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Episode 198 - The Venom of Blizzard

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 2m·analyzed·Jul 23, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Stern's new Venom machine balances dense 'fan layout' with RPG-style rules and dynamic Premium/LE mechanics.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast Episode 198 discusses the newly revealed Stern Pinball Venom machine, focusing on layout design by Brian Eddy, art by Zombie Yeti, and innovative rules incorporating XP progression, character selection mechanics, and dynamic playfield adjustments via the three-position 180-degree ramp on Premium/LE models. Dennis and Tony debate the layout's density (nine shots on Pro model), compare Zombie Yeti art package to his prior work, and praise the roguelike-inspired ruleset that addresses home player progression and replayability challenges.

Key Claims

  • Venom is a Brian Eddy design with rules led by Dwight Sullivan and Raymond Davidson, with Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) on art

    high confidence · Dennis lists confirmed crew: 'brian eddy design game... dwight sullivan is lead on rules... raymond davidson... Zombie Yeti, aka... Jeremy Packer, did the art package... Jerry Thompson... is on sound'

  • Pricing identical to Foo Fighters: $7,000 Pro, $9,700 Premium, $13,000 LE with 1,000 LE units planned

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Pricing remains identical to the Foo Fighters release... $7,000 for a Pro, $9,700 for a Premium, and $13,000 for a Limited Edition model'

  • Pro model has nine distinct shots; Premium/LE adds three-position 180-degree ramp and doppelganger swinging toy with target changes

    high confidence · Dennis lists shots: 'left orbit... left most ramp... very target... center ramp... bell teller... horseshoe... scoop shot... other entrance to the horseshoe... far right orbit nine' and describes Premium feature: 'three position 180 ramp that's over on the right... can raise up... that changes the shot a third time'

  • Playfield features stacking lock system where ramp feeds release held balls for faster play

    high confidence · Dennis: 'stacking lock system, which seems to be a newer concept where the ramps feed to the inline... when you shoot a ball up on a ramp, it can release another ball and then lock the ball that you've shot'

  • Rules include XP progression system where character leveling reduces shots needed to clear modes, with new hosts (Hulk, Wolverine, Captain America) unlocked by beating final boss Null

    high confidence · Dennis: 'XP system... as you develop your character, like the number of shots you need to clear something goes down... when you beat that final boss, Null... you get to unlock new characters... Hulk... Wolverine and Captain America are unlocked'

  • Game features dynamic playfield adjustments based on chosen symbiote host character, with different shots available per selection

    high confidence · Dennis: 'choose your symbiote host at the start of the game... there are adjustments depending on which symbiote character host you choose in terms of what the physical layout of the play field will be... your play field that you get to play on is different'

Notable Quotes

  • “I've never seen such a fan in my entire life it is so... I may need to get this game to just have it for air circulation”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Hyperbolic critique of the extremely dense 'fan layout' with nine shots on Pro model packed into tight spacing

  • “this is pinball it's not a wall hanging right”

    Tony @ mid-content — Defense of fragmented playfield art design, acknowledging functional gameplay priorities over aesthetic cohesion

  • “he's basically the best artist in all of pinball ever... I don't want to sound like I don't want to just come across as toxic”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Acknowledges Zombie Yeti's exceptional quality while critiquing this particular art package's ranking in his body of work

  • “I've owned Star Trek for god who knows how many years now... I never going to get to five mission... I'm not physically capable of it”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Illustrates motivation for roguelike progression mechanics: allowing non-elite players to achieve completion and progression

  • “The premiums and LEs, incidentally, for those that haven't looked, they have the same trans light”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Clarifies art packaging hierarchy showing Premium and LE share translight, with distinct cabinet sides

  • “I'm not a huge Venom person. It's not my wheelhouse of interest. It never has been. But the art is good”

    Tony @ early-content — Establishes that theme appeal and art quality are separable, while also noting Venom's B-tier status in Marvel

  • “They let you get elements that let you improve... even though you do get better at the game over time, most people don't become speedrunners”

    Dennis @ late-content — Articulates the roguelike philosophy underlying Venom's XP/progression system design philosophy

  • “the playing field is probably going to be really polarizing... because the colors change all of a sudden”

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyBrian EddypersonDwight SullivanpersonJeremy PackerpersonRaymond DavidsonpersonCorey StupppersonJerry ThompsonpersonTony Toddperson

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts express concern that dense fan layout may be off-putting to collectors fatigued by similar designs, particularly given Stern's recent emphasis on horseshoe ramps and similar mechanics across multiple titles

    medium · Dennis: 'are a lot of pinball collectors going to sit this one out because they look at this layout and they go, no, I've owned so many games with this layout. I don't want it'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Dense fan layout with nine closely-spaced shots on Venom may be designed to create fast-paced, short-duration games suitable for commercial play, contrasting with typical fan layouts that play slowly and safe; aims to mitigate traditional fan layout longevity concerns

    medium · Dennis: 'normally when I look at a fan layout... they're really, really safe layouts that tend to play a long time... maybe these shots are close enough together that that's not going to be an issue with this'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dwight Sullivan applying video game roguelike progression mechanics to home pinball to address replayability problem: XP leveling, character progression carryover, unlockable hosts as reward loop, enabling non-expert players to achieve narrative completion without requiring tournament-level skill

    high · Dennis: 'They let you get elements that let you improve... even though you do get better at the game over time, most people don't become speedrunners at Hades or Binding of Isaac... So there's replayability. So they're taking video game replayability'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Brian Eddy deliberately packed nine shots into tight spacing on Pro model by eliminating the large central toy (normally found in his fan layouts) and filling the space with additional ramps/shots; represents intentional design trade-off prioritizing shot variety over toy showcase

    high · Dennis: 'he took that where that giant toy normally is right in the middle and just right you know what i i can just fit like four more shots yeah in that same spot'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.187

