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Buyer Beware

This Flippin' Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 53m·analyzed·Oct 14, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Deep Root Pinball criticized; Tommy purchases MultiMorphic P3 as pricing becomes competitive.

Summary

In this episode of This Flippin' Podcast, hosts Tommy Skinner and Taylor Reese discuss Deep Root Pinball's collapse and criminal conduct, express sympathy for affected employees and investors, celebrate Doc Finlay's wedding and a custom Gorgar retheme called 'Felina,' and focus heavily on Tommy's recent purchase of a MultiMorphic P3 modular pinball system, analyzing its compelling cost-per-game economics as other manufacturers raise prices.

Key Claims

  • Deep Root Pinball founder engaged in scam-like practices with poor communication, false sponsorships, and no product delivery

    high confidence · Tommy and Taylor discussing Deep Root's red flags from inception, sponsorship of Texas Pinball Festival with zero presence, and smoke-and-mirrors operation

  • MultiMorphic P3 with three playfields costs $15,095 total, or ~$5,000 per game, which is cheaper than a Stern Pro

    high confidence · Tommy reading directly from MultiMorphic website pricing and performing cost-per-game analysis

  • Taylor finished and shipped 35-40 sets of custom rails in two weeks, including a dozen to High End Pins

    high confidence · Taylor discussing his rail-making business activity since kids returned to school in late August

  • Stern Heavy Metal home pin layout game was priced at $8,000, contributing to poor sales

    medium confidence · Tommy recalling pricing from 2-3 years ago when Heavy Metal was announced; some uncertainty acknowledged

  • Phil's custom Gorgar retheme 'Felina' took approximately two years to complete and required playfield restoration work

    medium confidence · Tommy describing Phil's wedding machine project with some stated uncertainty about exact timeline

  • MultiMorphic current wait time for ordered machines is 14-16 weeks from order to delivery

    high confidence · Tommy reading directly from MultiMorphic.com website current wait time estimate

  • Nick Boulders has designed multiple games for the MultiMorphic P3 platform and works at rapid pace

    high confidence · Tommy discussing Nick's prolific design contributions to the P3 ecosystem

  • MultiMorphic's new licensed title features music by Scott Tenisi and represents unannounced IP

    high confidence · Tommy citing Jerry (MultiMorphic founder) on recent Backbox Pinball Podcast episode discussing the secret licensed game

Notable Quotes

  • “If somebody is asking you to put money up front for something that they have nothing to show you buyer beware.”

    Taylor Reese @ ~16:00 — Core business philosophy about deposits and upfront payments in pinball industry; directly relates to Deep Root Pinball criticism

  • “I already forgot the dude's name. But whatever the dumbass owner of the company is, I hope he rots in jail.”

    Taylor Reese @ ~10:00 — Expresses extreme frustration with Deep Root Pinball founder; shows emotional impact on community

  • “This is such a close-knit community. We don't want to see anyone getting screwed over, especially because most likely it's somebody we do know and somebody we do care about.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~11:00 — Emphasizes tight-knit nature of pinball community and concern for affected members

  • “I think it's unfortunate that a lot of people did get wrapped up in it because they were excited about the project or they were excited about being in on something.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~12:30 — Shows empathy for victims while acknowledging role of excitement/hype in participation

  • “I don't want to feel like total garbage afterwards. Oh, that's a good idea, then. You should train. And I'm old, so I'll be turning 50 in February.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~28:00 — Personal aside revealing Tommy's age (turning 50) and fitness activities; humanizes host

  • “Suddenly the P3 was looking like more and more of a bargain and there's...the floodgates opening on the potential of this platform.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~48:00 — Explains decision rationale for P3 purchase in context of industry price increases

  • “When you start breaking that down per game, I'm now looking at like $5,000 per game, which is less than a Stern Pro at this point.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~62:00 — Key economic comparison showing P3 cost advantage vs. traditional manufacturers

  • “It's just the fact that there continues to be this development and expansion of the system and their pricing has remained the same even through COVID, whereas everyone else has shot up.”

Entities

Tommy SkinnerpersonTaylor ReesepersonDeep Root PinballcompanySteve BowenpersonDoc FinlaypersonPhilpersonMultiMorphiccompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Deep Root Pinball appears to have collapsed; hosts confirm founder engaged in fraudulent practices, poor communication, false sponsorships without product presence, and took investor money without delivery

    high · Tommy: 'Deep Root. Let's see. Let's go back. When were they founded?' Discussion of red flags from day one, sponsorship of Texas Pinball Festival with zero presence, and overall fraud-like operation model

  • $

    market_signal: MultiMorphic P3 platform has become cost-competitive with traditional manufacturers as Stern and others raise prices; cost-per-game at ~$5k/game is now lower than Stern Pro entry point

    high · Tommy: 'When you start breaking that down per game, I'm now looking at like $5,000 per game, which is less than a Stern Pro at this point.' Analysis of three-playfield bundle at $15,095

  • ?

    product_strategy: Tommy's P3 purchase signals growing operator interest in modular/software-based platforms as price stability and customization appeal overcome traditional pinball skepticism

    medium · Tommy: 'suddenly the P3 was looking like more and more of a bargain...the floodgates opening on the potential of this platform' and decision to place on location despite it being non-traditional

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: MultiMorphic experiencing 14-16 week lead times from order to delivery; Tommy's order from 6 weeks ago originally quoted 12-16 weeks; wait times extended from initial 6-8 weeks due to supply chain and demand

    high · Tommy: 'if I had ordered like from the first day...it was only like a six to eight week wait...I ended up pushing it off...The wait had extended to 12 to 16 weeks'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.340

0:00
The episode you are about to hear contains explicit words. The opinions within are those of the hosts and in no way imply that anyone listening to this podcast agrees with anything we say. Please send complaints to thiswebandpodcast at gmail.com.
0:30
Thank you. What's up, listeners? This is Tommy Skinner joined by Taylor Reese. We are the hosts of this flipping podcast. We've been doing this for like five, six years or something like that now. I've lost track. This is apparently episode 114.
1:41
We have not recorded in two months because sometimes life happens. Tons of stuff has happened within the pinball industry. We were kind of just doing some bullet points before we started recording here because we don't do show notes. We just riff on each other back and forth as much as we can. We wander off topic. We just enjoy pinball. If you're listening to the show after this many years, you probably know how it goes by now. But, Taylor, how have you been? I'm pretty good.
2:08
I've been busy. The rail business has picked back up once my kids go back into school. Because I think we last talked August the 6th. Is that correct? But yeah, it was literally like the day before school started for me. It was my last teacher work day, and this is my next teacher work day.
2:31
And yeah, so I don't have kids here at the building with me today. I am in the building, so you'll probably hear some bells go off from time to time to signify a passing period. But I'm just sitting here monitoring my students online, and we've been in school for four hours today so far. And I've had one out of 27 kids log in and do any work. So it's going good. Going good. But, yeah, I'm good. I mean, yeah, like I said, I started up the rail making again, and I think I started – my kids went back the end of August, and so I probably started up at the beginning of September because I usually start around Labor Day because the weather changes and my kids go back to school.

Tommy Skinner @ ~64:00 — Highlights MultiMorphic's price stability as strategic advantage amid industry-wide increases

Jerry
person
Nick Bouldersperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Scott Tenisiperson
Buffalo Pinballorganization
Cidercadevenue
Pinball Garagevenue
High End Pinscompany
Riot Pinballcompany
This Flippin' Podcastorganization
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Backbox Pinball Podcastorganization

supply_chain_signal: Supply chain disruptions affecting entire pinball industry and adjacent sectors; Stern experiencing year+ backlog on Deadpool Premium; general parts availability issues

high · Tommy: 'I know someone who's been waiting over a year for a Deadpool Premium...Stern just keeps pushing it back' and Taylor noting inability to source specific to-go cups and liquor at bar

  • ?

    product_launch: MultiMorphic has unannounced licensed title in development with composer Scott Tenisi; Jerry expressed unusual enthusiasm suggesting significant IP; maintained as tightly kept secret

    high · Tommy: 'Jerry was just on the Backbox Pinball Podcast a week or two ago, and he was talking about that...There's really been no hints as to what it is...I could even hear the excitement in his voice'

  • ?

    design_innovation: MultiMorphic P3 experiencing creative expansion with multiple designers (Nick Boulders) creating new playfield kits; Sorcerer's Apprentice announced as software update to existing Cosmic Kart Racing playfield

    high · Tommy: 'the floodgates opening on the potential of this platform' and discussion of 'Sorcerer's Apprentice last month' using existing Cosmic Kart Racing playfield with new code

  • ?

    community_signal: Deep Root Pinball collapse creating community-wide concern for affected investors and employees; empathy expressed for those trapped by excitement/FOMO; interpersonal tension noted in forums

    high · Tommy: 'We don't want to see anyone getting screwed over...somebody we do know and somebody we do care about' and 'people are just nasty towards one another' on Pinside

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Phil's Felina custom Gorgar retheme exemplifies growing trend of custom cosmetic and playfield restorations; took ~2 years; used decals with playfield protector; significant custom artwork integration

    medium · Tommy describing Felina project with custom artists, cabinet decals styled as stencils, playfield artwork incorporating couple's personal elements (Vespas, cats, dog)

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: P3 platform sentiment shifting positive as pricing becomes competitive and design ecosystem expands; hosts previously skeptical now viewing it as viable alternative to traditional pinball

    medium · Tommy: 'I know that that platform has a lot of haters and doubters...But at this point, I think it is going to be something I really appreciate'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Tommy managing space constraints with growing collection; P3 modular system appeals as way to maintain diversity while managing physical footprint; considering reducing from 25 machines if life circumstances change

    medium · Tommy: 'I'm super duper out of space...if this was...if I get to a point in my life where something drastically changes and I realize I can't operate 25 machines anymore...this helps me'

