you're listening to the head-to-head people podcast find us on facebook email us at head Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 77 and my name's Martin and with me... Lucky number 77, Ryan C. And Marty, our next guest has designed no pinball machines because we didn't get a guest this week, Marty. And our first person we're going to talk about has also designed no pinball machines. Ah, fuck. Well, you can lead, Marty, because you wrote the show notes, so go ahead. This is like three weeks in a row I've done the show notes. What has happened to us? We have just switched roles. All of a sudden, I'm going to become a robot. Oh, you did. Inside joke. Well, kind of. Okay, so the news is John Trudeau. Oh, joy news. So just before we recorded, we're like, oh, we can't start with this. And I said, let's start with it so we can just move on from it. Okay. So, effectively, we have somewhat been following John Trudeau and his case for child pornography. But effectively, he has gone to court and pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography. Cool. Next story. Fuck. it's just but this is what it says though his guilty pleas in the original two charges appear to be part of a plea bargain deal struck with prosecutors and agreed by the judge they are stipulation of facts guilty pleas which means that he accepts the truth of the facts presented without directly admitting guilt what does that mean i don't care he's not and they've got to work well again. He's just a horrible person. You are horrible. It's so weird because when you look at someone and you think they're normal, you're like, ah, he looks a bit creepy, but, you know, he's probably not. That's just me being mean. And then you kind of know what they've done and, like, I don't know. I was looking at his mugshot and just staring into his soul. I'm like, oh, fuck. I feel like I've got to wash my hands and have a shower. It's disgusting. Marty how can we have how can we have no guests we have no guests for the first time in ages and we're fucking talking about it's horrible I'm ringing someone who have we got who are you going to ring Christopher Franchi hasn't been on a podcast in a while well two weeks well he hasn't been on a podcast for like six days or something I'm going to see if he answers I think it's four o'clock in the morning where he is I'm going to see if he answers I don't know if I got his number. Probably. Anyway, what's next, Marty? Hello? Hello? Hello? Is that Christopher Franchi? Yes. How you going, buddy? We don't have any guests, so I know you haven't been on a podcast in a while. Would you like to talk about your inspiration behind the Munsters art? Oh, at four in the morning? It actually is this time. Last time we faked it, so... You guys are dicks. We really are. What's going on, Chris? You want to talk about what now? I don't know. How many pinball machines are you producing this year, Chris, the Artful? Did you say it was like four or five or something? No. Maybe two or three. But I don't know. Actually, I don't even know what's going on right now. We're kind of at a stall with some things. So I don't know if the two or three are going to pick up or it's going to end up being two or it's going to end up being one. I don't know. Tell me about the Munsters VIP experience. That's what I want to know about. The Munsters VIP experience. Well, what that is was when Ed was telling me that he was having Butch, Patrick, and Pat Priest out there, my wheels kind of started spinning. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be cool if we did? And, you know, because obviously, you know, I'm going to be a guest out there. Obviously, I was going to throw together a, you know, a Munsters print or something. Usually, whenever I do a show, I bring something, you know, special related to whatever I was working on, you know, to the show. I've done Guardians prints and Batman prints before. And so I was thinking of doing a Munsters print. And I don't know, my wheels just started spinning. And I thought, you know, it'd be neat if it's something a little more special than just doing a print. so I thought like, you know, what if, what if we did a special print had, had, you know, rather than it just be like sort of monsters are like, let's feature Eddie and Marilyn, you know, real strongly in the artwork. They then put a little box for them to sign it and then have a little box for me and John to sign it. And then once we started talking about it, you know, he was willing to bring everybody in. And so not just me and John Borg, but also Dwight Sullivan and Jerry, the guy who did the sound. So there we go. We got an art print that all six of us can sign, which is pretty special. And there's only going to be 64 of those. And then you get a mug that has… Was that your idea, Chris? You do like your mugs. Well, that was actually Ed's idea. The promo image doesn't even show the good side of the mug. There's like the artwork of a family group shot on the other side. But the side that's shown on the ad is just kind of like, you know, Munster's VIP experience or whatever. It's just like sort of a logo side. The other side of the mug's better. But you get that. You have a special laminate, special meet and greet sort of a thing. I have to look at the details because I just kind of dumped out a bunch of ideas and he put it together. And honestly, I saw the image, but I haven't even read the details. So I don't know what he added to it. But, you know, just the birth of it was just really, you know, because of the release of the game and having the two only remaining cast members there. we thought it would be fun to do something more special than just there's an art print available and you can go have them sign it if you want let's take advantage of them being there and do something really unique awesome alright anything else you'd like to say in this mini impromptu 4am interview Christopher Franchi well you know yeah I'm actually pissed about something that I could get off of my chest. Is it regarding chalupas? Chalupa. Actually, it is. Actually, I had somebody stand on their lawn, or stand on my lawn and tell me my chalupa sucks, in a matter of speaking. Unfortunately, I'd have to give credit to this person, and they're probably going to get more airplays than they normally would because of the amount of people that listen to your show compared to that listen to their show. But just to clarify something, since he wanted to stand on his soapbox for 30 minutes, a certain Mr. Taylor James Rees from This Flippin' Podcast decided he would stand on his soapbox for 30 minutes and explain that if you draw a picture of statues that already exist, you're drawing art of art and that isn't art. And he went on for 30 minutes trying to explain this, and he went on. His co-host was like, yeah, no. You know, like you could tell his co-host thought he was full of shit. So he just decided he would keep going until his co-host would either agree or cave in. And you can kind of tell if you listen to it that he just kind of caved in. He was just kind of tired of listening to him talk about this. He basically said the same thing, 20 different ways in the span of like 30 minutes. So to rebut him without going on his crap show, I would simply say, I would simply say, if what he says is true, then everybody has to just put their paintbrushes and pencils down right now because you can't draw anything. If you draw a picture of the Statue of Liberty, that's somebody else's art. You can't draw it. If you draw a picture from a photograph, photography is art. So you can't draw that either. If you want to draw a picture of Frankenstein, a creature from the Black Lagoon, stop right now because that makeup is somebody's artwork and you can't draw it. The obvious thing is I looked at the photo of the statues and your art and you've had to completely redraw their faces because they're in different poses. yeah yeah i wanted different expressions and different angles and things so so yeah his he drew it exactly like it is the photo is incorrect there's actually other little tweaks too i moved hands and different things just to make it the way i wanted but uh yeah it's like you know hello i'm not a fine artist i mean i'm not i could do that if i wanted but if i did i wouldn't i wouldn't be drawing paintings of monster statues you know i'd be you know try to convey an emotion about something or whatever and i'd have a gallery showing you know what i'm doing is commercial art that's different you know drew struzan who's the most amazing poster artist on the planet he's actually retired now but he did the star wars and the indiana jones and you know et like everybody's most memorable you know childhood memories of movie posters this guy did and i watched a documentary on how he creates his stuff and the first thing he says right out loud is basically i trace the photos because i have to this is commercial work i have to get it done quick i have to get it done accurately and i don't have time to mess around sure i could do it if i wanted but it would take a lot longer to hand draw it now i don't do that but my point is that's the difference between commercial art and fine art you know you have to or you know he was kind of trying to throw me under the bus and say like, you know, how Jeremy did, uh, you know, Deadpool and it was all, well, that's a comic book. You're allowed to do whatever you want. You know, you can make his head look more square rather than round. And you know what, you can take those, those literaties if you want, because it's a comic book, it's not real. But when you're drawing the monsters, those are real actors and real clothing. And you have to draw it that way. If you don't, it'll just look like a comic book so a big difference if you know what you're talking about you wouldn't have spent 30 minutes talking about that and going off on a rant it was obviously a witch hunt i don't know why i've never done anything mean to the guy we used to be friends on facebook until i heard that rant and went and checked and noticed that i was gone so i don't know whatever well at the end of the day we are speaking to you now and Munsters has been released, you've got to have been happy with the response that people have had to the art package, right? To most people, yeah. How many people are unsatisfied though, Chris? I mean, we've talked about this before and I think your response was with the Beatles art that the people that you respect are the ones and value their opinion is mostly the one that you listen to. If you don't think someone knows what they're talking about, then they can't really get you mad. But like, you know, with what you're talking about here. Yeah, let me clarify that a bit, because when I just hear you say it, it sounds wrong. It's not like anybody who, you know, isn't an artist can say, I don't like that artwork. You know, artwork is subjective. And then I always say whenever I create an art package for something, I know not everybody's going to like it. You try to please everybody, but you know they're not all going to like it. So that's fine, and I respect other people's opinions. But when people go overboard like Mr. James Rees did and obviously went on a witch hunt, that's the kind of stuff I don't respect because there's different motivations there. And for whatever reason it is, I don't know and I don't care to know. yeah look I guess you know we know art is subjective but I guess it's when I've noticed before when people sort of attack I guess your technique and they sort of you know question your ability as an illustrator well that's when it gets personal right because art is subjective yeah exactly you know I've read some