I have a dream. Free at last. Free at last. Thanks for the money. Free at last. I don't know anymore. But you will never know. I've been brought down to this door. Welcome everybody to Canadian Pinball Podcast episode, I don't know, like 1100 and something. I'm still battling this weird sort of back of the throat nasal drip cough thing happening. Work is exploding in my real job. It's dark outside at 6.30 in the morning. The world is always on fire. And we need a little bit of a distraction from everything else happening in the world. So we turned to pinball and that's what we're going to do right now. Let's talk about what's happening in the world of pinball. I am going to interview someday soon the new people over at American Pinball. I have some questions for them. Ronald and team, what is the plan over there? Nobody is voting in the Twippies. The Twippies are dead and I'm happy to hear it. That clown took over and destroyed it. No surprise there. We're all waiting for Pokemon. on. We're all waiting to see what happens at Dutch Pinball when Back to the Future gets revealed and they can only make 15 games a week and they're going to get 15,000 orders. We're waiting to see Steve Ritchie's Sonic the Hedgehog masterpiece. We're waiting to see if CGC has a new game coming out next. But let's talk about what's happening in the here and the now. I reached out to Melvin over at Dutch Pinball. He's a good friend. And I asked him straight up, how many Alice's Adventures in Wonderland refund requests have you received as a company? And he said to me, the number is this, Chris Kaneda. He calls me Chris. He doesn't really call me Kaneda. He said, we have received around 35 refund requests. Okay. Around is a weird thing. I don't think there should be any sort of adjective in front of the number. Like what is the total number? 35. He said they have built most of the games. I think 80% of the games so far built have gone to European customers. And so 35 refund requests was interesting to me. And then I asked, how many total Alice's are you going to make? And then the answer was a bit surprising. They are still going to make all 500 games. So they clearly have ordered parts for 500 games and they're going to screw them all together and then they will stock those remaining games as inventory. I think he said there might be somewhere around 40 to 60 games in total when all is said and done that might get put into inventory. Now, I think some dealers and distros will take some of those games just to have them. it's you know uh two years from now there's gonna be some newbie who knows nothing about pinball that might like some cleavage that might want to buy this game a lot of the newbies out there have no education they know nothing and they get blinded by certain elements of pinball initially and they just want something here and now and that is why you know sometimes i think about how we cover this hobby and we almost I think we kind of do it in a little bit of a weird way is we act as if a game needs to sell every single one it makes right now so take for example Predator they're only going to make 300 games ever they had to sort of do that for a few reasons Disney yanked their license from them and they couldn't sell any more after 2025 but they also didn't get any orders And so they use that sort of limited number we're going to make because that will drive FOMO to get people to buy the product. But like, again, a year from now, after they've made all 300, there probably will be Predators up for sale in the used game market forever. But if you wanted to buy one new in a box, there really won't be any out there brand new. this is the other thing about newbies we forget newbies don't like to buy used items as much as they like to buy something new you're going to tell your wife you're getting into pinball and the first machine you're going to buy is a used game coming from someone you don't know with no warranty you've never shipped a pinball machine in your life you've never unboxed one you've never set one up you're telling me what's going to give you peace of mind is buying one used now i'm proud to say my first game was used because there was none new available there were none it was a lord of the rings limited edition which i bought 13 14 years ago for seven thousand two hundred dollars you can't even find one now if a le popped up for sale you're looking at around fifteen thousand dollars. I don't think my salary's doubled in that amount of time. I don't think my desire to have pinball has doubled in that amount of time, but the prices sure have gone through the roof. So, you know, when you think about a move like Barrels of Fun saying we're only going to make this many dune toppers and that's it, it's kind of silly because they don't have the remaining machines built yet they need to make another few hundred machines just build toppers i mean the the fact that we're getting to like topper fomo stern did the same thing with jaws 50th topper why why like why prevent someone who bought a jaws 50th new like a few years from now and the game never had a topper originally why would you do this but here's the truth let's be honest they're not doing this so that the customer, you and me, feels the FOMO. They're doing it so the dealers fight over each other to stock the inventory. That's why Stern is doing that. So the dealers can then swoop in and have inventory and get your sale down the road Stocking a topper and keeping a topper in inventory is a lot easier than super large pinball machines that cost so much money And I bet the margin on a topper sale isn really that bad for a box that is tiny that has inside an extremely overpriced piece of plastic. So that is why I think they do it. I think for the Dune topper, same thing. It's probably dealers who ordered most of those and are just going