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Episode 208 – Sometimes Cringy

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 39m·analyzed·Jun 14, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Slam Tilt 208: Charity success, code complaints, Space Hunt review, Godzilla topper critique, restoration updates.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast episode featuring guest Chris Davis from Starrcade Arcade discussing charity donations ($5,906.20 to suicide prevention), pinball game code updates (James Bond's restrictive Q mechanic, Star Wars's 007 scoring rarity), the Space Hunt pinball machine from a French manufacturer ($9,580 base price), Godzilla topper disappointment ($1,000 price with limited functionality), and various pinball restoration projects at Rochester Pinball Collective. The hosts critique marketing decisions and discuss emerging tournament results including European Championships and IFPA World Championships.

Key Claims

  • James Bond new code makes Q a total lock-out mechanic that prevents stacking any other modes

    high confidence · Bruce and Ron discussing Bond code: 'if you hit Q anywhere... you're stuck on Q just like you are on lightsaber battle you're stuck you cannot do anything'

  • Only 0.0% of Star Wars pinball community has achieved the 007 scoring achievement despite Bruce hitting it twice in one game

    high confidence · Bruce noting: 'it shows that I've done it but as far as anybody else it says 0.0% of the community has gotten that same achievement'

  • Space Hunt pinball machine by French manufacturer costs $9,580 base model, with elegance package adding $2,260 more (€2,100 plus 20% French VAT)

    high confidence · Ron reading specs: 'In American, it comes out to about $9,580 for the base model' and 'for only $2260 more, you can get the elegance package'

  • Godzilla topper costs approximately $1,000 and uses the same stock figurine from the playfield, with estimated parts/labor cost of $300-500

    high confidence · Bruce: 'That's a nice little 70% markup on stupid people' and earlier 'I was thinking $300 to $500 if you want to go on the high side'

  • Space Hunt manufacturer only ships through three French distributors and has stated they don't want to sell to collectors

    medium confidence · Ron: 'I heard that they don't want to ship them either. They have three distributors and they're all in France'

  • Godzilla topper King of the Monsters final mode was announced with beta code testing at Flippin' Out with Joel Engelberth before public announcement

    high confidence · Bruce: 'Joel Engelberth got to actually test it. If you have the topper installed, you can hit both flipper buttons in, and you get to play the final mode of the game. What is it? King of the Monsters.'

  • Rotation Eight is a functional four-player rotating cocktail game that actually has engaging gameplay despite the rotating mechanic being the primary feature

    high confidence · Bruce: 'Is it actually a good game, Bruce? It's actually fun. Really? I've actually been enjoying it'

Notable Quotes

  • “That's a nice little 70% markup on stupid people. Yeah, I'm a stupid person, Bruce. Yep. Oh, I never said you weren't.”

    Bruce Nightingale and Ron Hallett @ ~44:30 — Self-aware critique of Godzilla topper pricing and value proposition; sets comedic tone for hardware accessory discussion

  • “Q is a cock block now. It is a total lightsaber battle... you're stuck on Q just like you are on lightsaber battle you're stuck you cannot do anything”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~15:00 — Direct criticism of James Bond code update design philosophy locking out gameplay options

  • “I don't understand it's like an afterthought with Stern with some of these things... they didn't show it doing anything in the video did they even mention in the video that about the extra mode or even show it”

    Ron Hallett @ ~42:00 — Critique of Stern's marketing approach to Godzilla topper announcement lacking substantive feature demonstration

  • “There's too many. But are there any good ones? Are there many good ones? There's not.”

    Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale @ ~28:00 — Commentary on oversaturation of pinball manufacturers with questions about quality and legitimacy

  • “I want a new rule. If you want to sell games, if you say you're a manufacturer, you have to do a tour of your manufacturing facility.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~28:30 — Proposal for industry standard to legitimize manufacturer claims; practical gate against fly-by-night operations

  • “It's more than, at least as much, not more than a Stern Premium. If you get the elegance package, it's like the same as a Jersey Jack game.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~31:00 — Comparative pricing analysis positioning Space Hunt in the premium market segment

  • “Old people suck. They just suck. Yeah, Johannes was like 20, 21. All the top ones were all like under 21, 22 years old.”

    Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale @ ~60:00 — Commentary on competitive pinball meta showing youth dominance in IFPA World Championships

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonChris DavispersonSlam Tilt PodcastorganizationJames Bond pinballgameStar Wars pinballgameSpace Hunt pinballgameGodzilla pinball topperproductRotation EightgameRochester Pinball Collective (RPC)organization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Proliferation of pinball manufacturers without manufacturing legitimacy; suggestion that industry needs verification standard requiring facility tours before allowing game sales or pre-orders

    medium · Bruce: 'There's too many... I want a new rule. If you want to sell games, if you say you're a manufacturer, you have to do a tour of your manufacturing facility'

  • ?

    community_signal: Charity stream success raising $5,906.20 for suicide prevention; Penny (recipient organization) responded positively and gratefully, indicating strong community support for charitable pinball initiatives

    high · Bruce: 'The donations were all added up from you beautiful people. And $5,906.20... I did the ACH out of the bank account... Penny was very happy and very surprised'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: IFPA World Championships shows dominance by youth players (ages 19-22); Johannes Ostermeyer (age ~20-21) defeating Marcus Vertanen (age ~19) indicates generational skill shift in competitive pinball

    medium · Ron: 'All the top ones were all like under 21, 22 years old... Old people suck. They just suck.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: James Bond new code update introduces Q mechanic that completely locks out stacking and other gameplay modes, creating frustration similar to Star Wars lightsaber battle mechanic

    high · Bruce: 'if you hit Q anywhere... you're stuck on Q just like you are on lightsaber battle you're stuck you cannot do anything... I'm fucked terrible'

  • $

    market_signal: Space Hunt French pinball manufacturer ($9,580 base, $11,840 elegance edition) positioning for European market only with three French distributors; explicitly states preference not to sell to collectors

Topics

Pinball code updates and balanceprimaryHardware accessories and toppersprimaryEmerging pinball manufacturers and pricingprimaryPinball restoration and repairsecondaryCompetitive pinball tournamentssecondaryStern Pinball marketing strategysecondaryManufacturer legitimacy standardssecondaryVintage pinball machine restorationmentioned

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Positive toward community/restoration efforts and some games (Rotation Eight); strongly negative toward Stern marketing decisions, Space Hunt value proposition, Godzilla topper pricing, and James Bond/Star Wars code design philosophy; mixed on overall pinball hardware market saturation and manufacturer proliferation