0:00
welcome to the collective gamers podcast today is sunday july 23rd this is episode 198 i'm tony i'm dennis and we are back at it uh i don't know if this is going to be a particularly long episode But I do think it'll be an interesting one if for no other reason than the there's been a lot of news going on in terms of a big pinball announcement. And, of course, I know there's a lot of Microsoft Activision updates that have happened. I know. But before we get into that, Tony, last couple of weeks, anything worth reporting?
0:53
Not really. I've been playing more Diablo four. I've been playing more I heard they were going to nerf all the classes And then they're like, oops Yeah, I've been playing A sorceress And yeah No, after the big nerfs Came in, there was a considerable Change in my Time to kill It kind of hurt And that class was already like the weakest class Of the game, so It just made it worse So I have beaten the game I have not Since the new season launched I've not started the new season yet Because I downloaded Some updated mods For Battletech and I've been playing Battletech But And Reading, I've been doing a lot of reading So that's about it Well I have continued to work on I'm not playing Gems of War anymore That one's back in the That's bad. Back in cold storage. Back in cold storage for that one. I'm through Chapter 8 now on Puzzle Quest 3. However, there was a big Xbox summer sale of games, so I did pick up three new games.
2:08
Yes, I got the remake of Capcom's Resident Evil 3. I really liked the Resident Evil 2 remake. I did not originally play. My first Resident Evil was Resident Evil 5. and in fact why I am in Xbox at all is because a friend of ours who we played World of Warcraft with wanted me to co-op with him Resident Evil 5 and he's like you gotta get a 360 so we can play this and I'm like I don't want to buy a console I'm a PC gamer he's like you need to get it so we can play it and so I was like I was getting tired of Warcraft so I got it and that was my first introduction and I have since gone back and played a because they had a remaster of 6 so I've played 6 and then I've been playing the more recent ones but I've never I tried to do like an older remake-y version of Code Veronica and it was still the old look and everything and I couldn't really get into it or get through it at the very least and same for the first Resident Evil but Resident Evil 2 when they totally remastered it that was a lot of fun so I've got three but I haven't started it yet and then I've got two other games I've got I Am Fish which is like a, think the Marble Madness like you're fishing a bowl Oh, yeah. Trying to get to the water. So I've only played that one time the day I downloaded it because it was a quick, short download. And then another series of games I've never played, I got the Phoenix Wright trilogy. I'm learning that either Japanese law is very, very different than American law or Phoenix Wright is taking some liberties with law because there's a lot about the game that doesn't make any sense to me. And one of the things I struggle with a lot is there are scenarios, instances where I need to like object and present something. And it's so obvious that I'm confused why like no one else is like just bringing it up. They'll be like, what's going on? You need to present. And I'm I'm over I've overthought it several times when it's something like the you'll hear someone you'll hear the witness say like I wasn't. They'll say something like they weren't actually there. And then you're like objection. And the judge is like, why are you objecting? And it's like, but the witnesses told everyone they weren't there. But you need to point out the evidence showing that they indeed aren't there because they just said they weren't there. And that conflicts with the other thing that suggested they were there. And I'm like, but they just said they weren't there. Like, they just told everyone. Why do I have to object at all? I don't understand. It doesn't work that way. This is nonsense.

  • Tony Todd reportedly voices Venom in the new Stern game, though this was unconfirmed at time of discussion

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'I heard a rumor Or report I did not find confirmation I didn't look very hard That he's voicing Venom in the new Stern game'

  • Zombie Yeti's playfield art is fragmented by character theming, dividing the playfield into distinct visual sections rather than cohesive design

    high confidence · Dennis: 'because he's done that it's it feels very fragmented... the colors change all of a sudden because they're all representing something... The back half of the play field... every person's like oh oh oh no'

  • Dennis ranks Venom art in middle of Zombie Yeti's catalog, below Ghostbusters, Iron Maiden Premium, and Turtles but above Godzilla

    high confidence · Dennis: 'I'm really thinking Playfield in particular just isn't as attractive as some of those greats... my top three zombie Yeti packages are basically like all of the Ghostbusters stuff... The premium package for Iron Maiden... and then for number three... I would say I've generally leaned towards something like... Turtles... I maybe put it a little above Godzilla'

  • Layout features multiple recent Stern design trends including horseshoe ramps, vary targets, and resembles a 'fan layout' similar to Attack From Mars and Medieval Madness but more densely packed

    high confidence · Dennis: 'I see that, once again, we have one of those horseshoes that have gotten super popular... those kind of like tight little horseshoes... I think the first time I first saw it was Stern Star Wars... The thing the toy the the very target... is the width of a ball... he took that where that giant toy normally is right in the middle and just right you know what i i can just fit like four more shots'

    • Dennis @ mid-content — Predicts divisive player reception to fragmented art aesthetic in playfield design

  • “you could set it so like your turtle training... the progress could be held over... kind of a roguelike element”

    Dennis @ late-content — References Turtles Insider Connected progression system as precedent for Venom's XP carryover mechanics

  • “maybe these shots are close enough together that that's not going to be an issue... But that's where my concern comes in”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Expresses uncertainty about whether dense shot spacing will mitigate typical 'fan layout' playing time concerns

    • Dennis
    person
    Tonyperson
    Venomgame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Mandaloriangame
    Turtlesgame
    Star Trekgame
    Ghostbustersgame
    Iron Maiden Premiumgame
    Attack From Marsgame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    This Week in Pinballmedia
    Deadflipmedia
    Insider Connectedproduct
  • $

    market_signal: Venom announced with emphasis on innovative rules mechanics (XP, character unlocks, dynamic playfield) and Premium/LE mechanical differentiation rather than theme strength or IP cachet; suggests Stern positioning machine on design novelty rather than character appeal

    medium · Dennis and Tony both emphasize ruleset and mechanics as compelling aspects despite indifference to Venom IP itself; hosts note theme doesn't resonate but design innovation drives interest

  • ?

    community_signal: Zombie Yeti (Jeremy Packer) has evolved to become Stern's primary art director for recent releases (Foo Fighters, Venom), indicating consolidated decision-making authority over aesthetic presentation across portfolio

    high · Dennis: 'Zombie Yeti... did the art package on this, as he's been doing lately with a lot of Stern games, most recently Foo Fighters'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Raymond Davidson credited as rules designer on Venom, noted as 'primarily associated with Rush ruleset' by Dennis; represents continued Stern practice of allocating rules design talent across multiple projects with thematic expertise

    medium · Dennis lists rules team: 'raymond davidson dwight had confirmed on an interview that raymond is doing rules he most recently I know was primarily associated with Rush ruleset'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Premium/LE three-position 180-degree ramp creates meaningful mechanical differentiation by enabling different shot sequences through adjustable ramp positioning, paired with Insider Connected ruleset that changes playfield layout based on symbiote character selection

    high · Dennis: 'three position 180 ramp that's over on the right... can raise up and uh would give you it starts to give you access to like a another shot uh raise up again and then that changes the shot a third time... adjustments depending on which symbiote character host you choose in terms of what the physical layout of the play field will be'

  • ?

    product_concern: Zombie Yeti's playfield art prioritizes functional character-based shot theming over aesthetic cohesion, resulting in fragmented visual design that some players may find unappealing; represents intentional design choice serving layout mechanics at cost of unified visual package

    high · Dennis: 'because he's done that it's it feels very fragmented so i think some people that are looking at wanting a cohesive art package are probably going to hate like that back half of the play field because the colors change all of a sudden'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Venom selected as game theme despite being characterized by hosts as B-tier Marvel IP with limited popular appeal; suggests licensing availability/cost rather than IP strength drove selection, or Stern pursuing character-driven rather than property-driven game design strategy

    medium · Tony: 'Venom has never been what I would call a character that I care about... Venom not exactly an A character in the Marvel Universe'; Dennis: 'I'm not a huge Venom person... It's one of those things, this game doesn't theme-wise touch me'

