Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, October 11th. This is episode 256, even though in my notes I wrote that it's apparently webisode. Webisode. Webisode. Webisode. I'm only looking at my notes right now. Webisode. Webisode 256. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. Welcome back, Tony. I'm back. We're back to our regular schedule. We are. So Chicago, tell me all the pinball and video game arcades you were able to hit while you were at Chicago. Was it over or under six? It was zero. So under. I will say I saw two broken pinball machines. Oh, do you remember which ones? Yes What were they? Space Jam I haven't played that in years And Fastbrite, NBA Fastbrite I haven't played that in years either, but that one I played local at least Okay They were at, we had a dinner at Harry Carey's Oh, okay So we were at Harry Carey's And, yeah Hence the sports theme Hence the sports themes and Space Jam was off with an out-of-order sign on it. And the other one just had a little thing up there. A little thing up there that said, it was like continuously going through ball search. So it just kept doing ball search. You couldn't find it. Wouldn't it have been funny if they had had a Silver Slugger there? It would have been funny. I bet it would have been working. Probably. Because it's such a great game. I actually love Silver Slugger, so it is such a great game. You know, I have the only place, quote-unquote place I have seen Silver Slugger. I've never seen it anywhere. The closest I could get is there is a movie. It's a Mel Gibson movie where he works for an agency of some sort. It's the one where he can start reading women's minds and he realizes they don't like him. Oh, yeah. I know which one you're talking about. There's a scene where in the background there are two pinball machines. One of them is Silver Slugger. Cool. That's all I can... Alright, that's the end of my Silver Slugger story. But no, I didn't... I was in Chicago and I Those are the only two pen moments. I've been trying to get out to Galloping Ghost, and the night I thought was going to be free did not turn out to be free. I'm not surprised. Well, thank you, everyone, for all your suggestions. Or should I say thanks for nothing? No, thank you. I honestly wanted, I really, really, really wanted to. But it's one of those. It's a work trip. You've got their expectations. I know how it is. Last work trip I went down, the only night I had free was the night I drove down. Yeah. And that was it. Yeah. It's just insane to me how busy. I mean, I know it's a work trip, but still, it's like. It's when all the networking happens. It is. It is. And actually, I'm a little surprised. And then I like pass out. Like every night, it's like pass out. Benefits from. Well, speaking of people reaching out, we have Scott E. and Brian J. They both reached out by joining our Patreon. So thank you, Scott and Brian. Welcome to the Patreon. Yeah, we really appreciate that. So have you done anything recent gaming-wise? I've been playing the Hecadoodle out of some Hades 2. Oh, that's right. Still like it? Still like it. It's still good. Have you completed a run yet? No. Okay. I have fought the final boss three or four times. I think in the first Hades, I put it on the True Achievements website, which is an Xbox website, in my little comment. Because it's still there. I haven't updated my comment in years. I think I beat Hades one. I think I got past Hades on, like, try 26 or so. Yeah, I think I've made it. Because the main bad of this one is Kronos. And I've made it to Kronos three or four times now. And I thought I had Kronos beat, but apparently he has a second form. Because you are Targ? Yes. Oh, wait, that's the wrong Kronos. I'm a Targ. I'm on fire. So I was like, because I did it, it's like, yeah, and then no. Oh, second form. Of course. Hades had a second form, too. But it's interesting because in Hades 2, there's multiple pathings. So in Hades, in the original Hades, you went in and you played and you just went through the underworld and stuff. In Hades 2, when you start, there are two paths. There is the underpath where you go to fight Kronos, and then there is an overpath where you go to relieve the siege on Mount Olympus because Mount Olympus is under siege and the gods are trapped. so as you slowly unlock things that make you more able to survive. So I've been alternating between doing the paths. Okay, that makes sense. Cool, that's a neat mechanic. Because there are regions that you can only gain in the underworld and regions you can only get in the overworld, and there are things that you can do in each one that unlock stuff to make the other one easier. So I've been bouncing back and forth between them. And, yeah, it's been really cool. I've got one, I think I've got all but one weapon unlocked now, at least in its base form. And I think my last run last night was an overworld run that I think I gathered the last of the regents I need to unlock it. but I just, after I finished that run before checking, I just saved and quit because I was tired. Right. But it's got a forget-me-not system where you can select anything that needs specific things to unlock, and you hit forget-me-not, and it will put up a little signal to show you which path has something that will take you to get you something you need, and it will. so you can always when John Youssi the paths up you'll always see a little thing that's like oh something I need on my list is on that path so you can help guide yourself that's good it's really enjoyable I really enjoyed the first one and this one is you know what I think I like some of the mechanics even more it should be an improvement I like movies games can get better with sequels. They can. Because there's definitely some stuff in it that I really, really like, and some abilities and stuff. Good. Well, I did finally finish Yakuza Like a Dragon. Congratulations! I think it was last weekend. I just pushed through it and finally did it. And you immediately started Yakuza Pirate Hawaii. I think I immediately went and uninstalled it. Because there are space There was going to be upcoming space needs. You need space needs for Yakuza every year. For Battlefield 6. Right. Battlefield. Oh, my God. So many instances. So, yes. So I actually started that weekend Alan Wake 2, finally, which has some different mechanics than Alan Wake, much like how Hades has evolved. In Alan Wake, you actually have two different paths also. You play as an FBI agent and you play as Alan Wake. And I'm far enough in the story where now there are set points where I can choose to switch back and play the other character and the way their story is going. It's like a completely different thing in a sense. So I'm not very far yet. I think I'm in Chapter 4. No, I'm further than that. I feel like I'm not very far. I'm about 10 hours in maybe, maybe a little less. I think I'm around Chapter 4 or so. That's impressive. I heard it's a six-hour game. Well, I mean, no, no, that could be fair because I'm on normal difficulty. But up until I don't know, I I lost like I died to every enemy I met. And then I'd have to reload. Right. And I was just like, I I'm just old as part of it and rusty with the mechanics. So like the dodge button is is not where I would normally think of. And so and when they pop out and scare me, I panic. I was talking to a friend the other day, and they're playing Shadow of Yo-Kai that came out a week or two ago. And they're like, yeah, I played it for like 45 minutes. And I'm like, I love the story, but I'm so terrible at this game. So they changed it all the way down to I just want to play the story. Right. Where you just button mash and do super combos with a single button thing, and you just wipe everything out easy. And he's like, I still occasionally die. but for the most part it's it's the story's amazing so for my birthday since my birthday was on friday someone got me the two uh of the more recent star wars games um which i i didn't i i knew about them but i they weren't like my list like outlaw and uh last whatever the i don't remember what it's called yeah outlaw is one of them and then the other one was like survivor 2 or yeah jedi survivor yeah um and they they mentioned yeah uh these are kind of like souls games sort of you may want to put it on story mode i'm like what are you what are you saying about me like i think maybe i could do it on normal didn't you play these and he said yeah but uh i kicked it down to story pretty quick yeah i'm like i might i don't know and there's a story mode on alan wake but i haven't kicked it down yet i just was like no i think i can do this I just need to practice. I need to, you know, it's been like a decade since I've played. I mean, Alan Wake came out like in 2010. I got it pretty quick. And this game came out a couple of