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Pinball Roundtable Part - 6 with Retro Ralph and Cale Hernandez - Episode 70

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 39m·analyzed·Aug 23, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Roundtable reveals Stern's 2025-26 game roadmap and Dutch's Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox.

Summary

The JBS Pinball Roundtable discusses upcoming Stern releases through 2026, including Star Wars (Original Trilogy), Walking Dead Remastered, Pokemon (potentially for Costco), and Fallout (an Elwyn Banks design incorporating his original Western concept). They also break news that Dutch Pinball has secured Michael J. Fox likeness and video assets for Back to the Future, to be announced at Expo 2025.

Key Claims

  • Star Wars Pinball will feature Original Trilogy (Episodes 4, 5, 6)

    high confidence · Cale states this is what 'we've all pretty much dialed in on' and describes it as his childhood

  • Walking Dead Remastered will be the next Stern release after Star Wars

    high confidence · Cale discusses this as part of the confirmed roadmap, expecting new art and potential LCD animation

  • Pokemon will be the next Cornerstone game after Walking Dead Remastered

    medium confidence · Cale speculates Pokemon will be announced similarly to how D&D was announced after Metallica Remastered; predicts January 2025 announcement based on D&D pattern

  • Fallout will be an Elwyn Banks design and his last game under current contract

    medium confidence · Cale states Elwyn pitched an original Western concept that was rejected, then incorporated into Fallout; describes it as the final game on his contract

  • Dutch Pinball has Michael J. Fox likeness and video assets for Back to the Future

    high confidence · Jamie reports this from a source; states Dutch will announce at Expo 2025; confirms they have Fox's likeness but unclear on Christopher Lloyd or other cast

  • Stern may release Pokemon in a Costco version in addition to standard tiers

    low confidence · Cale speculates based on Pokemon being largest IP and Costco's impulse-purchase environment; explicitly states 'this is our guess' and 'we have no information'

  • Walking Dead Remastered will use Metallica Remastered as the design blueprint

    medium confidence · Cale discusses comparable playfield scaling and code building on Lyman Sheets' existing groundwork

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is interested in recruiting Keith (Elwyn Banks)

    medium confidence · Previous episode rumor discussed; Cale notes this is a possibility given his contract ending and JJP's interest level

Notable Quotes

  • “we're not press. We're not media. We're just three guys turning on the cameras and chatting with each other.”

    Ralph (Retro Ralph) @ Early in episode — Defines the Roundtable's positioning as authentic community commentary vs. industry press

  • “you're going to see the greatest Elwynn game ever released next year. It's going to be absolutely amazing.”

    Cale Hernandez @ During Fallout discussion — High confidence prediction about Fallout's quality; reflects belief in Elwyn's passion for the project

  • “The information is that Dutch Pinball has Back to the Future. We know this already. Yeah. They have the license for Michael J. Fox. Shut up. No way.”

    Jamie Burchill / Cale Hernandez (reaction) @ During Back to the Future reveal — Breaking news moment; Michael J. Fox likeness was previously unknown to the group

  • “this is going to happen after Walking Dead Remastered. They're going to throw that out there. It's not a cornerstone. So they're going to announce another cornerstone after that, just like last year.”

    Cale Hernandez @ Pokemon discussion — Articulates the pattern Cale identified for Stern's announcement strategy

  • “you're gonna be very deflated when you're like oh and by the way you're gonna get it in 24 months”

    Jamie Burchill @ Dutch Back to the Future discussion — Expresses concern about Dutch's production delays affecting hype

  • “they're going to pull out all the stops... this is like showing i'm the golden goose”

    Cale Hernandez @ Fallout discussion — Predicts Elwyn will maximize effort on final contract game to demonstrate value

Entities

Star Wars PinballgameWalking Dead RemasteredgamePokemon PinballgameFallout PinballgameBack to the Future PinballgameElwyn BankspersonCale HernandezpersonJamie BurchillpersonRetro Ralph (Ralph Ranzio)person

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball's production capacity concerns limiting Back to the Future delivery timeline despite strong demand

    medium · Jamie expresses skepticism: 'I personally don't believe that there's a way that Dutch is going to be able to deliver these, looking at what they're doing with Alice and how long that's taken' and predicts 2032 delivery joke

  • ?

    community_signal: Roundtable podcast position themselves as authentic community commentary source receiving insider information from industry sources

    medium · Ralph states: 'we're not press. We're not media. We're just three guys turning on the cameras and chatting with each other.' Jamie also notes multiple sources reached out with corrections and information.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Back to the Future positioned as major nostalgic IP competing with Star Wars for collector/enthusiast attention; hosts debate production viability vs. demand

    medium · Jamie states Back to the Future is 'dream theme' and notes 'there's probably a lot of people in pinball' who will want it; compares to Star Wars as equivalent nostalgia draw

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Fallout positioned as Elwyn Banks' passion project incorporating his original Western concept approved as Fallout theme after IP pitch rejection

    medium · Cale explains: 'elwyn wanted to do an original western and he pitched it to the executives at stern...they were like hey we have this fallout license why don't you roll that game into this fallout license'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Michael J. Fox likeness secured for Back to the Future; status of Christopher Lloyd and other cast unclear

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.300

0:00
On this episode of the JBS Roundtable, the non-compete expert at work and at Eureka Heights, Jamie Burchill, the Mr. Miyagi of pinball himself, Sensei Cale Hernandez. And this week's host, he owns a 007 at home, but at the bat, it owns him. That's right, this week, Retro Ralph Ranzio hosts the JBS Pinball Roundtable.
0:30
Hello and welcome to the JBS show and part six, I think, of the Pinball Roundtable. Welcoming my friends, Cale Hernandez and Retro Ralph. How are you, boys? Good. So it's supposed to be your turn, Ralph, right? Yeah, but we're kind of like scrapping that whole thing, right? I think we should scrap it, right? What do you think, Cale? We should dump this. It's your turn. If it's really a roundtable, we should just all contribute, right? Yeah, 100%. And, yeah, that's the whole point of the roundtable, right? We're all King Arthur, right? I like that a lot, though. And it makes so much sense because, like, when it's, like, a certain person's time, the host, and you're trying to organize stuff, and then the other guy has, like, some breaking news or something he wants to talk about, then it's, like, the host has to, like, hurry up and scramble. There's no point. It's just because what people like about this is we're three guys. We're not press. We're not media. We're just three guys turning on the cameras and chatting with each other. Absolutely. Exactly. Having fun. I love the roundtable. It's been a lot of fun. And the reason we're recording a couple of weeks early is because I'm going to be in Tempe, Arizona, staying very, very close to the bat and getting to see my friends and hanging out Labor Day weekend. So we thought, let's do one now, and maybe we could do a live show when I'm there. Yes. For Labor Day. Have we decided? Like, I really do think we should do one, even if it's just for like an hour. It'd be fun. 100%. Right? We should do a live show? Yes. Yeah, why not? Well, how about this? This is going to be on YouTube, right? Yeah. Let us know in the comments. Do you guys want a live show when Jamie comes to visit me and Ralph?
2:23
Thank you. I mean, Jamie's yes. I vote yes, but. I vote yes, too. because I think it'll be an absolute blast. Yeah. It'll be totally fun. I'll bring the YOLO box.
Dutch Pinball
company
Stern Pinballcompany
Electric Bat Arcadeorganization
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Lyman Sheetsperson
Expo 2025event

high · Jamie states: 'They have his likeness. They have the video assets. And for Michael J. Fox, that's all the information they have. I asked about Lloyd. I asked about Michael J. Fox doing call-outs, and that information is not – we don't have that info yet.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Elwyn Banks' contract ending after Fallout; Jersey Jack rumored to be actively recruiting him

    medium · Cale references previous episode rumor and states 'His contract's up' after Fallout; discusses JJP's interest as strategic move by billionaire-backed company

  • ?

    announcement: Dutch Pinball confirmed to announce Back to the Future at Expo 2025 with Michael J. Fox likeness and video assets

    high · Jamie reports from insider source: 'They will be announcing this, that they have Michael J. Fox at Expo this year. Now, my source tells me that they are willing to tell everyone we have the assets.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Dutch Pinball's reliability history questioned; concerns about Big Lebowski extended delays (12+ years) and Alice extended production timelines affecting Back to the Future confidence

    medium · Jamie references Big Lebowski taking 'like 12 years' and Alice's extended timeline; states concern about Dutch meeting demand despite 'one of the most nostalgic titles next to star wars'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Cale articulates confident roadmap for Stern through 2026: Star Wars → Walking Dead Remastered → Pokemon Cornerstone → Fallout, with specific game announcements and designers identified

    high · Cale states 'I think I've figured out the road map going into the next two games all the way from now to the next two games that will be shipping in what is it 2026' and details each title with designer and features

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Cale speculates Pokemon will be Stern's next Cornerstone title, not Call of Duty, based on licensing and market fit

    medium · Cale states 'somebody who knows got in touch with me and said i was wrong' about CoD, then proposes Pokemon as 'a home version of the the pokemon cornerstone' because it's 'the largest IP in the entire world'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Walking Dead Remastered will leverage LCD screen for video assets/animations, contrasting with previous pinball generation

    medium · Cale notes: 'because now they have an LCD. Like what are they going to – do you think they'll have video assets?...It would be so cool if they did though'