    • 4:34
    And their lawyer should have, like, dropped their heads in shame. It's just – or – oh, and then the weird – yeah, the weird Phoenix Wrighty stuff. Like one time I was like, objection. The autopsy – they were like, this person – they were – I saw that they were stabbed, and then they staggered away, and then they fell over and died. And then I was like, objection. The autopsy report says they died instantly. And then the prosecutor was like, objection. It's like we have an updated autopsy report that says they actually took a while to die. I was like, how did – where did this come from? What is this? And they're just like, you should have thought better, Phoenix. And I'm like, what? This doesn't, this isn't what law, maybe that's how it is in Japan. I don't know. Discovery. Have you heard of it? Oh, there's a whole lot of the whole, they won't tell you or give you any of this. And I'm like, I'm not sure that's how that works. But apparently in the world of Phoenix Wright, we have to do all our own investigations and we have to trick the police into giving us information and trick the prosecutor into giving us information. Not the only thing I readily get are the inaccurate autopsy reports that then get updated during the course of my objection. So Phoenix Wright is basically SVU.
    5:43
    Yeah, I guess. And then other than that, I have a new pinball project in the garage, Gottlieb 1987 Victory. So the displays are currently not working, probably just a fuse or more likely just an edge connector that needs to be reattached. But I haven't done much with that yet other than some preliminary tests. So let's go into pinball since I use that as my subtle as a chainsaw segue. We only have one pinball topic. But first. What but first?
    6:19
    What are you slipping out of the collection to put victory in? That remains to be seen. So the short answer would be my most likely item that I would sell would be Buck Rogers. Obviously, it's not of the same era, but the only game I have remotely near the era of victory is Hoops, and Hoops isn't going.
    6:38
    So Buck Rogers is the game I play the least, though I do have a really nice – because I have the BG Resto back glass that was gifted to me. So, I mean, it's one of my better-looking games. It's in better shape, like physically, than Sinbad, but Sinbad is such a – it's just a more fun game. Right. So probably Buck Rogers. but I hedge on that because I need to put some more while I played it on pinball arcade I need to put some time on victory to know that victory should go in the lineup it may just be a case that it might just be a garage it stays in the garage for a while and then I just sell it or something which incidentally when the person brought the victory because I couldn't because of my ceiling height they had a walking dead so I let them I gave them my walking dead topper so now I'm topper free as I should be good pure excellent and clean yes This house is clean This house is clear I can't do her voice But Venom Fanball Can I do Venom's voice? I don't know, can you?
    7:37
    Isn't it Tony Todd voices Venom? I heard a rumor Or report I did not find confirmation I didn't look very hard That he's voicing Venom in the new Stern game But I've heard he's done Venom's voice in some other stuff Like video game stuff I remember because I saw it posted somewhere and I saw the top reply I saw was, my favorite Klingon.
    8:00
    I thought, oh, that's a blast from the past. That's true. He's done several Klingons. Yes, he has. But I have a link in the show notes, which can be helpful to follow along. This is this week in pinball's link, because they do have a deep dive on Venom, which I found is a still useful way for the, I like how they lay out the photos and the tiers and the information. And there's a good little set on the rules. So I'm also pointing that out so Tony can load it while I didn't embed any of our photos in our OneNote is why I'm mentioning that because it makes the OneNote kind of clunky when I put a lot of photos in. So anyway, in terms of some basic background for the listeners that do not know yet, this was – the teaser came out technically two weeks ago at this – well, not full two weeks, but two weeks ago if we think about traditional week structure. And then Tuesday was when the game itself was revealed fully. in terms of the basic information this is a brian eddy design game he had most recently done mandalorian the rules i've heard there are four people at least four people on rules i don't know all of them dwight sullivan is lead on rules he was lead on mandalorian's rules as well raymond davidson dwight had confirmed on an interview that raymond is doing rules he most recently I know was primarily associated with Rush ruleset. And then Corey Stupp, whose name I'm not familiar with, but I did see him listed on this week in pinball as being as part of the software team on this title. Zombie Yeti, aka, or I should say the pseudonym Zombie Yeti, but often known as well as by his real name, Jeremy Packer, did the art package on this, as he's been doing lately with a lot of Stern games, most recently Foo Fighters. And Jerry Thompson, who's often done sound for Stern Games lately, is on sound for this game. This is a cornerstone. So it is the Pro Premium LE model. There are 1,000 LE units. Pricing remains identical to the Foo Fighters release. So they have not done a price increase since earlier this year. That means it's $7,000 for a Pro, $9,700 for a Premium, and $13,000 for a Limited Edition model. So those are the basics out of the way. I think there are two main things to discuss here. One, of course, which I think we'll go ahead and open with, is the layout. I need to disclose I have not watched gameplay footage. There was gameplay shot, I believe, at Comic-Con, streamed on Deadflip. So that is available. I don't have a link in the show notes to it because I have not played it myself. However, I have gone over the images extensively.
    10:38
    So I think starting with the layout would make a lot of sense. And before us sort of giving our thoughts on that, I think I should probably go ahead and quickly do a breakdown on the pro versus the premium LE because, as is the case, as Tony is very familiar, there are a lot of mechanical sacrifices for the pro model to get the price down versus what we see on the premium LE. So the main thing I think to note on what all the models have is they have this sort of stacking lock system, which seems to be a newer concept where the ramps feed to the inline. So I think the way it works is like balls are being held, and then it's designed so that it'll feel like there's a faster return because when you shoot a ball up on a ramp, it can release another ball and then lock the ball that you've shot. So it keeps things going a little bit quicker than maybe we're often used to. uh so again we've seen locks like that before but not usually like prominent in the sense that they're like being used all the time um and then the uh toy wise uh besides that it's there's just the uh captive ball very target where i think his name's carnage the red venom right is kind of towards the left near the left most ramp so that uh that's got a captive ball in front of it and And then it seems like the Carnage toy is like on a very target that's supposed to get knocked back further and further. And then there's like a bell tower toy that it's a stand up. But I guess there's supposed to be like a bell sound that happens with it or something along those lines. So those are what that's basically it that stood out to me in terms of like toy toy slash features on the on the pro model. and then if we move up to the premium le model the main thing to note is there's this uh three position 180 ramp that's over on the right so it's like if it's all the way down it functions as a 180 ramp which we've been seeing a lot lately out of stern pinball at least in my opinion and then it can raise up and uh would give you it starts to give you access to like a another shot uh or raise up again and then that changes the shot a third time so they that that sort of thing is in place. There's also this sort of, it's called the doppelganger. It's a swinging, it swings out from the right side. And then there are three hanging targets that are underneath it. And the art's actually a little bit different in that section on the premium LE because they've got some inserts and stuff associated with the doppelganger targets that don't exist on the pro model. So those are the main toy differences that I've seen. So I want to get into rules, but I want to stop talking now for a little bit. So actually, before starting with layout, we should probably go ahead and talk about art. So other than the subtle difference on the right-hand side, I think the Playfield art is identical for all three models. So I won't really ask about that, but I was kind of curious, Tony,
    13:37