years ago. But anyway. I mean, speaking of birthdays, we're older. We just don't have it. There's that. We don't have this. There's that. But we don't have the quick twitch skills anymore. I need to try to see if it's really Souls or Souls-esque. Souls-esque I might be able to do. Souls, I don't know. The Survivor games aren't bad. I played them on normal. Okay. Well, I've only played the first one, but I went through the first one on normal. Okay. And it wasn't terrible. So. And just completely off topic as well, your birthday stuff is supposed to be here tomorrow. Oh. Okay. Supposedly. Well, thanks. It was supposed to be here like today or yesterday. That's just how it is. I keep getting delayed announcements. So my sister and brother-in-law and niece got me Mafia the Old Country. I have not installed that yet. I've liked the other Mafia games in that series. I forgot for a while until I looked again that there was another one that had come out. And then Friday was also when Battlefield 6 dropped, so I just bought that. It does have a campaign. But I had to install the campaign, install the HDR campaign, install the multiplayer, install the HDR multiplayer. And even on the console version, I think they've given the map editors. So I went and installed those too. So have you actually played? Or did you just play the install game? No. No, I played it. Oh, okay. Yeah, no. I actually was able to pre-install it the day before. Oh, okay. So I actually downloaded it on the night. So you pre-ordered? No. You monster. No, I did not pre-order. It just said you can pre-install. To pre-install, you would have had to have ordered it. And if you'd ordered it before the day that it launches, that would be a pre-order. But I had it in hand the day I bought it. So to me, it wasn't a pre-order. just follow just follow um so i got that uh and i i have played i played a few hours in the multiplayer they fixed a number of the things that were like the lag and stuff of the of the beta i've not seen that uh in this version but oh my gosh the pc people people guys and your mice are so frustrating i haven't turned off cross play because turning off cross play means i can only play with xbox people and i want to play with the playstation people too but anyway uh that's been that's been going okay so i'm rusty at that also but uh we did uh i had one game yeah i had one game yesterday where my squad we got a squad which means we were the best squad in the game there was a time you know 20 years ago tony i'd have been a squad 50 of the time i was once that good but now it's like soul caliber it slipped away is it now see that's the question is it that was the rest of your squad so good that they could hold you up or was it that you were all so good you could earn no it's a little column a and a little column b i didn't like lead and kills but like i might have had a whole lot of revives because i'll usually play support so i can resupply because i don't like running out of ammo and when i play assault i run out of ammo and the um and so you know it's it's a team effort everyone has their own role like the engineers run around with their rpgs trying to take out tanks a support can't take out a tank i might throw a frag grenade on a tank to make it mad right but that's that's really just to distract them so that the engineers can destroy it and the assault people like they have better weapons for fighting and so though you have a lot of diversity and ability to select your weapon tree. I can equip a sniper rifle in any class. As long as you have them unlocked. No Sega in this game that I've seen. I am trying to put more time in on the shotgun because there are a number of maps where you need something ready for close encounters. But the assault can carry a shotgun and their main weapon. That's one of their gadgets is a shotgun. You never know. Well, yeah, exactly. If you go in a building, you might want a shotgun. And when you're out of a building, you might want something more long range is the idea. But I'll shoot at people across the map with a shotgun because it will intimidate them. They hear the pump and it scares them. That's the logic. That's my logic. But anyway, speaking of logic, let's go ahead and get into the main meat of this episode, starting with pinball section, as we often do. And only one main thing. We have an interesting discussion question that has come in. But I was looking for news, Tony, and there's not a lot of news. It's pinball. That's not uncommon. I mean, the news has been Death Star Rejects are a real thing on Star Wars, the Star Wars. And so a lot of people who have obtained the game, who like the game, heard a lot of people feel that this game shoots better than the Steve Ritchie version of Star Wars. However, the Death Star Rejects do seem to be the Demi Gorgon of 2025. That so sounds like a Star Wars punk band. we are the Death Star Regents yes in the 90s it had gone over great but it's not the 90s that was a long time ago so separate from Stern though there is this piece and I do have a link in the show notes to a Nap Arcade article for people that want to read about this or perhaps more importantly look at the images but Planetary Pinball which controls the Bally Williams license has launched some new collectible figurines so So this is done in conjunction with Melvin Williams. You might know him from DPX, PX, PX, PX fame. And they're sculpted by Lior, who Lior has done a number of mods. He does stuff for the Art of Pinball. They come in two sizes. We're talking things like the Genie from Tales of the Arabian Nights, the Dude from Dr. Dude as figurines. They got two sizes. There's the 1-6 scale, which are limited to 500 units, and they also have unlimited count on the 1-12 scale. From the article, I think the 1-12 scales start at about 5 inches tall, so the 1-6 scale would be starting at about 10 inches tall. But the LE 1-6 scale ones are about $230, and the unlimited ones are $90. And you can get discounts if you buy the entire series. They've dropped Series 1, or you can join the Pinball Legends Club and also commit to buying the first series, and that gets you an even bigger discount, and the Season 2 collection is supposed to be revealed very soon at Pinball Expo. Well, that's definitely something. So what are your thoughts? because I saw this. I saw these prices, and if I may quote the pinball famous Bruce Nightingale, cash grab! I am sure some people will be into this. And hey, guys, if you're listening and you want to get these, it's your money. Do what you want with it. I'm not here to tell you what to do with your money, but this, I just, I don't know why you would want these cake toppers. But, I mean, hey, I have some pretty weird pinball stuff. Like one of my favorite things that kind of celebrates the old days of Bally and Williams is I have some of those lampshades that have the back glasses and stuff. I think that stuff and the posters and things, I think those are cool. They don't look bad. I'm just like, what would you do with them? Why are we basically ripping what feels like we're ripping toys out of pinball machines to make them sculpts? And Lior does nice sculpt work. I just don't understand. That's like, I get it, but I don't understand why this required this many collaborators. So Planetary controls the license. That's why they got to be involved. So they're going to be the ones selling it. So my guess is Melvin came up with this idea. And knowing what all has been done with DPX, this feels right up his alley. And, of course, they need someone to do it. So you have Lior who does the sculpt. So, I mean, I'm sure they're nicer than some 3D print job, but $229 and $89, those are the exact prices. I just – this is tough. I – no. Yeah. Like, honestly, I'd probably rather get a topper. I don't even have room for those. Yes, a topper is more money. Yeah. But I don't know. I just – hey, it's a thing. Free world. It's a thing. Free market. This feels like an idea that should have been done like 10 years ago. Like how many people love the – like if you love a Bally Williams game, wouldn't you just own it? I don't know why you'd want a sculpt. It's just – it's something that you can – A coaster. I could see – like a mouse pad. I could – like – but just a sculpt. It's just not for me, I guess. It's just not for me. I think there's definitely a group out there that it is right up their alley. It is their kind of thing. I'm sure. I don't know if they're going to sell 500 of these 1-6 scale ones at this price. That's a significant markup to get the – it's more than twice as much, even though it's twice as big. I decided that this is pinball. They'll sell every one of them. It's not like that anymore. I don't – anyway, I don't know. They're still selling $2,000 toppers. I know, but that's the DLC bait because you get a