where people you know honestly I haven't read anything where anybody was just outright against the artwork and didn't like it. There were people saying, I don't like the black and white one, and I don't like the cabinet on the LE, but it wasn't excessive one way or the other. Just a few people here and there. Overall, I think it was a fantastic response. I would take this one on every game I do in the future. The fact that the LEs have easily sold out, plus they're making more, like doesn't that scream louder than people saying they don't like it like yeah that the le crowd is the one you almost not have to please the least but if you please them enough that stern want to make another hundred then obviously you're doing something right yeah yeah i mean i feel the same way um but then the people who are against those extra hundred i feel at fault well maybe if i did a you know a crappier job they wouldn't want one so yeah i mean it's i i think the response is great i think everybody on the team worked really hard and and uh you know did a great job but you know i think borg's at the top of this game right now and and uh you know um dwight um from what i know i don't know a ton about the code you know we did go over some of the basics when we were designing the game but you know what his intentions on all that I really like. I like the games that can kind of go either way. You can just have fun if you know the basics of pinball and you just show up and bang things around. But also at the same time, there's a deep rule set or there will be a deep rule set in place that would satisfy the more hardcore pinball fans. I think it's a fantastic game all in all. want to... It's always cool when you see the reveals because I never see everything put together. I do cabinet art, back glass art, play field art, art blades, the backbox art, all the plastics and bumper caps. All of that stuff is done separate. And I never see it put together until the reveal. Don't you have it on some kind of computer program that... I remember when they first revealed... Yeah, when they first revealed Game of Thrones, I thought it might have been fake because they use these high quality renders, but it was like so... It was a little bit off that it looked like someone might have just mocked it up or something. And it wasn't a real photo of the machine. And I don't think they've done that again, but don't you get that at least? Don't you get some kind of mock-up of it? No. No. If I take the time to do it, I can stack the plastics and lay them on the play field and kind of put like a drop shadow behind them, which I've done in the past. And I think that was actually shown in some reveals. I think the leak on that Power Play presentation for the Munsters, I think, showed the play field like that, where there were no flippers or things like that, but all the plastics were in place. And that was just artwork stacked on top of one another. But you never get to see the whole picture. And I'd kind of prefer it that way, actually. As long as I think I was accurate with everything that I did, it's fun to kind of be a part of the reveal with everybody else. Granted, I know what's coming in a sense, but I get to see it all put together for the first time just like everybody else does. So that's always exciting. Awesome. And I hopefully will either get to play it before TPF or at TPF, and I will see you there. Yeah. Are we going out drinking? Yeah. Hell yeah. Are you guys both coming? I've been drunk. No, it's just me. Me and Marty can't be at the same place at the same time anymore. That's correct. It's a new rule. Yeah, thanks for coming. Thanks for answering your phone. Just throw the illusion that it's actually one person. It is. Yeah, it's head-to-head. That's where we connect. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Thanks for answering your phone, Chris. Yeah, sorry. It's 4 a.m., so I'm sorry. Not sorry. Yeah. Barlow's looking at me like what the hell are you doing we're supposed to be sleeping right now but now I'm all fired up I'm going to go get some coffee alright guys nice talking to you as always see you soon bye wasn't that better than talking about the first new Suffolk money it really was I thought you must have organized that but obviously not no I was just looking through my phone and yeah anyway so let's move on to Chris of France three weeks in a row so someone has to get him on next week because it has to I want to just see if we get Chris of France on Tyler James Rees's show I listened to that episode but I listened like at a really fast speed to their show because they talk very slow so it probably was half an hour it didn't seem that long to me he was just kind of talking about yeah that I don't know he should give credit like when you it was a bit of a weird thing he wanted like when you get to the wizard mode you get credit for, like, the artwork gives you credit or something like, hey, this artwork was based off the statues or something, which I think would be a really shitty Wizard Mode. But, yeah, I don't know. It was, yeah. I wasn't offended by it, but I didn't do the art. Fair enough. Anyway, so we've gone bad to good. Let's talk about Ben Heck. Oh, my gosh. Five fast Ben Heck thoughts, Marty. give it to me are we really doing this go for it he doesn't like spooky that's number one what's the second one Marty he's got a bit of resentment a bit of anger building up building up he's not releasing it Marty what's the third one the third one is it's vented all over the place so he and has now also mentioned that it was pretty much the evil dead that he was working on yeah uh it was kind of rumored of that but we you know out of respect for everything we didn't mention anything um because who knows they might have gone back to the license or whatnot and you don't want to compromise that in any way but yeah ben heck uh is on the forums again what read the quote marty do you have a quote there of which one i don't know just all of them I mean, I do. It says, Gee, if only a Ben Heck-designed Evil Dead pinball could have existed. So cool, right? He said, Yeah. Imagine how satisfying it would be for a trapdoor to open, fire a ball into it, slam shut, and the action moves to a lower playfield basement. What company would waste such cool ideas and do Alice Cooper instead? Ah. One of the first ones was people were talking about America's Most Haunted, and Ben Heck said, No more updates for America's Most Haunted. the only reason I did the 2006 update, that's when I actually owned the machine, was to boost people's opinions on spooky code commitment because at the time, Rob Zombie sucked. I cared then because I had a future game. Now I don't. Screw it. So that's exactly what you want to hear from your, well, I guess it's like an ex-contractor or ex-employee, but that's, I mean, that would be every ex-employee though. Like any ex-employee that was working on code for a game they're never going to work there. I don't think they're going to be like, I'm going to work on this on my own time. He doesn't work there anymore. But there's more. There's more, right? There is. I don't know. Did you read Charlie Emery's thing? No. I'm going to read it. I don't give a fuck. Go, read it. Charlie Emery wrote back. Okay, he is responding to Ben Heck, because, I mean, Charlie Emery is not out there on the forums jabbing at Ben Heck. We actually had Charlie Emery on the show the week that the Ben Heck and Charlie split up happened. And we didn't get him on for that reason. We had him scheduled in, I believe. Yeah, we did. And it just happened to happen that week. And we asked Charlie to kind of discuss it, and he was pretty amicable about it. And he was just saying, whenever Ben wants to come and work here again, he's welcome to come. We had Ben on the show. Ben cracked a bunch of jokes about pretend-to-care money. and I guess that's what he kind of was talking about there. But anyway, this is Charlie Emery back to Ben Heck. This is your daily dose of Pinside's pinball industry drama. You started quitting during your America's Most Haunted because you had zero faith in the pinball buying public due to a slow sales start. I still have the email with you saying exactly that. I offered you half the company to become a full partner during America's Most Haunted because I thought it would be the best for all of us, and I was really afraid you were going to leave. You were making too much money, and you couldn't risk it, so you passed, and I had accepted it. You quit during Rob Zombie. You quit at least every other week while we had you on the payroll, helping with Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle and designing your next game, which I guess was Evil Dead. the license on your game came down to one camp asking for more money than we had to give we tried to make it work with them and we offered you multiple options to choose other licenses and offered to make you whatever original game you wanted which would have given you more creative control yes Marty? I was going to say, you weren't satisfied with any of this, so you quit then you quit more, then you quit publicly yeah the spinal, sorry, you can read it, because I'm reading on my phone. I know, I've got the whole thing. I have to zoom in and scroll back and forth. No, I know. So despite all this, we still hoped to help you finish the game we paid for you to develop even up to a couple of months ago. Having it sit here collecting dust sucks, but you can't stop attacking me slash Spooky publicly and stating your version of history. So the desire to do that is fleeting fast. You chose not to be here. We never wanted you to leave. First and last time I'll say anything on this publicly, this should have been between Ben and Spooky, period. I've never denied and never will the importance of Ben Heck helping Spooky getting started. Typing any of this sucks. Frowny face. Yeah, it's kind of sad. But, I mean, these stories exist, Marty, and I'm sure stuff like this happens every couple of months, but everyone is very tight-lipped about it and it's not until, you know, like 20 years later where you get to hear a story. I was actually listening to the David Thiel interview that he did with Brody Even Pinball, which was just an amazing interview, and it's like two hours something long, and I just couldn't listen to it the week that it came out, and I finally got to listen to it. And David was also being very candid, and he kind of said, well, this is what kind of happened at Stern with this project, with X-Men, and it was quite a funny story. And he's like, well, I'm probably never going to work there. I'm very confident I'm never going to work there again, so I'll tell the story. And that's what it comes down to, is It's a small industry. If you burn your bridges, then you might never work in the industry again. So you only get the actual true story when someone is confident that they're retiring. Yeah, it's like they're at the point of no return. They're like, well, I'm not going back, so it doesn't matter. Yeah. So the story I want to hear, Marty, is what happened to Guardians of the Galaxy when it came out. Because I know something bad happened to that game with the way the artwork, not the artwork, sorry, the artwork's awesome. The sound. the sounds and the visuals and just the modes the music I love to know the real story It never going to get out That the one story where everyone just tiptoes around like yeah licensor this that You know that just how it works Yeah, exactly. So, that's five fast thoughts, but then heck. There you go. On the weekend, Ryan, over in America, things happen in America, did you know? They had the well, that's right, they had the state