    like which art package do you like the best? And does it vary, like do you have a difference on Translight plus cab sides, or is it like the one entire package just wins you over more? Well, A, I'm not a huge Venom person. It's not my wheelhouse of interest. It never has been.
    13:57
    But the art is good. I do like how it looks. I'm going to go and be completely acceptable here and say that overall, I think the, hmm, tough, tough call. But honestly, I think I like the Translight best on the Pro. I think the Pro has the better Translight, and the Premium has the better side art. I mean, just overall, I don't need the giant venom that's on the side of the LE and the Pro to let me know what it is. You can tell that pretty much just by seeing it. So I think the Premium has the better cabinet art, but I really do like the Translight on the Pro.
    14:53
    But all in all, all of the art's good. The Playfield's art is good. There's definitely some stuff in here that I like It's one of those things, this game doesn't theme-wise touch me in any way, shape, or form Because Venom has never been what I would call a character that I care about It's always felt very aimed at a certain type of person who I'm not That's a nice way to say it OK well yeah I not I not particularly enamored with the theme itself I know some people are are are large Venom fans but I think it safe to say Venom not exactly an A character in the Marvel Universe No and the fact that Venom's so tightly tied to Spider-Man and I know it's known from the sheer amount of hate mail I've gotten about it, but I don't really care about Spider-Man either. I know he's like the most popular Marvel character.
    15:54
    You continue to hate him. I didn't say I hate him. I just don't care. To try and destroy him. I watch the movies sometimes. I mean, I've watched some of the new ones. You haven't even seen all of them. I haven't. I did see some of the new ones. That's how much your hate is. I saw the first of the new ones, the one, the, the.
    16:16
    Sure. Yeah. Probably because it had other Marvel characters in it. It's probably the only reason you saw it. No, I saw it because it finally was on Disney Plus. I could watch it for free. That's a good reason. That's a good enough reason. I do agree with you that I would probably say the composition of the pro trans light is my favorite, though it's a close thing. The premiums and LEs, incidentally, for those that haven't looked, they have the same trans light.
    16:39
    I like them both. They're fine. I actually prefer the LE cabinet package. I like the color dichotomy of the red, I guess, carnage side and then the kind of left side, which is very – I like the use of the blues for the spawn because I think blacks really wouldn't work.
    17:00
    In terms of like side packages, the Pro is my least favorite cabinet. Purple and pinball I do not generally care for, and I don't like the use of that purple coloration basically at all. and then the the pro uh excuse me the premium side package i imagine i could see a lot of people liking that because there's a lot of like red and orange is very born like the born identity poster style of that era and i think it kind of plays into if i were to stereotype the zombie yeti uh stern art package look it's like lots of that lots of red orange yellow color scheme uh you know in the marble styling um again it's all well drawn uh the play field you know i think that play field is probably going to be really polarizing i get what uh what jeremy did uh and like from a logic perspective from a player perspective i like this you can see when you look at the play field shots that he's very much got like a character theme for each of the shots but because he's done that it's it feels very fragmented so i think some people that are looking at wanting a cohesive art package are probably going to hate like that back half of the play field because the colors change all of a sudden because they're all representing something but again this is pinball it's not a wall hanging right it almost looks like the those comic book uh pages where uh they do like the giant react reaction shot where each person has their own individual picture as they react to something they're all seeing that's kind of that's kind of the feeling that back half gives it where where every person's like oh oh oh no he yeah the uh i mean this might be a little challenging i was gonna say where would you rank it where would you rank his art on this game versus everything else that he's done because again i i don't know i've heard i've heard obviously it's so subjective i think this is in his bottom half all of his stuff being good though i have to Again, that's the thing. So I don't want to sound like I don't want to just come across as toxic because he's basically the best artist in all of pinball ever. Right. But like my top three games, I had this discussion with Zach many on the pinball show. It's like for me, my top three zombie Yeti packages are basically like all of the Ghostbusters stuff is my number one. Still, it's like the one thing that doesn't look like all the other stuff. The premium package for Iron Maiden is my number two. The desert one. Yeah. The Egypt stuff. I just think it looks really cool. And then for number three, that one gets a little bit tougher for me, but I would say I've generally leaned towards something like, oh, gosh, Turtles. It would probably be my third. And this is kind of like I maybe put it a little above Godzilla, but Godzilla was way down because I didn't like his decision to do the poster style with the Godzilla. I wanted Godzilla to look a little less saturated and more washed out and stuff. And instead, it felt like Marvel did Godzilla, which it's not ugly. It's just not the style that I would have. Whereas I like the style on this a bit more. But because of the need to serve the layout, which I think is the right decision, I also think overall as an art package, I'm really thinking Playfield in particular just isn't as attractive as some of those greats.
    20:19
    Right. And like you said, with Jeremy Packer, that's a lot like saying, you know, it's like just because it's not as good as some of his other stuff doesn't mean that it's not, you know, way above 90% of what we see in Penalty. Oh, yeah. No, it's all good. It's just like having a discussion about your favorite song from an artist or deciding which one of Frank Lloyd Wright's houses is the worst. Yes, yes. The thing for me is I've heard some people, not necessarily a lot, but some who have argued that he just keeps getting better and better. and I think maybe because I'm not trained at all in art, like when I look at the progression of his games, I don't see it in those terms. Like I don't know what you could point to on this versus back to Turtles and tell me like what was the improvement? Like where did it get better? Right. I think it's just very much one of those things where it depends upon the theme and sometimes things just click better with different people. But then again, I mean, there are going to be people who think that this is his best ever and there's going to be people who think it's his worst ever. And anywhere in between, it's just artists so subjective. So where's your rank? Right in the middle of the pack.
    21:51
    Layout. Let's move to that. Okay. So this isn't Jeremy's fault. This is Brian Eddy's fault. What do you think of this? I think there are an incredibly large number of shots that look pretty close together. Type of findable? Question mark. That's going to be the question. There's some things I like. I see that, once again, we have one of those horseshoes that have gotten super popular.
    22:16
    Let me rephrase. That has gotten super common as of late. Those kind of like tight little horseshoes. Yeah. I'm trying to think when I first saw it. I think the first time I really noticed it was Stern Star Wars. Right. But they seem to be everywhere all of a sudden. And I can understand why. They give fast feedback.
    22:39
    They're very interesting in a lot of ways. But sometimes I feel like maybe it's time to back off a little. But, I mean, he didn't put four in like Scooby. That's true. That definitely helps. That would be a rut row. I do like the Captive Ball Very Target. I like Very Targets. and vary targets or something that you don't see a whole lot of anymore.
    22:59