mode. Hey, you get this mode. You get this cool mode. Don't you want this mode? Hey, man. You want a little mode? It's OEM. It's official. It's like this is knockoff stuff. Yeah, it's licensed, but it's like this isn't like an actual figure from a Bally Williams game. The thing that works with the toppers is that Stern makes them. That's the whole thing. Get a mode man You could at this point you could Maybe they like Amiibos and you can put it on your you put it on the apron and it gives you a mode If that was the case I would agree with you that they would sell out But they're not. The topper thing is interesting now that you mention it because here's my thought. People are so baked in and wanting quote-unquote official now. You could actually have some mod maker or topper maker make better toppers than the Stern toppers. I bet you they sell worse now because there has been a culture shift driven in part by it, like the software stuff, driven in part by people selling them more aggressively. But I think that a lot of people have been basically baited into thinking that third-party toppers are bootleg and only official toppers count. I mean – It helps if it gives you a mode. That's – It's always been kind of true. And there have been plenty of toppers that have danced that line where it's like, did you really get the license for everything that you're using? Because if they avoid it – There is that. Then it is kind of – because it's like, here, look at some – here's some – like Star Wars. You get asteroids to put in the – I think Measel Mod makes the asteroids. I have a few of the stuff where it's just like this is the generic thing that looks cool enough to me that I buy it. I didn't get the asteroids because I didn't have them anymore. Right, but some of the – yeah, no. I mean that is a valid point. Some of the stuff is it's like is it an active license type thing? I mean, are you putting Harry Potter up there or is it Perry Hodder? I mean. Right. Right. Well, it'd be like, could you, if you did something that was just like an owl, you could probably get away with it. But if it looked like Harry Potter or whatever the owl, his owl, you might be able to get away with the owl. If you put Harry Potter up there, you might get in trouble. Like there were alternate translators. There used to be a big business in alternate translators. There used to be. And sometimes. Some of them were amazing. They were. But like there was one I remember for like Star Trek, but it was the Enterprise. And I think someone had contacted that creator and said, hey, you didn't actually secure the license to use the Enterprise. You can't use you can't sell this anymore. But but if you did something else where it was just like a space thing, just space. Right. That's right. Yeah. But at the same time, nobody would have bought that. Right. Exactly. So that's where that bootleg is kind of true in a way. But there have been – I feel there are third-party toppers that I think look more sophisticated than some of what Stern did. Stern's – I feel their toppers look better nowadays by and large, but you remember the flat plastic era. Oh, very much so. And it was like I feel there was a lot of third-party mods that just sort of outdid that. But the Stern could always use the licensed characters. Right. I also always kind of liked the ones that did the where they did the semi-holographic thing where they did the spinning LED fan looking thing that would light up and create stuff I thought I kind of liked some of those when they were out there It just feels like the market for that's gone Like the manufacturer, which, hey, I mean, smart move on the manufacturer's part. Yeah. Basically, like, sabotage that and wipe it out. Lock it down. That's right. The only problem is that they. I mean, I'm just waiting for the time and the point where the company stops selling you machines and start just renting you the machines. Well, some of the distributors do that. Or some businesses. I don't want to say the distributors. Some businesses exist. Just start long-term leasing. Just like your car anymore, you have to pay for a subscription to be able to play your game. Some of the operators got into that during the pandemic, and I think some of them stuck with it afterwards because they actually found it to be a relatively decent moneymaker where they didn't have to go out as much because the service. I think for straight rental is a decent idea, actually. Maybe I should rent Buck Rogers. I don't hate it. Do you want to rent Buck Rogers? No. Okay. What if it was only $10 a month? Still no. Okay. Well, I try. Speaking of trying, Lewis wrote in to us. Lewis in Houston. He had an interesting point he wanted to raise, and I thought it would be a good discussion topic for us. Perfect. Because I'm done talking about figurines. He says, hey, guys, really enjoyed the show. As you were one of the only shows not sponsored by a distributor. Ooh, shots fired? I mean, kind of true. I mean, yeah, just just dropping. I'm sure there's lots of shows that aren't here. Let me rephrase it. We're one of the only big shows. As long as I mean, sometimes truth bombs get dropped. You have to talk truth. You have to speak truth. Sorry, Deadmau5 song. I wanted to ask you a question about buyer behaviors. I'm a private pinball collector who buys most slash approximately 70% of the new Sterns that come out. However, I have decided to pass on Star Wars, Fall of the Empire. I thought it was Fate of the Empire because it keeps saying Fote, and I think Fate. Star Wars vote thinking that if enough buyers do, it may send a message to Stern that these are not the type of games unimaginative, approachable, low effort, basic, etc. That I want to see them make, even though I like the theme and would normally likely buy the game. I did see similar sentiments expressed in some forums, but wanted to run it by you. based on your longer experience in the hobby would you view this as a futile gesture in that sales will inevitably have a long take because of theme no matter how plain the gameplay plays i'm facility i'm vacillating between getting a pro or not and not sure if stern will overstop doing the i think he meant ever will ever stop doing these easy efforts even if sales are lackluster anniversary editions vaults re-releases re-skin simple fan designs because they just need to keep the manufacturing line busy. Does not buying during initial release hurt Stern or just inadvertently distributors? Thanks and interested in your thoughts. Lewis. Well, thank you, Lewis. That's a very interesting question. So Tony, I'd like to go ahead and kick it to you initially. So what are your thoughts about not buying to send a message? I don't think Stern cares what you do. I don't think they even think anything short of an active, large-scale vocal boycott. They don't care. They're still going to sell plenty. They're still going to sell a lot. I think what you have to do is not worry about if you're hurting a large corporation and just go with what you feel is right. and what you feel if you feel like that this game is lackluster and low effort a i agree with you and b don't buy it but at the same time i don't think you should expect stern to uh have a response or to even notice let alone ever comment even if sales are slow the most you're going to get is going to be the line will close early and you'll still be able to find plenty of them used and you'll still see it. It's not, it's not going to hurt them and they're not going to publicly comment and they're not going to change their behavior. Everything they do, just like every other corporation in existence is about the bottom line. So the most that they are going to do is shift around a little bit to try and avoid having maybe quite so large of a failure yeah i mean tony here is fundamentally is correct you're as an individual buyer given the volume of games produced it's it's yeah it's symbolic that being said it's your money and you need to vote with your wallet and if so i am a big believer in if i don't support something I don't care if Stern doesn't notice. I notice. So if there's a designer that I don't support, I don't buy their game. Period. I don't care if it's going to be one of their best sales or not. I don't care. That's not what that's about. Yeah, and I didn't want to imply that I was saying there was anything wrong with it because that's the truth. I think all that anybody can do in this situation or any other situation like this is to do what is right to them. I mean, I wouldn't buy one, and I wouldn't expect anybody to not buy one because I wouldn't. But at the same time, I have no interest in it, and I think, like you said, it's low effort, so it has no interest to me. So I won't spend my money on it. Now, some of the things, though, is even if there's not, say, something