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DPP #171 "Triple Game's Challenge!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·45m 41s·analyzed·Jan 31, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Don announces three simultaneous game arrivals and discusses pricing, code support, and community engagement in pinball.

Summary

Don discusses three major incoming games for his collection—Evil Dead (picking up this weekend), Avatar CE (shipping soon), and Dungeons & Dragons (ready within a week)—and explores themes around gameplay quality, code updates, pricing, and community engagement. He shares enthusiasm for Evil Dead's early sellout trajectory, reflects on secondary market value concerns with premium-tier games, and expresses hopes that D&D will receive consistent post-launch support like Jaws has.

Key Claims

  • About 700 Evil Dead machines have sold with ongoing distributor orders for tens at a time

    high confidence · Don reports recent conversation with Spooky team: 'at last check about 700 of these machines uh have sold and the talk that i've been having with the spooky guys they're still getting you know orders for tens at a time from distributors'

  • Evil Dead is expected to reach 888 unit sellout in 2025

    medium confidence · Don's prediction based on sales momentum: 'i think this game going to an 888 sellout in 2025 a foregone conclusion at this point'

  • Spooky Pinball is the only major manufacturer doing consistent weekly community engagement streams with creators

    high confidence · Don compares engagement: 'these are the only guys that are doing a weekly engagement on twitch... between uh stern pinball jersey jack american pinball uh dutch pinball turner pinball... but these are the only guys that are consistently like every week yeah here we are interact with us'

  • Creating wizard modes and in-game currency features costs approximately $100,000+ per feature

    medium confidence · Don reports from conversation with Dwight Sullivan: 'it's basically six figures of cash to invest to create those modes that are in there you're with all the bug testing and everything and the coding... like to end to have it like be a non-buggy process to go out like you know a hundred thousand dollars or something'

  • Avatar CE production playfields were showing reduced color richness compared to prototypes at Expo

    medium confidence · Don's observation: 'when I saw the ones at Expo, it wasn't as impressive anymore... those at Expo were probably still not the final production versions... I wanted some of that richness back'

  • Stern Pinball achievement system on first play generates ~70 achievements due to beginner-friendly triggers

    high confidence · Don explains Spike 2 mechanics: 'even if you're playing just like moderately okay you're gonna get like 70 achievements right away... you get achievement for plunging the ball you get achievement for like the easiest skill shot'

  • Dungeons & Dragons distributors had limited access (morning for distributors, afternoon for media)

Notable Quotes

  • “these are the only guys that are doing a weekly engagement on twitch and i think it's simulcast on youtube as well with a chat where you can just talk to the creators from the company themselves like do you have a problem with their flippers do you not like their art... you could just ask them directly”

    Don @ ~07:00 — Highlights Spooky Pinball's exceptional community engagement strategy compared to competitors

  • “i think this game going to an 888 sellout in 2025 a foregone conclusion at this point i know the guys are overjoyed”

    Don @ ~05:30 — Prediction of Evil Dead commercial success based on current sales trajectory

  • “when i get this thing in my home and i get this thing in my game room with that awesome topper and you turn the lights down low a little bit and you get the glow from the under cabinet lightings... and the UV mode and I turn the crank the sound up I think this is really going to be something special”

    Don @ ~25:00 — Explains premium home collector experience priorities and expectations for Avatar CE

  • “Jaws has just been killing it. Like, that should be the measure that every Stern release is trying to get to, man. Bring in those extra modes.”

    Don @ ~38:00 — Establishes Jaws as benchmark for post-launch code support and content quality

  • “i know from talking to Dwight Sullivan, rules and code designer at Stern Pinball, working on Dungeons & Dragons, you know we were impressing him pressing upon him that we like things like midnight madness modes”

    Don @ ~36:00 — Provides insider perspective on D&D development and community feedback to designers

  • “for every dollar we put into this in-game currency that you can then cash in for prizes and things you know we're seeing you know $1.25 back in revenue... What they do is they build customer confidence in their games. Um, they get people playing on location.”

    Don @ ~40:00 — Analyzes economic rationale behind code investment decisions and ROI challenges

  • “X-Men seem to have a lot of hype on the front end and then the hype quickly fell off and we're all just kind of waiting on code”

Entities

Evil DeadgameAvatar: Battle for PandoragameDungeons & DragonsgameSpooky PinballcompanyDonpersonSpooky LukepersonBugperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Code update economics showing $100K+ per feature development cost without direct ROI; manufacturers hesitant to invest in free content updates

    medium · Don's report from Dwight Sullivan discussion on D&D development costs; acknowledgment that intangible customer confidence benefits don't translate to dollar ROI

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball's weekly Bug Scream and Stream on Twitch with creator participation contrasted as exceptional vs. other manufacturers' limited engagement

    high · Don's direct observation of consistent weekly engagement; comparison with Stern, JJP, American Pinball, Dutch, Turner noted as lacking similar frequency

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Jaws 50th Anniversary established as benchmark for post-launch code support; John Wick and X-Men criticized for stalled development compared to Jaws standard

    high · Don explicitly: 'Jaws has just been killing it. Like, that should be the measure that every Stern release is trying to get to'; X-Men and John Wick critiques of code delays

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dungeons & Dragons receiving community preference feedback (midnight madness, wizard modes, currency systems); Dwight Sullivan engaged with feedback from players via Don

    medium · Don reports direct conversation with Dwight about feature requests; D&D in active design phase responding to community input

  • $

    market_signal: Evil Dead at ~700 units sold with ongoing distributor orders indicates strong early adoption; Don predicts 888 unit total for 2025

    high · Conversation with Spooky team; pattern of distributor resupply orders described as continuous