    • 3:15
    So that has just been keeping me super busy. I've been playing a lot of Avengers. I feel like I finally have a handle on most of the rules. I actually have a question for you that maybe you can explain to me something. But so, yeah, I've been doing that. I've obviously like I've been keeping up with what's happening in the pinball world as much as I feel comfortable with.
    3:41
    And, yeah, there's been a ton of stuff that's happened since we've spoken. So, yeah, let's get into it. I think the first thing we should talk about is the Deep Root situation, just so we can say that we said something about it.
    4:01
    Deep Root. Let's see. Let's go back. When were they founded? I don't know, two, three years ago. I think longer than that probably at this point. Probably. I've lost track of all time with the whole COVID situation. But I'm pretty sure since day one, you and I were like, oh, fuck this guy and fuck this company, except for Steve Bowden because he's cool as shit. So we got bad vibes from day one because the dude came in and said pinball was easy. And as members of this hobby, you as somebody who's running a small business providing parts for people that go into restorations, me having done a couple of restorations, we know how fucking hard it is to make a game when we already have everything there. Like, you're just reassembling and assembling. And this dude was talking about designing shit from scratch, updating things, modifying the entire industry. John Papadu. Yeah, man. His first hire was just nothing but red flags the entire fucking time. Oh, but I'm so glad that there are certain podcasters out there that saw the writing on the wall.
    5:06
    Oh, man. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I do, I mean, we've got a couple friends who did send in a little bit of money. Yeah. Hopefully they're protected. Because, like, that's the thing is, like, this is such a close-knit community. We don't want to see anyone getting screwed over, especially because most likely it's somebody we do know and somebody we do care about.
    5:25
    You know, I hope that, I'm sure there were good employees there who were really excited to be working in pinball. Because realistically, if some pinball company, for whatever reason, came to me today and offered me some sort of position within a pinball company, it would be really hard to turn down. Because, like, I truly love pinball. You know, I don't know what sort of skills that I have that could actually apply to a pinball company, probably a next to nothing. But I can understand why people would want to have that opportunity to work in pinball and would be all excited about that. and how you would, you know, throw caution to the wind and potentially overlook some red flags. I work in school. I can tell you in hindsight, like, I wish I had listened to other professionals about how not fun the teaching industry is. But, you know, I ignored the red flags and went into it anyway. So, you know, I get it. But the bottom line is I already forgot the dude's name. But whatever the dumbass owner of the company is, I hope he rots in jail. I hope all the things that happened in jail happened to him, and I hope our friends get their money back. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I feel bad for anybody who got in on any level, and, yeah, hopefully they just get their money back. I hate, like, seeing people, like, crap on people who – it's tough because, you know, it's like the more people who buy into it, the easier it is for other people to buy into it. And I think that that's the thing that – that's the thing that bothers me the most about how it affects the hobby is that you do have people who kind of turn on each other because of that who are simply just hobbyists, right? I mean like the pin side threads I mean people are just nasty towards one another and it's kind of like when it comes down to it you had a person who was running a scam and you know the red flags were up I mean going back to Texas Pinball Festival and seeing all the banners of Deep Root sponsoring the Texas Pinball Festival but they had zero presence like that's kind of a big sign that something is really off with the way that this company is being run.
    7:43
    And I mean, and one of the things, I mean, in this day and age of like too much communication, when you have companies or you have people who entities that are calling themselves companies, especially in this hobby that don't communicate well. I mean, I certainly understand, like, there's an idea of, like, you want to, like, keep things under wraps for excitement purposes. But it's one thing to, like, prevent a leak. It's another thing to just not, like, disseminate any information whatsoever. And with the way that Deep Root was being run, it was just kind of like this smoke and mirror thing. I think it's unfortunate that a lot of people did get wrapped up in it because they were excited about the project or they were excited about being in on something. But that's also kind of tough, too, because then at some point it's like, well, were you in on it or were you – because if you were in on it and you knew shit was going on, I mean, you know, that's the thing. If somebody asks you to sign an NDA and you see some shit going on that's not great, like, I don't know. That's a tough situation. Like, I would never want to be put in that position. But I can also understand, like, if you feel, like I said, if you feel like you're going to get some inside information and then you find out that that inside information isn't great, like, what do you do? I don't know. It's tough. But, yeah, he's a piece of shit. And, yeah, I want to say that we called that a long time ago.
    9:16
    Yeah, us and the Buffalo pinball guys, look, like, I don't think any of us are geniuses by any means. I don't know. I'm feeling pretty smart today. I don't think you can be as genius as me how that was a fucking dumpster fire.
    9:29
    I figured out. I explained to my daughter yesterday how to determine percentage, and I felt pretty good about that.
    9:40
    And then I had to check with my older daughter to make sure that I had not screwed up my younger daughter's education by steering her in the wrong direction. But, yeah, buyer beware, man, all the time. ever, anytime buyer beware. If somebody is asking you to put money up front for something that they're, they have nothing to show you buyer beware. Like I know that with my business, I don't take money until your rails or whatever I'm making for you until it's done. Like until I have something for you, I don't want anything from you. Like if you, I, if I need your money to make your thing, just buyer beware.
    10:23
    That's it. I totally get that. All right, so do you plan to – And I appreciate it because I think I should be getting my cheater rails any day now. Your cheater rails should be there at any time. Yeah, I finished up – oh, man, it was crazy. I finished up – I did like – I posted and then I got a big order from High End Pins and I sent him rails. I just send them to him raw, so he paints them because he's always set up to paint.
    10:52
    And so I think I did, like, maybe a dozen rails for him, and then I think I shipped, like, 35, 40 sets of rails in the last two weeks. It was crazy, crazy. But, yeah, so that was good.
    11:13
    So, yeah, Deep Root sucks. They're gone. On a more positive news out of Texas? Yes. Friend of the show and former guest. Oh, yes. Dr. Phil got married, so I just want to give them a congratulations.
    11:27
    Yeah, I got to go down. I made a whirlwind 26-hour trip from Indiana to Houston, flew in, went and played some pinball at Cidercade, went to the wedding, went back to the hotel very late, got up very early, and got back on a plane. Chris and Raleigh were kind of nice to give me a ride back to the hotel after hanging out like the whole Houston pinball scene was pretty much at the wedding and they were super cool in embracing me and letting me hang out with them since I didn't really know a ton of other folks there except for I did eat dinner with like a very nice 75 80 year old couple I have realized I am officially old like you because I went that that happened to me at Houston two weeks ago and then And my flight, I flew to South Carolina this past weekend to do a little bit of a college reunion with a couple of my former roommates. One of them bought his first house, so we were doing a little celebration.
    12:24
    And my flight got delayed, and a very kind 81-year-old gentleman asked if he could use my phone charger and then proceeded to talk to me for three or four hours. So it's cool. I'm embracing the oldness. Thanks, man. I'm glad I could soften you up to the older generation.
    12:42
    Yeah, yeah, you were a good, like, stepping stone, a gateway into the experience. But, no, it was really funny. I told Alyssa, I'm like, yeah, I've just accepted that I'm old because the last few large settings I've been in, these old people have flocked to me. You're not old. My beard's getting pretty gray. Oh, okay, maybe that's it. I shave all my gray hair off, so I am just, yeah. You're just old, but you don't look it because you're such fine tip-top shirt. You know, I'm not in bad shape. I'm training for a 10-mile trail run in December.
    13:19
    No, you don't even have to train for those. You can just go do them. Well, I know, but I don't want to feel like total garbage afterwards. Oh, that's a good idea, then. You should train. And I'm old, so I'll be turning 50 in February.
    13:35
    So take that, young person. Yeah, that is pretty old, man. But you're doing good. Thanks. I appreciate that. But, hey, a question about Phil's wedding. They had an amazing custom pinball machine there. They did. I want to hear about that. So Phil has been working on that for a very long time. I was able to, like, help look over photos of it and stuff along the way. So I've known about this. But it was a rethemed Gorgar. that's all it was was a cosmetic re-theme and he did turn on different dip switch settings that kind of altered the sounds but they were it's factory it's just not the sounds that you typically have on Gorgar so he worked with some different artists and the cabinet was decals it wasn't stenciled but it was done to look like a stencil the name of the game was Felina which is a combination of him and his wife's name and um it basically like kind of told their story through the playfield artwork like they have vespas they have cats they have a dog and like all of the stuff that's part of their life was incorporated into the playfield art it was incredibly well done um and the reality was like most of the the pinball crowd at the wedding ended up hanging out over there and playing dollar games on it i i think i lost three dollars to the houston scene a little disappointed in myself, but I also hate Gorgar, so it wasn't a surprise that I didn't do real well on it.
    15:08
    Phil actually did the re-theme, or did he work with some... Yeah, he worked with some artists that he found online to do the actual art, but he did all of the work in converting it and restoring it. He's literally been working on this thing for, I want to say, two years almost. But again, I've lost all track of time, so that could be way off. and it was coming down to like the nitty gritty on getting it assembled and like playable in time for the wedding. So I know he was like busting his butt in the weeks leading up to the wedding to do that. So it was, so he gifted himself a pinball machine for his wedding gift? Is that basically what happened? I think it was more like just to be entertaining, to entertain the crowd. Like it was, it was cool. I like that idea though. Yeah, it was, it was, it was very well done. I know some pictures went up on Instagram, and I think maybe only customs, like pinball page on Facebook, too, did some coverage of it. I'll talk to Phil. I got back from his honeymoon at this point, but I'm sure they're kind of adjusting to married life. I'll give him some time, but we'll get him on here sometime to talk about the project. It was really neat to see the evolution of it. And, like, obviously, Gorgar is a Williams game, but instead of it saying Williams, he changed the name to Philiums all over it. but in the same art style, it was beautiful. Like, the game was beautiful. It's still Gorgar, you know. Oh, there's the bell. All right, everybody go to class. Go to class. All right. That's typically I'm heading to lunch right now. We should use that to just change topics. That works, yeah. Topic change. While we're still on Texas, can I go into my exciting purchase? No, sorry. We have to move on from Texas. Damn. No, I'm sorry. No, you go ahead. I actually have one more question about Phil Lina's game. Yeah, go ahead. Did he do a hard top style play field? Or how did he do the play field? So, he, yes, essentially is kind of what he did. We'll get Phil on to talk about it. Yeah, I'm trying to remember the details. I know there was a problem with whatever he initially used, which I think was like a decal to cover the play field. Okay. And then it ended up lifting up, and he had to, like, redo it all. Okay. I think he ended up going with some sort of a heavier decal and then a play field protector over that. Ah, gotcha. of an actual hardtop okay um because i don't know if hardtop had done gorgar at the time he was like doing all of this i just didn't know if he had found like a source for somebody who could do a hardtop style one-off or yeah yeah i i i wish he did well we'll get him on and talk about it because i recently bought um an old play field of a game that i really liked that was already sanded down with the idea of doing a custom rethink oh nice uh i also am interested in the whole process so we'll get fell on and we'll have a long episode uh discusses the felina machine all right so what uh houston you something happening uh houston i did go to side arcade i did get to play heavy metal meltdown oh or not heavy metal meltdown but heavy metal sorry from stern yeah um and that was really fun it's like the home pin layout that they had used on a few other games but built into a full-size cabinet with a dmd display and i just want to say it was really fun to shoot. I didn't totally know what I was doing, but that's a fun layout, which does get me excited to yesterday's news as they unveiled the Jurassic Park pin layout, which I think Jack Danger basically did, it seems like. I didn't get to watch the stream last night, but it seems like they were going to stream it and talk about it at least. It looks cool. Those layouts are very fun.
    18:39