championship series and I think the provincial championship series as well. So this is all the states and provinces of North America all battling it out at a state level to then have a representative that goes to the Nationals. And they pretty much happened this weekend. And, I mean, look, there's how many states in America? Fifteen? Fifteen? Twenty, maybe? I don't know. What? Fifteen. I'm kidding, right? I think there's like 52 or something I don't know anyway so there's 50 there's 50 nah I'm pretty sure 50 exactly isn't it no because I think with this as well because there's also a couple of the Canadian provinces anyway whatever so all we'll say about the state championships is that they happened over the weekend all people got into the finals and there you go lots of monies as well. Lots of money was handed out. Correct. So I think the finals were in Vegas. Is that right? Yeah, I think it's in Vegas. Well, it was in Vegas last year, so maybe it's in Vegas every year. Could be. Yeah. It's in March, so you can go to Vegas, hang out there for two weeks, Marty, and then go to CBF if you really want to. Okay. There you go. Might do that. What else we got money? Well, we've got Deadpool news. Massive news, Ryan. Yeah. Yeah, the vinyl. The vinyl, the record. Yeah. The only news, the bit that I care about this is that on the little flyer thing for it, it said, hey, this came out before the other game got its tupper. That's funny. Hilarious. I give that joke an 8 out of 10. So all those people that received their vinyl, well done. Now go out and buy a record player. It's a collectible money. Like Funko Puffs. You just stick it up on your thing and say, look at the shit. Look at the stuff that I have. I've got stuff. All right. Speaking of things that have shipped, Ryan. Yes, the Stern 30th anniversary book has finally shipped. Is that why that's your money? Yeah, it's quite the opposite of that. So we had another update. Hello, Kickstarter backers. Oh, that starts nice and positive. I wonder how many people care about this Stern book that we always have on the bounce. I don't know, there's that many people in it but every time, because obviously you know, it's well documented the horrors that I've had with Kickstarters and Kickstarter updates usually arrive on a Saturday morning for me which means Friday night probably for the rest of the world and so, you know, I'd get up in the morning, have my coffee, get up on the balcony open up my phone and go, okay, what emails have I got? And there would always be a couple of updates from Kickstarter. And just towards the end, I would just look at them and go, oh, fuck. I just don't want to know. Is this going to be another one telling me that they're falling over? Yeah, like, give me the tracking number or shut the fuck up. Correct. So, this is what this one says. Hello, Kickstarter backers. As the title suggests, we are rounding the bend with a layout and photoshopping. We're still missing a few machines, but have been in contact with the Las Vegas Pimple Hall of Fame about doing what will hopefully be our final shoot there. When we first approached this project, we assumed that there were studio quality photographs of most, if not all machines. But we could not have been more wrong. As it turns out, no one has really photographed most of the games we need in the way we need them for a book like this. So what are they doing, Marty? How do they get these photos? What's the best way to get them? The best way is to fly to Banning, California and set up a mini studio of some kind and, yeah, take photos of machines. Yeah, pretty much. So some of the images take over an hour. There are 100 machines and an average of 30 images per machine, which works out to over 1,500 hours of Photoshop alone. When I saw the update, I was like, hey, this is kind of cool and good news because at least they're doing something, you know, and it's getting somewhere. And then I kind of read the comments and I was like, oh, yeah, because people were like, like, the games are easy. Did you have these images already? Was the first question. No, not that. The images are not stock. Like, the game out of the factory is, like, what the purist wants to kind of see, right? It's like, this game came out like this with this color and these features, and that's the game that Stern produced because they're celebrating Stern. And I think in the video, I didn't watch the video, but someone was like, like, look at that game. It has, like, powder-coated legs that are different color. Like, that's not the game. And it has mods and it has this and that. Like, that's not original. so I don't know what's going to happen there. I mean, I don't think Stern would be happy with yellow powder-coated legs on a game, or bright blue this, and mods, like Mezel Mods on their games. That's not them. That's not Stern, and they have their name on it, so maybe they'll have to add some more Photoshopping hours money. Yeah, we're not going to get it this year. Yeah, that's the update. Yeah. So, speaking of tournaments, Ryan, the Australian Championship Series, the ACS, is on in a couple of weeks. Are you going? I am going. I'm currently seed 34, which sucks because I'm in this insane group where everyone is the death group because everyone's either the current champ or the former champ and all the guys making up the numbers after me are actually way better players than me They just play in a state that doesn't get many comps. So I need someone really early to drop out, and that will change the entire seating, and I'll be in a different group. Thank you. There you go. Well done. But, yeah, I'm going. I'm going. It's the lights are booked. Combination is booked. I think they have to pay the entry fee into it. We've got a sponsor, Marty, for ACS? We do. So Amusement Machine Distributors, AMD. We've had Michael from AMD on the show before. Well, they've announced. so we were pleased to announce that AMD will be the major sponsor for the IFPA Australian Championship Series and will be contributing $3,000 in cash to the ACS prize pool. They will also be bringing along a Beatles gold edition to be used in the competitions. The peasant gold edition. Yeah, hey, we know someone that's getting the gold so we should go and get practice. You should go and camp there and stay there in the garage, apparently is what I heard. What? so okay cool so you're literally going to go over there and camp there but anyway we'll see how we go but I think that's cool similar to the kind of like the whole dollar gate thing throw some cash out there it gives it a bigger profile so there you go well done there'll be entry entry fees as well go towards the prize right like that's 3000 plus whatever it would it's going to be before so it's it's February 15 to 17 is that right yeah have you not booked tickets or anything Marty Well, no, because I'm driving. Ah, that's right, you're driving. I am driving because I am going to have this car full of all my gear because we are going to be streaming the ACS on the Melbourne Super Bowl League Twitch page. Cool. Do you have a plan of attack on how you're going to stream all the machines there and which events you're going to stream? Oh, I'm only going to be really streaming the main event. Okay. And I'm obviously not going to be able to stream all the machines. I don't have that kind of equipment just yet. I am buying more and more cameras as we go. So I think by the time we get there, we'll be able to stream six machines. Well, you don't flick between them. I'm tempted, I will say I'm tempted to set up a Carl D'Python Anghelo trademark mobile stream. Yeah. I mean, if you had that, couldn't, I mean, I know you have to still like have a bunch of, you know, camera set up and not move but couldn't you almost like just need that and then just just keep on switching it from one to another i could but the reason why i'm not is two reasons one because i'm competing and two probably even more so no no no no no no but here's two which is more importantly i've got two weeks to buy the equipment put it together test it and make sure that it works so I'm going to be so worried that this technology is not going to work. Plus you have to build a custom frame as well. I don't think he bought that from the shops. He custom built the frame. It's just not going to happen. We're going to do the best we can. Hey Carl, send Marty your specs for the mobile rig. Thank you, Carl. The specs are up on Tilt Forums. Not the cameras he uses. Oh, you mean like the frame? The frame is the most important thing, right? In the past when he's been very This is what I like about Carl. I mean, I like a lot of things about Carl. But one thing I like about Carl is, I mean, he knows the standard he does can't be matched. So he's like, you know what? Here you are, guys. Here's everything it takes to build a setup like mine. Go crazy. So he did. The streaming thread on Tilt Forums is the most regular thread that I go to. and it's where I've built, where I've got most of my equipment effectively is from the list that Carl put up there. So there you go. All right. The next news story is about CGC and this one might have gone under the radar a little bit but basically CGC kind of like made an update and I won't read the entire update but basically they're saying that, hey, we apologize that there have been delays with not a lot of alleys and special editions going out, and it's more of the – it's not the pro edition. What's it called? The standard edition. And the reason why they're doing that is that the pros – they don't digitally print their machines. They use like – what's it called? Marc Silk screening? Marc Silk screening. Yeah. With 10 spot colors. Yep. Yeah, instead of like four or whatever it is. And basically, the end result of the play field is at differing quality. so when they inspect the playfield they're like this is not the Ali's standards kind of like you know what the playfield mob I can't remember their name does like CPR, CPR gold, CPR silver CPR bronze so they're doing the same thing so the Ali's all get the gold like the best of the best when they produce it if they don't come out right well they either scrap it if it's not good enough but if it's kind of like passable they put it on the standard edition and there's obviously that could have been going on for ages, but it's the first time I think they've admitted that and it made people a little bit angry because they were saying, well, hey, I'm still buying the same machine. Shouldn't I get the same quality playfield? I don't want to say, well, if I buy the cheapest version, that means I get the cheapest quality print. Fair enough. You don't give a shit, do you, Marty? Look, what did we we had the standard edition that came out to us didn't we when we saw it at Flipout. No it was a special edition they just looked spectacular I think as long as the playfield looks as good as an original Monster Bash I'd be happy but also remember last week I said I'd always have to have the most special one so if I felt that there was one out there that had a better play field than mine, I would always covet that one. Okay. So, anyway. Yeah, I can't, I was trying to think if I would get annoyed if that was me, but I just don't know. I enjoy playing pinball more than getting a magnifying glass at and looking, but yeah. The differences that people kind of showed the pictures of weren't noticeable enough for me. Yeah, there you go. Shall we do social media watch? Sure. Social media watch. Well, I think that there's really been only one thing that's dominated social media the last week. What's that, Ryan? I see what you wrote here. Facebook is being assimilated by the Borg. John Borg is on a massive social