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.137

0:00
I think what I'm ready to do now, here in the studio, is talk a little bit of pinball nonsense. Can you give me some pinball nonsense music, please?
0:12
Yeah, a little Rammstein will work. What's up, everybody? It's Don's Pinball Podcast, episode number 171. I've got a ton of stuff to talk about, especially three new games inbound that I'd really like to get to. And we'll do that after this little Rammstein drop. Let's go.
0:30
Oh, thank you so much for the pleasuring and soothing sounds of German metal music. What's up, everybody? Don here from the pinball podcast happy to be back with you guys episode number 171 coming off hot from bugs scream and stream on Thursday evening uh January 30th let's get into this I'm so excited and hyped for this week man I just got the email and I shared this online so if you're following the Facebook you already know all about it but my evil dead got done about a week or so before I was planning on picking it up and the guys are like you know we were planning on you know bringing it up after pinball at the beach but i mean probably have it friday if you want and i said bet we're going down i'm going down there tomorrow morning actually which will be uh january 31st i'm gonna go down to benton wisconsin pick up my i can't wait dude this wide body game i hear it weighs about 400 pounds haven't been underneath the bench press it yet but i can't wait to get this thing in the house and i'm gonna unbox it the following day saturday noon central standard time so get in on this there we go i need some more air horn volume there uh get in on this man it's going to be super fun i'm planning some awesome giveaways too for those live in chat it'll be on youtube and i like doing the live stream unboxings on youtube because they tend to hang around a lot more when you go to the youtube channel they pop right up there if it's a facebook live stream it just as the scrolling goes it disappears man you can't find them again So to give everybody a chance to check out what this game looks like, brand new in box, coming out of it, you know, especially when they're still under like 10 that have probably left the factory. There you go, man. Four other ones are going down to pinball at the beach. I'm going down to pinball at the beach. When this show was first announced, I thought, you know, great idea. Keep ticket prices or ticket prices, keep ticket availability low so it's not huge lines, you know, for pinball machines. Put it somewhere fun. put it down in florida on the beach in saint petersburg in the middle of winter time uh not a bad idea invite some people on down there chris franchi will be there carrie hardy will be there a bunch of dudes from stern will be down there uh jack dangers your l1 i think is making an appearance and we could all just kind of hang out at the beach and play pinball like sound like a good idea but you know at the same time like i don't need to go to every single though i would like pinball convention um but i got talked into it you know my friends were spooky we're talking it up i i mean you don't really need to twist my arm to get down to florida i love hitting the theme parks whenever i can so i made it happen and now i'm super hyped that i did that i'll be staying on site at the beach we'll be here this will be the public's first attempt or first opportunity to really in mass get their get their hands on evil dead a game that i've been you know i've been saying since i played it man the games look super good and uh so far i'm not alone man uh at last check about 700 of these machines uh have sold and the talk that i've been having with the spooky guys they're still getting you know orders for tens at a time from distributors that are selling out and then resupplying so i i think this game going to an 888 sellout in 2025 a foregone conclusion at this point i know the guys are overjoyed and we all can't wait to get our games and so when you give me the opportunity to come down tomorrow get off work and come on down pick it up heck yes i'm gonna do that so i'm super hype and excited for that guys if you're not following bug stream screaming stream on thursday night 7 p.m central time um get on there man just last week uh they gave away a freaking 1400 pinball topper for evil dead to just somebody in the chat right uh they wrote down the name of a band in this case it was rammstein right germany's pride and joy uh and uh yeah somebody guessed right and they got themselves a 1400 topper amazing dude super amazing um i know uh pinball expo dwight was gave out one too during his game show i love this you know giving out awesome prizes like this um and so there was 80 of us in the chat today and it was just uh bug and spooky luke sitting on a couch drinking margaritas and just answering questions right and you know surveying the pinball landscape of all the companies that are out there these are the only guys that are doing a weekly engagement on twitch and i think it's simulcast on youtube as well with a chat where you can just talk to the creators from the company themselves like do you have a problem with their flippers do you not like their art uh do you think uh you know it's not doing well in location why does halloween not do this thing why is this bug not been fixed like you could just ask them directly and they'll be like oh yeah no we know about that the the fix is coming next week or wait what's happening email me that we're gonna go get it solved you know or if you have an idea for like like a merchandise thing you want to get from them or just like some random question you could just ask the dudes and they're on there every week sometimes well often most times they're streaming a game that just had a code update because no one's bringing the code updates like spooky pinball is but you know between uh stern pinball jersey jack american pinball uh dutch pinball turner pinball he's he's pretty good at outreach um but these are the only guys that are consistently like every week yeah here we are interact with us you got a problem with our stuff like let us know how and you know how can we make it better and here's kind of where we're thinking um i know for a fact like if you have an idea for a game that would probably sell 500 units they may be actually interested in making it so i love that that kind of connectivity that they have so uh their giveaways are awesome and uh yeah i figure like i'm part of their street team at this point but like i ain't even getting paid to do it i just like a fan of them and the product man it's awesome so tomorrow morning heading on down gonna go pick that up uh it was cool if they picked rammstein and you know the more i find out about these guys the more i'm finding like that our venn diagrams as far as music overlap quite a bit now spooky luke he's still uh he's still his venn diagram and maybe we're like 50 50 he's into some weird stuff um but uh you know just talking in the chat you know they mentioned that they're both fans of marilyn manson which like amazing for some for some central wisconsin dudes like let's make it happen dude let's make that game happen um so i'm excited about that i've got i've got myself in a pickle here man i got games incoming like and they're coming fast and furious uh i have ordered an evil dead uh i was there when it dropped i was actually at the jersey jack booth at iapa 10 a.m eastern time when the phone banks went open or when they went live uh and i went ahead and got my deposit in right away so i got a super early build super happy about that i also ended up ordering an avatar collector's edition for reasons which i've described i did a whole patron episode of why i'm getting that game why i'm happy with it and why i can't wait to get it and then uh i also ended up negotiating a trade deal of such with my distributor to go ahead and lock down on dungeons and dragons so that's coming too so i knew i was getting in this first part of the year three new games i made some room i i did get some games that that left uh some of them hurt but yeah It kind of had to happen. Scooby-Doo went out. John Wick LE went out. X-Men LE went out. X-Men Premium went out. And Metallica Premium is about to go out. Now, some of those were customer order builds that I had. But the other three, I still was enjoying them. But, you know, I was at a point where I just wasn't playing them as much as some of the other games that I had. And, you know, when you hit that point where you got your eyes on something shiny, there's a shiny prize out there. and you would like to have that shiny prize more than you would like to keep your previous shiny prize, I think that's the time to go ahead and make that swap, you know, get the game off to a new home. It also does help if looking at the used market, if the cost to replace that down the road in the future is somewhat favorable. So I think the way the market's going, listen, I can go get a John Wick LE tomorrow if I need to get one back. It's not a big deal. Maybe by the time the toppers come out, I can consider that because the code will hopefully be done, man. come on come on tim man bring that code um you know but i cleared up some room i've had some breathing space downstairs and now like three games i knew they were incoming what i didn't realize is they were all going to come the same freaking weekend right because no sooner than i got the text that evil dead would be ready to pick up tomorrow uh then i got the final uh bill the invoice for avatar so those are shipping now avatar le's uh have been out avatar ces are now going domestically in the U.S. That's awesome. So my buddy Retro Jango, you know him as Jengez. He's got his whole Amiga channel. He does pinball content. Me and him do We Are Pinball, our biweekly podcast. He's already got his Avatar CE because the imports went out first. Now, typically these get loaded into shipping containers or put on a boat, and they take a several-week journey across the pond from the factory to get out to Europe. He goes ahead and he pays the extra little money and flies the game out. So he's had it there. He's unboxed it. So he's the first person I know, like, on planet Earth that has showed this game off, the Avatar CE, with the CE play field of the production variety. I've seen the CE play field as the prototype when we were at the factory for the factory tour. And it just knocked, like, six pairs of socks off me with how cool it looked, right, with the woods lamp on it, the UV light, and just seeing, like, the depth of color and everything. But when I saw the ones at Expo, it wasn't as impressive anymore. And so I'm thinking that those at Expo were probably still not the final production versions. They just wanted to bring something out. The Art Blades, I think, looked awesome. But as far as the play field itself, I wanted some of that richness back. So I got to watch some of his videos, and it looks like they did end up bringing it there. So I'm excited to see kind of in person, compared to the prototype that I saw on the wall, what does the actual production version look like um i tried to swing by the factory and check these out because i know they've been on the line here for a few weeks um timing didn't work out i wasn't able to get in there but i'll have my own we'll be doing an unboxing and then i can actually one to one tell you you know compared to that prototype how did the final one come out i will tell you this um i've been playing a lot of uh stranger kit stranger things strange things has been the game of the week uh for me it seems like every week there's i just gravitate towards something Now I'm kind of moving back over to Munsters, but for the whole week, I was just playing some Stranger Things. I saw this mod that was created by Chainsaw Mods. It's the Starcourt Mall. It's a 3D printed model that goes out on the plastic above the right ramp in the back. And I loved it I love the damn thing Little pricey He did just drop the price to i was looking at it like i got i got a whole bank of 3d printers here behind me like can i just find this model online you know and maybe maybe adapt it to myself i searched for an hour through all like the free sites through some of the paid sites like can i find a star court mall that i can just print out and i couldn't find one and it was like it was late in the evening the family had already gone to bed it was like 11 30 at night and like you know what looking at this thing i started breaking it down in my head to a series of shapes and models and negative masks and things to put over there in the 3D program. And I thought, you know, let me just take a crack at this thing. And so crack I did. I cracked this thing out over a couple of hours and got my own Starcourt mall facade that I made, printed out. I got the prototype of my Stranger Things and it looks amazing.