    • 2:33
    There you go. Yeah, whatever it takes, man. YOLO it up. We'll YOLO it up, and we'll go from there. All right.
    2:40
    Jamie and Ralph are back, baby. This is the topic. We're so back. God damn, we're back, buddy. We feel so good. We're so back, dude. I love it. We're playing pinball, baby. Now, what we should do over the course of the next year, Ralph, is also look at our IFPA ranking, Because what's happening, ladies and gentlemen, is we're playing a lot of pinball. Okay? Me and Ralph and Kale. Now, Kale is better.
    3:06
    Right? He's 900th in the world. Guy's a badass. Right? Me and Ralph are not there yet. I'm 8,000, I think. Are you 8,000? Yeah. All right. When I started, I was 46,000. So I'm 8,000. Ain't bad now. Right. Your goal is to break 1,000 because that's when you get a discount on a Stern machine. Oh, yeah. Did you know that? No. I didn't know that, but did you know I got the – because I hadn't played – so I did have an IFPA account, but I hadn't played for years. It was like three years. So when I played at the bat a couple times, I got this email from – which Sharp is it that – Josh. I got this email from Josh Sharp. He's like, congratulations on being the fastest mover. And I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, you moved up the most out of everybody last month. And I got a discount. I didn't buy one, but I got a discount on a Stern machine. They have like a list of Sterns. So I guess I didn't know you'd get that for that too, though. All right. That's our goal, Ralph. Okay. We're playing tournaments. We got to get sub 1,000. No chance. We can do that. Yeah, we can do it. I think we can crack it.
    4:17
    It's going to take a long, long time. How many years have you got left, man? How many years of life have you got left? I can do it. I got some nudging to do and some moving to do. I got to start liking wick. Shit, man. This is a lot of stuff. You need to start taking care of yourself. Kale's trying to make us have a longer lifetime, and you're still zinning and doing all these things for your body that aren't good. Yeah. Jamie.
    4:39
    I've lost five pounds since I went back from the canyon, so that's not too shabby. Yeah. Good. And what we're talking about is we share Apple Watch workouts with each other. Right. Except ours are dismal. There's no working out going on. There's nothing between me and Ralph. And Cale's rocking it. This was a stretch, but Cale the other day is like, hey, man, badass. You got your move. You got your stand goal. And I was like, well, it's something. I was like, he kind of pumped me up, though. I'm like, that's right. I finally got a notification from somebody. And I got excited. Because we were, Jamie and I, just sitting on our ass all day.
    5:18
    My wife's out of town for four weeks. I'm playing Call of Duty. I'm just sucking. I'm going to catch you moving, man. We got to move. Got to move. Going fishing tomorrow morning, so I'll be moving a lot and kicking some ass. I fish in the surf, ladies and gentlemen, and it's fun as shit. So, Jamie, why are you back? What did you do? I know, but the audience doesn't know. Why am I back from what? Back? You're back in pitfall. Like, you got your mojo back. You did really well the other night, right? Well, you won your first tournament. Yeah, that was cool. And posted that on socials, which was totally badass. And what I forgot to mention, though, Jamie and Cale, they did not have ball saves turned on.
    6:00
    So it was, like, that much more difficult. I was like, because it made you, with no ball saves, I was like, okay, I really need to make sure I am, like, controlled and, like, taking my time and patience. So that was kind of interesting. They're going to put him on the next time. Was that just for the tournament?
    6:17
    Yeah, it was just for the tournament. Who's the TD? Shoot, I don't have his name handy. But Jim Smith was there. Luckily he was there because he was helping out a little bit too. I'll get the guy's name before the end of the show and I'll give him some. That was interesting because that's a venue I've never heard of. But good job on winning that. Thanks. Because I saw you were playing some really good people.
    6:43
    Yeah, yes, it was good. I don't know what happened. I was dialed in, and, you know, the only thing I could think of that was different about that, walking into that tournament, is that day I was super chill all day. Like, I don't know why I was, and I wasn't stressed out, and I don't know, maybe that was why I was able to focus and do better, but it was pretty good. I'm pretty excited about it. That makes a huge difference, the mental aspect of it. Yeah. I've been working on it big time with Sensei Kale Hernandez, and it's been working. I don't know. I've just been going on the walks, get a bad ball one, walk out what I need to do. And, yeah, I needed a big week in league, and I had one of my best weeks ever, and I made the finals. You made the finals, right? Yeah, I made the finals in a six-week league.
    7:29
    And 40-plus players at Eureka Heights. It's fun. the question is will it stick you and i be able to keep it going no probably not yeah no it's not gonna happen all right let's get on topic uh since we're not doing the roundtable uh host show anymore i'll just keep guiding us and we'll go through from there from our notes uh revisit next costco game oh the the next costco game so we were talking about the next costco game potentially being call of duty yeah i brought that up and that was just me that was just me like guessing yeah uh i've been rethinking it because uh uh well because after that episode somebody who knows got in touch with me and said i was wrong that helps in the rethinking hey there we go that'll definitely help right so i so then i was like well what the hell is it yeah and and uh i think this makes a whole lot more sense okay um because they all you know from what everybody says they already have this license and they're working on a game i think the new costco game's going to be a a home version of the the pokemon cornerstone oh wow that that makes a lot of sense that makes a ton of sense the cod thing they're going to run into the same issue with the guns yeah and and a toy and and then carrie hardy's going to freak out uh so this pokemon makes so much more sense it makes a lot it makes a ton of sense especially knowing that like a lot of times you're in Costco. I don't go very often. We have a membership. We don't go very often. But when you do, there's kids and parents and they're begging to buy things. I don't know. You're going to see that Pokemon. I don't know. I think that's a genius. So they would make four Pokemons, you think? So the limited, premium, pro, and Costco-vers. Does that make sense? I think it makes sense. Yeah. Heck yeah. Alright. You heard it here first. We have no information on this. That's just a total – like I haven't heard anything that's a total guess. That's an absolute guess. It's a good guess. But I like that guess. I like that. That would make sense to me because why would you not – isn't it the biggest IP? It's the biggest, right? It is the largest IP in the entire world. So you're going to put the largest IP in the entire world in a place where people make tons of impulsive purchases. You know what I mean? I think it's great. It's awesome. I mean, people are getting into fist fights over these cards at Walmart. I mean, come on. Yeah, yeah. I don't think they're going to fight over a Costco version of the game, just whipping each other's ass to get that ball. Pull out a hot dog and a slice of pizza.
    10:32
    All right, well, that could be pretty awesome if that happens. You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. This is our guess. This is Cale's guess. Go straight to Pennside. I like it. But then they'll say that I said it. For some reason. I don't know why. I don't know. I love that part. Ralph, I love that part. That was my favorite part. I never got mentioned. Direct it directly to me. Like, oh, no, it was him. I'm like, what are you talking about? So our last rumor was that Keith could be potentially leaving and going to JJP. We talked about that in the last podcast. And it made its way to Pinside. And me and Cale didn't take any shrapnel. It was nice. No. It was just like, hey, there's this jackass on the JBS show that made this. I'm like, what? And then it was just like offensive comment after offensive comment about me. I mean, whatever. It's fine. It's great. At least somebody's talking about you. Yeah.
    11:25
    Teflon Jamie and Teflon Kale. Everybody's doing all right. See, I'm not Teflon. I cry. They're just leaving me alone right now. Maybe they know I'm very sensitive. Yeah.
    11:37
    All right. This is Kale's segment here. He wrote this in, and he didn't tell us anything. Right. Okay, yeah, this is where we don't know anything, right? We know nothing. This is exciting. I'm ready. I'm so excited to tell you this stuff.
    11:53
    And this goes from – I've got to sit back and listen. This goes just from some critical thinking and a lot of stuff that we know that's already out there. but I think I know I think I've figured out the road map going into the next two games all the way from now to the next two games that will be shipping in what is it 2026 is that the next year yes is that right I love how we had to think about it for a second but yes that just shows you how much you should right well that just shows how much you should trust us I don't know what year it is. These guys don't even know what year it is, right?
    12:37
    Okay, so, I mean, let's be real. We know the next game is Star Wars, right? That's right. And we're all pretty much dialed in on 4, 5, and 6, original trilogy, right? That's what we've dialed it in on. 4, 5, and 6, and I'm excited about this. I don't know about you guys, but, I mean, that's my childhood, right? Oh, yeah. um i will definitely have one at the bat uh so that's going to be cool yeah absolutely you have after that it's gonna be great i mean everybody's talking about it after that we're gonna see walking dead remastered okay super excited about this uh and it will definitely be at electric bat i mean is there a better title for electric yeah a horror game so do you guys think that they'll So this is – I've been thinking about this game because a part of me is a little bit more excited about the Evil Dead remaster than even – or not even. I'm sorry. Walking Dead remaster than Star Wars because now they have an LCD. Like what are they going to – do you think they'll have video assets? They're not going to do – they have to, right? Like they're going to use assets from the show. No clue. I really have no idea. It would be so cool if they did though. It would be cool if they did assets from the comic, the graphic novel. Oh, that would be cool too. Yeah, but I mean, I hope so. Illustrations. Yeah. And we, I mean, we kind of see the roadmap. It's probably, they're probably going to, the blueprint is the Metallica remastered, right? Yeah. So you're going to see new art. You're going to see new elements, whether it's animation or clips from the movie on the LCD. and it's going to play a little different because we know this cabinet is different that's the same thing that happened with Metallica it's just they had to scale the play field just slightly a fraction of an inch which makes things play differently and I don't know if they're going to like they did in Metallica where you don't get borg'd they added a little post there so there might be some stuff like that But this is going to be exciting. And plus they're – and I don't know who's working on it, who's doing the code, but they're going to piggyback off of the excellent code that Lyman Sheets already laid out, the groundwork for that. So I think it's going to be a hit. Yeah, I think so too. I think they're going to – I mean talk about they're going to do the same thing they did last year. Last year it was crazy at Expo. It was like this one-two punch. You had all these people over there like – because X-Men was such a unique layout and departure from what they'd been doing. And then all of a sudden the next day they roll in Metallica. It was like you couldn't get people away from the Stern area. It was so smart. I haven't seen a line like that since they released Ghostbusters. Oh, Metallica remastered. That line was stupid. It was crazy. And I haven't seen a line like that since they released Ghostbusters. And the only reason, when I was working with Marco, we used to do the booths. Stern wasn't doing the booths at the shows. We had a couple of games. But we didn't – back in the day, the shows weren't like they are now where you'd have like 20 X-Men. We would travel around with two Ghostbusters. So at Texas, there was two Ghostbusters, so you could imagine what the lines looked like. Yeah, so it reminded me of that. It was a cool kind of like callback to the good old days of pinball expos and shows and what have you. So I'm thinking this is going to happen after Walking Dead Remastered. They're going to throw that out there. It's not a cornerstone. So they're going to announce another cornerstone after that, just like last year. You know, X-Men, Metallica Remastered. Then it was D&D, right? I think that's when they're going to slide in Pokemon.