    The pricing at $4,500 is awesome. I just wish they would put like a full coin door on it so operators could use them, but I know that's not their target market with those machines. But anyway, the layout on Heavy Metal was fun. The pricing at $8,000, I would never buy one. But it was cool to see one on location, so thanks for Cidercade for putting that out there. Wait, that was an $8,000 game? Oh, yeah. Like, that was $8,000 like two or three years ago whenever they announced that thing. Yeah, it had crazy pricing. That's why they didn't really sell a ton of them. It's kind of like it was up there with like Beatles and the Kapow titles and stuff. But it was more of a home pin style? It used the Home Pin layout that they had used, I think, for Spider-Man and maybe Jurassic Park, or Spider-Man and Star Wars, maybe. Oh, wow. The layout was similar, but then those games had different displays. It had more code in it, too. It actually had modes and stuff. But, yeah, it was, I mean, it's no different than, like, the Wonelly being Pabst and Primus, you know, reuse your layout as much as you can. But to use a lower-end platform?
    19:51
    Yeah, I think that's what Supreme was too, actually. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, but Supreme, I mean, I guess, yeah, Supreme. Yeah, I mean, that's what it was. It was a contracted game. Oh, okay. Okay, well, I can see that. So it was a contracted game, so it's a lower run. Yeah, very tiny run. And then the pricing is controlled by whomever is actually selling it, right? I mean, partially by them. I think it's partially by Stern being like, well, if you're only going to do 50, it's going to cost us this much because, you know, you're not getting parts in bulk and that sort of thing. Right. Okay. But, okay. But do you know if Stern set the MSRP on that or was it the company that? I have no idea. Yeah. I don't recall. I just was glad to see one because that's not one you're going to get to see often. Oh.
    20:33
    That's the MSRP. All right. That's it for our heavy metal talk. Yeah. And then while we're still in Texas, I ordered. I just checked the date on it because I was talking to someone earlier. I ended up ordering a, uh, a multi-morphic P3. Very nice. About roughly five and a half weeks ago, six weeks ago now. One, two, three, four, five. Yeah, six full weeks ago now. Um, I'm really excited for that. Uh, I know Godzilla just came out and like, as members of the cult of Elwynn, we're obviously going to spend a lot of time talking about that and about our hype-ness. I just picked up my Godzilla last night and got it set up in the bar. So we'll get into that. But I did just want to say, like, I finally took the jump. I ordered a P3.
    21:23
    I know we had Jerry on years ago. I know I've done at least one full episode about the P3 where me and I think it was when you were taking one of your sabbaticals. And me and AJ just talked about how much fun we had playing it at Texas Pinball Festival. and with the recent price increases all around the pinball industry suddenly the p3 was looking like more and more of a bargain and there's i think most famously uh our friend nick boulders has designed a few games for it which i just find really interesting and really cool that people are out there doing that and then as i kind of started looking more and more into it there's a lot of people that are working on projects nick's just like a mad scientist slash genius who works a little bit faster and stuff he works a lot but he works all the time he's incredibly busy yeah and you just suddenly see like the floodgates opening on the potential of this platform and with the other price increases the price just didn't seem that crazy anymore to me which was always my biggest like the biggest thing holding me back um and i'm gonna be i'm gonna be putting it on location so we're gonna be one of the few places in the country that has one on location So I'm really excited about that. They do have a new licensed title coming out. Jerry was just on the Backbox Pinball Podcast a week or two ago, and he was talking about that. Their newest theme or the newest play field that will come out is going to be a licensed theme.
    22:51
    And there's really been no hints as to what it is. Super tightly kept secret outside of the fact that Scott Tenisi is doing the music for it. So I have no clue. But I am really excited about that. I look forward to it. I know that that platform has a lot of haters and doubters, and it's not traditional pinball. But at this point, I think it is going to be something I really appreciate. It's something I'm really excited about, the ability to potentially design something that could go into that system. And I'm only stuck designing like a third of a play field, which makes it a little easier on me. reading and following along Nick's pin side thread and it's his design process and I'm in a discord channel where he's sharing some other information it's really interesting to see how that dude's brain works way faster and way better than my brain does but it's an exciting platform so that is like the number one thing I am excited about right now is that P3 coming and that also comes from Texas so like although Texas passes some really bullshit laws and they kind of fucking suck as I say it's also they have some cool shit coming out like phil getting married in the p3 so sorry texans you people are awesome but some of your laws just fucking blow um indiana's not much better i was gonna say like jesus saying like we're a cool state or anything up here trust me we're like we're probably copying and pasting your law right now we're just slower oh yeah there's yeah i don't even want to get into that but yeah that's all we The P3, I think a couple points you brought up, like the pricing coming in line, or everybody else's pricing now jacking up. Yeah. It definitely is making the P3, because it's a platform, it makes it really appealing.
    24:41
    Yeah, so I just wanted to double check the website so I can confirm. So if you order the P3 with one playfield, it is $10,895.
    24:53
    And that includes the back box display that wasn't in the original models when we started covering them years ago.
    25:00
    So that is basically like your LE pricing now. Yeah, that's true. We're real close to it. But then if you add in two playfields, it goes up to $13,000. And three playfields, it's at $15,095. So let's say $15,100.
    25:19
    But when you start breaking that down per game, I'm now looking at like $5,000 per game, which is less than a Stern Pro at this point. And then if you look at just the play field kits, I'm trying to find where exactly they are. There they are. The game kits.
    25:40
    The most expensive one is Heist at $2,750. so like you know whatever the new license game that is coming out from them is most likely going to be in that 27 to 3 000 range and then i'm looking at like half the price of the cheapest turn i can get yeah to update to a new machine and then that whatever that physical machine is people can end up redoing software like we've just seen with them announcing sorcerer's apprentice last month.
    26:11
    It's just got me really intrigued. And again, it's not that the system has changed itself. I already really liked playing Cosmic Kart Racing and Lexi Lightspeed. I had a good game on and enjoyed once. I just didn't know exactly what I was doing.
    26:26
    It's just the fact that there continues to be this development and expansion of the system and their pricing has remained the same even through COVID, whereas everyone else has shot up. And it doesn't mean they aren't having issues, you know, sourcing parts, all the stuff that other companies are having. I know someone who's been waiting over a year for a Deadpool premium they ordered because Stern was going to run them. And Stern just keeps pushing it back as they release new games. And they just don't get to that next run of Deadpool premiums. So there's people that are waiting forever for games from all sorts of companies. But the P3 just started to look like a better and better deal to me when I started breaking it down, like cost per game. And I am just kind of like morbidly curious about how it will do on location. I don't know my location largely catering to casual people. If they'll look at this and they'll say, well, obviously this is like the newest thing here because of the display and the screen and how it's going to stand out physically from other machines on appearance, you know, or if it will do terrible because it's not traditional pinball and people don't grasp it. I'm curious to see what happens. But either way, it got to the point where I was interested enough. And having sold the Volton that I restored, I had the money for it. And I decided it was time to take the leap. So that's what I'm, like, super hyped about right now. And what – I'm sorry. What – did you say what kit you were getting or, like, what play field you were getting? I am 100% getting Heist. Okay.
    27:55
    I am – I might be getting another one. I'm going to go with the three play fields. I'm just trying to figure out what ones. Um, based on when I ordered and like they said, I think when I ordered, I was quoted 12 to 16 weeks before delivery. Um because they build them to order and the reality is they started to sell more of them but they also having the supply chain issue So there multiple reasons it taking them a little bit longer I had been thinking about it for like a few weeks And if I had ordered like from the first day where I kind of reached out to Jerry and was like hey I thinking about this You know, should I do one? I think it was only like a six to eight week wait at that point. And I ended up pushing it off for like, you know, several weeks while I finished up Bolton before I got it sold and confirmed that I wanted to do it. The wait had extended to 12 to 16 weeks. But Heist, I'm definitely getting. I did get to play it at Pinball Garage in Cincinnati. It had some issues. Something was broken on it, so it wasn't actually out on the floor, but the owner was there, and he was nice enough to let me in back to check it out.
    28:55
    So that was really cool of them. Pinball Garage is a really cool location. They also have one of the only Legends of Valhalla from Riot Pinball on location and most likely coming to you from another company soon. We'll see. But, yeah, so I'm definitely doing Heist. That is really cool. I've been watching Kevin from Buffalo stream it and a few other people play it and talk about it. Cosmic Kart Racing, I am very interested in because I enjoyed that game a ton when I played it with AJ.
    29:22
    And that, I believe, is the play field that is now used for Sorcerer's Apprentice. So that gives me like two full games on one play field. And then most likely whatever the new license theme is. And I will hope to add in Lexi Lightspeed somewhere down the road. because the new license, just hearing Jerry talk about it, Jerry is very much an engineer by trade, and he's very much of that personality. Like, he's not somebody I've heard have a lot of excitement, and I could even hear the excitement in his voice when he was talking about this new license game that's coming. That's cool, man. In turn, that makes me excited.
    29:59
    So we'll see what happens. But, yeah, that is something I'm hoping it gets here, you know, around Christmastime, if not early into the next year. and I'm excited to see what people think of it on location. Selfishly, I just want to play it, but I'm excited to see how people respond to it as well. What's the process like with ordering with them? Do you do a deposit? You go to their website, multimorphic.com, and you submit a $1,000 deposit.
    30:24
    Refundable or non-refundable? I do believe it's non-refundable. Which I like because I'm kind of getting sick of all these people putting deposits on games to see if they can flip them and then deciding if they should flip it or if they should just ask for a refund and get out of it. I get that. So please note, yes, the deposit is non-refundable and will be applied in full to your final payment. And then we'll contact – I'm just reading the website right now. We'll contact you for your final payment when your machine enters production. Wait times vary, but current estimates are 14 to 16 weeks right now. And that's from order to – If you were to order today, yeah. So if you order today, you're looking at 14 to 16 weeks for your game to arrive. Yeah. So what, three and a half, four months basically, something like that? I mean, look, the supply chain, like you said, is so fucked up right now. Oh, yeah. On like everything. We can't get the right size to-go cups at the bar. We can't get certain brands of liquor right now. It's crazy. It's all over the place. but if you are curious you want to check it out Buffalo Pinball has been doing a lot of streaming on the P3 this year they have done Heist and Sorcerer's Apprentice on their official episodes I believe so you can check them out on their YouTube channel the website is Multimorphic.com and right from there you can click the store up top and they have the information about the deposits all the different game kits there's just a lot of stuff for it So, and another reason is, another motivating factor is, as you're well aware, I'm super duper out of space. So if this was, you know, if I get to a point in my life where something drastically changes and I realize I can't operate 25 machines anymore and I start selling things off and I still want to have more pinball around, this helps me. It gives me an opportunity to use one slot in my row to potentially have multiple games as well. So that was another motivating factor for me, too, because at home I am above capacity as it is and still need to get rid of a couple games. I'm just trying to figure out what I want to keep and what I don't want to keep. So eventually, if this doesn't do great on location, I'm comfortable with this being something I can bring home because it's not going to take up a ton of space and it's going to give me multiple options to play. I think there's not a ton of those out there, so the secondary market isn't thriving from what I can tell. No, it's almost, there's one guy on Pinside right now who's trying to buy a Lexi Lightspeed Playfield. Right. And you could just order it from the website, but he was trying to pick one up used, and there's just, people don't seem to sell these things. For the most part, it appears to be a very dedicated group of owners. There's a lot of people helping each other out within the community. Like I said, I was amazed at, like, some of the things that people are working on at home, brew style for this machine.
