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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast January 2021 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 39m·held·Feb 2, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

January 2021 pinball recap: Stern Pinball controversy, price hikes, Led Zeppelin launch, and American Pinball hires legendary designer Zofia Bil Ryan.

Summary

This January 2021 pinball industry recap discusses Stern Pinball License Agreement (EULA) controversy regarding software ownership and restrictions on modification/streaming, production and shipping of Led Zeppelin and Heavy Metal games, a $500 price increase on Stern machines amid a 5,000-game backlog, and personnel moves including Zofia Bil Ryan joining American Pinball as senior mechanical designer. The podcast also covers code updates for Avengers Infinity Quest, Led Zeppelin, and Stranger Things, speculation about potential Harry Potter licensing for Stern, and highlights the The Super Awesome Pinball Show.

Key Claims

  • Stern Pinball has a backlog of 5,000 games still to produce

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston citing Gary Stern's statement during Pinball Expo

  • The EULA makes software licensed, not sold, and prohibits modification, streaming, and derivative works

    high confidence · Martin Leob reviewing the actual EULA document on Stern's downloads page

  • Stern cancelled pre-orders and required customers to reorder at $500 higher price

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston describing customer reaction

  • Stern Pinball restricts software use by country of purchase, making cross-border machines unlicensed

    high confidence · Martin Leob explaining territorial restrictions in EULA

  • Jersey Jack Pinball and Deep Root Pinball are implementing internet-connected games with DLC capabilities

    medium confidence · Martin Leob discussing internet connectivity trends in pinball

  • Joe Kaminkow stated Brian Eddy is not designing Harry Potter for Stern, and if Joe had the license he would design it himself

    medium confidence · Martin Leob referencing The Super Awesome Pinball Show interview and Joe's Facebook comment

  • Zofia Bil Ryan (formerly Zofia Bil) has 30 years of pinball design history including Time Expander, Coffin on Scared Stiff, and Miss multiball

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston detailing her mechanical design credits

  • Heavy Metal is now being distributed through US and UK distributors despite original build-to-order model

    medium confidence · Jonathan Houston noting distributors selling Heavy Metal alongside direct orders

Notable Quotes

  • “if you buy a pinball game, you don't own the software in it anymore. If you agree to this.”

    Martin Leob @ ~12:30 — Core issue of the EULA controversy—players lose ownership upon accepting terms

  • “Stern Pinball may update the software from time to time without further notice to you. In other words, if you're connected to the internet, they can update your software without you agreeing. And there go all your high scores.”

    Martin Leob @ ~24:45 — Describes automatic update power and potential loss of game state

  • “assuming everybody would order the game again. Or you lose a lot of money because not everybody is going to order that game because they're not happy with those tactics.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~38:20 — Analyzes financial impact of price increase strategy on Stern's 5,000-game backlog

  • “if somebody in Wales wants to buy a new Stern game or in Scotland or Northern Ireland they'd probably buy it from Phil at Pinball Heaven which is in Robert Englunds which is another country therefore the license is immediately invalid”

    Martin Leob @ ~31:15 — Highlights impractical EULA territorial restriction for UK market

  • “It's a Led Zeppelin game and that's what counts... for a group who is so careful about who they give their licenses to and what products they license.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~52:00 — Notes Led Zeppelin's selective licensing approach and importance to pinball expansion

  • “she's got a very long history in pinball, stretching back 30 years, and has designed some of the mechanisms of which you will be familiar”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~73:30 — Introduction to Zofia Ryan's legendary status in mechanical design

Entities

Stern Pinballcompany[name withheld pending review]personMartin LeobpersonAmerican PinballcompanyZofia Bil RyanpersonDennis NordmanpersonBarry OurslerpersonBill PfutzenreuterpersonLed Zeppelin

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern's EULA restricts user rights, prohibits modification/streaming, claims software is licensed not sold, and enables forced updates with loss of high scores and game states

    high · EULA document reviewed on Stern's downloads page; multiple restrictions detailed including territorial limitations and unilateral update authority

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball has 5,000-game production backlog; $500 price increase introduced and pre-orders cancelled, requiring reorders at higher price amid significant customer dissatisfaction

    high · Gary Stern stated backlog during Pinball Expo; Jonathan Houston describes cancellation strategy and financial implications ($2.5M on 5,000 units)

  • $

    market_signal: European distributor tariffs creating 25-30% price increase on Stern games, likely reducing European reorders and potentially benefiting Stern by reducing backlog obligations

    high · Martin Leob notes EU tariff applied along with VAT; speculates on European distributor cancellations as result

  • ?

    code_update: Stranger Things v1.02 adds Swiper ball rule (steal locked balls) and Demogorgon bomb rule (lockdown bar interactions), representing novel mechanics not seen since CPU multiball locks became standard

    high · Martin Leob details Stranger Things update; notes Swiper ball is rare mechanic reintroduction

  • ?

    code_update: Led Zeppelin receives v0.93 update with new wizard mode 'Top of the Charts' and challenge mode playable from game start; multiple bug fixes included despite release complexity

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.297

0:00
Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston and welcome to the Ultimate Wrestling Podcast where we look back at the Royal Rumble of last night. Eh? No, wrong one, wrong one. I'm very sorry. Welcome to the Pinball Magazine and Pinball News, Pinball Industry News podcast, where we look back at the month of January 2021, which is a rather slow month, I would say, but still there's quite some news to report on. Yeah. And I'm joined here with my good friend. I'm Martin Leob. Yeah, exactly. And I'm the editor of Pinball News, I think, if that's correct. Yes. And wrestling monthly as well.
0:57
We'll come to that later. Let's do the pinball stuff first. And yes, as Jonathan said, January 2021.
1:07
Normally in this time of year, we'd be covering the trade show that's normally held in London this time of year, the EAG International Show. Right. But obviously, with everything that's going on with the pandemic, trade shows are out. So we have a whole bunch of other news to look back on. Not only is the trade show out, they didn't even have a virtual event. That's true. No, we'll look at one show that did have a virtual event in a very small way a bit later, another January show. But, yeah, so we are left with no new games for us to play and no new launches this month for new titles. Although we did have a launch at the end of December. Yeah, absolutely. So, the question is, where shall we start, Jonathan? Well, let's start with the, well, Stern Pimble is still the biggest manufacturer of Pimble machines. and there is a bit of news.
2:09
So let's go with Stern Bidwell to start with. Sounds good to me. Okay. Well, let's start with something that we addressed earlier on in our previous podcast, the end-of-user licensing agreement.
game
Heavy Metalgame
Avengers Infinity Questgame
Stranger Thingsgame
Steve Ritchieperson
Tim Sextonperson
Roger Sharpeperson
Joe Kaminkowperson
Brian Eddyperson
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Deep Root Pinballcompany
Super Awesome Pinball Showevent/organization
Gary Sternperson
Zach Sharpeperson
Chris Friebusperson

high · Jonathan Houston mentions v0.93 released January 18; speculates on timeline to v1.0 (August or later)

  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball hires Zofia Ryan, legendary 30-year veteran mechanical designer known for Time Expander, Coffin (Scared Stiff), Miss multiball, and other iconic mechanisms

    high · Jonathan Houston announces hire; details extensive patent history and game credits spanning Bally/Williams era

  • ?

    industry_signal: Harry Potter licensing uncertain; Joe Kamenkow clarified Brian Eddy is not designing Harry Potter for Stern, but did not confirm whether Joe holds the actual pinball license

    medium · Martin Leob references Roger Sharp interview and Joe's Facebook comment via Super Awesome Pinball Show; Joe's statement interpreted as squashing speculation

  • ?

    product_strategy: Heavy Metal shifted from exclusive build-to-order model (via Incendium/Stern direct) to broader distributor availability in US and UK, suggesting inventory changes or model adjustment

    medium · Jonathan Houston observed Heavy Metal listed with US distributors and Electric Coin (UK) despite build-to-order positioning

  • ?

    technology_signal: Industry moving toward internet-connected machines with DLC capabilities; Jersey Jack and Deep Root implementing automatic update models that enable server-side changes

    medium · Martin Leob discusses speculation that Stern's EULA anticipates always-on machines with automatic updates; mentions JJP and Deep Root leading this trend

  • ?

    content_signal: Super Awesome Pinball Show praised as high-production-quality content with excellent interviewing and research; positioned as industry standard for podcast journalism

    medium · Jonathan Houston and Martin Leob express admiration for Chris Frenchy's production and recommend listeners check out the show

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: EULA territorial restriction (software valid only in purchase country) creates legal ambiguity for cross-border sales, secondary market, and multinational operators; particularly problematic in EU and Canada-US border regions

    high · Martin Leob details EULA clause and applies to UK (Pinball Heaven in different countries), EU border zones, and Canada-US border operators like Nitro Pinball

