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Ep 69: Go Go Godzilla

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 20m·analyzed·Sep 17, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

LoserKid discusses Stern connectivity, Museum auction prices, TWIP hiatus, and Godzilla pinball reveal.

Summary

LoserKid Pinball Podcast episode covering Stern's new internet connectivity feature for pinball machines, the controversial Museum of Pinball auction with inflated pricing, the hiatus of This Week in Pinball podcast, and the announcement of Stern's Godzilla pinball machine. Hosts Josh Roop and Scott Larson discuss operator benefits, community concerns, and anticipation for the new game.

Key Claims

  • Museum of Pinball auction raised between $3.5-4 million total, with auction house taking roughly $500k

    medium confidence · Josh and Scott discussing auction results; someone 'totaled it up' with estimate of 3.5-4 million

  • Addams Family sold for $22,500 despite over 20,000 units produced (20,270 according to IPDB)

    high confidence · Scott confirmed he tracked this specific sale in the auction results; they verified production numbers via Internet Pinball Database

  • Back to the Future was produced by Data East in 1990 with only 3,000 units made and sold for $14,000 at auction

    high confidence · Josh citing Joe Kamenkow's previous interview on the podcast; Data East production details confirmed

  • Stern's internet connectivity feature had been promised/teased for over a year, originally supposed to come with Avengers

    high confidence · Scott states feature 'finally came out week and a half ago' after being 'alluded to from Gary Stern' for 'over a year'

  • All Spike 2 games from Stern will be retroactively fitted with the new internet connectivity

    high confidence · Scott confirms: 'all the Spike 2 games are going to be retroactively fit with this'

  • This Week in Pinball entered hiatus due to sponsorship/financial disclosure issues and SEC investigation involving Robert Mueller

    medium confidence · Hosts reference FTC regulations, Eclectic Gamers Podcast deep dive, and mention of investigation by Robert Mueller

  • Godzilla has been known as Stern's upcoming game for 2.5 years since it was signed away from Spooky

    high confidence · Josh confirms: 'we've known this for two and a half years ever since... once they signed it away from Spooky'

  • Josh ordered a Godzilla Premium and Scott ordered a Beatles Premium from Flip N Out Pinball

    high confidence · Direct statement by hosts at beginning of episode; Scott also mentions being pre-ordered since July

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm just like, and the weird part about this release they've done this with every other release and i don't know why they did it but didn't do it with this one but they usually release at the very bare minimum three videos. They show a game trailer, which is all the games put in one trailer. Then they have a pro features, and then they have a premium slash LE features video.”

    Josh Roop @ ~42:00 — Criticism of Stern's Godzilla marketing video—incomplete compared to previous releases, too much intro/outro and not enough gameplay footage

  • “It's a logical and necessary next step to pinball... if you don't have any sort of online presence in gaming or any entertainment thing, you really become a relic.”

    Scott Larson @ ~33:00 — Endorsement of Stern's internet connectivity as essential for generational relevance and competitive play

  • “The guy with 300 million won with uh with moving past the my generation because my generation is the generation that we grew up with black and white and color tvs we we grew up with VCRs we grew up with going to the arcade i was my whole childhood was centered around going to a physical location to play.”

    Scott Larson @ ~33:00 — Generational commentary on arcade culture shift and why online connectivity is necessary for future growth

  • “I felt like This Week in Pinball was a very non-biased pinball resource... here's the facts here's the information kind of get what you want out of it”

    Josh Roop @ ~26:00 — Recognition of TWIP's editorial stance before hiatus; explains community value and loss

  • “it's a flash in the pan i hope it is... some rare games that came up here that don't usually come up. And so I think there was a little bit of a blood in the water, but it felt a little bit like a fire that kept growing and people, it was such a national, we're selling it now and people jumping on it.”

    Josh Roop @ ~18:00 — Characterizes Museum of Pinball auction pricing as FOMO-driven anomaly, not sustainable market shift

  • “if you have this thing and you scan the QR code and it's linked up to Stern's system and it says, hey, you're getting an error on this. Here's the video that says what you need to do to fix it”

Entities

Josh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonZach SharpepersonNicolepersonStern Pinball Inc.companyGary SternpersonMuseum of PinballorganizationJohn Papadiukperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern Pinball announces new internet connectivity platform with QR code scanning, location-based verification, treasure hunts, and diagnostics capabilities

    high · Released 'week and a half ago' with teaser and full video; Gary Stern teased feature for over a year; Spike 2 games will be retroactively fitted

  • $

    market_signal: Museum of Pinball auction shows dramatically inflated prices for common machines (Addams Family $22.5k, Back to the Future $14k) driven by FOMO and rare title scarcity

    high · Multiple examples with verification; Josh characterizes as 'flash in the pan' and 'anomaly'; notes Addams Family with 20,270 units produced should not command $22.5k

  • ?

    industry_signal: This Week in Pinball enters hiatus due to sponsorship disclosure and FTC regulatory compliance issues; potential SEC investigation involvement mentioned

    medium · Hosts recommend Eclectic Gamers Podcast episode for deep dive; reference to Patterson's letter; mention of Robert Mueller investigation connection

  • ?

    announcement: Stern officially announces Godzilla pinball machine with Toho licensing; Premium and Limited Edition tiers available

    high · Released teaser and 1:23 video; Josh and Scott both pre-ordered/in queue; known to community for 2.5 years after Spooky deal fell through

  • ?

    content_signal: Flip N Out Pinball (Zach Sharpe/Nicole) actively sponsors and partners with LoserKid Pinball Podcast; provides distributor access and support

    high · Substantial opening segment promoting them; podcast consistently mentions working with them; Josh placed orders through them

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.242

0:00
thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast i am josh roop with me my co-captain as always scott larson and scott it has been quite the exciting uh two weeks it seems like wow we uh yeah well i think once we had joe cam and cal on it basically just uh it woke the news so exactly and we had a lot of positive feedback we'll get to that here in a little bit we got some interesting feedback too yeah yeah but let's let's talk about uh flipping out because i think they if you haven't called them yet they definitely have something you can buy well i i'm josh did did you order anything recently because i yeah i did i did as well i got myself i got i got a beatles premium that's what i got oh is that what you got actually okay i will say i did tech zac and i was like i'm kind of interested in the beatles and he's like okay i'll put you on the list but anyway what we know what you ordered and we know what i ordered go ahead i've godzilla premium yeah me too i and we'll talk about that that's uh coming up later on the show but yeah uh contact zach and nicole uh they've always been really one they're great friends of the show they've always supported us they're sponsored of the show and they've really helped us out um but two i have been able to get a lot of great things from zach and nicole and it's just uh if you are looking for anything on your machine they'll go above and beyond and including what else can they get it's not just pinball machines they've got the raw thrills arcade games if you want that full sit down halo game i say go for it i i would love to have one of those sit down jurassic park games it'd be so awesome welcome to my arcade yeah i i'm gonna drive through it uh yeah but those uh big buck hunter man what an awesome game if you want if you want to really uh up your location or your home, great game to have. Yep. And like I said, best way to get a hold of Zach is I go through Messenger. Dude's hard to get a hold of on the phone, which is all right. But seriously, if I text Zach, I have an answer within minutes. Yeah, just go to Flippin' Out Pinball, and they'll have all the contact ways that you prefer. They are fantastic.
2:19
Okay. Well, you know what? We all know that Godzilla came out, and that is going to be the bulk of our show. um let us you know what why don't we start with the the pinball auction okay yeah definitely okay what pinball auction are you talking about yeah right okay there was an auction okay so the museum of pinball which we talked about before i i'm still a little frustrated by this if the intent was to to actually keep the collection whole and actually make it some sort of visible location, but it just seemed kind of weird. It seemed that they were, and we talked about this before, so I don't want to rehash it, but they were moving to a place that was a little more user-friendly and then something about the lease and something about leasing their building to a marijuana distributor or grower or something like that. And then last minute, they basically, without even any sort of public effort, I'm not going to say there wasn't a private effort, but a public effort to actually figure out a way of making this done. They basically just said, we're closing up shop. Yeah. And man, marijuana shop must be going there because some people were smoking something. Ooh, yeah. Oh, man. So, okay. Did they even say how much they, like what total funds were raised by this? Not yet because it still goes on again this weekend. They haven't sold all the collection yet. So, who knows? At this point, someone totaled it up. I thought they said it was three and a half to four million. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, it's crazy. Just the auction house in their collection alone or in their take alone is like half a million. So, you know what? Okay, this is a private collection. So I can't begrudge anybody for doing what they want with their private collection. It is sad because it had a lot of machines that I think were really difficult to find and rare. But it's – they're going somewhere, right? It's not like they LaGuardia, whatever his name is. It's not like they took him and chopped him up and put him in the East River. I mean, these are going to enthusiast homes.

