produced to an exceptional degree, it has the capacity to tap into emotion. And that, my friends, is the super jackpot of sales inception. This level, this movement presentation modality, this level is where you can pull people from the some interest side and even quite possibly some people from the no interest at all side, You can pull them into a great first impression or even more so a sale of a product. This is where I would put like a featurette piece as well. So you've got the sizzle and trailer definitely in movement presentations, like the hallmark of this category. But also I'd put featurette here too. I'd categorize it as well into this because it's a way, the featurette's a way to unearth a different classification of emotion. The trailer's just raw emotion, right? That sizzle reel, you just see the shots, you're seeing the music. It's just getting you hype, whereas the featurette can actually pull on a deeper relational type of emotion. Hearing the passion from the creators of a product is contagious. We all can attest to that. It will make you, the viewer, and me, the viewer, feel like we're more invested in the product, even if it's subconsciously. Like we're part of the team. We're emotionally invested, like, oh, that guy's cool. Oh, he's passionate. I can relate to that. I'm passionate about this. I'm passionate about pinball, that kind of thing. It also provides a way to inform the viewer in an auditory manner. We forget about that, which for many is a better source of learning, auditorily speaking, a better source of learning than just reading text. I know for myself, listening to a lecture such as this will stick in my head more so than if I just read this in a text form. That's why many of you are listening to a podcast right now or sitting in my classroom. Plus, unlike an auditory podcast, though, the featurette that we're talking about will compile and combine the auditory inflections of emotions, up and down of emotions, with the visual representations of emotions in the form of like smiles, facial gestures, surprise, so forth. So featurette is tapping into an emotion just like the sizzle, but a different type of emotion, all of which very much important to the ultimate conclusion of sales. the next modality is detailed movement this modality is where the potential consumer is finalizing their initial impression the initial impression are almost argued that it's it's almost done we're finalizing it they're they're looking further into the product details of how the game or how the machine works what's included etc so streams and or gameplay videos they do a good job of this that's where i'd put these uh into detailed movement modality However, there is subsequent risk associated with this modality and these forms of presentation, such as streams and gameplay videos. Some more risk is found in this stage as a clearer vision of the product is presented and the whole love at first sight emotion makes way to thought and more data analysis. It's not necessarily it's a bad thing. It's not like the love at first sight is like this rouge or anything. It's just we want to show you the good stuff first so that you come emotionally invested, then follows this detailed movement modality where you're like, okay, let me really break down and see what's going on with this product. It often can serve as just kind of a checkmark in this modality to finalize your decision to purchase, but very often the whole, quote, unquote, decision to purchase entity occurs in the previous stage. So ideally, you produce something so well-informed and interesting in the other modalities, that first impression, that they already make their, quote, decision to purchase. But sometimes, even if that is really good, the more analytical individuals will want to fall into the detailed movement. But they might do so a little bit looser if they like what they're seeing in that first impression. So they'll just checkmark this as, like, there's nothing egregious that's sticking out to me. So, again, first impression is so important. so that this is a looser checkmark in this detailed movement modality. Put in another way, like you're eating an ice cream cone. The first 10 licks of that ice cream cone on a hot day, oh my, it's heaven. It is heaven. Even if you're eating like pistachio like Dennis does, it's heaven. By the 50th lick, look, it's ice cream. It's still great. That 50th lick is great. But by then, the stomach is kind of becoming coated with dairy. Your fingers may be getting a little bit sticky. That freaking fly won't leave you alone while you're eating. I would argue that 10th lick is much more important if I'm trying to sell you ice cream than that 50th lick. That's the comparison here between modalities. And then from, if you take a step back, full consumption is the last modality. The above modalities comprise this full consumption. Plus, this full consumption also includes the detailed data found in text form that we were talking about. This is where like articles and reference pieces are provided. And they're very important because they're going to be consumed over and over as the data points when making a decision. So most people have already established a firm foundation of their impression at this point. And time and experience are going to help modify and adjust their