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We Are Pinball #29 "MGC news and rumor wrap up!"

We Are Pinball (WAP)·podcast_episode·13m 45s·analyzed·Apr 7, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

MGC recap: Spooky Pinball dominance, Evil Dead sold out, five games in pipeline.

Summary

Don and Genghis discuss news and rumors from Midwest Gaming Classic (MGC), focusing heavily on Spooky Pinball's strong market position, Evil Dead's sold-out status (888 units), and Spooky's deliberate production constraints tied to a full development pipeline of five upcoming games through November. They tease unreleased American Pinball content held behind their Patreon paywall and announce guest Jamie Burchill for episode 30.

Key Claims

  • Evil Dead is Spooky Pinball's best-performing game by far, surpassing Rick and Morty

    high confidence · Hosts report direct market observations from MGC show; Evil Dead demand exceeds Rick and Morty despite only 138 more units produced

  • Spooky Pinball intentionally capped Evil Dead production at 888 units to manage development pipeline

    high confidence · Don directly asked Spooky staff about production limits; received explanation that company cannot dedicate resources to remake/extended runs because five additional games are already in development and scheduled

  • Spooky Pinball has five new games in development with November release target

    medium confidence · Don's direct communication with Spooky staff; games are in development (not production) phase; specific titles remain undisclosed pending NDA

  • Evil Dead secondary market is showing full-price sales with no extended hold inventory

    medium confidence · Hosts observe secondary market behavior; contrast with Scooby-Doo precedent where five-six units regularly listed at $1,800+ markups on Pinside

  • American Pinball's unreleased game is better than typical Stern Pro-level machines

    medium confidence · Don's direct hands-on evaluation at American Pinball facility (Patreon episode); claimed as 'their best game' but 'not a Godzilla killer'; qualified as 'pleasantly surprised' level

Notable Quotes

  • “Evil Dead is now spooky's best game like by far that's what everybody's saying”

    Don @ ~02:45 — Establishes Evil Dead's market dominance and community consensus vs. Rick and Morty baseline

  • “They're like sorry man they're gone and people were like getting mad like what do you mean they're gone”

    Genghis @ ~06:30 — Captures seller-market dynamics at MGC; demand exceeding supply creating customer frustration

  • “We can't make evil dead for two years because we got these other games we got to get out”

    Don (paraphrasing Spooky staff) @ ~08:15 — Reveals Spooky's strategic constraint: five-game pipeline forces Evil Dead production halt

  • “It's good, definitely their best game. You know, but it's not a Godzilla killer”

    Don @ ~28:30 — Qualified endorsement of American Pinball's upcoming machine; manages expectations while acknowledging quality improvement

  • “When you're the only one that's seen it there's no one else to talk to so it's just like your secret shame”

    Genghis @ ~23:00 — Commentary on NDA burden and validation anxiety when embargo-previewing unreleased games

  • “888 was all we were gonna do and then they gone”

    Don (paraphrasing Spooky staff response at MGC booth) @ ~07:00 — Confirms deliberate cap at 888 units; no plans for additional Evil Dead production runs

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanySpooky LukepersonEvil DeadgameRick and MortygameAmerican PinballcompanyMidwest Gaming Classic (MGC)eventPinball at the Beachevent

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball's status uncertain; Don questions if 'company even exists anymore' amid operational ambiguity following recent facility visit

    low · Conversational aside: 'I still think I'm under NDA technically but like does the company even exist anymore'; unclear whether casual speculation or informed concern

  • ?

    community_signal: We Are Pinball leveraging Patreon exclusivity for high-value behind-the-scenes content (American Pinball facility access, MGC rumors); hosts considering public release of American Pinball episode

    high · Explicit discussion of paywall vs. public release strategy; teasing of locked Patreon content; debate about NDA constraints vs. company status clarity

  • ?

    leak_detection: American Pinball unreleased game details partially disclosed in Patreon episode post-recording; hosts possess hands-on evaluation under apparent NDA

    medium · Don's admission: 'I still think I'm under NDA technically'; Patreon episode contains direct gameplay commentary and quality assessment; conversation about releasing publicly