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Customer sentiment negative regarding Stern's price increase strategy, pre-order cancellations, and EULA restrictions; speculation about potential order cancellations and market shrinkage

    medium · Jonathan Houston notes tactics 'did not sit very well with people'; Martin Leob speculates European distributors will cancel rather than reorder at inflated tariff prices

    • 2:26
    Yeah, well, not the end-of, but the end-user licensing agreement, which could be the end-of-the-user as well, They actually bothered to read the licensing rules.
    2:38
    I misspoke. I apologise. I think you could have actually said the right thing. Yes, last month we mentioned how Stern Pinball had put an EULA,
    2:49
    End User License Agreement, on their downloads page for their game code and then fairly quickly removed it. Well, it's come back again. I was just looking at it a few moments ago. It's back. It's back, yes. Version 2.0 or? Well, I think version 1.00001. Hold on. It's a stern, so it must be 0.whatever. Well, 0.997 maybe. Yeah. They never come out with version 1.0 at the first time. No, that's right. Well, there have been some bug fixes in it since the previous version came out. Right. So basically, actually, we should address this as a code update. well yes an update to the update yes the code updates are later so we'll save it well we've launched off on it now so we might as well just rattle through it when it first came out there was quite a lot of eyebrows raised shall we say and voices raised as well about exactly what Stern were attempting to do in all this and a general opinion there was a lot of arse or ass covering taking place in that stern don't want to be held responsible for people doing various things with their games that might impact on their licenses for bands movies and and all the assets and media that they they use in their games and if people were modifying those or changing them or even deleting them completely and replacing them with something else stern didn't want to be held responsible for that or at least wanted to have a get out clause i think was it was a key part of that yeah and um that's what this uh end user license agreement gave them but it does actually if you go into it and and um and look at it and read it by the letter it's very very restrictive as to what you can actually do and probably the key thing i thought when i looked at it is that one of the early lines is um it says that the stern pinball software authorized content and authorized updates are licensed, not sold to you.
    4:55
    And no ownership rights are transferred by this agreement. So in other words, if you buy a pinball game, you don't own the software in it anymore. If you agree to this. And how do you agree? If you download an update, then you agree to it. If you don't, then unless it comes, as I said last time, when you first parry it on and it says, do you accept these terms and agreement terms and conditions, press the right button on the right button for yes and the left button for decline then you haven't agreed to anything so you've just bought a game but there are a whole bunch of other restrictions which I will go through very very quickly because they are quite boring hold on hold on one of the because I know what's coming but what if Stern updates the game for you never agreed to anything new that they put in there?
    5:53
    No. Well, at the moment, none of their games come with the ability for that to happen. So that may change in the future.
    6:01
    Well, you know, it's something to look out for. As soon as they bring out an internet-connected game, then that possibility is there. Yeah, well, they've been talking about this for so long. How long do you think it actually will take to come out with such a game? I mean, there's game manufacturers, arcade game manufacturers that have been doing that for ages. But in pinball, apparently, it takes forever. Well, yeah, it's gradually coming out, though. And, you know, different companies are doing it in different ways. We saw that Jersey Jack Pinball are doing it now. Deep Root Pinball, that was part of their original model as well, to do that kind of thing. as part of a DLC, a digital downloaded content.
    6:50
    But going back to this agreement thing, which is something which you would have to agree to now if you want to update your game code, whether it's connected to the internet or not, you have to agree that you will not, amongst other things, disassemble, display, perform, or create derivative works based on, or otherwise modify, the Stern pinball hardware or software.
    7:21
    So, in other words, you're not allowed to take your game to bits. You're not allowed to show it to anyone.
    7:28
    You're not allowed to broadcast anything of it, perform it, do it in a, put it in a, use in a performance environment.
    7:40
    And you're allowed to make... Can you still operate it? You can operate it, yes. That is actually covered separately. But you are not allowed to make mods for it, which you then sell. It says you will not commercially exploit any of those of the foregoing things... I am so curious. What will be the penalty if you create a mod and you sell it? yeah well i guess you're not allowed to sell it as being based on that game but are you going to be sentenced to prison well i guess they could um could sue you or could um you know want to take a cut of your your earnings for that you know and uh and bring it in-house make it a licensed product you know we've seen that in the past where people were making mods for for previously produced games and uh another company said if you want to do that you have to do it through us and we want our take So do you think they put this in so they basically stern once their piece of the action in the modding market? Maybe so. You know, they're in that market.
    8:43
    Well, they never cared about that market until they saw how much money other modders were making, so to speak. Well, exactly. And they figured like, hey, if you're making money off our product, we want to make money off our product too. Yeah, but if they're selling a $1,000 topper. $1,000 toppers. Yeah, and somebody else is making a $500 topper that looks very, very similar or is derivative. I'm actually surprised to see that there's certain toppers where there is a lot of demand for, which seemed to me like could easily be replicated, that nobody jumped into that or onto that, so to speak. Well, not publicly, shall we say, because it's licensed characters, I would guess. So you can't advertise those too clearly, but they probably are available. If it's a good knockoff, then you won't tell the difference. And who's going to tell the difference anyway if you don't have the original to compare it with?
    9:44
    True, but it's a lot of flying under the radar with that kind of thing and not getting too noticed, shall we say, so that Disney, Marvel, whoever the band is, their agents don't come after you. I think those agents are really not too worried about pinball toppers or modifications. But, oh well.
    10:10
    Yeah. One of the other things that was in the previous version of this agreement was that if you wanted to stream the game, You had to get permission from Stern Pinball in order to do it. And that's now changed. Stern, in this version of it, says Stern does not have the legal authority to give permission to stream the gameplay of Stern Pinball machines. Right. And they probably figured, like, they're going to be swamped with requests anyway, which they don't want. So basically they're telling you up front you can't stream it and leave us alone. well they're saying that we can't give you permission um obviously it's in stern's interest for people to stream the games because it's free publicity for them you know why they don't want it but at the same time it's probably breaching various licensing agreements for the for the assets that are on there for the for the video and for the audio so stern basically washing their hands and all that and saying no if you want to do that it's up to you between you and the the licensor, nothing to do with us. We can't say it's okay.
    11:18
    But going back to what you were saying earlier about updates, another thing in here which I don't think it's new, but it's certainly still there, says that Stern Pinball may update the software from time to time without further notice to you.
    11:33
    In other words, if you're connected to the internet, they can update your software without you agreeing. And there go all your high scores. Yeah, your high scores, there go your maybe a particular mode that you like to maybe a song that was in the previous version of the of the the band based game that um is no longer part of the game maybe it's been taken out and swapped with another one or something like that right so would this would this mean uh and of course this is just speculating at this point but would this mean that upcoming certain games with internet connectivity would be like deep root games always on machines where basically if it's in a sleep mode and someone wants to install a a code update they can basically take the game out of sleep mode install the code update and put it back into sleep mode well it's all possible um and assuming you it's connected to the internet while it's in sleep mode You haven't turned the router off or disconnected the Wi-Fi. Right. Or would it be when you power on the game that the game will tell you, like, hey, there's a code update available. Would you like to install it right now?
    12:42
    Could do. I could say there was a game update available last night. We've installed it for you. Right. And, yeah, obviously, if it's not connected to the Internet, then all these things don't happen automatically. But if you want to partake in whatever Sturden's internet connectivity offers you, high score tables, internet-based challenges, all that kind of stuff, rewards, bonuses, power-ups, that kind of stuff, then you'll probably want to connect it to the internet, and then there's the payoff.
    13:19
