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Episode 99 - A Blizzard of Expo News

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 22m·analyzed·Oct 20, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Expo 2019 brings Haggis Pinball's Celts debut and Stern's Black Knight topper; podcast discusses design and pricing.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss their personal lives, tournament success, and Pinball Expo 2019 revelations, including the debut of Haggis Pinball 'Celts' machine and a new Black Knight: Sword of Rage topper from Stern. They analyze Celts' single-level playfield design and speculate on pricing, while noting Expo's revival under Rob Burke's management.

Key Claims

  • Dennis won a Pizza West tournament, only losing one game the entire event and never leaving the winner's bracket

    high confidence · Dennis directly states this achievement; Tony confirms and congratulates him

  • Pinball Expo has improved significantly under Rob Burke's consolidated management, with better vendor satisfaction and stronger game selection compared to recent years

    medium confidence · Dennis notes vendors were happier last year and there are more games this year; acknowledges Expo was previously seen as declining

  • Haggis Pinball's Celts is a single-level, three-flipper game with a horseshoe center toy, two kick-out scoops, and dual LCD screens (backbox + tablet-sized)

    high confidence · Detailed playfield analysis by Tony and Dennis based on photos from Expo; they discuss the layout features directly

  • Celts is estimated to retail for approximately $5,500-$6,500, likely built in Australia

    medium confidence · Dennis and Tony estimate price range based on manufacturer size and economics; acknowledge Haggis is Australian

  • Black Knight: Sword of Rage topper features animated helmet with glowing eyes and talking head movement, priced likely around $500-$600

    medium confidence · Tony describes the topper features; notes someone commented it might be $600 but he expects $500 based on Game of Thrones topper precedent

  • Tony is selling three games (Sharky's, Silver Slugger, Data East Jurassic Park) with lowest offers of $900 for Silver Slugger and $1,500 for Sharky's

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discuss his selling efforts in detail; specific numbers provided

  • Star Wars topper was not revealed at Expo 2019 despite Tony's expectation

    high confidence · Dennis confirms no Star Wars topper reveal; Tony acknowledged his assumption was wrong

  • Haggis Pinball previously announced a horror game before pivoting to Celts as their first publicly revealed title

    medium confidence · Dennis recalls announcement made long ago; states they made it clear Celts would be first public reveal

Notable Quotes

  • “I did fine... I finally actually won a tournament for once.”

    Dennis @ ~12:45 — Dennis celebrates his tournament victory, revealing a personal achievement and breaking his typical pattern of fighting through loser's bracket

  • “See, because I know what my walkout music would be, but it's nothing anybody's ever going to have to worry about.”

    Dennis @ ~14:20 — Humorous commentary on never needing walkout music again after winning tournament; self-deprecating joke

  • “With the change in management where Rob Burke has consolidated... it seems that things are getting a lot better with Expo.”

    Dennis @ ~22:30 — Key insight into Pinball Expo's revitalization; credits management consolidation for improvements

  • “It's a sort of... This is a style of game I've been really curious about if there's a market for.”

    Dennis @ ~42:15 — Expresses interest in single-level, simpler rulesets as a potential market niche; questions pricing viability

  • “No, there's no way this is $4,000. Too small of a manufacturer to be able to achieve that economic scale.”

    Dennis @ ~43:50 — Demonstrates industry knowledge about manufacturing economics and price points

  • “I really liked the Highway... The layout, like you were saying, being a single level with a little the way it's set up, I'm interested to see how it plays.”

    Tony @ ~35:20 — Expresses curiosity about Celts' gameplay flow; references Highway Pinball's tablet screen design positively

  • “I do not like Silver Ball Mania's horseshoe. It flows well. It's too easy to hit. And it's worth way too many points.”

    Dennis @ ~37:45 — Game design critique; expresses concern about Celts' similar horseshoe feature

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonRob BurkepersonHaggis PinballcompanyCeltsgameBlack Knight: Sword of RagegameStern PinballcompanyChicago Gaming Companycompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Haggis Pinball's Celts design receiving mixed but intrigued community response, with interest focused on actual gameplay flow despite reservations about cartoony art style

    medium · Tony dislikes cartoony art style; Dennis interested in layout but concerned about horseshoe balance; both express curiosity about how game actually plays

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dennis expresses curiosity about market demand for simpler, single-level pinball games with flowy designs but questions viability at current pricing levels

    medium · Dennis states 'I've been really curious about if there's a market for' and 'you got to price it accordingly. That's going to be the big thing' regarding simpler ruleset games

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2019 demonstrated significant improvement in vendor satisfaction and game selection under Rob Burke's consolidated management, signaling event revival after years of decline

    medium · Dennis notes 'with the change in management where Rob Burke has consolidated... it seems that things are getting a lot better with Expo' and vendors were happier last year with more games available

  • ?

    leak_detection: Haggis Pinball's Celts machine publicly revealed at Expo 2019 with photos in pinball community groups and Pinside after long development period

    high · Tony and Dennis discuss photos available online from Expo showing detailed playfield layout, toys, screen configuration, and art style

  • $

    market_signal: Expected Black Knight: Sword of Rage topper pricing at $500-$600 represents continuation of Stern's topper monetization strategy

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.247

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, October 20th. This is episode 99. Aww. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. Wow, we've almost hit 100 episodes. Almost. It's taken us years. Are we doing anything special for the 100th episode? Maybe we should talk about that. That's probably a conversation we should have. Maybe it was probably a conversation we should have had a while ago. But it's really just a number. It's just a number. And I don't want to do like a please send in a bunch of audio clips, because that's what everyone does now, apparently. Yeah. It feels so cloney, especially coming off of Straight Down the Middle's video clips. Just having done theirs. Yeah. No, that, we'll, uh. We don't want to steal their ideas because then we'll never hear the end of it.
1:01
I will just close. We did start this months ago. We attempted to secure an artist to do a new shirt design. It wasn't going to be specifically branded for Episode 100, but we were going to launch it in conjunction with Episode 100.
1:18
There have been delays on the artist's end that had to push that back, even though we thought we were penciled in to get it done back in September. So we gave plenty of lead time, but just some unforeseen things that happened. So I can't even confirm that it will happen, at least with the same artist. At this point, I don't know. I've left it up to them to see. I was like, I'm not going to stress about trying to find a new artist. I checked in with one other, and there was less than a month to go. Yeah, there was no way. It couldn't be done. So that was going to be the thing, but now I don't have the thing, most likely, unless I'm surprised in the next couple of weeks. So yeah I don't know what we're going to do for the next episode We can do something fun But I wasn't planning on bringing in A particular guest or anything If people have ideas write in At eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com We're more than happy to reach out to Someone if they want to come on I mean Jason's episode We did last time Episode 98 And that's been above our average In terms of plays I looked this morning at the stats. Jason's got, he's got them thousands of NAP Arcade fans. Yeah, he's got all those people. I mean, they're like, oh, we don't have to listen to Tony. Let's, we get to hear Dennis talk. They still got to listen. They still listen to you. You two talked all about the video games. The games? Yeah. About the video games. And we're going to talk more about video, well, at least about one video game maker.
Medieval Madness Remake
game
Zach Minneyperson
Silverball Swagcompany
Pinball Expo 2019event
Pinball Newsorganization
Pizza Westevent
Sharky'sgame
Silver Sluggergame
Data East Jurassic Parkgame
Phantom of the Operagame
The Walking Deadgame
Highway Pinballcompany

medium · Tony notes precedent that Game of Thrones topper was $500, expects Black Knight should not exceed $500; someone commented $600 likely; uncertain if $600 pricing is sustainable

  • $

    market_signal: Haggis Pinball estimating $5,500-$6,500 retail for Celts based on small manufacturer economics despite simpler single-level design

    medium · Dennis and Tony debate estimated price range, concluding 'not $4,000' due to manufacturer scale and MDF-avoiding playfield construction; estimates around $5,500-$6,500

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball released Black Knight: Sword of Rage topper with animated talking helmet feature

    high · Detailed description of topper with moving helmet, glowing eyes, and synchronized speech; video link provided in show notes

  • ?

    product_concern: Dennis expresses concern about Celts' horseshoe shot design being too easy and too lucrative, based on negative experience with Silver Ball Mania's similar mechanic

    medium · Dennis: 'I do not like Silver Ball Mania's horseshoe... It's too easy to hit. And it's worth way too many points' and questions whether Celts' similar geometry will replicate problem