media rampage. Like, what John Borg does is he goes into hiding when he, like, doesn't have a game out, and, like, you don't see anything posted on his Facebook, if your friend is on Facebook, for just months on end. And if you write a message to him, he doesn't respond. And then when a game is coming out, John Borg is like... Here I am, guys. Yeah, he's like your grandma on social media, like, check out this one, guys. Look at this. Look at this. I don't know what I think it is, though. This is what I think it is, right? He's excited, man. Well, yes, he's excited because he's released a game where there's been very little criticism. So he's just like, oh, shit, yeah, I can actually put my head out here and people won't chop my head off. Yeah. And it's like that documentary, the Pinty Thousand documentary, when Cameron Silver was talking about how he hated working on the Star Wars game because usually he would work with, you know, like 100 people or however many it was at Williams and bounce ideas off them. But because of like non-disclosure agreements and, you know, the PIN 2000 and whatever, the fact that they got to read the script, they were kind of like sectioned off in his room and it was like it was so miserable because you don't get to kind of like tell people about what you're working on. And I guess this is like that to a lesser degree that every person that's working on a game would love to share, you know, YouTube videos of, hey, and now I'm doing this and now I'm doing that and take you along the journey, but it has to just be a secret for a year and a half or however long it takes, and then finally get to just explode on social media like John Borg has. Okay, so I alluded to it last week, and then I'll elaborate a little bit more. So last week when we spoke to Dwight, Dwight said, well, why are you buying an LE without playing it or seeing it? The correct answer is because I'm fucking nuts or whatever it is, right? This is what I will tell you. I had heard through a very, very reliable source that John Borg had said that he reckons this is the best layout he's done in years. Okay. So when I saw it, I went, that looks great. That looks like the ultimate Borg layout. He's just done everything right. So I think he knows. I think he knows he's absolutely delivered something that has really won everybody over. So he's out there telling the world. Good on him. Enjoy the moment. This week in Slam the Top, Ryan has no emotions. That's right. You can tell. You can tell I did the show notes. Yes. Asshole. So let's recap on what we spoke about last week and then talk about the question that you put up on Facebook that only semi-relates to what we talked about last week. You won the argument, Marnie. No, I know. I am fucking ready to gloat. So let's go. Okay, go for it. So last week we talked about when I mentioned that Iron Maiden was going, I talked about the fact that I didn't have a connection with this machine. and you thought I was fucking mad. Didn't you? It just didn't make sense. I just thought that was just a shitty excuse to sell a game. No, it's not a shitty excuse to sell a game. I just didn't think it was genuine that if you opened the game, you would have somehow liked it more. No. And I then had to further clarify on Facebook as well because people thought it was all a bit of mixed messages. So remember, all I was saying was that I didn't connect with this machine. So you put up a poll on Facebook which said, can you personally form a relationship with a pinball machine that makes it feel like more than an inanimate object? I'm not going to mention the fact that you said inanimate. Yes. Inanimate object. So basically what you were asking people was, do you want to fuck a pinball machine? Do you have objectophilia? And guess what? Like, 61% of people want to fuck a pinball machine. How embarrassing that. I made the question worse to try and favour me and make you look weird. But people are like, yeah, I'm fucking weird. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. That's exactly right. It's like, yeah, I'd hate it. This is my, not argument, but this is what I was maybe trying to get at, which is not what you said. So it was just all, I think, a big misunderstanding. I know you can form you know like I love this fucking thing so much and it doesn't have emotions back when you compare it to something that does have emotions Marty like you don't have any pets or anything I don't know if your kid gets sick or something right and you have to sell all of your pinball machines you would do it in a fucking heartbeat because your pinball machines don't have any emotions right it's an object I gave a kidney I would definitely sell my pinball machines exactly so that's the thing is that people aren't put in those situations because they might be. It might have happened before where you've had to sell your pinball machines to either keep your marriage or stay afloat financially. But you've got to do it and it doesn't kill you because it's just a fucking pinball machine. It's just an object that has no emotions. Correct. It's just a toy that makes you feel good. Correct. It makes you feel good though. Yes. And what I was saying is that some machines make you feel better than others, and some you can form a connection with because they just constantly make you feel better. All right? Yeah. So this is what I said on Pinside, and I'm repeating this because I think this perfectly summed up what I was saying about Iron Maiden. You ready? Yeah. It says, So well known, I only have room for four machines, so I play them a lot. So to keep my lineup interesting and for streaming, I have to rotate one. Munsters comes in because Iron Maiden can go out. I've had my time with it. Great machine in so many ways, but I'm done. If I loved all my machines and couldn't part with any of them, then I wouldn't be buying a new machine. That's that simple. Yeah. Hey, do you know that I almost sold Metallica on the weekend and I was talking to a guy who really wanted it and he was asking these questions so I have to turn on the machine and then I play the game and I was like, oh, what am I doing? I can't sell this fucking machine. Is that because you've got a connection with it? It's not a connection. It's fun. That's all, Marty. It's fun. If I needed to sell the pinball machine, I would sell it. Yeah, I don't know. You are more practical when that... And also, you would sell it and then you would still have 25 other machines to play that would keep you happy. Well, I bought two pinball machines this week, Marty, and sold one. Well, okay. We'll get into that a bit later on. I know, because it was funny, because in the show notes, when you get to the end, I wrote your notes for what you did this week. And I've written... Oh, I haven't gone down there yet. It says, Ryan... Probably bought three more machines this week. Nah, you're off by one. I bought two. You bought two. But I sold one, so the net result is plus one. That's right. Okay. We'll get to that in a second. So, shall we talk about the exit, 2018 exit survey? Yeah. And sorry for everyone that we said this was going to last week and we're going to do it last week. It was a three-hour podcast last week, okay? We had Dwight Sullivan on. We've been wanting to get him on the show for a long time. We can't just add, like, a 20-minute segment at the end. It's three hours is our limit. It's a long limit. Even then, we still got a bit of a backlash. People going, fucking three hours? You're serious? Just skip the shit that we talk about. Just go straight to the interview. But it was a great interview. Anyway, this is what we were going to do last week. We're doing it now. What was the first question, Ryan? Well, just quickly to just summarize if people don't know what we're talking about. We did just a Google survey thing, and we just wanted to capture a snapshot in time what people think of the pinball industry at the end of 2018. And I didn't want to put just a poll on Pinside because I hate polls that you can see the results because the first thing I do personally when I see a question is I check what the results are. And if I think it's skewed in the wrong area, I'm like, well, I'm going to vote to balance it out. And I don't want any of that. I want it to be like your real opinion. So me and Marty put this survey together. The first question was, were you priced out of buying new inbox pinball machines in 2018? 53.8% of people said yes. Yeah. so it was out of you know and so we were good so we also had 268 responses so that was quite a good response so that's 53.8 obviously 46.2 said no so that's that's i don't know i tried to post this um survey in in as many locations like pinball locations as possible like you know i did it on reddit uh facebook pinside and tilt forums and a couple of facebook groups and stuff like that so So I feel like it's balanced enough that it covers the tournament scene, the collector scene, or the filling out survey scene. Second question, Marty. If you are priced out, what is the price point you are interested in a fully featured DeepRoot pinball machine? Now, this is a controversial question because someone read it on Teal's. I think it was Joe Schober, and he was like, is this sponsored by DeepRoot? Are you guys just getting information for DeepRoot? No, not at all. We're doing this for shits and giggles, actually. Yeah, I'm doing it because Deep Root are the only ones that have said, well, HomePin, but let's ignore that. We do. They're going to try and compete with the Stern Pro range. So I'm like, well, if you're priced out, what entry fee would Deep Root have to be in for you to consider purchasing one of their machines? Okay. So, and the majority, well, not 47%. 47%. So the biggest category here was between $4,000 and $5,000 US. Yeah. The next was, so with 36% was $3,000 to $4,000. And then with 16.5% said $5,000 to $6,000 US. Yeah. Pretty big price brackets. But it's weird. I know there was a similar poll on Pinsight about T&A. Like, what would you buy a T&A at? And this was before it was, I think, even announced it was going to be produced. I can't remember. And I think it was the price range ended up being like either $1,000 or $500 less than what it ended up being. And it still sold really well, like way more than they'd ever think. So I think if your product is good enough, people will spend more even though they won't admit they would like to spend more. There you go. Good insight. Thanks. Do you think the machines you could buy in 2018 offered good value for money? Bang for buckaroony. And the answer was, in the majority, no. Nearly 60% said no and 40% said yes. 41%, you know, close enough. The question was, do you think there were too many machines that came out in 2018? Now, what did you think for this one personally, Marty? No, I don't think that there's too many machines because even though obviously there are a lot of machines, I just, because I'm, and that's obviously it's me personally, I don't go and buy every machine so I can pick and choose what I want. So Iron Maiden came out, Deadpool came out, and I'm like, okay, well, I don't have to worry about that. I'll wait for the next one. So I think that there's a lot of choice. It's really only affecting those people that have to buy every single machine. yeah, I would have said yes. Like, there's enough. Like, I don't know. And I don't know where I'm coming at because I don't buy, you know, new box of pinball machines either. I love seeing them. I love the reveal. I love, like, the excitement of learning something new. But surely, it was like 12 pinball machines maybe last year or – that's enough, right? No. Like, on average, one a month. No, it's not. Why