    Big fan of that. I'm really going to be interested in the premium NLE. I want to see how that three-position 180-degree. And that's something I think that we can touch on in the rules because I agree. The premium LE, especially with what they've described as the plan with the rules, is very interesting very i think it's very innovative what they're what they're trying to accomplish i don't i don't know how well that integrates with the pro obviously there needs to be a pro um and so it's and maybe the pro grows on me because it will end up playing so fast the thing is uh that stood out to me when i first saw these images and uh it's true for both versions but of course the questions that i have are concerns that i have are more for the pro because they don't have those changing shots is it's i know so many people have longed for brian eddie to basically they want a shadow 2.0 they want to see that and when he came back to pinball to stern he did stranger things right people looked at and it's kind of like well the feeds were different very attack from mars sort of structure right and then mandalorian I thought was pretty different up a play field different than, you know, it's, I know it didn't feel like shadow, but it also wasn't his, his medieval attack fan approach. This I think is the fanniest fan layout that I have ever seen. Like, like I could probably put this in my room to keep the air circulating. I may, I, even though the theme doesn't do anything for me, I may need to get this game to just have it for air circulation because I've never seen such a fan in my entire life it is so i mean well how many shots are we looking at here well i mean looking at the pro model we start from left orbit there's left orbit left most ramp uh that's two uh very target would be three center amp would be four bell teller or five entry to the horseshoe six uh the i guess sort of scoop shot seven other entrance to the horseshoe eight and far right orbit nine that's nuts that's crazy so and uh obviously they've got some some stuff going on with the with the with the feeds so uh because there's like a little very target in the excuse me a buck in the back that'll fire up to that uh same habit trail that is fed by the center ramp and and things like that but but yeah so no he's put in a lot there and i don't i don't know if they're too tight or not uh probably not would be initial thought when we see this it definitely it looks intimidating like they're going to be scary time yeah the thing is normally like we think back to brian eddy's other fan layouts uh stranger things attack for mars and medieval madness there's usually like a big wide toy like the drop the bank in on attack with a or the castle or the demogorgon he didn't put that in here the the thing the toy the the very target is the same size as all the other shots right in fact it's actually tighter than the ramps so yeah because it's like he took that where that giant toy normally is right in the middle and just right you know what i i can just fit like four more shots yeah in that same spot so the toys quote unquote like when we're looking just at the pro specifically are a very target shot which is the width of a ball and then also the width of a ball the bell tower which is a single stand-up so those are very small uh footprint toys very small he's kept them those are those two are the tightest shots that i see everything else is a little bit wider but not that wide nothing huge not like the banana ramp on elwyn's avengers for example right so anyway i I think with the whole, if I understand the principle right, the whole staged ball lock system that you can kind of see the labeling on, on the habit trails on the left and the right, that I could see where that might help the speed of the returns. So you're not waiting for your one ball to go around and do that and come back. So that would help with the speed because normally when I look at a fan layout, and people love to shoot fans. So this could be quite successful. It's just it also, when I see fans normally, I think they're really, really safe layouts that tend to play a long time. Now, maybe these shots are close enough together that that's not going to be an issue with this. But that's where my concern comes in is, well, twofold. One is that, is it going to be too safe, too long of a player? And then I guess if I was an owner of Stern, which I'm not, it would be, are a lot of pinball collectors going to sit this one out because they look at this layout and they go, no, I've owned so many games with this layout. I don't want it. And I will – we can elaborate on that a little bit more. But you mentioned the curiosity about like the three-shot – three-changing-shot thing on the right-hand side in particular. So I do want to go ahead and move us to the rules real quick. And again, there's a lot more write-up detail over on This Week in Pinball, which had pulled some information together from the Stern Insider Pinball podcast.
    28:24
    And so here's the thing. All right. So the game is going to have you choose a host that you that you choose, choose your house or choose your turtle, or in this case is going to be choose your symbiote host at the start of the game. And the way it works actually is there are adjustments depending on which symbiote character host you choose in terms of what the physical layout of the play field will be. So if you choose, and you can change them between balls. So when you make certain changes, basically because of the way that stuff can shift around, your play field that you get to play on is different.
    29:08
    That's what that's accommodating, is you get different shots depending which character you've chosen. So that's the uniqueness that I feel is pretty much lost on the pro, it seems, but could be very interesting on the premium LE. coupled with that again we've again and with dwight being lead on this i i understand like he's really been leaning a lot into more of these rpg rules uh that sort of element he's got some stuff here that's kind of roguelike though with that you know changing environment kind of feels a little bit roguelike to me also um with like the turtles uh i never owned a turtles but one of the things you could do with insider connected is and with the settings you know this could be disabled for tournaments and stuff, but you could set it so like your turtle training, I think like the progress could be held over again, kind of a roguelike element where you have pieces that let you get better over time. This is doing an XP system where as you develop your, your character, like the number of shots you need to clear something goes down because you've gotten stronger. So they make it, it's approaching it in a way that it should be getting easier and easier as you level up over time to beat the game. And when you beat that final boss, Null, I guess it's its name, is you get to unlock new characters that aren't in the default set, like Hulk, like Venom Hulk, or whatever they call him, and Wolverine and Captain America are unlocked as you win the game. And then you have a new character to level up and repeat the experience. So all of these things, coupled with, of course, the characters have their own unique bonuses and stuff, that level up aspect i think is really really interesting so because it's leaning into insider connected and taking pinball in a way that i think makes a lot of sense with the home environment it like how do we increase longevity what the big frustration with like i owned star trek for god who knows how many years now at this point I never going to get to five mission I'm never going to become a good enough pinball player to do that. I'm not physically capable of it. So, eventually, I'm not going to own the game until I get five-year mission because I'm not good enough to get five-year mission.
    31:25
    But if you want to show someone progress, how do roguelikes do it? They let you get elements that let you improve. So even though you do get better at the game over time, you never become, most people don't become speedrunners at Hades or Binding of Isaac. It's the leveling and the carryover and the stuff that you have at your disposal that allows you to win it eventually. And then that lets you do new things with it. So there's replayability. So they're taking video game replayability. And Brian Eddy's incorporated some aspects of the layout to also do some adjustment to give you a little bit different experience with that otherwise very vanilla looking layout. I think that's really interesting. What are your thoughts? I also think that that's a really cool concept that could go either very well or very terribly. But I'm super interested. There are a lot of things in this game. I know you haven't really touched on it yet. but the fact that it has co-op and team play, I just really want to play this game.
    32:26