    • 2:46
    Yeah. It's been an interesting couple weeks. But let's go ahead and get going with our introduction. So what's been going on, Tony?
    2:58
    I've been working around the house. We've been doing cleaning, some reorganizing. Yeah, you're hosting a game night soon. I'm hosting a game night next week. We're doing some other stuff. We've got what do you call the little paint swatches all over the house because we're looking at repainting. Oh, okay. So we've got them kind of spread all over the house to decide how we want to repaint the house interiors. and we've been doing a lot of organizing. I've completely redone my computer desk to create a working area so I can start painting models again and putting stuff together because, like I talked before, I did pick up the rule book for Kill Team, and I picked up some models to build a Kill Team, and I've also found a local group that is still doing War Machine. so I'm thinking about I might bring some of my War Machine guys in and start working on painting them some more and possibly getting the rule books for that. So I've been doing just lots of organizational stuff and getting it's a complete rearrange. My computer desk is completely different. I basically flipped. I left the TV where it was but I have the whole other side that used to be where I'd set up my laptop and everything is now set up for painting. Which, I mean, I can still put my laptop there, but that's where I've got all my painting mat and all my supplies and stuff laid out.
    4:30
    Other than that, it's just been paying the bills. Yes, always the bills. I do have a correction from the last episode. No! Yes, there was one. Wayne S. contacted me and informed me that My statement about Archer being in a wide-body cabinet was not right. It was in a Congo cabinet, which is a standard body game.
    4:55
    But what I think he thought I might have been thinking of was Archer was actually about three inches deeper because what is standard today with Stern is shallower than what that was. So there was a difference there, but it's not a wide body. But it's not a wide body. It wasn't a wide body, so I was wrong about that. So, correction noted.
    5:19
    As a lot of the listeners probably know, I co-host regularly on This Week in Pinball podcast. The only episodes worth listening to. I wouldn't say that. I would. Others have, yes. But I would not say that. The Market Trends t-shirt, they finally released that. It does not have my face on it. It has a silhouette. But what one could assume is my face doing an action, the face palm, that I do perform whilst recording Twip quite a bit. Which is understandable. Yeah, and it's got a whole bunch of catchphrases that have been said a lot by either Zach Minney, the regular main host, or myself throughout all the episodes that we've done. So I do have a link in the show notes if anyone wants to order one.
    6:06
    There's also, by the way, I believe, at least I checked this morning, there's a coupon code related to Pinball Expo that's still working. It's Expo 2019, EXPO 2019. It does get you 20% off, I think, on any of the products on the Silverball swag site, which is where the shirts are sold. Silverball swag. I have a link, you know, fitting with my low-cost philosophy. My link in the show notes is to the cheapest version of the shirt. But there's a three-quarter sleeve version, and there's also a higher quality. Three-quarter sleeve version. Yeah, I think that's what it's listed as. Wouldn't a three-quarter sleeve? It's capris for your arms. It comes like halfway between your elbow and your wrist. I guess so. I don't buy it. Yay, look at me. I don't like long-sleeve T-shirts, so I assume I wouldn't like capri T-shirts either. Maybe it's for those people with the big forearm tattoos, so it comes down and covers their elbow, but they can still show off their forearm tattoos. I mean, yeah, but you'd just be like me. I'm always showing off my dagger and blade and glaive tattoos because I just wear a regular short-sleeve shirt. That's how I intimidate people. Oh, God. I'm definitely getting You need a Kroll glaive tattoo They had Kroll I heard and I saw pictures It looks cool It's a wide body so I'd probably hate it But it does look fun You know when I first got into pinball I loved Kroll It was one of my favorite fantasy movies as a kid Have you watched it recently? I have not It probably does not hold up But I have watched it as an adult So I don't think it would change too much for me versus what I recall. But when I first got into pinball and I heard that there was a Kroll game, I thought, oh, I would probably like to try and get that one. And then I was like, oh yeah, they made 10. Yeah. Of which I think two are confirmed destroyed. Yeah. So, anyway. Still, you should get the Kroll Glaive. Get the Kroll Glaive as a tattoo. You should. You know a good tattoo artist, so. I do. Yeah. Well, you have a contact who knows how to do that. I have contacts in all the industries. You have a contact who knows a good tattoo artist. You should. You should get a big old, like, right up on your shoulder. Shoulder glaive. Yeah. Not the barbed wire wrapped around the bicep. I don't think anyone's done that before. If you want to.
    8:27
    You know, what you should do is on one shoulder get the glaive from Kroll, and then on the other shoulder get an actual glaive.
    8:37
    suns out glaives out okay yeah that'll be really high on my priority list um let's see what i wonder if i can get you a gift certificate no no a tattoo gift certificate speaking of gifts someone gifted themselves my dad east jurassic park because they came and bought it i sold that off buck rogers is now in my lineup. I haven't taken a photo because Buck Rogers' back glass is still out at BG Resto, so I don't want to take a picture of a bunch of LEDs just sitting there.
    9:14
    Blinding it. I'm still trying to sell Sharkies and Silver Slugger. I did finally list them on Pinside. My last step before I do any sort of consideration of price reduction is to throw them on Craigslist, but I didn't want the spam. I start small, start local, and then I sort of expand it out. I've had a number of people contact me, but they're all trying to haggle the prices down. On both or just one? On both. Oh, well, that's good. But your price isn't bad on either of them. It's just people looking for a deal, which is fine. But no, because I'm not desperate. So I'm not giving you a DMDA for under $2,000, not one that's working from start. Right, right. No. Sorry.
    9:55
    So what's been your worst lowball price on each? On each? Nothing's been obscene. The lowest offer that I've had on Silver Slugger was $900. Oh, that's not bad. Not too bad, because it's listed at $1,250. And the lowest offer on Sharky's was $1,500.
    10:16
    That's a little low. It's low, but it's not insulting. That's not insulting. That's not like me telling you I got $500 in my pocket. Right, right, right. Yeah. No one's done anything that extreme. So, yeah. But not for Silver's not bad. No, no. I don't think it's too... I mean, the thing that I... For me, the reason why I wouldn't jump at, say, 9... Because it's an amazing game? Oh, well, it's a fun game, and it's... Okay, well, this is 1990. It's multiball. Your competition's System 11 games, of which you're going to be starting with, like, a working high speed at around $1,600. So I'm already several hundred dollars less than the lowest-priced System 11s, outside of the hated ones. which are still probably over $1,000, except maybe Millionaire and Bugs Bunny. So those two aside, they're all over $1,000. So I'm sitting there with a game that's more advanced than most of the System 11 games. But it is a premiere, so I'm not surprised that there's low interest.
    11:17
    I don't need to sell all three of the games. I was just trying to clear some space. My goal was really to move two, and I'll probably delist whatever one I still have and keep it. Any trade offers?
    11:28
    Yes. I did have someone contact me offering to do a trade of a Phantom of the Opera for the Sharkies. I don't know if there would be cash as well. I don't really care for the gameplay on Phantom of the Opera. It might arguably be Daddy's Best Art Package, but I don't think it's a great game. The scream gets annoying on that. So, yeah, I had a trade offer for that. I've had a few other people ask about trades, but not follow up when I've said, yeah, if you've got a Walking Dead, we'll talk. But that's the only one I've thrown out there as an option for trade. If you've got a Walking Dead, we'll talk. I've got cash. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, that's an obvious thing. Right, and that's the thing. I mean, I could buy a Walking Dead with cash outright, but if someone wanted to do, like me, give them a game plus cash, I'm more than happy to entertain that, but no one's proposed that yet. So you hear, that's the proposal Dennis wants, Walking Dead plus cash. Yeah, I mean, I have a few other Like, he'll give you cash, not you'll give him cash. Neither of my games, both of those games combined, wouldn't command a Walking Dead value at pro with no mods. So I also must be realistic.
    12:34
    Because, I mean, what are we looking at the pricing? Depends how used it is. But, I mean, Walking Dead with no mods at pro model, $4,500, I'd say. Somewhere in that neighborhood. So and obviously my two games Added together are barely over $3,000 Right Based off of how I've priced them Anyway so we're still trying to move a couple of those And it's like tournament season Every fall is tournament season for us There was a tournament last weekend Which we didn't make it to And there's a tournament this next week Which we're not going to make it to There was a tournament yesterday Which we did make it to Which is one of our regular tournaments On top of all the other tournaments The pizza The special pizza of the day Was covered in artichokes and spinach So I just couldn't do it Yes and when you told me that I knew I couldn't Try it either because I don't like artichokes I've tried that one before I just can't it's the artichokes and stuff I just can't And I actually don't care much for spinach on pizza Not really So I'm not a big fan of cooked spinach period Like spinach and salad and stuff I love but like a salad with a bunch of baby spinach it's like cooked lettuce it's like I had a really good soup recipe once that involved it was like awesome and then they wanted you to add like a pound and a half of kale and it turned into crap because kale is disgusting yeah people just want kale to be regular or something I don't know the exact same recipe using cabbage instead much better so pizza west was fun and we did that that's all you gotta say about that? Yep. Yep. That's all you got to say about that? Yep. Okay. So let's go to the pinball segment.