    16:34
    So if that's the case, didn't D&D get – wasn't it like December? Or am I wrong on that? No, D&D would have been – how did that get announced? But it shipped the next year, right? Like January? Now I can't remember though. I don't know. But anyways. Chat, let us know. So that's when you go see Pokemon. Everybody's excited about this. This is Jack Danger, right? Yeah, last game. Yeah, apparently. Um, that's going to be super cool. And I'm very excited. We have ever since we started hearing rumblings of this game and I could never get any of my friends that I still to this day, I can't get any of my friends at Stern to confirm it. But I think we've heard enough that this is actually happening. okay and then here i think this is the thing we're hearing a lot about a fallout game but here's here's the thing with the the fallout game i think that's going to come out after pokemon and here's the here's the exciting thing about this it's going to be an elwyn game here's the best part of it you know we talked about this last uh last episode uh this is this this will be the last game on keith's contract so it's this is an important game because you don't want to dial it in on your last game on a contract no matter if jersey jack's trying to womb over there or stern wants to keep him or he wants to go you know design something of spooky just have a good time you wanted you want this to be a banger because this is like because this is this is it this is like showing i'm the golden goose you know i this thing he's going to pull out all the stops the really important thing about this game i've heard that elwyn wanted to do an original western and he pitched it to the executives at stern now i don't know all the details he got he got shot down and i don't know all the details but you can imagine we know uh original ips don't work anymore right so they were like hey we have this fallout license why don't you roll that game into this fallout license so we're gonna get a game elwyn's dream game something he's been thinking about and wanted to do you know this from the beginning like with uh iron maiden he never even listened to iron maiden before he made it you know he's just he's just good at going back studying ip and then making the game about it this is going to be a game that he's super, super into. I mean, he laid out the groundwork for this. He's thought about this. And he's going to, this is, you're going to see the greatest Elwynn game ever released next year. It's going to be absolutely amazing. And that's it. That is why I am, I have never been more excited about what's coming in pinball stern is going to absolutely hit it out of the park with one two three four is that four game four bangers incredible ips with incredible designers star wars walking dead walking dead pokemon pokemon fallout okay sorry i was like wait a it's four yeah yeah yeah fallout what it has to be the tv show though right you get walter goggins i would imagine and if they could get walter goggins what incredible hot actor get his likeness get him to get his call outs oh man they need to do that more because that's the one thing that just it it honestly it's so minor but it's the one thing that makes evil dead so damn good It's because the callouts are so great. When it goes 3-2-1, fuck them up. I'm like, I get so pumped up every time that happens. Yeah, you got to do that. Callouts can make a game so much more interesting. Walter Goggins' character has that Western thing though, right, Cale? I mean, he is a cowboy. Exactly. So he could lean heavily in on that. 100%. Yeah, and think about this too. that there's probably a lot of people in pinball not familiar with the fallout ip but it is a video game that's been around for 30 years yeah my kids played the shit out of fallout yes it's huge fallout fallout vegas right all of it and now they have an incredible and if anybody listening has not seen the show on Amazon Prime. It is A+. One season is already out there. Go watch the sneak preview on YouTube for the new season. Yeah, it's excellent. And then they've already been greenlit for the third season. So this is going to be around. This is almost like the new Stranger Things.
    21:48
    The show is wild. You know who I reached out to? I reached out to the Loser Kid guys, right? We've been bullshitting, and I said, hey, watch Fallout. Cale got me onto the show. My boys love it. You got to watch it. In the first episode with the cousin thing, he was like, what are you making me watch? And I was just like, just hang in there, dude, all right? It's a little weird. But hang in there. If anyone doesn't have Amazon Prime, watch it. I mean, get – I know I'm behind. I've got a bunch of travel coming up, so I'm going to watch it. I'm going to get it all consumed. It's so good, and wow. This is a banger.
    22:32
    It's a big news, right? Yeah. I mean, that's a big – because I really think that Star Wars is going to – I think Star Wars is going to surprise us. It needs to be a lot better than we think. And then The Walking Dead, I just – I'm very curious what they're going to do. Now they have the LCD, Pokemons. Pokemon, there's so many – We talked about it on a couple episodes ago. There's so many cool things you could do with Insider Connected and Pokemon. Oh, yeah. And then you're telling me Fallout? That should be – you're right, Cale. That should be four solid, really well-selling games right there because they're all pretty giant IPs. How does it get any better than that? It doesn't. Back to the future.
    23:11
    That's what I want. I just wish – why wouldn't Stern just get that away from Dutch? Like do something. I just – oh, God. But Stern needs to make that game.
    23:22
    Well, let's put a bow on that because that is pretty awesome. Sorry, you guys are less excited about Back to the Future. No, we'll go to the Back to the Future because we have a Back to the Future rumor in a second. Oh, we do? Oh, I didn't even know that. I have a Back to the Future rumor. But let's tie up our fallout. That could be really incredible. And, you know, if the rumor is true that he is leaving, yeah, he wants to leave his mark, right? Well, let's make this clear. The rumor is not he's leaving. The rumor is Jersey Jack is interested in him. Right, right. Yeah.
    23:58
    Well, why wouldn't that be? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right, right. I mean, that's a no-brainer. I mean, Michael Jordan's available, and you don't want to sign him.
    24:07
    Well, and that's the whole point. And here's the thing. Why wouldn't – it just makes sense. Why wouldn't Keith listen? you have a billionaire that wants you to go make a game for him your contract's up yeah you're not meaning you're not going to entertain that you're going to say yeah i mean who wouldn't do that no of course you're gonna i mean he could say yeah i want a million dollars yeah no problem he started peeling off the benjis let's go you know but either way like i said in the last episode either way it's a win-win he you know he stays his turn keeps making bangers goes to jersey jack can see is what kind of crazy stuff he can do you know with a with an unlimited bomb well we'll see in summer of 2026 i guess so if you right yeah yeah wait so his contract up when Or is it just after that next game is done After this game Yeah By the way we were almost right on D It was unveiled January 3rd of 2025. Okay, there you go. That will be the Pokemon game.
    25:16
    That seems so fast, doesn't it? Imagine that, how quickly. Like, you're going Star Wars, Walking Dead, boom, Pokemon. Wow, that's going to be like crazy right there. Right. Yeah. Boom, fallout.
    25:27
    Wow. Shit, I'm screwed. I need to work really hard. And then what's coming after that? I mean, if they have that lined up, just imagine what they're working on right now. Yeah.
    25:37
    Well, exciting times in the world of pinball. Exciting times at the roundtable. That's pretty awesome, man. I hope you're right. Good rumor. Me too. You want to put some money on it? Well, we should do like a Was Hale Right episode later. Yeah.
    25:53
    Next year. We're doing next year. Yeah, we'll do it. That's fine. I'll bet you dinner. Dinner at that place that you took us to. Oh, dude. Valentine. That was so good. Yeah. We're going. We're going to go again. We're going to go again, but I'm not betting dinner on it. Well, I'll pay for it. I'll pay for it, brother. No, no, no, no. That's not what I mean, wiseass. I'm just not betting on it. All right. So this whole rumor thing is weird for me, right? Like no one – people want to talk to Cale. People want to talk to Ralph. But once in a while, somebody wants to talk to Jamie, and I got some information, boys. I'm not in the rumor business, but I have some information I'm going to drop on you. You ready? Yeah, I can't wait. Could you put this in the notes? This is like – I don't know anything about this that's going on. That's why we're not telling you. That's why we didn't tell you. We haven't been sharing – we've had this information all – I've had this for a week and a half. And I've been dying to tell you. I can't believe you didn't tell us. But are you like, is this going to, this has to be, I mean, Kale just dropped like a massive bomb. So this, don't hype it too much. Is it? All right, all right. You tell me if it's hype worthy. Okay. All right, here it is. The information is that Dutch Pinball has Back to the Future. We know this already. Yeah. They have the license for Michael J. Fox. Shut up. No way. And they will be announcing this, that they have Michael J. Fox at Expo this year. Now, my source tells me that they are willing to tell everyone we have the assets.
    27:36
    We're making this machine. Now, Jamie, did you get any additional information? Because does that mean we have Christopher Lloyd and the rest of the actors too? I asked about Lloyd. I asked about Michael J. Fox doing call-outs, and that information is not – we don't have that info yet. But they have his likeness. They have the video assets.
    28:00
    And for Michael J. Fox, that's all the information they have. That's huge news. That's incredible. They couldn't pull that off before with the Data East one. Isn't that Data East? Yeah, it's Data East. The Back to the Future? Yeah. Yeah, they have, like, fake actors. but fake fake fox yeah the fake fox no fake no fake fox i am so back to the future to me obviously i know the other one exists i just it just like to me that at the time i don't think the technology was around to really like bring the movie out enough and now they have that ability my only thing is like i want to be so hyped for this because this is dream theme for me like back to the future is like take my money now i just am a little less hyped because i personally don't believe that there's a way that Dutch is going to be able to deliver these, looking at what they're doing with Alice and how long that's taken. Like, how are they going to be able to produce these? Yeah, well, they'll take your money now, and you'll get the machine in 2032. But that's a wicked buzzkill, man. Like, imagine how... What did they do before Alice?
    29:06
    Big Lebowski. Oh, yeah. Big Lebowski. Oh, man, it's going to be a long time before you get it. Didn't that take, like, three years or something? No, like a decade.
    29:15
    It was longer than that. Yeah. like 12 years but so why wouldn't you here's here's a scenario that i don't understand right you got what we know from like four months ago american pinball they like relaunched their website and they had all these pictures about how they can manufacture games for you and like and it seemed like they were trying to pitch themselves as we can manufacture your idea and bring it to life for you and i've never really i don't know a ton about american pinball as far as the quality because i've never owned one but so i'm assuming they're they're a decent quality machine yeah why why not pair up with them so that they can get these games made because i can't imagine the demand isn't going to be crazy for back to the future yeah well let's talk about the quality first because i saw jamie shaking his head is american not good quality i don't know i've never owned one it depends on how force was it depends on how it's designed like they can build if it's a well-designed game they can build a very reliable machine like hot wheels we had hot wheels in the electric bat for a long time and incredibly reliable machine it's it's designed well then on the other side you have uh you have galactic tank force which yeah we know there are issues with so they are capable of building a reliable machine it just depends on who designs it yeah i don't know man just seems like am i am i like don't you guys think that the dutch couldn't i mean like you have this that you have probably one of the most nostalgic titles next to star wars for right because i'm a little bit younger than you guys so that's my star wars you know like i still like star wars but back to the future was the movie i obsessed about so like you have this demand i think anybody everyone's gonna want it but that's that demand you're gonna be very deflated when you're like oh and by the way you're gonna get it in 24 months it's probably gonna be longer than that like i don't know that would that would buzzkill it depends how much they sell it depends how well they have do they have all the assets does it look great uh you know maybe they can spit them out a little earlier what do you kale possible no the way dutch seems to be when i did lebowski looked so good you know what i mean like they did a good job with all Oh, Lebowski's great. Not a good tournament game because you just start hammering that fucking car up top. But it's fun.