    They have the right to update the software and change various parts of the game or even block it completely if they detect you've done anything bad. But the final one, which probably isn't… I was going to say, can we wrap up this boring stuff? Yes, exactly. I feel that as well. But there is one final one, which is not so relevant in very large countries like the U.S. or Canada, or maybe is if you live near the border. But certainly in Europe, it says that this licensed user software is valid only in the country in which you purchased your Stern pinball machine. Right. So if you buy your machine from Germany and move it to Holland or Belgium or wherever, then the license is no longer valid. And it's arguable that in the UK here, our biggest, well, our only main, well, our only Stern reseller is Pinball Heaven. They then sell to other companies, but they are the biggest. And if you want to buy a game, a brand new Stern game, you're probably going to buy it through Pinball Heaven. they're based in England if somebody in Wales wants to buy a new Stern game or in Scotland or Northern Ireland they'd probably buy it from Phil at Pinball Heaven which is in England which is another country therefore the license is immediately invalid so interesting to me like the lawyers at Stern still have some homework to do yeah and obviously around the border area around Seattle and Vancouver Nitro Pinball for instance are they, if you buy a game do you buy it from Canada, do you buy it from America do you take it across the border quite a lot of games do end up going across there, not just now but in the future when they're not maybe even new but they are pre-owned you know, is that an invalid use of the software now it's a minefield, but as you say, it's still boring so let's move on so, in December and we discussed it in our previous podcast Stearn Pinball announced Led Zeppelin, the latest Steve Ritchie pinball design with Tim Saxon on code. That game went into production and started shipping and showing up, of course, in various homes and arcades and what have you. Is it still open? Yes. another game that went into production and also had been announced a bit longer ago, Heavy Metal which also started arriving in people's homes right now and surprisingly I noticed several distributors offering Heavy Metal in their range of games that they are offering for people to buy where I thought that it was actually a game that had to be ordered directly from Heavy Metal, I suppose, and it was supposed to go through the Stern Pinball distributor network. Yeah, it was originally going to be a built-to-order, wasn't it, for Incendium? You had to buy it through their website, and they would only build as many games as were ordered. Right, but I saw a couple of distributors in America have it offered again for sale, and also Electric Coin in the UK. Wow, okay, and heavy metal wasn't being sold at a heavy discount, one would assume.
    16:50
    I have no details on that, but I assume no. Okay, well, price raised an eyebrow or two, didn't it, when it was first announced? Certainly amongst those in the pinball community who know the previous iterations of that particular design and what they sold for. And how they were priced. Yeah, exactly. Because price is an important factor and it's something we're just about to come on to, I think.
    17:15
    Right. Oh, well. Another boring item regarding Stern Pinball that probably has been beaten to death by now is a price increase that occurred in the past month. now as far as I recall the price increase actually was already announced a couple of months ago where basically Stern Pimple said if you order Elvira now it's going to cost you this and if you order the game in January it's going to be $500 more I suppose it's all fair, it's up to them to decide apparently what happened what was not that cool is that, as you know, Stern has a, according to Gary Stern during Pinball Expo, I think he mentioned that they have a backlog of 5,000 games that they still need to produce.
    18:17
    And apparently pre-orders were cancelled and if you ordered the game again, you had to order it for the price, including the price increase of $500, which is something that did not sit very well with people. And now imagine 5,000 games adding $500 to those. That's $2.5 million.
    18:44
    Assuming everybody would order the game again. Or you lose a lot of money because not everybody is going to order that game because they're not happy with those tactics.
    18:55
    Yes. since that was announced of course they've had this European Union $500 25% increase or 25% tariff applied along with VAT on top which probably takes it to near a 30% price increase on Stern games so I wonder whether that's led to a lot of cancellations now as you said this was announced before that was known about so it's not a reaction to that for CERN to try and recover some of those lost or cancelled or delayed orders. But it would certainly make you think for some European distributors, if they were given the option, basically, your pre-orders are cancelled. If you want to reorder, then you have to reorder at $500 or more. And again, it's going to cost you 30% more on top of that. You can see quite a few of them might say, okay, I don't think we will reorder. I think we'll just take that cancellation. Thank you very much. Right. So that could be a sort of a way out for some of those European... It could also be a way out for Stern not to have to produce that many games. Yeah, well, if they can cut down that 5,000 backlog and take it, you know, then that's a, you know, I'd say it's a win-win because they've lost sales, but there might be sales that will then be applied to future titles.
    20:21
    Right. Oh, well. We already spoke about EAG not happening. There was another show which happened in a virtual format, I suppose, the Consumer Electronics Show, which is always in January, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, that's right. It was right at the start of January, anyway. It's like the 8th or 11th or something like that. Oh, no, sorry. It's 11th to the 14th. I beg your pardon, I remember now. Yes, it was two weeks in. But normally a huge show in Las Vegas that takes over the city, pretty much, because it covers so many different aspects of consumer electronics, from software through to domestic products due to the industry and broadcast, and of course gaming as well. Right. So anyway, Stern Pinball is known to be present at that show, partnering up, I think, with Nuclear Blast Records, if I'm not mistaken. And I think last year they had a huge Star Wars display,
    21:33
    or that was the year prior to that, sort of lost. Well, they always have a strong presence at that show and often use it to launch their new titles, just like a week before they end up at EAG in London. Right. So this year, a virtual show, and I really have no idea what they did, but there were some results in the sense that Led Zeppelin has been getting a lot of press, I would say, as a result of the virtual CES show. I'm sure the marketing department at Stern sent out press releases out as well when the game was initially launched, but apparently this was a good way for reporters to get acquainted with the game in some way. Yeah, I was trying to find any sort of reference to it on the CES website. I couldn't see anything. That's not to say there wasn't anything, but she certainly searched for Pinball or Stern or even Stern's normal partners, Nuclear Blast. Nothing comes up in their list of virtual exhibitors, I should say. So hopefully there was something. Well, how they did it, I don't know. But, okay, so Led Zeppelin got quite some press from non-pinball media.
    22:54
    Yeah, it's good to know which one to expand the player base and expand the market as well for these games. There's plenty of Led Zeppelin fans out there who are not currently pinball fans. They don't know whether it's a good game or not, and they just want the game. Sorry, did I say that out loud? Well, I'm not saying it's a bad game. They don't know and they wouldn't be in a position to judge necessarily. But it's a Led Zeppelin game and that's what counts. Yeah, exactly. And, well, that goes for a lot of licenses, I suppose. But in case of Led Zeppelin, yeah. Yeah. For someone who, for a group who is so careful about who they give their licenses to and what products they license. Yeah, it was a coup at the time for Stern. and those dividends are paying off now, I'm sure. Right.
    23:46
    Last but not least, Zach Sharp appeared on the Nicky Rich Show. I have no idea what show that is. No, who's Nicky Rich? Should we know? Don't know either. But there's a link on Stern's Facebook page, so if you're interested, go check it out. Okay. Well, it's all good publicity.
    24:04
    Very, very last and very, very least, I suppose. We should just cover some... Oh, we're going full circle now. We're going back to code. Yeah, that's right. But we'll try to make this less boring and just mention that there's new software for, well, actually released a couple of days ago for the Avengers Infinity Quest version 0.98, which is good because it adds a couple of wizard modes, Battle Thanos and Thanos Attack. I wouldn't do those anyway, but okay. And I still can't play the game, so I have something to look forward to. Yeah, but when you do get your hands on it, it'll be a much more complete game. change some of the rules as well for Black Order Multi-Ball and Battle Royale and more light shows and bug fixes Led Zeppelin we were just talking about that had an update on the 18th of January version 0 which had a lot of bug fixes which is interesting There were an awful lot of bugs in it to start with. But it's 0.93, so it's still got a little way to go. We've probably got another seven updates. Are we going to do a sort of a wager or a bet? How long it will take them to get to 1.0? Oh, right. Okay. I would say August.
    25:21
    What year? Oh, I thought being generous was August. Yes. Well, okay. I'll stick with the summer. Yeah. Because August is this year. Right. Okay. No, I think it will take them longer. well I was going to say October because I thought it would come out in version 1 in time for Expo but that's assuming Expo happened and assuming the version 1.0 happens as well true we'll see in the end hopefully it will be there at some point but it's not uncommon for Stern titles to take a year after release before they get to version 1.0 speaking of 1.0 another code update Strangest Things, who is actually at 1.02 right now. Yeah, that's just over a year, wasn't it? Since it was released or premiered, we should say that. So, yeah, 1.0 came a couple of months ago. So that's probably about 10 months after it was announced. Yeah, it's been a long time. Maybe October was about right.
    26:33
    Well, you said August. It's in the recording. Yeah, I know. But I was being generous because I would like to give Sten the benefit of the doubt because they do surprise us in a good way quite often.
    26:47
    So, yes, as you said, Stranger Things 1.02 came out on the 6th of January and that added quite an interesting new feature, actually. You've got the swiper ball rule. It allows you to steal locked balls from other players, which is something we haven't seen in games for a long time, actually. ever since we've had CPU control pretty much, or at least multi-ball locks, the point where other players can lock balls and then the next player can come along and steal them. So that's not something we had an awful lot of, but this is actually part of the rules now. If you enable that in your software.
    27:32
    I always like stealing balls. Well, I've heard that. But I've never seen it myself. I also thought the balls in a pinball machine are made of steel.
    27:44