Scott Larson @ ~39:00 — Vision for diagnostic/support integration possibilities with connectivity feature

  • “I operated Pinball for about two years in my local town, and it stunk when I showed up and the coin box was near empty... why did anyone call me? And they're like, we don't know. And so for the fact that Stern said that an operator can get a notification right to their phone that one of their games are down, that's game-changing to me.”

    Josh Roop @ ~40:00 — Personal operator experience demonstrates real-world problem connectivity feature solves

  • “if I had one of these in a bar and a drunk dude wobbles up and he just starts swiping his QR code, you're going to make a lot more money than the guy that he's half drunk. He can't figure out what the coin slot is.”

    Josh Roop @ ~43:00 — Practical example of payment barrier removal improving operator revenue

  • “Well, I think the other frustrating thing that has been voiced to us is the fact that how much money was spent on this auction. and granted this is a private collection i guess John Papadiuk was a little hamstrung”

    Josh Roop @ ~12:00 — Contrasts Museum's choice to liquidate vs. Papadiuk's earlier partial sale that kept facilities open

  • “This is the necessary next step. So, so they, they announced this and then they, give us a teaser trailer for their next game which is Godzilla”

    Scott Larson @ ~32:00 — Stern connectivity presented as essential infrastructure for future games like Godzilla

    • Captain's Auctions
    company
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Jeff Pattersonperson
    Robert Muellerperson
    Deeprootorganization
    Joe Kamenkowperson
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Godzilla (Stern)game
    Beatles Premium (Stern)game
    Elwin Gamesperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Data Eastcompany
    Raw Thrillscompany
    Tohocompany
  • ?

    operational_signal: Operators struggle with coin collection frequency, machine downtime notifications, and electronic payment barriers; Stern connectivity addresses these

    high · Josh's personal 2-year operator experience; hosts discuss notification system, payment QR codes, and contactless transaction benefits

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community expresses sadness over This Week in Pinball hiatus; referenced as vital, non-biased resource that helped legitimize other podcasts like LoserKid

    high · Josh credits TWIP for encouraging their podcast; Scott calls it 'vital and valuable'; both wish Jeff Patterson the best but acknowledge 'implosion'

  • ?

    business_signal: Museum of Pinball (non-profit) closes and liquidates entire collection via auction rather than pursue alternative solutions; estimated $3.5-4M raised

    high · Auction still ongoing at time of recording; Josh frustrated about lack of public effort to keep collection intact; contrasts with Papadiuk's partial sale approach

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern's internet connectivity positioned as essential (not optional) next step for pinball relevance to younger generations and competitive online play

    high · Scott: 'It's a logical and necessary next step... if you don't have online presence you become a relic'; hosts discuss younger generation gaming expectations

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern's Godzilla video reveals incomplete compared to previous releases; lacks dedicated Pro/Premium feature videos; insufficient gameplay footage

    medium · Josh critiques teaser: first 13 seconds are QR code feature, ball only visible for ~20 seconds, rest is title/outro; notes Stern typically releases 3+ separate videos

  • ?

    collector_signal: Both hosts pre-ordered Godzilla Premium/LE; Scott secured spot in July queue; demonstrates strong FOMO and early commitment to new releases

    high · Josh ordered Godzilla Premium; Scott in pre-order list since July; Scott jokes about Elwin (Stern designer) takeover of game room

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern secured Godzilla license from Toho; originally held by Spooky before transition; 4 new Godzilla films released in last 5 years support timing

    high · Josh: 'once they signed it away from Spooky... eventually they were going to make this'; discussion of recent Toho film releases; licensing deal age suggests 2.5 year lead time

