Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. Thanks again for the ongoing support as a Pinball Show Club member. Enjoy this exclusive TPS content and make sure to visit the Pinball Show Club Discord to chat about the bonus material. Dennis, we have a lot of listeners here. We're on the stage. They're paying attention. They want to hear some goods. Do we have some goods for them? Well, that's up to you. We signed up for this shit. Well, hopefully we have some good takes from you based on the content that I present. So what we're going to do, listeners, exclusive content for you official club members. Thanks again for the support. I am, as many of you know, the co-owner of Flip N Out Pinball. We distribute pinball machines, arcade, et cetera, et cetera. And we're a pretty large dealership, fair enough, right? I mean, how would I know? Just letting these people know, just for context here. how would you know? I play pinball and know things. All right. Okay. Trust me on knowing things in pinball. So I think we're a moderate-sized dealership. The sales context of which I'm presenting, I think, may not be fully representative across all sellers of pinball machines, but I think is a nice chunk to use as a piece of data. That's all. And it makes for interesting conversation. We saw a lot of different titles of games last year. A variety of different new unboxed machines that people can buy. There were a lot of releases for 2024. Dennis, as we talked about last episode on 167 of the Pinball Show. But we're talking about those in addition to games that have been out for years. Remember, Stern had to vault some of these things because there were so many options of what I had in inventory, as well as what we ordered a flipping out pinball. I'm going to go through the most popular all the way down to the least popular sales numbers for these games. I'm not going to tell you how many of each I sold and stuff like that. That would be crazy. But I'm going to say, hey, we sold more of this than anything else last year, and we'll go down the list. We talked about this for those avid listeners of the pinball show. They know that the best-selling title for Flip N Out Pinball of 2024 and all of 2024, not just new games. These are all new in-box game sales. These are not used games, nothing like that. These are all based on a new product. What was the best-selling title for Flip N Out Pinball? Jaws. Yes, correct. So if we're taking into account Pro, Premium, and Ellie together, the best selling title was Jaws by Stern Pinball. So congratulations, Stern Pinball. They're like, oh, we got your money. I don't give a shit. Congratulations. But Jaws was the best selling. And we also talked about if we're talking about single product, the single game product, it was Labyrinth. We sold more Labyrinth games because they just have one single model. So we sell – in other words, Flip N Out Pinball sold more Labyrinth games than we did any Jaws Pro in total, Jaws Premium, or Jaws LE. That is quite an interesting data point, isn't it? It is, but it makes me wonder. Did you sell more – well, but the one model thing, it's – Well, no. It's very skewed because of this. Yes. Because there's not many dealers for barrels. Sure. There's a ton of stern dealers. I don't have enough context would be like my response. So it's interesting, but I would also want to know and say, okay, but did you sell more of Labyrinth than all three models of John Wick combined? Okay, I've got that answer. We sold more Labyrinth than all three models of John Wick combined. Okay. We sold more Labyrinth than, oh, wait for this one. We sold more Labyrinth than all models of Metallica Remastered combined. We sold more Labyrinth than all models of Uncanny X-Men combined. Oh, now that's interesting. Yes. Now, significantly so, too. You really talked up how great X-Men was doing. So, that means Labyrinth did really, really well. Absolutely. It was so, so well received. But we were one of their first dealers. So that skews some things. Because they took a chance on us. We took a chance on them. And we were one of their first three dealers. Yes. I mean, it makes sense. But they still don't have a ton of dealers. And they might only have like 10 compared to Stern's like 70-something maybe. So that, you know, a little skewed there. Because we know that overall, Labyrinth has made, what, 750? They aim to make 1,100? So, I mean, that starts crunching numbers for you. So our third best-selling game of 2024 was actually the Uncanny X-Men. Combined the Pro Premium and LE all together I think that a When people talk about Uncanny X and saying you know that game doesn sell that was a flop No, it wasn't. Not for us. It was not a flop at all. Now, in inventory, we do have Uncanny X-Men, though. This is not counting