    Well, so it sort of implies that you have to steal them. It does. Oh, very good. Yes. Yeah. I've got my elbows. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Demogorgon bomb rule has been added as well. Allows you to do. this is actually something which is they're now doing with the button on the lockdown bar you can do a sort of a quick press on it or you can do a long press on it to activate this Demogorgon bomb which is I guess like a Martian bomb that you can get in Attack from Mars and that kind of thing but anyway that's added anyway and lots of more top of light shows and that kind of stuff as well and oh we didn't actually mention about Led Zeppelin but they've added with wizard mode to it called top of the charts and a new uh as they seem to do now with stone games when they had a final wizard mode they kind of put a the ability to be able to play that or a version of that uh at the start of the game as in a different gameplay mode right you know you can do all these different challenges whether you're playing one against two or two against one or one against three and all that kind of stuff where you can also do these um these challenge modes as well in most most of the new games and um they tend to be sort of versions of the wizard mode. And they've added that to Led Zeppelin as well. So there's top of the charts, challenge mode, which you can choose to play.
    29:08
    So those are games which Stern are making. It's a top of the charts challenge mode. Led Zeppelin haven't been top of the charts in ages. I know. It seemed like a real... I saw it. I thought, that kind of misses the point. I don't think Led Zeppelin were really about getting to the top of the charts. They were more about the quality of their music rather than the sales.
    29:29
    But I don't know. I guess somebody thought it was a good idea. Must be somebody not related to Led Zeppelin, but okay. Yeah. It's more like a sort of Beatles type thing, isn't it, rather than a Led Zeppelin one. But as I say, those are games which are being made, but there's also a little bit of news about a game which isn't being made, or at least isn't being made at the moment. and I think last time we mentioned some news about was it on the Super Awesome Pinball show where there was some information about a potential for a Harry Potter game being made by Stern Pinball well I think there what you're referring to is there was this month actually an interview with Roger Sharp who hinted that Stern Pinball, due to their relationship with Joe Camico, who has the rights to a Harry Potter slot machine, it's very reasonable to assume that Stern Pinball at some point will be able to make a Harry Potter-themed pinball machine or possibly even a series of Harry Potter themed pinball machines.
    30:55
    And that was implied by Roger Sharp, who is, as we all know, very aware of or a very expertise. Is that the right word? He's an expert in the licensing of pinball and video game licenses and all that stuff.
    31:16
    So we know the thing or two about it. And the interesting thing is that actually Joe Kamenkow commented, which was distributed through the Facebook page or social media of the Super Awesome Pinball Show, where he basically said that Brian Eddy isn't designing a Harry Potter game for Stern. and if Joe would have the license for a Harry Potter Primal Machine he would design it himself so he didn't say that he didn't have it no there was speculation that it could be Brian Eddy's next game for Stern there's been no confirmation of that from any court it is just speculation but Joe was sort of squashing that and saying very clearly that Brian isn't designing a Harry Potter game for Stern. That's him saying that directly, regardless of whether he has the license or not. Right. So it is interesting. It's all speculative, of course.
    32:24
    I do have to say the interview with Roger Sharp on the Super Awesome Pinball Show, as the Super Awesome Pinball Show in general, is actually very interesting and absolutely worth to listen to. So once you're done with us, go listen how it's actually done.
    32:44
    Yeah. But come back. I mean, don't assume that everything has to be to that high quality. No, but seriously, the production of Chris Frenchy on that podcast is absolutely phenomenal, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. All the respect to Chris Frenchy as a producer of podcasts. very entertaining podcast and actually very informative as well they really dive into the subject or they come up with good questions and so highly recommended it should be award winning we'll come to that a bit later anyway in other news but yes I think that's pretty much it for Stern Pinball unless there's anything I've forgotten but we should probably now turn to actually our first headline which was the um the announcement from american pinball but they uh well last month we announced um well we we talked about the announcement that dennis nordman had joined american pinball as their senior game designer right and this month we can uh talk about the fact that uh zofia ryan um also known as zofia bill in her earlier days has joined as their senior mechanical designer.
    34:09
    Now, you may not particularly know that name. It's not mechanical design. It's probably not one of the sort of rock star positions in the design team. But she's got a very long history in pinball, stretching back 30 years, and has designed some of the mechanisms of which you will be familiar, things such as the time expander on the doctor who pinball machine right um on the um trying to think uh the um popeye game the the animal kicker on the left hand side the multi diverter thing the roulette wheel skill shot as well uh there's a whole bunch of mechanisms that she has designed and worked on games and she worked on scared stiff uh with dennis nordman yeah i think she did the um The Coffin The stiff in the coffin Yes that one But she worked with him on The Party Zone as well I think A long time ago But she was pretty much on the Barry Oster Design team Did things like the Miss Oh of course yes Miss Multi-Ball That long mechanical Which I always thought was an idea That Barry Oster came up with He told me a story once about how he figured, well, if a TV remote can cross such a long distance, how difficult would it be to have a sensor that crosses the playfield and detects a ball, yes or no? And I suppose Barry might have come up with that design and she made it work. That's right, yes. So if you look at the patent, which we give a blatant plug for the Pinball News article, where we do actually have links to all the patents, which she has her name on. They are mostly in conjunction with Barry and also in some cases with Bill Futzenreuter,
    36:05
    who is also a game designer. Programmer, mostly. Oh, you're right. Yeah, of course he was. But working on the part of Barry's design team there for those games. and yes the Mist Multi-Ball is you know it's quite a I was going to say that and well no the Time Expander is probably as far as I can think the biggest single device in pinball maybe the Brider Pinball head no I think the triple layered teleporter is probably the biggest device probably the heaviest given how much stuff she did yeah so that was she said that was her most complex device to design and I have to say that is actually a wowing device it is and it's one that doesn't seem to go wrong really we're so used to having really complex devices which break a lot and things like the head for instance on Brider Pinbot when it rotates that's probably the most troublesome part of that game. Not that there's a huge amount of other moving parts in that game, but it is the most troublesome. It doesn't align properly or it doesn't kick out properly, things like that. But the time expander just seems to work. It moves up and down. It's got three different layers to shoot. I had a game that had a problem with the gear motor or whatever you call it. So it can break down, of course, But then again, that was a game that came from Italy, and they don't know how to read English journals over there. So they get very creative on their own, and they try to figure out what might work. If it's being operated, you have to do what you have to do, don't you, sometimes, just to keep it going.
    37:59
    Anyway, congratulations to Sophia for joining American Pinball, and hopefully she will be able to design some very impressive mechanical interaction with pinballs. Yeah. And together with Dennis Nordman. Well, as I said in the article on Pinball News, Dennis said he left his employment at Deep Root because he designed the games. He had no mechanical designer to work with to actually bring them to production. And yet Barry also didn't recommend to hire Sophia. Well, maybe he did.
    38:39
    Maybe they didn't want to hire her. Maybe they already have a mechanical designer. Well, not for Dennis. Not for Dennis, no.
    38:46
    But anyway, so now they're reunited at American Pinball, and Dennis has got a senior mechanical designer to work with, and a very good one at that. So congratulations to everyone there. Right. Now, speaking of designers, last month we already mentioned that Dave Fix had mentioned on the Super Awesome Pinball Show, there it is again, that he hired three junior designers. Now, I did not completely follow the entire discussion on Pinside, but one of those designers rumored to have joined American Pinball is Scott from Riot Pinball, who you might know from, well, most recently his Viking-themed Legends of Valhalla game.
    39:33
    If I'm not mistaken, that's the name. But he also did this incredibly packed white-body game, Wrath of Olympus,
    39:46
    which was a homebrew game. And for a homebrew game, it was really, really packed with an upper play field. And I think it had a fan layout of nine shots. It was a very impressive game. if you're sitting on a computer look up Wrath of Olympus Pinball yeah it was a game which very nearly went into production I think they just needed to get a certain number of commitments from buyers in order to start producing it but it didn't quite hit the number that they needed I think Spooky looked into that but I'm not quite sure one way or another they couldn't make the ends meet and it didn't happen after all but if the rumor is true and Scuzz is working for American people, then congrats. And I think that they have a very talented designer
    40:37
    that can bring them very interesting games, I would say. Yeah, and teamed up with Dennis, you know, there's a huge amount of knowledge there of how to
    40:47
    actually bring a game to production. He's worked for so many different companies, made so many different products. There's a lot to be learned from a master of the business. Right, and also American Pinball related, a code update Yes, for, surprise surprise, not for Hot Wheels or Oktoberfest But for their first game, Houdini Yeah, it came out the 21st of January Which added a new magic spinner bonus And a King of Cards accuracy bonus as well Which encourages you to actually shoot the game accurately Rather than just flailing away A few rule changes and additions and a new setting, which one of the problems with the game up until now is that once you get to the Master Magician Wizard mode and complete it, that's it, the game's finished. And now you can actually carry on playing the game after that point. So that's good. New sound effects, some new display effects, and generally make the game a bit more responsive and faster to react to events happening on the play field. So a couple of bug fixes, of course, which you're always thrown in with every new code update. But anyway, nice to see Houdini, as you said, their first game, getting some love and a new version of the code. Okay.