  • $

    market_signal: Evil Dead (888 units) sold out across three major shows with secondary market at full MSRP, contrasting sharply with historical secondary market markups seen in Scooby-Doo era

    high · Direct observation at MGC; no five-six unit secondary listings on Pinside at markup; full-price sales with no extended inventory hold

  • ?

    community_signal: Jamie Burchill departing The Wormhole venue amid unspecified 'turmoil and scandal'; future involvement in pinball community unclear

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.041

0:00
I rock my bling damn history, I make it look easy cause it is to me, my daddy says it's like a focus book to see, it's South Africa and Chitty make it history.
0:08
What's up WAP Universe? Episode 29 coming at you. Don here, hanging out with my boy Genghis and we were just talking like we always do. And then I was like, you know what, we gotta hit record and talk about some stuff. Cause yeah, we be having fun in Pinball Genghis, how you doing?
0:24
I'm doing great man, I have missed you, you were at the pinball show again, again. I mean, how can I stay away? I can't go like a week without going to a freaking pinball show. Midwest Gaming Classic. Thank you for the pictures. Thank you for the updates. Yeah. You had an awesome time. Thank you for Spooky Luke for wearing the WAP t-shirt.
0:45
Oh, my God. Robo-Jingus is in effect here. Oh, there we go. Now he's back. Yeah, Spooky Luke was wearing the WAP t-shirt. I walked into the show. Yeah, yeah, you're back. You got a little flub there. I walked into the show, and I saw him wearing the WAP t-shirt, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is going to be a good day.
1:01
Yeah, we love Spooky. We love Spooky for being like this. They are just, dude, they are just, I feel like they're like number two pinball company right now. Don't you feel like it? Right? I mean, yeah, they turned around and burned out through their 888 games. I was thinking about this. You know, what's Spooky Pinball's, like, most prized game? It's Rick and Morty, right? Probably, like, the highest prize. you know please make more please make more never be anymore they only made 750 of those and evil dead is now spooky's best game like by far that's what everybody's saying it's playing it and there's only 138 more of those than there were rick and morty's and they're already they're already freshly sold out and so i think evil dead's a game that's going to be in demand it's got way more than rick and morty does it's got way more shots and layouts wide body packed with mechanisms and there ain't gonna be no more yeah i really like that that they they won't you know make a remake or 70th year edition or something something they're like really we think about the the collectors here so 8088 that's the number i love that and like since that game came out this is the third show that i've seen the game at right it was a pinball at the beach it made its debut which was a very small group of people and then tpf that you know the games were going sun up to sun down they have the pin monk flipper fans on there there was no flipper fade at all just nuts and then here we are the third major show mgc and they're already sold out now yeah wow dude that was yeah i was hanging out this show that bought all those 30 or what 50 or what did you say that also they're gone yeah they're gone so like three four years from now it will it will be a highly sought after title yeah yeah because um you know back in the scooby-doo days we saw there was always like five or six scooby-doo pre-orders on pinterest pinside pinterest pinside you know people selling them like hey 1800 bucks whatever i have not seen that at all with evil dead um oh man and yeah every now and then when you do see one it's like full price and it's not for very long i was hanging out at the spooky booth yesterday and people were coming up and they were like all right um i'm gonna get one of these things you know what do i have to do and they're like sorry man they're gone and people were like getting mad like what do you mean they're gone i'm here i want one what do you mean you won make me one they like 888 was all we were gonna do and then they gone and people were like legit mad like what are you talking about everybody saying it a buyer market we we here with money in our hands and we can't get it yeah oh my but in a way i mean i'm happy for for spooky for this but it also hurt them a bit you know i mean why didn't we say 900 950 you know it's right i asked them specifically that question and the answer that i got surprised me a bit the short of it is they're totally fine with it um but uh you know they wanted to make enough games that are going to keep them busy through the next year they've got like seriously like five games that that like their next five games are kind of like already set uh they're in they're in they're in development right not production but development and it's like they're like we we can't make evil dead for two years because we got these other games we got to get out you know so like we got to make these this year november we got a new game and we got to make those so we can get to the other ones you know because they got they got the queue is full and they got to bring them out or they're going to time out so it's like this is what they're doing yeah wow but but they're tight they don't share nothing with you um so something you can share here on patreon or something you know yeah so I haven't I haven't pressed them hard to find out what their their their new game is I think they would show me if I wanted to you know do the full NDA thing but honestly it's not going to come out anytime soon it's not going to come out until November so I would be like oh my god that's the next theme and then the next thing I'm going to want to do is talk about it which I wouldn't be able to do and then that would be like six months of me sitting on my hands like i wish i could talk about this it's fucking awesome yeah don't don't