    I would like to play. I loved playing co-op on TNA. It was great. The fact that this has a built-in speed run type setup, even though I'll never successfully complete any of it, I know that. There's no way that I'm going to be a good enough player to do that. but it just is a concept. And I think a lot of this, like you said, is stuff that is utilizing powers given to them through in the insider connected set up. But I'm, it has tickled all of my really interested. Want to try it boxes, not just for the game itself and the shots and everything, but because of all of the things that are trying that are different, new and, and interesting. Yeah. To me, it's a culmination of everything that I feel, rightly or wrongly, that Dwight Sullivan has seemed to have been working towards over the last few years at Stern Pinball. Again, like you mentioned, co-op play. That's something that seems to end up in all of his code packages. Like Turtles had the co-op play, and I thought there was another game that he worked on that also had co-op play. And, of course, here it is again. And as you know, like speed running, I mean, that's such a video game thing. it's all of these pieces he's brought back the flamethrower from Mandalorian and the concept which I guess the symbiotes are afraid of fire is kind of how that thematically integrates but it gives an ability to you know like a strategic weapon you know that smart bomb from video games sort of how I always thought of the flamethrower to go ahead and accomplish something so this one is available that you can do something and like fire that off at certain times and it's just it's got so many things and I agree with you it's an experiment is this going to work or not it's such a question mark in the sense that conceptually I think with Insider Connected able to save the progress all the pieces are there that this should be able to work the thing that I don't know about is do pinball collectors want to go down this route or not I think it makes a lot of sense from a homeowner perspective but a lot of these things like if Venom ends up at the 403 Club, are we going to, like, if we sign in, are we going to actually, is it going to remember our progress? How are they going to, obviously you can't allow that in the tournaments. Right. There's probably, I'm sure there's a setting. There is a tournament mode. Well, just even beyond the tournament mode, I'm sure there's another setting mode that basically would make it as a choice. But if it's like, because they don't want to activate a special mode or teach people how to do that when we, say, start a tournament. Because it's not like how it used to be in the old days at Pizza West where the operator would be there and he would switch all the games to tournament mode for our tournament. Like 403, normally we just walk up and play them and they're on the regular mode. So if it's always off to avoid that issue, for example, which would make sense from a tournament perspective, I would never get the experience of, like, why should I fall in love with this game if I can never, even if I log in, if I don't get to progress on location, then I'm never going to like how would I know that I want this it's the software that would make me want to want this game and how would I know that unless I can have my like I want to if I don't want to buy it I want to go and play it and I want to have my progress carry that's what I want that portable profile to finally say hey you've put in $50 into this game we won Alien Tony we spent $20 each and we won Alien if I spend $20 on Venom I should be able to beat Null with a character and get something and get to continue on. And that's the, so I see it more in the homeowner environment. I don't know if the location players are going to get enough of a taste of it or not to get that. So it's probably going to come down to a lot of people doing their own investigation and study. Now, one of the things I wanted to point out to you, why I'm bringing all of that up, other than, of course, that's interesting discussion, we're talking about Venom.
    36:29
    Venom sales. From the information I have gleaned from seeing people discussions, talk with other collectors, The sales on this game are soft currently. Like maybe as of this recording, that's not the case anymore. However, Ellie's were still readily available after the game revealed.
    36:51
    Interesting. So some of that might be what you pointed out, like Venom's not exactly the strongest Marvel character to go with. Some of that could be, we're not in the pandemic anymore. And so this whole, Like, if you want to buy a new in-box pinball game, it's super easy now. You might not be able to go and buy your new in-box Godzilla Premium or Foo Fighters Premium. But, you know, if you want a Mandalorian or you want a Rush or you want to go and get Scooby. Scooby's not a good example because they sold all those out. You want to go get Godfather or Toy Story 4. Easily, easily, readily available. Plenty of games. Even games that aren't made anymore, like Zeppelins. easy right granted that was always easy to get but but my point being is uh it's not like how it was where people were just buying up everything so all the values were going up now games are having to compete with each other and a lot of stuff there's this product now so there's all of that into play um and again where my concerns like when people look at a photo of the layout and all they see is a fan a lot of collectors already have a fan game at least one in their collection already be hard not to i mean you know it's like well i have i have an attack from mars remake well you've got a fan how many more do you want you got lord of the rings you got a fan how many more do you want you got a terminator 2 you got a fan how many more do you want yeah maybe three maybe three why not both so those are the those are the questions uh for it but it's the software side of it and whether they go down this path uh moving forward that i'm curious about um I really like the idea of the software, though, just on paper. So I hope that even if Venom ends up not doing that well, like I heard at least compared to at launch, it's not even where Bond was.
    38:49
    So, I mean, Bond's a stronger license. Right. Bond was just plagued with a lot of issues. But I just hope that they don't end up going, well, Venom didn't do what we had hoped it would do. So we're going to blame the software. They need to identify if the software is an issue, but I think this idea for rules makes a lot of sense given the homeowners needing something that – finding a way to give longevity to a game and still be achievable by most players. Because I think for a lot of people, that's the issue is we're never going to – I'm not going to get to the end of Godzilla. I'm not good enough.
    39:36
    You need to believe in yourself, Dennis. But something like this is – Believe in yourself the way the little – the way the Mothra twins believe in you. People often delude themselves into thinking that they can – and you know what? I'm going to go as a side tangent here. I'm kind of done. Let me get – if you have any other thoughts on Venom. No, I agree with you. I think the big thing is it'll depend on if the sales pick up after people get a chance to play it. It could be there's been plenty of games in the past that were light to begin with. They were soft to begin with. And once people played them or once rules got in place, that they really took off and became a lot more than what they started as.
    40:17
    We'll just have to see if this is one of those. You're absolutely right. The only thing is, at least when it comes to Stern, we don't usually see that softness on LE sales. Typically not. And it will say, I mean, Stern has had a pretty, I mean, Foo launched and Foo was amazing from ball one. Sure. But there are a lot of arguments that can be made for why was Foo so successful. You could say, well, there's a lot of fans of the band or a lot of people wanted to try Jack Danger's first design. or Foo is a very easy layout. It's quite forgiving. We had very long ball times at TPF. And we hadn't played the game before. That's a sign that the layout's pretty forgiving, which is part of the reason why Godzilla did so well. It's not Elwynn's most brutal layout. So those things are in its favor. And once people try Venom, as you point out, with the fan and stuff, that should be approachable. Even the shots are relatively tight. That should be relatively approachable. so it it could have legs on it i don't think it's a bad thing that the le's haven't didn't instantly sell out day one actually i think that's healthy because uh now and maybe that means stern needs to start thinking that they need to go back to the like the old days where not every run was 1000 le's maybe actually make them l you know limited so whatever i'm that's nobody nobody does that in pinball i it's we see the same thing in wristwatches and probably many other hobbies you don't you don't think 12 000 is a limited run you know i've i don't and then but then there was a there was a wrist watch i won't go into details because i know the listeners don't care but seiko did a launch of some revive you know some vintage revive and they did over 15 000 and i was like they're not going to sell it and then all i've had are a bunch of comments going oh they're gonna sell out you dumb guy i'm like okay well maybe i was wrong on because it's like seiko's most famous diver i don't i don't know that's like 15 000 is a stupid amount to Why limit it at all? I still don't know why that was. I mean, no one was like, they should limit it. They're just like, no, it'll sell out. Okay. A limited edition of two billion. So before I move on totally, but moving on from Venom, what I was going to say about when you brought up the thing about the, if I only try, you know, if I only like believe in the power of Mothra or whatever, I'm going to blame. Let me throw a little bit of blame. We're normally, we're pretty sympathetic on competitive pinball. I don't do it as much as I used to, but we like to go and play in tournaments and stuff. It's fun. The competitive aspect is fun. I think it's an important part of pinball. I blame competitive people, though, especially high-level competitive people, for totally either they don't understand their own skill or they're humble bragging. I'm not sure. or they think how they got there is different than how they really did, but they definitely overstate the ability for people to become great pinball players.