    31:38
    What were you asking? I was going to ask him if the bat would get a Dutch pinball. No. No, they're not. They're not. They're no fun to operate, especially in arcades that get a lot of play. Okay.
    31:54
    Well, your arcade gets more play than most arcades. Yeah. All right. But, hey, that's good news. They've got Michael J. Fox. Supposedly they're announcing it. We'll see if this rumor is right as well. Breaking news. Breaking news at the roundtable. People are calling us. They're giving us the info. Keep doing it.
    32:15
    I don't mind it. All right. Ralph wants to know, do we need another Star Wars pin? Come on, Ralph. Do we need another Star Wars pin? I just – well, I was just thinking – now I'm a little bit more excited about it because I think that it could end up turning out to be pretty cool. But – I got you hyped up. I got you hyped, Ralph. Yeah, you kind of got me hyped. So I almost want to like – let's just forego this one because you guys are going to say we do need another one. I was thinking we don't. Cale got me so amped up that now I'm like – I don't want to delete that. I want to talk about my other topic really quick. Go ahead. Because I don't know if Cale does this. I know you do, Jamie. but kale i was talking to jamie the other day and i was like i was like hey do you know my do you know that jjp games tell you and stern does too i think but it tells you how many games you played and then it tells you how many games you like rage quit and he's like what do you mean i was like you know when you hit the left flipper and you press start and just reset your game in the middle of the game because you got pissed he's like you do that i was like yeah i do that and i go do you and i go to this this is jamie this is how the conversation when i go do you think other people do this and they just don't talk about it and he goes oh totally everyone totally and no one talks about it because like so i felt so good kale because jamie and i if we have a shit ball one rage quit we're just like we're not going to deal with it not all the time it depends let me let me explain let me practice oh wait hold on now you're backtracking that's not what you told me on the phone i told you this i told you this i said okay look if i'm playing at home and i'm trying to get cyborg multi-ball on iron maiden and i fuck up ball one guess what i'm not getting cyborg multi-ball probably so i'm gonna rage quit that shit all right now if i'm practicing for a tournament you know trying to loosen up a little bit and i have a shitty ball one i go you know what you don't get to rage quit at eureka heights tonight dude you gotta work that shit out and so i'll but it depends if i'm sitting at home and i just want to get to two minutes of midnight there's some rage quitting happening yeah i'm telling you i'm just being honest 20 of my games on harry potter are rage quits i was like shit that's not bad that sounds good one in five rage quits yeah i did the math yeah so because i wanted to see how much i rage quit that game you know what game i got really pissed off and rage quitted the shit out of though is once I got really far into D&D, there's this one mode, and I was talking to Kale, I was talking to Ty. It was that one bitch-ass mode that's so hard to get through. I just kept getting pissed. I was like, rage quit, rage quit, rage quit. But it took me, I figured out, it took me 50 tries. I can't remember what the, it's like the one right before you get to the wizard mode. It's like the one mode that you have to complete. Something of the undead or something, but it's just such a pain in the ass. but anyway yeah so i have no i i of course of course not oh come on no no no no you can have rachel's right here she'll tell you i don't do that and i have never done that and i have the keys to the machine i could do it all day long um because even when i'm like goofing around and just playing at home even at home you don't do it nah why at home why no because like even when I'm at the arcade and just playing Jurassic Park trying to get chaos multi-ball and like you know I'm on ball three and I need like three more letters um I just I go for it because when you actually pull it off in that third ball there's no better feeling and I play it through I play the game through because I mentally I think like okay I'm in a tournament like i can't do i can't do that i can't i can't just rage i can't reset no you you guys think you're the kind of guys who i was i would play like video games with at home and y'all would accidentally hit the reset button yeah that's that we don't do that uh yeah whoops right yeah i probably throw the controller for sure yeah i broke many of a controller all right so jamie i I think what Kale is telling us is that we need to stop this practice because this is actually probably screwing up our game. It probably is. It's hurting you mentally. So you're saying in our quest to 1,000, we need to stop rage quitting. We've got to stop rage quitting. But people listening to this better put in the comments that they do this because I know that a lot of people do this. They just don't talk about it. It's one of those taboo topics in pinball. I don't do that, man. Play right through it. Let's hear it. I don't rage turn off the machine. Do you rage turn them off? No, because, I mean, that's not very impactful. That's like trying to hang up a cell phone and smash it down and be pissed, right? Remember old phones? You'd hear the bell ring, so it was like impactful. But by the time I get over to the button, I'm probably like, what do I do? Like hit the button hard? No, it's not good. You know, his Tony Robbins speeches are nice, and we need to start listening to this dude, okay? he's so much shorter than we are. He's in the right direction. And then I tend to... You're kind of a bad influence, Jamie, honestly. Fuck that noise. If you're trying to get Cyborg multiball, fuck it. If you're just at home...
    37:40
    I'm not saying you're not a bad influence on the Rage Quit thing. That's something that we didn't know we both did. So we figured that out together. Yeah. And also, the guys at Stern, they're looking at the date on Insider Connected. I know! Ralph keeps shutting the game off. Jamie keeps shutting the game off. I thought about that after we spoke. They actually can't see all that. Bullshit. No, they can't. Oh, really? Yeah, I've talked to them about it. I mean, they haven't said anything public, but I was just interested because one of their programmers was asking me some questions about one of our games. And I was like, can't you just look at it? And he's like, no, at their level, and these guys, I'm talking about one of the guys at the top, it's anonymized. They can tell, like, what's going on. Like, they can look at, like, all John Wick's and tell how people are playing it, but they can't see that it's the game at Electric Bat and see what's going on and how much it's earning or anything like that. What do you think the rage quit percentage is on Wick?
    38:48
    85%? It's got to be more than 20. I'll tell you that. That damn game. Get it. I think I do want Cale to – when you're out here, I want you, Cale, to give us a little bit of a – I don't know. I feel like I need to be reintroduced because now the code is different, and I think we're going to get Jamie to like it though.
    39:09
    For Wick? Yeah. Well, because of the new code that came out, Serge and I are going to do a tutorial. We just did it. I don't know if you guys watch it. We did a tutorial on it. It was a little rough because it was our first one. You know, anytime you start something new. I don't think you should. I thought it was a good tutorial. Well, thank you. Was it on hot-dogging? Well, that was one of them. We picked two games for this new show, and we do a tutorial on a modern game and then a classic. So on this, the first, the premiere episode, we did Evil Dead and hot-dogging, which you need to watch, Ralph, because you were asking about it. I did it because of you. And it's a great tutorial. I don't want to give too much away, but there were some monster scores, and we had a fun time doing it. And the next one is going to be John Wick and Bally Viking.
    40:06
    Oh, nice. All right. So, Wick, you'll, in this tutorial, teach us how to hit these tiny little ramps. ramps?
    40:15
    Jamie's like, you're bending the metal. Is that happening? Are you replacing the ACDC ramps with... I mean, come on. We can only do so much, Jamie. Exactly. But I am looking forward to that, and if you're not following the bat, especially on Instagram, you need to because Serge is a genius. Twitch, Serge is the man. Twitch.tv slash electric bat arcade go you can go check out the vod right now it's called back bat two basics are you going to put those on uh youtube think yes yeah i'm going down like yeah absolutely these are great things to put on youtube for archival stuff yeah because that's really smart and serge is awesome dude can't wait to see him as well he will you be there at the tournaments yeah i talked to him today he's gonna he's gonna block out a couple of hours to come hang out with us and commentate oh cool but he i'll tell you this this will make it feel good jamie when i asked him hey can you be there for chewy's tournament the all classics tournament uh he's like no i don't think i'm gonna be able to make it and then he messaged me back he's like oh is that when jamie's coming i'm gonna have to block out a couple of hours to meet meet up with you guys so ah cool you're the reason well the season i'll tell you what i i've never had an easier job explaining pinball commentary than it was yeah it's just the easiest thing in the world the guy's awesome and right right encyclopedia you guys found yourself a diamond there he's so and he's a dude nice dude so yeah there you go all right next topic it is really uh because ralph and i have attention deficit disorder i think mine's undiagnosed is yours diagnosed so funny you asked i the other day i got so frustrated up i was up here in my office doing work stuff and i I went downstairs and I was like, I, I, Kim, I was talking to Kim. I was like, Kim, I, uh, I definitely have ADD. And she's like, oh, oh yeah, you know, you do. I was like, I think I need to be diagnosed. And she's like, yeah, probably. I was like, cause I, I was just having a really bad day. Like I could not focus on stuff. But typically like my brain is just thinking about too many things at once. That's the problem. So we both, you and you have that too. Yes, very, very much. So we've talked about this, Cale, and we brought it to pinball. Are pinball rules just too difficult? Has modern game code become too difficult to understand for the ADD folks like me and Ralph? Are you asking me? Yeah. You start us off because I think the answer is yes because it's a lot. It is a lot.
    42:56
    No, I don't think so. are they a lot? Yes, they're a lot. I mean, we know that, like, try to play Rush without, like, looking stuff up. You know? But that's the cool thing about it. Like, there's so much to dive into. You know, just surface level, like, if you go play Rush or Avengers, there's, like, just a few things I can, like, tell you to get you through a tournament. But if you really want to dive into it, go to Tilt Forums and really dissect it.
    43:32
    And it's really funny that you bring this up because Serge wants to talk to me about it. To the point of he wants to do a podcast with me about it because he has some incredible ideas about this. He thinks they are too complicated. And he was specifically talking about Kong. well all the rules aren't there yet but he's like look at these inserts have you ever seen this many inserts on a game before like if you lift the thing up and look at it underneath i mean it looks like it's just swiss cheese and he's like he's like pinball rules are going too far so this i can't wait for you to talk you too to talk to him yeah about that because he he's very insightful And he seems to agree with you guys.
    44:24