the inventory we do have, but we do have quite a bit of inventory. So sales have slowed significantly. That's why I thought it was smart for Dungeons & Dragons that Stern has further reduced the LE count. And this also does not take into consideration D&D yet. That would be 2025. Right, yeah. Let's see. Number, well, it would be one, two, three. Number four. We teased number four would be surprising, and I said, no, not really, because number four is not a 2024 game, not even a 2023 game. Our fourth best-selling new-in-box game at flipping out pinball for 2024 was exactly. It was Godzilla. That's why I already roared. Because when you told me I wouldn't be surprised, I thought, well, that means one thing. Stern's greatest game ever. That is, wow. Wow. Here's, I'm looking, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. I know, to the lady. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. I've got 32 titles on this list. 32 additional titles. So 36 titles that we're talking about today, and in 2024, that was still the fourth best-selling? And take into account two things. There's no more LEs, so it's not including LEs, but it is including the 70th anniversary that was released. Right, yeah, and that's where it also helped me identify that it would be that with the 70th. Yep, that's a bump up. So that was pretty significant. And we're still staying within the numbers here within the first, second, third, fourth. I'll tell you when there's a significant drop-off. But first, second, third, fourth was Godzilla. Fifth, the fifth best-selling game is an interesting data point because it was Chicago Gaming Company's Pulp Fiction. But having said that, not all of them have shipped. So remember, the LEs didn't ship in 2024. That's just – that's orders. And I counted it here because if we're talking about just sales, it would fall in seven, I think. But if we're talking about the pre-ordered, pay for pre-ordered, that's where it would fall. So that was all the LE pre-orders as well as all of the SCs and SEDs that have shipped. It comes in at one, two, three, four, the fifth place. I think people might be surprised by that. A Chicago gaming company game, but again, less Chicago gaming dealers than Stern dealers, so take that into consideration. Number six on our list of best-selling new in-box games was Metallica Remastered. That's been a great, great seller. It was, I'd say, one, two, three, four, five, six. Those top six kind of stand out, and then we have a little bit of a drop-off. Well, let me ask you this, and you may not want to answer this one, but I'm going to ask it. Sure. If you combine all three model trim lines of JAWS, out of your total order sales, however you're choosing to count it for 2024, what percentage is JAWS? Oh, wow. Give me a second to see if I want to say. Okay. Let's see here. That's right. See, that's what I do for the club members. I dive deep. Probing. Because you've given us rankings. And you've noted that after number six, after Metallica, there's a steep drop-off. Significant. Maybe not significant. I upgraded it to steep to make it sound far more compelling. But Jaws and Elowen, early in the year, there's so much there that I'm like, I want to know, though, really how close was it? And that's how I'm going to just get at it. Just with that one question is all of Jaws versus all of your sales. I want to know how much Stern is carrying you with that one title for the year. That's a good question. I know it is. Finishing up adding here. Let me see. Oh, I don't know if I want to. Okay. Okay. I'll give you that number. But it's very rough, and I'd have to double check and everything. I would say the amount of Jaws games is close, if not over 10%. Okay. That's heavy. It's over 10%, but it's not 20%. Okay. It's actually not as heavy as I thought it might have been. There's just a lot of games and products to sell. Yeah, I know. But again, in terms of a sense of it, because you have a list with over 30 items. But granted, that counts the different trim lines. Yes. Well, no, that doesn't. That's just titles. Oh, that's just titles. That's just titles. All right. So one title out of 30, and it's sitting in double-digit percentages. I think it's really interesting. Yes, that is. I mean, you already had conveyed that it was your best seller as a game. But I think for a lot of people, because you actually distribute for a lot of brands. Pretty much all of them, yeah. Yeah, you're not like just a one trick, like a stern one trick. And I would say the Labyrinth is of very similar percentage close So I mean right there you got over 20 of our sales were from those two title games Now if I was being extra mathy to make you work even harder it would be me asking what percentage of your total is games that came out in 2024? Or