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We are Pinball - Don and Cengiz - Episode 58

JBS Show·podcast_episode·44m 37s·held·Apr 11, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

JBS hosts Don/Cengiz; discuss WAP's rise, Don's hustle, pinball launch wars, and shill accusations.

Summary

Jamie Burchell hosts Don and Cengiz from We Are Pinball on his newly rebranded JBS Show for a two-part crossover episode. The trio discuss WAP's origin story, explosive Patreon growth, Don's multi-hat lifestyle and conference attendance, the podcast's authenticity and positive approach to pinball community, and upcoming game launches including competitive releases from Barrels of Fun, Stern, and Keith Elwin designs. They address accusations of being "shills" and debate launch strategy timing.

Key Claims

  • Cengiz and Don operate seven pinball locations in Denmark with 150 machines in one flagship location, generating significantly more revenue from Raw Thrills arcade machines (10x more) than pinball

    high confidence · Cengiz directly states operation details; establishes distributor role for Pinball Brothers, American Pinball, JJP, and formerly Canceland Pinball but Sam Stern due to exclusivity

  • WAP has reached 150+ Patreon supporters, described as exceptionally high for a hobby podcast

    high confidence · Cengiz explicitly states '50 supporters 100 supporters 150 supporters' and expresses surprise at support level; notes supporters request higher tiers

  • A source has seen the Dune pinball playfield and confirmed it as Barrels of Fun's next release

    medium confidence · Cengiz: 'we have heard from a guy that has seen the playfield. Did he say it was Dune? Yeah, it was Dune.' Cengiz qualifies as rumor but claims insider knowledge of Barrels employees

  • Don drinks 8-10 Diet Cokes daily and is sponsored by Five-Hour Energy

    high confidence · Don directly confirms Diet Coke consumption; Cengiz mentions Five-Hour Energy sponsorship with case delivery

  • Barrels of Fun is releasing a game within approximately one week of Keith Elwin and Stern's unnamed title (alleged Predator)

    medium confidence · Don and Cengiz discuss competitive launch timing; Cengiz states 'Keith Elwin he's the superstar' and criticizes simultaneous releases

  • Keith Elwin games are top revenue generators at location-based venues, driving operator purchasing decisions

    high confidence · Cengiz: 'no matter the tariff no matter prices when the Keith Elwin comes, we order it in an instant' and 'they're just printing out money'

  • WAP produces an additional 45-minute Patreon exclusive show after every main episode

    high confidence · Cengiz questions whether Patreon support is due to extra content: 'Are we getting this kind of support because we're making almost after every show, we make 45 minutes on our extra patron show'

Notable Quotes

  • “I have this personal philosophy I've developed, and I get to do whatever I want. And what I mean by that is anything is possible, really. Whatever you want to do or achieve in life you can do it.”

    Don @ ~mid-episode — Encapsulates Don's drive and philosophy behind his high-energy lifestyle; foundational to his conference attendance and side projects

  • “I want to make a developer position where I could make upwards of $40,000 a year. That's the goal here.”

    Don @ ~mid-episode — Reveals Don's career ambition in pinball development despite current healthcare work; shows aspiration within industry

  • “The positivity is money. I think it's fantastic what you guys do.”

    Jamie Burchell @ ~late-episode — Validates WAP's core strategy and differentiator in crowded podcast landscape

  • “When I listen to the podcast, there's no worries during that time when I'm listening to WAP. Does that make sense? Like I'm not pissed off. I'm not in a bad mood.”

    Jamie Burchell @ ~mid-episode — Articulates WAP's unique value proposition and therapeutic appeal to listeners

  • “Keith Elwin he's the superstar, he's like Michael Jackson 1987 right? He's just next level.”

    Cengiz @ ~late-episode — Establishes Keith Elwin's market dominance and design prestige; contextualizes launch timing concerns

  • “So none of us has any stocks in any pinball companies. Barrels of Fun sells 2 million games, you don't get no money. I don't get no money. Nobody gets money. But we love pinball, and they build new pinball machines, and we're happy for them. How is this Win Schilling?”

    Cengiz @ ~late-episode — Direct refutation of 'shill' accusations; clarifies WAP's crowdfunded model and independent status

  • “There are 52 weeks a year. Maybe the timing wasn't great, but if it's a banger, I hope Barrels just does extremely well.”

    Don @ ~late-episode — Demonstrates pragmatic view of competitive launches; expresses genuine support for Barrels despite timing concerns

Entities

Jamie BurchellpersonDonpersonCengizpersonWe Are Pinballorganization

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: WAP's core appeal identified as authenticity and positive community engagement—hosting genuine conversations rather than curated content, which resonates particularly with listener mental health/wellness; positioned against cynical or sales-driven podcast approaches

    high · Jamie: 'The positivity is money'; Cengiz: 'therapeutic when we enter your show...we're in a much more happier mode'; Don: 'we're not trying to sell a product I don't believe in'

  • ?

    product_launch: Pinball market experiencing simultaneous high-profile launches (Barrels/Dune, Keith Elwin/Kong, Stern/TBD) creating congested release window; industry commentary suggests this is poor strategy for all parties; last comparable event was March 2023 TPF launch with 8+ simultaneous games

    high · Don: 'this is nuts man it hasn't happened since that march a couple years ago'; Cengiz: 'I think every other company that releases...at the same week as a Keith Elwin design game is a huge fail'