organized, like an organized boycott or protest of non-purchase or whatever hypotheticals we might run through, Lewis, you may be in – like others are probably in the same boat as you. They may just be choosing not to be vocal. Maybe they don't post on forums or John Youssi them post on forums, and they may also be putting their money where their mouth is or more apropos putting their money in their wallet instead of into the hands of Stern. Yeah. So here's what I do think would happen is when stuff like that does happen. Well, Stern may not on its level notice because understand, aside from a few games, Stern isn't really selling to you. They sell to the distributors. Once the distributors buy the game, Stern's done. They've made their money. This is why it's been a little confusing with I won't say this is so much Stern as it has been with some other manufacturers. But other manufacturers will talk about like this game sold out. And then it's like some of the community are like, what is this nonsense? I can like there are four distributors. I called all of them. They all have them in stock. It's like, yeah, the company sold out to the distributors. The distributors are stuck with the inventory. So you not buying sends a message more so to a distributor than it does to the company, because there are so especially with Stern. There are so many distributors that the distributors are more likely to notice your individual lack of purchase. And based off of that, especially assuming if others have just naturally arrived at the same philosophy that you have and thus the same conclusion, which is low effort equal no money for me. those distributors should be sharing that feedback to the stern sales representatives about like hey this game did not do well for me like i'll use since i since i also podcast with zach who owns flipping out pinball like on the last episode we did of the pinball show he noted that sponsored by flipping out pinball that is sponsored by flipping out pinball um the he he noted that Star Wars for his sales has done as well as the prior two Stern releases. But given the theme, he had expected initial sales to be stronger than that. Yeah. And it's not. A message is being sent in some capacity. Now, is that message that this game is low effort? Is that message there are too many good games that came out this year? Because this has been a heavy year for I mean, come on, like Harry Potter and all the rest of it. It's like this Dungeons and dragons i think surprised people at just like if you were into that you're into critical role like that game was right up your alley uh like they're just things were really strong this year world under glass with dune there's just a lot of competition for there is so i don't know that what the message is may get muddled um because all all someone like zach would see is the sales aren't as high as i expected why is that the case and he might ask the question he might ask some people, but they're going to make guesses. Is the guess that, well, we had a Star Wars come out five years ago and it's too soon for another Star Wars? Or is it just a lot of stuff this year, a lot of stuff for money? And that's a valid point. And it is a situation that I find interesting in this specific case because of the distributor model, because it requires feedback from the distributors to the manufacturers because the manufacturers don't do the direct sales so it's it is not the same kind of animal uh as it would be for a more direct sales type product but like you know i assume this is probably similar to sort of how it would work in the in the car field if uh you know is if the if dealers order a whole bunch of cyber trucks and they can't sell them right like then the questions start getting asked is it because the truck uh aesthetically doesn't appeal to a lot of people is it because the price is too high is it because uh texla tesla became a controversial brand like it's different for different people why that didn't sell as well as people probably thought it would right those and they may sell their you know i don't know how tesla sells but like with ford and everything else plenty of teslas in existence but not nearly as many cyber trucks no no it's well known that this is it was a good car it's a good cargument the tesla cyber truck did not sell as well as tesla thought it would it just didn't but like this could happen with any like Like Corolla or a Chevy Cruze. It's like the distributor, the dealers order cars. And so initial sales or whatever they are. And then when they don't order more, people should be asking questions. Why is this car not doing very well? What were our expectations? What were our projections? The thing with pinball is it's more Mickey Mouse. I don't know how well the pinball manufacturers listen to their distributors. I don't know how sophisticated many of their distributors are about being able to parse and share information. A lot of this hobby is pretty low rent, despite the prices. And honestly, I'm going to use a – I'll let people read between the lines on this. So since I did a car argument, I'll do a watchment now with wristwatches. One of the things that's been shared in the wristwatch world in Switzerland is that the businessmen who go and run watch companies, they're not what you would call top of their class. Those individuals went into Swiss banking and other prestigious fields. Watches attract two types of people as a business. Either you have a passion for the industry or that's where you could get your job. Because it's not high stakes enough. It's not high dollar enough. Right now, that's not to say that the products and the people who make the products aren't sophisticated. But the people who run those companies, those aren't the company. Like if you dream of being a powerful CEO, running a watch brand was not at the top of your list. That's the point. This may be similar. That's what I'm saying. So just be aware that it's and some of this is coming from people because I've heard from multiple distributors and their frustration with a no. And again, it's not targeted at Stern specifically. but a number of these manufacturers don't listen very well why would they they sold out that could be that could be an argument it also could be that they're not that good at business there's a lot of things behind it um so anyway uh but but the you know you need to vote with your wallet and one other thing though that i will tell lewis is about like inadvertently hurting distributors like that may not be your goal because it's not the distributor's fault that the game is the way it is but i would also just tell people in general don't buy a game because you think you need to help like who goes to a car dealer and buy a car because i think my dealer might be hurting and i need to help them out yeah that makes no sense doing that with a restaurant is one thing but with high dollar products right it's important i think it's important not because you're trying to send a message to the distributor other than the distributor is the one with the with the the best ability to make the manufacturer listen. Your product sucks. Fix it. So it's the only way. You have to leverage the distributors because they're not listening to anyone else. But that's also, yeah, but that's a very different animal, like you said, from like your example restaurants where it's like, oh, I can go to Culver's or I can go to this local burger joint. Go to the local burger joint. They're local. That's different. That's a huge That's a huge thing for them. But it's a direct sale model. But it's a direct sale model. That's why it works. Because then they are actually listening to you and you voting with a wallet. And some smaller pinball manufacturers, you not buying their game directly does send a message. Are they smart enough to understand what you're saying? Because it's not like you email in and go, hey, look, dear Stern, thank you for releasing Star Wars. Unfortunately, fan layout plus this license was done five years ago equal no buy from me. Try harder. Love, Lewis. And then the answer from Stern is – Nobody does that. Delete. Well, then that's why no one would bother doing it because they're not asking you to explain – like imagine a world where we explain why we don't buy all sorts of things. Like when we were in Dallas for the last Texas Pinball Festival, Tony and I went to the Swatch store. Yeah. and Tony handled some of the bioceramic watches and he's like I don't like bioceramic it feels really bad but he didn't go up to the salesperson and say just so you know bioceramic feels terrible peace out bye but you know she was really trying to hard sell us on some swatches I mean she was pushing it hard I mean we were probably the only people that come in in the last hour probably I mean to be fair