So Naps Arcade broke the story about American pinball possibly becoming a publicly traded company on the Indian Stock Exchange. And to file for a public offering, you have to be transparent about your revenue. What are the assets in your organization? And one of the AIMTRON public offering sort of line items is this little failed pinball operation run by David Fix that you know as American Pinball. And the numbers are atrocious. And the numbers are atrocious the moment this company launched Galactic Tank Force. And the numbers are even worse with a game called Berrio's Barbecue Challenge. OK, so what this data is showing us is what you and I already know, that American pinball is a joke. And they've been a joke now since this leadership team has been in place. And David Fix and Steve Bowden and Ryan McQuaid could not steer a hungry, overweight child towards a piece of cake. That is how inept and inadequate they are to run a pinball company. Let me say that again. Steve Bowden, Ryan McQuaid, and David Fix could not steer an overweight child towards a piece of cake. They don't know what the pinball buying community wants. They don't do any market research. They don't give us themes that anybody wants. They have made games for themselves. They bailed Dennis Nordman out on his dream barn build galactic tank force game that was the worst idea ever. I remember being at TPF when Dennis Nordman did a panel discussion about how he's been dreaming up this tank cabinet idea for like a decade or two. And he showed all these pictures of like these humongous tank cabinets. I mean, the tank treads were a good like six to eight inches wide on his initial concept. And as I was watching it, I kept thinking to myself, oh my God, this guy got these suckers to build his idea and not only did they build it they made it much worse but it was hard to make it much worse because it already was one of the worst ideas in the history of pinball it is absolute stupid to make a game that looks like a tank when the back box is folded it down. That is the dumbest thing you could ever ideate around. And the even dumber part is that when they saw this stupid idea, they went ahead with company resources and made it. And they made it. They actually made the damn thing. It was like a Jurassic Park moment. You know, they didn't stop to think if they should, they just made it. It's like you SOBs actually did it. And the game has been a colossal failure. And that game, ironically, has tanked this entire company. So good job, David Fix, on building something that absolutely destroyed your company. And then from there, they went and made the dumbest game you could ever follow up Tank Force with. And that's with Barry O's Barbecue Challenge, this homage to Barry Osler. And the irony in that game is that barely, barely, barely didn't even design the game. It was like designed by four different designers. And then you look at the game and Kaneda could have designed it blindfolded. There's nothing in the game that's interesting. And so they absolutely have no clue what people want. And you know who I blame? You know who I blame? Mukesh. Mukesh has no idea what he's doing. he's not a pinhead. He's not a pinball fanatic. And you've got to remember this, people. American pinball's failure is the long end tale of karma. And the bad karma and the reason why this company has failed is because all of this company was created around John Papaduke Jr. People forget that J-Pop is the origin story of American pinball. Amtron was making the boards for John's Zidware Games. You know, there's a lot of rookie podcasters out there that have only been around for a year, and they have no idea about any of this. And when they cheerlead these companies, they have no idea how stupid it is to cheerlead stuff until you learn your history. Here's a history lesson from Kaneda. J-Pop was using Ametron boards. They were out a lot of money because John Papaduke couldn't get his product to market. And so what did they decide to do? People forget this. They brought in J-Pop into the Ametron facility and they reinvested $350,000 to build 22 broken Magic Girl games. All right, they had no idea what they were doing. They could not walk down an aisle of J-pop tinkering inside those boxes and realize that they had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea how to make a working game. There was no code for the game. There was nothing. And they actually put those games in boxes and mailed them to customers with a letter that said the following. We have built these games to John Papaduke and Zidware's specifications. You know what that aka meant? You know what the real meaning was that in? We just sent you a broken, crappy product, but it's not our fault. He made it that way, not us. And we just contract manufactured a damn thing. That's the beginning of American pinball. and I'm going to go down a road here. I'm going to pick apart another person. So you've got John Papadu, a complete moron. Everything he's done is lit money on fire. Okay, then you've got Mukesh who has no idea, you know, how to pinpoint good leadership in pinball. And from the very beginning, it was like his son or cousin running the company and they didn't know what they were doing. And then they had this guy like Scott Goldstein. People forget this. Scott Goldstein was like the marketing guy. They fired his ass. Then they fired John Papaduke. Then they brought in Joe Balser to sort of like fix John Papaduke's Houdini. And Balser didn't even create a Whitewood. I mean, do