    42:07
    I think that sort of wraps it up for... I think it does. Yeah. So where do you want to go next? Well, let's talk about a game which actually isn't, well, had been produced, is coming back into production, but it's going to take a bit longer than we thought. Oh, we've heard that before. expecting. So those, their original plan, when to produce it and when to ship it, have been pushed back a bit by some delays. Like two weeks?
    43:08
    Unknown at this point. Probably a couple of months, I would have thought. It's, no, how long is a piece of string? You don't release it until it's ready to go. And if some things need redesigning or re-specifying or whatever, then they have to maybe order some new parts and there's a lead time and all that so it's um as we've seen from various companies you know when you if you haven't got all the parts ready to build a game you haven't got a game yeah so if if it's stuff that they can change in software then it could be done quicker if it's stuff that they need to actually re-engineer and and then order new parts that can that can be three months four months six months you know right so we have to wait and see but pimple brothers were up front about the problems they said we were a bit too optimistic when we had our prototypes up and running and after receiving and putting together all the final parts well they were the final parts um and electronics we encountered some minor misbehaviors in the game that we absolutely want to fix before we deliver any machines so it's a good thing that they want to fix those because yeah yeah um i mean you kind of wonder why this wasn't picked up earlier of course because not so anybody was holding their feet to the flames and saying you've got to release this game by a certain date or indeed announce the game by a certain date but they announced it took orders um no pre-orders thankfully and um and so we're going to ship the game but then they have to push back on that which this is the first delay about avian hopefully it will be the last but well we know what happens when sorry new parties start getting involved in pinball and like oh yeah sure we can build that and then it turns out oh we can't build that after all yeah or it doesn't quite work where you thought it was going to or it's going to cost more yes yes well we've been there before but hopefully they have a good contract with their manufacturer in Italy who's going to build this game and there won't be any surprises when it comes to the price for which each game will be delivered. Right, okay. So that wraps it up. A little bit about the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pimple Brothers also shared a video of an alien playfield being tested for pooling and clipping Now you wonder how do you test that? Well, I'd say watch the video, it's on their social media.
    45:52
    But basically they took a giant sledgehammer to a playfield and yes it left a dent but it didn't, the clear coat didn't crack. No, they needed to start hacking away at it, at the dent in order to start lifting any of the coat off it. So, yeah, I mean, but who's going to attack their playfield, particularly in an area where they're full of inserts in the middle, with a sledgehammer?
    46:24
    Usually, I don't tend to do that. And so they were also checking for pooling by mounting... this is something you should address because my terminology is wrong.
    46:41
    I think they were just mounting things onto the playfield and shining the light or reflecting the light off it and you could see there was no pooling taking place around the point where the pressure was, where the things were screwed into the playfield tightly. So I think it's just a good demonstration, at least initially.
    47:01
    You always have to wonder how things will hold up over time. Yes, quite. But initially, at least, there was no problems with that. But you would hope that any manufacturer who had a playfield and they screwed things into it and the clear coat started deforming or pooling, they'd do something about it. But if it's not visible immediately, then you have to hope they won't show up over time because clear coat is not a solid product. It's very, very thick, viscous coating to the game, and it will change over time. You know, it'll dent, it'll pull, it'll run, but very, very slowly and very, very slightly.
    47:45
    Right. Time will be the judge of how well that holds up. Right. Okay. So, making a small sort of bridge with Alien being a pinball machine built in or designed in the UK.
    48:06
    Last episode, we had Gary Clower on the phone. We did. Oh, yeah. And unfortunately, we left him hanging. Oh, I feel so bad about that. On your behalf. and so I should have mentioned this at the beginning of our podcast but why don't we give Gary Flower a call right now and just to make sure that we have him on the line we finish our headlines and the thing and then we get back to Gary what did he say? Yeah we owe him that after last time yeah I'm calling him right now Hello? Gary, can you hear us? Yes, it's Jonathan So listen, we're in the middle of recording our podcast Let us finish what we're currently discussing And hang in there and we'll get back to you And yes, we won't leave you hanging this time We promise Okay, no problem Okay, talk to you in a bit Sure Right, so moving on to, I suppose, Multimorphic would be a good one Yeah Not so much news Well, they've got new products available, which are... It's a multi-game platform, Multimorphic, with a P3 machine. It's not tied to any particular one. In particular title you can swap upper playfields over Even with most of the upper playfields you can play various games So the whole idea is being a certain amount of generic artwork on the game But if you really want to play one of the games such as Cosmic Kart Racing or Heist or Lexi Lightspeed and want it to look really branded to that particular title, you can now buy various playfield artwork pieces for the aprons, the slingshots, and the side targets, which are themed to that particular title. So, yeah, they're available as kits from the Multimorphic store. And as I said, they are available for Cosmic Kart Racing Heist. And I don't think they're available for the original Lexi Lightspeed, but there's an alternative version of Lexi Lightspeed Escape from Earth, which is a different art package and you can get the plastic pieces and the apron I think it's a magnetic apron for those three games anyway I still want them to go back to the original artwork for Lexi Lightspeed but I don't think that's going to happen You're a fan of that one I actually like the alternate one so there you go it proves there's a market for both apparently so So, okay, but so are those artwork kits affordable? Yeah, I don't think they're that expensive. I think they start from, and try and wrap my brains, I think they're something like $40 or maybe it's $50.
    51:04
    Well, it's a small market. They do look good on the game, I have to say, having seen them in examples. Yeah. But, again, you know, it's kind of like the cabinet side art. If you put, say, Lexi Lightspeed on the side and then you put in the Cosmic Cart Racing, then your game is kind of, you know, it's not really branded completely to that game at that point, if you look at the side.
    51:35
    But same with the Playfield Plastic, you know, how much swapping over do you want to do? The whole point is you can swap over the games very quickly. If you have to start replacing slingshot plastics and target plastics and things, it makes it a bit longer, but if you're not swapping games over frequently, then you might as well have it looking its very best. Right, okay. So, well, it's a very nice little touch of detail, I would say. Yeah, I mean, why wouldn't you, basically? It's available to you. There were classics there before, and they were generic. Why not have them branded for your favourite game? Right. So, I suppose that was all the news from Multimorphic. I think so, yeah. Yeah.
    52:20
    Well, there is a Jersey Jack, of course, which we haven't discussed yet. No. Well, kind of in the last one, we did sort of mention that it was the 10th year anniversary of the announcement of the formation of Jersey Jack Pinball and the first title The Wizard of Oz that Jack Guarneri did on the Spooky Pinball podcast 10 years ago on the 1st of January which is kind of fixed into our January review but we did actually cover it last month so we won't go into it any further than that now what is interesting at least I find it very interesting Eric Meunier was a guest on the Loser Kid pinball podcast and basically he talked about the impact that his latest design Guns N' Roses which is currently in production and they are producing the collector's edition at the moment.
    53:16
    But the impact of that game goes a very long way, I suppose you could say. And what I mean by that is, of course, you have a celebrity like Slash, who is rather influential, has a lot of friends in Los Angeles and Hollywood, and having access to a game, at least I assume that Slash has access to a game. You would think so.
    53:42
    Well, lots of people apparently are very impressed, and rightfully so, with the game, which has resulted in potential licensors lining up around the block for Jersey Jack Pinball. And basically it puts them in the position where they can say, like, this is what we did with Guns N' Roses. We need all these assets. If you cannot give us all these assets, take a walk.
    54:15
    And that's sort of breaking the licensing mold as we have seen it for the past 20 years at least, I would say, in pinball. And what I mean by that is that when a pinball company goes after a license, and especially now that there is no longer dot matrix displays but actually video displays, It means if you want video assets, you have to pay extra. If you want music from a movie or from a band, you have to pay extra.
    54:47
    Basically everything, the license might just be a name and you have to pay extra for any additional features.
    54:57
    And what's happening now is because licensors are interested in having Jersey Jack Pinball build a pinball machine, they can demand those assets or they won't do it. Yeah, almost sort of takes us back to the mid-90s really where having a pinball made with your title on it is a real cachet item and almost like the pinball companies are doing you a favor in having a pinball themed after your title. It actually reminds me a lot about Roger Sharp, and I'll explain to you why.
    55:39