    Yeah, I mean. Can I give an instance, you know, an example I'm trying to say? Yeah. Harry Potter. There's so much going on between trying to get into a mode and Quidditch and these tiny other missions that you have. I can't. I don't know what I'm doing. It's just so much. That's just the Jersey Jack style, though. That's not that particular game. That's just the way they design games.
    44:57
    Yeah, they don't necessarily shut other things off so that when you're in a mode, you're focused on just that task. It's like you can spawn side tasks while you're doing the main mode, which I agree with you, though, Jamie. That's hard for me. I do kind of understand now what I'm doing with Potter after I played it 550 times. because how many plays I have on it now. Wow. But the thing is, even then, I was comparing it to another game that had just came out. So I have Evil Dead sitting right next to it. And the one thing I really like what Spooky did about that game is that when you're in the mode, it focuses you on the mode. Like, there aren't other things going on, pretty much. Just, like, a couple little things you could do. But for the most part, it's very obvious, though, what you have to do. They had really good call-outs. So it's saying, like, get to the cellar. And you know the cellar door is open, but it's like, hey, buddy, get down there. It's like hit the left and right ramp. It's very purposely done. And I feel like because they eliminate the noise, I've had people play it at my house and go, this is like the first time I kind of understand what's going on in a game. But that's not good because if a new player walks up and they have no freaking clue, I don't know. I just feel like, Jamie, tell me if I'm wrong here. I could watch a Travis video and he's good at explaining it. I'd have to watch it like a hundred times and then maybe not a hundred, but I have to watch it a lot. Like I don't, I don't, maybe my brain just doesn't work that way. Like I can't like surge seems like in his mind, he's like building a tree. You know what I mean? Like he's building the flow chart chart of shots. I have to play it. But I, the way I learned better is if like kale, if you, if you like stood over my shoulder and told me what to do, I'd remember it. But if I watch a video, I won't. I don't know why. Like I need to do it. Like I need to actually do it. Yeah.
    46:49
    There's one reason I like Travis's videos. Travis Murray? Yeah, that's what I was just talking about. Did I not say – did I not say Travis? No, you said Travis Murray. Okay, I was going to make sure I didn't say a wrong name. I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention.
    47:03
    Yeah, but I love how he like take – okay, here's like three ways and really like really concise, Like, sure, just do this and do this, and you're going to get some points.
    47:14
    Or do this and do this, or do this and do this, and that's all you worry about. But see, I take one of them. I can't take all three, so I'm like, okay, he told me how to close beaches, so then I, like, focused on closing beaches on Jaws. And he actually did. I learned how to do that because of his video. But there's a lot of depth to these games. But I don't think the depth is bad. I guess I don't want – and, Jamie, I don't know if you're saying that either. We're just saying like it's hard to understand it when you walk up to it. Like you're not instantly able to really do what you need to do. We're like – I mean even – does anything in Kong tell you like when you hit the gong three times? Maybe it must. But it doesn't – there's no call-outs to say hit the gong to start a mode, is there? We have a pro. I can't remember. It says when you're – I think when you're in a mode, it will say go to the gong. I think. I don't know. I think they could add more callouts to it because usually what I do in Kong is when I start the mode, right in the screen, it tells you on the bottom, but it's in text. It tells you what to do. It's like hit the roaming shot and then hit the cave for pterodactyl. But you have to read it. I don't think it tells you what to do. I don't know if it says it. So I don't know. Do you guys think maybe like callouts, more callouts would be helpful to get people to learn the game? Of course. Callouts are great. Callouts are huge. Callouts and lights. yeah yeah inserts that is the one thing about harry potter that also is confusing is you have to hit this red and gold shot and the red and gold shot is the light going from red into gold and it gets confusing because everything else is also blinking so you're like that's that's always been a problem with jersey jack i just finally played harry potter today and i was like you know i'm really gonna try i was listening to the call outs and it says shoot this or that. It said something, but I'm not familiar with the play field, so I didn't know what it was talking about. And so I looked for the lights. Everything's lit up. Yeah, everything's lit. I'm just like, I don't know why they think that's a good idea. But I know there are people at Jersey Jack who have told the teams to tone it down and make things a little more intuitive. And I think just Joe Katz and Keith, it was Johnson, right? Keith? they just think differently. I mean, they're both absolutely brilliant guys, and I'm sure they're thinking, like, I don't see why people don't understand this. But they have to realize the people playing these games are not as smart as they are Not even close Well that always been the problem right when you have an engineer when you have engineers designing something and then they bring it to some guy and he like what am I supposed to he acts like the other guy is stupid because he can figure it out He's like, what? What do you mean? This is like – he's like, but it's not intuitive. It needs to be intuitive. Right, because they're probably looking at these lights because I was looking. I was like – it was like shoot this, and I can't – I'm not reading that far. I'd have to like lean over into the play field, and there's lights everywhere, and it's probably like they're thinking, well, it's the light. that's doing this certain thing dummy but it's like the all the everything's lit and it's uh i'm sure to them it makes perfect sense but to the lay people that are buying these games it just doesn't yeah well and like one of the things to your point there is a light that really does tell you something important it's what when you know the the um staircase diverter there's a light that tells you what direction it's going to turn the next time you shoot it down at the below it you know if it's going to turn right or left. So you can kind of anticipate that. But yeah, no, I'm with you. There's way too many lights lit, and it does make it confusing. And there are overlapping call-outs. It might say, hit the quidditch pitch. And then it could say, go to Doggone Alley. And you're like, but wait, you just told me to do this. Which one do you want me to do?
    51:07
    You'd almost think it wouldn't tell you to do the other one until you did one of them, right? Sure. It wouldn't just layer them on. And to be fair, the code is not complete. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's at 7.8, I think, now. Yeah. So they're listening to everybody's feedback.
    51:24
    They're definitely listening to this podcast to make sure Ralph doesn't say anything. I'm good right now. Clean. Clean as a whistle. Clean. But, you know, I think they're listening because they want some feedback. They want to make this game great because they're going to be selling this for a long, long time. Can I talk about the ball safe? Can we work on that? Can we add it a little longer? 7-8 just updated it. There's a 30-second ball save timer now. They just did it. It's really rare for a game to have the ball save go, but yet the skill shot lights are still lit. The only one who does that that I really know about is Bond, 007.
    52:06
    Like, Dr. No, the skill shot is when you left plunge, it still has the purple shots going even when the ball save is gone. and it throws you off if well yeah i mean yeah they need to do something uh to help you out help me out there thanks cal thanks brother but they did do they did uh in the last code update i just played it last night they did uh add a significant ball save timer so it does help now which is cool cool yeah all right they're listening yeah i like that there we go uh other news pinball brothers looks like they're doing a fire sale right that was my note i haven't heard anything what's going on okay ralph tell them what uh pinball brother's like look i didn't actually do any additional research other than this so ralph go do it no they uh so ahead so they're basically that now you can believe what you want to believe this is the company he's saying this they made an announcement hey we've sold through this original allotment of games we only have i think it's like 150 we only have 150 left predators left which i find really hard to believe like i just i just the launch was kind of goofy i i don't know there's too many things that had the arnold thing arnold was in then arnold was out then arnold was kind of in and i think a lot of people just associate arnold with predator but anyway so they're saying they have this 150 left now to appeal to the united states audience they're like we're gonna eat the tariffs you don't have to pay for the tariffs so they're somehow building these things in some manufacturing facility in pennsylvania i think it was was it pennsylvania i can't remember the town was that what it was jamie yeah i think someplace in pennsylvania and they're eating the tariff cost so i don't know what that says really are they making them there or they actually don't know How do you – oh, you're right. Maybe they're – actually, I don't want to misspeak. I don't know if they're making them there or if that's like they're being like drop shipped there or something and then they're going to distribute them. I think what they're doing is they have a U.S. headquarters to get around some tariff things, and they're basically going direct to the consumer. So if you're a distributor, how do you feel when they input that information that you can go direct to them, save money on tariffs?
    54:34
    Well, it sucks. You feel like you've been shit on. That's the technical term. Yeah, that sucks. Why would you sell that machine if you're a distributor when you can go direct to them at a massive discount and not have to pay tariffs and do anything like that? So my opinion is this. They had – sell through the allotment is total bologna and cheese. What they did – Do you think, Cale, there's any way they sold their whole initial allotment of those games? No, there's no way. Yeah, I don't think so either. There's no way. But what they did probably do is not order more parts because they're not selling it, and just they're building everything they have parts for right now, and that's 150 machines. yeah so use some wordsmithing yeah i think they were caught off guard they thought people were going to be very excited about this game and i mean let's be honest right now it's uh it's unless you have a real banger ip with all the assets it's hard to sell a game yeah right now um And so I think they were kind of like – they were surprised. And now they're trying to – okay, these – the math doesn't work.
    55:53
    They have to order all these parts before they even start producing them, and they're trying to estimate what their sales are going to be, and the estimates are dismal. so i so i don't know you you said so jamie i don't know if you know more about this than but why why if they establish this facility will they not have to pay tariffs though i guess i don't understand yeah i'm a moron i don't know so do you think that do you think that do you think they've found a loophole to not pay the import tariff so now they're that's is that what you think that they're doing like somebody speculated with me that That's why they put a U.S. headquarters or a U.S. office here or something to that extent, right? But really what they are doing is they're going direct to customers, and they're eating the tariffs, and they're eating these things, and they're going direct. And if you are a distributor, you're getting screwed. No, totally. But what happens to the – I wonder, like if I had a reservation with a distributor and now I know this – I don't know. It seems like most distros don't let you refund that deposit though, right, for the most part. So you wouldn't shift over, but you'd just be pissed. You wouldn't shift your order over, but you'd be pissed off. Yeah, this is bad altogether. Yeah, that really sucks. It would be better if they were just like, just kidding. We're not making this game. Yeah.
    57:22
    We decided not to. I had a conversation with Enzo on Gonzo's pinball network. Flipperama. I should get this fucking show right, shouldn't I? Yeah. Gonzo's flipping thing. Flipperama. No, it was great. It was a good conversation. I had it with Enzo. But we were talking about their last games, right? Like, is Pinball Brothers dead? I mean, you know, if we haven't played Predator, right?
    57:53
    Yeah, we might like it. We might like it. It might like it, right? It might be pretty badass. They might fix Get to the Chopper.