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.297

So you're saying that's what life's all about? Damn it, Loader, you weren't listening. I'm saying that's what TV's like on Thanksgiving. But we keep watching. And they can keep feeding us crap and putting stuff that sucks on TV, but we're going to keep watching. Even if it means sitting through hours and hours of stuff that sucks. Because sooner or later, there's going to be something cool. And that's what makes it all worthwhile. Yeah, Loader, put that in your butt and smoke it. Now let's all bow our heads and say grace. Here we go. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Holy fuck-a-loo-roo, you people are awesome. It's fuck-a-loo-roo. You've used that line a lot. I do. I love that line. And this is episode 208, and we are not alone this week. We're not alone. We have a guest. Who is it, Ron? It's the returning Chris Davis. Hello, everyone. Of the world-famous Starrcade Arcade. Woo-hoo. And he's here to give us our Northwest Pinball Show report. and hang out with us cool dudes. Us cool dudes. Of course. Well, Bruce. I'm not as cool as Bruce. Yeah, thanks for having me back. You're welcome, sir. Let's see. What were you talking about, Bruce, at the very beginning there? Holy fuck-a-loo-roo. The donations were all added up from you beautiful people. And $5,906.20. Nice. Very, very blown away by this. Thank you all. This is very cool. Last night, actually, I did the ACH out of the bank account, which was cringy. And it went to, what's it called, for the suicide prevention. And Penny was very happy and very surprised, which was really cool to see. Yeah, we posted it on our Facebook. Yep, and she posted a nice thing after that. I've hey guess what thanks Chris for what not you Chris the other Chris Chris the podcaster because he didn't want to donate any money so you people did and we're grateful he's just a cheap ass cause it's all about him okay Bruce yay it's the Muppet Show even when you're nice you're not Oh, I'm an asshole still. Yes, yes. Remember that. Remember that. Well, I got a note from somebody. I'm not typically on Pinside too often. No. But I guess we got mentioned, kind of, in the Godfather thread. Oh, boy. For some reason. Oh, I know why. It must be one of our listeners just said, apparently Ron and Bruce are not fans of the Godfather. And they got it wrong. and they thought we were like all bitching about, uh, I actually like one of the JJPs. You like one of the other JJPs. So they made it sound originally like it was a bitch fest against JJP. I, I have to say Romulus, Romulus X has it right. It says, I just listened and I've got to say they sound like idiots. Okay. Any point? Then he's there. I was just scooby, but they trash every JJP pin. No, you don't trash dialed in. I do not trash a wizard of Oz. Yeah, that's it. And Chris, What do you like for J.J.P.? J.J.P.? Wow. Perfect. Wow, I just walked right into that one. Nothing really flies off the top of my mind there. Oh, yes, I love it. I like Dialed In. I like Wonka. I like Toy Story if I don't have to listen to the music. And Bruce likes Wizard of Oz. That's about it. Yeah, I don't mind playing some Wizard of Oz. See? Oh, God. makes them sound like petty fanboy idiots. No, we're not petty fanboy idiots because we fucking had it. What would be fanboys of? I mean, Bruce hates pretty much everything. Oh, I can't wait until we go into the new code for bombed. Except maybe like WPC games and classic Stern. That's about it. He hates everything else. I like System 11. Oh, I'm sorry, System 11. I mean, I like a lot of the Sterns. Am I a Stern fanboy? Yeah, you definitely are with your buying everything. Yeah, you are a stern fanboy now. I like TNA. I like Alice Cooper. I like some spooky games, but I don't trust enough to buy them. I'm definitely a stern fanboy when it comes to good games and good quality. I agree with that part, except for their coil stops. You just learn to love it. Well, speaking of Godfather, they're making the CEs. Yes. the collector's edition. Yeah, he's kissing. Luckily, Jack's kissing everyone. Like, he's kissing, give him the kiss of death. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say that? So what, oh, yeah. There's a picture of him kissing one of the games. Yeah. Chris, have you played The Godfather? I have played The Godfather here at the Icebox in Seattle. I mean, it held my attention a little bit. I'd be interested in playing it some more, but, nah, it's kind of slow as well. I like watching Carl play it. There you go. that's always the answer. Let's just watch, let's just watch, let's watch Carl D'Python Anghelo play the game. Cause we'll see everything the game can do pretty much. And enjoy it. You know, you actually get a good commentary. Yeah. Enjoy it. I don't know. I just didn't feel the excitement. When I play pinball, I want like a certain excitement. It seems subdued. It seems very subdued. That's a good word. Yes. It's very subdued. Yet. I do like WHO dunnit. So can you really say that's exciting? All right. What's exciting about Whodunit? I guess trying to hit the phone. Like when you solve the mystery, trying to hit the shot and then hit the phone to lock in the high jackpot value. That might be the excitement part. But that's a pretty cerebral game. I don't have too much experience on that one. It's got like a slot machine thing. It's not one of William's bigger sellers, that's for sure. No, it was not. When I shopped that thing out, it was like, yeah, they put all the money into the slot machine. That's what they did in that game. Let's see. What else do we got? I got – We have Bond New Code. Ooh, Bond New Code. What does that mean, Bruce? It's more of a cock block now. It really is. Q. Q is a cock block now. It is a total lightsaber battle. Are you talking about you have to do Q to be able to get 007 scoring? Or if you just get any – if you hit Q anywhere. like if you do Q it just locks you out of everything else you can't stack anything, you can't do anything you have to now, you're stuck on Q just like you are on lightsaber battle you're stuck you cannot do anything, trust me we've been playing it, I'm like, yep, I got Q unfortunately and now, yep, I'm fucked terrible I don't mind playing the Q's now because you could go into a multiball following it yes, if you complete it the whole way, but if you don't you can't do anything else it's like server battle good job Star Wars fans you made me even hate this game even more today I was able to hit 007 scoring twice in one game I took a picture of the achievement and it shows that I've done it but as far as anybody else it says 0.0% of the community has gotten that same achievement why is that? because it's Lonnie Code? It is hard, but I just like, you know, I'm playing along. Ooh, I got two balls locked. Oop, it bounced around. Oop, it went into the cue hole. Okay, now I'm stuck. Fuck. And you can't time out of it either. It stops the timer. It's like, fuck. Oh, yeah, if you pause the ball on your trip or whatever. Yeah, and it's lightsaber battle, and it's like, why? Why does this guy take all the bad things in a game programming? All right, has anyone here played the Whirlwind 2.0 kit? God, no. I have not. Neither have I. I haven't really searched it out either. Yeah, I would not either. I like the old Whirlwind better. I watched some of the video. It's out there. Oh, yeah, it's fucked up. Like aliens and stuff and really weird. Badly done. Yeah, I heard it took a turn. Yeah. Like a shitter. They took it