conversely, that were not 2024, that were before 2024? Because I'm wondering how much stuff you sell new versus how much is this legacy stuff that sells. And again, I want to, because I'm adding that, I want to emphasize that this is all very rough because I'm taking rough estimates and then on top of the rough estimates, I'm doing quick calculations on those rough estimates. So for that, that's a hard data point because I don't know what we're including. Like, do we include labyrinths since all of them shipped? Well, no, the labyrinth would be included. Maybe they just wanted to know which ones were the games that came out in 24. Not even when they shipped. See, that's the problem, though, because Labyrinth came out in October of 23, but they didn't start shipping until 2024. So is that included as a 2024 game? Same with like Pulp Fiction. No. Pulp Fiction came out in 2023, but they all shipped. We just want to know about the 24 releases. Just the releases. Just the stuff that was announced in 24. What percentage of that were the orders? Okay. Pulp Fiction does not get included. Metallica does. Godzilla 70th would get included. Okay. Oh, wait, no. It was 23, wasn't it? Or was it this year? Or last year? Okay. If you have it segregated, then Godzilla 70th would, but any other flavor would not. Okay, I can add that. All right. Elton John was not this. Was not. Nope, it was 23. Funhouse Remake was. John Wick was. Are we counting Looney Tunes? It was announced December 2023. Nope, it's 23 announcement. All right, Avatar was. We only want to know the announced, revealed games of 24. Black Knight Crow? Their new run was. Yes, that would count. Okay, we'll count that one. Cax Cane, no. Elvira Blood Red Kiss, that was 23. No. Stranger Things, no. Star Wars Comic, are we counting that? All right, no. James Bond, no. Tex Chainsaw, no. Deadpool, no. Rush, no. Alien Ripley, no. Alien Ripley was, wasn't it? No. No, it was 23. Okay. No Iron Maiden, no Foo Fighters. Oh, ABBA. Got to count ABBA. Yeah. I will say about 45%. So a significant portion of your sales are things that actually were revealed before 2024 started, but actually got ordered in 2024. Yes. And a couple of those because of the high number of sales that we had make it sloppy, such as Pulp Fiction and Labyrinth, because those were big sales. And, yeah, there were a number of games that got revealed late in 23 where no one really had a chance to get them in 23. Like Looney Tunes and, yeah. I thought that people would find that interesting. I find that interesting. Shit, I need to do this analysis more often. This is one of the things, because, you know, Georges like me, you know, who do Dungeons and Dragons stuff. Yes. This is what I do at work, was I will take analytics from how our programs perform and stuff. and I'm looking at it in all sorts of different slices, and one of the slices I like to ask myself is, yeah, but how much staff do we throw at this, and how many people are we actually impacting directly? And that sort of thing. So anyway, I just like to look at it from different angles. Rules are interesting. Numbers are interesting. I like keeping things like that. Okay, so we're back to, man, you gave him all the goods right there. I'm very tricksy, but I won't ask any more math stuff because I know I keep making you add up new things. The seventh highest game sale that we had that I said was a little bit of a dip from six was, wait for it, Elton John. This doesn't surprise me because, again, it did start arriving for people in 23. There was enough time for that. But it felt like it was really around that December, January, maybe into February period where the buzz really started to spread. And I'll even go into March because that's when a lot of people finally got to play it at TPF. And people realized, holy crap, this is actually a good game, even though they didn't care about the theme. Yeah. Yeah. So I found that interesting. Number seven was Elton John, not even their newest game. And that's not even – even if I took into account the CEs that have not shipped, still more Elton John sales than Avatar. I mean, it's got great word of mouth. And it is – I have a tale. For those that love Steve Ritchie, it was that, hey, look, the bill of materials handcuffs are off of his wrist. He got to do something as essentially he's claimed he couldn't do before. Like he got to put in all the mechs he wanted to put in. Yeah. Or so we think. The next one comes with a bit of a caveat. The eighth highest selling title for flipping out pinball of 2024. If we take into account those ordered, pre-ordered with paid pre-orders and shipped, it's Pedretti Gaming's Funhouse remake. I would not have guessed that. I would not have either. Having said that if we take into account just those that have shipped