Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 246 - What if Gottlieb & Williams Returned?

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·55m 5s·analyzed·May 25, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Hypothetical: Which defunct pinball manufacturer (Gottlieb vs Williams) could succeed if resurrected today?

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss a hypothetical scenario: if Gottlieb or Williams pinball manufacturers were resurrected today, which would succeed? Dennis argues for Gottlieb targeting the entry-level market with quantity-focused, fun machines at Stern Pro pricing. Tony favors Williams in its 1990s competitive form, emphasizing feature-rich single-model premiums, through-hole electronics for repairability, and that internal team competition would drive innovation. Both acknowledge the world has changed too much for true resurrection, but the thought experiment explores design philosophy and market positioning.

Key Claims

  • Harry Potter pinball is delayed from its rumored late May release, likely due to licensor approval issues

    medium confidence · Dennis reports hearing rumors of late May release, but now rumors are flying that it's delayed; speculation centers on licensor delays (artistic or display-related)

  • Barrels of Fun's Dune is 'really suffering' from licensing/approval delays with missing display content

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'My understanding is Barrels of Fun's Dune is really suffering from that right now. There's a lot of games that are going out, but there's a lot of stuff in the display, or I should say that isn't in the display, because it's pending license or approval.'

  • Stern is planning to release Star Wars prequels as their next pinball game

    low confidence · Dennis mentions recording 'the pinball show with zach last week' and learning of a rumor that 'stern pinball is going to do the prequels as the next stern game'

  • Ghostbusters Stern remasters only use Premium-level machines with Magna-slings

    medium confidence · Email from Mark D: 'Stern is only putting out a premium-level machine when doing the remasters... These are found on the premium LE models'

  • Chicago Gaming Company remade Williams games better than Williams itself did

    medium confidence · Tony: 'Their licensing has been handled by Planetary for so long. All of their great titles are already remade by a company that built games better than they did, Chicago Gaming.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Your designers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

    Mark D (email contributor, paraphrasing Jurassic Park) @ ~39:30 — Critique of Stern's Magna-slings feature on Ghostbusters remasters; cultural reference emphasizing overengineering without considering practical gameplay

  • “I think just off of the name, I think people would buy it just off of the name.”

    Dennis @ ~47:45 — Argues brand heritage alone could drive sales for a resurrected Gottlieb

  • “Stern does a collaborative approach... Williams comes in, does their old method where the Ritchie team and the Lawler team are trying to destroy each other.”

    Tony @ ~54:00 — Contrasts design philosophies; suggests competitive internal teams drove innovation in classic Williams era

  • “I'm imagining a brand... they let's say they stay committed to the idea of through hole electronics, not solid state... the ability for people that they keep their arcade heritage the ability for people to fix their own stuff”

    Tony @ ~59:30 — Identifies repairability and do-it-yourself culture as competitive advantage vs. modern Spike system

  • “I think the world is just so different that I don't know that this is one of those ideas running with. It's very much the suspension of disbelief.”

    Dennis @ ~62:15 — Acknowledges the thought experiment's implausibility given modern market realities

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyBarrels of FuncompanyGottliebcompanyWilliamscompanyChicago Gaming Companycompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Three-tier pricing model sustainability questioned; modern manufacturers face compression of Pro vs. Premium differentiation

    medium · Tony discusses hypothetical Williams focusing on single Premium model to compete with current Stern/JJP market positions, implying current fragmentation is problematic

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Star Wars prequels as pinball theme not preferred by collector/enthusiast demographic despite broader appeal

    medium · Dennis: 'The problem is we're of the age where we're like, no. But the truth of the matter is they're actually pretty popular. I don't. Not with people who buy pimple machines.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Repairability and longevity concerns with Spike system vs. through-hole electronics accessibility

    medium · Tony: 'one of the biggest frustrations... for a lot of long-time collectors have disliked about the spike system is oh this thing went wrong on the node board i need stern to give me a new node board'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern's Magna-slings feature on Ghostbusters remasters criticized as ineffective and poor design choice

    high · Mark D email: 'As you know, these are found on the premium LE models... they are horrendous' with Dennis agreeing: 'On paper, I wasn't interested in them... in practice they are so unlively'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Multiple games experiencing licensing/approval delays affecting display content and feature availability

    medium · Dennis: 'My understanding is Barrels of Fun's Dune is really suffering from that right now. There's a lot of games that are going out, but there's a lot of stuff in the display, or I should say that isn't in the display, because it's pending license or approval'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.165

0:00
Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, May 25th. This is episode 246. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. I don't have a lot in Penval today. Really? I'm not surprised. But we do have intro stuff. We have intro stuff. I do want to start with thanking Chris L. He joined our Patreon. Thank you for joining the Patreon. We appreciate it, Chris. And for those of you that want to be appreciated just like Chris, you can support us at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. Tell me what's been going on. Well, I've been playing the game.
0:52
Bro-tato. Actually not. Not after that. We had that one truth teller come in. I have played Rotator since then, but that's not the one that I've been playing a bunch of.
1:02
There's an early access game called Utopia Must Fall. I think I've roughly mentioned it in the past. It sounds familiar, but... But it's kind of a missile command-y type game.
1:13
But they had their first major update where they added a whole bunch of stuff and rebalanced a whole bunch of stuff. So I've been playing a lot of that. I also started a dirge run in Baldur's Gate 3. So a dark urge run, which is kind of the evil run. The bleak blackness of the dark side. Yes. So I'm going through that and making choices that aren't necessarily the most ethical. Help the mind flayers. So, yeah, I'm not that far along yet. Help the mind flayers. But it's – there are – I will admit, there's been a couple times where I've almost, like, gone for the normal, like, nice guy, good, hey, let's convince these people to not kill this child route when that really wasn't the route that the dark urge wants you to take. No, no. The urges must be satiated. So, but it's been interesting. It's been fun. I've been playing it, like I said, just off and on, just an hour here, an hour there as I get a chance. I've been working on a lot of stuff. Yesterday was a day of getting stuff done around the house and running air. I was on the road before 7 a.m. yesterday morning, and I took a couple breaks during the course of the day, a half hour here, a half hour there. but I didn't like sit down and was done doing stuff between mowing, running errands, working on stuff around the house, all that stuff until like 6.30 last night. Wow. You sound tired. I just had to get everything done because it's raining all day today and all day tomorrow. So Memorial Day is going to be raining all day Memorial Day. So I'm not going to. Yeah, that was your window. That was my window because I had to at least mow the front lawn because the neighbors on either side had mowed their front lawn Thursday and Friday. That's the rule. It looks terrible when the others mow. Right. I'm like, ah.
George Gomezperson
Dwight Sullivanperson
Pat Lawlorperson
Steve Ritchieperson
Black Holegame
Harry Pottergame
Dunegame
Ghostbustersgame
Star Wars (prequels rumor)game
Indiana Jonesgame
Twilight Zonegame
Addams Familygame
Chris Lperson
Scott Vperson
Mark Dperson
  • $