high confidence · Don describes limited demo access: 'Distributors were invited for a few hours in the morning. Uh, media folks were invited for a couple hours in the afternoon and then like, that's it.'

  • Avatar CE is expected to hold value better than Toy Story 4, Godfather, and Guns & Roses CEs

    medium confidence · Don's secondary market analysis: 'Guns & Roses... there's 5000 of them out there... so i think there'll be a little bit of price insulation when it comes to avatar ce on the secondary market'

    • Don @ ~44:00 — Reflects on X-Men's disappointing trajectory and code support delays

    Dwight Sullivan
    person
    Retro Jango / Jengezperson
    Pinball at the Beachevent
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Tim Proctorperson
    Chainsaw Modsperson/company
    Stranger Thingsgame
    Jaws 50th Anniversarygame
    John Wickgame
    X-Mengame
    Chris Franchiperson
    Carrie Hardyperson
    Mad Pinballcompany
    George Gomezperson
    Elizabethperson
    Brian Eddieperson
  • $

    market_signal: Avatar CE at $15,000 raising secondary market value concerns; Don analyzing resale price floors based on recent JJP CE secondary market trends

    high · Don compares Avatar CE to Elton John, Toy Story 4, Godfather, Guns & Roses CE pricing; predicts $12-12.5K floor possible but uncertain

  • ?

    announcement: Don confirming Evil Dead pickup this weekend (Jan 31) and Avatar CE shipping domestically; D&D expected within one week after Pinball at the Beach

    high · Direct communication from Spooky and Mad Pinball; invoices received; specific dates and logistics discussed

  • ?

    product_concern: Avatar CE playfield color richness degraded from prototype to Expo versions; Don uncertain if production units recovered the quality

    medium · Don's observation comparing Expo units to prototype he saw at factory tour; waiting to evaluate production units upon delivery

  • ?