    14:21
    Expo 2019. How'd you do at Pace to West, Dennis? I did fine. You did okay? We're in the pinball segment now. We're not in the intro segment. But it's pinball related. How'd you do, Dennis? I got a pizza, a bacon cheeseburger pizza, which I normally get. I know. That made me feel like you copied me and made me sad. Except for I ordered mine first, because I was yelling at you across the floor for It took them like 10 minutes to come to the table. It did. I get it that we were there early and it was still like 4.15. But still, it takes them like 20 minutes. Well, the problem was is our waiter didn't come online. Didn't actually clock in until after we were already there. Well, he seemed to know.
    15:00
    Man, you're terrible at this dodging it thing. What? No, I think I dodged it pretty well. You dodged it pretty well. Okay. Tony's dragging that out because I finally actually won a tournament for once. There you go. You won a tournament. I did. So that was nice.
    15:16
    Golf bet. Yeah, I was trying. You know, sometimes the stuff's a blur. I think I only lost one game, period, the entire time, which was very, obviously, very difficult. Yeah, you never left the winner's bracket. No, I did not. And so, yeah, one person, as far as I can remember, I think my second or third round, one person took me to three games. But otherwise, it was just two and outs for everyone. And so, it was very different for me. Yeah, Dennis ate his wings yesterday. Even my best performances in head-to-head play have always been fighting through the loser's bracket to try and get third or second, possibly. So I was finally a bride, not just a bride. You're finally a bride. Got me my little Pizza West trophy. So I can retire from the Pizza West circuit. I think that's the best thing to do. Because it's like, go out on top. See, what you should do is you should just show up next month with a crown and a cape on and just watch. And bring your own chair and set it on top of the other chair so it's like a big throne. You're just sitting there and you're just watching them play. Then you can hand it all off to the next guy.
    16:22
    I need my walkout music. What would be? I don't know. See, because I know what my walkout music would be, but it's nothing anybody's ever going to have to worry about.
    16:34
    Fuck, think about that. You've got any good ideas for Dennis' walkout music? Go ahead and let us know. Or not. X is going to give it to you. Always a solid choice.
    16:46
    Then going to give it to you. Okay. Back now. So, X-Bone. Fun. Fun's over. That's right. Serious. Big serious. Serious face. That's right. Serious face. It was all seriousness at Pizza West last night, too. Yeah. Okay. Now seriousness. Pinball Expo. That's been happening. while we were at Pizza West enjoying our hand-rolled pizza crust while playing some of the latest and most popular Stern titles, there were people getting to play a bunch of the new and old at Pinball Expo. I do have a link in the show notes to the article that Pinball News has about Expo. That article is like a hub article. So there are links to ones that were done for each day, and they recorded the seminars, and they're on YouTube. Nice. I think they may all be on YouTube. As of our recording right now, I believe Expo is still going, but just the tournament. That's all that's happening right now. And people surviving the Lord Poison. Yes. So anyway, so if you're interested in seeing the seminars or reading up on what happened at Pinball Expo, looking at some of the photos, there are a lot of photos with those articles. Go over to Pinball News, follow our link, and take a look at it. We're going to start talking about a few items that are related to pinball now. Most of these, really other than the Jersey Jack Wonka Collectors, I think, were revealed at Expo. That predates it a little bit. I just wanted to mention that Pinball Expo has been going on.
    18:16
    It sounds like it went really well. I think we've touched on years ago on this show that Pinball Expo was sort of seen as the dying event. and I'm still at the stage where I'd probably argue that TPF is the new Expo and that has not shifted. But with the change in management where Rob Burke has consolidated, like Expo is just his and he's not sharing it anymore, it seems that things are getting a lot better with Expo. I heard that the vendors were happier last year and it sounds like there were a lot of games this year. And that's been one of the complaints, that Expo has been fielding the game selection. I'm not sure that it's TPF levels of games, but they have access to some. Again, scrolling through the Pinball News article, there were a lot of photos of solid-state games that I've never seen before, like games from Ender, games from Playmatic, so foreign games. See, that's good. It's nice to know that they're returning from there because they were, you know, being Expo and Expo's history, you would think Expo would be the big thing. And I don't even know if you would have put it in the top two. The nice thing about Expo is it has a leg up over any other place just for the fact that it's near where so many people who work in the industry live. Right. So it should be easy to get them there. It's like they're just day trips at worst. Right. I think Spooky Pinball is like two and a half hours away. That's like us running down to Wichita. There's nothing. You wouldn't want to do it all the time. It's not a big deal. If there was a big convention down in Wichita some weekend, I'd go down to Wichita. Sure. I thought about going down sometime to do one of their monthly pinball tournaments. I considered it. The main thing that stops me is the two and a half hours drive back at night. Right. Like, I don't know. It's deer season.
    20:12
    I've already lost two car to deer. I'm a little gun shy when it comes to the breeding season. so speaking of breeding gun shy when it comes to breeding season and I was talking this is a family family friendly episode everybody us tying back into gun Double entendre gun I was really proud of that one
    20:39
    Yeah, we haven't had any profanes yet. We're doing good. My notepad is relatively sparse on the edits. But speaking of gun shy,
    20:49
    Haggis Pinball. A manufacturer we've maybe mentioned once. Yeah, like in passing. Yes. I think at one time we went through a list of all the little startups And that's about it So there have For those that only get their pinball news From us One, broaden your horizons And two They've been working on a game called Kelts For quite a while That wasn't actually the first game that Haggis announced they were going to do They announced a very straight-faced Like horror game, I believe I don't even remember the name of it anymore It's been so long since they've mentioned it because they made it clear relatively early on that the first game to actually be revealed publicly would be Celts. That has now happened. So we have photos in our notes that we're looking at. You can go online and see some imagery. I don't have a link in the show notes to it, but just check any of the pinball enthusiast groups on Facebook. Or go to Pinside, and I'm sure you'll be able to find photos of Celts. But it's... Let the games begin. Yes, so I'm guessing this is basically the... Almost with the phrase, let the games begin, it makes me think of the Scottish games. Right. Where you're doing the caber toss and things like that.
    22:08
    It's very cartoon-esque with the art. I mean, you see a lot of Celts in various garbs with funny faces going on. Purple seems to be the main motif of the color scheme. Like everything revolves around purple with green Yeah I think that's a good way to say it Um So I guess we should just make some comments about it It's not a fan layout It appears to be a three flipper game The center of the play field Has the main toy This is a It's a single level game I don't see any I didn't see any ramps or anything It's got a center Horseshoe which is very reminiscent of Silver Ball Mania to me but there's like a Razorback head there with a Mohawk yes with a Mohawk as the Razorbacks often have sort of it's in the middle of the horseshoe so like it's got targets to the side of it I assume you shoot the ball and it looks like it's a scoop or something so you shoot the ball there and that seems to be the main toy the flipper the upper flipper is on the left, up above, just above the horseshoe. And it's interesting because they've got the orbit shot, and it's on the inside of the orbit shot. So it's near where the pop bumpers are, and it seems to be designed to be able to fire over and hit some stand-up targets over on the right-hand side of the upper portion of the playfield. So a fairly unique single-level design, which I like. I think it looks interesting. Because I enjoy single-level designs. I'd like to see how it flows and moves. Yeah, I mean, based off of the layout, and I didn't watch any video of this. I think I saw one reference to some preliminary video, but this is still prototype. I mean, we don't have caps on the pop bumpers. It looks like it's a two-pop bumper game up top, where it's got a triple top lane that sort of feeds into that area of the pops. The pops are kind of skewed on the left-hand side, and then you've got those stand-ups that that upper flipper is supposed to access over on the right.
    24:19
    I do not like Silver Ball Mania's horseshoe. Okay. Because it flows well. It's too easy to hit. And it's worth way too many points. So I don't know yet whether or not this horseshoe is going to be worth too many points. And it's not the same horse... I mean, I'm not saying the geometry is the same as Silver Ball. So I'm not saying this one will be a problem. Right. But that's my initial concern with having a horseshoe that close. I mean, it's in the middle of the playfield. So I don't know yet if that's going to be an issue or not.
    24:52