    33:19
    And as I mentioned, like, I absolutely want to try to experiment with that, since it is an option with this machine, it really intrigues me. Yeah, it's a platform. It's really interesting. And that's one of those other things I think people forget, that Spooky has been using the multimorphic boards. Oh, yeah. American Pinball, that was what they created first was the board set, and then they went from there and made it into a full system and platform that they could build their own machines. But they've contributed a lot to the pinball community just from their boards alone.
    33:53
    So, like I said, I'm excited about it. I just see a lot of potential in it. And, again, by no means is it cheap. It is expensive. But I think in the long run, when I'm looking at what it's going to cost me per game to upgrade as games come out on this, it will end up saving me money versus buying whatever is new from each other company that's out there. And not to justify any high prices either, but, you know, I mean, the hobby right now is insane as far as pricing goes. like oh absolutely like i keep posting things for sale thinking like there's no way i'm gonna buy this and it's just gone like so quick but it's but it's also one of those things where i i i got into a pin side thread with somebody because they were they were talking about the new stern pricing and i guess we could talk about that well we'll talk we can move on let's what you should we wait for a bell or do you want to uh move on uh we we should not have a bell for like 12 minutes So we should be okay. Yeah, we can just move on. All right, moving on. Transition. Yeah, that's very cool.
    34:55
    Congrats on the P3 coming. Yeah, that's a cool platform. Yeah, so Stern. We'll go to Stern. They announced that not only announced a new game yesterday, but they announced since our last recording Keith Elwin's newest game, Godzilla.
    35:15
    It's coming out. and they also announced a price increase, and they also announced Insider Connect. I don't think that that had been announced since we talked last time. No. Stern has been busy. Stern has been really busy, and there's a lot to dive in that we can really get into. I think, so the Stern Insider Connect, there's still a lot of unknowns. That's one thing that's going to be kind of tough to get too deep into it. Yeah, I mean, I just look at that as like the reality of it. It's a developing app, essentially. Like it's a developing piece of software that's going to continue to evolve.
    36:01
    My expectations for it are low from the start, and whatever comes with it, to me it's just like an added benefit. I don't see any negatives with it outside of price increase. I think if – okay, so I think one of the things that's benefiting Stern right now is that they have – I mean, as far as, like, looking at the pinball world, pinball manufacturing world, like, I feel like you have a – you have a generational thing happening, right, where you have, like, younger – not young, but younger designers. like Jersey Jack has it with Eric and Stern with Keith and, you know, younger people coming in. I think Keith's like your age, man. Well, and I'm just – No, I know what you mean. He's newer to the industry. Well, newer to the industry, but also not just Keith, but like also the other people who have come along to Stern where it's like the idea of – You got Sharp there. You got Ray there. You got Tim. Right. Like, but you have, so it's just like, it's a different generation where it's like you have this connected thing, right? So it's the idea of like having an extension of your company that carries, that your customers are then going to carry with them, right? Like as an app, you know? So Stern has finally decided to plant themselves on our phones all the time, right? That's a big step in how you interact with your customers.
    37:47
    So that's honestly one of my early complaints here is that it's not officially an app yet. It's all web-based right now. But I'm just saying I think that's a mistake. I think CERN should have had an app ready to go because I don't like the way it's set up right now. Well, that's where I was going. It's like they're trying to do it, but it's not that. That's what I think is really difficult about talking about it right now because everybody signed up for it.
    38:19
    But, yeah, now it's kind of like, okay, well, what can we actually do with it? Like, I'm a little surprised at how little is there right now.
    38:31
    Yeah, and, like, so from my perspective as the operating side of things, I, you know, this is seriously not sarcastically incredibly brief. I played one game on the machine at my distributor yesterday before we loaded my actual game into the car. So I could kind of check it out. I got mine. The distributor's location was further than I remembered it being, so I just poorly coordinated my day yesterday. So by the time I got back to the bar, it was like almost 10 p.m., and I literally just was trying to set the machine up and go home because I hadn't been home since 6 a.m.
    39:04
    And I realized once I was setting up, I had to apply for a separate pro insider account if I had to submit an application for that. I'm just checking the app or the website right now, and it still says application submitted but not approved. so like I can't register my machine on location yet which means nobody's going to be able to use insider connect at my location yet um I mean they already sent out a separate email to like stern army locations and I just think a lot of this could have been taken care of ahead of time before our machines got to us so that like on day one we're just there and ready to go and set up so like now I'm like I said I'm kind of glad I just looked to check again because I want to run over there after school and get this machine hooked up to the wi-fi and get insider connect running because I have had people at my location already ask me about it like this week knowing Godzilla was coming and now they're going to see it there and they're going to go to use it and it's not going to do shit yeah so there's definitely again it's their first time I'm not you know it's not none of it is a big deal I just wish I had been a little more prepared like I thought there was going to be some documentation uh with the game even telling me what to do and There really wasn't. Well, so here's the other thing. Okay, so as a – I was really hoping that you had been able to get set up because I have some questions about that. But they are, at this point, they are charging – like it costs money to get an all-access plus. I think that's what it's called. So like they have like a basic account where it's like anybody can have that. So anybody can have this. Anybody can have an account. You can go up. You can scan your phone or whatever.
    40:47
    And so you can do that. And then there's also All Access Plus. And I believe what you have is All Access. You will have All Access Pro Plus, correct?
    41:01
    So there's Basic, which is the free one. I'm just looking at the app right now to get these terms right. Then there's Stern Insider All Access that is $39.99 per year. Right. That's what I have. Oh, you've done that. I did that because, yes, I did that. So with that, according to the app, you will get everything from basic plus early access to new games, all the behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive forum discussions. And then I know there was talk of potentially like certain modes, which I picture like the Jurassic Park topper mode, the goat mode, things like that, that you could only access if you were a member of the all access. That's one of the things I know people have talked about being concerned with. And then the account that I am trying to sign up for as a location is a pro application, which didn't have any costs associated with it. I just had to basically submit like the address and name of my location.
    42:06
    So there does not appear to be a cost with that initially. but I think once I am in there may be certain features where like very similarly I do need to sign up from some sort of account to access certain data on my machine remotely I probably will sign up because it's realistically like the way pinball prices go it just warps your pricing and everything else and like 40 bucks for a year is really not bad and it really isn't and you get other shit too like I have my Stern Insider package coming today that has like stuff in it so so i totally get it um for me being so physically close to my location i don't care as much about the remote monitoring features as any operator who had anything like if my drive to any location was more than five to ten minutes yeah i would love having those features on the app for my phone as an operator to see what my machine had earned to see if it's reporting a messed up switch or something like that yeah that would be so worth 40 a year me i'm i'm in a credibly rare situation where my location is around the corner from my house like i'm so it's just you know i'm in a different situation but i won't lie like i really want to go and i want to use insider connect because i i want to start knocking off these damn achievements on godzilla because i'm really excited i only got to play two games last night but holy shit is the geometry on this game amazing. Okay. Like, god damn it, Keith. Don't jump ahead. There's no bell has gone off because we still have to stay on Insider Connected because I have a couple. Okay. So I see a lot of potential for this. A ton of potential. Oh, an amazing amount of potential. Yeah. And I've got to see how it is integrated. I know that they did a little bit of it on the stream, but the reality is if, like, watching anything on stream, be it the game player how the app was is engaging the players it's not the same as doing it in yourself to get that experience um i've been using pin quest at my location for months which is similar but it's all scoring based achievements and it's not built in you know the user still has to enter that information themselves and it's been so i i pay 20 a month to use PinQuest as a location.
    44:27
    I think I easily get $20 worth out of the players who come in to try to reach the scoring objectives. Like, without a doubt, every month the machines that I put onto PinQuest out-earn what they had over the previous month. They get more play.
    44:44
    But it has that user customization. I'm curious to see what I can customize on the app as far as things like that go. So I'm curious to see what CERN actually ends up doing as far as like they've talked about giving away freebies and doing stuff like that, how all that will work out.
    45:02
    But as far as like I don't see any harm in trying this, I think it can only help. It seems like the integration is pretty smooth. Like I said, for launching, it's not perfect. But I think I'm going to be able to get this machine connected to the Internet set up today and have people using it by the end of the week. I'm hoping by league night tomorrow night so people can see it and I do plan to go down and set up my camera rig and stream it before league tomorrow night and probably leave the rig running during league because I think everyone's going to pretty much pick that game at some point during league tomorrow night. Yeah I want them they need to do more. I know it just launched but they did launch it. They are charging people for it so yeah I would hope to see something happen soon.
    45:53
    So one of the things, like, signing up for an account, like, you sign up for an account, you, like, choose your username. My username is Taylor, which, you know, I broke the rules already.
    46:06
    You broke rules? I broke rules. What were the rules? You're not supposed to use your real name. Oh. It says right there. It's like, do not use. Pretty fucked up that you're not Richmond Pinball, to be really honest. Well, I'm trying to get away from that. I'm trying to, like, separate myself from that. Okay, okay, cool. But that's complicated.
    46:29
    But the thing that I didn't understand is, like, you can follow people. Like, so you can go in, like, they have a little area that says connections. You can put somebody's name in. You can search. You can find them, and then you can follow that person. but as a person as like your your own account like you you're you're not able to see who is following you and I think that I don't know maybe that's going to come down the line but I could see like for a location like it would be cool to be able to have people connect to a location and maybe that's something maybe that's a feature that you have with like the pro thing is that so before we even got our machines uh by our i'm talking about me and a couple of my other buddies that operate that was something that was in our mind is that as the location owner the owner of the machine we we were thinking it should show us who's playing and what they're scoring on the machine yeah and we were already planning to set up a like multiple location tournament like that Yeah, it's awesome. Just for bragging rights. It's like nothing fancy. Like, I made a little poster already, and now that we're, like, getting it and we don't really know what we can access yet, we're like, oh, crap, maybe we, like, overthought this or maybe we gave it a little more credit than we should have. So that's something I want to find out because that's what we're hoping we can do is see, like, so-and-so played the game here and here's their score. We're beating 417 Taphouse in Springfield, Missouri, and we're beating RLM Amusements in Grand Rapids. Like, you know, it's just bragging rights and shit talking, which is, like, what we like to do in person. And we're hoping that this gives us a way to do that virtually across great distances with people. Well, also, if you could. So I do have, like, I have Scorebit on my Wizard of Oz, which is they just released achievements for some of the Jersey Jack games. And I think Scorebit is really cool. I mean, I think that if, yes, Scorebit is really interesting. You can follow real time, like, you know, you've got the app open and you can follow, like, your score real time on your phone. Like, I don't, it's pretty amazing. But, yeah, if you could in real time challenge people, and maybe that's something you, I don't know, maybe that's something that's coming down the line. But real time challenge people, like, that's a great way for an operator to drive CoinDrop, right? Because now it is, it's no longer like, I mean, I would think that you're going to play more pinball if you're playing against somebody else. Right? So you go to a location. I think even just having high score leaderboards that people could see would be awesome. Across different locations. So you could have. From doing it, like, if me as the operator could pull up a webpage that showed my location scores. It's like a TOPS tournament, but you would have it. So it would be a possible location. You could show the state of Indiana. You could show the country. Yeah. So I could have people working towards multiple levels. That would be awesome. Like Pindigo. It would be almost a Pindigo thing. Yeah, Pindigo, but having it live on a screen.