interpretation of the product. But it's much more difficult, as I said earlier, much more difficult for them to significantly modify the structural foundation that they have built upon in later stages as time progresses. So overall, what I've presented here is a pretty specific explanation as to the importance regarding sales and new product launches and marketing as to why the sizzle reel, the trailer is paramount as well as pictures. If you're looking to add to sales and perception of your product that you painstakingly work years to produce, but you only have such little, little representative time to present it all for someone to consume and have an opinion of that may end up in your company lasting another year, another decade, another century. thank you ladies and gentlemen the quiz will be next thursday um if you fill out the the opinion sheet before you leave dennis is kind enough he'll be taking those uh this has been professor zach's intro class to marketing and sales make sure to sign up to next semester's more advanced topic of how to shill a motherfucker what do you think dennis what any of it makes sense right um no what none of it no it was fine yeah you just what do you disagree with well i most of it no i wouldn't say i disagree with a couple i guess a couple of points okay one and this is almost pedantic so i don't want to spend any real time on it but uh i disagree with your assertion that if you're in the hobby, then you are a consumer of the output by default. It really depends on what aspect of the hobby. Not everyone into pinball is paying attention to new releases. I just want to note that as a caveat. You are wrong. You can disagree, but you are wrong. They don't know any new games come out? They might, but that doesn't mean that they're going and pursuing and gaining that information. Nope. Just the knowledge alone is consumption. That's my argument. You could be someone that only focuses on trying to buy used products that you fix up and can exist in this hobby completely oblivious that Jaws exists. If you play Jaws in an arcade ever, you're consuming it. Sure, but not everyone in pinball goes and plays in arcades or collects and buys new stuff. I think if somebody's into this hobby and a new Jaws pinball game comes out, I think they'll look at a picture. I think that they'll see a picture on social media, and just seeing that picture and perceiving it in their brain cognitively is consumption. It's so reductive as to be pointless that you're even arguing it. I disagree, but I like the argument. But the other aspect of all your steps, which are very, very categorical, that you didn't that you didn't point out, though, that I think would fall in your full consumption category. But that is the test drive. My argument is there are a lot of people in this hobby that will not will not buy a game without playing it first. And your entire argument seems to be hinging on the idea that people buy without trying this stuff. This is a strong take, but I would argue that the foundation of the first impression is already so ingrained that their experience of first gameplay is heavily biased by their first impression to a point that it's embarrassing for us humans to even admit to. That, you know, it's such an individualized take. I can't say that you're wrong in thinking that. However, I'm going to more broadly categorize people into – there's more than two, but I'm going to say into two buckets. There's the bucket of people that for whatever monetarily, financially, wherever they are, that they're willing to take a gander and buy a game based off of just impressions. And then there's another category that will not purchase without the test drive, and the test drive is ultimately the defining factor. Everything else that you've talked about, the detailed movement, the great visuals, the presentation, all of that just determines whether or not they're going to actually go to the effort to try it. But once they try it, because they've not committed money, there's not – I don't think for a lot of those individuals, they don't have that mental – there's that whole buyer's remorse thing and the opposite of it where people, when they commit a hard and high sum of funding to something, refuse to see bad things in it. because they do not want to feel like an idiot. But if they've not made the buy yet, that emotional connection is much, much, much weaker. And I think for a lot of people, it's essentially non-existent. You got them to the showroom. They've tried Jaws. If Jaws doesn't work for them in that environment, they are more than willing to walk away at that point. I think subconsciously, they've kind of made the decision before they play. I disagree. I do think there's a category that is like that, but most of those people have made the order before they're even going to bother trying to play the game. Understood. My lecture is that regardless if this person still is making the decision once they put their hands on one, I think regardless, the first impression still is so significant. Even if they don't play for six months, that first impression is so significant to whether or not long-term they will buy, whether it affects the way they will experience that game in the future. That would be my argument. I think you're wrong. I think for the group that was