  • $

    market_signal: Keith Elwin established as market tier-1 designer; operators and collectors will prioritize his releases regardless of cost or tariff; location-based venues specifically seeking Elwin games for revenue impact

    high · Cengiz: 'no matter the tariff no matter prices when the Keith Hilden Games comes, we order it in an instant' and 'they're just printing out money'; tournament venue operator mandates Elwin games

  • ?

    business_signal: WAP Patreon supporters (150+) significantly outperforming typical hobby podcast benchmarks (~$5/month standard); community explicitly stating show has therapeutic value driving tipping behavior; unclear if growth driven by free content + bonus episodes or core show appeal

    high · Cengiz: '50 supporters 100 supporters 150 supporters...usually this patreon stuff is like five dollars a month...and our walk team supporters they're like you need to make the next tier'; supporter message: 'Your show is therapeutic'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.134

0:00
Hello and Welcome to episode 58, ladies and gentlemen, of my rebranded podcast. We're calling it JBS Show with myself as your host, Jamie Burchill. And today we have two exciting guests. We're going to do something a little different here today. I've got Don and Genghis from We Are Pinball. Hey, boys. Hey, yes. What's up? What up? So this is really fun. We're going to do a two-parter, right? We're going to put the first part on my new rebranded podcast, and then we're going to put part two on We Are Pinball WAP. How are you guys?
1:00
Phenomenal. This is awesome. I'm feeling great. This is the first time I'm seeing Jamie face-to-face, and I'm just enjoying it. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for the invite, Jamie, and this is a great idea with a two-part show, and congratulations with the new show. Thank you so much. We just had a little confusion on whose show we were going to both do. You know, we had a booking agent problem, boys, but we figured it out this morning. Don, the producer of WAP, apparently you must be the producer, Don, because you figured this all out for us. Generating galactic content is my conquest. Let's start off. I guess we should talk about my announcement, right? What's going on with me? Let's go. I want to hear about the Just BS podcast you're starting. Yes. You know what? I'm just so excited. I'm too excited to talk to you two to not talk about what happened to me. How about that? That's what everybody wants to know. Nobody wants to know what the hell happened to me and why I'm starting a new podcast. Oh, my God. Come on. No one wants to know. We want to know what's up with you two. That's the most important thing, right? Okay, perfect. All right. So let's just – how about that deflection? Did you like that? It's perfect. So you can interview us here, and when we jump over to the WAP show, we will do it the other way around. All right. I love it. Okay. Here we go. Let's just start off. My interviews are very informal. Don has already been on the podcast, Genghis. I don't know where you've been, but Don started me out. So Don kind of gets the – he knows what I'm about. So my question to start is how the hell did you two hook up? well it turns out we were both dating the same dental hygienist as amazing as that is that's his name was bradley he was phenomenal but he was too much for either one of us together but we consolidated our love with each other during that breakup process and it just bloomed from there so it's a natural pinball love love to riches story all right all right that's not how i remember it but it was yeah how do you remember it jangas tanya hasn't been sleeping for four so yeah it is what it is so well actually i was at um chris coluris's show that's called canada's pinball podcast yeah and uh donnie was in there at the uh at the chat in there and i actually yeah i met him in there and then we started you know talking to each other throughout this beautiful hobby because pinball gets us pinball people together that's one of the best part of this beautiful hobby getting new friendships all the time so um we were talking and all of a sudden one of one of us i don't remember if it was donnie or me we were like dude we should do a show together we're both born in 1979 we both love pinball we're both positive and yeah just we just hit it and one day one day i was out playing paddle and at the entrance it said we are paddle and i took a picture of it and i called donnie and i sent him the picture i said look at this we are paddled shouldn't we do this and just call it we are pinball and he was like heck yeah and we just roll with it i love this origin story god we are pinballed that's it jayme i was doing my i was doing my solo podcast and listen to these other casts and i'm like wouldn't it be nice to do a more long form conversational thing instead of me just screaming into the void for 30 minutes and so i was trying to find someone i could partner with that understood pinball had time and like knew how to record and so i met this guy and you know we've been hitting it off and being pretty awesome together we went through so many stupid names like how about the international pinbro consortium or something and then like and then i'm like i don't know what this what's going to happen he texts me that picture from we are paddle and i'm like oh my god is there a way that we can have like a nice t-shirt with a big WAP logo on it and have people legitimately wear that to pinball shows around and just have WAP everywhere. It was perfect. So then, yeah, we just got together and started talking pinball. And the rest is history. Why so much rap, though? You know, there's a lot of famous European rock stars. No drop the leg, get the lead out. No Led Zeppelin here. I don't understand all the rap. Is that rock already available? We're from 1979. I mean, our generation, we grew up with Tupac, with Snoop Dogg, and we're West Side Guys. We love the rap. But to be honest, we love rock and roll also. I mean, Iron Maiden, one of my favorite pinball machines. I love every time I see somebody say, Iron Maiden is a great game, great layout, but the music sucks. I'm like, what? The music is awesome in Iron Maiden. I don't get it. The music in Metallica is awesome.