to keep them in inventory and have them when people want to buy a topper for a dune when these dunes trade hands. Okay, so we saw some news about American Pinball. I saw this on Naps Arcade, and I want to give a little bit of commentary even before I interview them. It's clear now that the initial plan of this company is to use and make all of the parts and all of the existing stuff that's in that factory. They want to remake Galactic Tank Forces and Valhalla are currently on the line. I think there might even be some Houdini's on the line. They even said they're going to make more Barry O's barbecue challenges. I think to date, less than 150 sold. And they might even make another 40 to 50 because there are parts lying around. And I just want to say this. This to me is not what I would do, but I kind of understand it. If they have new people working the line, why not, since you bought all this stuff, why not train them on how to make pinball machines using all the existing parts and inventory that you have, learn how to use the equipment, and learn on a game that nobody wants. You know what I'm saying? If you're going to make mistakes manufacturing, make it on Barry O's Barbecue Challenge. make it on galactic tank force now it does kind of suck for some of you out there who bought some of these like last call games uh especially galactic tank force had a little bit of that last call marketing strategy and now they're going to make more look i don't think anybody cares i don't think anybody that owns a galactic tank force cares because you know your game's never going to go up in value you also know that you've got the game for like an insanely low price The only people out there that will never publicly reveal something are the people that paid in full. And there are some of you out there and you know who you are. And some of you might actually be listening to this podcast. There are some people out there that when this game initially got revealed, they bought for full price the signature edition of Galactic Tank Force with the thermos, with the lunchbox. Remember everything? guess what the price was people keep getting this wrong the initial price was $17,500 now I know a few people who bought it for that price who were excited to buy it for that price who thought they were getting something that was going to be special that game now is worth around like 7k They were selling them from the factory for like $7,500 recently. So it just goes to show you that was one of the most arbitrarily inflated FOMO games of all time. That just never worked out. So while I get this move by American Pinball, I still don't like it. I still don't like it because I want this company to start anew. And the fact that they've already said that they're going to continue to do code updates and give support to these older games, instantly I feel like they're making a colossal mistake. The reputation and the karma associated with those old titles, the people that built those old games. Why would you want to go back to the past? Why would you want to, even in present day, acquire a company and then continue to produce its mistakes? I think it's a colossal mistake. I think this doesn't, to me, speak of an all-new company. Just because you changed the logo, now you're making more legends of Valhalla's. And here's the other thing. When I saw them say something like, the things we want to focus on are technology and connectivity. Now look, I don't think they're talking about just like Wi-Fi code updates. I think they mean real connectivity in pinball. And let me ask all of you a question. How much connectivity is there in Harry Potter? How much connectivity is there in Beetlejuice? How much connectivity is there in Winchester's mystery house? And the truth is pinball doesn't need any connectivity. I didn't even worry when it was easy to just download the new code on a USB stick, stick it into the motherboard and have the code update. When I used to do that on Stern machines back in the day, it was really easy. I've actually had more problems trying to update code via Wi-Fi. But my point is this, pinball at its very core, to get pinball people excited, to get the pinball audience to buy your new products does not require any connectivity. It requires magic, a world under glass, a theme you want, all the things that they should be focused on. And that is it. That is it. The only thing I want to hear from American pinball, well, one thing I'm never going to hear is I want to hear the past is the past and we're not going back. Not hearing that. The first thing we're hearing is they're going back to remake the stuff that's inside the facility. And look, I never would have bought them if buying them means I have to do something with this stuff. I consider that stuff pretty much worthless. I mean it. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Why would you want to start making more of a product that has no demand? Again, I think it's a training exercise. And look, hopefully they got all of that stuff for pennies on the dollar because I bet they did. But really what this company should be focused on now is what's next. I mean, I would have built all that old stuff and not even really communicated it. Why? We don't have to know. Be like, we're just training our employees on how to build games. We're going to be using some of the parts lying around here, but we're not going to talk about the past. I never would have said we're going to continue to do code updates on like older games. Wouldn't say that. My whole thing is I would be saying this. We have looked at this pinball hobby over the last few years. We are obviously big fans of pinball We got a team of people that understands manufacturing And we know that you heard this before and our commitment is very simply this We want to come out of the gate with a