going to buy, there's a group that will buy regardless if they've played it or not, and they made up their mind because they love the theme and they love the way the game looks. And then there are the people that are play-oriented, and ultimately all your marketing will ever do is get them interested in trying it. No, that's not the goal of marketing. There's no way that that's the only goal of marketing. I'm not saying it's the only goal, but this is not a tube of toothpaste. For a lot of people, this is significant money. And dealers like you lose sight of that. I think that you're interpreting humans as non-emotional beings. No, that is not. Nothing I've said has indicated that. You're saying that the sizzle reel is going to have more pull than the emotional impact of actually playing the product? You have lost your damn mind. They're on different timelines. You have lost your damn mind. The hands-on experience is more powerful than everything you bullet pointed. In my 201 session, people would have learned this. Now, I – But they have to get through your screen out course before they can hear from me. That's not how human cognition and emotion work. You have distilled it down way too much into the – I'm not trying to undersell the power of marketing, but the idea of trying – There's a reason why dealerships for cars so desperately want you to test drive the vehicles because nothing sells more than actually enjoying the product. That's different than playing a pinball machine. No, it is not. Bullshit. Stepping on a gas is a lot different than understanding the concepts of a rule set of a pinball machine in the right environment. That's not even close. Remember, it's about how it shoots. It's about how it plays. This is why so many people will point out when you go to shows, what's the biggest gripe about the test drive at the show? You can't hear the game, and you miss the audio experience and that part of the immersion. But watching a video is not immersive. You must play to have immersion, and immersion is, I think, the most powerful emotional sales point for a lot of people. There are those that will succumb to all the things you've mentioned. I'm not dismissing that, but a lot of those people, it's all about that you had them halfway on the theme. Yeah, that's why I said keep them, because ultimately that's a big one. But I think it's important, because if you take a game like Barbecue Challenge, honestly, I don't care how good your sizzle reels and such were. That game was going to have to be played to get sales because we all know that the real emotion is the theme and only the theme. I disagree. I think a significant amount of sales would have occurred if presented initially in a different way. But I think we have to ask the listeners. Who do they agree? Are we both wrong? Maybe we're both wrong. My other argument would be is that the reason that we have a pinball industry is that games sell, right? We can both agree on that. If games didn't sell, okay. Well, then the sales are very, very important. Sales are very, very important and how to come to those sales. So I think discussions like this are important and very interesting whether, yeah, like you said, we're both right, we're both wrong. One of us is right. Well, I'm going to take it a step further than I'm going to argue. Part of the, maybe even arguably, the biggest reason why Stern Pinball is the most successful pinball company is because it is the easiest to get that hands-on test drive experience with the Stern. I can see that argument. I would say it's multifaceted, such as production abilities and stuff. I mean reductive, but I think the listener understands my point. And that's why I did put in the whole terms and conditions, how quickly they'll get the product. Like that is a huge – people will take a flyer on buying a Stern because they know they'll have it in two weeks. Sure. I don't disagree with your steps, but I think you're ignoring of the importance of – for so many, not everyone, but for so many to actually try before you buy. I know plenty of collectors that say they will not buy a new game without playing it first no matter what, no matter how FOMO you try and do it. And that became important during the pandemic. You want it to be that. It's just not. It's just not. where do the most sales come from does the most sales come from the first fucking week in and of itself that argument is moot because it comes from the aspect that you also said we're not supposed to consider here which is the theme it has nothing to do with the quality of the game the art, the integration, or the sizzle reel it's the theme, the theme moves itself people will buy a potato face Marty McFly if he comes back out again it doesn't matter how shit it looks y'all are weak tell me how Will Queen did I don't know. I'm not a seller of Queen. That theme was fantastic. I don't think it's the 99% on theme you're putting it. I think it was because people played it at shows and realized half the game didn't shoot very good. I think if GTF was presented in a different way, you would have seen a different amount of sales. Most of the gripes about GTF are about how it plays. Airball, reject, city, tank, the one ramp. I think I've seen the one ramp issue from your sizzle reels and stuff. That could have helped sink that. But it