    product_strategy: Dungeons & Dragons topper confirmed to include motion element (revealed by George Gomez on Don's podcast); third-party D&D topper with LCD screen and beholder projection appeared on Facebook

    high · George Gomez official confirmation; unconfirmed third-party topper at $1,700 with AI-generated appearance concerns

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: X-Men experiencing hype decay: initial strong community enthusiasm followed by rapid decline due to delayed code content

    high · Don: 'X-Men seem to have a lot of hype on the front end and then the hype quickly fell off and we're all just kind of waiting on code'

    • 12:11
    I'll segue into some model building here. I do have some fluorescent filaments and I got the UV kit in my premium machine i think that's important for this uh so the star court mall it's all in white right so not a lot of details on the the building itself but i did print out the signs in fluorescent uh reds and green filaments so the sign you know it's in red and green which looks fine looks 1980s but when the the uv hits it man the thing glows amazingly but here was the thing i wasn't expecting and that is with the projection that's in the premium and also the le like it's throwing those glowing orbs all over the side of the building when you're in the upside down and so like i'm over the moon with how cool this thing looks over here um i'm putting in a transparent roof so it kind of reflects uh and diffuses a lot of the light from the flasher that's back there so i'm digging this thing man and so i was play testing the game and like just really getting into stranger things now you know it's like whenever you circle back to a game um you know and your skills have improved like you're getting farther into it i finally got a billion points and stranger things which was just amazing so oh it was late at night i'm like am i up there i got some music cranked i'm just playing stranger things at night doing the best i've ever done at it just just remarking at like how amazing this game has become to me now like like it's double bolted for sure man i love my stranger things i love this mod that i made i've got some more ideas for it i got some uh transparent uv inks that are coming that'll be able to paint some cool effects on it so when you go upside down boom the whole thing's gonna seem like it's leaping straight out up some portal uh to some other alternate trans dimension um but as i was playing it and i was having fun with the uv i was thinking avatar plays similar to this and the fact that the whole uh play field and the fluorescence and everything in the uv can come out and give you kind of an alternate experience playing this game like a day night cycle and i think that avatar does it even better now almost exclusively all the times that i have played avatar battle for pandora the le and the CE, it's been at a show floor or it's been in a brightly lit interium style arcade, very loud and, you know, hard to hear a lot of the music and it's hard to really appreciate that day night cycle that it has. But when I get this thing in my home and I get this thing in my game room with that awesome topper and, you know, I turn the lights down low a little bit and you get the glow from the under cabinet lightings, the back box lightings on the wall and then the UV mode and I turn the crank the sound up I think this is really going to be something special and I'm excited because of how much I love playing stranger things at home with the uv and the upside down and get into the modes and all that in total isolation and I want a similar experience from avatar so I'm hype on it and so like it's like the next day that I heard that that evil dead was ready I got the invoice from jeffamadpinball.com got that thing paid game is paid I'll be going down to the factory and picking it up. That's the plan. Hopefully this works out. And so not only will we get an Evil Dead this weekend, but within the next week, the next time I get down to Chicago, I can go ahead and pick this game up. Super stoked on that. So the Avatar CEs are shipping. Now, I know what you're all thinking. Don, it's a $15,000 game. Right. I know. Trust me. I know. I moved Lebowski to free up the funds and the space for Avatar, so it's kind of like, you know, I've already made that investment in the money, so this is just kind of like swapping games around uh greasing palms a little bit to the tune of like 1200 1500 or something and then bringing in a brand new fresh new game like top of the line one of the best looking games jersey jack's ever done i'm hype on it man i'm into it but don the resale man uh part of the reason that it was okay even though i've seen the prices where they're at with guns and roses where they're at with godfather where they're at with toy story 4 I looked at where they were with Elton John and Avatar doesn't play as well as Elton John, right? I get it but Elton John's CEs are hovering around $13,500 they're not going for $9,000 with that cool topper up there and the awesome music and the layout and so a game that's a theme that's more on point for me and it seems like it plays a lot better and draws me in a lot more than Godfather does it's a lot more impressive mechanistically and gameplay mechanic wise than toy story 4 is and they're just not selling in the numbers that we saw guns and roses so far guns and roses not a bad game there's 5 000 of them out there and you can get them anywhere you know so of course the price is going to be low so i think there'll be a little bit of price insulation when it comes to avatar ce on the secondary market now right now you can go and get an avatar le 10 000 10 500 that makes sense so seeing a 15 000 avatar ce if it were to go down to 12.5 or even 12 after a year i think that would kind of be reasonable i think that would be reasonable i don't know that it doesn't have the hype that elton john does as far as like a shooting game um and so i don't know that it will hold the value quite as well as elton john did but i think it's going to do a fair lot better than the last three releases prior to that so for those reasons and and my overall exuberance for playing this damn blue people smurf game in my house with the uv day night cycle hit the eclipse jackpot i'm high about it man i can't wait to get this in and just the class of 2025 at district on arcade is going to be is going to be well attended and have some good company and what a palate cleanse too i mean have an evil dead wide body there tcm right next to it uh stranger things monsters and avatar like just floating back and forth between all those they all play a little bit differently they all feel a little bit differently They're all different types of games. Man, I dig it. I'm getting hype. If you're not having fun in pinball, man, what are you doing? So that's not all. That's not all. There's one more game that's coming. And I'm reminded of it every time I see that daily message come through on the back of my Stern Spike 2 cabinets playing the Dungeons & Dragons trailer. And I see the freaking Worf Dragon there. And I can't wait to get my hands back on this game. So this game hasn't been played by anyone anywhere. Distributors were invited for a few hours in the morning. Uh, media folks were invited for a couple hours in the afternoon and then like, that's it. Like this game hasn't been out in terium for three weeks in Chicago. Like, you know, this game hasn't been out anywhere. The LEs are just getting delivered like this week. That's just starting. And so I've