    49:42
    And again, Pindigo is great. I use Pindigo from time to time. I think it's really cool. I think Scorbit's really cool.
    49:49
    And again, you are getting Scorbit built into the Jersey Jack machines, but that's just the Jersey Jack games. And if you were to add that to other machines, it's quite expensive. I looked into it. so like there's that and the reality is like yes this is going to be a possible to retrofit on some of the certain machines but for the you know future it's coming built in and I think the objective integrations is really cool like score is one thing but having those things that a person like you know I kind of joke with my friends but at shows I tend to disappear and go play by myself yeah like I like playing more games faster I'm not as big into the social thing and four-player games as you are per se. Oh, there we go. We're moving on to another topic. Yeah, we're getting there. Oh, wait. But if I could, like if I have, I think Godzilla has 39 objectives in it right now. Yeah. Like if I can go and try to knock those out, like I am very much one of those people being like, okay, I've got to get this now. I'm going to focus on this on this game. All right. Like that to me sounds really appealing. So how about this? Pin golf, right? So you set your game. So say you have nine games that are all – say you have nine Stern games that are all equipped with the Insider Connect. You could set your games as an operator for a pin golf tournament, and then the game would actually just say, here's the objective. The player would go. You scan in. You play for the objective. And then the actual app or whatever, the website, has a scoring system that could just keep track of the scores. so it could be all there real time just by, like, having your phone get scanned. That would be freaking awesome.
    51:34
    Yeah, that would be. I agree. Okay. So it sounds like we need – I also think it's a really boring location if you just have nine turns in a tournament. I'm not saying that. That's all I'm saying. But I'm saying that if you look at a lot of the locations now, they have huge collections.
    51:54
    Oh, yeah. I mean, I think our location is at 23 or 25 machines right now. See, that's where I think that if you, I mean, it's not going to happen, but if there was any way that you could get, like, Scorebit and, you know, these different PinQuest and Insider Connect, like if you could get all these systems to somehow, like, work together some way, it would be great. It's not going to happen, but it would be really great. But I'm just saying, like, I mean, down the road, like Stern, you know, Stern hosts tournaments. Down the road, Stern can host a, you know, they host like the International Pin Golf Tournament, and there's nine Stern games, and you walk up, and you scan your phone, or you have 18 games set up, and then you scan your phone, and if your hole number one is Godzilla, it gives you a certain objective. If hole number nine is also Godzilla, it can give you a different objective.
    52:47
    Oh, yeah. I like that. There's a lot of potential there, but right now what we have is not a lot. So that's kind of disappointing. But the bell has rung, so we will move on.
    53:02
    Let's talk about Godzilla because Godzilla is out. It's landing. You just got yours set up. I just pulled up a pinball map to kind of see what we've got as far as them being out at location already. and looking nationwide, it looks like there's about 30 on location right now. Wow, that's crazy. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, like 32. 32 Godzilla players on location. So far, and that's if they've registered on Pinball Map.
    53:42
    So who knows? But, yeah, so far that's roughly what it looks like. I did pick mine up from the distributor like I said yesterday he said his initial batch was roughly I think 50 pros or so that were going out for locations specifically and then he's got the LEs next then he's got an order of 20 premiums coming in and then it was like another 150 pros or something so I mean he said it's selling really well and you know the price increase sucks but as far as the game goes and the shots and it's just being jam-packed, you know, I can see where some of the money went. It does suck. I'm not – I get it. It's just not fun. It is what it is, though. And if you want it, you'll still buy it. And if you don't, you'll go play it on location. So one thing about the pricing that I think is – I started bringing this up earlier. I think what's tough is that the pricing has gone up. What's not so tough is that the pricing has gone up across the board in the hobby, and a game you buy today, you can sell it tomorrow. Generally speaking, because I got somebody try to slam me for saying this, if you buy a game today and you sell it tomorrow, you can basically get what you paid for it. Oh, 100%. Now, certainly, I mentioned this, And somebody was like, well, it took me a while to sell a game, and I didn't get what I paid for. And I was like, okay, that's not my point. My point is, most of the time, generally speaking, unless you have to sell and you have to, like, you know, you're like, I got to get this out of the house immediately, games are selling for more than what you bought them for, including new in-box games, which was like, I mean, when I got in the hobby, and I'm not. Oh, it used to be like a car, man. As soon as you opened the box, it lost value. As soon as you open the box, it lost $1,000. And people were just like, I don't want to buy a new box game. Or no, they were like, oh, I'm not going to buy a new box game. I'm just going to buy one once it's open because then I'll get it cheaper. Like $1,000. Like you open the box, you look at it, it's $1,000 knocked off. And now you buy a game, you open it, you sit it in your basement, you play it. I mean, some people play their game like 20 times in two years. I don't want to get that. Some people play it like $10,000. But, yeah, so you get that money. You are getting that money back. So it's really more about your own, like, economic liquidity that you can do that than it is about, like, you're throwing money away. I mean I literally explained it to Alyssa Like it a weird savings account because I spend a lot of money on pinball I work multiple jobs on top of operating games and fixing games and selling games I do a lot of things to generate my pinball money. That was part of the reason I sold Stargazer earlier this year. It was in the kitchen and I was out of space. She genuinely didn't believe. I was like, if I needed to, if we needed cash for something, I was like, I can sell this in a day. Yeah. Like, yeah. And I did. And for like double what she thought I could sell it for. So I was like, yeah, like I'm not, I'm not crazy. Like it's weird. I'll give you that. But I was like, I'm, I'm still being, you know, fiscally responsible in a very strange way.
    57:20
    Well, like I'm very realistic when I have, I have a spreadsheet of what my games cost. I have my spreadsheet of what the games are currently selling for. And I have like a price in mind of what I could sell it for if I had to sell it. Like, I'm talking, like, instantly. If for some reason I needed cash immediately, what can I post this game for that I know somebody will be here today to get it with cash? And it's across the board. Yeah, absolutely. Because for a long time you would see that, you know, like you saw, you know, like you had your, like, collector games, like your Medieval Madness, AFM, Cactus Canyon, all those. You had your A-list games, and they were just kind of incrementally, like, going up, up, up, up, up. and then you saw I think what's been really interesting over the last few years is the increase in solid state games and even EM games like well I think the reality is just as these prices have increased on new in box games yeah the price goes up on everything because before it used to be like why buy so when I bought my Metallica it was 4,300 so I could buy a 4,300 Metallica brand new,
    58:22
    you know, or I could buy five EMs that were really good shape, that were good games for $800 to $1,000 a piece, right? That's still a lot for an EM. I agree, but I'm just saying, like, that was what the situation was then, roughly. Or, like, now my option is Metallica goes up to $6,000. Well, people are going to raise the prices on those EMs, too, because the cost of entry at a new game is different. Like, that was how I looked at it. Like before, if I just had $4,000 rounding down to spend, my choice was like something new like Metallica or I could buy a Whitewater. Back then, that was that price. That was like a Shadow and a Fishtails when I started. Things were just different. But as those other prices go up, the price on everything goes up because the person who has options to buy the new game will increase the price on the other thing too. I mean, it's just that's the reality. The price increase in the market on those new games has helped people who have the older games. Yes. And on top of that, it's supply and demand. There's just fewer and fewer of the older games.
    59:22
    You're not going to find a lot of Shadows and a lot of Kongos for sale, whereas if you want whatever is brand new, I just heard Keith, I think he was on the Loser Kid podcast, listen to while I was driving to pick up Godzilla yesterday, talk about how they made more Godzillas in three days than of the Godzilla that Sega designed in 96 or 97, whatever it was. They had already made more of a brand new Godzilla in three days and existed at the highest point of that game. I have one of the original Godzillas. You don't see them come out for sale much because they didn't make very many of them. So there's going to be very few of them out there. So if people want it, the price goes up. Well, yeah, there's that. And I also think that you have people who are trying to squeeze out every dime out of a game they have because, and maybe this is what you were saying, but if I want to buy a new in-box game and the price goes up and I'm like, okay, well, I need to sell a game to buy a game. Well, I want to squeeze as much as I can out of whatever game I'm selling to cover the difference in what the increase is in the new inbox. So if I'm looking, you know what I mean? Well, and there's also just been so many more people in the hobby, and there's a lot of flippers too, to where like if I'm going to sell a game for $2,000 and the guy who I'm selling it to is just going to turn around next week and sell it for $2,500 and get the asking price, am I being nice or am I being dumb for selling it for $2,000?
    60:49
    You can squeeze it, man. Squeeze everything you can out of it. I mean, that's not necessarily what I do. That's not necessarily what I do. I mean, I rarely sell my games. But I could certainly see, like, at this point, with the way the market is and where the market is, right? Because the market is also, because Pennside is, I mean, I think that that's one of the things. Like, Pennside is just a juggernaut of an information warehouse, right? So where you used to have to go and search Craigslist to find prices or hunt down games. You can go on Pinside and all that information is there. Oh, yeah. Whenever I'm going to sell a game, I literally look up that game on Pinside and I go through the threads and see what sold. What the last five sold for, yeah. Oh, man. It's crazy. But I will say, I mean, going back to what you were saying about the value, you have value in your collection.
    61:49
    And that's one of the things that's great about this hobby, if you can get in, is that you do have that. Like you're not just – it's like my dad was a big golfer. And it's like every time you – it's like it costs a couple hundred dollars every time you go and pay your greens fees and get a golf cart. And then at the end of the day, what do you have? Nothing. Yeah. You don't have shit. You have a piece of paper that has what you did. Now, certainly, like, that's whatever that person's passion is.
    62:19
    But I always looked at that as, like, a kid growing up, like, well, this is just a stupid waste of money because – I have trouble going on vacations because, like, while I enjoy experiences – Yeah, like, at the end of the day, you're like – I just spent that money and I don't have it now. Yeah. Whereas, like, if I have a thing, that thing retains the value that I can later cash in on if I need to. I think it makes it easier. But it also, like, I think for my own rationale, for my own mental health, it allows me to justify, like, saying, hey, I've saved up this money making rails or selling games or doing whatever I needed to do. So it's not like you were saying. It's not like I'm just pissing this money away. It's like I'm taking hold of an asset. You know, it's like I have a thing, a physical object at the end of the day that my insurance covers if something goes wrong. You know, like. Yeah. So I don't know. It's interesting. So the pricing increase is definitely painful.
    63:18
    But if you've been in this hobby for a while, you've certainly made money off of being in this hobby for a while. I know that I'm in that situation. Oh, yeah. I've been collecting for like 16, 17 years now, and I think about the games that I bought back in the day that allowed me to buy games 10 years ago, that allowed me to buy games five years ago, you know, like to where I'm at the point now where it's like I might need to add some money to buy a game. But it's not like – it's not like – if you were getting in the hobby right now, I just think – I don't know how people would get in the hobby right now. Like with the – Yeah. Not with the new in the box. Or, I don't know, looking at the solid state prices, like, Stars going for $2,500, like, that's mind-boggling. Like, that's – Oh, literally, when I think of the price increase, Stars and Meteor are the two that popped in mind because they made so many of both of those games. And I remember, like, for whatever reason – I mean, I'm not far from Chicago, so it makes sense. There was a ton of them in my area. But I remember my first couple years in the hobby, I swear to God, there was constantly a Craigslist, Meteor, four stars every other week for sale for three to five hundred dollars and i would just be like who would want that game why would you get that yeah and now i'm like i wish i had bought every one of those games oh yeah like i wish i had a shed in my backyard that was literally just full of stars and meteors and i honestly like the meteor i have right now my initial plan was to convert it to a stargazer um and after having played this thing like having gone through it and got it really pretty and playing nice i'm i still i would regret it ever giving you that damn meteor i found up here. Meteor's a freaking awesome game, man. I was like, no, there's no way this thing's getting converted. I'm going to play the hell out of this.