was the air balls coming out of TPF that killed that. How do you argue that, though? If your argument is people have to play it before they buy it, how can you argue that the first two weeks of a product launch will get more sales than everything else in the entire year combined? I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that there is a segment of the buying public that that is a key condition and a critical aspect to it. You said majority. You're saying I don't think most games where like Godzilla. Godzilla has sold more after the first two weeks than it did the – even if you had the highest sales the first two weeks, it sold more after two weeks than it did. You're just – you're thinking in terms of, oh, I had this huge surge, and so it just – you have a confirmation bias. Great games have a different tale. Those are like – Did you sell more Venoms after two weeks all the way up until present day or the first two weeks? You know the answer is that you sold more after the first two weeks. No, first two weeks, absolutely. No. I think you're lying now because you don't want to admit that you know over the months and months and months the grand total was more than just the first two weeks. The excitement is the highest in two weeks. I agree that that's when you get the biggest surge, but that doesn't mean there is a long tail on these things. There isn't on some of this stuff. It fucking dies. It dies and you get some trickles here and there. But the first day, the first week, I was trying to be conservative saying two weeks. just so I can have a bigger pool here. But that first week is everything. It's odd. And maybe it's just my biased perception of the collector market that purchases. It could be. But that would be interesting to go back and to look at the numbers and see on each title comparing. Maybe we'll do that in an upcoming Patreon or maybe a pinball show discussion, talking about, you know, let's look at the numbers and see when most sales come, percentage-wise, number-wise. That's a good thought there, Dennis. See, damn, where are they getting this at? Probably on loser kit. You're just like my freaking wife. Like, here I spend all this time creating a categorical approach that's not been presented in the industry before at all. And what do they do when I get done with it? Man, they refute it. Man, it would have been better if this. It's like my wife. I didn't refute any of those. My theater, my home theater. You know what I'm talking about, Nicole. I love it. Let's talk about Jersey Jack pinball. Let's end the show. Look, no news really with Jersey Jack. We know we have an upcoming title that's getting ready to come out. But I was thinking about it. This past week on social media, Jersey Jack pinball has been posting advertisements for not only Elton John, Dennis, but also Guns N' Roses, The Godfather, and Toy Story 4. Very interesting. which in and of itself, again, not really newsworthy, but I got to say, it kind of feels like this company's finally got a nice catalog of games now, some of which are still even being produced and in stock for their customers. It's just more of an observational thing. They've got nine titles from four different designers over a decade of production development, covering classic films, modern films, music, even an original theme. their next title is going to mark their 10th game of the company's history by their fifth designer it's just kind of uh i don't know maybe it's just more emotional to me because i i i was there whenever they kind of first started that's kind of when i started into pinball but do you find it find it interesting at all or you know just based on their catalog kind of cool um not really but no not until that next i mean it's a fair it's a fair enough point i just i don't i don't i guess i don't really understand what you're saying well i think of cgc what four titles you think of um think of pinball brothers think of how many how many titles of spooky head they're the same kind of thing i see like they're up there with probably let's see because they're probably around the same. For me, the Spooky story is more interesting than the Jersey Jack story because Spooky started out small We always expected Jersey Jack to be the serious competitor If anything I been disappointed at how bad they been at competing with Stern I more impressed with the Jersey Jack because from the gate they sold a ton of games from each title Whereas Spooky had to build to this point. Yeah, they bootstrapped it. Yeah, sure. That is cool. Jersey Jack did great with their second title having a cash cow come in and save them let's see Spooky at America's Most Haunted Rob Zombie's Spook Show International I'm not counting Domino's I'm sorry it's a contract I'm not counting Jetson's that's contracted I'll count Total Nuclear Annihilation Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle Rick and Morty I will count Halloween I will count as six do I count Ultraman yes you count Ultraman theme sells but those titles Jersey Jack sold 10 times what any Ultraman sold but I'll add it Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre at 9, Scooby Doo 10 so we're about the same yeah that's why I named them that's interesting as well so we do it feels like Stern, Jersey Jack and Spooky are kind of you know they're the top