    market_signal: Video game IP licensing becoming increasingly valuable; bidding wars occurring for movie/show adaptations

    medium · Discussion of Split Fiction bidding war, Fallout success driving third season renewal, Silent Hill 2 remake announcement

  • ?

    product_strategy: Harry Potter pinball rumored to be delayed from late May release; speculation centers on licensor approval issues

    medium · Dennis reports hearing rumors of late May release, but 'Rumors are now flying everywhere that it's delayed' with chief speculation being 'a licensor delay issue'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Stern Pinball rumored to develop Star Wars prequels as next game

    low · Dennis: 'there is a rumor going around that um stern pinball is going to do the prequels as the next stern game i mean i know if you knew that i didn't know it until i recorded the pinball show with zach last week'

    • 3:17
    But I mowed the backyard last week, so it's not as bad because the front yard, I've got huge trees, so it's shaded, and it is not shade-friendly grass, so I can mow the front yard like once a month. But the backyard, I have to mow like every week and a half. Okay. I do every other week. I've never been a weekly mower. some of my neighbors sometimes seem to do that in bursts. And I won't bend on that. I won't be peer pressured into mowing more than every other week.
    3:46
    Because I think mine's the tallest right now. But I mowed about one week ago at this point, so it doesn't look bad. But for me, the backyard also tends to have patches where it gets really, really tall. It's just too much sunlight. And the front, the front is more even, but I always mow them together. So I never split them. Yeah. See, I normally split it just because the backyard will be twice as high as the front yard. Like the front yard will look like I mowed it a week ago and it's been two weeks. One of my neighbors, well, I think does the backyard once a month because it's not public facing. So they're just like, whatever.
    4:22
    So, I mean, I never complain. So that's fine. Right. Well, I have not played Utopia. I have done a little bit more Yakuza. Not this weekend, but last. I got advanced more in that game, got to a new chapter. And then my dad and I picked up a pinball machine project that he wanted. He wanted a pinball machine project back during the winter.
    4:45
    And so we got Black Hole, the Gottlieb from the 80s. Black Hole, son. Yeah. You'd have thought it was based on that Soundgarden, but it was not. And also, I don't believe it's based on the Disney property, the Black Hole. But anyway, we picked up the game. A former coworker of mine who's now retired had that game, and I gave her some options on people that could buy it because I offered to buy it years ago. But she wanted more money than I wanted to pay, and I was like, well, it's not working, so I'm not taking a chance. But here are some other options. And so she reached out to me out of the blue, and she was just like, those other options didn't work out. I sure wish I had taken that offer. and I was like, well, I'll check to see if my dad wants it as a project. And he was like, yep, I would like it. So it's in my garage and he'll come over later today to work on that. We have a few pieces that we troubleshooted it last weekend and a lot of it was just a fuse, it seems, in terms of what wasn't working. However, there's still some squirreliness regarding the testing mode. some of the coils or gates and such don't seem to be properly working quite right and the motor that spins the back box animation is dead we tested the motor independently and it does not work so I know he has a new motor to try and because the black hole is supposed to spin so anyway I don't think this is going to be a super duper long project but we'll just have to see maybe there's some other squirreliness that we haven't figured out yet I like how the projects live in your house, and he comes and works on the projects. That makes for great father-son togetherness, and it also doesn't clutter up his house. Yes, you know the convenience of it. I don't think they really would have the space in the garage. They could probably fit something downstairs. Yes, it keeps it. But now I'm running out of room. I really need to sell some stuff.
    6:40
    Every time I think about taking the 30 pictures I'm going to need to start with, And then people are going to be like, can you take closer pictures of the shooter lane? I'm like, it's from 1980. No. Just do you want it or not? But I don't like to be like that because then people get hurt feelings. I don't want to hurt their feelings when I'm trying to sell them something. Right. Anyway, yes. So Black Hole is in the garage. But there's like really there is not room for more set up games anymore.
    7:04
    Yeah. You're completely wiped out. Yeah. They'd have to be in weird positions. So I just need to get rid of some stuff. Black Hole is in the garage. That sucks. Yeah. very sad so all right well we i mentioned we don't have a lot at least in pinball i don't have a lot for you so here's the big thing harry potter you know we were we've been talking tony about a lot of recent titles obviously we spent time in the last couple episodes especially two episodes ago talking about the whole king kong talking about the the you know the dune pinball the you know the things that came out after we went to tpf but the big thing everyone's been waiting on because jack of jersey jack pinball told everyone they weren't allowed to spend any money they have to wait it's harry potter now i had heard a variety of dates as to when harry potter was going to be revealed i don't know which one's right well actually i do none of them seem to be right the ones that i heard the most substance behind were that purportedly jersey jack was planning for a late May release for the game.
    8:13
    I mean, we're getting kind of late in the month. That's why nobody's right. Rumors are now flying everywhere that it's delayed. I am unclear what it is. I think the chief speculation is a licensor delay issue. What aspect, though, I have no idea. You would assume it would either be artistic, which would be odd in terms of printed art, or if it's something in the display, which seems more realistic.
    8:40