    As you might know, as editor of Pimble Magazine, I published the first issue of Pimble Magazine, including a very in-depth interview with Roger Sharp about his work for Williams as a licensing and marketing manager, I suppose you could call it. And one of the instances that is discussed in the magazine is Williams was interested in getting the Batman license, which was supposed to be the game that eventually turned out to be police force. Yes, that's right. and it turns out that during the negotiations for the license, it would not be possible to use the likeliness of Jack Nicholson, who played the role of the Joker in that Batman movie. They would not be able to use that likeliness, and for Roger, basically, he said it was a no-go.
    56:42
    Data East was also interested, and basically Roger said to the designers at Williams, let them have it, which is what actually happened.
    56:50
    Data East came out with the game, but not with Jack Nicholson in it. Well, you can decide for yourself whether it needed Jack Nicholson or not and what you think of that game. But basically we're getting back to a situation, it appears, where people, manufacturers can say, like if we don't get everything that we want to make this game as good as what we have shown you here.
    57:17
    We're not interested. Yeah. As I say, though, it swings the balance of power, really, doesn't it? From the pinball companies chasing and begging at the feet of the licensors saying, you know, please let us make this pinball machine. And now you've got the, I don't know who, whether they're bands, they're movies, directors, they're actors, whoever they are, who are coming to Jersey Jack and saying, please make us a pinball game. And Jersey Jack Pinball, as you say, are in a position to say, yes, if you give us all this. And then the onus is on them in order to provide all the assets that Jersey Jack Pinball needs to make the game that should be made. Right. So it will be interesting to see how this pans out in the future. Of course, their next title is that license had been licensed already months, if not years ago. So it will not be applicable to the game after Guns and Roses. but it should definitely it will be very interesting to see what Eric Meunier's next title will be and if it's applicable to that you were thinking probably we've already got that one lined up as well but certainly in the future yes it's what we need isn't it we need fully featured games with all the assets that you can possibly throw at it it's in everyone's interest to get all that and not in a licensor's interest to make an inferior product just because they're holding out for extra licensing fees or any of the actors or musicians or whoever are trying to get an extra couple of cents out of each game's royalties.
    59:14
    Right. So it will be interesting and it might actually put Jersey Jack Pinball in a very fortunate position. Yeah. It's interesting to see whether it rubs off on the rest of the industry as well, whether Stern are able to leverage more assets than they were before. Well, the future will tell, I suppose.
    59:40
    Yeah. I suppose it depends on the license. I mean, some bands are not very keen on giving any footage, footage and other bands like Guns N' Roses give you full access to more than you can ever put into the game. Yeah, now Jersey Jack Pinball have an example of the kind of product they can produce when they do get those assets. Right. And of course, it will be, well, it's amazing for your brand to have a pinball machine like that. So, yeah. So, and what's also interesting, we might actually see more of Slash and collaborating with Jersey Jack Pinball and Eric Meunier.
    60:31
    Yeah, quite right. Yeah, I mean, you might even be able to bring some of those licenses and those titles. Well, not only that, but as you might remember, Slash was actually heavily involved in the design of Guns N' Roses. And apparently he likes a taste of pinball design and working with Eric Meunier. So we might actually see a future collaboration between the two.
    60:56
    And that's probably going to be not on another Guns N' Roses pinball themed game, but something else. Yeah, absolutely. That might interest Slash and Eric.
    61:09
    Yeah. And speaking of Guns N' Roses. Yeah, I was going to say. Go on, talk about the code updates. I was about to say, Sash has plenty of other musical collaborations as well. You know, he's a revolver and works with Miles Kennedy and plenty of other artists as well. So there's a lot of, just sticking with the music alone, there's plenty of other possibilities there. But yeah, Guns N' Roses, two updates, actually, in January, one on the 5th, one on the 10th, version 1.10.
    61:39
    Mostly of stuff for the collector edition, which, as you said, is now in production. That fixed a bug which caused the game to crash in coma mode and added some more light shows for the back box and the under cabinet lighting, which is unique to the CE, the collector edition.
    61:59
    The version 1.12 came out on the 10th, which added even more light shows, fixed more bugs that caused the game to crash during the night train, and welcomed them to the jungle mode. but those are on the standard and the limited edition models rather than the collector editions. So something there for people who haven't got collector edition, as well as a few other sort of regular bug fixes which come with every update as standard. So version 1.12, released on 10th of January, is the current latest version. So if you haven't got it and you've got that game, you should update it and fix some of those bugs and crashes. right okay now before we move on let me check in with Gary, Gary are you still there? hello we just have a couple of small tidbits to discuss and then we'll get right back to you okay?
    62:55
    thanks good right okay so well the next one is very very brief and short Deep Root Pinball yeah well this is probably something for you to talk about because it's not something which I actually saw but I understand that Steve Bowden's been spreading the word about everything that's been going on down in the Deep Root facility in San Antonio. Yeah Stephen Bowden who is in charge of the coding and game rules of the Deep Root games has been featured on a local I suppose it's a news channel Fox 29 which is indeed related to the Fox Group and Fox 29 apparently airs in the San Antonio area where he basically he shot a segment in the What's Brewing Coffee shop where he explained that he was working at Deep Root that they are making pinball machines and that he basically he plays pinball as a job.
    64:07
    You know, and the segment was called San Antonio Proud. So I suppose that's an item that comes on regularly where a local tells what San Antonio could be proud of. And in this case, it was Deep Root Pinball that got highlighted and Stephen Bowden. So nice exposure locally. and Stephen did share it on his Facebook and other socials probably as well. So if you want to see what he did, look it up on his Facebook page or something like that. Yeah, it might get an insight into what's going on inside the Deep Root Pinball Factory maybe.
    64:47
    Well, actually, from the footage, basically he was playing existing pinball machines from I saw a No Good Govers and some couple of other 90s Williams games, I think. I can't remember exactly what, but... Okay. I don't recall him playing Raza in the video. Oh, okay. That's a shame. Okay, well, maybe we'll have a follow-up in the future. Right. Okay, so moving further up north, we're, in fact, all the way up towards the border with Canada, and Swiggy Pinball, who... Not a lot going on there. They're busy building their Rick and Morty games, but they have managed to bring out a nice new code update for Alice Cooper's Nightmare Tarsal. That's now up to version 1.1.0.4 as of the 19th of January.
    65:41
    Looking at the release notes for that, there are a ton of bug fixes, and we were talking about bug fixes earlier on some of the models, and this has a long, long, long list of fixes for that game. Which we're not going to address in this podcast. We are absolutely not. I mean, we already have Gary waiting, so we're not going to do that. Yeah. So, that's it, really. Just to mention some minor changes to how a few of the features work as well as the bug fixes. So, yeah, 1.1.0.4, Alice Cooper, update it if you haven't already. Yeah, and I think Bo and Keren actually did a tutorial on how to play the game with the new code update. So, look out for that as well. I think Spooky Pinball mentioned it on their social media. Right. Okay.
    66:30
    Now then, what else? Well, we've finished wrapping up the pinball manufacturers that we know about at the moment. If your company name has not come up, there was no news. Yes, that's true. Yeah.
    66:45
    Well, we were hoping that Chicago Gaming might have brought in one and announced their next title by now, but they haven't. So they're busy doing whatever they're doing. Keep manufacturing their existing remake titles and working on their own homebrew, or their own in-house developed title as well. But they're not ready to announce anything. They weren't ready to announce anything in January 2021.
    67:12
    Right. Okay. So also no news from Dutch Pinball to report. They're still building the Big Lebowski, of course, but in their new facility. Yep. And I will actually be visiting them next week or at the end of this week.
    67:28
    So I get a chance to see the new facility. I can tell you about that probably on the next podcast. No news from Haggis Pinball either. No news from Home Pin. No.
    67:42
    It's a reasonably quiet time of year. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's talk about some news that's not directly related to manufacturers. Right. Well, there's a very interesting fundraiser currently going on for the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. As you may remember, Tim Arnold and co. from the Las Vegas Pinball Collector Club are building their third home. They started some way off Down Some way away from the strip And next to a movie theatre Then they moved to their current location Which is halfway towards the strip And now their new home With their new 10 million dollar building In total Is currently under construction At the south end of the strip Next to the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Pinball Fabulous Las Vegas sign And And, of course, they have their own amazing sign outside their building, will have when it's finished, as well as the word pinball projected onto the front of the building. But the COVID pandemic has really impacted on the takings at their current location. Now, they've had to reduce capacity.
    69:03