    • 4:30
    And boy, oh boy, if you are an enthusiast and you had money to burn, this was your auction. Yep. Well, I think the other frustrating thing that has been voiced to us is the fact that how much money was spent on this auction. and granted this is a private collection i guess papa was a little hamstrung because there are not they're a not-for-profit a non-for-profit yeah so you can't just outright i guess they had to go through some hoops to sell their collection yeah i i don't know i i don't know enough about the backstory i i feel bad that papa wasn't able to do something like this but seriously papa sold half their collection for what happened here with museum of pinball papa sold half their collection and kept the facilities open and running for at least another year or two yeah i i'm still holding out hope that there's going to be some uh there's obviously some angel uh some angel investors out there that have uh buckets of money who could be able to put on something or to revisit something papa like or you know or uh replay fx like um who knows because again the games went somewhere they didn't they didn't get exploded but it's nice to you know nice to know they're out there but okay let's talk about the prices though yeah let's talk some of these prices what jumped okay i'll tell you the first thing that jumped out at me moon cresta okay moon cresta so if you go to their uh the auction results you can actually sort and so i sorted by the price And Mooncresta was a video game that I played probably when I was eight. And it takes about 30 seconds to blow up. And someone bought that for a thousand bucks. Crazy.
    6:19
    And it's fine. Like, it's obviously a classic game, but wow. Okay, so let's sort up to the top, though. No one wants to know about Mooncresta. Who wants to talk about the expensive, crazy games that were sold? Well, what's funny is, like I was telling you, because I was like, are you going to hit the auction? And you're like, no, I don't think so. And I'm like, why not? I'd followed Captain Auction for about a year now through a few of their auctions.
    6:45
    And I mean, you're not going to get a super amazing deal off one of these pinball machines. But if you're looking for a specific title and you're having a hard time getting a hold of it, you're going to get usually – this one's way out of the norm, this auction itself. But previous auctions, you could get within the ballpark of pin side pricing. Yeah, yeah. And obviously paying a little bit of a premium because of an auction. But there is sometimes you can get an auction for roughly plus or minus 20% of what Pinsight is. Correct. And so I was like, I'm going to keep an eye out on this auction. And I was kind of thrown for a loop when – So you're the one who bought the Addams Family for $22,500? You know it.
    7:29
    Okay. There has to be something special about this Addams Family. because there's nothing that is – one, Adam's Family, I'm sorry, is not worth a $22,500 game. No, it's not. I don't care how nice it is. It's not that game. No, I agree. $22,500 for an Adam's Family. I mean, didn't they produce over 22,000 of these games? So you paid a dollar for – Well, I don't think it was 22,000, but it was a lot. So I don't know. You could argue it's the most produced modern pinball machine of all time. Yeah, and that's fair. And now others could have legitimately pushed that if they kept it going. They cut some short. This wasn't a gold edition at all either, was it? It was just an Addams Family. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it just seems so weird. So this is the amount of Addams Family, according to IPDB. They did 20,270 of them. Still, that's a good chunk of pinball. Well, you can't tell me that you can't search at the other $20,269 and offer anybody $18,000 for it and they would sell it immediately. Yeah. So there has to be something bizarre about that.
    8:50
    Hercules. So just in case you have a gimmick game that's the size of a pool table, $18,000. Yeah. Yeah, the bonsai run. Well, two of them. Two of them sold, it looks like. It looks like. I'm not really sure. It says lot number 469. It has the same number, so I don't know if that means this. Oh, maybe they just doubled it up. It's an error.
    9:16
    Elvira, House of Horrors, limited edition, $14,000. Okay. Back to the future? Okay, so back to the future. Obviously, Joe Kamenkow was right. $14,000 for Back to the Future. Yeah. Data East produced this in 1990 with only 3,000 produced. Remember, Kamenkow told us it took them a whopping six weeks. Six weeks. Plus, Michael J. Fox took away his likeness, pulled the plug at the very end. $3,400 for Back to the Future. Yeah. Well, that's because you're buying the theme. That's the only thing you're paying the money for. Still, like... I guarantee that is not a $14,000 game. No. Cosmic Princess, seriously, a solid-state Cosmic Princess for $13,500. Again, I just don't... Some of these are just odd. That's an odd... Okay, so what's your takeaway from this whole Museum of Pinball? uh i i it's an enigma for me so what do you think i really think it's kind of um anomaly in the hobby i don't think this is something that is going to redefine pricing i mean people are going to attempt we're already starting to see it where people are attempting to sell their adams family now for 20 grand and a really trashed quicksilver for 15 um or for 10 i can't remember exactly how much it was i mean it was it was five figures yeah it was in australia and so there is a limited uh fact quantity factor but still yeah but still we're i it becomes the whole ebay argument right like someone goes to sell their their shadow that they've had in their basement for 15 years that they have never done any service on and they're like this is a this is a nine thousand dollar game i ebay and this is what i'm listing it for exactly so i really think uh this is a flash in the pan i hope it is i i don't know this seemed to be a little more like a blood in the water situation and a feeding frenzy and a fear of missing out a fomo situation because I see there were some rare games that came up here that don't usually come up. And so I think there was a little bit of a blood in the water, but it felt a little bit like a fire that kept growing and people, it was such a national, we're selling it now and people jumping on it. This would never happen again. So I, and now I will say, who knows the next edition of their auction, they, it may go crazy again. And however, I think that some people have looked at this with time on their side and said that was kind of crazy. Yeah. No, I totally agree.
    12:08
    And like I said, this had a lot more national coverage. There was a lot of coverage to this story. Well, there were national news. I had people who – they know I'm in pinball, so my brother sent me articles on these things like, hey, the Museum of Pinball is closing. I was like, yeah, but it's kind of a private collection that people saw like three times a year or so. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Well, okay. So I'm interested in hearing everybody else's thoughts. Yeah, give us your thoughts in the comments in the episode below or on Pinside.
    12:39
    All right, let's move on. We've got in our notes, Twip hiatus. Let's talk about this really quick. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot to unpack here. So what do you think, Josh? I say if you really want to get a really good deep dive on this, head over to Eclectic Gamers Podcast. It's their most recent episode. They did a fantastic job of deep diving this and not only deep diving the hiatus, but FTC regulations and stuff like that, which was kind of involved in the situation as well.
    13:14
    And I don't know. I just kind of want to echo Dennis and Tony did a really good job. I don't think I have much more to add other than what they said. There is certainly some challenges. anytime you're in some sort of broadcasting arena that if you have a relationship somehow, where it's a sponsorship or a financial one or something, there is a responsibility to disclose that there is some sort of arrangement. You don't have to disclose what the arrangement is, but you, you do have to at least be transparent enough to say that they are part of putting on the show or, Yeah. Now that the challenge has always been I since we are very simple, we've never really had to deal with most of this stuff. If you are publishing something that's like this, we can pinball and you have any arrangements with other people, then I don't know how complicated or entwined that is. Yeah. I if there is any sort of relationship with Robert Mueller, we talked about this, that there is a there's an investigation, an SEC investigation on Robert Mueller. And so that could be challenging if you are somehow on the payroll. Yeah. But it's I don't know what else to say other than it's a blow to the hobby. yes um jeff does a really good job of summarizing the the top five things and if you didn't have time to look at pin site all week i always hopped on this week in pinball to check it out so my thought is um it's a messy situation just like deep root that there are no winners in this it's uh everybody's losing somehow so i i feel bad that um that whatever whatever was going on with Jeff and Deep Root and This Week in Pinball that it has taken down an area of the hobby that I think was vital and valuable. So in my heart, I hope that he's able to figure things out. And if he's able to come back in some form, then I would welcome him back. But it just makes me sad. What about you, Josh? Same here. I told, shortly after Patterson had wrote the letter and put it out there, I told him it really sucks. And the reason being is, I don't know about you guys, but for us, I know that Head to Head and Zach Many, when he was with This Week in Pinball, helped kind of encourage us to keep going. or liked what they heard when I sent them the pilot episode and said, keep going with it. So I felt like we had really hit maybe legitimacy when Nits Week in Pinball shared our podcast and said, hey, go give these guys a listen, and then started covering our content because we were putting out interviews and stuff like that.
    16:17