echelon of history here I never guessed Spooky would have got there But that's cool. Congratulations, Jersey Jack Pinball. All right, Pedretti Gaming. News this week, some LEs are hitting the states now of their Funhaus Remake games. Many more coming in the coming month here. There is a Funhaus Remake gameplay guide by Flip N Out Pinball. Yours truly gave a nice little shakedown as to that game. Information about the game, walking through the game, giving a tutorial, then giving a nice different gameplay showcasing the different multi-balls modes, etc. Same thing for Spooky Pinball. Flip N Out Pinball, myself, did a gameplay guide for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And Pinball Brothers, I even threw them some love by doing a Queen Pinball gameplay guide. I'm sure you've watched that a couple times, Dennis. Well, you just told me that I shouldn't buy Queen because it was terrible or something. I said it didn't sell worth a shit. Maybe ABBA will do better. Well, eh, probably not. All right, we've got to thank some people for listening to us this week. We've got to thank everybody listening, number one, but also all the official club members and the Nordman-level club members, but mostly our Screaming Goat Club official members of the Pinball Show. Thank you, Rodney. You don't understand how much we appreciate you as a bobcat. What sort of class would a bobcat teach, Professor Bobcat? How to attack a wife. The steps and the categorical approaches in attacking a wife. Oh, shoot that fucker. Okay, yeah, I would attend that class. Rob, thank you so much. The Panther would teach a class on mixology, I believe, and watches. Yeah, that would be like the James Bond of all the classes because it's so slick. It's so sharp, everything that Rob does. He's a class act over there. Frank, we appreciate your continued support as a Screaming Go Club member. The Falcon. Well, after what I've learned about people into falconry, I guess Frank could teach us how to leave bear cubs in Central Park. Oh, wow. Sorry. Sorry. That story was so weird. God. I was out falconing, and I had a bear cub, and then I had to throw it in the park. On point today. Thank you, Frank. Steve's here to make it look like a Huffy hit it. Dave. Thank you, Dave. I think Dave is our shaker motor, as our resident shaker motor. I think he would be a seismology teacher. Yeah. I think that fits really well. It almost makes so much sense that the joke is almost like a no shit. Yeah. Joe, thank you for the continued support of the Screaming Goat Club. Member of the Fox. Professor Joe would teach how to take Marvel characters and do worse versions of all of them. I don't know. What's the Fox? That's a 20th century Fox reference when they. Oh, okay. And if you've seen Deadpool v. Wolverine, you would really appreciate that joke. Okay. All right. Well, we'll run with that. He's got a Marvel class and a 20th century Fox class. Okay. Charlie, thank you for ringing, and my bell and Dennis's bell here at the pinball show. And for your continued support, I would not take your class on bell collection. That sounds horrible. I bet there's people that collect bells out there, though. Probably. What do they call each other? Dongers? There's so much innuendo in that hobby. You want to see my dong? How big is your dong? I bet there's so much there. Maybe I do want to be part of that hobby. I'm going to look it up now. Thank you, William, for all your continued support. Oh, fucking the dude. Would the dude even teach a class? He'd skip class. He'd be in the quads teaching. He'd be that one hippie teacher that's like, let's take the class outside today, guys. He's the guy who's changed his major eight times. Oh, yeah. He's biking around everywhere. Twelfth year senior. He's like, he's a TA and a professor, but he's really a student of the world. Absolutely. He's the one that gets the most ripped at frat parties. That's the dude. I'll say it again. You told Brandt on the phone. He told me. I know what happened. Yes, yes. Over on Discord, if you're an official club member of the Pinball Show, you'll hear, thank God, well, they're still talking about watches, but more discussion about like CGC remakes. Have you seen that talk? Not with all the watch talk. I did not see it. How they feel like CGC games if they hold out in the collection, if they, you know. So that's what we're talking about over there. Oh, a reminder. We're going to change up our live happy hour hangout. How will change ups do it? Usually on Wednesday, but now it's going to be – this month it's going to be August 26th, which is Monday. Oh. That's today. Holy crap. At 8.15 Central. So we're changing – Yeah, so we changed the start time too. Wow. I'll be traveling Wednesday, so I couldn't – And I have a possible conflict on Tuesday, so. Okay. It's like that's why we're doing it now. We're doing a lot. Hopefully I have the show edited by 8.15 Central. Now the pressure's on. It's a good thing you went on a long soliloquy where I didn't interrupt, so you were able to get through that part real quick. Let the record show that 90% of all edits on this show is, in fact, my vocals and definitely not Dennis. I don't ever really have to edit you. It's embarrassing. Now, we're going to get into everybody loves pinball market trends, but we got to show these people what