    Screens. This does have an LCD screen, very stern reminiscent in terms of size, in the back box. And then, as you noted, Tony, something along the lines of what, a 9-inch tablet? It looks like about a 9-inch tablet or an 8-inch tablet screen. Kind of in between the slings, think a la Highway Pinball Designs. And I like that. That was one of the things I liked about it. I did, too. I really liked the Highway. it. And another thing that I really like is I liked it on the speaker covers. They've got little Celtic knots cut into the speaker covers.
    25:23
    That's very thematic and pretty cool. I enjoy that. What are your initial thoughts? Just about the look, I guess. I mean, just the look. The layout, like you were saying, being a single level with a little the way it's set up, I'm interested to see how it plays.
    25:41
    That's the big thing. It's how it goes. I don't know. The art being kind of cartoony, I think it's very, it's fine for what it is. I immediately laughed at the wizard guy with his little lazy eye and this and that. It looks like screaming at the kids to get off his lawn type thing.
    25:56
    But, no, it looks like a, the art package is kind of very fun, screamy. Yeah, I don't, I actually don't like the art. It's not like a, it's just not the style that I prefer. Let me phrase it that way. This seems cohesive. One of my initial reactions of Oktoberfest is it just seemed like a vomit of color everywhere. This doesn't have that issue. It's just I'm not a big fan of this cartoony style. That makes sense. But that's just going to be a personal taste. The layout stuff, I am really interested in this decision of these kick-out scoops. There are two that I know of. There's that Razorback one, but those stand-up targets in the upper right that that left flipper shoots, above them. That's another one that feeds that little castle toy. Oh, nice. So, that's different from... That is different. I mean, we don't really tend to see scoops on single-level games, mostly because they seem to come about a bit later. That used to be back around... Well, you've seen my single-level games. It's usually kick-out holes. Saucers, basically. Yeah. So, this is different, and so I'm curious about... Yeah, I'm curious about how this would play. I do like the little castle toy. It's just a nice, simple little cool-looking thing. I think this is a sort of... This is a style of game I've been really curious about if there's a market for. Obviously, price is playing a big thing into it. But in theory, as big as the hobby is now, I would think that there would be demand for games with fun, flowy designs that don't have to have all the trappings of wire forms, you know, habit trails and ramps everywhere. Possibly a shallower rule set. But again, we're not commenting on the rules here because we don't know what the final product of it will be. My understanding is at Expo, they did start to talk about what they plan to do with the rules. So I don't, and I didn't hear that. So I'm not going to opine on how deep they're going to be. But I've still leaned towards thinking there would be a market for something that just isn't as deep, but you got to price it accordingly. That's going to be the big thing. I mean, if it shoots really well, it's really smooth, and the rules aren't super deep, and then they want $10,000 for it, it doesn't matter. Right. But if you had something like this, but unlike Star Wars, the pen had Coindor on it and had it be fully operatable and have it at $4,000, I think there's movement. Do you really think this pen will be $4,000? No, in fact, I think they may have commented on the planned price tonight. It's not. Okay. I think. But I didn't write it down, so I can't promise you. No, there's no way this is $4,000. Too small of a manufacturer to be able to achieve that economic scale. Right. Plus, I don't think they're going to be building a play field out of MDF, which is what the Star Wars pin did. Right. No, I mean, my guess would be. I think it's going to be around $6,000. That was what I was thinking. Around $6,000. Yeah. Give or take $500 probably. Yes, I think so. It's going to be between $5,000 and $6,500. I remember this is an Australian company, too. $6,500. So getting it over here to us, because I'm assuming they're going to build them in Australia. Yeah. Just like they have to pay to get stuff from us, we have to pay to get stuff from them. We'll see. Like I said, it's fun. It looks interesting. I'm interested to see how it plays. Yes, I am too. So good job to them so far from what I've seen. It's got me intrigued. And intriguement is the name of the game. Or not. Speaking of intriguing, let's talk about Black Knight Sword of Rage. The game's been out for a while now. It's fun. I enjoy it quite a lot. They have a topper now. What about the Star Wars topper? I don't know about the Star Wars topper. I thought that was going to be Stern's big... I thought, what would they be willing to reveal at Expo? And I thought, maybe finally the Star Wars topper. No. At least not from what I've seen. I haven't seen anything about them revealing the Star Wars topper. But what they were able to reveal is a Black Knight Sword of Rage topper. I have a link in the show notes to a video of it in action. Basically, to describe it verbally, we've got a couple of flaming castle gates on the left and right side of the topper. And in between is the Black Knight's helmet. And whenever he speaks in the game, the helmet's eyes glow and the head moves like he's talking. He's talking when the game has him talk. That's awesome. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. That's awesome. It's not listed in the Stern store as of this morning. I looked because I was trying to find the price.
    30:34
    Because I know someone had commented somewhere saying, after seeing it, they thought Stern would probably try and price this at $600.
    30:43
    Looking at it? Stern? Yeah. I bet they will. If you already owned a Black Knight, would you pay $600 for it? Would you pay $600 for it? Assuming you already owned a Black Knight. I think in the end, no. But I'd probably give it a long, hard think. I'd give it a long, hard think if it looks as good in person as it does in the thing with the moving and the talking and stuff. Okay. But I still think no. So far, I don't think they've priced any topper above $500. So, like, I think the Game of Thrones topper was $500 and it had motion. So to me, this shouldn't be more than $500.
    31:22
    See, at $500, I could see it. And I probably wouldn't spend even four, but I'm not a topper person. Right. I have a low ceiling, so where I line up my games. So anyway, but yeah, no, it looks really, really cool. So good job on Stern for the topper.
    31:36
    Speaking of toppers, Medieval Madness Remake, Chicago Gaming Company. It's more than just a topper, but they have unleashed their new iteration of the MMR, as we often abbreviate it. So there are three main things that are different, at least as an option. There are still the three models that are available, and I think the top-end model is the $10,000 Full Monty Edition, but they've got their in-between model, the SE, where you can get most of the stuff, and then they still have the Classic Edition CE,
    32:12
    which is the one that's most authentic to the original Medieval Madness. So the new expanded stuff. One is the screen. They finally have the large expanded display size like we've seen with Attack from Mars remake and Monster Bash remake. For those that don't know, when their first remake was Medieval Madness, they didn't do the larger screen. They just did the enhanced resolution dots.
    32:36
    But they didn't actually have it any bigger. Attack from Mars was the first with them to have it bigger. Well, now we can have a screen size that size. And I love that Attack from Mars screen. I prefer the larger screen on the Chicago Gaming remakes. It's one of the reasons why I would rank a remake higher than an original. Yep. It looks better. It does. With the enhanced resolution, it makes sense to have an enhanced size. I can see why a bigger, if it was still dots, it would probably just look stupid. Right. But it looks fine with the enhanced resolution. So they've got that going on. RGB lighting. So that's color changing lighting. the issue... I'm trying to remember, did they do... I don't know if they did the color-changing RGB with Attack from Archer. They did it with Monster Bash, though.
    33:23
    And so, given that, I think it was really popular with Monster Bash. The Monster Bash at the 403 Club, it has the RGB color-changing. It looks nice. It's nice. So I'm not as excited about color-changing lighting personally, but for a lot of people they really like the effect so I get that and then there's a new topper I don't believe there's any motion with it but it's a detailed sculpt it's a super detailed sculpt like you want out of a figurine and it's got lighting like color changing lighting effects stuff going on with it so I have a link in the show notes over to Pinball Supernova they've got a lot of good pictures and some videos and the videos are like a slide there are two videos, one that shows off the topper and one that shows off the larger screen with the RGB lighting, and they're just really like still slideshows. Right. So you get a good sense of what it looks like in various states. So, yeah, I think this is going to probably get them a good little kick in sales on Medieval Madness. I mean, it's one of the most collectible games. It has been for a long time. It's what convinced Chicago Gaming to keep doing more remakes. It's now the version of Medieval Madness I want. It is. I'm unsurprised at your statement of that. so that's exciting speaking of excitement though Tony now this predates Expo a little bit this is my last my kind of pinball new stuff to get us all caught up Jersey Jack pinball they have finally revealed the collector's edition of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory I hope they're so happy with what they got because we've been waiting a long time yeah it's been And people have been asking where the release information is for at least six months. Yeah, it's been, I think, surprising to a lot of people. And I don't know the reasons for the delay. I always initially assumed that it was much like Pirates of the Caribbean CE, which had a completely different playfield look to it, that that was probably the holdup because of art approvals, you know, to get a whole new set of looks and stuff. Well, I do have a link in the show notes to Jersey Jack. They have a Facebook video which walks through all of this. This is what is in the CE version of Willy Wonka. These lines, what I'm going to now say, these are stated, written out on the video. Okay, so this is direct from Jersey Jack. This is as true as Jersey Jack can be. Okay, so custom cabinet art radcals.