    I always viewed Nits Week in Pinball as a very non-biased pinball resource. and so um it does stink because it well let's be honest most of us podcasts are somewhat biased one way or another on certain certain subjects we're i feel like scott and i are pretty good at um being constructive criticism um but there's just there's some people out there that well besides deep root when we talk about deeper we might not be as constructive but well i okay but i was honest yes so but my point being is i felt like this weekend pinball was a very here's the facts here's the information kind of get what you want out of it well i think it was more of a and that's where um again i i don't um i i don't think that robert muller's uh i'm going to be on his christmas card list anytime soon um but it's uh if he is involved somehow it makes it challenging because there is some sort of credibility issue if you are,
    17:24
    if it's a promotional attitude or a promotional arrangement, excuse me. But again, I'm not going to dive into that because I know I don't have any direct knowledge of any of that stuff. And so I'm just hoping that maybe it's time to take a hiatus. Jeff can figure things out. He can untangle things because I think he is an asset to the hobby. No, I agree. And like I said, definitely go give Eclectic Gamers a listen. I kind of, after listening to them, I went and reread the letter. I kind of agree. The letter's not as polished as other content. I think the problem is a lot of the stuff that Deep Root put that was through twip and so i i don't know i don't know if it's just a distancing kind of thing because what robert mueller did was pretty messed up and so yeah i just it sucks it's this is i'm not saying twip is dead because obviously they came out with a deep dive on godzilla but uh it stinks this is this is kind of how it ramps down you know yeah and it's a crash yeah it's a full-on implosion so hopefully they can they can retool and figure things out that i agree i I, we have, you have a more of a relationship with Jeff than I do. I've never met him or talked to him, but we sincerely hope that he's able to figure things out. And I think that when, when, and if he decides to reenter the hobby as a, as a publisher, then, or even a podcaster, then I think he would be welcomed. My, my thought process too is, and I think a lot of people were wondering this, what happens with the Twippies? I know in the letter he talked a lot about financially trying to keep not just this weekend pinball float but the twippies cost a lot of money and he alluded this into the letter that they pretty much broke even last year so is it even worth his time to I know that they love doing the twippies and stuff like that is even worth his time doing it though because it might become money out of his pocket to do that you know and he went above and above and beyond last year because anyone that was in the top 10 then got a plaque i mean that's those aren't free you know so it takes a lot to actually do stuff like that so you know it's you know again wishing him the best and uh whatever needs to be worked out i hope it's done i agree good luck yeah best of luck so uh let's let's hit the stern news let's start with the first the thing that came out first scott let's talk about the internet connectivity. What do you think? It's finally been teased to us for over at least over a year because it was originally supposed to come out with Avengers had been alluded to from Gomez and from Gary Stern on interviews that big things were coming with this and it finally came out week and a half ago yeah what's your thoughts on it this is a logical and necessary next step to pinball yep um the challenge that we've always head with pinball is it's very location centric. And even if you look at the tournaments, it's very much a, uh, the, the ones that got the most credibility were the head to head tournaments, because you're competing on the same machine and you're able to, uh, um, you can say, well, if they got, uh, you know, 300 million and that guy got 280 million, then it's a head to head comparison that the guy with 300 million won with uh with moving past the the my generation because my generation is the generation that we grew up with black and white and color tvs we we grew up with vcrs we grew up with going to the archive i was my whole childhood was centered around going to a physical location to play. Now, as the entertainment value has changed with home gaming becoming significantly better or equal to arcade gaming, and now arcade gaming has really transitioned into more of the... Raw Thrills is king. If you look at any sort of arcade, walk in there, it's every single game is a Raw Thrills game. And that's because it's an experience. You're sitting in it. It's an environmentally, they're oversized games that you can't really replicate at home.
    21:55
    But pinball is kind of this, I want to say orphan child, but it's been set into this. Everybody thinks of the chimes and the bells and whistles like a like a 1950s pinball machine. If you talk to any average person who is not familiar with the sport at all, they're going to think of the classic pinball machine.
    22:18
    And it's the same thing when you think of my generation or slightly younger, they went through the 90s, the glory days of, well, OK, the last gasp of the arcade until it finally died. Really with PlayStation 2 coming about and people taking their money to home consoles.
    22:38
    So this is one way of getting to the next generation, because what are the kids playing now? Because that's really where the next generation of players are. So the kids are playing games. They're playing online games and it's a competitive thing. So they're doing an amazing thing of being able to say, okay, I'm going to hop on and play all these games in this big universe and having some way. And I'm not saying it's perfect because it's a mechanical game. That's uploading whatever achievements you're doing. But if they have some sort of way of saying, these are the recommended settings on the machine and then having some sort of internet online presence you have to have this to be relevant in the next phase of the of you know of the careers degeneration because this is a way for kids well and when i say kids i'm i'm 47 so anybody younger than me is a kid but it's a way for people to try to interact on a level that's outside of logan's arcade or or outside of free gold watch or yeah or sunshine laundry or something So you can say, well, did you see the score of that guy who did this? And so it drives people to go on location and play or go to their friend's house and play and have some sort of online presence. Because if you don't have any sort of online presence in gaming or any entertainment thing, you really become a relic. That's my take. And so I understand why it's vital for them to incorporate this. And they've obviously been planning it a long time because all the Spike 2 games are going to be retroactively fit with this. Yep. So that's my take. What's your take, Josh? I think it is a good step forward. I think it's an incentive for operators because it helps not only with location play, but it helps with diagnostics. Gomez had alluded in the Stern Insider podcast. there was a lot more coming down the pipeline. We're kind of just scratching the surface of what's releasing with Godzilla.
    24:47
    I wasn't a super huge fan of the whole verify thing. You can only do that on location. But looking at it from a different angle, that's kind of a way for Stern to help operators get more traffic drive to their location. um you also can verify if if an operator is playing by a certain set of rules then at least there's some legitimacy to whatever scores are entered true and i like if it's home you know there's going to be one dude who puts rubber bands over the outlanes yeah and it basically makes it obsolete but there's easy there's easy ways to verify at home i mean streaming has become a huge thing there's a lot more streamers it kind of exploded here during covid and so it would be easy just to stream the fact that hey that everything's set the way it's supposed to be and play on on the stream but at least at location you know there's only one dude maybe two that has the key to the game and there no one's else gonna be messing with it you know so i like the idea of them giving away stuff like you competing in local what they call it like treasure hunts and stuff like that um my only thought process is like i wish they would have not called the stuff quests when you go to different locations because i'm like i mean that's that's directly using like the pin quest name yeah i don't know i don't know it's kind of weird to me like some of the stuff already existed and i feel like some of it draws from that but Stern came up with their own platform because it's Stern and, and that's fine. You know, JJP is using score bit. Stern came up with their own program. I would say that. Yeah. Stern came up with their own program and yes, you can say that it's, um, it's going to be biting into other, other groups, but it's only natural that they would integrate something with their own operating system. Yeah. And if it ends up being diagnostics, I mean, what a great, um, How long have I been talking about for this to – for Pinball to grow? You need to have some sort of ability to teach people, okay? Right. So if you have this thing and you scan the QR code and it's linked up to Stern's system and it says, hey, you're getting an error on this. Here's the video that says what you need to do to fix it. Yeah. And so what and this is just me brainstorming here, but what a great way of doing it as opposed to, oh, well, it's way you have a credit dot on there. OK, let's look and see. OK, what does the credit dot mean? OK, pull out the manual, dust it off. How do I find anything on there? If it actually connects with the database and sends it to you on your phone, then you're going to get the game up and running. Well, not only that, too. I mean, I operated Pinball for about two years in my local town, and it stunk when I showed up and the coin box was near empty. And I talked to the owner because I only go check it once a month. There's no reason to go check it more than that. And they're like, yeah, you were here. And then five days later, it broke. I'm like, why did anyone call me? And they're like, we don't know. And so for the fact that Stern said that an operator can get a notification right to their phone that one of their games are down, that's game-changing to me. Huge. I think the only thing that could be more game-changing at this point, and maybe this is in Stern's bank of what's coming out, but I mean, so I got a QR reader in it. Venmo has your own personal QR code.
    28:34