    Obviously, we've seen games where they've struggled for quite a while to get things done because of a license or approval. My understanding is Barrels of Fun's Dune is really suffering from that right now. There's a lot of games that are going out, but there's a lot of stuff in the display, or I should say that isn't in the display, because it's pending license or approval. And so frustrating for those that are starting to receive those games. And, of course, the most infamous example has to be James Bond. Of course. And the whole disaster that Stern faced with that. so it looks like Harry Potter is not coming out in May we don't have anything else to talk about Harry Potter on this episode other than the fact that it sounds like it's not coming out however listeners have come to the rescue to give us a little bit of stuff one is Scott V who emailed us regarding ruined iconic series and I'm putting it here in pinball for a reason because a part of the he ends it with a question but he starts it with a question as well where Scott says who ruined it better Shia LaBeouf and Indiana Jones or Hayden Christensen in Star Wars? And do we want either on a pinball back glass? Thank you, Scott, for the email. So, Tony, in terms of the movies, let's go and tackle that one first. Shia LaBeouf. I agree. I mean, without a doubt. Yeah. And again, I don't fully blame Shia or Hayden for the dialogue that they were given. Yeah. Hayden was given the worst dialogue. However, I feel like even though he was still pretty young as an actor, Shia LaBeouf probably had the pull to get out of doing the swing with the monkeys on the vine scene of Indiana Jones. You would hope.
    10:18
    And so. Of course, Harrison didn't have the pull to get out of a refrigerator. You know, I think they just thought that was going to be like this really good, kooky, fun, humorous thing. And it just, you know, they didn't realize that it was going to jump the shark. Right. And I think they, you know, there was a time when people started saying nuke the fridge instead of jump the shark because of how terrible that was. So, but yeah, no, overall, Shy's performance was far worse. I really blame almost everything Hayden faced with George Lucas's terrible scripts. Yeah.
    10:54
    Do we want either on a pinball back? Here's the thing. 100 i would have no qualms with hayden on a back glass for one of those star wars yeah maybe like the one with him starting to look kind of evil right yeah there is a rumor going around that um stern pinball is going to do the prequels as the next stern game i mean i know if you knew that i didn't know it until i recorded the pinball show with zach last week and i was like no don't do it The problem is we're of the age where we're like, no. But the truth of the matter is they're actually pretty popular.
    11:29
    I don't. Not with people who buy pimple machines. Now, that's true. But it's one of those things. And I could see it. And while the Star Wars TV stuff has not been great other than Andor. Yeah, and that's what my response was. Why don't they just do Andor? Yeah, because Andor has been amazing. and i've not even seen second season and if you need more stuff tie it into rogue one uh but hayden christerson's like papa what happened to them papa in ahsoka weren't bad either they were the nice throwback type i'm sorry i still laugh at the trauma that i don't know if the listeners know this he killed them all so yeah i know i know go ahead and give them a uh cliff notes of it it when i went i i took my oldest daughter years ago to see rogue one when she wasn't that old she's just and we watched rogue one and she really enjoyed it and jenner so is one of her favorite people in star wars and and then at the end of that movie spoilers for a movie that's been out for like what eight years now skip ahead uh 25 seconds if you don't want the spoiler yeah they like do a partial charge shot from the death star on the planet on on scarif and it kind of fireballs and there's just like a firestorm racing towards them and they hug each other and then they die and my daughter was like what just happened and i'm like they're dead he's so smooth they died bye-bye now she was she was less than happy to see one of her favorite star wars characters who become her favorite over the course of this movie she just loved her over the course of this movie just like i mean they did it better we're not talking t2 hanging on the fence blast way skin burning away no no it was tasteful it was it was it was tasteful but still traumatic traumatic yes okay so anyway that what my reference there was so pinball back glasses we okay with with with be okay with Hayden As Annie little Annie Yes I would have absolutely no desire to see Shia LaBeouf for a pinball machine that was anything else than based upon the Shia LaBeouf joke song about him being a serial killer and a cannibal In that case, it would be okay. Okay. But then I'd want to be the people from the video where it was just random shirtless dancers with paper mache Shia LaBeouf heads on them as they were like dancing around.
    14:17
    Actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf. Well, we also had an email from Mark D. He wrote in regarding our discussion that we had on the last episode about Stern remasters that we thought would be interesting to see.
    14:33
    And he wrote as follows. Hey there, gentlemen. I have one thing to add to Ghostbusters' suggestions. No Magna slings. As you know, these are found on the premium LE models. Stern is only putting out a premium-level machine when doing the remasters. I don't know about you guys, but they are horrendous. Let's paraphrase Jurassic Park. Your designers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. Keep up the good work, boys. Mark. Well, thank you, Mark.
    15:01
    I'd be okay with dropping the Magna slings. No, we know a collector who has an LE version of Ghostbusters. They're so anemic is the issue. On paper, I wasn't interested in them. The thing I liked about the premium LE, which actually is barely noticeable, is the little hologram ghost shot. That was when they revealed that. I just remember thinking, oh, that's a really cool idea. I like that. And then there's like, oh, Magnus being spooky, the ghost. On paper, it makes sense. but in practice they are so unlively it's just like they're almost it's almost like dead slings where it's just the rubber like you'd see on a lot of ems gottlieb used to do a lot of those stylus sling um in the 80s it's yeah it's um yeah i agree yeah i agree don't do it but don't include the magnets don't need them don't need them at all to end the pinball segment i wanted us to go ahead and have a brief little discussion because again you know i figured the listeners need a little bit of something here because there wasn't much in the way of news so i came up with a discussion topic last night for us if you could resurrect one pinball company tony just one to compete in today's market which company would you choose and why are you choosing it and there's a lot i mean you could go all the way back to the stuff from the 30s if you want they ain't no strings it you're ultron no strings on me right but is the correct answer anything other than Gottlieb? I mean, we'll find out, but I want to know. Okay, so you're going to go with Gottlieb. I will go something different. So tell me why. Why in today's environment, you've used your necromancy powers and you've brought back. Here's the thing is it's like, you're like, in today's environment, I don't know that any of the dead ones could