in the shitter. Oh, man. So, yes, I'm at Nap Arcade, by the way. Hi, Nap Arcade. Hello, Nap Arcade. Going through all my notes here. Let's see. What else do I got? Okay. Who here has seen or at least heard of the new Space Hunt pinball machine? not it heard it and seen it yeah i've actually they streamed it yesterday oh i haven't seen the stream yeah there was actual um i was in the twitch pinball category and all of a sudden i see it on the screen on my preview like uh what and it was yeah france somewhere at some bar or somewhere it's like music playing in the background all that and i watched him shoot it oh so it's coming along then yeah i the thing that worried me is like they'd start a mode and you can pick what mode you want and the one mode they were picking it lit one shot on the right side and you just hit it like five or six times over and over and over uh the mini play feel i got to see that i mean i don't get what the little pendulum thing is it looks like almost a plumb bob that just hangs down i don't know if that's a switch or something or what that's supposed to do i heard maybe Triple Drain talking about it, their thoughts where maybe it's a it is a plumb bob and like maybe you got to get the ball around it without tapping it or it tilts out or something along those lines. That would be kind of interesting. You hit something on the playfield, an insta-tilt. I mean, it's this super small mini playfield. Yeah, you basically just go around in circles. You just go around in circles, which, you know, I'm addicted to loops. So for me, I would probably like the artwork, the The color, and I've heard this mentioned, and I had this idea, too, when I looked at it. The first thing that popped in my mind was Pepto-Bismol. Yep. That's what it looks like. The same pink color of Pepto-Bismol. It's not a bad shade of pink. It's just too much of it. It's the most pink I've seen since Elvis. Everyone forgets Elvis when they talk about a lot of pink. Elvis had a lot of pink in it. I mean, it's got weird. I'm looking at it. It's got these alien things, but then it's got these circles with mean faces on them. I don't really know. It has four ramps. Actually, if you count them, it has four ramps. And it's got the cool music, you know, that says, Space Hunt. It seems like there was a movie, too. Space Hunt. When I looked it up. Is there a movie that comes from back in the day called Space Hunt? It's probably. Let's see. Complete all original missions to defeat the enemy. The game features three pinball machines. That's a feature? You don't get one. You get two. You get three pinball machines in one box. I don't understand that. Two tray levels. I don't know what that means. They might have had issues with the translation here. Double entry central ramp. Yes, double entry. You'll like this one. long access ramp to the mini tray oh yeah oh the mini tray okay the mini tray is the play field so they're calling the play field a tray oh and you hit it off that left inner orbit kind of shot half pipe and double wire ramps spinner three illuminated drop targets hidden plot it's a rule set so great you don't need to know what it is it's hidden multi balls up to four balls i like that only four balls single pendulum shot as opposed to most games that have multiple pendulum shots uh exclusive features digital service menu okay um computer break system i don't know what that means maybe that means like the credit dot or something Yeah, I don't know. Because it's spelled B-R-E-A-K. So I don't know. Prepare for this game to break. Soundtrack and original voice. Here's the thing. You know how much this thing costs? I don't know. In American, it comes out to about $9,580 for the base model. Woo! I heard that they don't want to ship them either. They have three distributors and they're all in France. Yeah. So, but if you were in France, would you buy this? No. Guess what? He's got the same philosophy as the guy from Australia. I don't want to sell it to the collectors. I don't want to sell it. I just want to sell it to them. Oh, Mike from Homepin. Well, if for an extra, if you're thinking $95, $80, that's a bargain. Well, for only $2260 more, you can get the elegance package. what comes with the elegance package bob back glass mirror effect so you get a mirror back glass radcals style crate decoration okay custom paint violet bordeaux for the feet lock bar hinge and side armor official blade art anti-reflective glass the pin sound speaker system system system Like what I did there with the Echo. Shaker. Oh, I think that's supposed to be Shaker Motion Control Board Pinsound. And there you go. Then it says 2,100 euros, but then it has an asterisk, and it says French VAT 20%. I don't know what that means. That's shipping for they charge tax. That is a tax. Okay. I mean, there's so many pinball manufacturers now. There's too many. But are there any good ones? Are there many good ones? There's not. I want a new rule. If you want to sell games, if you say you're a manufacturer, you have to do a tour of your manufacturing facility. Agreed. There you go. And they've all done that. Spooky did one. Stern has one. Jersey Tech has one. I think even Dutch did one. And you need to have an actual manufacturing facility and show it. Like, see, we can actually make these before you're even allowed to sell a game. Or ask for money. Or ask for money, yes. I just don't know who this is for at that price. I don't see it. It's more than, at least as much, not more than a Stern Premium. If you get the elegance package, it's like the same as a Jersey Jack game. But don't forget, pins that are going into from the U.S. to France do get taxed very much. They get the 20% tax. So a pro for our pricing has to go over the boat, then get taxed coming into the country. It could be almost that price. So they're maybe saying, hey, look, at the same price you get a stern, you get a home-based model in Europe. You mean for the actual French people? Or anybody, you know, yeah It's Euro So you would think, you know, for the whole European continent Hmm, I didn't think of that, Bruce That's why you have me here That's why you're here See you later, bye I read more about the plumb bob thing, too It's not a tilt, it's just a rod you shoot Yeah, yeah I hope it has some kind of switch on it So at least it detects that you hit it I get it it's the only way you can you're full beavis and butthead today bruce i'm very proud of you good job that's the only way i've enjoyed this part of it with this stupid game uh by the way i'm stern pinball manufacturers beavis and butthead where's my gate where's my fucking game just saying season two is done almost yep and it's awesome come on it is i have even more material let's see well i have godzilla topper this is a godzuki topper don't say godzilla this is godzuki topper so the godzilla topper well here's the thing i can't understand so stern announces the topper via a video an accessories video where they show a bunch of accessories that were already available like a year ago. Yep. Right. It was the side armor, which I have, the art blades, which I have, the shooter knob, which I, no, that was stupid. Hey, I got that. Boy, you two are like fucking stern boys. They show, we're fanboys, remember? They show the topper for I think it was eight to ten seconds total. And they don't really show it doing anything. No. And it's Godzilla and he's doing the flame, but the flame kind of looks like shaving cream. Shaving cream or a vape pen. That would have been more impressive, actually, a vape pen. And smoke coming out? Yeah. It would have been more impressive with that. Yeah, that would have been more impressive than that topper. And, of course, in their marketing material, they had a custom Godzilla sculpt. And I'm thinking, like, yeah, custom as in the same one you have in the game that everyone replaces. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm one of the idiots that got one, and I can confirm that, yes, the one that's on the topper is the exact same one that's on the play field. Oh, you have it in your possession already? I have it in my possession. It's on my game right now. Is it more impressive in person? Yes. Is it worth $1,000? No. Fuck no. Thank you. But the thing is. Does it give you an extra mode? I think. Yeah, it will eventually, but the code isn't out for that yet. But of course not. We'll now just put this out to tease you. Well, no, there's beta code that they got to test on, was it Flip N Out Pinball? Joel. Yeah, Joel Engelberth got to actually test it. If you have the topper installed, you can hit both flipper buttons in, and you get to play the final mode of the game. What is it? King of the Monsters. But the thing is, I think a few days after they announced it, straight down the middle and Zach Manning did a video where it looked way better in the video like it actually showed what it does I don't understand it's like an afterthought with Stern with some of these things it's I don't they don't market they didn't show it doing anything in the video did they even mention in the video that about the extra mode or even show it I don't think so no no I don't I don't get it it doesn't make any sense because they probably were still up in the air about it and then when they heard the crap about it oh let's do this because what it does is is it actually has the lighting effects when he fires his breath and it's got like a flasher thing that fires on him so it creates a shadow so if you have the game next to a wall you'll see a big godzilla shadow godzuki yeah godzuki yeah i mean and that was all the straight down the middle video it's like uh hey sir maybe you should have showed that in your video possibly nah i was on the list for it and when i when it's when i saw it i was just like it wasn't like the rush one where it's like hey it actually moves it's got moving gears and shit cool this one was just like and they announced the price before the topper came out it was going to be like half the price as the rush topper so you knew immediately you didn't have a motor in it you knew it wasn't going to move immediately and it doesn't okay let's have a fun game here guys how much do you think parts and wiring and everything how much do you think it costs starting to build this uh oh that thing yes well being that the one custom figurine they're using is the one they already have for the game itself. Okay, so. So. $300 it costs? Yeah, I was thinking $300 to $500 if you want to go on the high side. Yeah, that's probably what it costs. Yeah, I was thinking $300 labor and everything. Yeah. That's a nice little 70% markup on stupid people. Yeah, I'm a stupid person, Bruce. Yep. Oh, I never said you weren't. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. so um yeah and there was all kinds of hilarious but someone made a cardboard one yeah with everything in the same place and they had like a they had like this um micro fiber cloth coming out of godzilla that was supposed to be like the flame yeah it was all the zip ties on it they didn't even have the tails cut it was just all long tailed zip ties it was awesome so what What I did with mine is I immediately replaced the figure. I replaced it with the same figure I used on the play field. So yours cost $1,050. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, and I had to drill different holes in Godzilla's feet on mine to get him in the correct position so his mouth lined up with the flame. And does the flasher work the same way now since you moved it a little bit? Yeah. Oh, God. But unfortunately, my Godzilla is in the most incorrect position, as it is all the way to the left in my row. You need it all the way to the right. You need it right by a wall on the right side for it to actually get the effect. Fail. Yeah. My placing of the game is a fail. The Godzilla's eyes light up on that sculpt, though, I heard. Is that true? I didn't see that. There's no wiring there for his eyes to light up. Oh, yeah, I guess. There's nothing connected to him. When I saw it quickly in the video, I was thinking he's got to be on some kind of elevated platform so it'd be easier to install him. I can't see him actually being screwed directly to the base, and he's not. They have screws coming up from the base with spacers and then just the piece of plastic that he's mounted on. How do I cancel my credit card payment so I can stop getting charged to my credit card? Okay, Bruce. But, yeah, it looks much better than it did in the video, this Stern video. Was it worth $1,000? Oh, fuck no. There you go. That's all that matters to me. No. But I'm an idiot. I mean, we know this. Can we clip that, people? Oh, yeah, you can clip that. Well, I also got my Rush Choppers installed, Bruce. And my Expression lights are installed. Ah. Now, that's the most exciting mod I'm waiting for for Foo Fighters. But the Expression Lights, those are kind of pricey, but they're a good mod. Luckily, I'll be able to see that in a couple days. Oh, why is that, Bruce? Mark's getting his LE. Oh, Foo Fighters? Yeah. Okay. And Expression Lights are great. I love the Expression Lights. Gotcha. So they're installed. Let's see. What else do I got here? So that was your repair section, really, because you had to do all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. It was kind of my repair section. I trying to think if anything actually broke Oh I also got the Rush 2 motor kit for the up ramp on the Premium and LEs And basically all it is it the same motor but it has a much longer connector that goes directly to the node board And that was fairly easy to install. Yeah, I told my buddy about it. He's got a Premium. I don't know if he's gotten in touch with anybody or anything, but he needs to get on top of that. Yeah, he should contact the distributor. That's what I did. Yeah. So now if it blows up, it's someone else's fault because I did everything I could possibly do for her. Hey, question. Do we get any emails about my problem with rotation eight? Well, you'll find out when we get to that section, Bruce, but I don't believe so. I don't think so either because we fixed it. Ah, okay. Nice. It was a bad diode. Okay, where are the repairs then? Okay, rotation eight. You already did all your shit. Did we or did we not? Well, does Chris have any repairs? Chris, do you have any repairs? Okay, come on, Chris. Okay, well, just yesterday, the same buddy with the Rush has the Avengers Premium, and his spinning disc would constantly award points. We've looked at it, but I never really got too involved in it because it still kind of worked. But recently it started just holding the ball in the little trough. underneath and somebody was playing soul gem the other day and it just wouldn't release the ball because that thing was awarding points it thought that the ball was still in play up above and so i went there yesterday lifted it up and with that game the spinning disc comes down and there's this bracket that is adjustable below it and there was a quarter inch gap between it and the spinner and just