    Start scanning in payments. That's one of the biggest hurdles. As I was an operator, I could not get people to put coins in the stupid thing. Because unless you have a coin changer right there, but absolutely you hit right on it, is that if you have electronic payment, that is a game changer for operators because boom, we are talking money right there. I was at my kid's school fair tonight and I didn't pull out $1 bill. So everything was electronic, and that is brilliant if they have that option to use Venmo or something. Well, and everything's contactless nowadays with COVID world we're living in and whatnot. Absolutely. And honestly – It's a contactless payment, and then put your fingers on the buttons. You know it. But honestly, if I had one of these in a bar and a drunk dude wobbles up and he just starts swiping his QR code, you're going to make a lot more money than the guy that he's half drunk. He can't figure out what the coin slot is. Then he realizes it only has a debit card on him. He goes to the front. He puts in one coin and hits the button and he doesn't figure it out. Yeah. Then he gets mad and starts kicking the thing. Just this is so much more simplistic and I like it. I'm excited to see where this takes us. Yeah. It's, it is necessary. I wouldn't even say it's elective. I understand why they developed it. This is the necessary next step. So, so they, they announced this and then they, give us a teaser trailer for their next game which is godzilla did i mean we've known this for two and a half years ever since yeah well yeah it's okay yeah the once they signed it away from spooky then yes this was you knew eventually they were going to make this because well there's a chance they could have squatted on it but yeah i i think the bottom line is they were planning on making this because there was obviously a reason for it so okay i'm going to start off with one beef though okay okay we so they did the teaser trailer fantastic whatever they've done this with every release you get a 10 second teaser trailer of them showing the next game's title right but then they release the video three days later whatever so they and you've got a minute and 23 second video the first 13 seconds are showing them that you can scan your phone into the game awesome that's your new feature whatever the plunge you don't actually see the play field or a ball rolling across it till 13 seconds in you see the pro for i think 20 seconds then you've got a segue into the premium which is fine you get another 20 seconds of the premium and then the last 20 seconds of the of the video is just outro it's it's showing godzilla again it's showing toho it's showing stern pinball i'm just like and and the weird part about this release they've done this with every other release and i don't know why they did it but didn't do it with this one but they usually release at the very bare minimum three videos They show a game trailer, which is all the games put in one trailer. Then they have a pro features, and then they have a premium slash LE features video. And sometimes they'll do accessories, sometimes not, whatever on that one. But why did we not get a pro and a premium? Like, I felt like we saw such little gameplay. I mean, they showed off the awesome mechs and stuff like that, but, like, I want to see the game. I don't want to spend a minute and 20 seconds, more than half of that, on titles and your new feature and stuff like that. And it's just me. Okay, did you order the game? Well, yes. Okay, so it accomplished what it was intended to do, right?
    32:37
    Okay, I was in on the pre-order list back in July. Okay, I get it. Me too. I have a feeling that Elwin's going to take over my entire game room because every single game he releases, I'm going to buy. So, yes. Now, what was your – no, I get it. But, yeah, it will be nice, but we just have to wait a little longer. That's fine. Anticipation is part of it, right? Yeah. I'm just saying if you have a game trailer and you're showing off a game, you should show the game in your trailer instead of – yeah. Anyhow. So let's move on. So – oh, yeah. So that's our entire Godzilla wrap-up. No, I'm still – let's move on from the – yeah. Anyhow. Okay.
    33:25
    Let's talk about the theme. What does the theme Godzilla do for you? So let's actually just rewind two seconds. Okay. What does the Toho Godzilla theme do for you? Because I'm actually kind of shocked they didn't. They've released four movies in the last five years of Godzilla. They're rebooting what they're calling the Monsterverse. Are you kind of shocked that it was Toho and not the new stuff?
    33:55
    Depends on the price of the license. I thought it was a package deal, though. Okay. So when any average person thinks of Godzilla, what do they think? Do they think the new stuff or do they think kind of the campy dude in the rubber suit dancing around?
    34:19
    And, okay, that's what I think. When I think of Godzilla, so the theme itself did very little for me because it was kind of Jason and the Argonauts. The stop motion photography, the really bad special effects, the B-movie feel where you ended up watching it at a PTA movie. Back in the day, kids, you would actually buy a PTA movie on Saturdays. Your parents would drop you off and all the kids would go to the Sticky Shoe Theater and they would watch some bad movie for 90 minutes. And they had these movies. so i i that's kind of what um i wasn't super interested in godzilla really i i actually never even saw the new ones because i've watched them they're decent yeah okay it's fine i just never felt that it was i it's not it's not my bag it's not my thing so so i the license did very little for me what about you um i agree i wasn't super enthralled for a godzilla themed pinball machine um i will say though i am into campy stuff i i have said it before i enjoy the aquabats uh i mean i watched power rangers growing up i feel like this is where they got their inspiration from that campy fighting that it's almost not like fighting it's just a bunch of zooming up and zooming out of cameras and terrible throws and stuff like that.
    35:49
    I honestly can't tell you if I've watched a Toho version of Godzilla, but I do remember as a child, the Matthew Broderick coming out. And then as a child, not understanding why everyone hated that version. Yeah. Well, yeah, the Matthew, the funny thing is I turned it off. I remember I watched it right until I think there was a whole bunch of small lizard. It's, small lizards in madison square gardens yeah and i i kind of lost interest i was like i think i've done um so i don't know uh it's like i said i think it's campy enough that it just it fits my collection in that way um but godzilla no it's not on the top of my list it's nowhere near i don't even know if it's on my top 20 of my lists okay that being said when it was released and you took a look at it what did you think i thought holy crap this thing is packed the theme integration is amazing right that was my thought is that this looks fun like i i showed it to my daughter who's six and she said wow that looks fun yeah it my six-year-old daughter and saw this game and said that looks fun so i was like you know what i think i missed the ball on this that this is a good theme.
    37:10
    Like I said, I don't know if it's a theme, but when you've got a five-level skyscraper in your game that sinks into the play field, you've got something special.
    37:25
    Has that ever been done before? I know we talked Doctor Who, but other than that, I've never thought of an interactive toy like this that keeps the flow going I don't know I'm just I'm impressed with it and I mean the the theme is is on par I just and and I love zombie yeti artwork I think he does a great job I don't know why he causes some diversity on pin side uh some diversity division what's the division yeah yeah yeah he's he can be divisive especially on this but okay uh but i thought the game looked fun so the the initial impression on i was like wow this is going to be good because really i was kind of on the fence about whether or not i was going to buy this game because of the rumored theme and it not really resonating with me but now i'm i'm all in yeah um so okay so let's talk about the art um i i guess i'll go first on this one i think zombie yeti did a great job of threading that needle of taking something that's old and campy and making it old and camp like it still looks old and campy but it visually it pops yep and it definitely has his style he he has mastered um jeremy has mastered being able to do a great playfield arts package. And I think it works really well for this. And you have to, you can't go black and white on this. You have to have that, that kind of modern comic booky feel because that's in, it feels kind of like a seventies comic book. And I know that, that Godzilla span spanned earlier than that, but this, I think thematically it, it dialed in exactly what it needed to for this thing. Yep.
    39:23
    I agree. The artwork is, I it's on par. It's good. I don't understand when people are like, well, it looks too much like Avengers. Well, so then you could say that it looks too much like Ninja Turtles and it looks too much like Deadpool. That's zombie Yeti style. You don't complain. Yeah. You don't complain. ACDC all sounds the same. It's because it's, that's the way they play their music. I do. I do have a friend who says, uh, I asked him about you too. And he says, I don't like that song. yeah so but looking at this like the thing i appreciate it looks great uh the thing i appreciate about zombie yeti i know that franchi does this as well but they take the source material and they just they dive deep into it and and part of it is like with turtles i know with jeremy packard he he grew up with turtles it meant a huge deal to him to do that artwork and so there a lot passion that oozes out out onto the playfield if you if you don believe me on this look at the primus playfield that man loves primus he done flyers for him and everything and the primus playfield if you know their history and stuff like that that playfield is just a love letter to primus it is fantastic and i feel like you're the same thing with godzilla here yeah it's uh if there's if there's one criticism i could possibly make is um the side art on the pro and the premium they just mirrored the sides like he didn't do anything unique on either side it's just the the same thing on both sides okay so i'm in that's now that's kind of a small criticism but it is something that some people will look at and say why isn't it unique on each side. The LE, it is unique on each side.
    41:12