survive in today's environment. I barely know how half of the current ones survive in today's environment. But I would think that if you're going to resurrect one of them to have the best chance especially if you're going the full resurrection where you're pulling like not just the name you are resurrecting like design teams and everything else and i guess i need to provide more parameters for you so um so let's uh you can't you can't bring back the dead so however you could have them try and bring back any designers that are still alive um and you do get the benefit of everything nostalgic that they've got so like people you it's not like let's assume this company is a brand new company but it is what it once was it's more of a like their pedigree their background all of that that's still in play for you yeah i still think gottlieb is going to be the obvious chance just just because of their history and their pedigree uh giving them the ability to do completely modernized remasters of their games that alone would keep them flying i mean above half of the current modern people anyway in the case of gottlieb uh you know the depending how far back you want to go their designers are still around right i mean trudeau is still around john norris he's still he's still around in designing uh ray tanzer i believe he still works for Stern, not as a designer, but those were the big three in the premiere era. John, John, and Ray. So, I mean, those people would still be, you know, you could say this revived Gottlieb is makes a financial pitch to try and woo him back in, or the ones you want, obviously. You can leave out harassment and abuse people.
    18:46
    Okay, so you think Gottlieb. And you think people would buy it? I'm assuming since you picked it. I think just off of the name, I think people would buy it just off of the name. Okay. Interesting. Well, I had thought about that one because it does have such a strong name.
    19:06
    But I'd have to go Williams. Or I guess I'm not supposed to say Bally Williams. Williams as it was in the 90s because the nostalgia for us is so strong with them. Now, here's the thing. They come in in a weakened state, right? It's like, do I want them to bring back their designers? Their designers are, I mean, they're not practically going to get George Gomez away from Stern. It's just not realistic, quite frankly, given what his power level is there. um you know just like i don't think they get dwight sullivan away from stern from a programmatic standpoint um can they get steve ritchie away from jersey jack i don't know pat lawler they maybe could bring back but you know pat's mostly retired and i don't think he really wants to so like basically they could get j-pop so they're going to probably have to use a lot of new designers as my point here's the thing that um that also compromises them because their licensing has been handled by Planetary for so long. All of their great titles are already remade by a company that built games better than they did, Chicago Gaming. So that's a struggle for them, too. Valid. They could come in and remaster a bunch of the stuff that hasn't been done yet. Indiana Jones, Star Trek Next Gen, Twilight Zone, Addams Family, you know, the ones people really, really want that weren't the low-hanging fruits. Everything you have the license is back. But where I think that they could shine is, Well, I feel really since the pandemic on, in particular, people have been at a point where Stern, in particular, is better than Williams was. Like there was that era where it was like lots of people are like, what was from the 90s is better than what Stern makes today. That argument is not broadly shared at this stage. No. Yeah. No. However, I do think I would be very curious to see a company that could say, all right, they came back. They've got that huge name recognition.
    21:04
    I'm going to assume they come in with their business model. Obviously, they're going to have to pivot to be more home market than arcade market. But what I mean by business model is their teams were competitive.
    21:17
    Stern does a collaborative approach. They think it works better. I'm not going to say that they're wrong. I don't know. But Williams comes in, does their old method where the Ritchie team and the Lawler team are trying to destroy each other. Like they're trying to beat each other. There's that edge to it. I don't think any company is running like that because most of them are so slow on the design cycle other than Stern, which is acknowledged as being collaborative, that to see what that environment might generate would be interesting. The other thing is Williams comes in with a background not having been diminished over all the years like Stern has with this idea of, well, we'll have pro models and stripped out things and very few toys. You're going to have a brand that's going to be like, let's do features. Let's do toys. Let's do central notable mechs on all our models without going full JJP where it's like $15,000 because we decided to throw everything in. And I'm just – I'm really – it would be interesting to see their mindset in today's world. The way I'm envisioning it is a one-model release company that's more feature-rich than Stern Pros but more affordable than Jersey Jacks. Basically competing with Stern Premiums but only doing premiums in a competitive multi-title-a-year environment, which no one else is really matching. the closest we've seen is Jersey Jack putting out two games in a year and when they've done it one of those games has always sucked that's valid I mean I don't know if it works we don't have the same people that's the problem in my mind thinking it's a similar vein thinking on the Gottlieb line coming in but instead of targeting the higher level for me Gottlieb coming in would be targeting more the lower level. They would be more the entry level. Their machines would be designed around fun with a few notable interesting mechs, but I picture them more on the Stern Pro price range. At the lower end of the price range, the entry level price range pushing in is how I see them and them going through quantity as opposed to quality kind of push. That's interesting. I could see them taking that angle. The one thing is, I almost wonder, again, given their brand heritage, if both Gottlieb and Williams don't come in with better build quality than Stern. and it's hard to say got lead games it i mean they had their issues depends how far back in the past you go right by and large i believe the system 3 was seen as very tank like like very well built system i'm remembering correctly their ems had that reputation as well unfortunately their system 80 era had a whole lot of issues like grounding and and just daisy chaining the boards together it's like they really struggled when they went solid state but system 3 was their But other than the super pointy flippers like system three, I thought by and large was seen as a pretty well engineered system.