    36:02
    Which are the side stuff or whatnot. Custom playfield art with sparkle highlights. Color changing topper synchronized with gameplay.
    36:17
    Cabinet bottom lighting. Autographed plaque. And there are several autographs. I didn't list which all they are. Design team, basically. Mirrored back glass with custom artwork. Candy Red Armor, Trim, Legs, and Wireforms Interior Cabinet Decals with Custom Artwork and Custom Game Speech by Julie Dawn Cole, who played Veruca Salt.
    36:45
    So, now I'm done quoting from the video. Okay. Now, Tony, in our show notes, I've thrown in a couple of pictures, one where you can get a look at the side of the cabinet, back box, and the front on of the Translight, including the topper on the CE, followed by what the LE looks like. So you have that for comparison purposes. I also have a picture of the entire play field on the CE and the play field on the LE. So again, you can do a comparison. So given all of this, I don't, I guess I was going to say, where do you want to start? Let's start at the top. All right. At the top. At the topper. Okay. What are your thoughts on the topper? I don't like it. After the last two toppers we just talked about, this is some weak, weak stuff. Weak sauce. I mean, they came.
    37:37
    I mean, Stern brought their A game. Chicago Pinball brought their A game. Jersey Jack said, hey, didn't we tell them they'd have a topper? Quick, what have you got? You got 15 minutes? do something real quick. This is definite C-game topper compared to the two. I'm trying to... I'm looking something up because I'm trying to remember what the... There's a term that Stern has used that they used on their... on Deadpool for a certain type of plastic.
    38:13
    That's what the topper reminds me of. But go on while I continue the look. It looks like we've got the really awesome fancy figuring sculpts on the medieval madness that look amazing.
    38:29
    Stern for Black Knight is the motion talking to you direct tie into the game. This looks like a piece of plexiglass with some colors and some changing lights that shine up through it. That's not a good combo compared to what has just recently come out for someone who just spent $12.50 on a machine.
    38:54
    But, oh, that's fine. That's cool. It's a topper. There you go. Topper people are going to be happy. People who don't care about toppers aren't going to care. I mean, that's a pretty obvious thing.
    39:06
    Stepping down, we'll go down and we'll look at the trans lights. And it's the exact same Willy Wonka face that's everywhere. It's on the DVDs. It's on every single face of Willy Wonka, everywhere on any of these machines. It's the exact same face. It's the exact, it's all, it's the same. Whatever. It's a tiny little thing. It's just that tiny little, because it's got the big, nice monitor that takes most of it up. It's there. In all honesty, I like the LE better, the one with the kids over just the spiral. I like the LEs better. But it's fine. we'll come down and we'll look at the cabinet art now here I prefer the CE's cabinet art I like the background I mean there's the exact same wonk and the exact same pose you see everywhere on this machine that's being a dead horse, we've talked about it so many times because it's just so lazy that it's always the exact same wonk everywhere and it annoys me very much on the art package but with the background changes compared to the LE I like it, it looks good the armor, trim, legs wire forms, all that stuff in that candy apple red looks amazing that candy apple red is awesome yeah, it's definitely way so much better than the other but it's still it's armor it's stuff you can get done I mean the wire forms would be hard but everything else is stuff you could have gotten done at a custom place for not too much money but it looks amazing and then we come into the problem what's the problem Tony speak to me of the problem the very real problem is all this we thought because I like you thought that the play field was going to have some massive awesome art package I mean this machine 12
    41:10
    The art package on it is worse. Sparkles. Not even a little worse. Sparkles. Yes, I understand. They had a stripper rub against it. That's wonderful. That's so happy. The sad thing is you're not the first person to tell me that. I'm sure I'm not because it's the obvious problem.
    41:32
    But the actual art, like the lower playfield art on the LE, and once again, this whole LE CE blah, blah, blah, that kind of annoys me so much. I know. On the cheaper edition, the LE cheaper edition, the lower playfield art is so much better than on the CE because it's, you know, Wonka, same pose, arms out. But you've got all this interesting stuff going on, all this stuff, the kids and everything, and then all that background with the buildings and everything. But then on the CE, you just have light blue and dark blue in a ray pattern. Oh, and Wonk in the exact same position, but this time he's in a frame. Yeah, without his arm. Without his arm. Because he's been so close. Even though it's the exact same position, the exact same thing. In the same face. You can tell just by looking at it that literally they just cut the arm out when they did the… I think they took the arm out to put the sparkles. I think the sparkles are flying up to the left towards that ramp. Yeah. And then the sparkles are coming out of his hat. Right. It seems to be where the sparkles are. So, yeah, no, it's, I don't know. I really feel bad for them because it's not an improvement in any way, shape, or form when it comes to the play field. The wire forms are good, though. Yeah. I like the wire. Yeah, I like the candy red. What I call candy apple red. Yeah. They did for the trim and the wire forms. I think that looks good. I'm fine with the new color scheme that they ran with for the play field. But yeah, after seeing pirates, I really thought it was going to be something dramatic. Like instead of Johnny Depp face, we get a tentacle pirate face. Right. And here it really didn't change that much. And they, yeah, it seems like they kind of simplified the art to be just more color and less things from the movie. like the house missing as you know it um so i very disappointed in the new play field i don't i do like the pendlets the the the side art oh i like inside yeah yeah the inside art i like machine i like it when yeah interior cabinet art is nice and i mean people were probably already selling some after market right so again much like how you could go and get the the candy red trim done by a shop, you can go online and order.
    43:56
    And that's fine. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it because you have something third-party available. It's just like, okay, well that was a gimme because it was black before. So that's a freebie where they were going to definitely make an improvement. That topper, I could not find the term. I went through the feature matrix of Deadpool because I thought it said whatever there's a fancy term that they would use for flat plastics versus the sculpts. And that's what this is. It's a bunch of flat plastics with some RGB.
    44:24
    I'm like, oh no. I mean, maybe like you had noted, if we hadn't just seen the mobile Black Knight Sword of Rage animatronic topper or the static topper of medieval madness, but it's a high detailed sculpt. This is neither of those. It doesn't move and it's flat, basically. Like the Wonka chocolate bar is a piece of plastic held in place. Almost a two-dimensional image held on. And it's not, it's just, it kind of looks cheap to me. It looks really cheap. I mean, I didn't include a close-up photo of it, but when I first, that's the first thing that caught my eye when I saw the announcement was the topper did not impress me.
    45:07
    The other thing that then caught my eye was the playfield art didn't really look very different. It was more different than I realized, but with Wonka, I guess there's only one Wonka face. Maybe it's a licensing problem Because this is everywhere All over everything Maybe the licensor requires them to only use This one face, one pose One everything But if that was the case They needed to not plaster it all over the machine Because it makes it look terrible I do like the sides Of the cabinet Are better on the CE Than the LE the sides of the back box are the same I do not like the trans light better on the CE I like it better on the L because at least you got some of the kids on that gumdrops probably rubbed by a stripper I can kind of tell where it being a mirrored back glass that's an improvement I get that it's hard to tell that in the photo but that part yeah that's cool but the art seems so simplified on that I'm a little surprised. Anyway, I guess I don't know why we waited for this, but we did. I hope they're happy with their 12-hour. Now, the in-game game speech is only being improved, right? Yeah, I think so. The question is how many of the call-outs. You get to hear her voice doing some custom style stuff for the trailer of the video I have linked.
    46:37
    I like that. I like the idea of it. Yeah, and I don't know anyone who has spoken very highly of fake grandpa narrator. So if she was actually doing all the narration for the CE version, that's a pretty nice improvement. Right, but you think that's what they actually did. I do not. I think it's just a few custom call outs. I think they've thrown in a few things. Which, I mean. Because if they had enough to have a completely. Then they should have just done it in the first place. They should have done it in the first place. Because that would be. It's like when Stern was able to get Carl Urban to go in and do the custom voice work for Star Trek. It's only going to help you if you get someone from the movie.
    47:12