    The play field itself looks very similar. I don't even know how much he had to change between the Pro and the Premium just because the layout seems pretty identical.
    41:28
    The major challenges is you don't have the elevator, well, whatever, the building. Skyscraper. The skyscraper. You don't have that and you don't have the mechanized Godzilla, the Mechagodzilla, or what is it? Mechagodzilla. You don't have that, but everything else looks very similar. So I think it was easier for, well, he didn't have to change too much. So it actually feels very similar, which I think is a big plus, really. Yeah. overall i i enjoy the art yeah i think i think it looks good it's on par of what it needs to be i feel like zombie yeti kind of redefined what art should be for pinball yeah and uh it it's on all cylinders for me it it sold me on the art not not the game itself sold me on the art but what i'm saying is it's like i don't know i guess i guess my expectations aren't really hard when it comes to art because i feel like anything from 2010 to now uh it's been a lot better than everything from 2000 they've been more hit they've been more hit than this absolutely i mean even acdc i don't know it's kind of cut and paste uh i know some of it's hand-drawn but i mean even that artwork's a lot better than let's say like 24 or avatar those you weren't saying yeah and so So I'm just – you're getting your money's worth for the artwork here. That's my opinion. Yeah. It certainly is a pretty piece that you will put in your house. Yep.
    43:03
    All right. And okay, so Max, wow. Well, let's talk about price increase too. Yeah. Do you want to do Max first or do you want to do price increase? Well, let's talk about the price increase first because I think it will actually play into it. Okay. And so the price increase, it's a big jump. And so this will be interesting to see. So the pro model goes up to $6,899. So basically $6,900.
    43:36
    Premium is $8,999, which is basically $9,000. And limited edition is $10,499. So $10,500. So you're still keeping that standard $1,200 difference between the premium and the – well, actually, wait, sorry. No, that's a $2,200 difference. Yeah, $2,200 difference between the Pro and the premium. And the LE is another $1,500. So really between the Pro and the LE, wow, that's getting pretty much – I mean it's not double, but it's getting close. Yeah. So that's a big jump in prices. So Josh, explain this to me.
    44:25
    Well, Kemekow alluded a lot to it when we talked to him in the podcast two weeks ago. Pinball prices – it's not even just pinball. It's the economic situation has gotten out of control. Wood is getting – I mean you could buy wood for four times less last year than it is right now. It just – shipping costs – good luck in finding a shipping container. And then you start talking about air freight and that's even more money. It just – am I – I don't want to say I'm justifying the price raise. But it's not just Stern. and we saw spooky when they revealed halloween yes their base units stayed the same price halloween stayed the same price as rick and morty but everything else their new two tiers above that is well above what the bloodsuckers was yeah um who was the other one that just announced there was one other that just announced too and their prices they've all gone up they've all won jjp last year went up a thousand dollars yeah they raised that after they had started selling the game so that that was shocking so so part of me is like this has to be out of necessity if everyone's doing it there's got to be some kind of it goes back to the fact i think there's still we're still seeing shortages places prices are growing up going up on metals and wood does that justify the twelve hundred dollars on a premium yeah so so that's what i'm getting at i think it's a combination of necessity and popularity okay this is going back to basic economics 101 you have a supply and demand curve and when the supply is is low then then and the demand goes up then the prices are going to go up so when you have a situation where used games are going for similar or equal or more than new in box games, then the pricing is not accurate because it's not accurate for demand.
    46:30
    So I think it was raised for two reasons. I think it was raised possibly for supply issues, but I think it was also raised to say it's the same thing about ticket resalers. People complain and complain about ticket resellers buying up tickets and then scalping them for twice to three times. Okay. Guess what? If they're able to sell a ticket for $500 that they bought for $100, then Taylor Swift should have sold it for $500. She shouldn't have sold it for $100 because she was selling it for under market value. and so if you sell it for what's market value then that's what you'll get and so it's legitimate to say they're raising uh they're likely raising how much they're getting from each machine yeah now i also think that there's a little bit of an arms race when you look at when Steve Ritchie goes over to JJP and he subtly says the cuffs are off. And everybody looked at that and said, well, okay, so that's a build of materials issue. If you're handcuffed by something, that means that you are limited by design. And limited by design means you don't have everything you want to put in the game. So is it possible that these, I think there's threefold issues to this. one, the costs have gone up. Two, I think they've actually raised their bill of materials. I think they're actually allowing the designers to put a little more into it because we're going to get into it. This game looks more packed than any game Stern has ever made.
    48:19
    And three, I think there is a, hey, it's selling for more. Who should get the price? Should a flipper get the price or should Stern get the price? And the answer is, Stern, she had the price.
    48:33
    So I'm – and I – it's hard for me to say that I am cheering for these prices to go up. But the bottom line is we knew they were going up just on the secondhand market.
    48:47
    Like you look at all of – like all of the LEs, the Jurassic Park LE, and it's going for like $13,000. I didn't pay $13,000 for mine, but that's what it's going for. And so if Stern is able to do that and they increase the amount of LEs they're building, they're doing 1,000 of them, and they sold out almost instantly.
    49:11
    And I was actually – now, I will say – this is a toot in my own horn. I was able to find an LE for a friend who said he couldn't find one. So, Tim Purcell, you're welcome. I agree with you. I think it shows that the marketplace is healthy.
    49:26
    I think that people to claim that it's solely a cash grab, that's a little naive. It's my object, and it's self-serving to say that I like buying cheap stuff. Yep. And so – and I think they timed it perfectly. I think – because this was originally supposed to come out with Avengers last year is what we were told. You mean the connectivity? Yeah, the internet stuff. And so I think they saw that prices were already rising as is, and they figured, well, let's hold off on the internet stuff and we'll do it all at once. I think that they've been wanting to raise prices for right now, but I think they were so nervous to see what was going to fluctuate with the economy that this is why they've held off. Yeah, that's fair.
    50:15
    Like I said, am I happy with the price raise? No. But it's predictable. And I will counter argue to say, would you like to be involved in a hobby where people are selling their games just to get out of the hobby? And so you're buying all these games for cheap, but everybody's saying, you know, pinball's dead. This is terrible. We're done. Well, and even looking at Godzilla, this brings excitement. I mean, the mechs in this game, the innovation on it. okay so so let's transition then so we talked about pricing so now let's talk about the game so what's in the game josh uh a five-story skyscraper a breaking bridge you got mecha godzilla that has a turntable in front of them yeah turntable with a ramp on it that way you can ramp it up and he'll catch it with a magnet then that turntable turns so that way you've got three stand-up targets to hit i mean the pop bumper is in a i would call the tna location because that's tna did it first but uh just and there's a lot of metal there's a lot of metal ramps um well actually it's in the tna location okay really it's in the pat lola and that twilight zone had the pop bumpers down low too yeah but it's a single pop bumper in that one location Yeah, that's true. Pat Lawler is like, I'm putting five right there. And everyone's like, hey, that's Adam's family. Welcome home, I guess.
    51:48
    Anywho, I just – this game for the premiums pack. And what's crazy to me is how stripped down the pro is.
    51:58
    Okay. Well, is it stripped down for – do you think it's stripped down for a pro or stripped down compared to the premium? Sorry, stripped down compared to a premium. Well, okay, so I would say stripped down compared to this premium. Because if I look at this, I still argue that this is a pretty crazy deluxe pro. Okay, compare this with Iron Man.
    52:28
    Yeah, true, good point. This has wire form ramps. This has three flippers. This has all these crazy things. If I had released the Pro five years ago, you would have said, this is amazing. This is a game changer.
    52:44
    Oh, and I also forgot. Sorry, there's one new feature on here that I didn't include on the mix. The industry first, the MagnaGrab. Yeah, that claw thing. Yeah. Well, no, it's this big post here. If you look next to the skyscraper. Yeah. And there's actually a captive ball in there. When I say the claw thing, if you look at Jeremy's art, there's a Godzilla claw underneath. I gotcha.
    53:09