    65:02
    That's crazy. Going back to Godzilla, price increase is painful. It's painful, but it's not the end of the world. That's how I look at it.
    65:15
    Deadflip obviously streamed the premium. I think they streamed a premium. They didn't stream an LE, right? They streamed a premium with like Jack and Keith and the team. And then they streamed a pro with the women from Hot Nudge stream and a few other friends, I believe. I saw maybe like half of the premium stream, and I've only seen a couple minutes of the pro because they did them both, I think, on Friday night. So I'm trying to put it on at like 3 or 4 a.m. when I get home from the bar, and I passed out.
    65:50
    I watched some of the premium. I haven't seen any of the pro. I don't know how much of the premium I watched. I mean, it was just Keith was on there blowing it up. And I will say, like, this is a game that I anticipate owning hopefully sooner than later. And so I, as a. Are you going premium? Are you doing it? That is the plan.
    66:13
    Yeah, that's the plan. Goddamn mechs on that thing are so cool. Yeah, I, yeah. So, you know, I watched the premium stream. And like I said, you know, watching somebody like Keith blow up a game is really cool. I'm not a huge, like, watch other people play pinball person. Like, I'd much rather play myself and learn the rules. And I don't know. I really enjoy that process. And that's also why I keep my games for so long and why I play my games so much. because I love the discovery of a new pinball machine. But I will say what I saw of the premium, it looked really, really fun. Like, ridiculously fun. Like, stupid fun. I agree.
    67:11
    The mechs are amazing. I really appreciated that on the stream they did straight-up show, like, the entire building mech. and how that works.
    67:20
    The Mechagodzilla with the damn magnet in his chest that catches the ball is cool as shit to me. Everything about the premium blows my mind, including the price. And when I look at it, because I did get a premium Avengers, and when I look at the earnings on it, it just flat out, it does not earn more money to have a premium versus a pro. And I just couldn't justify it immediately. but maybe I'll upgrade. We'll see.
    67:53
    Because, yeah, my input consists of just three games on it, very brief games. I was basically making sure the game was level and that it seemed like everything was working last night.
    68:04
    Oh, man, dude, this is like you're going to play this thing. You're going to get 10,000 plays in one year. I can feel it. It's going to be your first 10K in one year game. Okay, we'll see. it's the shots the shots feel so good it's like they're all where you think they should be on the flippers yeah and then the ball paths like the different ways the balls can travel are amazing and i don't know what he changed about like the flipper angles because i do think keith my like mildly modifies his flippers all the time i think they're different from game to game um shatting is so easy on this game really like yeah and like not even on purpose like i was accidentally shatting all over the place and then the ball is just traveling like these crazy crazy paths um i am blown away by the geometry by the innovation by um listening to the podcast he did yesterday they talked about like the the magnet grab the claw that holds the ball like they experimented with different materials that would actually cover the magnet core that would allow it to hold the ball but not spread the magnetism to the balls so you don't get magnetized balls in the game i'm like why hasn't someone thought of that before like is this new technology that like only these people would think of or have pinball designers been lazy and be like oh yeah there's a magnet that catches the ball and sometimes it gets magnetized we just put a new ball son like there's so much thought and care put into it um and it was interesting to hear him talk about like his history as an operator and how that impacts his designs because he tries not to put like rubbers in hard to reach places where it would be a pain to change and stuff like that like I really appreciate that. So I think you're going to be blown away with it. I'm sure somewhere near you is probably getting one pretty soon, so you'll get to play it. I really won't have much time to play it today, but I do plan, like I said, to stream it and spend a lot of time with it tomorrow.
    69:50
    Oh, and I can't go play it today because I forgot to even talk about this. We got another dog. Yeah. Oh.
    69:56
    Go us. How many dogs do you have? We now have four. We adopted another rescue dachshund who he was owned by a family with him and his brother. They're puppies. They're only seven months old. And apparently the family had a guinea pig that met an unfortunate demise at the hands of the dachshunds. So they just turned them into a rescue instead of like being like maybe we shouldn't have small rodent creatures and a breed of dog that's designed to hunt rodents. I don't know. So anyway, we adopted one of the brothers and we picked, Alyssa picked him up on Sunday. His name is Leonardo, and he is our newest member of the Dachshund gang of our household. Now, do you guys foster, or are you adopted? We did foster at one point, and it was too emotionally hard for me. I bawled my eyes out when we found a family for the dog. And so instead, we are now at maximum capacity of dogs. Between the four dogs, we have roughly 100, 110 pounds worth of dog, and that's all we can handle. How many pinball machines do you have in your house? do why you gotta ask weird questions like that how many promotions you give in your house i have 11 i have five in the living room plus the the flight 2k that i finally unloaded from my car yesterday oh yeah you should yeah we should talk about that i think you want to yeah uh in fact we could probably figure something out on that um and then i've got uh mad world and aerobatics what i said that's eight and then there's like a couple in the garage that are like Yeah, semi-projects. There's like 10 or 11 at my house. Okay, so you have 10 games, four dogs. That's not so bad. I was thinking you would have like a 20-game. 20 games, four dogs. I mean, you just said at the house. So, yeah, at the house we're good.
    71:42
    I'm just trying to figure out where I'm staying when I come out to visit to pick up my – Oh, we got the couch. Don't worry. We got a big comfy couch. Got air mattresses. There's a guest room. It's not a big house, but we use the space well.
    71:53
    Godzilla. So, yeah, I think the mechs look pretty amazing. Stern posted a picture of like a bunch of the – they have LEs on the line now. First batch of premiums are supposed to ship at – my understanding is I think that premiums are supposed to be on the line at the end of October.
    72:19
    Yeah, I imagine they will. So from what I was told last night, distributors should be getting in a small batch of premiums next month. Okay. So premiums will be going out.
    72:34
    But, yeah, they posted a picture of the building mechs on Instagram or maybe their Facebook. And, yeah, it's pretty impressive. I mean, it gives me a little, like, Doctor Who time expander, like heebie-jeebies, because that mech is such a piece of shit. But there's – Keith addressed that on the Loser Kid podcast again. And he basically said the same thing. He hated the Dr. Humek. And the big deal was the wiring went into the mechanism on that. This one, all the wiring is completely external. And, like, the building itself is basically nothing but a facade that has diverters. Everything, like, that could actually go wrong or break is accessible under the play field. Yeah. Well, look at that. Again, you appreciate the design. Like, I mean, that's – I have to go listen to a different podcast. You do. I mean, I don't listen to a ton of pinball podcasts anymore because the reality is I just enjoy talking pinball with you and we record it. But we're all pretty repetitive because it's not that big of a hobby and there's not that much news. Right. So I get that. But whenever Keith is on something, I will go out of my way to listen to it.
    73:45
    So I did. And it was good to listen to. And it was informative. And, you know, I just appreciate the passion that Keith brings to his designs. And, I mean, I've got all four of his games. You're going to most likely have all four of his games here.
    74:03
    I mean, I think that's pretty damned impressive. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. I've been playing. So, like, look at it like this. This is just like a hypothetical for, you know, shits and giggles. Okay.
    74:15
    If Stern contacted you today. Yes. and said, Keith has a game coming out next July. You need to pay a $1,000 deposit today, and the rest is due when the game's ready. That's all the information you get.
    74:30
    And if you don't preorder, you can't get it. Would you do it? Yes. Yes, same here. That's how much faith I have in him. Well, I mean, there's a couple reasons you would do it. Because, one, like we were talking about earlier, if you end up getting the game, you're going to be able to sell it for what you pay for it. Yep, exactly.
    74:56
    And people who missed out the FOMO are then going to pay more. But I will say, yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know if I would do that. I hate the idea of having to put money down on something that – I get it. But like I said, this situation specifically, it's Stern pinball, and you know it's Keith. That's all you get. You don't get the theme. You don't get to see the layout or anything. You just know it's Stern. I thought you were going to say that Stern calls me tomorrow and says, hey, you signed an NDA. We're going to send you Keith's game, and you're going to be a play tester because you play more than any other person that we know. You know, that would probably actually be a good idea. Thank you. I look at your numbers of plays, and it legitimately blows my mind. I don't think I have 200 games on Avengers or Dragon Ball. Oh my God, I need to check my Avengers because I've been playing Avengers like a crazy person. Have you collected all of the gems?
    75:57
    Okay. In one game. I have collected all of the gems in one game, but I ended up losing. so I had a game I put up over a billion and I ended up collecting all the gems but then I ended up getting attacked by Thanos right before battling Thanos and so I ended up losing a gem because you have to defend all the gems. Yeah. Which sucks. So you went in without all of them so you didn't get the instant free billion point. I did not get the billion point bonus and I was so bummed because when I collected that last gem I was like oh moving on.
    76:36
    When I collected that last gem, I was like, I looked at my score, and I was like, oh, I'm going to get some bonus for getting all the gems, and then I didn't get it. But so the one thing. I finally did it for the first time, like, a month ago. I know, I know. And it was cool. I'm really close. So my question, and not to jump off Godzilla, but you don't have it. I mean, I don't have enough plays on Godzilla to, like, give a full assessment of it. all I can say is, like, the geometry, because I didn't figure out any of the rules last night, the geometry and the shots were awesome, like I said. So. Yeah, that's, so, yeah, we can jump into Avengers. So the thing about Avengers, I've been playing it a lot. I pretty much figured out everything. I still don't understand the grid, and I was going to ask you about that, because I know that you actually got the grid, like, wizard mode.
    77:31
    Yes. And I do not understand the grid. Like, I understand how you collect certain features off the grid, but I don't understand how you collect all the features to where you would start the grid mode. So the grid mode is computer frenzy. Right. Okay, computer frenzy. And I literally, from what I gather, that just comes from clearing the drop target bank a certain number of times. That's it. Well, that's my understanding. I, again, I don't know the rules on this game super well. Okay. It bit me in the butt on the pin class tournament because I didn't know them as well as other players.
    78:13
    Now, Trophy Mania, that's like the final wizard mode, I do believe. That you get from earning the awards throughout the game. But I do think you have to clear the bank when it's ready to start. Right.
    78:27
    So I think that's how those tie in, perhaps. So this is, but this is what I don't understand. And so people haven't played a ton of Avengers. So basically on the left-hand side, they're a drop target bank. When you complete certain – and then there's a grid to the right of the drop target bank. And so if you complete like three across, like tic-tac-toe, three across or three down, maybe a diagonal, like it will give you certain awards. And then on the back on the display, it will show you like these different features. So, like, one is, like, Hulk Mania or something like that, where it's, like, every shot is a Hulk value. Or the spinner will give you, like, I can't remember, the disc.
    79:10
    The super disc. Super disc. The super gauntlet ramp. Super gauntlet ramp. The super combos. So when you start one of these, when you trigger one of these time modes, it'll show on the screen, like, which one you're in. But I don't see that that carries over from ball to ball. So it seems like from what I can tell, it's like you have to complete all those things on a single ball. Like I've I have played really long games. I have done a lot of time modes, but I don't see where my progress is being shown at all. And that's – and on one of the things I like about Keys Games is that Jurassic Park, Iron Maiden, it's very clear to me, like, where your progress is, like, the way things are displayed. And I don't really understand that.
    80:02