heard that, you know, as soon as next week, I could probably pick it up. So I think the plan is for after pinball at the beach, both of these two other games should be ready. And so I'll be coming back from the Chicago airport, uh, plus two passengers, extra large. i can't wait man this is nuts this is crazy it's like all come at the same time similar thing happened to me back when labyrinth came out it's like i got like three games all in a row they're like pulp fiction came and labyrinth came and uh like tcm and looney tunes or something it was like nuts man and so it's looking to be repeated here i want to play this game with the dragon some more i didn't get deep into the code heck i didn't even sign into insider connected when i was at the factory guys when you first play a brand new stern spike 2 game and you take your insider connected account you log in with your qr code you hear that little bleep and then like the first game you play even if you're playing just like moderately okay you're gonna get like 70 achievements right away and like that's that only happens once man you know because it's like you get achievement for plunging the ball you get achievement for like the easiest skill shot you know you get an achievement for hitting a pop bumper right so they just like come like fast and furious for the first couple of games and then after that they're a little more measured right then it's like all right you hit the you hit the spinner 10 000 times now here's your next achievement you get the gold one when you hit it a hundred thousand times you know and then they're really kind of spaced out um and so what i didn't want to do was just sign in at the factory playing a game in a loud environment with four other players where i still don't even understand the game and then i kind of waste that experience of those little bleep bleeps bleep bleeps right so um i held off and i so i didn't record any of my scores to my insider connected account but when i get this thing home and open it up and log in fresh and i got the game balanced and it's It's 6.5 to 6.8 degrees of tilt, and it's leveled left to right, and I got the ninja chrome pinballs in there all cleaned off and ready to go, and all the nuts are tight, and the flipper rubbers and everything are snug how they should be, and I'm ready to go. Then I'm going to embark on this quest. I'm going to pick a character and let's go. I'm going to explore everything I can do with that character, level it up, unlock weapons, try to figure out how this game works, and then I'm going to go to the next character and the next one and start unlocking stuff, And then we're going to get that first three-week-later code update from Sturdy Pinball that fixes a lot of the bugs that no one's uncovered yet. And then we're just going to go from there. My hope is that this trend that we're seeing of accessories being held back and big code advancements for everything other than Elwynn being held back, I hope they start to get caught up there. Because with this game, I mean, I love having a new game and growing with it, but you've got to grow with me, man. And I feel like John Wick had its growth stunted. We're waiting with bated breath on X-Men because we know there's a good game that's buried in there. We just want it to come out. Jaws has just been killing it. Like, that should be the measure that every Stern release is trying to get to, man. Bring in those extra modes. Have some kind of in-game currency. John Wick, what happened to the contracts? Did they fire their contract guy? I know from talking to Dwight Sullivan, rules and code designer at Stern Pinball, working on Dungeons & Dragons, you know we were impressing him pressing upon him that we like things like midnight madness modes uh we like being able to uh hold a flipper and go into like a wizard mode or some other challenge mode you know a boss battle time rush like those kind of things and he was saying like it's basically six figures of cash to invest to create those modes that are in there you're with all the bug testing and everything and the coding and you know just coming up with the rules and layout and all that business like to end to have it like be a non-buggy process to go out like you know a hundred thousand dollars or something uh so like i get it like it's a big ask and when you put out these free code updates there's not really like an immediate return on that investment right it's not that well for every dollar we put into creating these fun little wizard modes for every dollar we put into this in-game currency that you can then cash in for prizes and things you know we're seeing you know, $1.25 back in revenue. Like they're not seeing that in that way. What they do is they build customer confidence in their games. Um, they get people playing on location. They keep locations happy, which are more intangible type of benefits. You know it not something that there a dollar for dollar return on investment and ROI in those sorts of things And so like I still want to push him that direction though because it what we want You know so to put up somebody out there that's cranking out these, you know, John Wick contracts, you know, I mean, that's money, they got to pay somebody to come up with that they have to design a logo that's got to be there, upload it to the app, make sure there's no bugs in it and all this stuff. So like, I get it, I get it. I don't know what the answer is. I just want it. We know that the price of toppers is exorbitant. You know, the bill of materials on a topper is probably like seventy five dollars. And then, you know, you go ahead and charge fifteen hundred dollars for this thing. But I know you have to pay the person to program that. You have to pay the licensing fees to use that art. You have to pay to have the things printed, you know. And when it comes to a John Wick topper, you know, we know that they're not selling 60,000 units of John Wick toppers. You know, so, you know, when you go ahead and put an order in for these things, like your margins aren't as good as they would have been if you're selling 60,000 of them. So, like, I get it that like that's what's baked in there. I don't mind paying for quality. I don't mind paying for gameplay.
    23:55
    But I like to see it, you know, give you the opportunity to do that. you know so hopefully when it comes to a release like dungeons dragons i think that it's being more well received by the community by locations i think it's going to sell um better at least protractedly uh than x-men x-men seem to have a lot of hype on the front end and then the hype quickly fell off and we're all just kind of waiting on code and then maybe it'll have its uh 007 moment it'll have its stranger things moment later on when there's actually something interesting to do in the future yeah let's say um you know wick uh wick didn't sell very well and i don't think it's sold well longitudinally either and so there's probably not that much impetus to really get get the stuff out for that game uh venom we love venom uh but we don't need to talk about venom anymore right now i still want to see a topper i want to see what they do with it but yeah yeah i like the game but yeah you know my thoughts on venom so i'm hype on dungeons and dragons i think because the penetration that this team is having and its exuberance that exists within the diaspora of people that play pinball hopefully that will bring us some consistent code updates some interesting modes on the late game um the fact that uh that dwight and brian eddie are kind of hype on this