    Or pirates. Pirates, they got Squibs or whatever his name is. They got the first mate. Smart. That's smart. If you can get someone from the property, do it versus even a sound alike. Right. Yeah. No. Carl, because I love the call-outs on Star Trek because of the job Carl Urban did. Well, one of the biggest complaints about Walking Dead when Stern released it was they didn't get anyone from the show to do anything. So other than the sides of the cabinet Yeah Coral Get back in the car Coral Your mom's going to flip the vehicle again She doesn't know how to drive Coral And so It's like oh whatever Yeah so anyway I don't know what to say But I was just Oh That does bring up another thought what?
    48:08
    This is Expo and it's fall. Wasn't Jersey Jack supposed to have another announcement in the fall? By the end of the year.
    48:19
    By the end of the year. So it was just speculation that it would be at Expo that we were hearing about a few months ago. People were speculating. Right, right. And I think the logic behind that was that it's the last big show of the year, really. Right. I mean, because what else is still coming up? Well, Houston's Arcade Expo is coming up in a month. But that's not a huge show. Not really. Other than the fact that Deep Roots is going to be there with Raza. And Deep Roots is going to be there.
    48:49
    So, I mean, so that's a point. Yeah, I think the, I don't think it's happening. And I'm not, I'm not going out on a whim. I've been hearing a lot of people speculate or say, that it doesn't, Jack's not been reminding anyone of that statement anymore. He last really did it back around June or so when the one, because we're first going out, he was still saying about getting out that next game this year. And my speculation, the clear coat problems, I think that slowed down their plans. I can see that. Because they don't want to have that going forward. No. And so in the course of trying to deal with all the trouble that's been going on, and they and Stern have both faced a lot of reaction online because they're both having clear coat issues. Jersey Jack, at least initially, I felt faced even more criticism because initially their solution was you will buy a blank play field. So one, it's not going to be populated. So you'd have to do the swap of the mechs below and the pieces above. and you still had to pay them money. They've refunded the people who bought them and are giving out the blank playfields now for free for people who have demonstrated enough damage to the clear.
    50:14
    But they're still not populated. At least not in all instances. So you still have to be able to do all that work yourself. My point being is that they did not immediately go to doing populated playfields. I'm not saying Stern has. People, by and large, seem to have been giving Stern a little bit more benefit of the doubt because that happened with the ghosting of the playfield clear on Ghostbusters. But I don't know. I've heard, like, when I was on the Slamtail podcast a few weeks ago, Bruce Nightingale with the Silver Ball Saloon in East Rochester, New York, mentioned that his, one of his games, I can't remember, oh, Jurassic Park, the new one. It's got the clear issue. But he said that he was going to be taken care of. Yeah. Now, I don't know if he knew precisely what it was going to be. other than he's always had his problem resolved. And so he's not worried. He just goes through his distributor and they get it fixed. I know our local Wonka at 403 has it bad. Yeah, it looks like crap. It looks terrible.
    51:14
    And I know that we've had several Sterns, some of the Sterns that have been at Pizza West, they have had the clear issue as well. I haven't noticed them to the degree that Wonka was. No, Wonka was definitely worse than what I've noticed. But definitely, definitely both manufacturers have been having an issue with the clear coat. If you look around the posts, it was really obvious in a walk. It wasn't a chipping case, but this, I mean, these were ripples that you could have gotten a surfboard on.
    51:42
    A little mini, like a little mini, like a little surf champ. Yeah. We'll get a little silver surfer and stick him in there. He'll sell more if you tie in Marvel jersey. You want to tie Marvel in wherever you can. so that's all I had in terms of pinball updates I figured we could probably play some 20 questions it's been a little while we haven't done that in a while we're not even an hour in on the show yet episode 99 we're not going to be a super long one this time that's right we're not for those that aren't familiar who are new to listening to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast welcome and we're going to play a little game Tony is going to ask a series of yes or no questions it will be about a flipper pinball machine that I know he has played before. I will respond yes or no to the questions that he asks. For the first 15 questions, he cannot use any resources, online tools. But as of question 16, he may start consulting databases, websites, forums, whatever he needs to help formulate the rest of his questions. And the goal is for him to get it by question 20. And it's only ever not happened once. So I'm sure we'll... It's been real close a whole bunch of times. No, real close is relevant. I don't have that kind of deep information. You've got it all in there. You've just got to unleash it. You've got to unleash the beast. Because we know you've played it before, and that's the key. Yes, because I remember every game I've played. I don't even remember every game I played last night. I do remember every game I played last night. But I can't remember exactly, you know, a shot-for-shot thing of the game. Sure. Let's start. Yes. That's beautiful. Having learned from the last time, I'm going to be more careful on my wording. Mm-hmm. So, is it from 1980 or newer? Yes. Is it from 1990 or newer? Yes. He's so careful now. I almost lost last time because of that. He's so careful. Is it from 2000 or newer? No. Okay. because that's where it got me last time because I just asked, was it newer than 2000? And it was a 2000, and I about lost because of it. About, but you got it because you ruled out everything else. I ruled out literally everything else. I had like two questions left. And tried to be like, oh, you're counting a Valley as a Williams or something. I was like, no, no, nope, nope, that's not what this is. This is much more basic. Much more basic than that. Is it from 1995 or newer? No. I know it's not nearly as much fun listening to the questions this way compared to the old ways, but it's way better for me. You've taken everyone's fun. They probably have already guessed what this game is. They probably already know what the machine is. No, they don't. Okay, so it's from 1990 to 1994. Is that another question that you're asking me? No. I am externalizing my thought process for our listeners. And also, maybe just so we can pad this time a little bit, Because, man, this episode is looking short. No. They love it short. I know 20 questions. You can cut 20 questions. That might take us 45 minutes to do 20 questions. So we can cut that thing down to like a minute and a half. Yeah, I don't put – I had someone once ask me if I could keep some more breathing time in so that they could – and I'm like, no, I can't. No. I thought about it and I was like, no. That's just sort of like awkward silence. I'm not going to just insert silence in. It just needs to pace. If you can't – If you can't keep up with us, maybe you shouldn't be playing the game. We just need to start getting some silence. We'll just play the sound of silence. Oh, background music. I could be like all the other podcasts that keep taking music that's copyrighted and sticking in way too long of segments. Yeah, that seems like a really great idea. So many of them do it. I'm just like, can't play an entire song, guys. You're begging to have a DCMA strike on your app. Provided, you know, you were pocketed. And I guess that's what they rely on. It's like, nobody likes us. It's like, fair enough, but still, it's not really right to do, so maybe don't do it just because you know it's not morally right.
    56:01
    Is it a data yeast? No. And that's question five. Is it a Gottlieb? Yes. See, I even moved my tab so I was already ready to write no. you pre-imped tabbed you pre-tabbedified is it silver slug yes this is my best finish ever I think my previous best was like 8th well so much for well we didn't pad time very well there guys you know what it's like yay it's silver slug here's the thing very good job I really enjoy silver slug I know you do If I had the money and a place to put it, I would probably buy your silver sliver. The big problem is having a place to put it. I just don't have anywhere for it. Because I had that. I mean, and people have heard me talk about it. I had an area set aside for a single pen ball machine. You can always rearrange. I can't because I actually know for a fact I use that reading nook more often than I would use a pen ball machine. No. Because I sit there every single day. And if I'm not sitting there My wife is sitting there Or one of my children Because they love it My oldest daughter, that's her favorite place to read now Is to sit in the Lazy Boy With my little side table And read her books And my youngest daughter, when she's doing her reading for school That's where she sits and reads Like half of the time Is right there Everybody uses that spot With a pinball machine, I would be the only person to do that Garage Oh Dennis, sweet You have a garage and you don't park the vehicles in there, so that's the answer. Yeah, there's a reason the vehicles don't get parked in the garage, Dennis. No. My garage has a path that's just wide enough for one person. It goes out the door, into the garage, through all of the crap. None of which is mine. And to the fuse box and a split so we can go down in the basement for when the tornadoes come or when the zombies invade. but my garage is a storage cabinet that needs to be fixed. The problem is I've thrown away almost everything I own that's in that garage. Or organized all the rest. It sounds like the next major cleaning needs to maybe be focused on the garage. Oh, I want to so bad.
    58:18