    24:24
    Williams, again, when we're doing our resurrection, I'm imagining a a brand in my mind where they let's say they stay committed to the idea of through hole electronics, not solid state, you know, our surface mount, not surface state, not surface mounted electronics. the ability for people that they keep their arcade heritage the ability for people to fix their own stuff that that i'm i'm sticking that with them as well what do we because one of the biggest frustrations uh for a lot of people maybe a home a typical home buyer doesn't care about but i know a lot of long-time collectors have disliked about the spike system is oh this thing went wrong on the node board i need stern to give me a new node board they just want to solder on a new transistor and let them move along. It's like through-hole electronics are archaic and ancient. I basically said the same word twice. But they're easy to work on. And I think in my mind, in my headcanon, a revived Williams sticks with that philosophy, and that wins them over the do-it-yourselfer, the fixer-upper style people that like the idea that they can keep this thing running and not having to rely on tech support or their distributor to get them a $200 board every time a light goes out. Yeah, and I can understand that. Now, Gottlieb could have that same argument because, again, they weren't going around doing surface mount. All these brands were pre-surface mount. And I think that's the big problem is I think the world is just so different that I don't know that this is one of those ideas running with. It's very much the suspension of disbelief because short of the straight full-up dark ritual pulling back everything type stuff i mean the world's just so different everything's so changed that it feels like anything we did would be just slapping somebody's name on a it'd be just a zombie name on an entirely new creation like atari like atari yeah but i didn't want to make it too dark magic so i tried to ground it in the real world and i may have grounded all the fun out of it i'm not sure but that's the best i had so let's go to video games. Look, I'm trying to come up with something.
    26:40
    They can't all be winners, folks. If this discussion segment disappointed you, support us at patreon.com slash collecting underscore gamers so that we can afford to come up with a better topic.
    26:54
    Okay. I can think of worse stuff we've done in our time. Oh, sure. I thought about us playing a game, but I didn't want to create the poll for people to vote. Right. Because they always like to play along. Right. No. But that was one of our a staple for a long time. I thought the one that we kind of had the most resonance on was when we would do the Build-A-Banks. And we'd have to pick these various games out of these sets of ranged rankings and then people would decide which one of our builds was the better built bank of games to own. I don know if the modern listener can do it Tony I don know if they That the thing to think about We have to look we probably have to do it via like what is it The Google Docs voting thing Yeah. We probably – Because you can't do it through Facebook no more. I mean we could probably set up – give them a link to like a survey monkey-esque thing with a poll. Yeah, like a survey monkey thing. Rather than, yeah, the Facebook voting. So I don't know. I think I may poke around at that a little bit because that was – But what I like about Facebook is we could put the pictures in. And they could see and they could vote on the group. And I would lose more often than not. You won a few. People started to get mad at my methods. I think they got mad at me. I think it was more a vote against Dennis than it was a vote for Tony. Well, that makes me feel even better. But I may be wrong. I don't know. It was pity. Tony got pity votes. I don't know. Some people. Sometimes you got petty votes where some people will be like, well, Dennis stuck in this game, so I can't vote for him. But the rest of my bank was great. And we had that rotation. So sometimes, depending on how we had to alternate based off of who lost the prior time. So there were, you know, it's like who goes first in chess. There is an advantage to going first. And sometimes I would lose all the good choices and I would have to be stuck with like, I don't know.
    28:50
    It's like Stargate's my strongest game in the list. You got Centigrade No Some people will vote for Centigrade Because of the back glass I might win that one Alright Video games actually has a lot of stuff Oh good Coming out It's just so As much as I hate to say it What do you hate?
    29:20
    That darn Minecraft movie Oh First we mine, then we craft As if Super Mario hadn't pushed it enough Yahoo After the Minecraft movie And just how well season one of Fallout did The clawing for video games for movies and TV has gotten huge And it has been rampant over the last several weeks Yeah announcements. Something has to displace the fall of Marvel because you know, the whole thing about the Thunderbolts is critically, it's been a very well-received movie. Last I saw it was the third worst performing Marvel. People are just done with them. I haven't seen a Marvel movie in theaters in a while.
    30:08
    It's been 84 years. It's not been 84 years. It's been 84 phases. Yeah, well, it's been 84 movies probably at this point.
    30:19
    They're doing a return a Silent Hill movie and they're claiming it's going to be a faithful adaptation of Silent Hill 2. I didn't hate that last Silent Hill movie. The last one's the one I'm thinking of with the people that I'm thinking of. That's the one I was, it's probably the same one I'm thinking of. It was okay. With the evil church and yeah, I thought, I mean, it was spooky. I'm not really steeped in Silent Hill lore though. No. I played like one game. And it probably wasn't Silent Hill 2. It was not. It was a more recent one. We'll see. okay how it goes all right uh amazon went ahead and renewed fallout for a third season uh and the second season doesn't air until like december i mean given the success of the first season it probably earned it they probably earned it they they also killed killed wheel of time uh after oh no and let me tell you how much i don't care the books are does your wife care oh no no she was We never watched anything after season one. Season one ruined the book so bad that we never. Okay. It got haloed.
    31:27