    Yeah, I honestly – I don't know for any certainty whatsoever of how that rule works. I know I've gotten into computer frenzy mode a couple times. Yeah. um the trophy trophy mania i've only done the one time it was in that same game where i i defeated thanos with all the gems um so i'm not i'm not sure yeah that's exactly how that works and i also like so it doesn't it doesn't meld very well with the way i like to play pinball so i don't like to see those awards you really need to cradle up and look at the display and then like time when you hit the drop targets to locking in where you want it yeah i i don't do that i basically aim at them um and if i have a multi-ball going i try to bash the shit out of them yeah i do the same now there is like there is a gem where you can actually select which grid you want to use oh nice yeah so and i can't remember i cannot remember which one it is but yeah so if you have one of the gems it might be reality when you move it over there it might be Reality Gem. So you move Reality Gem over to the grid and then you can, and I think it's Mind. I think it's the Mind Gem. Yeah, I think you're right. The Mind Gem allows you to select. Yeah, Reality makes it so you only have to hit two out of three targets. Right. So the Mind Gem will allow you to choose which one of the targets you want to get if you complete the drops. So one of the things, see, I thought it would be a situation where you would complete the grid and maybe this does happen like I don't I don't know what I don't know it's just hard for me to understand like where I am in the progress of getting to that because I play a lot of Jurassic Park and I feel like Jurassic Park is very it's very obvious as to where you stand with your progress in the game you know it's like I don't know I just I it's it's confusing to me everything else I mean I feel like most of the other stuff I've kind of figured out like I understand like, you know, what you need to do for each jam or, you know, how to add value to shots and stuff like that. But, um, I mean, I played like, I'm playing like, like my average scores are getting up until like the couple hundred million, four or 500 million. Um,
    82:26
    yeah, it's good. I've been playing a lot of it. It's really, it's really good for me. I mean, the fact that it's combos. I mean, like, you talk about the geometry of Godzilla.
    82:36
    It took me a little bit. I think one of the things I really like about Keith's games is that, and in owning all the three that he's released so far, obviously Godzilla down the line, but, like, seeing the evolution of the geometry, it's been really interesting. I mean, I don't feel like Jurassic Park is really a geometric game as much as it utilizes the whole play field really well.
    83:06
    I love the shots on Jurassic Park. I do, too. I'd say it's his least flowy game. Yeah, I guess that's why. Yeah, I just love the shots on that game.
    83:16
    Yeah, man, when you get into a battle like Keith's games, it's tough. I think, as Keith said, he intended to make the shots on Avengers easier than on Jurassic Park, because people complained about how hard Jurassic Park could be. I don't see that.
    83:32
    Yeah, I mean, I see parts of it, because I think us having the premium and that Captain Marvel ramp being harder to hit makes it difficult to see, but on the pro, it's a really easy shot. Okay, I could see that. So that, I think, changes our perspective a little bit, is having premiums with that one. Yeah. But like you said, it's taking you this long as a, let's be realistic, an expert pinball player. As far as rules go, you know what you're doing. You know how to figure games out.
    83:59
    And I think Avengers is too complicated for the walk-up player. I think it's really complicated. Yeah, one of my players who is a regular pinball player, and he's pretty good, not great, but pretty good, just got his first gem ever like a week or two ago. and I was like, that's a bad sign.
    84:20
    Like, that's telling me that this is definitely too hard for your casual person. It is not a walk-up and play.
    84:29
    So it took me forever to figure out how I was earning, how I was qualifying my extra ball. Oh, there's several ways you get the extra ball. But the scorecard that comes with the game just says, like, shoot combos. Like, that's it for extra ball, which is actually not the easiest way to get an extra ball. No, there's like a grid award. There's wasn't after like two gems at light. So there's a ton of, so the the one that the one that most readily available in my opinion is if you complete the Hawkeye targets If you complete all three of them three times it lights extra ball And so there's three stand-up targets. There's one to the right where you, like, change your gem. Yeah, I had no clue that lit extra ball. Yeah, so if you complete those three times, that'll light an extra ball. That's usually the one that I can qualify first. And then you can get an extra ball if they're hitting a certain number of the Captain Marvel ramp. combos. I think it's like 50 combos. You'll light an extra ball. There's a ton of extra balls on the game.
    85:30
    And it's a really deep game, so you can use them to get through it. I totally see why they're there. See, I think what's unfortunate about Avengers is that I think that what I really like about Avengers, but it's also something that you just, it's not easy to ascertain that this is something you can do, is you can basically have multi-ball, like you can have every gem, almost every gem, five or six gems can be a multi-ball, a three-ball multi-ball. Oh yeah, I tried to do that. Yeah, so the game can be really, really multi-ball heavy. So that's really fun. And then when you're in a mode, like my favorite mode to play in a multi-ball, so if I get two portal locks and it's early in the game, I go for reality gem. You have to multiply those shot values plus the play field multiplier. Exactly. So you go for Reality Gem. And Reality Gem, just to give you an idea, like Reality Gem is you shoot the spinner and that activates the shots. And then you have to hit, I think it's like eight shots, and that will award you the gem. So it's pretty easy to actually get. So in a multi-ball, if you're flailing but you're making shots, you're going to get the gem. but then if you hit the spinner so say you started Reality Gem in a 3 ball multi ball you're in a 3 ball multi ball you hit the spinner fast enough and then it lights an add a ball at the what's the name of that shot the extra ball shot I can never remember the Sanctum Target so you have an add a ball there then if you have an award at the scoop on the right hand side a mystery award that's going to give you an out of ball. But you can also bring in either Thor multiball or Iron Man multiball.
    87:24
    So like – Yep. And you can also light like the super ball saver from the drop target. And you can light the super ball saver. So like what I do, my first ball, I go up. I try to qualify. I try to get two portal locks. I try to get ready. So I start my gem search or whatever they call it. Go with reality. And I am playing for my soul gem most of the time as my second gem because I can collect all my Avengers in that multi-ball.
    87:59
    Yeah, I say I go for soul gem pretty early. It tends to be that way. Yeah, and then soul gem. So then if you have the soul gem, after you, whenever you collect a gem, soul gem will be lit, and it gives you a bonus of whatever the value is of that shot, I think. Do you do soul gem on hard or standard? I do soul gem on standard. Yeah, I tried on hard like three times. I mean, it closed. I was like, nah, let's just collect this gem, actually. But, yeah, I am really – I'm loving it. I mean, I have to say, like, I – yeah, the learning curve is really tough, though, like you were saying. I mean, like – Yeah, but that's something that you like, right? It's something I like because I play most of my pinball at home. Like I'm not putting money into the machines outside of buying them. That's true. I can see why. I think – I can't remember if I talked about this or not, but I do like a league check-in for attendance via pin quest at my league.
    88:58
    And like one week – they always have to take a picture or something. Like sometimes I'm like, take a picture of the bartender, take a picture of what you're drinking. One week I said, take a picture of your least favorite machine, and over 50% of my league players took a picture of Avengers.
    89:13
    out of like 20 plus machines that I have at this bar, I thought it was a joke. And they're like, no, we all hate that game. I was like, wow. So I was like, it really surprised me. Because I literally thought like, oh, there must have just been a group on it or something. I'm like, nope, this is like everybody. Like nobody likes Avengers, huh? That's so weird. It is interesting. Because when I said, you know, another week I did take a picture of your favorite game. Nobody picked Avengers. But like almost everyone had a different game, which was kind of cool to see, you know. But, yeah, when it was which game is your least favorite, Avengers got, like, picked very quickly. And I was like, holy shit. Yeah, that's – Didn't see that coming. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I will say, like, it took me – like, I got the game. I bought the game, brought it home, and I was still playing Jurassic Park a lot.
    90:07
    And I love Jurassic Park. I just think it might be the best rule set of any game I have. Yeah, I love Jurassic Park. I played one on location in South Carolina this weekend.
    90:19
    Cosmetically, beautiful shape. Still on the original code. Same thing with an Aerosmith that I played. They were the same operators. It's got to be some big company because they had, like, stickers on the coin doors. But the Aerosmith was in rough shape. But the Jurassic Park looked brand new, minus the broken lockdown bar button. But both were definitely on the original code. It blew my mind. That's crazy. It's like a new code comes out, and I've run down my bar at 11 p.m. to update code so the players have it for the next day. And then there's operators out there that are probably making way more money than me, and they're just sticking it somewhere. So one thing that's interesting about Avengers is Avengers is shipping now. The Avengers has shipped recently. I don't know if any are shipping now, but the ones that have shipped recently are actually shipping with a different code than what I have on my game. You probably have on your game. I'm not sure what's up with that. Like, I don't know. There's no read me or like what the change is. I don't know if it was something like maybe it was. I don't know. Maybe it's ready for the inside connect or something. But. Oh, yeah, that would make sense. Yeah, I don't know. But they've never released it. But yeah, I do. Yeah. Avengers. I think Avengers is going to be a game that people who own them are going to learn to love them.
    91:36
    Yeah. I, after having that really good game where I did get the gems and I beat Thanos, it made me appreciate the path and the journey there a lot more. It's hard to see that path, though, standing in front of the game. The game can be frustrating. It's not an easy game. See, that's one of the things I think is so great about Jurassic Park is that the use of the map, and I think that this is a very, like, classic way, you know, like I think about, like, Whitewater, right? It's like, what raft are you on? You know, like, there are certain indicators that are really important. And I think that, like, the map indicator is a really clear indicator of where you stand on the play field. And I don't think, you know, like, yes, you collect the Avengers. And so there's that. But then you start over, right? And I think that that's a little, like, that was a little confusing to me as well. I was like, oh, shit, I just lit them all. I played something, and now I have to start all over? That just seemed, you know, like. Yeah, it can get a bit of a woodchoppy feel when you get that. Yeah, but I think the Avengers, I will say this, I think that if you have a longer game, don't focus on collecting the Avengers.
    92:53
    You will get them. You know, there's certainly their strategy, like where you put, like, put your power gem, put your power gem on your pop bumpers.
    93:04
    So if you, the power gem, it gives you like two times the hits or whatever, but it also carries over from ball to ball. So strategically put that on your, your pop bumpers and you're not going to have to like collect that again. Like once you get it, you're set. See, that's good. The only two gems I pay attention to at all are the time and reality. and I put time on the center ramp and reality on the Captain Marvel ramp.
    93:34
    Yes. Yeah, I would do the same. Yeah, so those are the only two. And then I try to put Soul Gem on the Black Panther shot because it's the easiest. I do that as well.
    93:44
    I'll do Soul Gem on Black Panther or Hulk because I have Hulk down. Oh, I do not. Oh, man. If it's not lit, I'll nail it. If it's lit for the spinner, I will brick it every time. I have – and that's the other thing. Like, I don't know what it is about the orbit shots on Avengers, but it took me a long time to find those comfortably. And now that I've found, like, the Hulk shot, like, that is beyond satisfying because – and this is one of the things that I think has really impressed me about this game is that the way that the combos are set up, like, you know, you shoot four combos and it lifts up the portal and then you can get your portal lock. So make that last combo your spinner, like your Hulk shot, because that feeds into your pop bumpers and your pop bumpers drop down. And so your ball will go down into the into the portal lock. So, like, there's nuances like that that are just really super impressive that. Yeah, it's very well thought out. It's very well thought out, but I think it might be too cerebral for a person just walking up to want to have a fun game of pinball.
    94:57
    Yeah, I would agree based on what I've seen from location. But, again, it's fun, so therefore I plan to keep it. All right, so new news from Stern is Jack Danger. We touched on it briefly. Jack Danger designed a pinball machine for Stern. um did yeah and it's why we've been talking about drastic park it seems to reuse a lot of the artwork asset but the layout is drastically different it's the the home pin version um so it doesn't have a full coin door it's got a coin door but it doesn't take quarters um it's got a tiny display i think it's like a three or a five inch lcd yeah versus the 13 inch or whatever it on the full-size games. But the layout looks fun. Very cool to see another new person getting an opportunity to design something.