do you want – can you imagine if there was two pinball machines or something every month, Marty? I guess we would never run out of podcast content. And also, remember, I lived in the heyday when this amount of machines came out. And here the difference right Because I not thinking about me and my collection at home I will pick the one machine that i connect with or wonderfuck you know whichever way you look at it but i just remember back in the day when i lived in sydney and i walk up george street they had about 10 arcades and i walked past all of them and it was almost every week i'm probably exaggerating there'd be a new machine to play that's what i love i love being able to go venue and being able to play a new machine. That first time you play a machine is just great. And if you could do that once a month, the problem with these machines is that's not the case because Alice Cooper's not going to be on site. Beatles might not be on site. Murphy won't be on site. Supreme, well, it's on site in America, but it won't be here. Thunderbirds, well, we'll never see. It has to be on site to gain back some money. So of these 12 machines, whatever it is four of them will be on site so this is my problem money yeah i i get that and i can see where you're coming from the flip side is i think the more pinball machines that come out the it cheapens my experience with the pinball machine i would love to love deadpool but i can ignore it because like it's already old news but it's not because it's not finished yet right whereas if there was like two Stern machines that came out a year, it's just like bam and I'd know it inside out. But I don't know the game yet because I only play it, like no one's invited me over to the house to play it. I've only played it at Pixel Alley. So there you go. But that's the difference between you that, you know, again, you're the collector. So you go to, it's either in your collection or it's in a collection of somebody you know because I've always been a tournament player and more of an arcade player and I've only got a couple of machines at home, I have to rely on these machines being on site for me to play. So, you know... It's also that you've played all the old machines already. I haven't. I'm playing catch-ups along multiple eras. So when a new machine comes out, I'm kind of like trying to experience the 80s good machines. When I went to Pinball Expo in 2014, the Australian Pinball Expo or whatever, I probably played all the games that I'd love to play now, but because there's so many new ones, it didn't mean anything to me. It was just like, okay, I'll play 8-Ball Deluxe. I know I've played 8-Ball Deluxe. I don't remember anything about it. Yeah, you would have had massive overload there. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Which company has the best-selling model? It's not the best way of describing that. What you're trying to say is the best sort of sales model. Yeah. Yeah. so we had stern with the pro premium le jersey jack with the standard le and collector's edition spooky and american people with just one model and highway dutch take deposits from machines you don't know how to make and then go bankrupt yeah i was just thinking people would vote for that um i forgot cgc but whatever it's kind of the same as stern so the results of that one stern actually once people love the tiered model that Stern do, with almost 65% of people voting that that is the model they like. Yeah, but to be fair, the JJB model is very similar, and you've got a Standard, an LE and a Collectors. Sure, they're called different pro-prem in LE, but it's still that three models. So those two collective would be, you know, 75% of the vote. yes but only 12 percent voters for jjp because i i guess yeah i think because they can only vote one you can't vote for two that's what i'm saying yeah i didn't phrase it properly i mean the jjp model i guess includes multiple le's a really expensive ce a really expensive standard because the standard has so much in it um compared to like a stern pro um so i guess yeah i mean the fact that half the people, 60% of the people were priced out, it's no wonder that they're not going to vote for JUP because they have the most expensive pins. That was about the sales model, not necessarily the price of the pins. If you buy a pinball machine, do you need to sell one first? You missed one, Marty. I'll do it quickly and I don't need to talk about it. Which machine offered the best value for money? There you go, I did miss that one. 45% said I made and second was Thunderbirds. I didn't notice that. Oh, no, it's not Thunderbirds. No, it's not. It's two purples. Sorry. I've got this covered. You ready? So, Iron Maiden, because I took that data and I've created a spreadsheet out of this one, Ryan. Iron Maiden was 45% of the vote. Monster Bash Remake, 23% of the vote. Deadpool, 13%. Then Pirates of the Caribbean, 8%. Then you had Thunderbirds, 13 votes. Most of those, shit-stirring, I'm sure. Well, it still is cheap. Sorry, it was almost the same colour purple, so I got confused. Yeah. All right, back on track. If you buy a pinball machine, do you need to sell one first? And so the answers were no, yes for space, yes for financial reasons, or yes for space and financial reasons. There could have been another there, but I tried to crowd people into those four categories. Results money. Well, really, if you do combine all of those, yes is the majority because no is 47.5% and the others are pretty equal. Yes for space and financial reasons is 20.8%. Yes for financial reasons is 14%. And yes for space is 17.5%. That's why there's so many people in machines, Marty. like half of the people we surveyed need to do something in order to buy a pinball. They can't just buy it. They have to buy it and sell it on a machine or, yeah. How do you feel about the asking price for second hand older titles? 50% of people said high. About 30% of people said stupidly high. And about 20% of people said okay. And almost no one said low because Three people said oh. They're not low. Because, again, there's the shits and giggles vote right there. Thank you, guys. All right, next section. Pinball quality in 2018. Are you more or less interested in pinball as a whole, just how you judge pinball, than you were a year ago? Pinball's on the up and up, Marty, because about 80% of people are more interested in pinball than they were a year ago. Yep. And are you happy with the build quality of machines in 2018? Yeah, about 62% of people said yes. Yes. And yeah, 38% said no. Which company in your eyes has the best bill courting? That's funny. All right. So coming out with 50% of the vote was Jersey Jack. Yeah. Okay. 28% was Stern. CGC about 10%. American Pinball 6, Home Pin 2.8, Spooky 2.4 and P3 1.6. Yeah, I mean, look, I would say I would say it's almost you can pretty much take, I guess, American Pinball, Home Pin Spooky, P3 almost out of it because I don't think that they've got enough numbers for people to have an opinion on build quality. Only from what they've heard. yeah so and there's also this yeah CERN produced the most machines as well which means they're going to come under the most scrutiny but JJP is like that ever shining light that people think really really highly of them and even when there's issues they're kind of like well because it has so many so much stuff in there so the more stuff you have the more it breaks so they they get a lot of slack there I think and their machines are good quality as well for sure so now the pinball tournament section did you like playing in pinball tournaments? That's a bit of a weird question. Did you like? I am reading it how it's written. Guys, I did this almost by myself in like five minutes. This wasn't something that we planned over months. So 60% of people that filled out our survey said yes, and about 40% said no. That's not bad. So the majority of people like playing in pinball tournaments, is what you're hearing. Yeah, they just don't like hearing about it, Marnie. They like playing. They don't want people to talk about it. Okay. If you answered no, why no? And the number one is people take it too serious. Before you saw the results, Marnie, what did you think was going to be number one? People take it too serious. genuinely because that's offline the things that we talk about is that sometimes it gets too serious when people are chasing whoppers when you're having to build a tournament around what's going to have the best TGP and you know it's like well that's too serious people just want to have fun and we know what's coming up because people when we ask them what's important to you in tournaments you'll see it's the complete inverse to that. So that was the highest response. We talked about it as well. Remember when that person came to my tournament and ruined it for everyone? One person was so toxic that that was him taking it too serious. It's like a virus. It spreads. I still think you can have serious tournaments though without... Not serious tournaments though. We'll talk about it another day. We did write that one. Anyway. Do you know what it is? It's not ones and zeros, Ryan. If I had a dollar for every time I've said that to you, it's somewhere in between. You've got to have the serious side of it because it's an IFPA tournament, so there's got to be rules and regulations, but it's also got to be fun for people as well. And finding that balance is really different. Where that middle ground is, is different to different people and to different cities, to different cultures, to the different types of machines that you've got. You've just got to find your way with what you've got. There you go. There you go. Getting off to a good start. Design your own machine. You have to make tournaments fun. Different people have different opinions on what is fun. It's exactly right. The second most popular answer was there are no tournaments in my area. So, yeah. A lot of people that would have been answering would have been in the US and that's a far larger area than what we have here. If you're in a capital city here, there's no excuse. And the next one, And in fact, the next two were very close, was I'm shy and nervous about it. And the other one was I don't have the skill level. Do I need to retell my story, Ryan? About? About the first year I played tournaments, I came last and second last and last again for about a year. That's right. and then you decided that you didn't care and then you started winning and playing better. That's right. And when I stopped caring, I stopped getting nervous, right? And then my skill level got better, but I just kept at it. And this is what I'm saying before. The social aspect will attract people longer term than the competitive depending on the critical mass of people that you've got. Yeah. The skill level thing, it can be a big ego bruiser when you... There's so many people that I see. The tournament that I ran on the weekend, Marty, I think it was like eight new people, right? Which is a lot. As in you never played a pinball tournament before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of the guys, I could just tell, he was like, I'm going to come here, I'm going to win this thing. These guys are all noobs. And he came somewhere close to last, and I heard him chatting to his mates that brought him along, and he's just like, you know, yeah, I'm never coming again. He wasn't angry. He was just joking around to his mates. He's like, I don't like these games. I like my games at home. The tilts are too tight. which they're not, but it's when you sit at home and play just your machines, you're the champion. You're the grand champion. You know, it's like this is a whole – all these people