    There is apparently a bidding war going on for the split fiction movie. I don't know split fiction. Split fiction came out recently for PC. I've not played it because it is a co-op game where you try and solve the game and the puzzles, but it's all co-op based. I haven't played it because co-op games require you to have friends to sit down and play with. You don't have any friends. And I don't have any friends. And the people who kind of tolerate me are normally busy when I'm not and not when I am. They're all console trash. Yeah. But, yeah, Split Fiction has been a huge – it is easily considered Game of the Year contender. Oh, okay. And it came out, like, in April. so but apparently there's a full-on bidding war between some of the major studios going on to see who gets it to make a movie out of it netflix has made their new decision on what show what video game they're gonna make an animated show of because castlevania was amazing i really liked the castlevanias but all of them yeah they've done league of legends was amazing so obviously they're going to go and do Clash of Clans. Oh. I mean, I remember that used to have a lot of ads, like even Super Bowl ads. And I'm sure it's still going and people enjoy playing it. I'm sure. I've never tried it. But it just seems so weird compared to some of the other ones they've chosen. Maybe there's a lot of lore in it. I mean, I know it had a lot of players. Yeah, maybe.
    33:03
    But it's like I can't really imagine, even though I know it has a lot of players. I play the Last War phone game. I can't imagine them making that into a show, a movie. It has a plot, but I'm just like, but who's really invested in the storyline in a phone game? Right. I mean, there are some phone games, obviously, that can be, but I played Clash of Clans, and I don't know why anybody would. I couldn't even stay invested in it as a game to play. So I don't know. It's weird.
    33:34
    Uh-oh. You sighed. Skibbity Toilet. That's just the thing kids say. Has gone into production by Michael Bay. So it is a thing? It's an actual thing. Like a game? It's a series of videos that deal with, like, aliens that are toilets with human heads.
    34:03
    There's, like, an actual storyline, supposedly. Okay. But no, no, Michael Bay. So there's going to be helicopters flying over and American flags fluttering. In the sunset.
    34:21
    Pop green poop and wait for the power. I have to admit, as much fun as I make of Michael Bay, He's got a couple movies that are just great. You can't, I mean, seriously, yeah.
    34:44
    You're him. You're the Rocket Man. She was the prom queen. You must never hesitate. I'm only bothering you, Humvee.
    35:00
    Do you like the Rocket Man? I don't listen to that. Oh, God. That movie. I really enjoy that movie. That is full on a guilty pleasure movie.
    35:15
    Yeah. And then he did Transformers. Those were okay, actually. I liked them. They were all right. I just didn't like Bumblebee didn't talk. Bumblebee! Speak first, Bumblebee. They were... They did get... I mean, they just kind of start changing optimists. It's like, I'll kill you. I was like, Optimus, what's going on, man? You got some anger issues, bro. Come on, bro.
    35:37
    Sit on that skibbity toilet and work that out. I don't know. I'll fill you. There is a new Street Fighter movie coming.
    35:53
    Rumors are they're talking to Jason Momoa and the wrestler Roman Reigns are being in talks for major starring roles. And I kind of want to see Jason Momoa.
    36:12
    You're supposed to say that. That was your background music. I don't want us to get demonetized, so you had to have my version.
    36:19
    I think it would be funny to see Jason Momoa as M. Bison. Do you really think they'd choose him for M? No, they wouldn't, but I think it would be funny.
    36:30
    Let's face it. It's Momoa. With his acting skills, he's probably going to be like Blanca. Momoa! It's Blanca.
    36:43
    Dawson. Stretch, Jason. Stretch. That's where we're back to that in movies. That's how it goes. And the last announcement that came like two days ago, there is a live-action Elden Ring movie coming out from A24 directed by Alex Garland, who directed Ex Machina and Civil War. Not the Marvel Civil War. The other Civil War. Yes. so that's like actual like heavy directing capacity so a24 has been kind of on a big run the last few years of just like seriously critically acclaimed big movies so you think that one might be good is what you're saying i don't know because i don't know any of the lorcs i didn't play i didn't play either because i heard it was a souls like and i was like i've I played Dark Souls. I got all my baseline Xbox achievements in it so that I proved I wasn't a little wimp. And then I got Sekiro because I heard it was very different, and it is. It's worse. Right. And I didn't get anywhere in it, and I got so frustrated with it, I gave up on that one. I'm just too old to begin the training. Yeah. I just, I don't. It's like I can't adapt to a parry system when I was brought up in the fires of a dodge system. Right. It's totally different. I can't do it. I saw a video the other day that was a little skit combo of people calling the customer assistance line to report problems. This guy calls in. He's like, I'm playing this new game, Elden Ring, and I want to report a bug. Oh, what's that? Well, I attacked the enemy, and he parried me. And then he hit me, and I died.
    38:45
    I was like, okay, so what's the bug? I couldn't hit him. Every time I attacked, he dodged or parried me.
    38:54
    Well, we're not seeing the problem here. That's what is just – no, no, no, that's not. I walk up and I hit the button and I hit the bad guy, and the bad guy dies. They don't dodge. That's not how video games work.
    39:06
    It reminds me of the little cartoons people put online of how players react when the bad guy heals. versus when they hear it. That's not right. You're not supposed to get to hear. Only I get to spam all the healing. It's like when you're playing like a tabletop game and the DM targets the squishies. And it's like, well, you know, this guy's smart. Of course he's going to. So is he going to target the giant chunk of meat that's in full plate armor with a giant shield right in front of him? Or is he going to target the baby in the back throwing, like, nuclear weapons? Of course he's going to take out the little baby in the diaper who's throwing nuclear weapons.
    39:51
    That's right. Protect harder. That's right. You better evoke. You know what that reminds me of? The little nuclear baby reminds me of Broken Arrow.
    40:07
    You talk about guilty pleasure movies. Broken Arrow. that was from John Travolta, Christian Slater. And, and, and as I recall, wasn't the love interest. I don't remember her name, but hadn't heard Christian Slater, like broken up. So they kind of like, they'd actually dated. Oh, I don't know. So like the love interest stuff was like, kind of like, like written out because they like, couldn't stand each other. I remember like, she was a park ranger. I think it was a plot. She was a park ranger. There was that weird era of movies. Now, you want to talk about some movies that should have become pinball machines. Or video games. Yeah. Some of them. Not Broken Arrow. No. But some of them, like Under Siege.
    40:59