didn't seem like there was any point to it at all if it wasn't going to be making any contact. Adjusted it, slid it up. It was a pretty easy fix, but it definitely came from the factory like that. Just that slight little adjustment there, it was causing the spinning disc to just keep awarding points. And so sometimes when it would eject the next person's ball, it would fire the ball because it was thinking there was already a ball in play, stuff like that. so we'll fix that that's about that's it instead of recent nice that's it you call that a repair no i'm not saying bad things ain't that's it okay you know i did get to the bottom of that eight ball the last time i was on i was asking bruce uh for help there it was definitely the power supply swap that out for him and you know that game's up and running but it's been some time Okay, no key. Nice. See? Review, Bruce. What was wrong with the rotation aid? A bad diode on the lamp. No, what was the original issue? Oh, well, it would, the whole row was out. The whole row, which is drivers, half of it, and, because it's multiplexing, drivers and lights for a whole row. And so me and Zach luckily found the bad diode on the first shot. We replaced the diode, replaced the transistor, just to shotgun it. And then we found a bad part of the connector. So it was three things. We were thinking it's probably the connector, but the diode was showing bad when you actually cut the diode out. So, yay. So you know what you've got to do next? What? Sell it. No. It works. No, it's working great now. So we're putting the feed on it this week. Ooh, game 50? Game 50. Ron saw a video, and I changed the belt yesterday too. Oh, it's a new belt. New belt. Oh, man. So that's game 50 at the world-famous Rochester Pinball Collective. Yep, that's where it's going to be, game 50. Okay. And where is RPC located? It is located at 349 West Commercial Street in beautiful East Rochester, New York. What's the suite number, Bruce? 2965. Okay, 2965. Very important. I know where it is. I know. You are the stalker. You follow us everywhere. Yes, I'm a stalker. Yes. So, okay. So you're going to be rotating. This is great. Yes. So hopefully we got to have every member must play it and test and say, okay. So I'm thinking probably July we'll be on the floor. This has been a long time coming. The problem is, here's the fun part. We have to tip it on its side just to get it through doorways. The thing is fucking humongous. Where are you putting it? Right in the middle of the sit-down chair area. Well, we don't know if we're going to put it in the middle or we're going to bias it to the wall. Bias it to the wall, yes. To the front door. What about the other cocktail you have in that area? Oh, the cocktail's going to be next to it. It's going to be like dueling cocktails, like dueling banjos. Okay. But the cool thing about this game, we didn't realize it until we finally got it fully working. So say if I'm player one. So it has four positions, north, south, east, and west. and we're going to put it in the proper position for where it's going to be oriented. If I hit player one as north and player two as south and player three as west and player four as east, it rotates and members that. So it will go from north to south to east to west and then back to north. That's a lot of rotating, Bruce. It's a lot of hell of a rotating. Is it actually a good game, Bruce? It's actually fun. Really? I've actually been enjoying it. Okay, so I figured that rotating was just the gimmick and the game itself probably sucks. No, it's actually not that bad. Okay. I hear four rotations. Where's the other four? That's right. That's rotation eight. Where are the other four rotations? Because if you played it the other way, it would rotate the other way. What do you mean if you played it the other way? That doesn't make any sense. But everything now works on it. That's the cool thing about it. We're like, hey, it's working. Hey, let's put the glass back on. and then we lost the ball, and so we had to take the glass back off. That's fun. Wait a minute. If you had it on two ball, then it would be eight rotations. There you go. It would be. It would be. No, we have at least 12. 12 ball? What is it, hyper ball? Yes, hyper ball. That's the next weird game you've got to get. Oh, God, no. I sold my allied leisure I had. The Euros won last time we talked. I ended up getting rid of it. 350. Pretty good. There you go. Ghana. Never did get it working, though. Well, we got ours, luckily. That's the knock on wood, yes. So, fun, fun, fun. I've been working on Freefall. That's the next one, Freefall Stern. A whole bunch of wiring hacks in that thing. This is how good an operator was. They desoldered the fuse off the rectifier board and put a fuse holder on the piece of wood that holds the rectifier board and over-fused it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. At least they put a fuse in. Yeah, double. I'm refixing all those hacks. I do have power to it, and the power is working, so the next thing will be hooking up all the boards, except for the CPU board and seeing how it goes there, how we get our power, and go from there. You're refixing. Refixing everything. Oh, my God. I've had the connector tool out like six times. It's like, oh, my God, that one's bad. Oh, that one's bad. Oh, that one sucks. Yeah, I have the crappy connector tool. I got the good one. Yeah, but the good one, I've used the good ones, and they don't seem to crimp the pin on right half the time. Oh, I pin it on. I crimp it good, big boy. They crimp it good. Yeah, yeah. Why is it more manual so I can feel the crimp? I feel the crimp, too. It burns. It actually, you know, pinches a little bit, you know, and right at the tip. Right at the tip, you know, you go, oh, oh. Oh. Okay. Well, we have Chris here, so let's start talking about shows. Let's do a show section here. All right. So we'll get our crap out of the way. We'll go through the shows that none of us were at. Or shows. In this case, tournaments. So last weekend they had, or was it the weekend before, actually? I think it was the weekend before that one. But they had the European Pinball Championships in Germany. Germany! Yes. I haven't seen any streams. They were streaming on JDL Pinball. Yeah. JDL. And Escher Lefkoff won. Surprise. Surprise. And then they had a bunch of other tournaments going on. I lost track. They had a Midnight Madness one leading into another one. They are hardcore in Europe. Yeah, I was like, why? These guys have been playing so much. Just give them a day off or night off. No, no. I kind of like the European mindset. we're hardcore we're hardcore we're hardcore then the next weekend they had the ifpa world championships the top 80 players in the world assemble and go at it for is it like the avengers they like assemble i think it's three days it takes yeah like friday saturday and sunday so the finals were between johannes ostermeyer who i think won the last one that was in europe That was in Europe. Yes. I guess Marcus Vertanen. He was like 19. I think Johannes was like 20, 21. All the top ones were all like under 21, 22 years old. Yeah. Old people suck. They just suck. Yeah, Johannes won in nine games. It went the full. They do like four out of seven. Unless it's tied 3-3, then it's two out of three. So the max it can go to is nine games. I check it out. Like I said, it was on JDL Pinball. Exciting final. It was in Europe, so it ended early here, Eastern. And then they had at the Northwest Pinball Show. See, I'm tying this in here. They had the tournament there, and I'm trying to remember who won that. I think Jermaine won, and that's all I remember about that. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I should say about the IFPA. It's one of my favorite ones to watch because when you get to a certain point, It's all head-to-head. I like the head-to-head matchups. I like that. Instead of the four-person groups. I know Keith Elwin made his first 4A outside of the country, and he made it to the top eight. And then they had a match. It was like the five through eight people to determine place, who gets fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth. And I was thinking when I saw there would be that consolation game, I was thinking to myself, you know, I can't see Allen playing in that. He'll probably just leave. And he did. He just left. Yeah. He didn't play. Did he plunge his ball in a final round and walk away? No, he just didn't play. He just didn't play. Fuck that. I'm going to go sightsee. Yeah, I'm going to go sightsee out in Germany because I stay here. Determine whether I'm fifth or eighth because I don't care. Yeah. I'm sure with him it's like first or – you're either first or you're last. Remember that. Right. First or first loser. So Chris went on at the Northwest Pinball Show. All right. So, Northwest Pinball Show, I expected to be able to play some Scooby-Doo, maybe some Galactic Tank Force. Neither one of those were there. What? Zoinks! No, no Scooby. Nobody had a Scooby-Doo. I'm surprised Scooby wasn't there. Yeah. There was zero Galactic Tank Force. Oh. There was the four Pulp Fiction, which I did get to play a couple times. I did enjoy that. I got a buddy here with the Rush and the Avengers. is he's got one on order. Was the line horribly long? I went Friday, and we got there at about 1, so people were still at work. So there was a little bit of a line. I only had to wait behind three people. Oh, excellent. Okay, nice. Most times. So, yeah, it was pretty good. Played some The Big Lebowski. That was fun. It worked? I know it's been out for a while. Yeah, it worked. Cool. It was there. The guy was selling it. He was trying to get $13,000 for it in the backbox. had a massive dent. Of course, the side art was destroyed along with the dent, but still wanted 13 grand for it. I don't know if it sold, but that was a good time. There was more people than last time as far as vendors, because there was only a couple kind of remnants of COVID. People were worried about who was going to show up or what was going to happen. So it was better in that case. as far as new games though it was just Foo Fighters and Pulp Fiction and Godfather so it was a little underwhelming I think still this year I did there was a couple highlights though one being able to get to play Pulp Fiction but two Jack Danger and Tonya Kleiss came and I took my apron out of the Foo Fighters I have and I brought a green paint pen just like Jack Danger signed all the LEs with, and I was able to get both of them to sign the apron. And so that is pretty cool. I'd say that's the highlight of my trip there. So you have an LE now. That's what you're saying. That's what I'm hearing. Yeah, so now I got the LE. Once I get the expression lights, it'll be an LE, yeah. Other than that, yeah, the tournament was in full effect in the back, probably qualifying on the day I was there or whatever. But yeah Not a lot of games I think there was more games last year Kind of hope that It turns around It was more expensive It was $20 more to get in this year than last year Not a good look Was it a different location? Nope same location I guess the lease went up And I think the guy running it Kind of changed hands as well So there might be something behind that. I got a friend who I buy pinball glass from who used to work there and do repairs and stuff like that. And he refused to do it this year, I guess, because of some drama. Drama in pinball? Stop it. Yeah, so he's out and prices are up. So the $20 Allentown always looks like the best deal, doesn't it? It is, I swear. That's the best deal going. $20 can't beat it. $20 per day, yeah. $20 per day, and you get to buy and sell and play. Mm-hmm. Okay. That was the Northwest Pinball show. Yeah, not much to it. No Galactic Tank Force, so we couldn't have seen what the American Dream himself, Dave Fix, said on the, I believe it was the Pinball Magazine or not. Is that what it's called? No, Pinball News Pincast. He was on there and he was saying how Galactic Tank Force was beating Foo Fighters on location in other games. I heard that. That's right, baby. Galactic Tank Force is number one and it's better than Foo, baby. People like tanks better than they like the Foo Fighters. We have the better space-themed game, baby. I would love to have played it. It looks definitely worth trying out. American Pinball didn't even have a booth. I mean, they just had zero presence there at all. Hmm, maybe they don't care about the Northwest? Probably pinball plays there. You're just too far out there. No one plays pinball there. No, not at all. Everyone knows this plays pinball. Well, the thing is, Dave Hicks also said how they put the fixes in, like they know what the fixes need to be for the targets, so you don't get airball city, et cetera, and what, some other, the lock wasn't working right because the balls were becoming magnetized, so they had the wrong balls. Yep. I hate when my balls are wrong. I hate when my balls are wrong, too. I hate when they're magnetized. Oh, yeah. Those are the worst. They just stick right to the zipper. You know, it's bad. It's bad. Yeah. Okay. That's Galactic Tank 4th, baby. Play it at an arcade near you. And no Punny Factory, huh? I walked by. There was people playing it at times. Okay, so the Punny Factory was there. Cool. It was there. It worked at times. I didn't choose to play it or stop at that time. Later on in the day when I was coming back by, it was off. The guy was dressed in a hard hat, a reflective vest. You know, I had the whole kind of construction worker vibe going on, the owner. So that's the owner, the guy that's in the videos with the hard hat? Yeah. Okay. He had another play field that really looked cool, actually. Besides Punny Factory, you had another play field back-to-back on a display. It looked like it had to do with all the elements. Earth, fire. It was pretty cool looking. I was tempted to even ask him if he had one of those playfields for sale. That's supposed to be their next game, Elements. Yeah. Again, all these games, and if I remember, they weren't cheap. Punny Factory was not a cheap game. If it was Fifth Element, then I'd be interested. Fifth Element? Yeah. Yeah. I'd be interested in that. All right. I'll check that off. Since we're talking about shows, I'll just throw this out here because I believe it'll happen before our next episode, I think. That if you're in Saratoga, Saratoga, New York, on June 23rd or 24th, you can check out the Saratoga Silver Ball show, which is going to be in Wilton Mall somewhere. Somewhere within Wilton Mall. There you go. So check that out. At RPC, we have a women's tournament on the 24th of June, and all people can come in on the Friday before for a little fun pre-tournament to the women's tournament on the 24th. But it's its own tournament, so how is it a pre-tournament? Pre-tournament because it's different genres. It's not different genres. Then it's not a pre. It's just a different tournament. It's pre, it's the day before. There you go. You know me