    I just, I don't know if it's mine. I know it's not. I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying that's the answer. because if the stuff's in storage in the garage, it's not being used, which means most of it probably doesn't need to be kept. Logically. Personally, I would like to do it. I've got crap in my garage that I need to go get rid of. I'd like to just have like a nine-yard dumpster delivered and open the end of it and just start carrying everything in the garage into the dumpster and close it and have to pick it up. One of the things I've started doing. But then I have to find a divorce lawyer. No. And they're even more expensive than the dumpster rental was. You just got to get buy-in. There's child support. You just got to get a buy-in on the destruction of this stuff. And then I'm going to have to move into your spare bedroom. Yeah, it's full of stuff, too.
    59:03
    But that's my house space. Mostly it's stuff. I think I've got a chair in there. I need it just a little bit. What I've started to do, granted, this is my stuff, so I'm able to do it, is I usually go and just take a bag worth of, like a 13-gallon bag worth of stuff and just throw it in my trash bin once a week. Right. I've been clearing out my old PC games. I'm like, they don't have any value. I'm just throwing them away. Like Flight 2000. Yeah. Or Neverwinter Nights. I'm finding all these things. I'm just like, this pile of stuff goes in the... Actually, I'm not even taking a fresh trash bag. I take whatever room I have left in the kitchen one, and it's just like, okay, I'm going to clear a little bit of stuff out to clear some space on some shelves to move some more stuff around. But I need to do the garage too. But not all that's mine. About four years ago, I went out and did that. I thought you had. Yeah. But that's the easy answer because that's out of everyone's way and you'd be able to fit a few games in that. The other problem is that unlike your garage, my garage is not sealed. So I would have a humidity issue and a temperature issue. Because my garage will form ice inside of the garage. and it's got some cracks and issues where, like, when it snows, blowing snow will enter the garage and just stay there all winter because the garage is the same temperature as the outside. Right. So I wouldn't want to put something like a pinball machine out there because it wouldn't be playable in the winter or the summer, and the damage to the machine would make me sad. Right. Well, you've got some challenges. My wife has already shot down my original plan, which was to get us some bunk beds and move both of the girls into the same bedroom with some bunk beds and take over one of their bedrooms and move my computer and all the stuff into that room. Yeah, a den. And then turn it into my personal den. But that's already been shut down.
    60:58
    So I work as well. Yeah. Well, you might just have to consider some new rearrangement. It's like stacking a suitcase. You just got to figure out a way. Someday. Yeah, someday. Well If I could rearrange the bedroom And I just put pinball machines in the master bedroom That won't get me in trouble at all Yeah, not at all But yes, you are right That was by far, it appears Your best ever It looks like you've had several tenth question Completions before As your best So, seventh Easily So you see you getting better at the game I am or at least when it something I been thinking about recently Speaking of games video games Oh video games This is probably not news to anybody because... It might be because a lot of these people are pinball people. They don't have this. Right, but that's the thing. This has gotten so big that if you watch the nightly news, you've probably heard about this. And I'm sure Activision Blizzard is real happy because they say any media coverage is good media coverage because people are talking about you. But when that includes a bipartisan letter from members of the Senate to you about how bad you are, I don't know how good a news that is. Yeah, I'm not sure either. So, we will start at the beginning for the people who have not followed. During the Asia Pacific Grand Masters Hearthstone Tournament, there was what Blizzard called a competition rule violation during the post-match interview. the winner, Blitzchung is the name he goes by and two casters that were doing the interview he talked in support, a single sentence in support of the stuff going on in Hong Kong right now with all of the protests and everything and for that because that is against I'm going to read the direct competition rules engaging in any act that in blizzard's sole discretion brings you into public disrepute offends a portion or group of the public or otherwise damages blizzard's image will result in removal from grandmasters and reduction of the player's prize total to zero dollars us in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the handbook and blizzard website terms well that directly translates to is they took away all of his winnings and they banned him for a year and they fired the casters.
    63:43
    Yep. I remember I was surprised that they terminated the casters. Yeah, and that's the thing. They were there. I mean, they didn't ask a question. They did some stuff that could be considered to lead up into it. But they went all out. They got rid of everybody.
    64:03
    And this had a backlash. A major backlash that included several of their biggest casters quitting, like their commentators. Two of them quit, including one who was set to commentate the finals at BlizzCon.
    64:27
    Pretty much every other one of their commentators put out a thing in support saying that they would honor their contracts, so they weren't going to quit because they were under contract but they felt what Blizzard did was wrong and Blizzard took mass fire from all sides on that one and eventually Blizzard did decide that maybe they were a little harsh so they rolled it back slightly they gave him his winnings and they reduced his ban to six months from 12th. And then they proceeded to ban everybody else that had anything to do with anything.
    65:14
    There was a collegiate level team that held up a support of Hong Kong sign during one of their matches on camera. The camera was quickly cut away from and originally nothing had happened. And about four days later, they were banned from playing Hearthstone. and there was a rumor going around that Blizzard has said is not true that they were banning people in any of their Twitch streams that were supporting posting stuff pro-support of Hong Kong. Blizzard says that it wasn't true. That's not why people were being banned. People were being banned for spamming and that people who only posted something once wouldn't be banned. but this has blown up into a matter and we had this whole issue it was even a thing with the NBA had a big thing going on lately and we've had congressmen sending them letters we've had, it's just insane the sheer amount of blow up this has had I've personally on online forums and stuff seen people showing their cosplay that they have set up for BlizzCon, which is next week. Yep. And it's all, everybody's got, you know, no matter who they were cosplaying, especially anybody cosplaying May, are wearing the Hong Kong support face masks like the protesters have been wearing. And a bunch of the artists, a bunch of artists have put out fan art, especially of May as a pro-Hong Kong character with big support stuff. And I've seen at least one picture of a completed cosplay outfit done to that art specification. So what's going to be real interesting next week with BlizzCon is how they're going to handle all of this, especially since they have a open Q&A session during the opening of BlizzCon where people just come up to a mic and ask questions and it's all aired live.
    67:23
    So we will see. Some of that last year stuff was said and And while it was on the live stream, they edited it out of the VODs.
    67:33
    And we'll see what's going to happen going forward. But this is, for a company that's been hit, had such a terrible year as Blizzard has had for the last year, this was not a help. No. I mean, while I imagine it's pretty obvious for most people, the fundamental, I guess, divide here is, Blizzard's claiming that this isn't done because they're trying to protect their market to the Chinese, but everyone thinks that it is because it's about China. Yeah. And lots of other political stuff. Blizzard has done political stuff that doesn't get people banned and is considered okay. It's only the stuff that's against China. You mean things like they're very supportive of LGBTQ efforts and things like that, which obviously are controversial in some conservative circles within the U.S. and could be argued as a – I mean, it's a political stance. Right. And so some people are like, why is there the double standard? Why are you willing to take a stand on certain things you think are moral? but when it comes to Hong Kong which a lot of people think the independence of Hong Kong which for those that don't know Hong Kong is a very complicated story because Hong Kong was a lease to the British Empire for 99 years and that turned over in the late 90s I remember when that turned over and so Hong Kong was at that time granted a great deal of autonomy because the culture of Hong Kong is different than the culture of mainland China itself because it was under British rule for almost a century. But it's technically Chinese now. It's not run by the British. And so given that, there's pushback because the culture is just different in Hong Kong. Right. And a lot of people feel that the culture of Hong Kong is in support of Western values of freedom. And so if you're pro-freedom, you need to be supporting Hong Kong protesters. but Blizzard's shutting everyone down who's mentioning it. And so people see dollars, say they see dollar signs when they see that, that that's just about Blizzard. And we know Blizzard has been trying to get their products penetrating the Chinese market and they've been having a lot of success. And the thing with the NBA that you mentioned, which I think involved the Rockets,
    69:58