    58:01
    You don't think so? Have you played their other games? Well, that's what I'm saying. I only played Alien, and it was, like, breaking as I was playing it, so everything wasn't working right. Why would you even think this game is going to be good? I don't know. I'm just trying to be nice. Sometimes you've got to, like, sometimes. I'm just trying to be nice. Because if you look at these guys, like this is what drives me crazy, right? I run a business. I run a staffing business. If I ran my business the way these guys are running this, between Predator, launch, terrible. You know it was bad. Everyone knows it was bad. We haven't even effing played the game. Then you have ABBA. They kind of did the rope-a-dope with, oh, we have Arnold. No, we don't. You know, kind of like messing around. Yeah. Okay. So ABBA, wasn't ABBA the one where, like, I watched a video and they were unveiling it and the sheet wouldn't come off the game or something. The sheet can't come off. You can go to Expo in a month and a half and play Anaba. There won't be any lines. You can go right up and just play Abba. Queen.
    59:10
    And then, you know, Alien Ripley Edition, which is really not their machine. I mean, it's Highway's machine. I just don't understand this company. It makes no sense to me. I don't know how they're still in business. and I don't want them to go out of business, Cale. No, no. Yeah, we want them to keep doing it. Actually, what they're doing is impressive because they're actually building and shipping games. That's impressive. Bravo for that. Yeah. And they seem like good guys.
    59:39
    Yeah. So, see, we said something nice. There, we did say something nice. But when I said Enzo wasn't so nice, I said, what's the worst Stern pinball machine in the last six years?
    59:55
    What do you think? His opinion? No, I asked his opinion, but I'll ask you two both as well on the roundtable here. What's the worst Stern machine that they've made in the last six years? Oh, I know what I would say. Well, I don't know. Six years. Well, Woe Nelly. Well, Spike too. Woe Nelly is the worst. All right, Woe Nelly. I would say Led Zeppelin. Yeah, if it's Spike 2, I would say Led Zeppelin. Yeah, Spike 2, Led Zeppelin. But, I mean, Woe Nelly hasn't been six years, but you have to bring that up. All right, Woe Nelly. Like, what the hell, dude? Forget Woe Nelly. Let's go. Would you say Led Zeppelin?
    60:33
    Well, that's the one I would say. From an operator's perspective, no. Okay. Because the Led Zeppelin Pro is one of the best street machines out there because it has nothing in it. Oh. I mean, there's like no mechs. Right. And it pumps freaking Led Zeppelin music. The Led Zeppelin Pro is like an operator's dream machine. Okay. Put that thing in a bar, you're going to make some money. So let's say Venom. Let's say Venom for you then. For me? Yeah. Oh, Venom's killer. All right. I mean for us Yeah just give me Okay so you want The worst Stern machine In the past six years Because I'm going to make a point What is it?
    61:20
    Worst Stern machine in the past six years Alright breaking news We're going to get Rachel Best's info as well See we think about things differently To make money from To make money or to play? Play Just play. Play. Play-wise.
    61:40
    Led Zeppelin. Okay. So roundabout way we got there. All right. Was Ro Nelly Spike 2? No, it's Spike 1. All right. Forget all that. My comparison is would you rather have Predator or Led Zeppelin? Oh, Led Zeppelin. Yeah, I would say Led Zeppelin. Not even a concept. Here's what's sad is neither one of us have played a Predator, and we basically said it almost immediately. I don't really know what that says. That's not nice. Here's the thing. The only one of their games that I've played a lot, and they didn't even design it, is Alien.
    62:18
    Every one I've played doesn't work. I mean, that's the thing. These games have to work. Right. My question is, if you're a pinball design company and your best machine can't beat Stern's worst machine, what are we doing? Just having a good time. All right. I mean, they must be making some money. Someone's buying these things, right? I don't know who's buying them. I mean, I don't know. Not necessarily. A lot of this stuff is just like rich guys having a good time. Well, I don't know the business background of those guys that own it, but maybe they are. Maybe it's like a hobby thing. Yeah. All right. Well, that was my – that was my – I don't get it. It doesn't make any sense to me. Good luck on The Predator.
    63:02
    And good luck, guys. And I'm sorry if you come to Expo and come up to me. I honestly hope I like it when I play it. I love that movie. You're going to buy it? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. I'm getting pretty good about like – I have some tough decisions to make, though, because I know you got spooky with probably Beetlejuice, and now you got Kale dropping these bombs,
    63:24
    where I'm going to allocate my money is going to be interesting. Yeah. I don't know. And I'm kind of excited because I think the Walking Dead with video assets could be so badass, though. I don't know. So that wasn't one that was on my radar. But then when that kind of rumor started heating up more, I'm like, that could be cool.
    63:43
    Star Wars might be amazing. They might drop the bomb on Star Wars. That might be something I want. I hope not. Yeah, you got to think. I mean, you're going to see this real excitement about The Walking Dead Remastered. I mean, it's a banger game already. And just like with the Metallica Remastered, they're going to make it even better. You're going to see the return. Are they going to fix when you hit the crossbow at Bicycle Girl and it goes right down the middle? I don't know. We'll see. Maybe. And you're going to see the return of that very cool fish tank topper with the heads in it. That's going to be dope.
    64:23
    We're doing it. I love it. All right. While good things happening, we think at Stern moving forward. All right. If you're going to do that last one, Jamie, I'll explain it because it's really confusing. If we have time. We have time. We're one hour. We have time. Let's keep going. So the way I wrote it and the way I want to talk about it is different. The way you wrote it, I have no. Yeah, it's because I knew it was more than one sentence, so Jamie's just like, so no, you left your body. No, I wanted to really get your guys' perspective on something, because I see this on Pinside a lot, and I don't know, I didn't do enough of the analysis to know, is there a demographic of people that say this versus ones that don't, and why? but there's like these things about like someone saying that the game has is loaded versus not loaded and like i the only reason i don't like this conversation is because i personally don't believe that a game needs to be loaded and i think when they say loaded they mean tons of mechs and stuff i don't think it has to be loaded to be fun i i don't but but i but but like most of the people that say this you start like clicking on their profile and look at the games they own they own a lot of like the older Williams games, which had tons of stuff in them. And those games are super fun. Right. So I wanted two perspectives. One, like, do you guys think that a game needs to have tons of mechanisms to be fun? Yes or no. And then the other one was, Cale, I want your perspective. Like, do you think that maybe the reason why we don't see as many things in games like we did back then is because they would just fail too much? And because I don't know, like, I don't know how much you guys have to service those games that have tons of mechs. Is it worse? I would think it is. Okay, who goes?
    66:07
    You, sir. Okay, to answer that last question, no, if the mechs are designed well, they'll work. We have a Twilight Zone that spins like a top. I mean, all that crazy shit in that game still works. It's just about a well-designed machine. you know and you know when it when you know you hear people on podcasts talking about you know this game's not loaded this game is loaded this game is not and then i started thinking about loaded games and the only thing i think about in the arcade is twilight zone i mean that's got so much it's a wide body with so much shit on it so like if it's not that it seems like it's not loaded right yeah um but you know to answer your question about does a loaded game make a better game no 100 not i mean we can stance on it yeah yeah what makes a good game is just classic gameplay like good game theory good rules i mean look at beatles i don't know what you guys think about beatles is a banging game it's it's based on a it's based on a classic a fantastic game it's been tweaked and it's not loaded with mechs i mean it has like drop targets and a i mean the spinning wheel which you can turn off but that's a fun fun game you know you pick your mode you drop your court you pick your mode from the beginning i love that that's a great game and that's and that's proof that you don't need a quote-unquote loaded game uh to you know to have a good game barry's barbecue is pretty loaded and uh sorry what are you talking about i was joking What's this guy talking about? Yeah.
    68:01
    Come on, Jamie. Get it together. I'll get it. What do you think? No, I think that some of these games, people are so like Kong. Kong is loaded, man. There's a lot of shit going on in Kong, but there's also a very good flow. See, I think there are people that would say it's not. Why? Because it really doesn't move? It's really fun, but I think they'll say, like, where are the mechs? Because I can see people going, all you really have is a five bank drop target, a magnet, and a lock.
    68:39
    Because the gorilla is just an animatronic gorilla, and it may or may not stop the ball, depending on what day it is.
    68:47
    So they would say, that's all you have in it. But what's cool about it are the ball paths. the shots are so fun i think when i look at that when i look at the pro i'm like damn that's loaded when i look at x-men pro holy shit how can you say that's not loaded i know you can't but you can't say that on x-men but do you think there is a part of me though that i think when they're saying this especially on pin side it's like their their reasoning behind it is they want some one thing that's like massive right that does something i know what your problem is what you're on pin side you're on pin side it's fascinating to me though like i want to know why they're obsessed with it well you're not going to get your answer on pin side i can tell you that like i think it's time to get tony robbins on this subject you need to stay off pin side i think you you're focusing way too much like on people that have no clue what the fuck they're talking about just no clue the one thing i do like though i like hearing why they sometimes you're right sometimes it's like they're arguing stuff that doesn't even make any sense anymore you're like i've been reading this for an hour i don't know what's going on it's internet people it's like when you like go to reddit and read the comments trying to go oh this makes sense and it's like some fucking eight-year-old you know it's like and then you're like oh well no they actually said this who who said that well you know ass blaster 5000 you know it's just like remember this is or ralph or it could be ralph i don't mind oh cool thanks but i appreciate that uh no but the thing is for me i i why i brought this topic up is because i i know i say this a lot on my podcast I truly don't believe that a game is good or is better because of a mechanism. I think the bones of it go way beyond that. A mechanism can be fun. It can be fun to add a cool bash toy or add something that does something fun with the ball. But that, to me, doesn't – that's not my reason I pick a game. I don't look at it and go, oh, my gosh, there's so much stuff in here. I want that one. That doesn't even cross my mind. So I'm fascinated that they sit there and argue about – there's another – it goes down other paths too. Like there's a concept that people say like the reason why we don't see as many of these things is because they're trying to reduce the overall cost and – Build the materials. I don't know because, I mean, that dragon had to take a lot of research time to figure out how that thing does what it does. Or even the locks in Venom. That took a lot of time and money. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, the fast locks. Those things are cool. Those are super – and I don't know about – They were almost not going to do that. And I think it was like Corey stepped up and was like, I can figure this out. And he finally pulled it off. Yeah, but there's stuff like that. But I'm not – let me just let you know. I'm not saying Pinside is useless. The way you're using it is useless.
    71:59