    95:52
    I think the more people that get access to designing stuff, the better. So it's cool. It's obviously nothing I'm going to purchase. I don't think they sell a ton of any of their home pin versions, but I hope to get to play it somewhere at some point. Probably Expo in a couple weeks. yeah the design the layout looks fun um the utilization of the um the t-rex head capturing the ball is great i was a little angry that the t-rex head interacts more with the ball than it does on the pro version of drastic park but hey nobody cares whatever maybe you could buy one of the home pins rip that mech out put it on your pro no um no i get why because i mean it's it's not elevated on a ramp. It's basically kind of like the snake head on Metallica almost, it looks like. Which I love. I think that's one of the coolest mechs there is in pinball. So I think that's a great idea to reuse something like that for sure. I think Jack was on a Insider Connect podcast talking about it and I have not listened to it. Yeah, I haven't listened to it yet either. I would be interested to know how that process worked. Like, if they were, yeah, I'll have to listen to that. But that's pretty cool.
    97:11
    Yeah, that's pretty cool to have a production pinball machine. Yeah, I mean, it's awesome. I agree. It's very cool. Spooky has also been shipping out Halloweens and Ultramans. We've had, I think we have Halloween number 14 at North End.
    97:32
    It has one stuck ball issue that we're working with Spooky on resolving. It's a really easy ball to unstick, but it's just knowing that it keeps happening. It's already gotten a code update, which was quite significant. It really did change how the game played quite a bit. And earning-wise, in only three weeks, it doubled the best month that any game we've ever had at North End did. It has been incredibly popular. It honestly surprised me because personally, I'm not a huge fan of the Halloween movies. So I think my expectations for both the game and the earnings were low. Yeah. And it has kind of blown that away. So game has been really solid as far as everything working on it. I've been impressed. and one of the things that like having one of the earliest ones I've tried to communicate with Spooky about anything that we've had like the stuck balls or if I've had ideas or suggestions for how something should work differently in a mode and I've emailed them and I don't want to be like an annoying customer by any means but just if I think it's something that can improve and help and to actually get a response back and be like thank you you know we appreciate that we knew about that or working on it or we hadn't thought of that we're going to implement it they literally mark my partner at the location he's the one who bought the halloween machine he had an idea for how the ball should divert differently in this one mode so you had easier access to the middle level play field instead of just the one entrance and they were like that is great we hadn't thought of that and it was already implemented into the new code update a week or two.
    99:18
    So it's nice when people are willing to listen. I realize they're the experts. They know what it takes to build and code. They've been doing this. But the fact that they are listening to some input from paying customers is really impressive. I think that Spooky Pinball is, you know, they've had their hiccups. I mean, some of the stuff, like, I could, you know, nitpick some of the stuff they've done.
    99:45
    But their communication and their, I don't know, like they're pretty much second to none. Yeah, the customer service experience is above and beyond. Like I know two of my friends, at least, with their Godzillas are having issues with the magnet and the magnet getting really hot. Yeah, I saw that. And, yeah, they emailed on Friday when they were discovering this, and these are games that are supposed to be out on location. And it literally gets so hot that it fails. It no longer works.
    100:18
    They thought they'd have replies as of, you know, yesterday, maybe it was the holiday. So they thought they'd hear something back today, and they still haven't heard back as of yet. Oh, wow. So they're getting a little frustrated because, you know. It doesn't work.
    100:30
    Yeah, that's the reality. And, again, we know we're getting early games. We know that there's a higher probability that there could be something wrong. but it'd be nice to acknowledge like okay we've gotten your email and like we know of at least two out of the 32 that are on location have experienced this at this point so that's a decent rate um as an as an operator so you would make a notification of that so as an operator do you go through do you go through your distributor like with that like if you see something like that or do you go directly to Stern?
    101:03
    They've done both. So, yeah. I mean, you fill out the ticket online and hope for the best, I guess. Or you directly email because you start to get used to the same people that are replying to the Stern customer service stuff, and you shoot them a direct email. I will say, like, I've had a really good experience with Stern.
    101:24
    Yeah, they have always eventually taken care of me. It's just sometimes it takes a few communication attempts. Yeah. Do you find that as an operator, like, the communication is any different than just a homeowner? Or I guess you wouldn't know, right? Yeah, for the most – yeah, I don't think I've ever bought a stern to keep it home. Okay. So, yeah, because even my initial Metallica, before I had games on location, I put on location at Main Street.
    101:54
    So, yeah, I wouldn't really know. I'm still fairly convinced that you and I are not smiled down upon by the gods of CERN for various reasons. They love us. Yeah, I'm sure there are some people there that we get along with fine, but I do remember – I was trying to think of what we had done. I remember when the Ninja Turtle pictures – so when the Ghostbuster pictures came out publicly, it wasn't like we leaked them or anything. We shared it, and I woke up to messages being like, you need to take this down, and we did. And then the same thing happens like a few years later with Ninja Turtles, and I got kind of smart-ass-y about it. Because I was like, yeah, I'll take it down when it's taken down from Pinside and here and here and here and here and all these other places that shared it. Because the reality is like once something's out on the internet, it's not fucking going away, and I was just annoyed that they even bothered at that point. Well, I will say like one of the things that I didn't like about the whole thing is that they – so when one of those leaks happened, and I can't remember which it was. but there were distributors who were using the leaked material to sell their games. Yeah. It was left up. So I didn't understand why you would ask somebody to – like you're asking one of your distributors – you're not asking one of your distributors to remove the image, but you're asking us. Like that was – I didn't understand that. And like I've literally never gone out of my way to search for leaked images or like to ask people to leak me anything. I told people not to leak me stuff.
    103:30
    I have had people send me stuff, and it's just I don't feel the need to share it. But now if something goes literally public on Pinside, because I think that is where I've gotten anything that's come out. Yeah, it's an online web forum for the pinball community. At that point, I'm comfortable sharing it because it's out there as public knowledge. Yeah. Now, there have been a couple things over the years sent to me privately that they didn't come out because I don't need to do that. it's cool to see it i'm glad you know it's whatever but that's just like it's i enjoy talking pinball with you man that's what the show is sometimes we bitch about a few things here and there for the most part we're just happy to talk about pinball and yeah i want to know what's coming next i want to know if i need to financially plan for it essentially but that's about it well wait how did you get on that how did we get on the topic of uh stern not liking uh stern not liking us i don't maybe dealing with like customer service issues i don't know but again bottom line, I've always been taken care of with my stern, with like any issues I've had, they've eventually got me taken care of I think you've been treated the same I've had good experience with them, I had an issue on the Avengers with my portal disc and you know, they were really helpful, I had something happen on oh something else yeah, I mean, I've found them to be helpful, but I you know, I don't know I mean, I feel like any relationship I had with them that was an issue was more of, like, their social media team and, you know. Yeah, same here. That's all it's been. There's a ton of awesome people that work at Stern. I enjoy the games. I appreciate how fast they can manufacture things consistently. I did have – this has nothing to do with Stern quality control or issues. It was just something that's changing, like, from time to time something breaks as an operator that you don't usually see. I had a couple players on Iron Maiden one night text me and they're like hey the right flipper's not dropping all the way back down and it was some league players doing some make up games and I was like yeah I'll be right there and they're like no no it's still working it's okay and I was like no just leave it I'll be right there because I assumed it was just going to be a broken spring you know like when it doesn't return all the way and instead one of the screws holding on the flipper coil stop had snapped off into the flipper plate yeah and then the second screw held but because of the lack of support on the other side the coil stop itself had like literally snapped but was still wedged into the coil so it wasn't like the usual like where the stop part just bust the weld it was like just wrecked it was crazy so i was really glad i went down there to check it out but i had all the parts on hand i fixed it in like 30 minutes those but that was just something new those so i've had this maybe this is this shows how much I play my games. I've had those so my understanding is that the new plates that they're using for the flippers are not tapped. So they use tapping screws to attach those. And I think the problem is that in doing that, they're over-torquing them. Well, they're not over-torquing them. They are torquing them as much as they need to torque them, but the screws are not rated to do that. And so I take the, I take the, and this is for the coil stops. I take those screws out and I replace them with ones from old flippers from like WPC games. Okay. So that's what I ended up having to do because I didn't have any of those screws on hand and they worked and they fit, which I was really excited about because I needed an Allen wrench instead of one of my nut drivers to tighten it, but I had one.
    107:17
    Yeah, so the adventures of operating games. I got a broken sling rubber I need to go change out on Iron Maiden that I saw last night.
    107:25
    Oh, you know what? Here's a little pro tip from a non-pro. The upper left flipper on Avengers, it doesn't have a post to protect the tip of the flipper,
    107:38
    Yeah, so you've got to put the extra loose part of the rubber there. Yeah, so a lot of people have had issues with that flipper rubber breaking from the ball hitting it.
    107:48
    I had some super bands. I think that's what they're called. And I think that's what they're called. They're the ones that are like. Yeah, I use super bands too on that game. Yeah, they're like really, they're the ones that are really hard to put on. Like I still have a scar from putting one on. but I put one on for that upper left flipper on Avengers, and it has been solid for... In the first, I think, month, or maybe it was two months of that game, I went through the original factory stern rubber, and I went through two or three Titan rubbers on that upper flipper, and then I put on the super band, and I've had no issues since then. So, yeah, put a super band. Don't put them on your regular flippers because they aren't that great, but that upper left flipper or an exposed flipper like that, the super bands, they hold up pretty well.
    108:37
    Tommy, I have to go, man. I have to get ready to go pick up my daughter. Yeah, I've got to eat some lunch, man. It's all good. It was good to talk to you and play a lot of Godzilla. Yeah, I plan to stream it, this flipping podcast. Oh, awesome. Twitch.tv slash this flipping podcast probably tomorrow, which is Thursday, October 14th. I've got the overlay all made up. I just got to hook up the rig, which I keep down at the bar now because it's mobile, and I will post that to YouTube sometime this week. And we have more stuff to talk about because we didn't even talk about Cactus Canyon. Big news out of Chicago Gaming Company. We did not. And Expo is coming up. I am on fall break next week, so I will bring my computer up to the lake with me. Oh, nice. And I have almost no plans at all. So we can do an episode this week and an episode next week. And then maybe something after Expo if there's anything cool. Let's see.
    109:29
    Maybe we'll try to get a guest or something. Yeah, we'll see if Dr. Phil is doing some shit. All right, man. All right, Tom, it was good to talk to you. Catch up, and I will talk to you soon, man.
    109:41
    Later, everybody. Later. I'm going to have to think back to my friends before I want to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. ¶¶ Yeah, yeah, yeah Boy, don't wanna hear these things That you're not bad, but you're one of them Like I know what a friend is All I know is what you're not, but you're one of them Yeah
    111:16
    I'm living my brain with me every day. I'm driving insane. I'm feeling my heart. I'm getting back at it. I'm feeling my heart. I'm getting back at it. I'm feeling my heart.
    111:38
    I'm feeling my heart. My way, you're one of them, you say You're my friend, but you're one of them Tell me that I'm wrong Trust me, you're the one, you're one of them My way, you're one of them, you say I got your back, got your one and two You want a bet, you want a bet I can't believe you, you're one of them.
    112:40
    And you're one of them, and you're one of them. You're one of them, them, them, them, them, them, them, them. My world.
    113:06
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