game that reflects what the next chapter in American pinball's history will be. We are very aware that the current chapter or the previous chapters were not successful. We are not going to mince words. We are not going to spin this. We are looking at companies like Barrels and companies like Spooky. And we said to ourselves, we are not going to get into this hobby unless we can compete with those organizations, if not make games better than those organizations. That is what is on my wall. Those are the games we are looking at. We need to make games as good as this or better. That is the charge of this team. And that is the vision of this organization. I'm not hearing anything like that. And again, I think this is another example of you really only get one chance to make a first impression and things really matter at this stage. They really do because you start to see the strategy and the vision of those in charge. And so, yes, I think they have He-Man. Yes, I think He-Man is the first game we're going to get. If they don't have He-Man, I'm going to give them a really solid piece of marketing advice. I would say so right now. I know that companies normally don't comment, but what you don't want to have happen is everybody thinking you're going to make He-Man and you go make something that's not as exciting as He-Man and put it out in the pinball world. So more to come. I'm going to interview these guys. I look forward to talking to them. You know me. I'm keeping an open mind, but I'm hearing too much about the past. The last thing I want to do when I hear from the new owners of American Pinball is even hear the phrase Galactic Tank Force or Legends of Valhalla and even worse, Barry O's Barbecue Challenge. If I were them, I mean this when I say it. If I were them, I'm just going to give them a swagger move. And I know it's hard for these companies to understand that. If I were them, I would launch this new company with a bonfire. And I would throw every single part that is used to make Barry O's barbecue challenge in a large barbecue. I would light it on fire and I would let the entire pinball world tune in and see that we are burning down the old American pinball to make the greatest new iteration of this company. And I would do that. I would bring the parts down to pinball at the beach, have a beach bonfire and burn the damn parts. And for you sissies out there that are like, that's wasting materials. I don't care. As a dad of two young kids who's now constantly tired, work is really picking up in an insane way. Everybody's worried about losing their job. The world is on fire. We're going to be playing pinball in Greenland. I don't care anymore. I want the world to go back to having a little bit of swagger, do things that are a little bit inappropriate where nobody gets hurt. Burning all of the very old barbecue parts wouldn't hurt anybody, except for you fools and your egos that bought the original game sorry Steven Bowden we're lighting your game on fire you'd be like that would be disrespectful to barry oh again i don't care anymore we're all so sensitive to everything i just want to get back to a damn good laugh okay what else is going on in pinball we are all waiting for pokemon it's clear that it's gonna happen now in February. It's going to be any day now. It's only like 10 days away. It's coming very, very soon. Like all of you out there, we're all very excited to see this thing. We're all wondering if this is going to be a game that showcases Spike 3 to the best of its abilities. No game so far really has. I went on to the Walking Dead remastered thread on Pinside. I'm like, man, there's going to be some activity here, right? People actually bought this game. Remember, The Walking Dead Remastered, it's being built. It's in boxes. You can go have one tomorrow. And all it is is Neil McRae and four other dudes. There's only five pages of conversation in total. Five pages in total. The pinball world is crazy. Stern Pinball spent all this money to remaster a game that nobody wants. Kaneda's Pinball Podcast has more listeners than Colin can get of twippy votes. They used to get 6,000 twippy votes when Kaneda was up for favorite pinball podcast or 6,000 people would vote. Now you remove Kaneda from the ballot, they can barely get 700 people to even care. Wow. Talk about destroying, destroying the very thing. This dude purchased it what a fool what a fool all right so what else is going on in pinball so there's a rumor out there now once we get past pokemon like that brian eddy's next game is going to be an unlicensed theme because that's worked really well for stern pinball in the past black knight was a huge sales calamity that was not even Steve Ritchie's idea i think jared the social media guy jared convinced him that it would work. Didn't work. The rumor is that it might be Dracula, that Brian Eddy is a big fan. And I don't know, maybe Dracula pinball by Stern. Would it be Bram Stoker's Dracula? We've already had it. So to make a modern version of an older game, I will say this, remixing the classics is a big thing now in culture. We're seeing it all over the place. Old books, old novels, being made into modern movies, and so bringing Dracula back to the world of pinball. The thing is this, if you're going to remake Dracula, it needs to have like an enhanced version of that amazing moment in that game, which is still to this day, isn't this crazy to say this, when the magnet grabs the ball and moves it across the play field, that is still cooler than any use of a magnet I've seen since then. The last 15 years with all the money and all the stuff we've spent on pinball people, have you seen any cooler way to use a magnet in a game Have you seen any cooler way to save a ball from the outlanes than the shooting star save in Totem It just funny how as much as we spending on these games the lack of real innovation and magical wow happening in these products is kind of comical Like if I were to ask you right now, where is the mechanical wow in, get ready, Star Wars? Where is the mechanical wow? wow. Harry Potter, you guys would say the revolving staircase. And I might give that to you. It's kind of cool. It's not like a wow. Like my only gripe still with Harry Potter, it's about magic. And the ball doesn't really do anything magical anywhere. Like there should have been something where the ball disappears. The ball goes in over here, comes out over there. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen anywhere in the game. It's still a great shooting game. Don't get me wrong. I still love Harry Potter, but there's not anything magical happening in it. And when you look at a lot of these newer games, it's like there's like really nothing that gives you that suspended state of disbelief. I don't believe what I'm seeing right now. Look how cool that is. I would just ask that broadly. What was the last thing in any pinball machine of modern time that has really done that, that has given you a magical state of disbelief? I actually like that as a creative brief to all these engineers and these designers can we create in every new pinball machine we make moving forward that just a moment of magical disbelief in the game can we do it but you know how it is in pinball shots are the new toys artwork everywhere makes up for a lack of mechs everywhere stern puts silver screws and flat plastics everywhere instead of doing sculpts everything's got cheaper you lift the play field on these games people this is something we don't really talk about but if you really do lift the play field on a lot of these modern games you don't want to do it it's really comical and to use a cargument it's like lifting the hood and yeah like that's an inline four engine most of pinball nowadays is like an inline four or a v6 we used to lift the hood and see a v8 some games have like a v10 or v12 and you know what i mean it's like there's no replacement for displacement and in the world of pinball there's just not going to be a lot of mechs above the wood if underneath the playfield there's not a lot of mechs like there's not a lot of stuff happening it's just flat boards a few wires and just a couple things that are happening mechanically You know, once we started considering diverters to be toys, it really got pretty comical and stupid. And it's weird that people kept defending this stuff for a long time. I think now we're getting back. When we see Winchester and that castle, even though it's not like mechanical mechanical, what it's doing is really magical. It does give you that magical state of disbelief, seeing the way Pepper's ghost is moving around under the glass. I love that. When I see Beetlejuice and the whole game sort of like takes over and has a mind of its own and starts singing the Deo song, magical state of disbelief. What is happening right now in the game? More of that in pinball. More of that in pinball. And I get that some of this stuff gets old over time. I don't care. I'd rather still remember the first moment I experienced it than never have that moment at all. It's like in Guns N' Roses when you get to the wizard mode where the whole game turns off. And it's shall we play a game, Chinese democracy album mode. So awesome. I don't care. Every time I see it, it's kind of awesome. It's super creative. And I'm so glad they did that. And we just need more of that in pinball. When Jaws code turns over into like the 8-bit game. Super cool. More of that in pinball. So that is what's happening in the pinball world these days. Gang, we are just a few weeks away from the dam exploding. I just have to say for all of you out there that are going to pinball at the beach, I hope you have a good time. I would love to be there. I just can't make it. My schedule does not allow me to make it. Brenda's going to be in the city that Friday and has a work dinner. And so I need to be home with the kids. And so I cannot make it. I'm not going to fly down just for Saturday. And it is also Super Bowl weekend. That is a horrible weekend to do this, but I guess you could get home in time for Sunday. I'm just exhausted as it is. I'm tired. I really struggle in January and February. I don't even think it's like a mental health thing. It's more about just fatigue. It's the lack of vitamin D. It's waking up. It's dark. It's cold. It's freezing cold right now. And it's just really difficult. I want sunshine. I want to be out and about. I don't want to be like freezing my ass off walking 10 feet down New York City streets. And also they're forcing us back to work. It is what it is. I like going into work. But you know what? It's like this and it's just Arctic cold. The fact that we're now going to get in trouble if we don't go into the office. I'm tired, people. I'm 49 years old and I feel like every night I still get a homework assignment. I can still get on someone's detention list. and I'm tired. I'm getting to the point in my life where I really need to be liberated from that feeling. It's just, there's only so much you can do before it just consumes you. And for those of you who know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. Some of you out there are business owners and you're like, Kaneda, it only gets worse if you own your business because then there is no time off. There are no vacation days. Every day you're not working, you're not getting paid. I get it, the grass is always greener. everybody happy hump day happy wednesday i'll talk to you soon thank you again for being a subscriber canada out Så 800 metr Sid, so 800 metr C later. Mr monkeys too! Look out, this is the eventually burning core. Hear that? Alright how was that kid standing there laughing? To be continued...