they're getting whenever they sign up to patreon.com slash the pinball show. They're going to get not only Discord conversation, but exclusive content. and this week's exclusive content is one that you're going to have so much fun with because we take the love and the lust that everyone has for pinball market trends. Say it ain't so, Dennis, but it's just a fact because pinball market trends is the emotion of the first impression. But the exclusive content this week is market trends as well, but it's a subset. It's a modality of market trends. It is lifestyle market trends. It's like you just found that word modality. It's working everywhere. That's right. It's lifestyle market trends where we're going to talk about the ups and downs of different things in pop culture or life or just living from appliances to vacations. It's all there. It's all trending up. It's all trending down. It's all exclusively to you as a pinball show club. Look, I'm being real with you all. If you guys aren't a member at this point Help us out Come join Patreon.com slash the pinball show Do it today It helps support the show If you like the show You like what we're doing Even if you quasi like the show Like you pass this time I like it Throw some bones Right Din Din? Sure This week I present to you a very special Pinball Market Trends No, no, we're not doing any of that stuff. This week, Dennis, is going to be an off-the-cuff edition of Pinball Market Trends. That's different. I'm not going to call it somber. Yeah, I don't know about that. If we take the emotion and excitement and the stuff that makes your dick talk, if we take all of that out of Pinball Market Trends, this is what we're left with. It's an off-the-cuff, realist approach to Pinball Market Trends. almost improvisational here. We're going to go on some of the marketplace features of Pennside, and we're just going to have a conversation here as to what's – the market right now generally is down. It's absolutely down. It has been for, what did you say, Dennis, the past year? Yeah, I might say about a year. I was looking at our past episodes, and a year ago, I think a little bit over a year ago, We did an episode titled, hate to burst your bubble, but the bubble hasn't bursted. That is where the sky was falling. Over a year ago today, the sky was falling. Everybody said, you know, the market has tanked. It's done. It's over with. I remember that like it was yesterday, Zach. Yeah. And that was back when the distros were still trying to convince us that the bubble hadn't burst. And it hadn't. And we proved that. Now, it's lower now than it was a year ago. Thus, it didn't bust. Don't know. This has been my market trends and numbers don't lie. And since then, it has continued to come down softly. And as I said a couple episodes ago, it is down significantly, but I still don't think it's down all the way. I still think it had some time to come down, which I was correct. It still continues to come down. But so in general, that's the market. I will say that right now what's hot or what would be objectively training up what we're seeing pattern-wise, behavioral pattern, is that a lot of people are taking advantage of trade-in deals. We've had more so that I've seen, even other dealers I've talked to, a lot of people trading in stuff. And it's beneficial to both parties in this deal, too, because dealers can't sell for under a floor cost, right? So a lot of these individuals with older games, we're seeing a lot of 90s games coming on the marketplace and trading into dealers because never would they get the value that they're getting now. Your trading value now is significantly higher than it was a year ago and much more higher than it was two or three years ago. So people are taking advantage of that. They're saying, I got this old freaking Daddy's Simpsons that should only be worth $2,000 to $2,500. But if I trade it in towards this Venom Premium, all of a sudden, the value of the Simpsons, it's up to the $3,000 to $4,000 mark. That – really? A lot of people are trading in older games. And I hate to do my watch analogies. But here's how it works there. And so this is why I'm confused. There are three options that one has. One would be sell it to a secondhand dealer. Okay. Trade it towards a new product from a secondhand dealer or another used product. It doesn't really matter. You can trade it towards product. Let me put it that way. Or sell it yourself. Sell it yourself is always the maximum option. But if I want cash and I don't want to deal with the hassle of a bunch of tire kickers, like I'm dealing with five different watches right now, I could just sell it to a secondhand dealer. If I want to trade it, I will get more value, but that value is always less than if I was to sell it myself because they need to sell it themselves. And given their time investment, photographing and listing it on their website and everything, they have to build in their profit margin. And they can't just say, well, I'm a dealer. I'm going to charge 20% more than what you as an average person are going to do. So basically, long story short, going to the distributor is easier, but it's always less money than if I want to sell it on Craigslist. A fantastic point that you bring up. And I would say that here recently, those tables have turned. The balance has