    there was that person who tweeted the support of Hong Kong, ended up walking back, trying to walk back his tweet. And that was after the Chinese, which that team had a Chinese player in the NBA for a long time. And it's like the popular team for them to support. And so the government, Chinese government, criticized that statement when it came out, even though it didn't come from the NBA's official account. This was just, this was a private person affiliated with the team saying something. So we know, and China has a history of this. the Chinese government, if you say things that are critical of them and you've got a relationship with them, they have no problem going out there and telling you that they aren't happy with that. And because of the governmental control that exists in that country, they can punish you financially. They can shut you out and they don't have any problem doing it. So on the flip side, some of the supporters of the player and the Hong Kong protests have been going so far. I'd love to know what your thoughts are on this, Tony, to going into streams of people who are playing mostly Hearthstone but other Blizzard games, demanding that players take stances on this now. See, I think that's wrong. I think if somebody wants to share their personal stance, they should share their personal stance. I think demanding that somebody makes a stance, especially when it's something that for so many of those streamers is their, if not their primary, a very large secondary amount of their income and livelihood, I just don't think that's right morally either. That person should make their own choices, and you shouldn't force them to do something that's going to hurt them that badly. They don't choose to make it themselves. And we've commented a few episodes ago about, you know, we had a really in-depth discussion about things like cancel culture, and that's what this seems to be flirting with. And there have been lots of calls for it. Right. If you don't say what we want you to say, we'll disrupt your streams and we'll make chaos for you and we'll make your life hard if you're not taking this. And that backlash is because they didn't like the response they got from Blizzard. So there's this attempt to unify everyone against Blizzard. And there's a lot of unity against what Blizzard has done because everyone thinks that you're just kowtowing to the Chinese government here because you're trying to penetrate the market. And it's like there have been other controversial, noncompliant with the rules of conduct things that haven't had this level of ban, this level of punitive measures. So, I mean, the long and the short of it is, you're right, Tony, it looks really bad for Blizzard because it looks, not only do they look like they sided with the Chinese government, you've now ended up in a situation where there is U.S. bipartisan support criticizing them as an anti-freedom company. And what's interesting, because of the background of it, Activision Blizzard, not just the $2 billion that they make in China every year, a 5% stake of Activision Blizzard is owned by Tencent, which is the largest video game company in the world, and it's based out of China. And Tencent has, just for a quick clip of who they actually have control of, they own 80% of grinding gear games. They've got a majority stake in Miniclip. They own 100% of Riot Games. So they own all of League of Legends outright.
    73:46
    They've got 14% in Glue Mobile, 11% in Blue Holies. Those are mobile game players. Epic Games. 40% of Epic Games is owned by Tencent. 5% in Activision Blizzard, 5% of Ubisoft, 5% of Paradox Interactive, and 84% of Supercell. It's all owned by Tencent Games. Or Tencent, the holding company. Video games are just part of their thing. They're a huge portfolio, but they're a massive Chinese company. and that does not help how this looks to people on the outside.
    74:29
    Yeah, it's, I mean, and this isn't the, you know, this isn't the first time that we've seen this sort of, I mean, companies, even if you've got the ownership stakes, which complicate matters, and then you've got the censorship thing and the people that want access to that Chinese market and they will play by those Chinese rules. And, I mean, that's one of the instances where I know people who they love Google and they love Google products. And for me, with my own ideological stances, I never fully got over when Google went around saying that their motto is do no evil, but they had no problem censoring for the Chinese. And I got to admit, it still tilts me. Understandable. Because they wanted that market. And so it's like, well, I guess you I guess I guess you're no evil has a limit, doesn't it? And that is what we won't. And I just pulling it looking up here again about how it was only earlier this year, a few months ago where Google finally went out and confirmed they terminated Project Dragonfly, which was their censored Chinese search engine they were developing. But they've never had problems doing other censorship through the main engine when you go to Google. Right. No, they don't, because they have to if they want to do work. And so I'm going to say, and so for me, it was always just this company isn't really any nicer than Yahoo or Microsoft or any other one. So quit playing like Google's like this good corporation because they sell out. This is hard. They sell out. They sell out because it's about because they're in the business to make money. And that's what Activision Blizzard was trying to do here. Added complication with that ownership stake, even if it's just a small 10 percent is pretty big for a company. Five or five. 5% is pretty big, though. Activision is like the biggest video game publisher there is, I believe. I think they're number one. Well, Vincent is the other one. They're number one in the West. Oh, number one in the West. Yeah, because Vincent owns so many people. Yeah, in terms of Western, followed by EA, I think. So, how big of a cluster do you think BlizzCon is going to be? Oh, man. You know, I've never done the virtual BlizzCon ticket. I'm so tempted. So you can watch all of the live stream of everything going on at BlizzCon? I have to admit, I'm tempted. I'm so tempted because I want to see the opening session like that. Hey, maybe when they do their quarterly report, they'll be able to say, well, we sold more virtual tickets, so we got that going for us.
    77:05
    We made even more money than ever, so we're going to go ahead and fire some more people. No, because, you know, BlizzCon was supposed to be all about Diablo. Overwatch 2 was supposed to be revealed. And now all I'm hearing anyone talk about is Hong Kong. Yeah. I've heard from sources that have a very firm, positive track record, as in way more correct leaks than false leaks, that Diablo 4 is an announcement this year. Diablo 2 remasters announcement this year. The pretty, and it's been real solid that Overwatch 2 will be announced as a single player game. That way they don't override their Overwatch. Yeah, I've been hearing a little, just to get on that one a little bit, I've been hearing reports that there may be a PvP component, but it's not going to be the same as Overwatch. I don't know what that means. I don't know either. Like, is it going to be a completely different genre style of combat? That would be my guess. Because I agree, I mean, Overwatch has, PvP Overwatch, it's like Dota in League. It's got its own legs, so if you're going to do stuff with that, you should just do expansions. Right. It just makes sense. Right, you don't want to divide your community. Yeah. Where if you do, I mean, it could be one of those things, who knows, it could be just a pure deathmatch type thing. Or what I think is more likely is it'll be something like... Tetris. Yes, it'll be like Tetris. Well, Puzzle Quest Tetris.
    78:40
    Super Street Puzzle Fighter style Tetris. I don't remember the full name. Don't judge me. It might be more like the Plants vs. Zombies game. Oh, like that. Where it's like an active story, but you're playing on both sides. Or like Left 4 Dead. Where you've got people playing on the good and the bad side while going through an active storyline. Okay. So something sort of linear. Right.
    79:14
    It's not just like the big match goal thing. It's literally like, oh, okay, we're playing Overwatch and the other people are playing Talon and they're trying to stop each other as you're going through with missions and goals. Is that the truth or is that just me skydreaming? Who knows? That's just my thoughts. Yeah, that's almost as good as the Tetris guests. Yeah. I mean, they're both as likely to be valid. Shmup. Oh, gosh, that would be hilarious. Yep, PvP shmup. We're both shmuping each other. It's like Geometry Wars, but we're shooting at each other. Twin-stick shooter shmup. Oh.
    79:51
    It's like Tempest, but you're both on opposite sides of the tunnel shooting around each other, shooting at each other. It writes itself. Yeah, no, that'd be the perfect game. The great scheme. So, yeah, that's where most of video games are. There's little things, but nothing.
    80:09
    This has been so dominant. I felt like this was the main thing we should talk about. It's been almost everything I'm seeing anything about. Yeah. And like I said, I've been seeing this in front page of the BBC. This isn't just in my video game searches. Nope. This is everywhere. It's showing up on Forbes, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN. It's everywhere. Yeah. It's everywhere. Well I guess we made it to the end of the show See that actually turned out to be a fairly meaty segment It did We're about on our regular episode time According to my timeline For those of you We mentioned at the beginning But you can always email the show EclecticGamersPodcast.gmail.com We're also quite accessible at Facebook.com slash EclecticGamersPodcast We're available on Twitch And Twitter And the Instagrammys as eclectic underscore gamers. I almost said Overwatch for some reason. No. We do play Overwatch, but the podcast isn't on. You haven't abandoned Overwatch in support of Hong Kong. No, because I already paid for it.
    81:19
    But I play as Mei. And I like to think I'm freezing the communists with my ice beam. That's the way to do it. And then I'm like, Mei is back. Yes.
    81:30
    Until next time, when we will have episode 100, which may or may not be special. It'll be special inside. It'll feel special inside. Right here in the heart. Meanwhile, we'll think about good walkout music for this. Yeah, good walkout music. And if you have suggestions on stuff for us to do for the episode, just write in and tell us what you want to see. Or if you just want a regular episode, we'll do a regular episode. We're a pretty regular episode for 50, I think. Yeah, we mentioned it. We don't do a lot. I don't think we even hit 50 as hard as we did like 66. Well, that was more fun. That was more fun. Yeah. So, anyway. Okay. Bye, everyone. See ya.