machines are celebrating me because you walk past them and it says GC, Ryan, GC, Ryan, because you never invite anyone to your house and because you have no fucking tilt, Bob, and you have extra balls every, like, two million points. You know what I mean? Like, you can set up a game however you want, but if you're playing in a competition, then it's that your true skills get kind of found out. So I don't have a skill level thing. I think you're going to get better regardless. I don't think it's impossible for someone to ever suck for ages, right? That's right. I don't know. And the first thing that will elevate your ability to play is the day or the moment that you lose the nerves. and you know you you did it as well i mean admittedly you got over your nerves quicker because i've said it before you were already a fantastic player so yeah but what what forced me to go back it was you saying come with me to my competition and i went with you as a friend all right that's what i was saying is that the the only way that people can kind of not only way but a really important factor is that you bring your friends. When I put it out on Facebook, hey, my tournament is free if you've never played before. I will hardly get anyone that will rock up and be like, oh, hey, I saw it on Facebook. I don't know any of these people that have rocked up because you're walking into a place with a bunch of people you don't know. It's like a crew, this club. It's really scary. You have to bring friends. You have to bring friends. Yeah, that's exactly right. And you hold their hand. Even if they're a 50-year-old Aussie dude with a beer gut, he still has insecurities and he still wants to be with his mates. Correct. And you are. You're completely exposed, but these things are fun. We've said it before. If you are listening and we talk about tournaments and you go, I don't want to go because I don't want to go, just fucking go. You will actually, you might not have the best time in your world. I can't guarantee that, but you will actually find that the majority of people, and I say the majority, there are some people that play that bum me out. I'm just putting it out there. They do. I play less as a result. That just happens. But for the most part, people will be welcoming you and they will want you. They will be cheering you on to do well because that's the good-natured spirit of pinball. There we go. If you do play competitive pinball, what is your favorite format? 46% or so said match play, which is just four-player groups. About 20% said flip frenzy. 13 or so percent said strikes, and the rest are kind of insignificant. No one likes pump and dump. No one likes pump and dump. I was going to say that. Like the tournament that I ran that everyone said they loved. In America, it's been going on for so long. It's been going on for so long, yeah. Everyone's so poor now. Exactly. One year on, do you think the $1 fee will or has had a positive influence on competitive pinball moving forward? An astounding 57.5% said yes. It has or will have. Majority said yes. So well done, Josh and Zach. There we go. And yeah, the rest no because there's only two options. Here we go, Brian. Yeah, what is the most important thing to you in tournaments? Whoppers, prize money or the social aspect? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So 78% said social aspects. You hear my partners? Right, because... Yeah. Well, it is, and it is 78%, because if you think about it, right, of all the tournaments that you've put on and I've put on and I've been in, what percentage of all those people have won a tournament? Well, a very small amount. Right. A very small amount. So they've got to be there for other reasons. Yeah. Yeah, you know? I know some people that aren't very good at playing pinball competitively, but they are very competitive, and they've become better tournament players as a result. I mean, this is what we were kind of arguing over during the week, and I guess we can talk about it now for a split second. Sure. I feel like if you have the right tournament structure, which has good whoppers and everything, then the social aspect comes with it. Like, the fact that you're playing four-player games instead of two-player games, which doubles your TGP, doesn't mean that the tournament is super serious now because there's more Whoppers. It just means there are more Whoppers. And in fact, you can say it's more social because you're forced to play in four-player groups instead of two-player groups. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So how does, like, the maximizing Whoppers thing, like, how do you think that it really deteriorates the social aspect for it? Is that because it attracts too many serious people? I think it's a bit of a ticking time bomb, meaning that you wait for that moment where a person comes along that's really insecure and is part in a group of four where someone is super serious. Now, this is a true story. I'm not going to say who it was, but there was a person that came along to one of my tournaments, and it was strikes. We had strikes, and I was outside talking to him, and I said, did you have a good night? And he said, I was having a good night until I lost a game, and the person I was playing with said to me, you lost because you're not very good at pinball. What? Who the fuck said that? I'm not going to tell you. But that's because that person's really competitive. Right? And there you go. There's your perfect storm, where you've got someone that's like, oh, and never came back. No big surprise. So that's where you get that perfect storm, where you've got somebody that's super competitive, with some of this not. As I'm saying, there's not a rule for any of this. You've got to think about the number of machines you've got, the venue itself, how much time you can spend in the venue, the proximity of the venue to transport, because if you're there for a long time, people need to know if it gets to 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at night, how they're going to get home. You think the layout is also really important, and that's what we spoke about during the week. All those factors in and you can't just go into it saying, I want to do this format. You've really got to suss out what type of person you're trying to attract, how you're going to keep them and how you get that balance right. There's just not one size that fits all. I know. I mean, I'm trying different things. I tried, I mean, even though the strice is working out well, I'm doing match play, and it's because I also want people – you talk about people, like what percentage of people win. Well, what percentage of people get into the finals? I'm now doing 16-person finals. And if I can push it to 24, if we get 40 people, then I'll do 24. Just so people say, well, I've won something. I don't care if it's A division, B division, or C division. They still got to that final stage where it becomes a bit more anxious and nervous, and then people feel excited. and as I said the byproduct of that is the small Whoppers but anyway I think the Whoppers factor is probably higher but people don't like to admit it because if the Whoppers thing had nothing to do with it we'll then run some tournaments that aren't ISPA sanctioned and see how many people come well you know I want both but here's the big problem I find And obviously, I'm going to talk about Melbourne because we live in Melbourne. Surprise there. If you look at, and it was really funny because we saw a tournament in 2012 today. You know, you sent us a picture of the state championships that we had in Victoria in 2012. And there was only one person on that list that we knew, and they live now in Brisbane. Yes. But if I was to show you five years ago all the people that were regularly competing then, they aren't competing now. So why is that? That's something that I definitely can't answer because I've only been doing this for a year. But what I can say is that I'm, I think, pretty successfully getting some people into pinball and they're continuing to come. No, because, let me stop, because you have absolutely got it right from the get-go. Got what? Well, your idea on this is not to have the best format. Your guide on this is I want to get people into pinball. And if that's the first thing, that's your guiding principle, everything else will follow because you will know when people are or aren't coming into it, right? And that's different, and I like it. I don't know. It might be just the fact that I'm running it at a bar that it's working out. Like the same format at my house, a lot of people liked it, but a lot of people were like, well, the games are too hard. Well, like the games are still pretty hard at People Paradise. It's just people are drunk when they're doing it, so they enjoy it more. I don't know. Anyway, that's a long conversation. the next one is how far would you travel for the perfect tournament marty well i i won't bore everybody with what i had to go through for this answer to make sense because some people answered the question as in miles some said in kilometers some said in time minutes hours days some people then said by location. So I had to somehow combine all that data and come up with a range that we could use. And so I did. And effectively, what I've said is 20% of people said globally they would travel the world to play in a tournament. That sounds fine, doesn't it? Yeah. Let's go around here. So I think the majority was 38% of people said within their country. 36% people said, yeah, so 25% said within their city. 13% said within their state. 3% said within their suburb or town. And 1% said none. They wouldn't travel. It's got to be in my house, motherfucker. It's got to be in my basement. Otherwise, I'm not going anywhere. I don't know what that told us so yeah I probably should have saved some time and you know had those options but I mean it's hard because people live like if you say internationally in Australia you have to get on a plane or a boat or something whereas if you say internationally and you live in upstate New York it's just like a couple of hours drive up to Canada but some of the answers were one hour by car the other one said one hour by plane so I had to do a lot of math Marty I had to individually work out what category that was in. It was a lot of hard work. So, anyway. The next question is, do you plan on playing more or less tournaments in 2019 than you did in 2018? And the vast majority said more. Yep. And, yeah, about 26% said less. The rest were more. Find your happiness in tournaments. Yeah. The next, we're done with tournaments now. You can start listening again. it's 2018 best of. So what was the best game of 2018? Mali. What was Iron Maiden? Let's just put it out there. It was Iron Maiden. 