shifted. In years past, even up to a year ago, I would say, yes, you're always going to make more money selling outright. However, right now, and I think this is almost at the apex of it because we are in the summer months still, pinball is going to heat up a little bit more as we always do going into Q3 and certainly Q4. And then it softens up a little bit. Q1, Q2 gets warm again. But you're seeing a lot of inventory with a lot of these dealers. And a lot of these dealers are having trouble moving products. Some of the larger dealers still moving products pretty regularly. So it's not as big a deal. But some of these dealers are sitting on inventory, and the way that they can get rid of inventory is to make some pretty compelling deals on other games. Because you think about it, just from a dealer perspective, let's say I've got, I don't know, 10 Venom premiums in inventory. Or even a small dealer, maybe say I've got two, and I haven't sold one in a year. All right. Let's say you get 10 as a larger dealer. Would you rather have 10 of those to sell or would you rather have nine of those to sell and a Jurassic Park data east just to offer a little bit of different flavor here? So you're seeing a lot of dealers that are taking in trades that are more advantageous for the buyer slash trader than they are selling outright. And it is specific to certain titles. If I were to have – I'm being very transparent here. Yes, very interesting. If I have 10 Jaws premiums in my inventory, that's a hell of a lot different than if I have 10 Venom premiums, right? Right. The value in my mind, they're the same monetarily speaking, but the rate of sales of a Jaws premium is significantly higher than that of a Venom premium. So the worth of them from a sales perspective does differ. I'm not going to shoot numbers out there because that would compromise everything. But it is different. I'm not as worried moving 10 units of a Jaws premium as I am 10 units of a Venom premium. That's not to say it's a Venom thing because, generally speaking, sterns will sell at a higher rate than other manufacturers will. So what is equal to 10 Venom premiums? Is it five Elton John CEs? I don't know. Is it 10 Alien Ripleys? Maybe it's 20. Maybe it's five. It's all different based on the popularity of these different products and titles. But nonetheless, generally speaking, the market is down. And what you're seeing is this is a very interesting time where the moon cycle, if you will, that trade-ins are really, really advantageous for a lot of people. You're also seeing, I've seen a little bit, I don't even know if it's significant, but for some reason I'm seeing people take flyers on lesser known games. Things like, I have been seeing before I even did the gameplay kind of stuff. I've seen Queen take a little up kick. It's almost as if people have played everything and they're still searching for other things that they haven't played yet. So if you go to the Queen thread, you'll see a lot of buildup to where, damn, this code is pretty good. It is a fair game. So we're seeing people take flyers on stuff like that a little bit more. I'm trying to think of other examples of that. We've seen an upkick in Funhouse Remake. And you would think with the whole Haggis thing that that would actually be inverse. But for whatever reason, right now, we're seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre. again whatever reason seeing a little uptick of interest in that and looney tunes whereas the last i don't know four or five months not really not really a hot seller the heavy hitters in the marketplace are always going to be the heavy hitters the jaws the godzillas of the world but i would say the market falls people aren't taking a flyer on the on those colder games like the lead zeppelins of the world the venoms of the world um john wick is it's plateaued right now that still has room for code. So it'll go up in interest and sales over time, whereas Venom, I think, is pretty much, it might get a little boost for the accessories, but that game's pretty much where it's going to be. Same thing with, like, even great games that are already, they've been out for a long time, games such as Foo Fighters, Star Wars, right? Star Wars is probably Stern's bestseller of all time. But now, like, Elvira, another good example of a game that people love. But the people that love, love it have got their hands on it. So the sales are kind of just stagnant. You don't see many, many sales of something like an Elvira premium. Stranger Things, that was hot about six months ago. It was pretty hot. It's kind of tapered down now. You're not seeing as many sales of that. Iron Maiden got a little bitty boost at the beginning of the summer, but not really as much anymore. And over time, based on what's going on in the world, like Stranger Things will get another bump up next year. Dealers will have no problem moving those because that's the final season it will come out. It will renew interest, and it will pop off. So, yeah, that's kind of an off-the-cuff little pinball market trend. Just kind of a chill lounge approach to what's going on in the marketplace. I think I prefer the former. I mean, it's more structured. So, I bet. Don't even write in and tell us that this version was worse because we know it is. Okay. I thought you'd like this