  • Don has attended every major pinball conference and is planning to attend Barrels of Fun event on April 15 and Stern Chicago event on April 17

    high confidence · Jamie references Don's omnipresence: 'I don't know if there's one that he doesn't go to'; Don confirms plan to attend both events

    • Barrels of Fun
    company
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Keith Elwinperson
    Ryan Greggperson
    JBS Showproduct
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Canceland Pinballcompany
    Raw Thrillscompany
    Ralphperson
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Konggame
    Dunegame
    Star Wars (Premium)game
    Iron Maidengame
    Metallicagame
    Pinball Expoevent
    Thunder Dolphinproduct
  • ?

    content_signal: Cross-promotional podcast partnerships emerging (JBS/WAP two-part episode split); reflects growth of pinball podcast ecosystem and audience overlap; creators leveraging partner reach to expand platforms

    medium · Jamie established JBS Show with separate hosting team but partners with WAP for cross-promotion; Cengiz discovered JAMie via Retro Ralph show appearance and initiated collaboration

  • ?

    industry_signal: Industry-wide criticism of positive podcast coverage as promotional ('shills'); WAP and others defending by emphasizing crowdfunding model, lack of ad revenue, and genuine enthusiasm rather than paid promotion; tension between positivity/authenticity and credibility

    high · Jamie: 'I see Win Schilling as trying to sell a product I don't believe in'; Cengiz: 'So none of us has any stocks...If Barrels sells 2 million games, you don't get no money...How is this Win Schilling?'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Danish operator/distributor (Cengiz) managing 7 locations with 150-machine flagship; Raw Thrills arcade games (10x revenue multiplier) subsidizing pinball inventory; exclusivity deals with Stern preventing diversified manufacturer relationships; import/tariff challenges creating operational stress

    high · Cengiz: 'we have seven locations here in Denmark...making good money on pinball, but making a lot, lot more money on Raw Thrills...only five pinballs on every location'; 'only company we're not selling from is actually Stern because if you want to sell Stern, they want us to not sell for the other companies'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Don identified as omnipresent across all pinball conferences and events; works multiple jobs to fund conference attendance; indicates strong personal network and insider access; positions him as key community connector

    high · Jamie: 'I don't know if there's one that he doesn't go to'; Don: working healthcare shifts enabling 4-day work weeks to fund Stern Premium/Pro purchases and conference travel; plans April 15 Barrels/April 17 Stern events

  • ?

    machine_intel: Industry commentary on Barrels of Fun launch timing strategy; debate whether they should have delayed to Pinball Expo for uncontested launch window vs. maintaining commitment to 'game in box ready' launch philosophy; timing described as 'worst position' against Elwin/Stern

    medium · Don: 'if they had gotten out there three more weeks...they would have stolen all the thunder from everything...Right now they're buried in a week with Stern and Zellwein. I can't think of a worse position to launch against'

  • ?

    product_concern: Single component failure (sculpt from China) can delay game 6+ weeks; pinball machines contain 10,000+ parts creating cumulative risk for launch timing; explains difficulty hitting simultaneous multi-manufacturer release windows

    high · Don: '10,000 parts in a pinball machine. One sculpt that comes back ugly from China will delay you six weeks or more. You know, so it's hard to hit that'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Unconfirmed reports of Stern game (allegedly Predator) launching in competitive window with Barrels/Elwin; Cengiz refuses to confirm details citing source confidentiality despite claimed insider knowledge of Stern employees

    low · Don: 'allegedly kong versus dune...versus predator...you're supposed to crash in here'; Cengiz: 'The other game is Stern's game, so I cannot, not Kong, but the next game nothing' (refuses to elaborate)

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Dune IP chosen for Barrels game positioned as strong thematic selection; references to Dune videogames/movies providing cultural touchstones; theme licensing strategy seen as learning from first game's theme reception issues

    medium · Cengiz: 'Dune is awesome man...I grew up playing the Dune games...the movies games everything great universe i am so excited'; contrasts with first Barrels game theme reception