    Would have been a great pinball machine. The one Seagal movie people respect. Right. It's because Tommy Lee Jones is so entertaining. That's the first movie I remember him in. That when I hear Tommy Lee Jones, I think of under siege and him as the villain. Oh really Yeah I will admit my first thought always the fugitive okay now that makes sense um pull the peter pan right here this is turning into a patreon content thing where we're talking about movies it is we need to do another one of those i almost suggested one today but we uh because i have other things this afternoon we don't have enough time to record it but maybe next episode yeah come up with one we'll come up with the listeners who pay us one who want something yeah or they don't but They want to know that there's content. Well, we should. That was a lot of fun.
    41:49
    So if you are a member of the Patreon and you have an idea that you haven't sent in already, send it in and we'll throw it into our list. I am getting the episodes posted on Patreon. So they can always just comment on this episode when it drops. Yeah, that works. What you want to hear.
    42:03
    Embracer Group. Oh, they did not want to hear about that. Nobody does. They've been redoing for a year because they grew super large, super fast, and then they expected the Saudis to bail them out in the tune of $2 billion, and it didn't happen, so they started laying off everybody and canceling every game and getting rid of everything.
    42:24
    They've announced that they're planning on releasing 76 games in the next 12 months. That's a lot of games. Including Killing Four Three, Marvel 1943, Rise of Hydra. But they're also redoing some of their groups because they have the board game group that they spun off, and then they had the Middle Earth group that was all about the Tolkien because they bought all the Tolkien rights.
    42:53
    Someone posted in our Discord that Gollum is now down to $2.99, I think is the price he said. It's $2.99 too much.
    43:02
    But you've already played and beaten it. I have. You did entire playthrough videos. he did all sorts of good stuff. But they note it because I did commit to, before I had played it, that I was willing to buy it and play it if it got down to a dollar. And they're just letting me know that it looks like it would eventually get to that point. Right. It's not there yet. It's not there yet, but it's getting there. I am not, guys, I am not rebuying it. It's sitting here. I have it. I didn't throw it away. It's sitting here somewhere. I'm still, I'm going to tell you guys, I'm a little upset still that I don't even think my YouTube walkthrough review video I did of it, I don't even think it has 100 views. You guys need to go and watch that video. You suffered for your art. That's right. You guys, this was your fault. I captured that entire game, every hour of that game I captured, and I cut that all down and minced that up and did that review.
    43:53
    That little ugly golem, like, not ugly in a good way, but ugly in a potato cam way, still irks me. And after every respawn, because a glitch in the game that It happened where he'd go, what's dark? What's the speed suit? I don't remember anymore. It littered everything. Every time I died, I'd hear it. I was chapters after that wizard. And I would still, every time I'd come back, what does it want for us, this sorcerer?
    44:24
    No one cares, Gollum. You haven't seen the sorcerer in like two years. Let it go. But the Hobbit game's coming soon. You get to play Animal Crossing Hobbit Edition, basically.
    44:35
    But in addition to that, they are spinning off Coffee Stain and Friends, which is a group centered around Coffee Stain Studios who did Satisfactory. They're going to spin the Coffee Stain group off into a standalone company. Okay. And they're moving a bunch of their companies under Middle Earth Enterprises that they're renaming to Fellowship Enterprises. and that's where most of their larger companies and primary things are going to be targeted now because as they say, and I quote, the strategy is to transform into one powerhouse group with game development and publishing at its core, complemented with transmedia capabilities within IP licensing, comics, merchandise, film, and distribution. Please love us. Please buy our stuff. Please. Oh, my God, please. Why doesn't somebody love us? Well, people like Satisfactory, so they got that going for them. Right. That's why they're spinning that off into its own standalone group, so that it's not poisoned by everything else. Yes. So it's toxicity.
    45:36
    You drank from the forbidden chalice. Amazon didn't cancel the One Ring. They didn't cancel the One Ring show yet. Oh, Rings of Power? Yeah, Rings of Power survived. I still enjoy watching. All right, the second season was a lot weaker than the first. I also haven't watched past the first season of that show. Oh, okay. The second season. I mean, you got to see more with the rings and stuff. I'm getting a little tired of everything. and this happened in both seasons, so you'll remember this part, but every time something happens, Galadriel's just like, this is because of Sauron. Like, everything is Sauron's fault. That leaf fell. It was because of Sauron. She breaks an egg into her omelet. Sauron! This is like, this egg would have been a little bit larger and more affordable, but for Sauron.
    46:20
    Egg prices are even hitting Middle-earth. It's been rough. It's been a rough time. Oh, speaking of rough times, Randy Pitchford had a gearbox. He made a comment when rumors started abounding because of all the price increases that Borderlands 4 was going to be $80. And his response was that if you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen. Yeah, real fans find money.
    46:51
    Real fans are for closers. Real fans are foreclosers. Yeah. Oh, and then he went into this whole thing and said, oh, this game was $80 in 1992, and I was working part-time as a guy at an ice cream place, and I still made it happen. Yeah, back when you bought your three-bedroom, two-bathroom house for $30,000. Yeah, right?
    47:18
    So there was a little bit of a pushback. It's surprising. So we'll see how that actually – Yeah, we'll see if it affects sales. We don't actually know the price of Borderlands. They haven't even decided on what the price is going to be. They haven't even had the meetings to decide on what the price is going to be yet because the Borderlands is far enough out. So it will be interesting to see, though I do think with the increasing prices you're going to see – Borderlands is one of the ones that would not surprise me to see at an $80 price point. It's like the one thing Gearbox does people like. Right. I haven't played since the second one, though. I think I played the third one, and it wasn't nearly as good as the second one. It had good DLC, I heard. It was another one with a tiny Tina. Yes. I heard that was fun. I got tired of the gameplay loop. Yeah, the gameplay loop of 3 was not nearly as enjoyable as 2, and that could be because 2 was just so played enough of it that 3 wasn't different enough. The humor started to grate on me a little bit, but more importantly, the gameplay loop mechanic of the looter shooter and like it's just i felt like the loot you just got to the point where the guns didn't make enough like it's just right it's just like random i well which it was but it was but i don't know it just wasn't progression enough for me or something because like in the third one it got to the point where it felt like oh a legendary dropped who cares i've got a green that's better than it that i got three levels ago so yeah yeah very uh the last thing i've got is ea It's in the game. And now they're in the office because they're embracing the return to office. Yes, time to work, guys. Sorry, sitting at home doing laundry all day and watching your TV, watching your Wheel of Time.