51% of the vote. Number two with 18% of the vote. Deadpool. Deadpool. Yeah, surprising for me. It's out there, I guess. It's out there. So was it me that said Deadpool? Yeah, it was. That's right. Sorry, yeah. Pirates of the Caribbean was third. Yeah. The rest, not big enough. Yeah. Change. Which game had the best layout? Iron Maiden won again, but this time by a larger percentage. It's those inner loops. Correct. With almost 60% of the vote, Iron Maiden had the best layout. Surprisingly for me, again, I didn't think people liked this layout as much as they do. 18%. See? Deadpool. You don't listen to me, is what I'm saying. I've got to play more Deadpool. I got Anthony Whippy you live like five minutes away please invite me over to your house and we're going to stream it mate so get on with it I still haven't played anything but the pro so I feel like I'm also judging it on their cheapest version the peasant pro next question Pirates of the Stars can you see the pattern here Marty high game which game has the best art which is subjective right money because it's art and we discussed that with our mystery guests that we had today yes well yes very mystery well so this was the difference is one of them was 27 the other one was 26 If you round them up they both 27 of the vote So, well done, Zombie Yeti. Yeah, Zombie Yeti just took a giant turn on everyone. Yeah, people love his art, absolutely. Deadpool was actually first. Yeah, Deadpool. Because it actually got 66 votes versus 65. Which one would you choose? I mean, I know it's like splitting hairs, but out of those two, which art package do you like the most? Iron Maiden. I like Deadpool simply because... Again, it's not ones and zeros. Just because I like Iron Maiden doesn't mean I hate Deadpool. They are both great machines. I'm just saying, you've got to choose one based on art to hang up in your house. Oh, Iron Maiden. But again, I've always loved Iron Maiden art, but Deadpool with its more comic feel would appeal to somebody that likes comic art. Alice Cooper, Nightmare Castle, and Pirates of the Caribbean are equal thirds with almost 9% of the vote. Houdini and Beatles are equal sixth, I guess, or fifth, whichever way you take it, or around 7%. Alice Cooper, Cabinet Art, Marley, though, I still haven't seen that in person. I think that is the best art of the year that I like. the playfield art, I don't know, I don't like as much as the cavern art, but I think it's one of those things that it's not out there, so it's not in people's minds. Well, I was going to say, it was good to see Primus up there as well, coming in equal third. Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm using the pie chart which doesn't, yeah, sorry. No, I've got my little chart, so. Yeah. Which game has the best rules? Surprise, surprise. Iron Maiden with 56.2% of the vote. Correct. In second is Pirates of the Caribbean and Deadpool with 10% in third. Yeah, there you go. Yo, yo, yo. What game has the best sound package? Now, I know sound packages mix up between call-outs and music. I probably gave Jeff the most shit last year in the twopies of not splitting that up. But this survey is like, it's already too many questions. And I, you know, it's like six pages of questions. So I just mixed them together. Yeah. Okay. So number one with 38% of the vote was... Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden, of course. And then Deadpool second with 25%. Then Pirates of the Caribbean with 17%. And Beatles with 11%. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. 2-2. Yeah. Jerry Thompson did both of them. So Jerry Thompson gets a combined percentage of like 65% or so. All right. What you want in 2019. Wow. A lot of these are kind of similar percentage-wise, but what is the most important factors in wanting to buy a new machine in 2019? So we have price, company producing it, theme, art, rules, layout, physical mix, how quick you can get it, and the resale value. The number one answer, Marty, with 60% of the vote. Now, you could vote for multiple things here, so you could select them all if you want. Just what is important to you. Number one, layout. Yes. And I'd agree with that. Absolutely. Followed by number two was price. Yeah, pretty close. 55% of the vote. Tied with exactly the same amount of votes is theme and rules, which is 53% of people thought that was extremely important to them. Then there's a fairly big drop off. Big gap for everything else, yeah. Yeah. 30% are physical mechs pretty low I thought that would be with the amount of bitching people do about like what is on and off the playfield like people are starting to because people don't have their munsters yet people are bitching about not having drop targets instead of that like that big fat target and it's like I know but well the votes don't reflect that exactly right if you talk about Iron Maiden what physical mechs does it have no it's just pure layout it's just the layout it's pure layout everybody layout is the most important thing. It always has been and it always will be. That's why Primus is such a good pinball machine, Marty. That layout is so good. But again, what was really low on this was the lowest was how quickly you can get it. Only 7% of people said that, but only 13% of people said resale value. Yeah, see, this is where I have trust issues with our own survey. Because the answers don't agree with you, therefore there's something wrong with the survey? I'm saying that TNA would have 100% sold way better if you could just, when it came out, get it now. 259 responses got that. You can't just go out and go, well, I'm doing a survey. Oh, well, it's all wrong because I didn't get the answer that I wanted. That's what it is. That's what it says. Okay. You know, I think if it was 60 people, it might be skewed. So you're saying that if Munsters was released tomorrow and they said, hey, you can get this in 2020, do you think they would sell as many as they did? Like, hey, it's in production. You can get it next week. No, but you're now altering timelines, right? So that doesn't happen. Anyway, if your dream theme was made in 2019, which company would you most want to make it? sort of close-ish, but 45% of the vote, which was the highest result, was Jersey Jack. Yep. And trailing just a little bit behind at about 36% is Stern. Spooky was third with 8% of the vote, and the rest I guess a little bit too small. I did chuck Deep Root in there just for not shitting giggles, I just wanted to see if people, you know, because of their designer list and what they're kind of promising, they get a couple of votes. Yeah, they got 4% of the votes. Yeah, look, I don't know. It's one of those things as well. Like, if your dream team was made, there's a lot of factors that go into wanting a particular company. So my dream team is Harry Potter. I would want Jersey Jack to make it because I think that they would create this incredible thing that was just so true to the world. but I would also then think well Stern either of those two companies will make it it will get made I can guarantee that it'll be made so that kind of factors into it as well okay would you buy an original theme in 2019 a massive massive 87.6% said yes 12.4% said no yeah what's really funny I've said this before is that people say yeah absolutely Oh, but not that theme. Or they would say, well, it's an original theme, so it should be cheaper because you're not paying licensing fees. People, you infuriate us sometimes. Would you buy a single level game in 2019? 66.7% said yes. And 33, wow, that's good percentages. That's two thirds said yes and one third said no. Yeah. Maybe we should ask the question. did you buy a single level game in 2018? Beatles and TNA. Was that it? Yeah. Yeah. And that sexy racing one from Spain. Yeah, correct. Do you think... Yeah. Do you think new pinball machines in 2019 will be better than those announced in 2018? Yeah. 75% said yes. 25% said no. I like that. That's the positive majority right there. They've said, yes, pinball machines are just going to get better. My life is going to be better in 2019. I'm going to be more connected to machines. Do you think that would ever be flipped? Do you think it's, what would it take for it to be a majority of no? Do you think it would take the pinball machine? Well, yeah. Do you think it'd be like the industry collapsing? or do you think it would be like a year that there's so many freaking good games, like every game that came out was just like bam, bam, bam, bam. All your dream things from your childhood, Jaws, shut up now. It'll depend on how this year goes. I think people are probably still a bit high on the titles from 2018 because for the most part, machines that came out in 2018 were great. They were innovative in a lot of ways. They had some great themes in a lot of ways. They had great designers. They had great art. It just makes everyone more fuzzier, though. I think it just raises the bar. No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. Let me finish. Because I think what that does is it lets people say, well, God, if that's what they did last year, what will they do this year? But I think if this year doesn't live up to the expectations of last year, people next year may have a more cynical view. Yeah. It goes back to what I said before about there's too many film machines coming out of it because it cheapens the work that people are doing on their game, like Deadpool and what we saw with the artwork reveal of the Beatles. You know what I mean? Take that back five years ago. Oh my gosh, this is the best art in the machine ever. But now you're like, I want more. I want Zombie Yeti to do the Beatles. What do you want? Here's my other parallel. It's just like when you go to restaurants right and you just have this amazing experience and someone goes oh you know so and so down the road was better it's like five years ago you would never have had a meal like this you know we just we our expectations are being reset each year i'll give you one quick example of that i took the kids where i was out with the kids and my you know my kids just like i want like gnocchi and i was just like oh like where the fuck can i get gnocchi like so i went i went to like columbos which is like this big you know columbos is right it's like sofia's it's oh okay i know yeah i haven't been there in like so long and i got it and it was just like i took a bite of the gnocchi and i'm like oh man like i've been eating such good food lately i'm so spoiled i forgot how bad this food is just just go back to a couple just go look at the tron art like not when it's on just look at tron and acdc and look what you got now like things are good Things are pretty damn good for people at the moment. But it's not good for all manufacturers, according to this next question, which was, which manufacturers do you think will sell less machines at the end of 2019 than they did in 2018? Number one was Homepin, with almost 60% of the vote. I know, I know, I'm thinking the same thing. It's hard to sell less than last year. Yeah, I don't know how many they sold, like 50 machines or something. P3 in second. Where are we? Team Pinball. Spooky? Spooky is a bit of a surprise. Well, I guess they had a really good year with TNA and Alice Cooper, so we don't know where they are on their cycle. They're a boutique, so they can sell less. But also, you know, they give out their numbers, and they have limits on their numbers, so that might be just a calculation. Well, if they're only going to sell 500, and last year they had 300 plus 500, you know, they are going to sell less because it's capped. Anyway, who knows? Yeah, only 20% of people think American Pimble are going to sell less. Stern at about the same. JGP, 15%. And in last place, which is I guess the people think they're going to sell more, is CGC. Only about 10% of people think that they're going to sell less machines because remakes sell. Well, and also because their machine got released in the last month. So all this year, they're going to be selling machines. Yeah, it's a weird question. It is a weird question. But anyway, would you be excited for a new John Pappajook game from Deep Root, such as Magick Girl, Raza, or Alice in Wonderland? This was almost 50-50. So, yeah, about 52% said yes and 48% no. So the majority said yes. Are you excited? Would you be excited by it, Marty? Yes. Yeah, 100%. Why did you not? of those I think you said that Raza was the one well yes I think you did that because I am most excited about Alice in Wonderland and in particular the dark nasty version of it ah it's so weird Alice in Wonderland is such a weird story that's why the Disney one at least is like you know it's weird but it's also cute so you can be like okay like somebody had LSD and they're like fuck that was an amazing trip I'm going to write this down in a book and then someone just put some pretty pictures and turn it into a children's book. Yeah? It'd be interesting to see where that goes. That is the most interesting one, but I think Raza has the most potential of being accepted because as an original theme, right? Like, expectations are low. No, well, I don't agree with you because I think Alice in Wonderland isn't a licensed theme, but it's a theme. So you think it's more like Houdini and Octopus Fest? Yeah. Yeah. Raza. Raza again is, okay, you said Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah. Radioactive. They're zombies. It's not radioactive. That's right. Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, right? So all four elements. But what's your reference point? Nothing. That's why it's so cool. Marty, if you ask 100 people on the street, like, what do you think of when you think Alice in Wonderland? A lot of those people are going to say the Disney movie. Okay, and if you ask those same people, do you know that they still make pinball machines, what are they going to say? What's a pinball machine? That's not relevant. What I'm saying is don't ask these fucking stupid people on the street questions. Stop it. Okay, if you ask pinball people then. Anyway, we'll have that conversation when it comes out, and it's some weird fucking acid trip one. Correct. Which follow-up from a rookie designer are you the most excited to see? So this is basically Scott Denisey versus Keith Elwin versus Eric Meunier. In first position is Keith Elwin with a silver percentage of how he won all his Iron Maiden votes with about 55%. Correct. Scott Denisey with 36%. And in third position is Eric Meunier with about 10% of the vote. And I reckon Eric's would have been more. I think it's because Keith obviously hit it out of the park with Iron Maiden and he's obviously a celebrity in his own right to begin with. But also, when you think about TNA, it's Scott Danesi's machine. Yeah. Where you think about Pirates of the Caribbean, yes, Eric's the designer, but he's part of a team. Like, you kind of... That's the vibe I get with that. Yeah. As we've mentioned before as well, there's certain personalities in pinball that will overtake an entire design team, right? Pat Lawler like you can mention any Pat Lawler game and people will say it's a Pat Lawler game they won't say it's a Ted Etty's game or whoever did the sound or something yep and I think the biggest the biggest three there's a name for it there's a name for it yeah and I don't I don't know and people write in and tell me how to pronounce this right I was reading about this during the week I don't even know how I'm going to pronounce this Autur Autur Autur A-U-T-E-U-R is the name of it. And the description is, and it's usually to film, but they also do music as well. It's an auteur is an artist, such as a film director, who applies a highly centralized and subjective control to many aspects of a collaborative creative work. In other words, a person equivalent to an author of a novel or a play. So basically, it's a film director who influences their films so much that they rank as the author. Yes. So there are some music producers that you would say, oh, well, that's Quincy Jones, right? Oh, like when you think about Queen, do you think about the other dudes? I don't even know their names. No, it's Freddie Mercury because he's such a figure that just... I do think Brian May. Yeah. Eh, anyway. But anyway, that's what you were referring to, is that these people have become so synonymous with the design of the machine, it's like the machine is them. Yes. I think that the three biggest are Pat Lawler Lyman Sheets and Keith P. Johnson Steve Ritchie would be up there as well Steve Ritchie for sure yes but he also has worked with Lyman a different person to you I would say Steve Ritchie people go I want to buy a Steve Ritchie machine same thing the problem is like ACDC when it's like Lyman two of those people together Steve Ritchie and Lyman Sheets what game is it You can say both because, you know, and Keith Elwin, I think, will end up becoming like that because he not only designs the layout, but he, you know, I'm not sure about his next game, but, you know, hey, he's the world's greatest player, you know, through history. So, you know, he's going to be designing his own rules. So I think Keith Elwin will become one of those names. Yeah. Well, I think because he had such creative control over his machine, you can really see it. You can really say, when he did, obviously he didn't do the art, but he did the layout. He had that already there, had the rules designed. Those two elements together make it, you know, that's a Keith machine for sure. Marnie, with, you know, we're going to talk about Iron Maiden. I know we're up to literally the last two questions, but just quickly about Iron Maiden. Did you ever go on a soul shard hunt? Like, were you ever trying to get to run to the hills, or do you think that was just so far out there that you never tried? never tried what was the most amount of soul shards you collected soul shards from the center shot or are you talking about the tomb's treasure ah two sorry yeah the tomb awards tomb awards sorry I think it was the fourth one because the third one was can I play with madness multiball and I remember I got a fourth one once you know about that one we talked about ages ago the combo one where you do that unique combo like a seven-way combo or something, and you have as much time as you want to do it. Yeah. Do you know what game that comes from? You probably knew this, but I didn't. Yeah. It comes from, like, The Shadow. Okay. I always, one of my favorite call-outs is, like, when they go, like, wow, three-way combo, wow, four-way combo, and then I would combo more shots, and he would stop talking, and I thought it was because I was in a mode or a multi, like, something was going on, and the audio clip didn't play, and it got me so upset because I'm like, I want to hear, like, the sixth and the seventh. I think maybe I got to 6 one day and then I was just researching and I was doing a bit more research during the week it has to be a unique combo and you have to hit it you don't have as much time as you want like Keith gave you in Iron Maiden it has to be a true 7 way combo it doesn't even give you some insane payoff it's literally not worth going for except to say that you've done the 7 way combo on the shadow Awesome There you go Cool Next question Do you plan to watch Pinball streams? Well If you're going to Break it down to Yes and no You've effectively Got about 40 55 65 70% of people said Yes Cool And 37% said Yes I like watching All streams 15.9% said I will watch Tournaments And 16.8% said They'll watch new pinballs only. It's such a harsh one. I didn't know. It's a waste of my time. It's such a harsh one. Some people voted for it, 4%. Yeah, correct. The last one. We've got to the end. Here we go. Why didn't I just wait to just read all this data in five minutes? Well, because you don't get the Marty and Ryan commentary. The greatest pinball machine of all time. Now, Marty, you're the one who wanted this in there because the quote was something like, I want to know if the pin slides top 100 is bullshit because it's been there for so long. That's fucking not what I said. What did you say? Why did I say bullshit? Like, you are actually putting words like I'm saying that I think that is bullshit. What I said is I'm curious to know whether there's a difference because it's had reviews over time, whereas I want to say, you know, right now, if you could reset all the votes that you've had over the last 20 years, what would your vote be today? see bullshit is a better way of saying that it's just one word it's like you saying do you want to fuck a pinball machine when i said you know do you feel that you can have a connection with the pinball machine that's what you do you still won marty 61 of people want to fuck their pinball machine anyway um did the top five money starting from size okay just hold on a second i've got to Out, starting from five. Five is Twilight Zone. What's it on IPDB? No one cares about IPDB. Pinside Top 100. What's on Pinside? Pinside Top 100 uses like waiting and all that kind of stuff, so it's pretty accurate. I don't know. It's around five or six. I'll open it in a second. Four was Adam's Family. Well, actually, they were equal. So Adam's Family and Twilight Zone got the same amount of votes. In third place, Lord of the Rings. Nice. Second place, Attack from Mars. Mm-hmm. And in first place, with 12% of the vote, ACDC. No, it's nice. No, no, it's medieval madness. Yeah. You're a bit... Yeah. Well, you know, why not? So what we're getting at is the Pinsire Top 100 list is not bullshit and it's accurate. Well, no. It's 50. Okay. Well, no. Sorry. No. Because I've got it here. In five, fifth place was Lord of the Rings. Yes. It's third in ours. It's what, sorry? Third in ours. Ah, in ours. Yeah. That's like pretty close, Marty. Like when we only have like less than 300 people voting. Okay. Well, Monster Bash is equal 13th on ours. Yeah. It is third on Pinside. Yeah. So, what's a bullshit list now, right? Who's got the bullshit list? Okay. I think... But also, Attack from Mars is number one on Pinside. It's number two on ours. Yeah. So, anyway. All right. Let's move on. It was all for shits and giggles, right? But, anyway, it was also to prove that I'm right. Next. Oh, my God. Look at the time. Was that one hour? oh my god it didn't seem like an hour I knew how long it was going I hope you didn't I hope you're listening at two times speed yeah please do we will therefore breeze through this week in pinball bottom line is I've done my piece with Iron Maiden streamed it for the last time that's great streamed I attempted to stream it was comedy of errors I attempted to stream Theatre of Magic last night the right flipper died as in it just got really weak so we then moved over to Scared Stiff I actually broke the flipper button well not the flipper button but the mech inside so we then had to move to Tales from the Arabian Nights okay and cool and my highlight was that you were GC at 43 mil and I got 211 mil okay I've only ever played one game on it so that was my first game just putting it out there and and Andy who I played with had already played one ball. But sure, let's not worry about that. It must have been really fun for him to watch that, get to Ramil. He actually started doing renovations on his house and I am not even lying because somebody said in chat, was that Andy just walking by with a 2x4? I heard him sanding stuff and getting this. what he was doing because I played that game. Yeah, that's why Souls dates are awesome. You'd never play a Souls date for that long. Are you done with your week, Marty? Alright, quickly. Stern Magic. Gone. Picked up. Gone. Sold. Indiana Jones. I bought it. I don't know why I bought it. I bought it because it was a decent price and I named my killer after the pinball machine. I thought, let's give it another go. I will brutalize it. I'll make it hard and then I'll probably sell it I ran Pinball Paradise on the weekend on the weekend during the week the new format you know with finals for yeah I took off ball save the entire time so that it would finish by 11 I mean finish by 11 for like the 4 people left like it's kind of like tiered like as you go on kind of like strikes more and more people go home so I thought shit if you're in the top 4 you can at least stay till 11 and because Jordan Treadway rocked up it it