then it would fall down into the number 20 territory 18 territory it would drop significantly but based on because they they going to take up to april or may to ship all of them we've had probably a third of our orders shipped next in line number nine the ninth highest selling new in box game from flipping out pinball 2024 was jurassic park stern pinball the tried and true keith ellen game and then following up with that a new stern title for 2024 our 10th spot at flipping out pinball new box sales was john wick so john wick john wick comes in over number 11 spot looney tunes uh and then 12th spot was avatar so we ended up selling more looney tunes and john wick than we did avatar the 13th spot this one surprised me sales wise was Stern's Black Knight Pro at number 13. Wow. More so than the sales we've seen in 2024 for Cactus Canyon, which was 14. That doesn't surprise me, though. 15th was Elvira. That includes Blood Red Kiss for 2024, what I had left. Then Stranger Things. Then Star Wars, which includes Pro, Premium, Comic Pro, and Comic Premium. So you see, when I said I wasn't surprised they vaulted that, it's because sales-wise, they weren't the strongest. for 2024. And then number, our 18th best-selling new in-box game from flipping out pinball was James Bond 007. Then, under that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Texas just not a great, great seller for us. And everything under this, I would classify, well, it depends on what it was. If it was a newer game, I classify as a poor seller. If it was an older game, then okay, maybe it just has a good tail still. Our 20th spot example would be a good tail. Our 20th spot and the best-selling new in-box game for flipping out Pinball 2024 is Deadpool. So when I look at these numbers, if this was a brand-new game, I'd say not a good seller. But since this was, what, how many years old and it still sold what it did, the 20th spot, I'll take it all day long. That's why whenever they vaulted Deadpool, I was more beat up about Deadpool than Star Wars because Star Wars has four different models that have been out longer. Well, that's close. When did Deadpool come out relevant to Star Wars? I still think Star Wars was older. Rush was 21, that 21 spot. Whatever we had in inventory plus whatever they came back out with this year, a small run. 22 spot was Alien Ripley edition. So we still sold, you know, a decent amount for that. But they've pretty much slowed. Then Iron Maiden, then Foo Fighters. See, there's your numbers right there. Why might they have vaulted Foo Fighters? Well, I think they fulfilled all the desire for that game. It was top-heavy. Where, two, three, four. That was our 24th best-selling new-in-box game. And that's Pro and Premiums together. After that is an arcade machine, Big Buck Hunter. Reloaded. We sold more Big Buck Hunter Reloaded than we did Avengers, which comes next. Venom. That's a newer game. Not surprising, though. Then Mandalorian. after that this would be the 29th spot as the best-selling new inbox for 2024 for my company scooby-doo still selling them though i mean that game's over two years old after that was beatles gold the caveat there was i requested more but they sold out couldn't get them so when people like no they didn't say well i mean i was willing to buy more and they couldn't after that uh-oh That's where ABBA sits. That was a brand new game for 2024. But I will say that that wasn't our worst new release game for 2024. Number 32 on that list, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which has been discontinued or vaulted or whatever you want to call it. I don't even remember selling those, but I guess they still had some in inventory. Number 33, Godfather. Number 34, Guns N' Roses, Ellie. number 35 almost at the bottom of the list ninja eclipse remember ninja eclipse we're like one of two dealers at the very end and uh turner you know let us sell a couple of them now none of those have shipped but they're pre-sold and the worst selling game of 2024 drum roll please american pinballs barrios barbecue challenge but it did sell and it sold more than one i'll be honest i sold three there you go that's the bottom of the bottom of the pile there three yeah so you know the all the things i listed above sold at least three nice does is that uh interesting to people i don't know does it get me in trouble i no clue am i being too transparent as a business, maybe. But nonetheless, again, more information and more entertainment for you, the listener. And you're not going to get this stuff. Who else is going to replicate this? I don't know if that's a rhetorical question or not. No, she won't. She's out of them. She's all out. Fresh out. Buy yourself a spot, dog. Actually, go to Discord and let's talk about it. But then turn it off. Yes.