    When I'm looking for repair stuff, I go to Pinside. I use it for that too, though. I just find myself sometimes, I get curious and I'll look at which threads are hot, and then I'll find one. Sometimes I come away from it. I really don't want someone to think that I go there and it's always bad. because sometimes I go – most of the time I go to Pinside, I don't get caught in those threads, so I just get what I need and kind of get out, and those are usually good interactions. But, yeah, I've been obsessed lately at what these people talk about because you'll see this dude. I don't know how old he is. I'm not going to say his screen name, but this dude, you can go into any thread, and he's there, and it's like some ungodly amount of posts he's had. It's like this guy's posted 675,000 times. Well, that should tell you that's not somebody you should listen to. I mean, that's all he's doing. Next time you want an opinion on something, call somebody who's actually doing this stuff. This guy's sitting at home, people warrior. I'm very rarely on the Internet. And I'll give you solid, evidence-based opinions. But it has to. You're right. Like, how can this person be doing any other thing if it says they have 600-something thousand posts? Right. They're not doing anything else. They wake up and they go to Pinside. Yeah, well. The one thing I do like, though, when a new game comes out, it's so funny to look at what people say because it's like, I don't know what it is about pinball. Maybe Pinside, I should say, specifically. It's like they're waiting for it to be announced, and then they're like, okay, what's the one thing that we can get super pissed off about and then talk about it for like two weeks straight? The sharks can't eat the ball. Yep. Terry Hardy.
    73:42
    That's crazy. I mean, it is crazy. But Godzilla's too green, you know, on and on and on. I don't know why you, like, get into that, man. No, I shouldn't. I think sometimes it's fun. I know I wasted so many hours. You wasted time, man. You should be walking. You don't learn. I know. You go in there going, I want to try to understand these people. What have you learned? Nothing. I should put a whole thread Where it's really crazy stuff Into chat GPT and be like Can you give me A psych analysis On these people talking I bet I get some interesting stuff You don't This is what You just have to trust me I'll just use it to buy mods I'll use it to buy mods And all that other stuff Go over there Yeah man but it's rough this is it's rough over there now i better not be searching the forums for jamie because now i'm gonna get hammered oh i don't search my name i don't god i wouldn't do that i sure i probably do that you would never do that i don want to because i think i probably read a bunch of negative stuff about me So I don want to read it That shit hurts feelings People don realize that we can read that Why would you not do that? Because if you think you can get something out of listening to people on the Internet that you don't know their background. Yeah. But you don't want to know what they say about you. That's the right. That's actually the right attitude. I should go look at it? Because – no, because if you're saying, oh, I really want to know what they're thinking about something else, but I don't want to know what they think about me, that's telling you that they're not in the right place. I mean I'd be okay seeing a bunch of negative stuff because I've been on YouTube. Here we go. No, no, seriously. No, you guys – I know you guys know that you'll see me bitch and complain about certain things. But no, seriously, I've had to go through the ringer in early days of YouTube. So if someone makes me a comment like this guy is dumb, he doesn't know what he's talking about, that doesn't actually – You mean about like when you got started? Yeah. Oh, God, dude. Like video game stuff? Yeah, like it would be something like, oh, did you see that idiot with like – it'd just be like dumb things. Dude, that's when I fell in love with you, man. I'm telling you, the show you used to do, was it called Chasing Nostalgia? Yeah. It was so good. That was amazing. I loved that. That was an amazing show. I think you might have been talking about Arcade Pickers because everyone disliked my co-host. everyone didn't like my co-host and then he but he really got upset about it he was like yeah these people really don't like me they hate me i'm the villain i'm like but they love watching it play into that shit that's why it worked because he was the villain and you were the nice guy you know starsky and hutch good here's what's crazy about it for real though he wasn't trying all right let's just put it this way that wasn't scripted so the reason why and i don't want to i won't go too deep into it but he was starting to go to places before i got there to negotiate the deals and we always said that wouldn't happen so i wouldn't know and he'd have his eye on stuff i wanted but he'd always win that thing and i'm like what the hell so i would get really mad and then people would see it on film and like but i was really pissed so they'd be like we don't like him he's making you upset yeah so he became like he became kind of a the bad guy on the show so So it is what it is. You know what? He's not a bad guy in real life, but apparently – Are they still out there? Can people still watch them? Yeah, it's called Arcade Pickers. It's kind of goofy, but – I thought it was good. Rachel and I used to watch all of them, and we didn't even know Ralph. No shit. Yeah. No. Well, I had met Rachel one time when I went to a – what's it called? ZapCon, but I didn't – I wasn't really into pinball. I was there playing all the arcade games, but I think they were doing like pin golf, and you guys had it in the corner or something. Yeah. Anyway, I don't even know what I'm talking about now. All right.
    77:44
    Next to last topic, product showcase. This is a new segment here on the JBS Roundtable show with the gents. And, Cale, start us off again. I don't have one this week, so I'm going to be thinking while you're talking. Yeah, I do have one. And this is something really cool that the folks, Emoto at Marco Specialties, actually sent over to me. And I have it right back here. Is this reversed for you guys? No, it's not. Home-brewed loot crate. Oh, that is cool. And this thing is gigantic.
    78:21
    And it is loaded with parts, a ton of parts, for $200. bucks and they they sent it to me because they wanted my opinion hey tell me what you think about this is it even worth it should we should we keep selling it and they definitely should um just some examples and and you know i'm not going to go through everything but dude you they send you full ramps oh no way that's like look at this this is the uh kiss This bare left plastic ramp right here. Now, and even if you're doing a homebrew, like you might not want this shape. That's fine. Just cut it like this. Just use this part of it or 3D print another exit. You know, look at this gigantic thing. Like if you were to buy.
    79:14
    No, no, I'm doing good. If you, this is an Ironman right ramp. Like if you bought this ramps, this size alone can be a couple of hundred bucks. That is freaking awesome. Hey, real quick, guys. I got to pee, so just like you guys just keep it in the show. It's fine.
    79:33
    Go pee. But like I said, I'm not going to bring everything out. Ball guides. I mean, come on. You bend this in any direction you want. This thing is absolutely loaded. We have habit trails.
    79:49
    Look at this. And there are posts. Habit trails are badass. I've always loved those. Look at this, a bunch of wire harnesses. You might not need, like as an operator, I love this because I'm going to chop this up and use this wire. A huge, you know what, this is worth $200 right here. So this is totally worth it. This is on the Marco Specialties website. I notice it's out of stock right now. Just give them a call and see if you can get your hands on one of these. If you're doing homebrews, this is a no-brainer, $200. It's very expensive to do homebrew. Yeah. Just to build pinball machines at all, you're going to use $200 worth of the stuff that's in this box. This box is gigantic. It's like a small coffin. I don't know if you can tell how big this thing is. But, yeah, this is a hit.
    80:40
    Check it out on the – just go to marcospecialties.com and type in homebrew loot crate, and it's really great.
    80:50
    Awesome. All right, Ralph, you're up. Jamie, you don't have one. not really but i have an idea all right so i don't know why i bought it but i bought a nintendo switch 2 and uh yeah yeah i want one did you really yeah but here's what was kind of cool so you'd think i'd play like donkey kong bonanza or the new mario kart you'd think that's what i would play well i brought it with me on my trip and this was that trip i had where i was gone for a long period of time and i didn't know there was pinball there was one pinball place i found but before i found that i was like jones and hard to play pinball and so i downloaded i downloaded pinball fx and i put it on it and i sat it because it has the kickstand so i sat it up straight so it'd be like vertical like a pinball machine and i was sitting there playing and i detached the joy cons and i know obviously virtual pinball is like it's virtual pinball but pinball fx the new version like the physics have gotten considerably better like the before you'd like hit a button and it just the flippers felt like they were going off way laggy. And even though this physics are still kind of like video game-ish, it was kind of fun because they added all these Williams games. So I was playing Theater of Magic and Medieval Madness on it. And it was kind of cool because I was learning the rules of those games better through the virtual pinball machine, which I think Taylor said. Theater of Magic is one of my favorites. I would so buy, if they remake, I heard they were going to remake that or thought about remaking that. I would buy that in one second if they remade that. And then Tales of the Arabian Nights is on there too. I was playing that a lot.
    82:26
    Loved Hotel. Medieval Madness is kind of fun to play virtually too because it's exactly the same. Like they redid them all for Pinball FX, which is like the new version of it. It was pretty fun. I mean, it's not like I want to do it all the time, but it was kind of fun to do just to kind of play around with it. And while I was in the hotel room, I started a tournament and had my friend join it. and it was only an hour long. So it was get your highest score within an hour. That was kind of cool too. Very cool. Did you get Donkey Kong? I do have it. Yeah, it's over there. I heard that's amazing. I heard it's awesome. That's the reason I want to switch too. Yeah, I don't want to switch because then I go down in a whole world and I got a lot more headshots to do on Call of Duty. Yeah. So I'm really working on my headshots. All right. I'm going to pump Zen. okay my product placement is in smooth 6 milligrams 15 nicotine pouches warning this product contains nicotine is an addictive chemical apparently but really all it is ladies and gentlemen is nicotine salt and it's good for you I highly recommend wait wait wait it's not good for you I don't think saying it's good for you is too high I think especially right before ball three, you had a shitty ball one, shitty ball two. Pop in the Zen. Are you serious? This is what you do? Yeah. Every time. You know, he's right. I actually do Zen. This is a little known fact. The only time I do Zen is when I sit down in front of my computer and check out people's opinions on Pinside. This is a lie. So, Zen Smooth 6 right now is what I've been rocking, and I hope you guys can join it. It's smooth. It's not a lot of flavor.
    84:26
    It kind of tastes delicious. He's letting the smooth taste fool him. Yeah, it's so good for you. It really gets me motivated with at least my Diet Coke and a Zen, and I'm ready for the tournament. So, thank you, Zen. Can I ask you, Jamie? I don't even want to know almost. I think it's going to not be good. I don't know. How many of those packets do you do a day? I do a pack a day. A whole can? How many are in there? In one day?
    84:56
    Dude. Okay. I'm, okay. Let's, let me take this back. You said with literally no delay, a pack a day. You just said it, a pack a day. Now you're going to retract that? You're lying now. I buy the five packs. Whoa. But how many packets are in that? Is that from Costco?
    85:16
    No, no, no. My local gas station, if you buy it a five pack, they give you $7 off. How do you beat that? Holy shit. All right. How many are in the damn can? That's what I want to know. 15. So you do 15 packets a day.
    85:29