    Las Vegas, fewer and fewer people are going to Las Vegas now than in living memory. People just aren't traveling there. so the income that they rely on from their existing location in order to fund the build and the completion of their new location has kind of dried up and they were already planning to open in January and that's been pushed back now to May and they are now appealing for funds in order to finish off the build of the new place. Right. It has become apparent that the way that things are going at the current pace they are likely to run out of money so that's why this GoFundMe campaign has been initiated They're looking to raise $200,000 and as of this morning $95,000 had been raised so far And bear in mind with GoFundMe It's not like a Kickstarter where you have to get the total target or you get nothing at all. If they make 100,000 or 200,000, they get 100,000, and that keeps them going for a while.
    70:17
    Now, obviously, the Hall of Fame is, I don't want to say it's divisive, but it's had its detractors, shall we say, over the years, the way that it's run as a sort of shoestring operation. but as far as I'm concerned and it's just me speaking I think it's going to be the biggest public face of pinball in the world people who don't know anything about pinball who would never normally go to an arcade and play there or a barcade or any of the pinball museums around the world will probably go to Las Vegas and will see this enormous pinball building with amazing sign and and uh word pinball projected on the front that's going to be a big draw to them for them and there and the fact they can get in and uh experience it for nothing as well in a las vegas which is you know so money driven it's something which which needs to be positive and draw them into all the all the good aspects of the game so so it's important that they don't that it continues to exist and and it projects a positive image of pinball to the to the bigger public so well there are there are plenty of other very very worthy causes um who need funding and who are struggling in these times when arcades barcades museums are closed and people can't play pinball in location um this is a another um just another you know organization out there asking for for help but it has an impact that's beyond simply being an arcade I think the only thing what I'm well there's a couple of things that I'm actually wondering about I donated, let's make sure let's put that out there in the first place because I really want to see this happening but it also makes me wonder like why is for example Stern Pinball not saying like hey how much do you need we'll take care of it you know and um someone on the uh in the pintide thread suggested i think it was um a video um jack um he suggested why don't they license the naming rights for the pinball hall of fame for a few years to a large company and It doesn't have to be Motorola or DHL or I don't know what kind of service, but it could be a pinball company or... Or an internet company or a mobile phone company. Yeah, I mean, the same way that they do stadiums over there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, it could be that. Absolutely. And, I mean, the amount of money that they are looking for is probably peanuts for companies like those. You might even wonder whether it's a tax deduction or not.
    73:27
    Obviously, I don't know the details about that. But it makes me wonder, like, okay, why scrape for pennies if you can get large bills? Well, you have to remember that Tim and Co. have been fiercely independent in doing what they've done. They're trying to not ask people for money at any point. They haven't taken any sponsorship. They did do a sort of membership scheme for a while where people get their name up on the wall in order to raise some money. So maybe that's something they could do a bit more. But at the moment, they're just trying to simply get donations in order to keep going. And, you know, I reckon if they actually came to it, they probably could go to the bank and get a loan. But they trying so hard to keep it affordable and manageable and get everything paid off according to their original timeline so they can get back to making their charitable donations to the Salvation Army Right.
    74:31
    Now, there's one thing that's sort of worrying, and I didn't see anybody bring it up yet. Then again, I didn't read everything. but as we as you and I know and a lot of our listeners probably too especially if you've been to the pinball hall of fame I'd say Tim Arnold with all respect is a rather eccentric entrepreneur obviously he likes to donate but he runs things his way and the entire operation is run by volunteers which is all very affordable but Tim isn't the youngest himself no that's true what will happen I mean they're now building a 10 million dollar building let's say everything goes as hoped for they move the entire pinball hall of fame over there there's a 10 million dollar building with 700 pinball machines and arcade machines and one day Tim's no longer there then what happens that's true it is the Las Vegas Pinball Collector Clubs building, so I suppose there is some other accountability there or a responsibility for running the place but yes, it is pretty much Tim who's the well, Tim is the front man for the whole thing, isn't he? He's the fundraiser, he's the ringmaster, if you like And don't get me wrong, I wish Tim a very healthy and long life but it's just a concern, like okay, if it's all coming down to one person, and I see it with my own pinball magazine, if I'm not doing, or if something happens to me, it's the end of pinball magazine. It's as simple as that. Yes, you're right. Yes, of course.
    76:24
    So that made me wonder, like, okay, there's this $10 million building, which obviously that will gain in value, but what happens 700 games in there and then there's loads of games still in storage and I hate to think what might happen to it but then again hopefully they thought it through and they have a plan in place for what will happen exactly because it would be a pity if you fund it now and once Tim is gone so is the Pinball Hall of Fame I agree yeah so we've got some other news because I suppose we should probably get on to the award ceremony bit now really because voting has just closed for the fourth annual Twippy Awards now normally well I say normally last time it was held at a show it was held at the Texas Pinball Festival but that was in 2019 right 2020 it was online and it's going to be online again this year right and it'll be held on the 27th of march right at 8 p.m eastern time so um for those of us in the uh in europe um in the middle of the night or early in the morning and uh for everybody else in the u.s and Canada, North America it'll be in the evening, or early evening so voting is finished yes so voting has finished for the Twippies but there was this other award show first time award show organized by the Pinball Network and they call their awards the Pinball Industry Awards and And the difference with these awards and the Twippies is that the Twippies is actually voted by the people, so to speak. and the Pinball Industry Awards are basically picked or the sum of the opinions of various people in the pinball media and such that send in their best in whatever category you can think of and they added up those votes and that resulted in certain winners. Yes, there were the voting panels made up of 20 podcasters, nine streamers, nine video creators, two writers.
    79:15
    Now, you and I both voted in that, as you mentioned last time. It's very interesting that I was considered a podcaster while I published a magazine, but okay, I'll take it. I think it was for whatever happened in the previous year, whereas there wasn't a Pinball magazine as such came out in the past year. I did a little bit of issue two that came out in January. That's true.
    79:43
    But, yeah, well, I was down as a writer for the Pinball News stuff, but rather than the podcasting, so I guess either way we've got ourselves covered. Right.
    79:52
    And, yeah, the whole thing was pre-recorded recorded and done as a very professional and well-produced production that was put online and done hosted by zach and greg from uh pinball network i suppose from shows on there uh no as you are probably aware we are not part of the pinball network but we uh they could not afford us no that's right no well all the riders that we demanded there was too much apparently i thought It was fair, but there you go.
    80:27
    But, yeah, there were a whole bunch of awards which were voted for. There were some which were picked by a smaller committee from the pinball network, of which we had no input. Right.
    80:39
    So the... Okay, so... Can we go through them? While it is worth watching the one hour and 45 minute show, here are, or here is, a summary of who won what. Yeah. Well, the big winner, I suppose, of the night or the awards was, unsurprisingly, the Guns and Roses game from Jersey Jack Pimble, which won in the following categories. The best lighting effects, theme integration, innovation, music, animation display effects, and also won the overall best in show award.
    81:16
    And rightfully so. Yeah, I think so. I think it's hard to imagine any other competitors beating it in those particular categories. Rick and Morty, that game, also won a couple of awards. It won for best sound effects and call-outs. Right.
    81:37
    OK. Hold on. I can't believe it. It's Gary calling again. No, it's not. I can't believe it. OK. Let's start with Rick and Morty again. I'll edit that out.
    81:53
    Rick and Morty also won in a couple of categories. For instance, Squeaky Pimble, congratulations to them, who won the best sound effects and the best call-outs. So obviously some benefits there from getting, as we were talking about earlier, complete buy-in from the licensors and getting the original voice actors to do all the call-outs for that game, just as Guns N' Roses had some amazing calls, I should say, voice calls in that title as well. Yeah, I was actually surprised that they beat Guns N' Roses in the terms of call-outs. I think it's just in terms of it being funny, I think.
    82:36
    Guns N' Roses has some great call-outs, but everyone loves humour in a game, don't they, really? Oh, yeah. And Morty really captures that very well. before success.
    82:48
    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles also got a couple of awards for the best cabinet slash back glass artwork, I should say. And also for the play field artwork. So basically artwork package, really. Or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Right, so that's a Jeremy Packer package. So congratulations to Jeremy Packer as well. Yeah, absolutely. The Avengers Infinity Quest got a couple of awards as well for Best Playfield Layout and the Rules, Best Rules. Okay.
    83:21