they hadn't been open very long when we were up there. But yeah, that's one of those things. There's there are salesmen who are very much of the hard sell in your face like you buy something to make them go away type salesman. And then there's good salesman. Different styles. There's the pressure salesman. There's the let them come to Me, salesman, there's the try and be helpful set. There's so many different types. There is. There is. And it's just what it is. And it's hilarious to me that even in this day and age, you get the – like I get vendors who come to sell me chemicals and stuff all the time. and there is a solid mix between the ones where the salesman is like a salesman who knows the job and knows the stuff, and they're like talking to you about stuff, and the ones where they're like, here's Pretty Girl in Skirt. You buy chemical from Pretty Girl in Skirt. Remember Booth Babes? I remember Booth Babes. It was at the work convention. I sat down and had a conversation with one of my coworkers because towards the end of one of the evenings of the convention, one of the groups or one of the on-the-floor vendor people who was selling stuff, they literally rolled out a beer cart and a bunch of girls in like the German Oktoberfest beer outfit stuff. And we're just sitting here and we're going like, this isn't the 90s anymore. It like this is awkward as heck I mean this is a professional level thing and you just rolled booth babes for a professional level They were huge in video games for a long time. I remember. Do you remember? Oh, this will be a fun throwback for you. Do you remember when we went to the very first QuakeCon? Yes, I do. And they had it. I couldn't remember the game. It was Sin. And they had, I think they had hired a stripper. Yeah. And she, I just remember there was some gamer guy there and she had him get on his knees, stripped his shirt off and put the sin shirt on him. Yeah. And I was like, it was the nineties. Yeah. Right. It was the nineties. Yeah. It was, oh, it was weird. But I mean, back then it was like, yeah. And it's like. Well, we were much younger. We were much younger and it was a fan convention. It was. It was. It wasn't a professional. It wasn't a professional convention. It was for fans. But still, I was like, this is a little more extreme than I expected. If I go up to the state capitol for a hearing and they start rolling booth babes out of the state capitol to talk about water rights and stuff, it's going to be weird. It would be a little strange. Yeah, that's a good point. But anyway, thank you, Lewis, for the question. Yeah, it was a good time. All right. So video games, we actually have a couple of virtual pinball things, so they will serve as our transitionary topic. So I will go ahead and continue that. We're actually going to finish off the last of Richard's email about the three major video game manufacturers. And this time we're going to do magic pixel studio. They make Zacharia pinball. Zacharia for those that don't know was an Italian pinball manufacturer. They actually, I think, and feel free to email, click to gamers podcast, the gmail.com if I am wrong. But I think at one point they were third in the world for production of pinball machines, maybe second, I think third. But anyway, this is about the virtual version. So the game launched, Zachary Pinball, launched in 2016. It focused on virtual recreations of the actual physical Zachary tables. The company kind of went quiet. Magic Pixel went quiet in 2022. but then in 2025 they've started to release new tables consistently i think like every other week or so um and besides the true to life recreations zachary has also done a number of reimaginings where they take versions of the zacharia games and then take an interesting twist on them for example i've played one where i think it was the what's the famous one with all the butterflies on it. We've played the physical version at Texas Pinball Festival. I can't remember the name of it right now. They did one where, what would it look like if it was a wood rail? Yeah, it was actually. It was. It was a pretty clever idea. It cost about $320 today to buy all of the tables. They tend to be about $3 per table. The game does support cabinet mode for those that want to play it in a physical, virtual pinball cabinet. um magic pixel as a company has actually dabbled outside of zacharia they've done some original tables and they've done some ip uh they have a collaboration with at games so for the at games platform they've done some other stuff richard had noted like dr seuss has been a license they've used in that regard so uh three discussion questions that kind of are driven by by this item one would be was Zacharia right in making recreations of their tables after they got through doing the entire Zacharia catalog that existed physically do you have an opinion on the decision to do the recreations the only way to do it and maintain any sales to not have just they had to do something or else it was just a done platform that was completed and walk away from it it just makes sense to me Um, yeah, I, I mean, again, I have a few of the recreations I've played. I've played them. Um, I actually thought they were pretty decent. I like, it felt like there was some thought put into them. Nowadays. I, I would have said AI did it or AI probably came up with the idea, but this was before that. Um, uh, so yeah, no, I, yeah, I think I, I thought that I thought it was clever. I thought it was clever rather than going like the weird, like magical route. But Zocaria as a virtual game has felt very grounded, unlike Zen. Zen sometimes is grounded and sometimes they just – I mean, Zen loves to do stuff with their virtual pinball games that are just physically impossible to do in real life. Zocaria has always felt much more grounded, and I've appreciated that as more of a purist, I suppose. Tony, do you have any hopes regarding Zocaria for the future? I don't know if you even play this game. It was Farfalla. Thank you. Farfalla. uh but which is no i don't butterfly like i don't i don't have it i haven't i don't have it i haven't played it okay yeah i uh i don't really have any hopes for it in the future uh what i would say is because i think their engine's pretty good it might be it i would say it would probably behoove magic pixel to make another like maybe if they want to continue doing iterations with zocaria they could, but maybe into that, maybe we can say that game is done, use that engine, and do something else. Could they take a stab at doing Bally Williams licenses? I think Planetary would sell them the license. It doesn't matter that Xen has it, too. It's entirely possible. That could be a space that they could go in. Hear me out. They go the Bride of Penbot route and do Farfalla 3.0 and Farfalla 5.0. And they keep making the butterflies more robust. Okay. Well, I mean, they could do that in the existing game. They could choose to just make more iterations of more interpretations. Or they just change what the butterflies are on there. It's the exact same game in every way, shape, or form, but with different colors. Yes. It's a color swap. And we had just bled into the third question he had for us, which was, was there anything else we could think of that Zacharia could release or Magic Pixel could do? So we could do what I said and they could start trying to do something with another license like Valley Williams and just exploit the quality of their engine. Or they could do what you just said and have robot butterflies 3.0 versions. That sounds very scary. I don't I don't know. But yes, either of those would be possible. Sounds great. So thank you for the discussion topic, Richard. Richard did also write in separate email noted Zen had Zen virtual pinball had another news announcement. Elvira and the Party Monsters is going to drop for Pinball FX on October 16th. We had on a prior episode talked about that Scared Stiff is coming out that date. So now they're also going to do Elvira. Those were both on Pinball Arcade because I played it there. Right. But this will be Zen's version. All right. What else is going on in video games, Tony? Man, there's been some interesting high-level moves in video games in the last two weeks. Announced just a couple days ago, actually. EA was purchased by a group of investors The investors are The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund Silver Lake Tech Management And Affinity Partners And Jared Kushner That's Affinity Partners But we have to name him Because he's famous I mean, I guess so But yeah But it is a fully Complete, leveraged buyout Of EA They are keeping the CEO on And supposedly there's not supposed to be any major changes Yeah, because that never happens later Right, that never happens later And their CEO made a statement saying that EA's values