    But yeah, that thing has a ball in it as well. There's a captive ball in there as well. Yeah. Wait, there's a captive ball too? Yeah. Look at it from a different angle where it's sitting down. You can see there's a ball behind it. Oh, really? Okay. It just looked like a curved metal thing. Exactly. That's what I thought too until they'd said on the Insider podcast that that actually has a captive ball behind there as well. I am an insider. I just haven't actually listened to it yet because I've been working all week. So, but no, I, I, now that you bring up that point, if you were to compare this to an Ironman, yeah, this is, this is a lot more packed than an Ironman. Well, yes and no, I guess warmonger is a pretty good toy, but, uh, Ironmonger. Yeah. The warmonger is the, the, the, the rocket shot. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. But yeah. this has got a lot more wire form and stuff to it compared to that game definitely so this is it's great it's amazing so i this is packed so i also suspect that maybe there was something that keith really wanted to do and they allowed him to have a few extra dollars in the building material because the prices this isn't standard across the board prices this is prices for godzilla and for the other games they said they're they're raising them three hundred dollars till the end of the year yeah and then there's going to be a different price and then there's going to be a different price and so i actually feel that this is kind of a borderline premium game like Like when I say a premium – Like a Kapow title? Like a Kapow – I know this isn't a Kapow title, but this feels like it is so packed with everything that this is a super premium game. I agree. Because I don't know how other – like how many mechs – this thing looks more packed than I would say Avengers, and I thought Avengers looked packed. What's your takeaway from Godzilla?
    55:20
    I think it's a fun, campy theme that while the theme doesn't do much for me specifically, everybody knows who Godzilla is and everybody knows he's coming to destroy the city. But he also somehow becomes like saving the earth from aliens and stuff. So it's totally campy and fun. And having that bridge ramp that breaks is just cool looking. I don't know how else to say it. It's just really interesting. And the Easter egg of having the Papa carpet on there is just – that's really clever and a great nod to the Papa facility. yeah um but that that breaking bridge just it that's brilliant um so there's two things that i think are amazing is the uh the skyscraper that goes up and down but also the bridge those are the two things that jump at me what do you think josh i think the skyscraper is pretty awesome uh realizing if you look at that uh they had to engineer that so it didn't actually hit the bottom of the cabinet when it sunk all the way down that's what i was kind of well does it sink all the way down because i because it's the physical ball lock that is on top and they kind of spill out does it actually go all the way down so it goes the vast majority of the way down so if you look at the the top of the roof yeah lifts up and then the balls come across this clear plastic that's right above the the bottom door oh okay because i still that's i kept looking that like how far down i thought i kind of dumped down oh oh yeah i see okay i didn't see exactly where they dumped down but yeah that's going down probably about four and a half inches that's i thought they said it was six inches in total it goes down six inches in total that's what i was that's what i think they said they're on that's pretty impressive i don't know i'm excited i'm excited to get my hands on this game and and a crazy detail looking at that godzilla sculpt yeah and that's pretty good i mean for for the uh for the flack they got for having the uh you know the the dishwashing glove for uh the gauntlet that uh that thanos had this is uh that's pretty darn good yep i agree so did you know that did you know that our logo is actually on this game as well what isn't did you see so keith elwyn is actually drawn onto the game oh even though his hat is backwards i was told that is a loser kid it has to it has to be so our logo is on this game yeah along with our twippy i heard that i heard that there's a twippy on twippy yeah oh he got oh no our future twippy you know yeah exactly no but there is a there is uh gary stern on that did you see that yes you know he's right that that's that was a great touch uh jeremy so there's some wonderful easter eggs in here yeah and you know what they've just um I am so excited with everything that Stern has been putting out. It's been, uh, they really have raised their game.
    58:47
    Well, I actually want to hit on two more things. Uh, let's really quickly. You said that you heard some positive things about cam and cow. You heard some interesting things. What, what did you, what was your responses? You got? Oh, well, I thought there were people who laughed a little bit about, um, the Beatles. And they said that sold out. I'm like, ah, May or may not be sold out. That could be some gamesmanship.
    59:12
    Now, that being said, I do like the Beatles. I know some people really don't like it, and they say it's very stripped down. You're paying a premium for what should be a $5,000 game. I get it, but if you take everything away from that game, if you take the pricing away from the game and just play the game, I bet everybody will say, you know what, that is a fantastic integration of the theme, and it's fun and it's a fun family game that you can have. So that's actually why it jumped me up to say, I'm actively looking for a Beatles now. So if anyone has a Beatles out there that they're tired of and want to sell it to me, I'm not going to pay $14,000 for it, but you can go ahead and contact us.
    59:57
    Yeah, but what reinforced it was the theme is King. he claimed that Guns N' Roses were selling for super high amount yeah that's not really true they're not super available because I think people like it but when they do come available they're not $11,000 Back to the Future people only buy those just because of the the name and he uh he capitalized on the licensing magic so i i doubt that if you if stern released lord of the rings and it was called uh like uh short people and trolls uh you you would not be right dnd yeah it would not be the same Yeah. So he found lightning in a bottle on that. Now, he's very good at that. But, you know, it's he certainly has no love for Robert Mueller. And I, I share that with him. Yeah, but it was really awesome to talk to Joe, and I really appreciate him coming on. So what was your take back on Joe's? A lot of positive comments came back. A lot of people enjoyed the interview.
    61:14
    A lot of people did point out that me and you got a whopping 17 words in on the whole thing. He was a jukebox. You put a quarter in him and he just went off. And it was like, wow, that's really good. He was awesome. He was a fantastic guest.
    61:32
    Like I said, he's very confident and whatnot. I don't know. I really enjoyed having him on. Some of the stuff I felt was very left park-ish, but a lot of it was pretty spot on, I think, what he said. Right. And he obviously is a he knows what he's doing. Now, some people said about him being very confident about getting the license. And and even, you know, even our friends at the pinball show with with Zach and Dennis, they were talking about whether or not he would be the one to get a license. They said, well, Roger Sharp. I'm like, maybe.
    62:09
    Roger Sharp certainly knows his way around licensing. However, Joe has worked with Harry Potter. And so I didn't feel that it was bravado for him to say, if there's a game done, he's going to do it. I think that is a done deal. It will be him when and if Harry Potter is made. And I would be shocked if anybody else got the license away from him. uh speaking of the pinball show i just wanted to bring this up really quick because it's funny because we talk about this in private and then we talk about it in public and then we talk about in private uh the goonies because obviously joe cam and cow uh it's funny that that dennis said they should have cut that out i laughed so hard yeah i was laughing i was just because it was such a genuine reaction of what joe had said when when you said the goonies and he's like wait what about the Goonies and you'd said, you know, it's a, it's a bad theme or whatever for people. And he's just like, Oh, I just, I laugh. So no, I, I was laughing pretty hard. And the best part about it is we're interviewing him with a video on. And so we were able to see his reactions and some of the reactions aren't going to translate as well, uh, on just a voice medium, but it was a genuine reaction so i i had a good laugh too yeah but one thing that we did and neither one of us have talked about the pinball show or us so what's our we posted you know would you like a goonies you know wrapping up episode 72 with the pinball show put nice job zach and dennis and brad albright uh i would i figured instead of emailing us you can just vote here is goonies a dated theme that doesn't hold up and isn't the best thing for pinball at the moment or do you believe guinies would be epic and still good as ever as it ever was uh comments we got almost 60 comments on this bad boy i mean people jumped on and they really did range i mean great theme really think it's a gold mine uh to it's been so long since i've watched it i'd have to watch it Again, before I tell you, but honestly, maybe that's saying something right there.
    64:24
    Goonies does absolutely nothing for me. You're dated. Goonies never die. I'm dated. Goonies is dated. You're dated. It would be epic. Dated theme. It's okay. I mean, it really – if you were to take a poll, I counted these all up. and uh what was it like 60 of them said that it was a dated theme and there's better themes out there where the other uh 40 said hey it's it's a really good theme it would do really well in pinball yeah honestly what's the threshold well what's the threshold you're you're rarely going to get a hundred percent theme yeah and so at what point do they say you know what there's enough of the pinball market that's interested in that theme that makes it worthwhile for them the the other one that made me laugh that stood out ian harrower he posted i love the goonies a great movie i can see the cast so vividly in my mind and he posted a picture but it wasn't of the goonies it was of the guys from stand by stand by me yeah that was so good so uh yeah but i mean there's people are claiming back to the future scooby-doo i'd rather see gremlins top or top gun i mean it just yeah i agree with you is not gonna get made no there's no chance top gun i could actually see top gun getting made especially with maverick coming out yeah um yeah i just okay so so here's the question josh like yeah if you were in a theme presentation like okay you present different themes um hey guys we got godzilla how many people are interested in godzilla like do you really think of the pinball community that more than 40 were interested in that theme i would rank it lower but i would rate it lower and i actually i bet they're gonna sell a billion of these things don't tell zach i said this but i really think that goonies would be higher up on the list than godzilla yeah i well i totally agree with you that's my point is that on our responses you had 40 of people saying that they were connected with the theme so there has to be some market testing but at what point do they say yes we can make this thing because it will sell but there are a lot of people who hated star wars and star wars is way in my wheelhouse so i don't know i the thing about godzilla here's the thing about godzilla is it's such an influential theme it it dates back to 1954 and it just it has permeated society on a world scale that he is recognizable almost anywhere in the world so that's why i'm like godzilla makes sense to a point and i just don't know where goonies lands i that's the thing is is godzilla still godzilla's still having movies made where Goonies, I don't know, isn't.