    43:16
    I've played pinball for years. No, I do not play pinball every single day. But I get so – there are some of them where they just – they make it sound like, and maybe they actually believe it, but I can't believe they're that naive, where they're like, if you just practice a little bit more, you could be a top 100 player. no no i cannot i do not look some of you you are not only because you play more and you do play more so i get where maybe they start thinking that where they're like well i put in if i'm someone i put in 10 hours a week i'm playing pinball and dennis puts in 10 minutes a week playing pinball of course i'm better than him yeah that's a fair point but if i put in 10 hours a week i'm not going to become you like that doesn't just automatically happen some people have to work way harder at something to become good at it and they will never become great at it yeah i i am a big believer in if you practice something enough you can become competent at it but there are people at the top for a reason and some of it's just going to be natural ability and stuff and some of it has now i do know that part of the reason maybe they they think that is there's a lot of we see a lot in in tournaments and stuff like big tournaments now a lot of younger players are winning a lot that's just because they got better reflexes and pinball was dominated by people i think i think this and i think this bugs some of them pinball was dominated for so long by like middle-aged people that now that younger people are actually investing a little bit of their time in it their natural dexterity advantage they've rolled they've all rolled high decks so they they're now doing what they've done in video games for years crushing people who are older who just don't have the reaction time that they used to. And your rules knowledge isn't going to be strong enough to, in all instances, to outplay someone who's just got a better physical skill set. Yeah. And I, again, I'm 44. I, I'm so far past my peak on, on physical ability. I could never practice my way up to beating a teenager who wants to put in far less time, but we'll just have the reaction ability to accomplish what they need to accomplish. So, so quit telling everyone that if they just practice more, they're going to become like this great player. It's nonsense. It's absolutely ridiculous. And I, I know that, you know, pinball play is really unprofessional. I don't, I don't mean that like in a disrespectful way. I mean, like there's no, like, and this has come up. I think Ron Hallett had a great rant about this on a slam tilt podcast, but he went on about how pinball is not a sport and he's a big competitive player, but like, you know, there's all this discussion about should we and oh and people are torn on this like can is it okay to wear headlamps is it okay to wear headphones he was bringing i think he's bringing up headphones he's like they don't in most prefer like basketball players don't get to go out there with their noise canceling headphones to not hear the cat the crowd jeer so who do you think you are that wasn't his exact example but that's the one i'm going to use uh one i brought up with before which really bothered someone because they they needed it for and i get it because they needed it for a diagnosis, but things that improve focus and clarity like ADD drugs. Oh, yeah. If this was a legitimized sport, that would be bad. Oh, man, drug testing? Yeah can you imagine Mandatory drug testing for all the big tournaments And I don even just mean like the prescription stuff I mean all these people who go well you know if you have two beers that when you in the right No your alcohol is gone You want this to be a real sport? You don't get to. No one else goes around. This isn't the Babe Ruth era. They don't get to go around slamming back brewskis to go play.
    46:56
    Your crutches go away if this was legitimized. And there are a lot of – a shocking level of crutches in pinball in my view. So people also get away with hiding behind a lot of cheats basically.
    47:10
    I mean it's all fair. But in a legitimized world of sport, these would be seen as cheats. Yes. Two beers, some ADHD drugs, your headlamp in your noise-canceling headphones, get everything dialed in real good there. Your sunglasses because the flashes are too bright. Your headlamp because the room lighting is too low.
    47:34
    And then there's, of course, the discussion about all of that, the nonstandardized lighting and stuff. Like, why is it okay for a venue to play with the lights off?
    47:43
    How am I supposed to see? Right. I've got to have my fingerless gloves, so I've got the feel in the fingertips. You've got to wear that basketball. You've got to wear that sleeve thing. Oh, yeah, the big sleeve. Wear the sleeve thing. protect my elbow so I don't get the right, and whether there has to be a regulation of the amount of clearance between the machines so that when the guy next to you gets mad and shakes the machine side to side, I've had people side slam the game into my hand, and I don't get a free ball. Yeah, it happened to me last week at tournament. I hope your hand's okay. I only lost two fingers. That's all right. Anyway, that was it. That was my little rant. Guys, not everyone can be a winner. That's my point. That's okay.
    48:29
    Quit telling everyone that they can. It's not healthy. Just do the best you can. It's not healthy. It's like telling everyone that they can be an astronaut. Just believe in yourself. They can't. Yes, believe in yourself, but be realistic too. And if you can't believe in yourself, believe in the me that believes in you. I just think that if you overly set those high expectations, and some people get really disappointed when they don't. Like they don't I can't remember how long it was until I finally like beat like a person at a tournament. It took a few tries. Oh, yeah. It's just it's like whatever. Just have more realistic expectations. I don't have a rumor corner. There have been so many rumors flying around lately. It's gotten ridiculous. If you all want to fill up on rumor hot dogs, I ain't going to give you prime rib. And in a way, I think sometimes people have lost sight of why rumor corner exists and what it's kind of poking fun at. And it almost feels like the hobby is to sort of triple down on that. And that's fine with me because it saves me a whole segment that I have to come up with. So video games, Tony, let's just move into it. We'll talk about the big thing in video games. The thing we've been talking about for a year that is finally, finally coasting into the station. The Microsoft Activision Blizzard King merger is looking to be extremely likely at this point. Wow, it just feels like two episodes ago that everything seemed really dire. Everything was pretty dire two episodes ago, but immediately after our last episode dropped, because that's how it always works, the judge denied the FTC their request to block the merger. um the ftc immediately appealed uh to surprise of nobody and was immediately denied had their appeal denied uh then the ftc filed for a temporary injunction to pause things while they take while they continue to do a deeper look uh that injunction was immediately denied by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
    50:35
    So the FTC is reportedly closing their internal case and letting everything go through as per their standing rules.
    50:49