    • 6:07
    But, yeah, the rap, I mean, Donnie is more rapped out than I am, actually. I know, Genghis. Like, put your foot down. Get some Led Zeppelin in there. I love Led Zeppelin, man. But also, like, I'm from Europe. I love the European trash, you know.
    6:24
    You know, happy music. There he goes. Yes, yes, yes, man. There he goes. It's all about smiling. You got to save that for your podcast, Don. Yes, use it in there. All right, so Albert, you're an operator, right? I mean, I don't like to say I am because it is my brother here that I just love. I mean, he's doing everything, but his pinball love started actually because of me, and we're doing everything together and have seven locations here in Denmark. Wow. Yeah, making good money on pinball, but making a lot, lot more money on Raw Thrills arcade machines, like 10 times more. So we have like five pinballs on every location, or most of the location, only five. One huge location with like 150 pinball machines in there. We have everything in there. We also have a showroom in there because we are also distros for Pinball Brothers, for American Pinball, for JJP, for what was the Superloop company that burned down last year? Cancel Pinball? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the only company we're not selling from is actually Stern because if you want to sell Stern, they want us to not sell for the other companies.
    7:50
    And my brother is a huge JJP fan. Like, he loves, we have all the JJP games everywhere. So, yeah. Yeah.
    7:59
    All right. Genghis, we need to figure out some things about Don. We need to delve into Don. Because I had him on the podcast, but we didn't go deep enough with him. So let's ask Don some questions. First of all, Donnie, I'm going to call you Donnie because Genghis calls you Donnie. Yeah.
    8:17
    Orbital Albert says that you work for Burger King. Yes. Okay. Your Facebook says that you're a barista, but I've seen you in scrubs. What the hell are you doing? Can you say what you do? What's going on? I wear so many hats, you know. And some of the funniest things are when I do comment online on some kind of highbrow something or other, and people go to my profile, they're like, it says he's chief bread dipper at Aunt Annie's at the mall. That's right. And that's hilarious to me. I've kind of done everything from being a tire technician. I've driven a forklift. I delivered pizzas for two different places. I've been a short order cook. I got myself into health care somehow and worked my way up from a transporter, a volunteer, a receptionist, a front end clerk, a file clerk, an x-ray tech. I do medicine stuff now. It's kind of a dead end position. But then what I'd really like to do is go into pinball and lock down a developer position where I could make upwards of $40,000 a year. That's the goal here. All right. So we need to – how does Donnie get to go to all these conferences? How does he go to every single one of them? I don't know if there's one that he doesn't go to because I just didn't know if running the Burger King was that lucrative.
    9:35
    Jamie, when I talk with this guy, he's at work. I mean at night he's at work and throughout the day he's at work. He works a lot. And while we're talking, these beautiful nurses, they're knocking on his door. Mr. Garrison, can you please help me? They're just so nice looking, you know. So he's working a lot. And that's cool. And he's like, when he worked like for four days, he hits me up. He's like, I just made so much money that I can buy another Stern Pro now or a premium now. So he's balling. But he loves these shows. The last NGC show he went to, he was tired. I mean, he just got out of work, but he was like, I'm going to do it. So he drove anyway, took to MGC. And my first question was, how is Monica down with this? Doesn't she miss you? And he's like, yes, she does. But he has just this, I have been doing this for 20 years. And meeting Donnie that has been doing this for about two years now, he has so much pinball passion and energy in him. And it's just all that positive pinball energy. I'm getting feeded by that, and it's just so beautiful. More of that. We need more of that in this hobby. There's a T-shirt idea for you, pinball passion, boy. That's yours. You can have it. I don't need it. I have this personal philosophy I've developed, and I get to do whatever I want. And what I mean by that is anything is possible, really. Whatever you want to do or achieve in life you can do it Now you may not be willing to put in all of the sacrifice and the time and money and sweat equity and everything to make it happen but nothing is truly closed off from you If you want to buy a car, there's a way to get it. It may be extra shifts. It may be some side hustles, some crypto luck or something, but you can get there if you persevere for it. If you want to go to Tokyo, Japan, and you've got no money like I did and I was living in a car, I managed to work backwards from getting my butt on this roller coaster called Thunder Dolphin, and then I systematically figured out all the steps I had to achieve in order to get my ass on Thunder Dolphin, and I did it, and it was amazing. Since then, anything is really possible. You thought you were just coming to a rebranding podcast, but it's really a Tony Robbins podcast. I've got a whole talk on this, brother. It is absolutely fantastic. Congratulations. I just don't know how he has time for all the social media. He started a new podcast, Cengiz.
    12:05
    Don's Magic, right? Don of the Magic, yeah. Let's talk theme parks and roller coasters and fun stuff and log flumes and flying saucers and dark rides. Yeah, I love it. Anything having to do with themed entertainment and playing around in it, whether it's a theme park land or a pinball play field, like I'm down.
    12:22
    And now he's sponsored by an energy drink company. so he's getting free energy drinks that will hold him up for like five hours with full-on pumped-up energy, and he drinks six of those every day, so more energy. Congratulations, Donnie. I'm trying to get – what's the name of the energy drink? Oh, a case of five-hour energy showed up on my doorstep the other day, so I've been handing them out and acting like a big shot. You know, I've been pumping Diet Coke for a while, and they don't give me nothing. I drink 8 to 10 a day. Come on. Help me out, DC.
    13:01
    I don't even get you to normal anymore. Guys, I'm a European guy. I just want to ask, do you literally drink 8 to 10 Cokes a day? Diet Coke. Or is it just something you're saying, Tanya and Johnny? No, I really do. I drink 8 to 10 Diet Cokes a day. But aren't you afraid of, you know, obesity and stuff like that? It's Diet Coke. There's no calories. There's something else in them, aren't there? Aren't there some sort of sweeteners, something, something? I don't know. It's called aspartame, man. It's called aspartame and it's delicious. Aspartame. It's a diabetide protein. Isn't it something like you cannot get kids when you get too much of that stuff? Good. I'm 52. I don't want to have kids. Oh, you look not a day over 40. I'm telling you, buddy. No, I'll tell you what. What a beautiful guy. The fact that you guys are born in 1979 and I was born in 73. I was talking to Ralph last night. We think Don is like 34 years old.