people remember this? Balser did not even create a Whitewood. He basically built Houdini by eyeballing it. And when the game came out, it showed. The game played like crap. The shots were so tight. He clearly didn't take enough time to dial in the game. And then they idiotically shelved all of the artwork from the Houdini art package that Matt Andrews made that was gorgeous. And then they made this ugly art package. You know why? Because Josh Kugler, the coder, gosh, Kugler, who's only at that time, Kugler's only, you know, input into pinball was his own family pinball machine. He didn't like the Houdini artwork. and him and Balser, with no artistic eye whatsoever, shelved one of the most beautiful art packages ever in the history of pinball. They shelved it and made this ugly, dark steampunk Houdini game, and the rest is history. It didn't sell that well. And then they make Oktoberfest, which arguably, when you look at Oktoberfest, it is one of the most packed modern pinball machines we've had in the last 10 years. And the reason why they made Oktoberfest is because that was Joe Balser's selection to make. And if you know Joe Balser's backstory, I don't know if I'd be making a game that celebrates drinking. I'll stop at that. But, you know, don't even want to go down that road because you're not allowed to bring up these things. OK, so he makes that game arguably a much better game than Houdini. And then what do they do? They hire the worst art package in the history of pinball in the Oktoberfest like art package. It looks like somebody vomited over the damn play field. And it just was ugly. You know, I mean, they could have salvaged that game if they at least made it look awesome, but it didn't. And then after that, what did they do next? They did Hot Wheels, right? Okay. So then they're like, all right, Joel Balser, they stripped everything out of Hot Wheels. Okay. They stripped everything out of Hot Wheels. No, it's not a low blow, John. It's not a low blow. If you want to, if you want to, I just want, you know, like, I'm not going to go down this road, John, but if you want to do what some of these people have done and then we're not allowed to bring it up like multiple times, you know, it's putting people and their families in jeopardy. I'm sorry. You don't get you don't get immunity from bringing that stuff up, brother. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Absolutely not. OK, absolutely not. But we're not even going to go down that road. We're already past that. You then make Hot Wheels. You make Hot Wheels and it's like you remove all the jumps, all the ramps, all the stuff from the game. You remove all that from the game and you make this barren game that you want to be successful on location. It doesn't sell well because you removed all the stuff that's Hot Wheels. Then you go and you make Legends of Valhalla and then it's Tank Force then it's Burials and that's it. It's like you could just zoom out and stare at these pinball companies' portfolios. And American Pinball has probably one of the worst portfolios over the last nine years. And after nine years of making games, I don't know why. I don't know why it's been such a miss. Why? Why has it been such a miss? They had all the opportunities in the world to do market research, to bring a game to market that people would want. They seemingly did none of it. And so here we are today, a company with very little value, very little customers. And, you know, now Steve Bowden. Right. OK, Steve Bowden, like this guy keeps jumping from company to company. I don't know if they're just paying him with like bunk beds and ham sandwiches, but like what value? I mean, he was over at Deep Root for years and people forget this. Again, we're all allowed to forget this. people forget that Steve Bowden got up there as a Deep Root team member and took the microphone, did a media tour with Jeff Teolis and everybody. I mean, again, are we just supposed to bury all this? Did a media tour in which he was promoting Deep Root pinball to get people to put deposits on Raza. And he got up there and remember his phrase, just wait, just wait. You haven't seen anything yet. And he got up on stage in front of everybody and they insulted Stern Pinball. They bragged about how they were going to make more games than any pinball company in the history of pinball. And Steve Bowden was never held accountable for any of that. He never apologized once for his role in aiding and abetting a criminal. Now, I threw a drink in Tim Sexton's face. I apologize. That's a jackass move. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have done it. And I've apologized multiple times for that. When I make a mistake, I will apologize to you. I mean, that's it. Like if I was aiding and abetting a company that ripped off old women, old ladies, these are grandmas. Robert Mueller stole the life savings of people. OK, he stole the life savings of people and then created deep root around that stolen money. And every day Steve Bowden walked into that company, John Norris, Barry O, you know, Dennis Norman for a little bit, you know, wasn't J-pop over there, J-pop, like he went into that company every day and didn't see any manufacturing, saw a stupid pin pod and saw all this dumb innovation, like a lockdown bar screen. and he convinced people to go in on the company and never once apologized. And now he's at American Pinball. And Ryan McQuaid, you know what I heard? I heard from someone who used to work at American Pinball. You wanna hear truth on this