    49:08
    And your Halo. No. Time to get back to the office. Get back to work. Everybody who lives within 30 miles of an EA office has to return three days a week. That's not that bad. Three days a week. And they are phasing out all remote roles. Yeah. And they're talking about over the next couple of years returning everybody. Yeah. I try and get them all back. Get them back. I don't know. I'm not going to. I pay you. It's weird. I pay you to live in. I know. I got to say. Not to become the bad guy.
    49:39
    But having worked with a larger staff now. Oh, my gosh. I'm just like, can people sometimes be in, please? Just so we can pull me. Here's the thing. Here's the thing that grinds my gears. When I want to have meetings, I hate hybrid meetings. I hate them. If you want to do them remote, okay. You want to do them in person, okay. But not hybrid. Hybrid is the worst because the hybrid people, the people that are on Teams or Slack or whatever the crud you're using are never involved. They're not. And so we try and do certain meetings of a certain caliber in person. but people have their work from home day and they just are like i don't come in on tuesdays like but that's when the meeting is why don't you work from home on monday instead but i don't come in on tuesdays uh you do now question mark i don't know what you end up doing though is saying okay we'll do a hybrid meeting and then it's a disaster well the correct answer is well then you don't come in. I'm just like, no. You want to work from home. Does it have to be on a fixed schedule or can we let it be a little bit flexible? You would think a little flexibility would work. In our policies, it actually says essentially that you need to yield to what when you're needed for an event at a place, you need to go to that event. We're nice and we cave in on it. We're in a job that's literally impossible to do remotely. uh so well that's another thing we got staff that can't work remote and of course there's a there's a bitterness there is and and i mean we've dealt with that where we had uh some administrative uh type people who nobody had seen in over a year because they worked from home all the time and they they like even when they were on meetings they it's not like they turned their camera on but it was at the point where they would like be sending people emails hey can i get you to go do this for me it's like and it was to the point where we're like no i'm too busy you have to come in and do it yourself yeah it's a i mean it's it's the reason why even though you know is it how meaningful it is you know completely i guess questionable or up to the individual but every time we have a major we've had a major snow event i come in if they have to come in if the frontline staff come in i go into you live two miles from work dennis look i have walked i have my excuse i It's easy for me. I slept at work in my office. I slept near my office. Yes, in your house. Yes. I slept in my office. Near, in the cold. On a chair. In the cold because the window was open. Like folding chairs. That's right. I was able to push folding chairs together to be able to sleep. I slept in basically a flat chair-like item. Yes. It's called a bed. I literally, when my parents replaced their couch with a new couch, I told them I would throw their couch away. And I put it in my van, and I drove it to work, and it's in my office. So next time I get trapped at work, I can at least sleep on a darned couch. Yes. Because sleeping on folding chairs that I pushed into place because the rolling chairs moved when I tried to move. You see, you got trapped at work. I chose to go in. We are not the same. No, I had chosen to go in to plow, and then the storm got even worse. You see, I didn't need to plow. My actions are merely symbolic. Yes, well, mine are actually required and good. Yes. But so my poor staff, they need to know that someone cared. Yeah. They do need to know that somebody cared. That's right. That's why I go in. That cold trek, I barely made it because my tires were bald. Yeah. I mean, never mind that even in the snow, you could have probably walked it in 30 minutes. I don't know because the sidewalks, no one shovels their sidewalks because the city doesn't really enforce that very aggressively. I'm just saying. Clearly not their real priority. They would have taken so much energy. We know where they put their effort in. They're like, we've got to plow. We're not going to enforce this. They're like, what about the sidewalks? What about the poor person walking? What about the poor walkers? No, it's all about cars. It's all about cars. Got to have the cleanest streets in the county. Got to be trying to prevent accidents and whatever. Just like, what about those? I have to high step because there's drifts. And then if you were to shovel out your driveways, these plow guys will just go on by. I will. Bring that stuff up on there and just undo all that work and make people sad. That's what you get. Especially to teenagers. Yes.
    54:11
    Slushy. All right, everybody. That's all I got in video games. Okay. Well, then that's the end of the show. So if they want to reach out to us, you can email us at collectogamerspodcast.gmail.com or you can reach out at facebook.com slash collectogamerspodcast. though we do prefer you not reach out there because i don't like checking facebook for responses i yeah um it's just it's like dead to me this is not convenient sorry old old-timey email is more convenient uh of course you can support us as i noted earlier in the show at uh not at facebook but at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers we're available on twitch and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we should be back in a couple of weeks will harry potter be out i don't think so i don't but uh i mean if it is we'll talk about it it's not gonna Yeah, even if they show videos or make an announcement, it's not like they're going to be making deliveries. Yeah, most likely not. But anyway, until that episode comes, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.