the fact that elizabeth is involved has me exuberant um the fact that the topper is going to have some sort of motion on it as george gomez revealed on my podcast that recorded there um i'm i'm enthusiastic about it i'm enthusiastic about it did you see this $1,700 topper that just popped up on my facebook feed for dungeons and dragons today a third party topper $1,700 um i don't know who's making it i didn't recognize the name uh but some mad lad out there has got you know a giant lcd screen that looks like uh the one that came with pirates of the caribbean that after aftermarket topper um that's got some big eyeball projections back there and i swear i thought this thing was like an ai generated uh what you call it uh there was a giant beholder which is like that eyeball round floating ball magic beast thing and it had these tendrils with eyeballs on it and like the way that they were moving all look like ai and so i was like is this like a scam like what is this i still don't know i'm waiting for something to pop up on that arcade like was this real or was this ai because the video was really strange and i only spent a couple of minutes looking at it uh but somebody came up with like just something looks incredible to put on top of a pinball machine. And so I'm excited about that. Speaking of incredible stuff on top of pinball machines, my buddy Tim, gosh, I've got his last name here. I don't want to get it wrong.
    26:27
    Tim Proctor. I didn't want to like take a chance and like mess up the name. But Tim Proctor, he's on Facebook. He's got an Etsy shop at etsy.com backslash shop backslash Tim Proctor Art, P-R-O-C-T-O-R. He makes some incredible toppers. He's done those cool resin ones for Godzilla. He's done some for Jaws that just look like the most incredibly detailed. He's a professional model maker for, like, movies and televisions and things, amongst other things, man. This guy's amazing. MetaMed Expo. We hung out for a while. He just did a Munsters topper for somebody that's got, like, the whole family up there. The thing's built and lit incredibly well. Go check it out on YouTube. Shout out to him. But I like what I'm seeing from people that aren't just, you know, 3D print modelers. actually professional modelers that are coming out with toppers that seem like they are worth seventeen hundred dollars now i'm a topper guy uh when a right topper doesn't exist or when one exists that i don't quite love and they could be improved upon i like having the ability to go out and make and create my own things i like that other people are enthusiastic about them too and they'll occasionally uh ask for some uh i made that sentinel topper for x-men had this idea went online, found the files, purchased them, and then kind of reworked them in a way that would work with pinball and worked with my friends over at Comet buying their aftermarket parts for model building and was able to tie lights into the GI and everything in a very plug-and-play fashion. It was awesome. Now, I don't own the license for X-Men, and so I'm not selling this topper, but I did make two of them and gave them away to friends. So I like that I can make things that are interesting and compelling and get them out to people. um but you know no way i would charge 1700 for the things that i'm making but like i'm in awe of people that like legitimately know what they're doing when it comes to alighting and interactivity and and resin i like what the electric playground is doing um and so i want to see some of that level really push companies like stern into bringing out some amazing toppers while we're on toppers right evil dead topper completely amazing cheryl man coming out of the floorboards I don't think anybody's bought an Evil Dead that didn't go in on that topper as well. Incredible, man. Look what Barrels of Fun did with their Labyrinth topper.
    28:40
    I miss Labyrinth, man. That hurt. That hurt selling Labyrinth. Now, I played the ever-loving crap out of it, but just I loved the topper and the way it interacted with you. And so I love that the bar is just being raised by Spooky Pinball, by Barrels of Fun, by these third-party makers. And then it's like, all right, Stern, come on, bring it, man. And I know you're not going to do things with resin and things that are that labor intensive, but like, you know, Rising Tide, let's lift all these ships here and let's put cool stuff on tops of pinball machines. What else do we want to talk about today in episode 171? It's a hot one, man. It's a triple game threat that's coming on. But I did have a couple of other more nuances that I would like to get into.
    29:20
    I was driving around, and I do my thinking when I'm driving. And I thought, why not do a post-mortem on Barry O's barbecue challenge, huh? What do you guys think? So, like, I've been having some thoughts. Now, American Pinball announced officially that they're doing a classic version run of Galactic Tank Force for $7,995. And that will be coming out soon, probably shown off at Texas Pinball Festival. Now, as far as their new game that's in the clutch, kind of some things I'm hearing is, like, while the game may not actually be in production on the line, there is a production sample that exists that people are being trained on and workers are being geared up to run these. So it sounds like they're gearing up to run the Galactic Tank Force Classic Edition. They're looking to gear up to run the aforementioned rumored title that should be coming out sometime soon. We're going to see it this year, and I think it's going to happen. I'm really excited about that. But I want to talk about some missteps that we've seen, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying that Burial is a barbecue challenge. not the sales driver game that I guess it was originally planned to be. And my response to that is, well, how could it possibly have been? Okay. Now, I know the theme is weird. And for fans of weird things, myself included, it's an interesting game. I still play it basically every time I see it out in location. What I'm not doing anymore, though, is playing it more than once. I'll stop by and I'll play it just because it's so weird. but i don't stick around and play and it's it's a lot of little things right um you know the modes and things don't seem all that compelling or interesting to me uh the the meat on the screen doesn't bother me that's probably my favorite part of the game the the graphics for some of the modes you know the barbecue rocket picnic table that's launching up towards the sky it looks like a nice placeholder for a concept but it didn't look like fully fleshed out and i still can't get over the plunge man can we talk about that for a second now i make some shooter rods, right? I got a 3d printer. I'm pretty clever with it. Um, I've got things designed. I can, I can replicate the same weight and balance of, you know, a stern shooter rod. Um, and it lets me get creative and sometimes weird and I have fun with it. I have fun with it. Um, so when I get a shooter rod though, when it goes through the shooter housing, the clearances are very tight and there's just a nice model film of some oil on that rod to keep everything moving nice and smooth when you have a shooter rod and this is why i love them you need to have reproducibility and and accuracy right you want to know that if you're trying to do a skill shot let's say and you pull it back to 30 you want to get a pretty consistent plunge every time on that and what i have found is that if i have a shooter rod that maybe has a scratch on it like