    Haven't played it yet, so I wouldn't be able to tell you. Exactly. I have the same feeling. You know, I sort of look fairly blankly at that and go, good. It must be good. We'll look forward to enjoying them when we actually get our hands on a machine. Right. The other award, the final other award, I suppose, went to the Multimorphic P3 game for Steven Silver, Heist, which had the best toys for the crane the three dimensional crane toy on that which is pretty impressive and a worthy winner I'd say and I'm happy to see that it's not just the big companies scraping up the awards but also the smaller ones yeah absolutely spooky and multi-morphic both getting awards surprisingly no nothing for American Pinball while Hot Wheels actually has been a surprisingly fun game yeah although there is no category for funnest game I'm not sure whether it would have won in there but I don't think American Pinball was even nominated in any of the categories as in the top three but okay it's a good all rounder I think is the issue there maybe not outstanding in a particular aspect but a very good solid and as you say enjoyable title right so then they had a they started a hall of fame for pinball machines of course pinball expo already has a pinball hall of fame for people working in the industry and now there is a Hall of Fame for pinball machines.
    85:13
    Yes, covering different decades, I suppose, or different eras, shall we say, starting with EMs going to the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s. Yeah, it's actually a pity that they don't have a pre-war category, I would say.
    85:31
    What would your nomination be for that? Well, there's a couple of games that a belly who for example oh yeah landmark game belly airway or the one that you did the baseball one yeah the mechanical one there was also things like jigsaw and army and navy which were ground breaking at the time and still absolute marvels to look at these days and see how they operate I think they definitely deserve to be in such a Pinball Hall of Fame because they actually if it wasn't for those games we might not be playing pinball right now. Yeah, great. Games like Bumper as well. Yeah, exactly. So many and Humpty Dumpty. Yeah, so well there's a couple of usual suspects and a few of those actually already got inducted so to speak this year. Let me know, tell us which are the games that were inducted? Well, the EM Games, representative of the EMS, was Grand Prix from Williams, which is a very good, solid game. Not necessarily my favourite EM, but it's in there in the Hall of Fame. From the 70s, solid estate games, we have Stern Meteor, which I think we'll probably all be familiar with. And I think that's a very worthy game. I really enjoy playing that it came out in September of 79 it qualifies as a 70s solid state but I think there's really not much difference between the solid states from the late 70s and the early 80s but that's just me it would make more sense to have a category for early solid state and well maybe they should go with numeric solid state, alpha numeric solid state and the dot matrix solid state, for example. Yeah, true. But it is what it is. The 80s solid state is represented by 8-ball deluxe. Right. Which came out a couple of months later. It's an iconic pinball from that era, I think. Oh yeah, no argument with that either.
    87:59
    90s, well obviously things have taken a bit of a leap as you get into the 90s. Right now, so we're going to 90s, so we're skipping, we're going from numeric solid state, we're jumping to dot matrix and we're skipping alpha numerics.
    88:16
    Entirely, yeah. Although it could fit into the 80s or the 90s, I suppose. But if you had to pick an iconic game from each of those eras, I suppose it's a reasonable judgment to put medieval badness in as the 1990s classic game.
    88:37
    Oh yeah, definitely, yeah. If you had to pick a game, I think it's got to be it. Actually, I think it should have been Adam's Family.
    88:45
    Well, yeah, it's arguable. That's a game that did best on location. Medieval Mantis, as great as a game it is on location at that time, not so much. Yeah, it's hard to know what the actual requirement is for a game to get into the Hall of Fame. Is it the most famous game? Or the best game Of that particular decade Yeah I mean Adam's family If you talk to non-pimple people Of a certain age You ask them about pinball They will remember the Adams family Oh yeah absolutely Yeah Okay moving on 2000s Lord of the Rings Seems to have got the nod on that one Yeah would not have been my pick probably not mine either but it's not a bad game and 2010s which quite a lot happened in that decade The Wizard of Oz as being iconic in the sense that it I guess kick-started the renaissance of pinball yeah I suppose so argument there, although I can think of other games I enjoy more, but that's a personal thing. Yeah. The thing is, it's significant, I suppose, rather than whether it's necessarily the most enjoyable to play. Right, okay. And then there were the Pinball Network Committee selections for excellence in various categories.
    90:25
    Yeah, this was a smaller group of people some of whom were who could have been represented within the um the nominations but i think most in fact nearly all cases i think they they sort of said if they were nominated they would they would stand aside and uh and not not accept the nomination from the uh from the committee but uh the excellence in pinball streaming uh went to ie pinball which is carl d'angelo pretty much and all the work he's done down in the all the games that he's streamed and the informational videos as well the instructional videos that he's done and explanatory ones which really have shown the sort of the top end of pinball playing normally when you come to pinball streaming people tend to think oh it's going to be dead flip it's going to be Jack Danger again going to win that one. So, interesting to see an alternative take on it this time around.
    91:28
    Podcasting? Well, surprisingly, we didn't win. What? I know. But who did win was somebody we mentioned earlier, so I guess we've... Actually, I find that still rather surprising, but happy for them. Lose a Kid Pinball Podcast. So, congrats. Absolutely. Yeah. In a photography category, the excellent in photography award went to Charles Acosta from Pinball Photos. Yeah, that's, with all due respect, would not have been my pick. But then again, I have a connection to another photographer, which I think makes the best photos in pinball, which is why he's working for me. oh well there you go and if you want to find out then buy Santiago Chufo's pinball book with pinball machines from Argentina which is rather interesting but even follow him on his social media and he still posts photos that haven't been published in books yet but they really grab me every time so two very different approaches to pinball photography and Charles is obviously very much about the beauty shots of pinball and I think it's fair to say that Santiago's work is more about it's more sort of gritty realistic um depiction of how pinball is uh is enjoyed in different parts of the world right so but Charles was also picked to do the um the publicity shots for the Guns and Roses game So we ended up using Quite a few of his pictures In our reports about The launch of that game So they all turned out very nicely So congratulations to Charles That's the static side And then there's the moving side Which is the excellence in videography Which went to two different people One who's been a Who's appeared in Pimple Magazine Indeed, Emoto Right Has she appeared in People Magazine Or is she going to No she will definitely be in a future issue I think I might have been jumping the gun there a bit But it's always a pleasure running into her And She's such a good spirited Fun person To be around with So congratulations to Emoto And Emoto Harney Who does Emoto Arcade And done an awful lot of video interviews as well for Marco at various shows. So, yeah, and a good ambassador for pinball. And also shared with Gavin Free from the Slow Mo Guys who's done some amazing work showing how pinball rubbers and how the pinball game reacts to the motion of the ball and the impact of the ball using the very impressive slow-mo techniques which they use to show how things react in ultra slow-mo so you can, things you will never see with the naked eye. Yes, what happens if you shoot a steel ball across a playfield or catch it with a flipper? Yeah, it's quite astonishing. So congratulations to Gavin and to Moto for winning the Videography Award. So I think that's everything from the Pinball Industry Awards. Right, okay. So, well, we did mention when the Twippy's is. That's March 27th. So that covers it actually for Pinball Awards. Yes, indeed.
    95:15
    Before we go to Gary, one final item that came in that I just want to mention. Brian Allen of Flyland Designs has been doing quite a couple of alternative translates for various classic games, I would say. And he just announced Art Blades for Medieval Madness that fits, that are in the same style of his translate as well. Yeah, so he did Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, done Whitewater, I think was his most recent one, and as you say, now Medieval Madness Art Blades, all the inside of the cabinet. And when I first looked at them, I thought, I'm not sure. Then I saw them in the game, and I thought, yeah, he's got it. Yeah, that really works well. It's got really nice catapult artwork for the area around the catapult on the left-hand side and on the right-hand side as well. You know, it's a completely different design, but it all matches up with the features on the play field, and I think it's a very nice bit of work. Right. So that makes me curious. Is he also going to do plastic sets?
    96:34
    Oh, well, it's almost like the next step, isn't it? Oh, well, I guess that rounds it up. So we still have Gary waiting. Come on, let's bring him on. Let's head over to Gary. Gary, how are you doing?
    96:48
    Can you believe it? What? Oh, you're kidding Well, I guess we We kind of owed that, aren't we, after last time Aren't we? Well, we kind of forgot about him And he's kind of forgotten about us So, that's a shame I guess the Takeaway there is to To get him on when we can Okay, well, for future episodes Let's keep that in mind Yeah, okay Well, I think that wraps up I'll look back at January 2021 unless you can think of anything else we need to cover Jonathan no I think that's it good ok is there anything that we can expect for this month February well I don't think we'll get any more shows I don't think there's actually many planned for February so we're not really missing out no I don't think so either can't think of anything hopefully Deepfruit will make will surprise us with something well I've still got plenty to be getting on with building their Razor games but perhaps we will see some alien machines coming out ok well in order to find out what will happen in the month of February tune in next month when we look back at February 2020 one sorry yeah well for fun just for fun let's look back at February 2020 well if you want to do that then we do have a podcast on our site which you can get to through Anger FM, Apple Podcasts and Spotify as well look back from one year ago and see what happened then but yes as you say we will be back at the very very start of March 2021 looking back at all the events in the pinball world from the previous month. So until then, from myself, Martin Leob, and from my co-host, Jonathan Euston of Pinball Magazine, we wish you a very happy February, and we will see you at the end of it. Okay, thanks. Bye.