episode or should we just all turn this off? And I hear there's a new podcast maybe coming out that's gonna spread pinball happiness. You know, I could just end this whole thing right now and we could go join Colin and the new Pinball Happiness crew and circle jerk this industry in a way that just forgives all of this behavior and just allows these people to rip people off, never have any accountability, and just do what they do best. Champion everything, Pinball, even when they're championing people who are frauds and criminals and all this stuff, right? Or I could tell you what really went on. I can tell you what really went on. Okay, so now you got Ryan McQuaid over there. You want to know what an American pinball engineer who left the company said? He's like, nothing's going on over there every day. Ryan McQuaid goes into work and he spends most of the day playing video games. Well, it's not surprising he's a video game guy. But where is his game? I heard Cuphead. I don't know. I don't think they're going to make it. I heard that it's not that great or they don't have the money for the parts. I've heard a lot of rumors. I don't know anything for sure. I haven't seen it. but it doesn't look good. It doesn't look good for American pinball. And again, I'm just going to say this right now and correct me if I'm wrong, people. Correct me if I'm wrong. If American pinball went away tomorrow, would any of you care with what's going on in pinball right now? If American pinball went away tomorrow, how many of you, raise of hands, would actually miss them. Are you going to miss Galactic Tank Force, Barry O's, Oktoberfest? You wouldn't even feel it. You would miss me more if I went away tomorrow. I mean, there would be more. This is hard for me to say this. There would be more tears shed in the pinball community if Kaneda retired versus American pinball going out of business. I have more followers than they can sell of a single title. And that's sad for them. Believe me, if I was making a pinball company, if I was David Fix, if I was in charge of Mukesh's money, I would be selling more games than people subscribing to Kaneda's pinball podcast. And I say that self-deprecatingly. You should, if you're a pinball manufacturer and you can't sell more games than Kaneda has Patreon subscribers, you have no business making pinball. machines. That should be a motto in the pinball world. It should be on the wall of every single pinball company. That is your first benchmark of success. Will this game sell more units than subscribers to Canada's Pinball Podcast? You know what game will not sell more units than subscribers? There's John Wick Ellie. All right. John Wick Ellie will not sell more than 714 Ellie's. They will never sell that many. All right. So that is the first topic of today, which is American coming in hot. Canada's coming in hot. I'm reading your commentary, guys. Thank you for hanging out here. I just don't think anyone's going to miss them. I think David Fix and Ryan McQuaid and Steve Bowden, every time I see them go live, I get this sense of delusional smugness on their faces. And when David Fix did that, like, I don't know, like a live a few weeks ago, he was like, we're in it for the long haul. And there was like Vishal, I think that was his name, you know, standing there next to them. And you just get the sense it's like Mukesh has got a lot of money. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's got bad leadership and they've had enough leadership decisions where at this point in the company's history, after nine years, we should be celebrating American pinball, not chastising them. And they did it to themselves. They did it to themselves. I mean, it's just that simple. OK, so Canada coming in hot. Eighty five, eighty six people get to hear it. Fifteen hundred people get to hear it later on. All right what do I want to talk about next I kind of just want to do this show the way I want to do it and I hope you guys are on board for it because you know I feeling feisty I close on my house on Monday I'm super excited. The family's doing great. The reason I'm sleeping on a pull-out couch is simply this. We've got baby Cassian in this second apartment. We've got a pull-out couch in the other apartment. So I sleep in that apartment with Killian. and Brenda does the night shifts in this apartment with Cassian. And it's been like that for a few weeks. So I'm a little bit irritable. Yeah, it's going to end though in just a week. We move on June 13th and we close on June 3rd. So super excited. A lot of great stuff going on in my world and in my household. So I'm very thankful. I'm very thankful for each and every one of you and your support. and I just think it's great. I think it's great what we've built here because this is the next topic I want to talk about, and then I will talk about Stern, what's going on at JJP. But I want to talk... You know what? I'm going to wait. We get a little bit more people here in 15 minutes. What I want to talk about in 15 minutes, I want to talk about an ask I have to all pinball content creators. And it's a very simple ask. It's something that I hope everyone can just put into practice. And I think if everybody does, I think we'll just get much better pinball content moving forward. And it's not negative. It's just asking everybody to do one simple thing. And that's it. Okay. Before we get there, let's talk about this media tour. Raise of hands. Am I the only one who's just, I'm just over the story. I'm glad they did it. I'm glad people went