with the pre stuff. It's just, you got to. Like pre-com. You are an idiot. I'm a fucking bastard. I'm not editing that. Good. Perfect. I'm surprised when I said space hunt, you didn't say something else. Exactly. Because when I heard that, that's what I kept thinking. I kept thinking of the crazy Australians and I kept thinking of them. I'm doing a song to say that over and over. Yeah. Leave it for the Aussie Pinball Podcast. Right. So those two, and plus, what else is coming up? I think there's a tournament we're talking about in July for us, but not fully. Not fully? Yep, not fully released yet. I think it'll be this week. We'll have all the information out for that. Not fully released? Yep. It's in the background, all getting planned out. Like a Rubik's Cube, we're making it so you get to finish it. Well, I know on July, I think it's 28th and 29th, is the other Saratoga show in July. Why we have two shows within a month of each other in an area that doesn't have a huge scene, I have no idea why. I know. The other thing is they have it, it's during track season. Yes. When the hotels are super expensive. So every time you hear people are going to complain that the hotels are expensive. You know, it's almost like having a big tournament the same weekend as, I don't know, the PGA Championship in the hotels. I don't know, but we still pulled in a pretty good amount of people. Don't forget, the Beast is coming up in the beginning of August, too. The Beast. The Beast. I think that's the weekend after that. Yes, it is. So it's August 4th, 5th, and 6th. 6th, yes. Yep. And then we have tentative stop date. The one that started it all. The original. The tournament of all tournaments, which is September 23rd. And we have to find out from Ron how many people are allowed to come in, and then eventually we'll have to expand that number. Yeah, let's start at 32, Bruce, so we can at least start there before you start getting on my case. That's easy. And how do you get into that? We don't know yet. We don't know how you get into that. Well, Bruce has to submit it to IFPR or whatever he has to do, and then we've got to figure out when the sign-up starts. And then we have to tell all the specific people we know ahead of time because they'll ask, I'm in, right? Yeah. You know, the people have special arrangements. And Death Ball. Don't forget Death Ball. Oh, don't forget. Oh, yes, Death Ball. When is Death Ball? August 20. Hold on. I'm going to scroll down. I think it's a Sunday. It's August 27th. Yeah, August 27th, the weekend before at Zach's house. At Zach's house. Yes. Everyone listen to this podcast. It's in Rochester. Near 1,000 people. Yes, we're all going to go to Zach's house. Yes, I'll come to Zach's house and hang out. Isn't there a limit? like 24 people i don't know i don't know if he's i believe it was 24 people limit for this and there'll be a pre-death ball tournament because it is a different location oh man there's so many there's so many tournaments coming up it's amazing too many hang on ah what else i got here on the list i have past times opens yes they had good not past time but The Past Times. It's basically Rob Burke's collection. Yes. That he's actually hired a staff that can run the place and fix all the games. That's why Expo was so much better last year. So that staff is the one that are taking care of all the games in this place. And it's like, what, 300 pinball machines or something? 400, I thought it was. And 100 arcade games. Yeah. Yeah. In Ohio somewhere. Hmm. Yep. So check it out. I think it was formerly a supermarket or something. Yes, it was. So they had a lot of space. Yeah, a lot of space. But they filled most of it. Yeah, I did see it, though. It looks like they got the cement floor. That's going to be pretty cool. 300 games, 300 pinball machines on 120 video games. Mm-hmm. Yeah, 150, actually. That's big. It is big. Speaking of big locations, even though this one is no more, did you see any of the pictures of the Museum of Pinball? Remember the Museum of Pinball in Banning? Remember they sold all the games for obscene money, and then they had a pot farm there? Well, pot farm's gone. Great. The building's vacant. I believe John Weeks, I believe he still owns it because there's a for lease sign outside that has his company name on it. Jesus Christ. How did that work out for you guys? So obviously the pot thing didn't, like, what was that? A year or two years ago? About two years ago. I think about two years ago. So that didn't last. And the funny thing is, there was a guy there who was taking pictures just a few days ago. And leading into the main entrance, they still had on the wall on the outside, Museum of Pinball. It was still there. The sign is still there. Well, another place that's extremely large would be Next Level Pinball. If you guys still haven't made it to Hillsboro, Oregon, I mean, that's who I get my games from. And this guy is doing another expansion. He's going to have almost 800 different machines, whether it's pins and arcades, but I think it's going to be around 600 pinball machines. Swanks. Wow, that's like next level shit. This guy is building a pinball empire over there, and it is really cool. Okay. How old is he? I think he's in his late 30s, early 40s. He's close to my age. Him and his wife run it. And I think you saw his wife accept the award on the last Twippies for best location. Yeah. So, man, they're just, we got a really cool spot there. He's trying to build a pinball Disneyland. Nice. That's a long way away, though. It is That would be a long flight It just like I went from like an eight hour eight drive to Pittsburgh That would be like what a seven flight six seven flight Yeah. For you, you could just go down to Newark or Chicago. And if you get a Chicago flight, you're doing okay. At least you're going the right way. Yeah, I'm from Albany. So anything I get will be the most expensive possible way out of New York you can get. Yeah. Yeah. Next level. All right. Let's see. What do I got? Museum of Pinball, Pot Farm. I can check that off. Yikes. Okay. Well, Bruce had a rant. I have a rant. Okay. So Ron's rant is first. And I know people will get on me for this one. But I noticed this when I was watching the World Championships. I was watching all those tournaments. I want to ban headphones. I want to ban headphones because you're not listening to the game. Chris Granner, Jerry Thompson, all these great sound guys, David Thiel, you're basically pulling down your pants and taking a big shit in their face when you don't listen to their games. Agreed. And you can be like, well, I just got noise canceling because, you know, there's too much to deal with it. Deal with it. See, my issue is everyone wants to say pinball is a sport. Okay. You name me a sport where they got headphones. You got like Steph Curry out there. He's got his earbuds in. No, no. No, there's football stadiums out there that claim to have the loudest stadium around. Yeah, I mean, like a pitcher, he's on the mound with his headphones on, listening to his music as he's pitching. No, no. Not a sport, ladies and gentlemen. Once again, proof that it's not a sport. What do you think, Bruce? I'd rather ban that than the freaking lights on top of the head those I need some places, holy shit you know when they had the trash talker invitational you know what was illegal? headphones you know if I was wearing headphones I wouldn't have gotten to hear Eric Stone's obscenely loud F-bomb right next to me while I was qualifying at Allentown yeah