that is enough to really affect that reproducibility you get when you're plunging your balls um so much in your window here uh when it comes to games like burials barbecue challenge galactic tank force these are the two i've noticed this with it seems like they've gone with like a different type of metal um like whether it's you know it's not like this the stainless steel it's uh maybe like an aluminum or a different alloy uh but it feels like it's it's it's binding it feels like it's binding a bit not sliding smoothly within the shooter housing almost like like a brand new rod that hasn't been just oiled lightly um i tend to you don't need much you don't need much but like a little drop of some oil and kind of brush it around, plunge a couple of times. It'll keep the action working nice and smooth. And these feel like they don't have that because, you know, there are skill shots that are on Barry's barbecue challenge. You can plunge across the field and into the standup targets. Um, you can use the flippers to pick different skill shots, you know? Um, but like, you know, if I plunge it 10 times and I pull it back 30% each time, I I'm going to get 10 different plunges, even though I've pulled it back the same amount, like, and that's frustrating you know because i want to have some reproducibility and a way to kind of dial in my skills and it just feels like a crapshoot every time and it may be because they purchased i don't know 10 000 shooter rod housings and you know they're not quite the quality that they need to be and they're kind of stuck with them uh that would make sense to me um i don't know because but it seems like a shooter rod housing which is only 25 that shouldn't be the part that holds you up it shouldn't be the part that holds you up blanks are 5.95 from pinball life and that's paying pinball life prices for one-offs you know like buying at scale it's got to be cheaper it just seems like uh a few pennies may have been saved in production but doing a lot of damage to the final product okay now when we're thinking about a game like burials barbecue challenge that launched for sub seven thousand dollars six thousand eight hundred or so um or whatever it was now if you're at the pinball buying public which if you're listening this you probably are um and i say hey i got this great barbecue game um with kind of a dodgy shooter rod and it's uh price the same as a stern pro you know you gonna turn your head and you gonna look at x pro you gonna look at deadpool pro you gonna look at uh john wick venom star wars pro and you gonna see iron maiden pro like such a better game for the same amount of money right not just shooter rod but like when it comes to music and sound and license and refined shots and interesting things to do there's just no comparison so how could this game this barbecue themed wonder game be anything but essentially just dead on arrival like how do you compete with that you know unless you you're you're sounding people that don't really know enough about pinball now of course barrio's barbecue challenge isn't the game that iron maiden is it isn't the game that jaws pro is or godzilla pro is so let's let's be a little more fair to barrio here and let's uh put it up neck and neck with mandalorian pro okay a game that's not burning up the charts by any means it's got some charm okay in defense of mandalorian i was playing it again the other day on location it was an le at uh lumberjack johnny's in appleton the the northern most location and uh i played like 10 times and i was having fun with it i was having fun exploring those modes there's ice spiders in it right it is a mandalorian guy in it uh there's uh some okay shots you know it doesn't have like a really nice satisfying orbit you know it doesn't have the the mandalorian helmet tilting play field doesn't really do much for me um but on its own it's more interesting than things that you find in barbecue uh and uh you know i do like the call outs and things they make a lot more sense in that game than they do at port barrio and the fact that you can get a routed pro mandalorian for 4500 you know somebody just listed one home use only with a couple of mods in it for five even and he would probably take 4800 you know so that's like a several thousand dollar discount on a game that's of what i would consider much better quality let alone insider connected there's a whole job function or a shop function there's an in-game currency and then you can purchase things um you know so like there's just there's just more thought out in there and more available that's on the market you know why would you go buy a barbecue instead of i would go pick up a mandalorian pro and save some money right or i mean what i would do is get a godzilla premium and just not even look at it but if i was looking in the market for a game of that scope and scale and price there's so many much better deals out there and So I'm just wondering how this came to fruition. I want to see a documentary. Somebody, Dick House, I don't care who does it, somebody do a documentary on the production of Burial's Barbecue Challenge and the decisions that were made. How cool would it have been if a documentary crew were in the rooms for those high-level discussions and planning and storyboarding that led to this very strange game? The game is just so very strange. Moving on, Galactic Tank Force is a game that's also incredibly strange. incredibly strange um it's it's it's it's so all over the place the art's amazing um the concept is is interesting uh once i wrap my head around it um the ice cream is really weird professor plotnick is just such a strange character which is probably too much cringe to really be likable um and then you know there's one ramp in the game um but it had its highlights you know i i didn't like the tank with the stand-up targets i think that would have been a much better uh much more fun mechanism if it was five drop targets and you would knock those down then shoot through the tank to access the pop bumpers and things maybe put another ramp back there or something um i think that would have been a better use of that space um you know but it had a cow on a string it has these you know floating little uh 3d printed uh drone little guys in it um and i love that planet on the back wall with the mirror that was back there like that was kind of a cool effect and you know the game looked fun looking at it and i remember the first couple times i really played it um it was at pittsburgh uh helicon brewery brewery um i went in there i was by myself i got to play it for like an hour or so and you know it was an interesting game um but again like these games are available for for less than 79.95 and now there's there's a stripped down version that doesn't have the really cool aural lights uh it doesn't have the r blades on it doesn't have like that magic glass it doesn't have the tank shreds which i don't think it needs I think the deluxe version is just plenty. But it's missing that planet at the back, too. And it's missing some of the sculpts and the 3D printed robot inside the tank. It doesn't go up or down. I think it's still in there, though. It's just strange, you know? Like $79.95? You know, more than the cost of a new Unboxed Stern Pro without any discounts or anything?
    38:46