will remain the same So they're still going to be the absolute worst company in video games When it comes to screwing players Yeah Yay, yay It's in your wallet until it's in ours So yeah But This investment Series of investment changes And stuff that have been Flying for the last couple years In video games has been There's never been A backfire terribleness of that We haven't recently Talked about a company that was massively Invested and then had to lay off like everybody because they were way over leveraged. No, that never happens. Not ever. Nope. That's fine. We'll see how this goes. Also, speaking of similar things, we talked earlier in the year that Tencent and Ubisoft were working together and they were going to generate some sub companies to run some of their bigger franchises while Ubisoft remains owned by the same family that's owned it. So we finally have a name for that company. It's Vantage Studios. They're going to be developing the Assassin's Creed games, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises. Okay. So Ubisoft will continue doing their normal stuff, but they have with their major ownership through Tencent for this spinoff company to develop their major franchises. which we also learned recently that there was an Assassin's Creed game that was canceled because it was decided that the politics of the game were a little too inflammatory for the game to be released because it took place during reconstruction after the Civil War and the main character was going to be fighting the clan and all sorts of other stuff. That's controversial now. They decided for political reasons that it would not be a good idea to sell that game at this time. For however you think about that. so yeah Microsoft has made a major announcement what no after having their most successful year of record breaking profits for Game Pass they made so much money they made so much money their gaming divisions made a lot of money it's not just their AI I mean they're making hand over fist AI money they are but their gaming divisions It made a lot of money. Game Pass was a huge success. So, of course, they're increasing the cost across the board for Game Pass. What? The best deal on gaming has become not the best deal on gaming? Right. Like the absolute cheapest version of Game Pass now, which offers you 50 games, is now $10 a month. I don't remember what it was. It was Game Pass Core. Right. That's what I have. And it was like $6 or $5. I think it was like $4.99 or something like that. Something like that. I think it was somewhere like $50 to $60 a year. Yeah. Well, now it's $10 a month. The premium, which is the mid-tier package that I think used to be $10, is now $15 per month. And the ultimate package. That was the good one. That was the good one. It is now $30 a month. That's like double. Yeah. because it's the one that gets you like 400 plus games and all of the... All that first day stuff. Yeah, all the day one releases and everything. $30 a month. Wow. I mean, I was a member of Game Pass. Oh, yeah, yeah, because the PC version. Yeah, when they had the PC Game Pass where you could get PC only Game Pass and it was like $4 a month. Yeah, it was great. I did that for like a year and a half until I realized that I really am not playing enough of these games to make it worthwhile because I'm playing only a couple of these games and the ones I'm playing are all, they're not AAA releases, they're all small ones that I could buy for cheaper than what I'm spending, even at $4 a month at Game Pass. So I finally ended my Game Pass. But yeah, $30 a month. The only reason I'm core right now Is that's what they did They converted gold to that Because you needed it for the online multiplayer So there's a piece of that that covers that But I mean 120 is not the worst in the world But I couldn't see myself paying 30 I don't play enough games No and I'm the same way It's like They decided we need to get some of that Netflix money How much is Netflix a month? We're paying 25 a month for ours See, it's more than Netflix. And that's to have four simultaneous streaming because there's four of us in the house. And to have the high-end stuff. I'll be honest. The only reason I haven't killed Netflix is every time I talk about killing Netflix, I'm told no. The family vetoes you. It's the thing. The only thing that's watched more by my family than Netflix is YouTube Premium. Yeah, the YouTube premium is nice I do like that Well, hey, at least Disney's finally absorbing Hulu Into the Disney Plus thing Because that being separate was stupid For an eternity and a half Right I've definitely gone to the The thing where I will get a streaming service For like a month And binge everything I want to watch on that streaming service And shut it back off for a year or two Because people can't help themselves I'm going to get my greed kick here. People can't stop being greedy. And we ended up exactly back where we started with freaking cable. Yeah. Where it's like, here, you have to subscribe to these massive packages, which have 500 channels, 480 of which you will never watch, and five of which you will watch a lot. And here we are, where it's like, there's all this independent programming, and it's just like, here, $10 here, $20 there. and the next thing you know, you're paying more than you ever did for cable. Yep. That's the problem. It's a bunch of crap. Now I'm grumpy. Grumpy Dennis. Grumpy Dennis is not a good look. So tell me about Fallout. Fallout. You own Fallout 76. I do. I got it for free as part of Prime, which means it wasn't really free because Prime kept going up in price too. Yeah. Grumpy again. It has. Still grumpy. And ads on the stupid Amazon Prime. That's the worst part. And I don't want to pay more. I'm already paying you a bazillion dollars for shipping that you already embed in the price of your product. Right? Don't think I'm stupid. I can tell I could pay less going on eBay. I just have to wait three more days. And have a slightly, very small, but a slightly higher chance of it being a knockoff than Amazon. I mean, yes, there is a risk. But not as much of a risk as when I order off of, what's the, Timu? No, I've never ordered off of Timu. Alibaba? Alibaba, there we go. Alibaba. Like, if I want really cheap something, I check Alibaba first. You can literally buy anything on Alibaba. It is hilarious. I bought mainspring winders to reinstall springs into watch movements. I couldn't believe they had them. Oh, so much cheaper than the Swiss ones. But you know what? If you wanted to, you could have bought on Alibaba the mainspring watch winders. and at the same time you could have ordered a 25 000 gallon double wall poly chemical tank in the same cart yes yes but i didn't because i didn't know where i was gonna put the i didn't know where the tank would go like does that come on a pallet or what i mean at that size it comes on a flatbed you're gonna have to have a crane to lift it over the house and put it in the backyard Yeah, Mike Crane is not here currently. But yes, Fallout 76, they are leaning hard into Season 2 of Fallout coming out and how well Season 1 has done. They're launching their largest update since COVID, and they're bringing in Goggins, a character of the ghoul, with Goggins voicing the ghoul. I think it's going to be an interesting thing because it takes place so long before the series and is in like Ohio. West Virginia, isn't it? That's where it started. The new thing that's coming out is in Ohio. Okay. So that's a long way from the California. Yes. But, I mean, there's a ghoul. He's a ghoul. He's got time. And there's like several hundred years between when the show takes place and when Fallout 76 takes place or 100 years or something like that. There's a long time, long enough for somebody to walk across the country. He probably used a horse. Maybe. Mutant horse. Mutant horses. Or if he was a man. He rode a deathclaw. I was going to say a castor, but sure, a deathclaw. Well, Funcom had a huge release this year, Dune Awakening. It did very well, especially at launch as the Dune-based MMO. They're still doing all right. They're running 20,000-plus concurrent every day. and because of this they are laying off a huge chunk of their staff oh they must have learned from microsoft yeah they're they are they've decided they're going into restructuring as they shift from uh game development to uh live service maintenance uh so they're Or operations, that's how they term it, long-term live service operations. So they're getting rid of a lot of the direct developer programmers people to boost up people more centered around maintaining the live service. So, yay, good job on working on all this stuff, and then you get fired for it. Sorry. I'm going to skip my notes a little bit here. And while we're talking about this stuff, I don't know if you