    I'm probably rocking 10 to 12. So I'll go to bed and I'll take a Zin out and put it on my nightstand. Dude, is it nicotine? Isn't nicotine restrict your vascular ability? Isn't it like a vascular restrictor nicotine? Am I wrong on that? My veins are great. My veins feel good. Oh, my gosh. I just – don't do it, people. I mean, I'm not trying to adopt him. There is – it's a fact. There are cognitive benefits with using nicotine during like tests or a pinball tournament or whatever. Absolutely. Same thing with gum. When you're chewing gum, it stimulates a nerve that allows more blood to flow to the brain. That's all real. Yeah, damn right it is. But I think you're doing too much of it. Yeah, Jamie. That's a lot. Well, I do a lot of things wrong. I mean, that's just a little excessive. Hey, as long as you – look. I'm alive. We want you here. You know what I mean? I'll be here for a while. I feel really good about it. That's what I'm saying. We're here for a short amount of time. Enjoy yourself. I feel real good about it. That's what he says. I feel really good about it. I feel good about it. All right, so that's my product placement. Tell them I don't care admitting this, but tell them my – if you think you can. If no, then we can save it for another time. I can do it. Could you share my – I've had one Zin packet. And Jamie's going to tell you what happened. All right. So he calls me up, and he goes, we're bullshitting pinball like we normally do. I'm at Eureka Heights playing in a tournament. And he goes, I'm not going to – I'm driving to Sedona, by the way, while I'm talking to you. I'm going on a long drive, ladies and gentlemen. He goes, Jamie, I'm going on a long drive. I bought a pack of Zins. I go, good for you, brother. It's going to make that ride great. You're going to love that ride. Okay? I said, now, warning, what milligram did you get? Because you can't be jumping the six right away. And he did a three, right? Per your recommendation, yeah. Okay, little baby steps. Start at three. Don't go to six like me. Okay, go to three. I was at three for a while.
    87:47
    And then I go, but FYI, it might burn a little bit, okay? and you might get a little, I don't know, dizzy. Just FYI. Just worry about this. Yeah, while I'm driving up a mountain road, a treacherous mountain road. So he's driving, and he starts freaking out, ladies and gentlemen, because obviously he can't handle his nicotine. I've never had nicotine, ever. That's the problem. It was my first time.
    88:18
    Anyway, he starts trying. He almost throws up. He's dizzy. Then he starts losing his mind, and I'm like, I can't talk. I got a tournament to prepare for, man. I can't be talking to this guy off his end. I'm like, you got to throw it out, apparently. You just can't handle the zen. He was acting like the guy that you're like, no, man, I'm good. I don't want the drugs. And then he gives it to you, and you're like, I'm all messed up. He's like, I told you you shouldn't have taken those drugs, man. That's what he was acting like. We know this guy's at the party.
    88:48
    I've been a pretty faithful nicotine user since I was 14 years old, And then I was a smoker for a long, long, long time. Then I patched it for like five or six years. I wore a patch.
    89:01
    And then I was free for like 10 years. And then my son gave me a couple of Zins. And they're so delicious. There were so many things, Cale, that were uncomfortable to me when I did it. My gums were burning. Then if you do swallow it a little bit with your saliva, that burns your throat. So now my gum is burning. It's a flavor laster. My throat is burning. And then I started to get, like, really tingly and have a massive headache. All really fast. You were having an anxiety attack. And then I was having an anxiety attack. You weren't driving, were you? I was. Yeah, he was driving. Oh, no, I was driving. Up to Sedona. Not only that, there's the altitude.
    89:41
    Oh, shit. Oh, it was altitude. It was altitude. Jamie was, like, trying to be a supportive friend, but at the same time, he's like, man, you're really, like, this is not a normal reaction. He's, like, making me feel like my reaction is like, hey, man, this isn't a normal reaction. And then it made me have more anxiety because I'm like, well, am I having some kind of medical emergency? I told him to go to the hospital. I said, go to the hospital. They'll take care of you.
    90:04
    So never again. One and done. Never again. Did you buy a five-pack or something for me? Are you going to give it to me next week? Yeah, but they're not Zins. It's like that other brand, Sash or something. I'm very loyal to Zins. I'm going to stay. Well, I'll give them to you for free. At the end, you could take these points. You see the little QR code? You don't have points. Come on. What do you get with the points? I swear to God, I have 4,000 points.
    90:30
    4,000. What do you get with them? I can show you right now. What do I get? I'm going to get some cool shit. Guys, I'm going to use the restroom. I'll be right back. All right, real quick. Okay. Is this like nicotine insider connected? Do you remember the Marlboro Dollars? The Camel had Dollars and Marlboro had... I never smoked, so I don't. You never smoked cigarettes? You weren't listening. I've never had nicotine. That was the first time.
    90:59
    Legit. All right. You're a lightweight. Good for you, by the way. Don't get addicted to this shit. Well, I don't want to. I just was curious. I'm not trying to say you were a bad influence, but I was like, what is this actually going to do for me? Marlowe had, I'll tell you what, especially if you have two bad balls, dude, pop us in. Get on up there. so you really believe that's a competitive advantage I think it's a performance enhancing drug okay I think I take performance enhancing drugs actually speaking of do you think that people have like their own ritualistic things they do before they play pinball yeah like maybe someone like downs a bunch of like I was trying to do caffeine for a while and caffeine actually it makes me too jittery when I play I play very frantic Yeah, and you're nervous. Yeah, if you're already nervous, it amps that up. It does. But I drink eight to ten Diet Cokes a day, so I'm popped on caffeine. But you're not drinking them like – if someone pounds two energy drinks and then plays pinball, I feel like you're like – at least for me, I'm too hopped up. Yeah, performance enhancing. You know, you go – We're still on this. You pop us in, you have a Diet Coke, and then you go outside with your friends, and then you level yourself down. All right, let's move on. Can we ask the audience to put in the chat what drugs they use to play pinball better? Just to see what they put. I really want to know. I used to ask people at the pinball tournaments, like, what are you doing? You think they're taking beta blockers? Well, I've heard some do Adderall. Some do Modonafil.
    92:33
    Lots of beer. Lots of psilocybin. Weed, of course. Of weed. Gummies, of weed. Psilocybin is a new thing. Oh, yes. I've heard that. I've heard good things from Sylvan. All right, we're not talking about this. Move on. But please, put in the comments what drug or ritual you take to help you with pinball. Not just for pinball, just any time. Yeah, actually, we're good with that.
    92:57
    Just whatever drug's helping you out. What's helping you out? What's getting you going? Heroin seems to be good. Oh, yeah.
    93:04
    I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, you'll play like a fucking champion, and then you won't even care when you lose.
    93:11
    Maybe that's what you guys need. Heroin. I am not going to do that. I've never done heroin. I started smoking at 14 years old. I knew very early on in my life that I liked things. I'm addictive, so I don't do bad, bad, bad things. Well, don't start collecting pinball machines because you'll end up like me. That's why I don't go down those wormholes. All right. Can I give a quick shout-out on the Roundtable Boys to Eureka Heights Brewery?
    93:37
    Go ahead. Dude, they are going to have one of the first spooky rows at an arcade anywhere in America. Every game? Every spooky game? Here's what they have. All right? Let's give them a shout out. I'm going to start from the left. They have Rick and Morty.
    93:59
    Right? Love Rick and Morty. Scott Denise. Got to love it. Then followed by Halloween. Okay. I like Ultraman, but I like Halloween. then followed by on spooky row tna total nuclear annihilation another yeah i love that banger from scott yeah then they have jetsons where the hell are you ever going to go play at jetsons right that's cool nowhere nowhere so they've got a jetson it's a purple edition which is kind of rare then they have uh scooby-doo nice that was there when i was there i think okay no well it was at another location they just brought it there for scoop oh no it was it was rick and morty they had there when i was there and then their last is evil dead on spooky row and there's one space most haunted they don't have an america's most haunted no they have room for one maybe two more so beetlejuice or whatever their uh their next title is is going right there that's pretty cool though to be able to go to one place and play all the spooky games that's cool yeah and i'll tell you what you know credit to taylor uh buckley over there he's got those things dialed in man they don't have any problems now they don't get the the plays obviously of other places because they're closed on mondays and their hours are small but jiminy christmas he's gotten dialed in so congrats to john uh spades and taylor buckley over at eureka heights for the new spooky row and hopefully uh they need some stuff behind it so i'm going to reach out to spooky maybe we could buy some banners or stuff to really pump up Spooky Row. Nice.
    95:37
    All right, boys, that's about it, I think. We're an hour and 35 minutes. Any shout-outs? Anything you guys want to plug?
    95:46
    Yeah, we're doing our seventh anniversary, the Electric Bat Seventh Anniversary Bash. It's a big pinball tournament, weekend-long pinball tournament.
    95:57
    And you can get the full details. Go to electricbatarcade.com. and there's a link at the very top, and you'll see it. It's real long. It's called the 7th Anniversary Bash, and you can buy tickets. Come on out here. It's limited to 120 players, and it's going to be a lot of fun. So go to the website. Well, that'll sell out. So when do the tickets go on sale? Oh, they're on sale right now. Okay. Yeah, you got to jump on it. You got to jump on those. Rob, anything? sir uh yeah actually on the um next week the electric playground is probably launching their king kong topper so my video will come out on that next week it's pretty cool i think i think people are gonna like it it's uh they're targeting a more like lower price point so it's not going to be as massively integrated like some of their other toppers but it's still pretty cool like i think people are good i think people are going to go what they did a good job building something that complements the game. Because to me, if a topper looks like it wasn't designed with the game, it looks out of place. This doesn't at all. It actually looks like Stern made it. So it's pretty cool.
    97:11
    Well, there you go. Be on the lookout for that. And I'm going to be streaming the finals next week on the JBS show on YouTube. So do me a favor. Click that subscribe. We're almost – we need to get to 1,000. We're 400 away. You're listening to it. Just do it. Chimney Christmas. It's not that hard. Yeah. Come on, peeps. Help me out. Help brother out. All right, that's it, boys. Thank you guys so much. Another roundtable. Very interesting crap we talked about today. Yeah. I mean, fallout. Back to the future. Holy shit.
    97:44
    I love these roundtables. Don't you love them? Yeah. So much fun. Everybody loves them. And the next one will maybe be in person, right? Yeah, we'll do it live. Let's do it live. We'll do it live. Fuck it, we'll do it live. We got it. Yeah. Imagine and ask me anything live. That's what we're doing. Are we doing it? We're not going to have any topics. Oh, that would be perfect. Yeah, we're coming in clean, no topics. Can you imagine the amount of trouble we are going to get into with an Ask Me Anything? Well, it'll be fun. You're going to get into trouble.
    98:15
    I just, yeah, just Ralph. I put our names down for the Airbnb. I had to put all the guests that were going to be coming, so I figured we'll hang out at the pool. Yeah. chill out at the Airbnb, and then go record and see how much trouble we can get in. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. All right. Good times. Thanks, gents. See you in a week and one day. Can't wait.
    98:40
    And, you know, people, go to your local arcades, but go to the bat, man. I don't understand. It cost me less than $138 with tax both ways to fly to Arizona. No one's going to Arizona in August. Come play the seventh anniversary tournament. Absolutely. Buy this. Get some big whopper points. It's going to be great. We have an all-classics tournament in there that's going to be on a Friday. Saturday's qualifying. Finals on Sunday with a consolation tournament. It's going to be great, man. I can't wait to see you both. You should make it. Ralph should do it. All right. I'm going to have to figure out when all that is. It's going to be fun. Cool. All right, boys. God bless you both. All right, guys. We will see you soon. Thank you, everybody. See you. Thanks for watching, guys. Bye-bye. Have a good night.