better. I'm glad you didn't think. I think I would rather save the eight minutes and not talk about it at all. As always, I'm just here to report the facts, convey the emotion, because emotions matter and numbers don't lie. I ain't got time to lie either on Pinball Market Trends. Where can people catch you? They can always email me, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. Oh, very cool. I'm glad they can do that. They can also email here at thepinballshow at gmail.com. Follow, like, and subscribe, as well as straight down the middle, I do a video series over there. Follow, like, and subscribe on YouTube to that as well as Watches with Dennis. Even if you don't like watches, it's entertaining. It's good stuff. He's roasting collections now that people are just hot and heavy over. Oh, God. People are just like, I'm so glad you're being mean. It's the Simon Cowell thing. I didn't want to be mean. I didn't want this to be like pinball. People love it. But people want meanness. You know what meanness is? What? An emotion. It sells. Flip N Out Pinball is the official sponsor of the pinball show. When I buy my pinball shit, I buy from Flip N Out Pinball. From toppers or play three videos, I've got it figured out. Flip N Out Pinball, figured out. When I make a pinball, I make Flip N Out Pinball. Flip N Out Pinball, figured out. When I buy, buy, buy, I buy from Flip N Out Pinball. Buy, buy, buy. And only the way that Flip N Out Pinball can, we've got a product showcase this week. You know what? I'm going to give it to the little guys, the little titles. The Queen Pinballs of the World. Smash hit seller queen? That's right. It's too bad it's been since two weeks and you're not allowed to sell anymore, lest you pass your original two-week number. Of the Alien Ripley's of the World. Now, Alien Ripley did pretty good. Like the Alice's of the World. That will be one of those little games. Galactic Tank Force. Yeah. Give it to the little guys. They had an all-star cast of actors for that. The Berrios of the World. The Ultramans of the World. That kind of stuff. Also available at Flip N Out Pinball, Godzilla 70th Anniversary Premium Games. Get you one. I can't stock up enough of those. Yeah, you got plenty of sepias. Man, I love them. Eat them all up. We also have Godzilla Pros. If you're interested in the next Stern release or the next JJP release or any other rumored release, email me at zach at z-a-c-h at flippinoutpinball.com. We'll get you on those lists. We've got Pulp Fiction SEs in stock. I have one more Alien Ripley edition left in stock. I don't know if I'm going to reorder any of those. Funhaus preorders and Labyrinth preorders we're still taking. John Wick Pro Premium. And I have a couple of L.A.s. A couple. I think I have two. I have one. I think it's two. Jaws Pro and Premiums. Foo Fighters Pro and Premiums. Stranger Things Pro and Premiums. Venom. Jurassic Park. Star Wars. Deadpool. Avengers. Pros, Premies of all of them. Iron Maidens. Led Zeppelins. Rush. Rush is coming. And I do believe I have one more spot for a premium and two spots for a pro, I think. So get those orders in, those pre-orders in. Elton John. Right now I've got PE and CE. I like staying stocked on at least one or two of those. Toy Story 4, we still have in stock. Guns and Roses. Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacres. Even the next spooky title. Let me know. We'll get you down. ABBA? Who doesn't want a fucking ABBA? That's what I'm talking about. It's a little guy of the world. That's a showcase game. Queens, Hot Wheels, Big Buck Hunter, Golden Tees, etc., etc. Chicago Gaming's XL Displays. Remember to get some of those. Expression Speaker Lighting from CERN. We've got those as well. Flipping Out with Friends. Last week, last couple of weeks actually, Joel and his brother Jared have been playing some Stern Pinballs Iron Maiden. Go back and watch those. Those were fun streams. I'm not sure what's coming this week for Flipping Out with Friends. Joel, maybe a surprise game that you weren't expecting. Dennis, teach these people something, please. folks just always remember your hands-on impression is irrelevant completely meaningless all your opinions are made by first impressions promotion materials terms and conditions and multiple modalities of exposure you're weak you have no ability to think for yourself and conveniently the only things that influence what you do are things that are put out by straight down the middle and flipping out pinball and always practice safe pinball and there's going to be a point in your life where you want rational logical things to make sense you want overstudying over analysis you want that all to be the answer sadly that's how computers work humans actually have a brain that elicits emotion and and makes decisions based on those emotions for better and for worse some of the best situations you've ever been in listener are because of emotion some of the worst and what you brought home from vegas i was based on emotion as well but nonetheless you still have them and for dennis's argument you had a hands-on approach getting them too congratulations test confirmed oh that was great we're in the pipe five by five yeah it's cold down here so i always have a heater right by my legs pointless it's stupid it's summer summertime sadness summertime sex