remember this because I didn't initially. The game Mind's Eye launched this year from the developer Build a Rocket Boy. And it failed, like hard. It was terrible. I mean, it wasn't the worst failure we've seen in the last year or so. It wasn't the, oh, we're shutting this live service down two weeks after launch failure. Right. Or Wargaming's, oh, hey, we're still in beta and we're shutting this development down bad, but it was really bad. And the upper management did a whole bunch of restructuring, laid a lot of people off. And they had come out with press releases talking about how they were being actively sabotaged and other companies were buying bad press against them because they knew their game was so good that they had to pay to get bad press yeah all the normal come on guys oh yeah it was bad uh we didn't like so we didn't even really talk about it no i don't remember no it was just one of those things that existed and i'm like ah this game i don't care uh but it has gotten Interesting, because almost 100 of the developers current and former employees have signed an open letter to management talking about the long-term or long-term, long-standing disrespect and mistreatment of staff. The failure of leadership to listen to employees, talking about how the company put in mandatory eight hours of mandatory overtime every, I guess, week. Yeah. Of the of like four months leading up to it before launch with saying being told that they would be. Oh, you'll be given seven hours of PTO for every eight hours of overtime you work. but then the employees are not being allowed to take the time off or they've been fired before they could take the time off uh and they they've been making change they were making changes in people's work schedules without letting them know until like oh by the way you're you're working a 16-hour shift today just letting you know yeah i was gonna say i bet this isn't eight hours a a week. I bet it was eight hours a day over time. So it is, it is just massive, a massive letter, uh, out there just calling them out. Apparently a lot of the issues with the game management was informed of by the programmers and developers who were like, we need more time. And they're like, no, it's fine. Send it. So weird. Yeah. People are crazy, but they know they're managers. Yes. They know. I learned that once I was in management. Yeah. You know better than the staff often think they know best. Yeah. I, the last thing you need is a subject matter expert trying to tell you something, just whatever you do, ignore all subject matter experts, because here's, here's the, here's the thing, Tony. Um, if I weren't already knowledgeable about all subjects, how did I become management? Exactly. I mean, that's just the obvious truth right there. Yeah. That's one of those things that is in all businesses across the board. But it's amazing how often that something fails and it's stuff that there were warning signs that, hey, we need to do this. And people were trying to get stuff changes made and management was like, no, it's fine, let's go. And then management was like, well, we were sabotaged. I literally at one point in time worked for a manager who, if anything went wrong, his first thing was, which one of you sabotaged this? You made this go wrong to make me look bad. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. Great boss to work for. That was great. So now let's talk about Nintendo because there's nothing bad to talk about with Nintendo. Nintendo was great. They didn't double the price of their live service. No. I mean, they've increased the cost of almost everything, but everybody has. Yeah. Battlefield 6 cost me $70. $76 with tax. You didn't get the $100 super special Battlefield version? I looked at it, and I was like, no. Is it going to make it so that people can't use a mouse and keyboard against me? Then no. How about no? How about no? Yeah. Scotty does no. Zip it. Scotty doesn't know. You're the Diet Coke of evil. Just one calorie, not evil enough. Send in the FemBots! So Nintendo, in their continuing fight against piracy, is suing a Reddit moderator for $4.5 million. It's a Reddit moderator. They're going to be lucky if they have $4.50. sense. That was my thought. That's like no money in it. You don't make money as a Reddit moderator. But apparently they have accused him of piracy and of having facilitated a network of shops that offered pirated Switch games and helping to crack the encryptions and the anti-piracy stuff and being a major player in the piracy of Switch games. So he's like a captain of the pirate ship. He's like a captain of the pirate ship. Allegedly. That's allegedly. Yeah, he moderated the Switch Pirates subreddit, and apparently he was giving a cease and desist, and he ignored it, and now he's being sued. Okay. Well, Nintendo loves to sue. They love to sue everybody, and it's one of those things that it's like, go for it, but like you said, I mean. They'll probably sue us for saying they love to sue. Probably. Well, maybe CNDS first. I mean probably I would hope so at least give us a chance to actively not say it anymore I don't know because I think truth is always a defense against allegations oh yeah you sued somebody you literally filed a suit in court again there's no way he's getting four and a half million dollars out of this dude yeah I guess this is send a message to the other pirates He's going to be sitting. We could go with the Reddit stereotype and he's sitting in his mom's bed. Yes. Mom, get the checkbook. Oh, man. So. Speaking of big checkbooks. Yeah. As we've talked about already somewhat, Battlefield 6 launched. And it was strong. It was a strong launch. Yeah. they launched as the 14th most popular game of all time on Steam by concurrent players and has easily become EA's most successful shooter. I don't know if it's going to meet that whatever that dream target that they had, like 10 million players or whatever. Their dream target was insane. It was like multiple times higher than the highest they've ever done. But it is their highest. It is doing very well. So they very much tried. Yeah. And from the sounds of it, it's actually doing even better on console, which is no surprise. But what's impressive is even knowing that the demand was going to be high from the beta, they're still having queuing issues because servers are full. They just don't have enough servers. I don't know if you've run across any of them. Only in the beta. I have not so far in the main release. See, there's apparently, at least on the PC version, been a lot of problems with killing issues. Which, again, isn't unusual for a launch weekend of a game. It'll thin out as people quit playing or as more servers go online. So, Battlefield 6, launch is strong. Much better than the last Battlefield. Everything about it looks better than the last Battlefield. So there's finally a contender to fight against Call of Duty again. We'll see how this works out. There's a lot of talk I saw over the last couple weeks about Call of Duty trying something different than putting out another Modern Warfare. Because their last several games, they just keep putting out new versions of Modern Warfare because that was the most popular one. and even one of their developers Tetriarch has talked about or Treyarch talked about doing something different with Call of Duty Space but it seems like after their oh man what was it called the Call of Duty in Space one I don't remember that one trailed so trash so hard that they went back to the modern warfare level and that they just kind of hovered there for the last many months. Well, yeah, Call of Duty made its names in World War II. It did. And that's the thing is a lot of those games made their names in World War II, and all of the World War II shooters are gone. Yep. They're all not really – no big ones out there anymore. I think it would be neat to see a throwback one. I think so too. I just don't know if anybody else would think it would be neat I mean, the technology was modern enough that there's a lot of equipment and stuff. That was the struggle with Battlefield 1 because it was World War I. Right. So they ended up letting you use a lot of prototype weapons that were just conceptualized during the era because all of the stuff was so basic. There was – I'm trying to remember. a number of years ago, like 10, 15 years ago, there was a game that came out where you played a time traveler, and some of the game took place in the Civil War and the Revolutionary War, and there would be the standard battle lines where it's like, oh, I fired my shot, and I'm now reloading my gun, and I'm really good, so I can get off like three rounds a minute. But because you were a time traveler, you could go, I've got an AK. No, that's essentially. Yeah, no, everybody were like, really interesting. I've often