spend a dime on that game until you see what spooky's got so i like this way where you know i'm sure i'll see it at some point but i don't have to worry about like what it is and not being able to talk about it that would suck yeah i know exactly what you mean because you saw evil dead like a month before release or something or two months before release yeah and i remember you had such a hard time not talking about it you were like i'm so excited but i can't talk about it i'm like this game's good but the hard part is when you when you do something like that you're like am i just crazy like i think the game's really good but maybe maybe i don't know i need somebody else's opinion you know when a game's released like when we see kong i could be like all right jing is what do you think of the layout here's what i think of the layout what do you think and we can hear like what people are saying so then we get a consensus like okay yeah this is really good or oh yeah no this is kind of dog shit um but like when when you're the only one that's seen it there's no one else to talk to so it's just like your secret shame you have to just keep and it's like i'm hyped on it but is this game gonna come out and people are gonna hate it and they're gonna be like don what the hell were you talking about this whole time so it's like it's validation when like it's finally out and you can talk about it yeah i know um like was it show number after we recorded show number I think it was 20 or 22. After that, we jumped over to Patreon and made an hour-long show there. And there, you actually, only on Patreon, you actually shared a lot of stuff of the upcoming American Pinball game. Oh, I remember that. I love that show. I think we should release that show to the public man Don you think You think so Because you have so You are talking about you just knocked on the door of American Pinball and what was actually going on in there So many people are interested. Don't you think we should just release that show to the people? I've had a couple of badass moments in my life and like, you know, sitting there in a cafe in Chicago with a group of friends from all over the country that are super into pinball and we get the news that Fix is out and we're like, what the hell? And I'm like, you know what? let's just raw dog over there and walk in the door and be like what's going on man and so and then we did it i mean i mean our supporters on patreon they love they love that episode you just walked in there you're knocked on the door and you also tried the next game and you talked about the upcoming game and you're actually you're actually how did you put it you're actually excited as a stern pro level game right so it was not a bad experience it was a cool game i think it's better than stern pro oh okay okay now i don't i don't want to like overhype it like i've seen it you haven't so it's obviously the best thing ever it's it's good um definitely their best game um you know but it's not i mean it's not a godzilla killer but you know so temper your expectations but you'll be pleasantly surprised this is the game that if you go in with lower expectations you'll be blown away and really surprised a lot of people are you know thinking about what's going on at american pinball and on that patreon show you actually told everything yeah exactly as you saw it you were in there with was it carol hardy yeah yeah you just yeah man oh yeah i think we should i think we should just open that episode to the public man what what do you think donnie i mean at this point i still i think i'm under nda technically but like does the company even exist anymore you know we have to we have to find out about that because you you share a bit yeah otherwise we'll just say fuck it i'll tell you what let's let's discuss it more behind our paywall there it's only five dollars to walk in there we got people all the way up to the 150 supporter level which we love we have great conversations on there yeah everybody listening a new supporter also don i saw that yeah and and i saw supporter so what we do every time we get a new supporter we always announce it here uh and it's it doesn't matter how much the new supporter supports us with this one is a pro level it's ray woods i don't know my hair there it is and i think i'm sending him a uh a wop t-shirt too he ordered a t-shirt so that is completely amazing oh what a supporter welcome we should give him a show the honorary ray woods you're a new supporter this is the ray woods episode we are always happy when we're getting new people into patreon because it's more just much more intimate in there so yeah but on every show we also thank our pro premium level le level and collectors at level supporters and we enjoy doing that so at ce level we have charles get ready for the air horns everybody yeah yeah give charles some air horn give charles josh crock some air horn again 100 100 150 dollars both of Oh Josh jumped up to Collect this edition to real velvet Steve supporter man I love him. Anthony Marua, $50. Yes, thank you, sir. Thank you. Yeah. And Enzo, oh, my goodness. Enzo is on the road. We love Enzo here, man. Yeah, another premium supporter. Let me give Enzo a Jeffrey Ford. Hell, yeah. What a solid dude. Pinball at the beach, man. Let's do it again. let's do it again jeremy yeah do that and share all the info here yeah we love it so you were at mgc let's just let's share i'm so interested because you sent me a picture you sent me pictures with with yeah with the spooky team i have some questions you sent me a picture with the uh portal game so i'm gonna ask you rated from one to ten did you buy it what's going on I want to know everything. I've got so much to comment about. No idea. Let's do that. Maybe let's do that. We have a long show today. And tomorrow, we have another show. Yes. Number 30.
Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)
event
Donperson
Genghisperson
Jamie Burchillperson
Carol Hardyperson
Stern Pinballcompany
We Are Pinball (WAP)organization
Scooby-Doogame