    Poor, poor, poor FTC. They tried so hard to block everything. I guess so. I mean, I guess they were like, they saw the CMA and they were like, we want to say hold my beer. But instead. The judge was like, nah No, this is Merca This is Merca And with the overturn The CMA has come back to the table Talking To Microsoft about the deal They Do Still have the same standing concerns And they're looking for some more Concessions Microsoft has submitted a detailed And complex proposal and the CMA is supposed to make a decision by August 29th based upon the new proposal that was turned in. At the same time, because the final seal date on this was July 18th, Microsoft and Activision talked and put an extension into their or requested an extension for their time because otherwise basically Microsoft was going to have to pay some fees and just terminate. Yeah, I saw they did a multi-tier thing with new deadlines and new higher payout amounts if they cross those thresholds and a deal isn't ultimately reached. Right. But I assume they're feeling pretty good at this stage. I think so because they were already putting together a plan that if everything went ahead everywhere but the UK, they were looking at plans for ways to get around the UK, even Even if it was so far as just not selling Activision Blizzard stuff inside the UK.
    52:32
    So we'll see how that goes. Interestingly, Gundam Evolution, the free-to-play hero shooter, is shutting down at the end of November. It's not even been open for a year. Yeah, I saw that. I knew one person who played it.
    52:51
    And I mentioned it, and they said, I'm not surprised. Yeah, no, it's trash. I played it for like... It's trash? I didn't hear them say that. No, I said that. I know. That's why I was just a little shocked. I was like, I'll give this game a try, and I downloaded it, and I played it for less than a week, and I'm like, man, this game is just garbage. It was just a very poorly put together hero shooter with a thin veneer of Gundam on top. It was not satisfying to play in any way, shape, or form So yeah, like that, I'm not surprised it's going away That was a shot on goal that completely failed to hit In more interesting Blizzard news Blizzard is going to make Overwatch 2 available on Steam This is the first time they've ever put one of their Battle.net games out on another storefront.
    53:56
    So you'll still need to tie your Steam account to your Battle.net account, but it is possible to play on Steam. It'll have Steam achievements, your Steam friend list integration, and they are saying that they're planning on bringing more games to Steam in the future, though no word on when or what games would be brought to Steam. yeah I um now the Overwatch subreddits were abuzz with this as signs that the game is dying and so Blizzard was desperate for more player base and so they've turned to Steam however I think that was maybe I don't know if this is driven by wishful thinking from people who are upset or what I did hear he goes by the handle Monte Cristo he used to do the Overwatch League you might remember I believe he's tied with Valorant now but he actually mentioned that he has, purportedly, he has insider sources, and Overwatch 2's player base is basically the same as Valorant, and the assumption is that it's probably a completely different decision, not based off of the subscriber count. I've heard some think that this is just related to because Microsoft is acquiring that maybe they're knowing that they are wanting to expand to the ease of being able to sell the games or get people into the games. Yeah. I don't know if it ties at all to the Microsoft part that are not, it just makes sense to be on Steam if you can. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people who use Steam, and a lot of people really like Steam. I mean, considering I was somebody who hated Steam originally, I have definitely come aboard the Steam train, and I'm a big fan of Steam. See, that just brings the question to me, as somebody who has Battle.net and plays games on Battle.net, can I transfer all my stuff and be able to play through the Steam if I wanted to. I'd assume with the integration you could. That's my assumption as well. To be fair, I'd only want to do it for achievements, because I don't see any other reason to do it. But that's interesting.
    56:01
    And for you, Dennis, we've talked so many times about how much joy you would get from game pass. Yes. And you're always like, no game pass expensive. I'll just get games with gold and I'll just get games for birthdays and Christmas and stuff. I buy on sale. That's old. Um, when Xbox has heard you and Xbox, it's like, screw that guy. So your Xbox live games with gold, is going away.
    56:37
    It is being replaced by a new thing that they are calling Game Pass Core. Hope it doesn't stop spinning. Hopefully not, because if we do, we'll have to make a really hilarious, fun movie about it. But Game Pass Core is going to be $10 a month or $60 a year, which I believe is the same price as Gold's Price. It's Gold's Price. that will include your ability to do online gaming and a curated collection of 25 games that they plan on growing over time. At launch, which will be September 14th, live goes down on the 14th of September, this comes up. The initial slate of games includes Among Us, Descenders, Dishonored 2, Doom Eternal, Fable Anniversary, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Grounded, Halo 5, Guardians, Halo Wars 2, Hellblades, whatever sacrifice, Suna's sacrifice, Human Fall Flat, Inside, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Psychonauts 2, State of Decay 2, and The Elder Scrolls Online, Tamriel Unlimited. So come the 14th of September You got a lot of new games you can try Dennis That's true and a lot of those are pretty big games Yeah I would say so Everybody knows Humans Fall Flat is just the greatest That was the exact one I was thinking of That and Among Us those are the two big games on that list So the core is basically Going to be a new version of Game Pass That slides Into the overall Collection just slightly under the cost of console, which is $11 a month. The big difference is console has hundreds of high-quality games, and it's the one where you'll get the day one games, where core gives you just the certain curated games. They also have PC for $10 a month, which is the one I had, which gives you day one games and hundreds of high-quality games and an EA Play membership. I let mine shut off because I just wasn't using it enough to be worth $10 a month because I was playing like one or two games maybe for a month or two.
    59:00
    And then Ultimate, which gives you console and PC and cloud gaming plus all sorts of other perks, is $17 a month. I think this is pretty obviously targeted at doing core, being designed to make people want to go up to console because it's an extra dollar. And you get a lot more games, and you get lots of the day one games. I will be considering it once the conversion happens to see what they're actually just going to charge. Like, do I get a price break if I buy a year's worth of console? Right. Like I do on Core? Yeah, because, well, and like the Xbox Showcase this year, 90% of the games they talked about at the Xbox Showcase is a day one game pass launch. Yes, it is. So I'll tell you, I it's factored in so much that when I mentioned at the start in the intro about like buying Resident Evil three and Phoenix Wright, all the games I bought are not on Game Pass. I made sure of it. Oh, I see. That's big brain. That's a big brain moment. I might not be a great pinball player, but I do. I do still know how to think a little bit. Yeah, so I think that's an interesting change to see going forward, especially with – I have a feeling that the whole point that they said specifically that the collection of 25 games will grow over time is going to be directly related to the completion of the Activision merger. because I'm sure they have a small list of Activision Blizzard games that they want to push onto that curated collection as soon as that merger is completed.
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    Not to mention for the console version and all the day one launches that they'll be doing. So I think Xbox and Microsoft have set themselves up to be in a pretty decent place going forward. Because I mean Again the only reason I've not gone back Into the PC game pass is 100% because I'm playing Two games And that's about all I've been playing for A year now So I don't see a reason to do more because those are The games that have been eating my time So What we'll see going forward Okay That's what I got All right. Well, folks, you can reach out to us at CollecticGamersPodcast.gmail.com, Facebook.com slash CollecticGamersPodcast. We're on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Eclectic underscore Gamers. So if you want to support the channel, we have three tiers as low as a dollar a month for that. We're on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks and we'll see what new game news we have, what new pinball shenanigans have happened. And we'll give you all the latest. And will Rumor Corner be back? No idea. We'll have to see if the hot dogs cool down. We'll have to see how many random announcements happen in the next 24 hours because that's how our luck runs. Yes. But until then, my name is Dennis. And I've been Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.