    67:34
    Yeah, but again, what's the next rumored title? Rush, isn't it? Yeah, how many people like Rush? I like Rush.
    67:45
    But they've even made jokes in, I went to a, it was a last tour, it was called Cinema Strangiato because one of their instrumentals is called La Via Strangiato. Yeah. But it actually talked about their last tour. Yeah. And they were interviewing Tom Morello's wife. And Tom Morello's wife, he said, I liked her because she was a Rush fan. She was an original Rush fan before Rush was cool. And they even had like a counter that came up and said, total female Rush fans. And it counted up to seven. so you're obviously rushed they're never considered a cool band uh they so you're already dealing with half of the demographic right there and you're dealing with a very niche thing but it's it's rumored that that's the next thing that's coming up so they will take chances on themes that will connect with enough people to sell well and here's here's my thought process on all of this is yeah we we came out with an episode a couple weeks ago about the secret sauces theme right i'm believing more and more it's not just theme theme is fantastic don't get me wrong but i would argue that led zeppelin is a bigger theme than godzilla led zeppelin's one of the top selling bands of all time it's up there with beatles it is what it is um but i feel like Led Zeppelin was lackluster. I'm not saying that the game was bad. I just feel like the game didn't do as well.
    69:26
    And granted, Godzilla's only been out for three days now. But I feel like the reception to Godzilla is a lot, lot warmer than it is Led Zeppelin. And I attribute a lot of that to A, Keith Elwin has an innovative design that hasn't been really seen before. where Zeppelin felt like, oh, here's another Star Trek, here's another... It's a Richie's Greatest Hits. Yeah. And so I'm starting to believe, yeah, theme is king, but you have to have the band to back it up if you want a really good selling pinball machine. Yeah, you're right on. Um, uh, this was, I would say the theme of this game that came out. Do you want to know the important theme? The number one selling theme was Keith Elwin and Rick Nagle and, uh, zombie Yeti. So it's that, it's that group. They got the band back together and they put one out. Um, Zeppelin, I, I did talk, I have a good friend who's a distributor, um, a local one here in Utah and I picked his brain and I said, Hey, what, uh, what is your interest? Like, what are people asking you about? And he said, I haven't had one inquisition on Led Zeppelin. I'm like, really? It's like, okay, so what, what are you getting asked on? He's like, well, I'm getting asked a lot on Deadpool. I'm getting a lot, uh, a lot of questions on Jurassic Park, Avengers, Premium, and Mandalorian. And those were the top ones that he was getting inquiries for. And I may have one of the few Led Zeppelins in the state.
    71:20
    So I don't think it was a big selling game because I think there wasn't much that was different for fans. Yep. I agree. It's still fun, though. I like playing the game, but I think I like playing the game because I get to hear the music. And it's a cool light show. yep so so honestly like i said i still feel like goonies is dated i feel like it doesn't hold up i i watched it recently but honestly if godzilla can make a theme that looks this amazing whatnot i think in the right hands you could make an amazing treasure hunting pirate game that is goonies themed i mean we've done it multiple times before with black rose and pirates of the Caribbean and stuff like that. I don't know, but I feel that exact same way about Scott Pilgrim versus the world. I mean, there's so much on that movie or slash comic book that you could do a lot of great things with it. And it's not, it wouldn't be out of Stern's wheelhouse because you're making movie slash comic book pins all the time. So I don't know. I'm kind of getting to the point where It's like theme is awesome and great, but I think, I think it's not the only thing. It's not the only thing. If you can make a heavy metal pinball machine, there's not much out there you can't make, in my opinion.
    72:49
    With, uh, okay. So one final question I do have. Okay. You're Charlie Emery. Yes. This is your passion theme. And it is well documented that you wanted this theme and you wanted to have it a spooky game.
    73:10
    So you see the reveal with everybody else. What is your reaction? I'm not even going to go there, man, because I know that Charlie loves this and whatnot. not um i i don't know there's so much in depth that i there's emotions i don't i don't even understand because he makes pinball and this is his theme and all that jazz so i i bet he's happy i i bet it's a mixed bag of emotions that is exactly what i'm getting at um i think it's a mixed uh he he's conflicted because he certainly would he would have poured his heart and soul into this game. And he would have done everything he possibly could to make it an awesome game, and he would have nailed the theme.
    74:01
    I would argue that Stern's ability to do advanced level game stuff is higher. They're a bigger company. Stern can do things with a game that Spooky just doesn't have the resources for. and so i would say as a fan he's looking at this and saying this is awesome and amazing and i think keith was able to nail the theme he was able to nail the integration and he was able to do some really awesome things um i think it probably you know emotionally it's a stab at charlie because he wasn't able to do it. But from a fan side, I think he has to be excited that this looks so amazing. And it's so well received for such a niche theme. I'm excited. It's another good day in pinball. It's a lot better this month than it was last month, getting that news. Oh, yeah. No, I think this is... It's morning in America. So if you're old enough to know that theme, then you're probably interested in the Led Zeppelin game.
    75:17
    Or you need to take some ibuprofen for your back. Yeah, exactly. You need time to schedule your colonoscopy, kids. Exactly.
    75:27
    Well, I think we pretty much covered it. We've covered Kapow. We've covered Godzilla. Is there anything else I'm missing before? Oh, I want to say one more. Sorry, one more thought just hit my head. uh ian haberman man uh sad to see you go sad to see you step down from poor man's pinball podcast i get it scott and i have been doing this for almost three years i remember us sitting down with martin rushing over the willie wonka uh notes and watching that live on stream and seeing you and drew scurry up to Wonka with your poor man's shirts on and getting ready to play some pinball. We've had some really great interactions behind the scenes, in front of the scenes. Man, it's like I get it. Life gets in the way and life is definitely more important than a podcast. But I don't know. Part of the class of 2019, I guess that would be. it's sad to see one of you guys go and and he'll probably still be around we still hear from fowler and stuff like that occasionally on a podcast but yeah uh good luck in life man i know that you've had some really uh rough times these past couple days or these past couple months uh i hope life gets better yeah it's a melancholy happy trails so yeah so uh very unique you guys did You did good work with poor man and good luck to Drew with whatever he decides to do with poor man. Absolutely. Anything else? No, I think it's great.
    77:09
    Now, this is the question I want you guys to answer. Were you, one, it's a two-part one. Were you interested in Godzilla as a theme before? And two, if you are buying a Godzilla, which version did you get? Yep. So shoot us those responses. Sorry, one last question for you, Scott. Okay, all right. Okay, one last question. I know you've heard this question a month ago, and you've been dying to answer it. Are you ready for this? Yep. Okay. Segment still.
    77:42
    You are on a boat, and you could only save either Jeff Teeles or Martin Robbins. Okay, you know what? It's no question.
    77:53
    I am going to... I'm going to throw myself overboard and save those beautiful people. I'm going to stab myself and jump into the water for those sharks. And then I'll ride them like those girls on Atlantis.
    78:14
    I'm sorry. I didn't see the Atlantis thing coming. Seriously, one of the most awkward play fields out there. Oh, my goodness.
    78:24
    Anyway, I love you, Jeff. And even though, Martin, you were going to stab me, still love you. All right. We're ending on that. If you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. We are also on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, all at Loser Kid Pinball. We do stream occasionally at Loser Kid Pinball on Twitch.
    78:45
    I just posted one for Avengers. We had some fun there. If you want to get a hold of us, like I said, email us. Facebook is probably the best way to do it. I do have a couple hats in stock if you're coming to Expo we're gonna be there please give me a heads up if you want any swag whatsoever so we can either A get specific thing printed like a shirt or I cannot get the hoodies right now Scott doesn't even have a hoodie because I can't get the hoodies I don't know why the crap hoodies are on back order but they're on back order we got stickers we got all that jazz I think I still got some beanies floating around if you really want that stuff let us know so we can bring it to expo with us so yeah and we may have a new hat design oh really spoiler only you have to tell me about that so all right thanks guys check us out all right see you in a couple weeks goodbye
    79:53
    Shut up and sit down. Bye.