    14:08
    We're like, this guy has the energy for a 34-year-old. It's all the energy from Monica. He's getting all the love and support from home. That must be it, man. That must be it. Oh, staying retro Ralph. He's from 1979 also. Oh, yeah, baby. Oh, yeah. Here, I'll give you one of these.
    14:29
    That's for you, boys. That fuels me. That's for you, boys. All right, let's switch to Patreon. Are you surprised at the tremendous amount of support that you guys have been getting on Patreon?
    14:42
    I am. How humbling is that, dude? Seriously, it's just – now, this is – again, my english is not the best so i have to be careful how do i think you're doing great oh thank you um usually this patreon stuff is like five dollars a month right right hobby that that's that's the norm and we're just you know getting 50 supporters 100 supporters 150 supporters and also our our walk team supporters they're like you need to make the next tier because we want to support you guys more your show is therapeutic when we enter your show and you know exit your show we're in a much more happier mode we're just happy it's just all about smiling and happiness you know i want to read something if you uh if it's okay with you so please yeah so like 20 minutes ago we got a new supporter right um so donnie who was driving so i wrote to uh this new supporter his name is brandon and so i i wrote to him welcome to the wop team buddy love to have you here another great supporter right and he and brandon writes this back thank you proud to support and be a part of the community you guys are the best i'm like this this is how it is i'm like i'm speechless man this this is the and and other other They're actually also YouTubers. I've been doing this for many years. They're like, what the heck are you guys doing? And to be honest, Donnie, what are we doing, man? So, right, you start an enterprise like this, and you're screaming into the void. If you get five people that listen to it, you're excited, right? Right. And then I think what we have, trying to be as objective as I can, is just like an authenticity because what we're recording is what we're doing anyway. Like we're having these conversations and getting stupid and discussing like the pluses and minuses of everything. We're in this hobby because we genuinely have a lot of fun and do it. And I think that's what comes through. And yes, games are too expensive and toppers are overpriced and companies make questionable decisions on theme. You know, but we don't need to necessarily harp on that because it's just not it's not fun to do that. And so that part of it doesn't occur to me very much. So people are like, well, you're so positive. Or, you know, we get that. Well, you guys are just chilling. And it's like, I see shilling as trying to sell a product I don't believe in, right? You know, like if I was a salesman. That's not what we're doing. I'm having fun playing stuff. I got a Star Wars premium behind me. And every time I blow up the Death Star or hit that damn ramp or, God willing, get more than one ball up there at a time, like it's phenomenal to me. And so I'm going to talk about that.
    17:32
    Why don't you go 100% Patreon? So that is a way. I think, you know, of course, the Patreon members would go up if that happened. but I think you've got to build your reach too. And so it would be a hard sell to have everything behind a paywall and nothing there to really attract and bring in new people. Plus, I mean, how much more fun is it to be authentic and build a community that just like organically supports you because they like what you're doing and they can bring their friends in and bring their grandma in and their wiener dog and everybody?
    18:03
    I actually want to know. Now, it's really hard to know this, But are we getting this kind of support because we're making almost after every show, we make 45 minutes on our extra patron show. Are we getting the support because we're making these shows after every show? Or is it because people are just enjoying the show and giving us this tip jar kind of support? How do we know what's going on about that? It's a hard question, right? I think you're going to have to hire a social media marketing firm to figure that one out. But I think you guys are really, I do love the pinball positivity. I listen to all the pinball podcasts almost, right? I listen to a lot of them. And when you guys first hit the scene, I got a big chuckle out of you. And I was like, because I go on long walks. I just walk. I'll do like three, four miles and I'll just walk. And when I listen to the podcast, there's no worries during that time when I'm listening to WAP. Does that make sense? Like I'm not pissed off. I'm not in a bad mood. I'm already walking four miles, so I'm irritated as it is. So it's like I might as well listen to WAP and laugh. And so that's what I think you guys have done so well. And congrats on that. Thank you. I mean, the way this collaboration happened is actually, so Jamie was on the What's Retro Ralph flip on the flip side. Yeah, he was on the flip side show. Right, yeah. And it's a podcast, but it's also a YouTube show. So it was running on the TV while I was repairing my tail from the rear bay knife. And it was just running in the background. All of a sudden, these two awesome guys are talking. And Jamie says that he loves to listen to podcasts. And he listens to a lot of podcasts. And after that sentence, Jamie says, I love to listen to WAP. And I'm like, what? I just dropped everything. I was like, what's going on? Somebody said WAP again. What's going on? And I looked at the screen and Jamie's eyes were just lit up. And these guys are so positive. This is so good. And, you know, we also had Retro Ref in there. So he's a friend of the show. He was like, yeah, man, love to listen to those guys. And in an instant, I called Donnie up. Donnie, did you see this? And he's like, oh, heck yeah. And I was like, I want that Jamie guy in our show. And he's like, oh, man, Jamie is the best. Yeah, let's do this. and yeah like 10 minutes before we we recorded this we were just talking freestyling and jamie was yeah you're gonna come into my show right and don and i was like you're coming to what right what's going on but we found out about this and this is just this is beautiful this is this is beautiful because we'll do mine first and then we'll go and we'll go do yours but uh no look in all seriousness i think the positivity is money i think it's fantastic what you guys do I really dig it. I get a kick out of Don every time I see him at these media events. I'm going to see Don. Don's going to be sick of me, to be honest with you, because Don must have United Airlines, whatever, he flies anything he can to get to these places because I'm going to see him on tax day April 15th at Barrels of Fun. Right, Don? As long as I can find a trucker to pick me up, I'll be there, yeah. Do you need a pickup at the airport? No, no, I'm thumbing my way across the United States. I'm doing this authentic style. Well, I can't help you with that, but I can see you there on April 15th. And then April 17th, I'm going to see you again in Stern in Chicago. Trucker willing, I'm there. Yeah, that's going to be amazing. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So let's talk pinball, boys. Oh, yeah. How about these launches that everyone, I mean, it's crazy what's happening here. They're coming in waves. The first round happened Merlin Arcade versus Portal Fun times Spooky was pre it They the only ones with any real strategy in this whole thing they release unopposed and sell out and then they just build all year um but like second round the big one coming up right this is kong versus dune allegedly uh versus uh predator at some point you're supposed to crash in here so it's like you know like this is this is nuts man it's happening it hasn't happened since that march a couple years ago we got galactic tank force and seven other games at the same time yeah godfather galactic uh scooby-doo and what was sterns
    22:50
    rush no one of them no i remember but it was this huge that was a tpf in like 2023 wasn't it was just awesome unbelievable yeah yeah that was awesome i mean we have so many days in a year so many weeks in a year i think every other company that releases a pinball game that takes them like one to two years to develop and build and everything to release a game at the same week as a keith elwynn design game is a huge fail that's just how i feel because so many people in this hobby they just love keith elwynn games right i mean they're just right yeah they're just different his design is different his coding team is different we all love keith elwyns and on location elwyn games are just pumping in money one of our location in copenhagen is a tournament players based location they want the newest games and they want all keith elwyn games in there and we're like no matter what no matter the tariff no matter prices when the Keith Hilden Games comes, we order it in an instant, fly to Denmark. I'm the first one that unboxed them in the whale on my YouTube channel, and we put it out on that location, and they're just printing out money. So this Dune game coming out like two days before. I don't know if it's Dune, though. I don't have an absolute clue. I literally know everyone that works there almost, and I have no idea what it is. I mean, we have heard, this is just rumor again, we have heard from a guy that has seen the play field. Did he say it was Dune? Yeah, it was Dune. It can be, you know, rumors, I don't know, but he's seen the Dune play field.
    24:46
    He has also seen, can I say more? No, he has seen Dune. The other game is Stern's game, so I cannot, not Kong, but the next game nothing oh a little pokemon little pokemon as we're here look i i think don what do you think about how barrels handled the launch because it's been a point of contention for a lot of people i i i love the strategy of having a game in a box ready to go when you launch so it's like hey here's our new game here's our sizzle reel trailer here's a bunch of talking heads talking about it also your distributor has one in stock right now to go pick up today Also, it's over at Ace Goge. It's over at District whatever. Go play it right now. Like, that's really cool, but it's hard to pull off because so many things have to happen. You know, 10,000 parts in a pinball machine. One sculpt that comes back ugly from China will delay you six weeks or more. You know, so it's hard to hit that. And so you've got to be strategic when it comes to these launches. Like, when you're in that launch window, we've got a game coming out in the next six weeks. You've got to forecast, like, okay, who's releasing, and is there any way we can avoid releasing on top of something else, right? can we get out there and capture the money that's free in the market before something else comes out and everybody was looking at TPF and those to be announced slots that Barrels had and if it was going to be three more weeks until those first ten games were in boxes that would have been such a great place to have game of the show and steal all the thunder from everything and then hear Jack saying not one dime and you run over and grab a Barrels game so I kind of think they could have stepped away from their commitment to have everything in box ready just to be at that show and then get the media blast and everything. Because right now they're buried in a week with Stern and Zellwein. I can't think of a worse position to launch against. Unless they have a banger, right? What if it's a banger?
    26:39
    So I don't know what the theme is. I've heard rumors, but I haven't heard anything official. But what I have heard is that the people involved at Barrels that have been playtesting this thing for months are really excited about it. And they said, even if you don't like the IP, this is still a solid amazing game so i can't i'm excited man i can't wait to go down there and see it well i can't wait to see you too but what go ahead jengis what did history teach us if we just take a step back and look at what barrels did when they entered this hobby they did it the right way when they came up with their first game it had beautiful artwork beautiful light show great code from the early stages and you know shots on layout, toys everything was great except the theme for me, for many people yeah, but this time the theme for me, Dune is awesome man yeah I love Dune and I grew up playing the Dune games I didn't read the book from 1966, Frank Herbert's book but the movies games everything great universe i am so excited because i have for a year i've been saying i love this company what they have been doing because i i am as a distro i'm really fed up with companies that want to have deposit money give us two thousand of your money and then wait for two years because yeah the customers are like what the heck is going on man i mean they cannot get their money back and now with tariff if we want to talk about that on this show but it's just it's just chaos so i am excited i'm i'm rooting for this company i'm rooting for barrels but again against keith elwynn he's the superstar he's like he's michael jackson 1987 right he's just he's he's next level i mean yeah he's pretty impressive but you know what i i think there's There are 52 weeks a year.
    28:45
    Maybe the timing wasn't great, but if it's a banger, I hope Barrels just does extremely well. You know I'm rooting for them. Call me a shill. I don't give a rat.
    28:57