to go see Stern Pinball. I don't have a problem with it. you know me I wasn't expecting an invite so I'm not upset I didn't get invited you can listen to all my shows I've never once complained about not being invited I didn't do like a crazy rant show like Albert and then take it down I'm fine with it I don't want to be invited to those things because accepting those things is a conflict of interest for me I always want to remain objective and I don't want to hold back how I feel because someone gave me pizza and beer. To me, the power to be free and to speak freely is much more valuable to getting free pizza and beer and a prom bus to an arcade. Like I don't need that. I can go to Logan's Arcade. I can go there on my own. I can go to Jack Bar. I can spend my own money on food and drink. But look, here's my thing about this media tour and I've seen more coverage come from it. I just don't really see anything interesting as a result of it. All I'm reading when I read the stories is how people personally felt about the experience, which is great. Like, you know, you bring in Jason Knapp loved it. Colin, he loved it. You know, we got Ian over at Nudge Magazine loved it. There was more content. Everyone who went had a great time. And, of course, like you'd be a moron. And I mean, as you be you, you shouldn't be in this hobby if you didn't get excited about the world's number one pinball company giving you an all expense paid trip to come walk through their factory and give you unprecedented access to not only their facility, but their executives and their company. I mean, yeah, if they invited me, I would want to go, but I still wouldn't go. Not on not on that kind of trip. I would accept an invite from Gomez or Seth Davis or Zach Sharp, but it would only have to be me. And the reason why is I would want to get in a room with those gentlemen and I would really want to have a true heart to heart discussion about everything. You know, everything. I don't want to go there with a group of people because I don't think it would be appropriate for me to have the kind of conversation I want to have with them. And it's not negative, but I just don't think it would be productive on on both fronts for me to visit that place in a group setting. I also think being the world's favorite and number one pinball podcaster for seven years in a row. Let's face it, people, I would have taken that trippy easily. I think it's funny to me that after seven years and, you know, building enough of an audience that has enough of an influence that does impact their business. they've absolutely done nothing to build a bridge with me. Nothing. And that's fine. It's fine. Again, I don't have harsh feelings about it. I've bought Stern machines. I've owned Stern machines. I love some Stern machines. I don't necessarily agree with their business decisions of late. And that is the reason why I think going over there was so strategically timed, because I think it's quite obvious that they're in a slump, that John Wick is a terrible selling game. And I don't care if like one outlier distributor wants to convince you otherwise. And that's not even, that's not even Zach doing that. You know, I see some, I see some of these distros, man. And they're like, game selling great. Just don't lie to us. I mean, it's not selling great. I just would love to go over there and have a more adult, mature conversation with Stern. Because I have some strong opinions and I know they do too. and I think it would be a really great conversation and I think it would be completely off the record and that's the kind of meeting I want to have with Stern Pinball and I'm just going to say this and I don't mean to say this in a bragging way but I think I've earned the right and so have they I think we both parties have earned the right to have more of a one-on-one meeting I do I just think that's the way I would want to interact with them I don't want to you know it's just not me it's not my brand It's not my style to take your beer and your pizza and just be smiling like a like a little, you know, like like a I don't know, like a cheerleader in front of your John Wick. And we all saw that content. And I get I get it. Like some people are really excited. But I also think that, you know, this media tour was a very thinly veiled attempt to get John Wick sales going. you know Don bought a John Wick LE right Don over at Don's Pinball Podcast he bought a John Wick LE and I'm not surprised I mean he's bought a lot of games recently and he seems to buy a lot now he's also sponsored by Mad Pinball which is a distributor so I highly doubt that Don is paying $13,000 for it but he bought one right and that's part of what you don't hear him really talking about it very much which is I don't And usually he's much more like enthusiastic about his purchases. He just lost three to four thousand dollars on that game if he paid full price. And I think that's what is just the the reality with this game. To me, it doesn't even matter. I mean, I hate to say this, but it doesn't even matter how the game plays. It doesn't matter what the code is. none of it matters to me because you're going to end up with a $3,000 to $4,000 loss. So I don't care how shiny the trans light is. I don't care what the mirrored back glass stained glass window looks like. I don't care that you put blind Elon Musk on the right side of the cabinet. I don't care about Seth Davis's signature. the reality is if you buy a John Wick LE, you are losing $3,000 to $4,000 by the end of the year.