    It's just strange. I don't understand. You know, and I don't want to just say, well, I wish them well and see how they do. But it's just strange. I hope that they can just reset. They can use this period of change within the company to reset, bring this game out, get some sales, and then bring out the new one and let that be the foot that you lead off with on your climb to greatness and glory. Hopefully that's what we see. Otherwise, I'm going to keep following this industry, and I'll keep reporting what I hear and speculating where it makes sense. But yeah, just so weird. Even – OK, I played Led Zeppelin Pro. So I was over at Kickback Cafe, which is a new location in the Madison, Wisconsin area. Fantastic place. And I was there with my parents, which is fun, you know, because, you know, they know what pinball is, but they're not as deep into it as I am for sure. But it's fun for me to take them around and show them, like, hey, this is a Pabst can crusher. This thing's, like, super rare. There's only 100 of these. It's a weird game, kind of a throwback design, you know. And, like, playing Pabst can crusher with my parents was really fun. and so we're walking and of course you know they had a game of thrones premium there so i got to play some time on that i kind of really like that game i think it plays really fun i wouldn't there would be a good companion game to dungeons and dragons if you were doing like kind of you know fantasy themed game room um but uh you know those are the games that i was playing paps can crusher uh game of thrones they're gravitating more to like the line of stern pros and it was so funny they were just like okay which ones do you have at home so we won't play those here we'll play the other ones and so uh one of the games that i don't have at home that they did have there was a led zeppelin pro and of course like you know my parents are i don't know boomers right and so they're like oh let's eblin i want to play that one and so i didn't jump in there and say oh you don't really want to play this one steve richie had his stairway taken out of it this is the pro version you don't even get the magical mystery tour that pops up from the blah blah blah i was just like yeah here i quartered up i'm like hey there you go man uh let me step that play it Like, go ahead, use the flippers to pick your song, plunge, and then go. And, like, him and my mom were arguing over, like, what song they think is better to play. They were just having fun with it. And he proceeded to do pretty well playing it, you know. Now, he's not drop catching and dead flipping and things like I would do. But for just, like, a general public player, he was getting a couple of multivols. He got into some modes, you know. And I could just see, like, he was having fun with this game. And, you know, Led Zeppelin Pro is a game that gets to ride it online, right? It's not in the Pinside Top 100, I don't think. It's not the game that Jaws Pro is or Iron Maiden Pro or any Elwynn for the price. But if you could find one for $4,500, it's not a bad game. As far as when you shoot it, it's fun to shoot. When you hit the orbits, they're fun. The spinners are satisfying. The ramps, what few that are there, are okay. The music is incredibly better than what you find in a game like Barrios Barbecue Challenge for thousands of dollars more. There's a reproducible plunge. you know if you want to do skill shots like for a game that's on location that costs a dollar to go and play it's super fun man and if i was like a die-hard led zeppelin person i unironically would own one of these especially for the price you know uh yeah for 69.95 there's better options than led zeppelin pro but for 4 500 or so not a not a bad a bad game i would i would consider even having it after that had the expression lights in there and the art blades like it's a whole complete pinball package for the price of like a home edition or for less than the cost of a home edition i would have picked this up before i would have picked up uh the jurassic park home edition i think because it's a full commercial game spike 2 all that business um so it's just it's weird when you look at uh the totality of what's available and options that you have and then you go to poor burial man and i don't want to beat up on burial it's a weird game it's got of place in pinball history it's just it's strange man it's still strange to me so i want to spend a little bit of time on that all right look they're going to spend a little bit of time on is we are pinball the podcast and myself and retro jingo jingus have put together we put out over 20 episodes now we have a growing patreon community we're having a lot of fun with it and we're getting special guests on there and so go check it out if you haven't man and go check out retro jingo's channel he just put up um a really kind of comprehensive video talking about his avatar ce his impressions of it his exuberance um you know i he's a very positive guy you know and when it comes down to it this is the hobby that we have fun with so if you're not having fun with it like what are you doing that being said um i don't think there's any room for just being an apologist to everything that comes out if something comes out and it's a miss like i'm gonna call it that right um but like as far as being across the board just like negative nancy as he's calling it. I think he's spot on, man. I don't think there's really a point on just being down on absolutely everything that's going on and now everybody's stupid except you.
    43:42
    When you have this perspective of somebody that's not inside the industry, not at the company, you can look at every decision that they're making and tear it down. It's really easy to do. Like, these guys are so stupid. Why didn't they think of doing this, this, and this? And then when you talk to them and with people like Spooky Pinball, you can actually go ask them, like hey why didn't you guys do this this and this and it may be as simple as like you know yeah of course we thought about that it was totally totally reasonable but you know the licensor was just it was a hard no and we've been working on it but we can't get it or you know we had something mocked up that was going to do exactly that thing you're talking about but the coil was right in the way of the subwoofer and so we had to move it over here and that's why it's not in that obvious part you know so um i guess just like uh not not a hefty dose but a little bit of humility uh when it comes into addressing these topics and tearing people down uh just try to understand that there may be some perspective that you might be missing uh that will help you to fully understand the totality of everything that's going on so dude pinball at the beach is coming up i'm heading to benton wisconsin tomorrow i'm picking up evil dead people are just like overjoyed they can't wait to get it um and it's gonna be a good year for pinball man it's gonna be a great year for pinball i'm super hype on it this was don pinball podcast episode number 171 let's go oh low fly hip hop low fly hip hop on the outro don spinball podcast at gmail.com is where i live at email wise if you want to mod or something just email me directly i haven't really fleshed out the web store because i'm busy enough just with word of mouth so if you got a game and you want something email me we'll make it happen uh check me out on discord links in the description uh i'm on youtube i'll be on youtube on saturday at noon central standard time unboxing evil dead and if you can't catch it live catch it on the jive man it'll be up on youtube uh so like follow subscribe all of that business you don't miss any of the fun when it drops as soon as i hear something man i'll jump on we'll talk about it go check out we are pinball do myself a solid and have a good day