    They're great people, and I can't wait to see it. And if I love it, I'm going to tell everyone about it. So I'm real excited about it. Jamie, I have a question. As a European, this shill word, this shill word. So none of us has any stocks in any pinball companies. If Barrels sells 2 million games. Well, they're all private. It would be hard. Yeah, yeah. That's it. So if Barrels sells 2 million games, you don't get no money. I don't get no money. Nobody gets money. But we love pinball, and they build new pinball machines, and we're happy for them. How is this shilling? How does this shill work? So can you just explain it for the love of me? Because some people are like, Warp is just a shill show. Okay. But how? Why? When? Where do we get the checks? When are they coming? I don't know, man. I'd really like some checks. Checks would be nice for me. I've been doing all this crap for free on the podcast for a while, so I could use a couple of bucks. But, you know, look, I don't know where this show started. I know Ralph gets some crap about being a show for Stern. It's all bologna and cheese to me. I think Stern makes great machines. How do you not be positive about that? Okay. The flippers are amazing. Why is he a shill? It's baloney.
    30:13
    Yeah. But, like, I'm not telling anybody to go run out and get a Venom Pro or something now. They're flying off the shelf. Get them while you can, man. My distributor, he said he only has one left. You better act fast. Like, I wouldn't do that. And we're crowdfunded, man. Look at our Patreon. That's amazing. Yeah, you don't take advertisers except, you know, five-hour energy apparently now.
    30:35
    Hey, if you want to send me stuff, I'll talk about it. All right, boys, we're running out of time on my podcast, so we're going to do a little game called the Hurry Up, and then we'll talk tariffs and all this great stuff on your podcast. How about that? All right? Let's do it. You guys ready for the Hurry Up? The Hurry Up is a fun little game that my boy Donovan Wade came up with where it's like a lightning round of speed questions, but no one does this well. I'm going to be honest with you. They go very long, but it's okay. Is it yes or no? Is it yes or no answer? It's just baloney questions that I come up with late at night. When you were texting me last night, I was writing the hurry up, okay? Oh, okay. So it's – Go. All right, Don. Here we go. Insert music. What's real exciting is I have an editor. You guys don't have an editor. What the heck? You just made a new show. You have an editor? I've had an editor since I started. You guys need an editor. Come on, you rat, for God's sakes. Oh, man. Don, you can't be doing all this crap by yourself, okay? You're going to burn out.
    31:44
    Do we have Patreon supporters, a lot of Patreon supporters? Do we get something like we are getting every week or something? How does it work with your brand-new show, Jamie? Did you get your supporters from the last show, or how does it work? One day I was at an arcade, and a kid came up to me, and he said, do you really do all this podcast stuff? And I said, yeah. And he goes, you know, I'm going to University of Texas and I'm trying to be a videographer. Can I work on your podcast for free so that I can have some experience? And I said, no. No, I said yes. Why would I say no? I said, yeah, of course. Why would I not do that? That's a no-brainer.
    32:34
    And the dude's Outstanding. Shout out to Ryan Gregg. I love you so much. You're outstanding. Yeah. And I really like you. He's sweet as pie. He does all my editing, and it makes it a lot easier. So this particular podcast usually comes out on Friday. So when do you post yours? Right away, right? Today. When we record, we edit nothing. We record, and I say, Donnie, this was awesome. and he's like, yeah, man, I will just upload it and send you a link, share it with your All right, well, don't put this out till Friday. Don't, don't, we had a lot of confusion before the podcast. Let's get this set. Don't put it out till Friday. I usually put it out around six in the morning my time. Okay Jamie I want to ask you why Why are you Friday Why I like when I do a podcast and I want people to kind of get used to oh it Friday Jamie's coming out with a podcast. Oh, okay. So how do we do this? Because yesterday we actually made a short show and we said to everybody we will have Jamie. Yeah, I know. I heard that. We will have Jamie there. Here's what we'll do. We will put this up and we'll set a timer so it will go live on Friday simultaneously with his show. But we could always jump on the Patreon. Oh, yeah. We can show up on Patreon. So you guys have Patreon. I don't have Patreon. You can add so much more. It's perfect. All right. Let's get to the hurry up. Let's get to the hurry up because I'm taking too much time. This is Donnie's question, right? Yeah, Don. Favorite show or convention that you've been to over the past two years? Oh, God. Probably Expo last year. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, I was on the show floor the entire time. I went to zero seminars. Not because I didn't want to. Just because it was just going from booth to booth, the person to person, to homebrew, to whatever, to here's a shot of stuff. Here's buying stuff from the poor man's tribe. It was just like bedlam. And then go around, let's do a live stream. and it was just like a 24-hour clock that didn't stop the entire time. And I didn't realize how exhausted I got until the end. I couldn't stand up anymore. My feet hurt with the lack of carpet. Hey, Rob Burke, FYI, carpet, maybe. I don't know. That might work. I wound up hanging out with Stern the most of the time because they had carpet.
    35:08
    Stern carpet's nice, yeah. It was nice. That's where most people were because they were in line for Metallica Remastered. Yeah, the second night. That was crazy. Jengis, I heard that Pinball Brothers does not have Arnold for their latest game, Predator. Is there any truth to the rumor that you're going to be doing the call-outs for Pinball Brothers, Predator?
    35:34
    Jamie, it's a bomb. Get out of there. Yeah, say get to the chopper for me, will you? Get to the chopper, Jamie. Go!
    35:43
    Get to the chopper! No, man, it was just a, you know, April 1st full thing that was just going on out there. But people are still writing, you have to do it, Cengiz, you have to do it. But they need Arnold in there. They need everything, man. I will get heartbroken if that game isn't the game of the decade. It's my favorite theme. It's an Abba re-theme. You know that, right? No. Stop it, Doug. No. It's not an Abba re-theme. not an aviary boy all right on there don you recently painted yourself completely blue for an avatar unboxing absolutely my question to you is do you know who daniel day lewis says oh my god the method of all methods all right so me and ralph want to know if you went full method did you climb trees before you filmed this right yeah the only thing i was missing was the tail i I had it coiled in my skin-tight suit there.