medium · Episode 30 guest slot announcement; hosts frame as 'midst of turmoil and scandal the wormhole or the jamie hole will rise'; question 'are you leaving pinball what's going on'

  • $

    market_signal: Evil Dead secondary market maintaining full MSRP with no extended inventory, suggesting price stability despite 888-unit scarcity vs. historical IP-licensed game markups

    medium · Hosts note lack of Scooby-Doo-style ($1,800+) markups; 'when you do see one it's like full price and it's not for very long'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky Pinball has five games in development phase (not production) with November 2024 release timeline for next title; full pipeline extends beyond that

    medium · Don's direct conversation with Spooky staff at MGC; specific titles under NDA; November 2024 mentioned as next release window

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Evil Dead represents elevated community perception of Spooky Pinball relative to Rick and Morty; described as 'their best game like by far' with sustained demand across multiple shows

    high · Host consensus from direct market observation; contrast with Rick and Morty secondary market history; repeated mentions of 'everybody's saying' Evil Dead superiority

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball deliberately constrained Evil Dead production at 888 units despite clear demand capacity to manage five-game development pipeline and avoid two-year bottleneck

    high · Direct quote from Spooky staff to Don: 'We can't make evil dead for two years because we got these other games we got to get out'

    • 11:23
    We got a special guest. We got Jamie, formerly of the Wormhole. Jamie Burchill, salt of the earth. Awesome dude. Coming on the show. Coming on the WAP. I can't. in a midst of turmoil and scandal the the wormhole or the jamie hole will rise and we're gonna celebrate it here yeah man show number 30 we should call it you know the wop got warmed but we cannot call it that anymore because he quit that and we're gonna we're gonna ask him what's going on what's up jamie and what's the future like i mean are you leaving pinball what's going on we're gonna start the wop hole with jamie that's what's gonna happen he's such a nice i mean he's the wop hole we gotta turn that into a graphic the wop hole welcome to the wop hole donnie man i love your name donnie and jamie he he already has got the nickname jamie Jamie, Jamie, get into the wormhole.
    12:28
    Get into the warp hole. Get into the warp hole, Jamie. Oh, it's going to be cool. So tomorrow, show number 30 will be up. And today, should we do it here or should we do the rest on Patreon, man, with all that info at MGC? What do you think? Oh, man, after all that edging we did and about all the MGC stuff and the rumors that I've heard yesterday that are pretty cool for the coming up for the next year plus uh we got uh my my remarks again in the saga of portal um you want to do all that behind the patreon for the the awesome people that are over there you want to get into it yeah let's do that baby let's do that let's jump over to patreon and everybody's welcome five bucks five bucks say hi yeah right buddy dude do it as a one-off man come in there try it out test the waters get your foot into the wop hole and see what's going on over there i mean just come in there are so many locked episodes in there that's the only the newcomers they're like oh my god there's so much stuff there's a ton of stuff over there man if you've got any kind of commute at all like yeah let us be your co-pilots man all right let's jump over in there then let's jump yeah all right peace out everybody head over there we'll see you in the green room