just, you know, one of those just weird kind of hypotheticals, like imagine what would it have been like if like you had just like transported one? I don't know. I forget military sizes, like a unit. How many people are in a unit? I don't remember. There are actually a lot of books that utilize that kind of concept. Yes. But like one or like one tank in the Roman Empire. Right. yeah no there are had petrol for it there there there is a a book series that started out as like a what do you call it a web uh a web like a web book i don't know what you call it it was just a guy releasing it on his like website yeah a little internet ebook a little ebook thing that is be actually like started got an actual like release release and it centered around a marine the expeditionary unit that got transported to the Roman Empire. So, and like the classic movie, The Final Countdown. Yes. There is a series of books out there where it was that, except for it was like a large multinational fleet got transported back to early World War II. And unlike the final countdown, where spoilers for a movie from the 80s, they went back to the future without causing any major changes to the timeline. In this one, they made massive major changes to the timeline because they never went back forward in time. But what was interesting was since it was like it was like peacekeeping UN things. So there were ships from different navies from all over the world. Some of the ships from some of the navies were like, we're going to go back to our home country, which included some of the German and Japanese ships. So technology started getting spread all over the place. so that there was like modern technology and it had an entire bit of interest where like one of the ships had most of Wikipedia downloaded into a hard drive on the ship. So they were just like, we need paper so we can just start printing Wikipedia. So here's all the modern science on how airfoils work. Here's all the modern science on jet engines. Here's all the modern science on explosives and rocket propellants and stuff. It was okay. It was an all right series. I've read better. How was the Minecraft movie? The Minecraft movie I've talked about as long as I want to talk about it. And I watched it because my kids wanted to go see it. And more likely than not, in July of 27, I'll go see the second one because my kids want to go see it. Well, first they mine and then second they mine. They craft? They might. Now, I don't know. First we buy. Then we craft. Yes. Oh, my God. That would be so bad. I don't. I don't. I do not understand. I don't understand. But it made so much money. It made so much money. Is Jack Black going to be in the sequel? Of course Jack Black's going to be in the sequel. I mean, I'm sure. It hasn't been officially announced yet. But of course he is. Okay. He was Steve. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, no, it is one of those things that is going to be. It's an event, an event of the life. Right. And the thing is, is I think it'll become an event even if it's not. People will force it to be an event. Yes. Like the Star Wars prequels. Like the Star Wars prequels. We were just so excited to get new Star Wars. We made it. We made it be successful no matter what. Right. It just had to be. and people don't remember like when it first came out like the very very very initial buzz was super hyped because people were just so excited to get a chance to see star wars yeah and then when we all like took a collective breath and thought about it and it was like you know what maybe this is like a little mass hysteria going on maybe this isn't that good maybe it's not that well written like them my favorite thing is still the like i still think the phantom menace is the worst of the prequels and i feel like the best example i can do is taking straight from red letter media and just saying the who's the protagonist and you don't know and that's why it sucks like yeah who's really like we know that the protagonist was luke in new hope like it's real obvious that's the journey we're following it's just all over the place on phantom menace are we following padme are we following obi and qui-gon we following little lanny i don't know we're following all of them is the answer but not like well right anyway yeah it's just one of those things i'm not here to and and then they've they've so uh uh and then the sequels came out and people look back on the prequels fondly now yeah i mean the thing i will Well, yes, it's a it's I feel that the directing the dialogue. I want to I want to opine on the acting because I think most of the stuff was script driven. Actually, I think the sequels are better movies than the prequels. Personally, my problem with them is when you consider them as a collective, they're worse because. Yes. Because the second one goes in such a strange direction from the first sequel. And then the third sequel just like undoes everything that the second sequel did. Yes. Not to mention that the first sequel is really just like, let's retell the original trilogy, but with different characters. So it's not very original. It's like it's like. But, like, the story beats and all of that, and we don't have a whole, let's, would you be willing to have this, you know, examined by a committee? I call for a vote of no confidence of, like, what is this, Robert's Rules of Order movie? What is it? Like, they didn't do any of that. Right. I mean, the first movie's primary thing was a trade blockade. Yes. Yes. uh yeah no no it's true this is no guys don't don't lose sight just because you got pissed that the sequels didn't do what you wanted don't lose sight the prequels were dumb they were really dumb really dumb it's a trade war get it so great yeah no oh my gosh anyway that's not bringing up Jar Jar at all. It doesn't touch on Jar Jar at all. But it does make me think. You know what would have made a great pinball machine? What? The Fifth Element. You know, it was the Star Wars of that generation. Our generation. It was the Star Wars of our generation. It was in the 90s. Actually, I was over for my birthday. I went and saw my parents and had dinner with them. They are watching I think it's called Slow House. It's a movie about a bunch of MI5 rejects, or TV series, about a bunch of MI5 rejects, and Gary Oldman's in it. And when it started, my dad just goes, I always think this guy from The Fifth Element. Zorg! Zorg! They're like, oh yeah, Zorg! Emmanuel Zorg! Is that the first movie you think of when you hear Gary Oldman's name? I actually tend to still think of his role in Leon the Professional. It was like my first film. Everyone! It's so over at the top. Good movie, though. It's a great movie. But yeah, no, I also tend to go... Or do you think of him as a giant spider? No. Not first. But I do tend to think of that over his role in Zord. Okay. But that's the thing about Oldman. Oldman could play anybody. Yeah. And he used to do a lot of... Because another one that stands out to me is... And I forget the name of the movie. I think it's Hannibal or something. But the one after Silence of the Lambs where he is the mutilated, disfigured, like, sexual abuser in a wheelchair who wants to capture Anthony Hopkins' character so he can feed him to pigs. I think that was Hannibal. He's in so much makeup you can't recognize him. And then he was in stuff like, was it The Contender? About the vice presidential candidate? Oh, yeah, yeah, the one where they think they have her on a sex video from college. Right. And he's like the House majority speaker or something. Yeah, no, he was really slimy in that. Yeah. And then he was in that second Planet of the Apes movie. Yeah. I think it was the second one of the reboot, the James Franco reboot or whatever it is. Yeah, there were several reboots. The one with Caesar, not the Marky Mark one. Yeah. With Paul Giamatti. Not the Marky Mark reboot. Not the Mockingbird. That was not a very good reboot. I saw that one in theaters. I did, too. Actually, I think we saw that in theaters together. We may have. But hey, I mean, Final of the Apes was a classic. In theaters. So, but no, a fifth element pinball machine would have been good. It would have. Well, we've reached the end of the episode, I think. We have. So thanks, everyone, for listening. If you want to reach out to us with anything, email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com, or you can go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. You can also support the channel, just like we have a couple new people supporting us, over at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We are as low as a dollar a month for that, and we appreciate it. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we will be back in a couple of weeks, but until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.