    36:47
    Did you go full blue is the other question that Ralph and I want to know. Was my wife covered with blue paint? Yeah.
    36:55
    Absolutely, 100%. I still got blue paint all over the house. It's all over the rug. It's underneath the game for some reason. I have no idea how that happened. My rug is blue. I had to go complete. There's no half measures. Full method acting. People were calling you Avatar on set. It was a full.
    37:15
    I tried to bond with a couple of animals in the neighborhood. I had mixed responses with that, but I think overall it was a restraining order.
    37:24
    Cengiz, this question is not as fun. I'm sorry. What's your favorite Danish food, and should we be Googling the recipe of this Danish food that you love? I eat Italian food. I don't really have no favorite Danish food, no. So, sorry. I like pizza, spaghetti, Italian food, and meat. So, no Danish. I'm so sorry. You don't like salted ugankraut or whatever?
    37:51
    I was Googling last night. We have a lot of Danish cakes, you know, Dane cakes. So, I love that stuff. But in here, we don't drink 10 bottles of Coca-Cola here. We don't just drink or eat cakes all the time. We have bicycles. We are minimalistic. We have small cars, small engines. My car has three cylinders in there, so we're very not Americano. When I come and visit you, do you have ice? Because I heard Europeans don't have a lot of ice, and that's going to piss me off if I come over there.
    38:27
    I mean, we can fix up some ice, but we have ice cold tap water that's clean. See, that's the problem with the Euros. We have water here. I don't drink water. I drink Diet Coke. There's water here. It's right in here. Yeah. We drink water here, and we sell Vigovia and Ozempic to the United States. Now you know why we're sending all that medicine. We're getting so rich because of all that medicine. Oh, I know. And with tariffs, we're going to get really fat again. We're going to get really, really fat again. All right, Don, last question for you. Disney or Universal? There's room in my heart for both. Why do people ask me that? There's, like, as far as I'm concerned, there are seven major theme parks in the Orlando region, and I have a pass to both. I hop between them both. The same Imagineers work on the same attractions at each park. So it depends on my mood, you know. Universal has been a lot more inclusive. Disney's got the Magic and the monorails. So there's a non-answer for you. I don't know. If you were going and you haven't been to either, like, I think Disney is required by law. But, yeah, Universal is not even, like, a step below. They're on par. I worked at Universal Studios when I was 17 years old. I thought I recognized you. Yeah, I worked. You were a little young kid walking, and I remember meeting you. Anyway, I worked at Universal one summer. Yeah, in the Woody Woodpecker suit, or were you Papa? No, I was the most boring job in the world. It sucked.
    39:58
    My buddy's father was director of ride and show for all Universal Studios, right? So he got me a job, and I'm thinking, this is great. I'm going to work at Jaws. I'm going to be on the boat. I'm going to be doing all this shit.
    40:13
    You know what I did? You know those carts that sell, like, pretzels? Oh, you were, like, outdoor vending? No, I was even worse than that. I brought the pretzels to the cart. I didn't even get to the cart monkey. I was a cart boy, whatever the hell it was. I was a stalker. And it was the worst damn job in the history of – but I made like $7.25 an hour thinking I was a baller at 17 years old. Now, as someone who's spent a fair amount of time as a stalker, it can be exhilarating, usually not for the victim. But for myself, I find it quite thrilling. Oh, you mean actually stalking the thing. Yeah, not stalking. Stalking. Forgive me. The New York accent comes out, Genghis, occasionally. But that's what I did for Universe Studios. And then the next year, boys, I went to 825 at Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. So take that. As an 18-year-old young man. That's 1972 money, so that's pretty good. Okay, Jamie, I have one for you. Extra ball or multi-ball?
    41:19
    You know, if it's in my house, it's an extra ball because I want to try to complete something. if it's on location I'll take the multi-ball because I'm probably playing competitive pinball oh nice drop down targets or spinners I like ripping spinners oh hell yeah do you like them old games old classics like featherman you know from that era of games not really I'll deal with them but not really I'd much rather play Jurassic Park than play Beatles okay okay so okay so you're into the newer games like donnie because yeah me and donnie are very but you know medieval madness is my one of my favorite machines ever made so i still love the 90s yeah it's a great game so we always talk about newer games new launches but on one of our episodes we had um we had kael hernandez in there and if you listen to that show there is a like 10 minute talk where donnie is like what are these two guys talking about and we go totally ape shit on the 70s on the 80s all those games and he knows so much about those old games and i have been doing this for 20 years for like oh man that's the that old game with those spinner sounds and everything it's just yeah and i and on patreon people has been writing why are you two guys always talking about new games let's talk about some you know 90s 80s also so i was like maybe jamie was down on that also but you like the new stuff also i like them all i i i would say if it's system 11 i love them system 6 is where i'm like i i like it but anything prior to that i'm like okay i'm so theme wise theme wise all right wait a minute don't you think we should get to your podcast right now is or is this your podcast let's now you're taking over, Genghis. Let's do this. Let's stop it.
    43:17
    Let's stop. Let's say our goodbyes, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining the JBS show. My first episode is a rebrand.
    43:25
    Do me a favor. You need to go over to WAP right now. It's not going to be on Patreon. It's going to be on their show. All right? Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me. I love these two. They have been really great. Donnie, I'm going to see you very, very shortly soon. Thank you, Jamie. Always a Check us out. And, Genghis, listen, get a passport, brother. Come over here. Oh, I have Danish passport. I have direct access to the United States. We are brothers, man, our two countries. So I don't need a green card. I can just come there. So bring your brother for Harry Potter. If JJP lets us come for Harry Potter, you come, all right? Heck, yeah. I would love it. Jamie, thank you for the invite. Thank you, boys. And congratulations with the new show. We hope you're the best, man. Absolutely.
    44:14
    I'm having a ball, and I'm going to continue doing it. Boys, God bless. Thank you.