while I was on stream. So you get to see me like, whoa, kind of reacting. At least that's what I was told. I reacted. Eric can get kind of loud sometimes. No. But he won me a game, so he's always thumbs up in my book. Wow. But, yes, that's my rant. Get rid of the headphones. If you want this to pretend it's a sport, you can't have people wearing headphones. I'm sorry. It just looks stupid. You next, Bruce. You had a rant about something. Everyone keeps on talking about, oh, pinball prices are going down. Look, I think they're on fucking crack. Pinball prices, stupid number pinball prices are going up and up and up. And it's just like, they're not going down. I don't know where everyone's thinking they're going down. The rare titles are going up. The common stuff, maybe, is staying about even. and when they see everything else going up they're like oh well this i can get a good deal on this and this these people i think they're just trying to make it look like oh look it's a good deal out there no it's still fucking expensive if you want to do it fast you want to go for it would you or would you not buy it we can do it right now and i got a couple of beautiful examples oh beautiful example okay wow you're segwaying from a rant into a segment yes wow you're good you've done this before i've done this before so what this is don't forget folks is me going on ebay and finding auctions that you can say would you or would you not buy this and i'm going to give you the auction number you can type it in on top where it says search for anything and you can follow along in your car at home while you're working tell your boss you got fucking 10 minutes to blow off and i'm gonna listen to this rant that sounds like a commercial that i can't remember what it was for by you. You do it on the phone, in your office, in this, in that. Only $19.95. Ticket number 275 884 730 165 Mm-hmm. Wow, it's the Metallica Premium. Yeah. Pre-owned. It's only $30,000. Only. Only. $600 shipping. And it's better because it's the later build, so it has the factory LEDs. It doesn't have to be converted. All the premiums had the LEDs. Exactly. New Titan clear and purple rubbers. Oh, wait, you're reading the description? Yes. All right, Metallica. This is the later build, so it's all LED. Yeah, wait a minute. Yeah, they were always all LED. The premiums were. The pros weren't. The pros weren't. The later pros, they did. I think they did that with ACDC, too. Yes, they did. But let's see. Instead of the 2013s that have to be converted. Yeah, I don't think that's right. I think I have an older one. You do. Do I? You do. I do? You do. New Titan clear and purple rubber silicone installed just recently. Everything works as it should. Awesome spelled wrong, but again, it could be the speech to text thing. Radio mode with Metallica songs when you hold down both flippers. Yes, that's like that in any Metallica. The pro has that. Shaker motor. He has a video. It looks very clean. The close-up of the coin door with the crooked Metallica sticker, though. I mean, could have straightened that out. That could be the factory, too. Yeah, it could be the factory, too, because mine kept on falling off until I had to get another one. To be fair, the pictures look really nice. Yes, of course it does. Is it $30,000 nice? No, it's not like this is a rare game. or they didn't make a bunch of these. I know. It looks like it's pretty pristine, though. Yes. But not $30,000, no matter what. No. Not $30,000. So would you or would you not buy this? No. No, I wouldn't buy this. Of course not. Well, I already have a Metallica, so I definitely wouldn't buy it. Hey, if you could sell yours for $30,000, would you jump on that? Maybe. Holy shit. Okay, next ticket number, 145-114. 704 152 Wow, I thought this was the same seller No, it's not The last guy was in California This guy's in Iowa The shipping is the same $600 flat rate This is a Stern Star Wars LE It's an LE, Bruce It is an LE With the R2-D2 topper $25,000 Elyse used to come with no Art Blades Yes And don't forget, please note the lock and the lock bar and the bill acceptor are mounted, which can be completely removed They drilled some holes to install that Yeah, gotta love that The pictures are nice They must have heard me with the pictures Maybe they did Let's see How much is this beautiful game? Oh, look at the coin door. Did they drill the play field or did they just mount them to the coin door? This one looks like it actually is mounted. Yeah, they just mount it. Okay. But still. Did they put holes in the door to mount that in there? No, no, it's not. They just used the existing hole. Yes. Okay. Well, why not just remove that then? Thank you. If you're going to charge that much for it. Yep. Like what person who buys it for $25,000 is going to want that on it? Yeah, nobody. Or you're going to have – The topper is a limited edition. It is a limited edition. Yeah, those toppers are at least $10,000, Bruce. You know, I got one of those. I know you do. Or how about this number? Would you buy that, guys? No. For $25,000? No. Okay, you thought that was ridiculous. Here comes more. Oh, my God. Okay. 194-771-376-992. Okay. Okay, we got Jersey Jack game, Pirates of the Caribbean, a CE. So this is a highly desired game. Let's see. This one looks like pickup only in Wisconsin. What's that switch on the front of the game? Is that stock, that little white switch, picture number two? Yes. Yes, that is. Yeah, that's on my awesome. Come on, Chris. Dialed in. Yes, that is the volume control. With bubbling playfield. What? Okay, so we got, this is the CE. So this is the one with the barnacle stuff all over it. Yeah. That has, instead of Captain Jack, it's got the, what's his name, Davy Jones on it. Everything works 100%. Nothing to be addressed at this time. Mm-hmm. Pictures show pooling blemishes. Otherwise, perfect game. Yeah, they had some, yeah, playfield issues with this one. No, they did not. You can just buy another one from Jersey Jack. No, they don't make this game anymore. No, will they? But you can buy the Playfield. You can? I think it was one of the few that you could still buy. Really? Yeah. But how much is this game, boys and girls? Okay, it's only... Okay, so close, I'm just going to say it. $40,000. Holy fucknuts. That's pretty expensive. Yeah, I don't know why you would want to do this. It has a topper. Oh, it's got a great. Custom. Custom. Oh, that's not a Jersey Jack topper. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. Still no art blades. Because it's got the, it's got a, what is it? I think, I thought, I think that is stock. It might be. I think that is the black pearl. I think that is stock. It's the black pearl in a bottle. Yep. I seem to remember that that's actually the top. Does he say that anywhere? That, you know, topper? Nope. I would have mentioned that. Yeah, you would think, but no. But it's recently cleaned and it has new ninja balls, Bruce. It's plug and play. Oh, wow. Excellent. Or this one. Oh, Jesus Christ, Bruce. You're killing me. 134-607-682-490. Who you going to call? Really expensive. Who you going to call? I can't hear you. Who are you going to call? Wait a minute. It's from a Stern Pinball authorized seller. It's from our favorite people, Orange County Pinballs. Orange County Pinballs. Woo. I like those leg lights. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, the purple light coming out of the legs. Interesting. The leg protectors. Oh, your leg protectors that are lit. Yes. Ghostbusters, limited edition, pinball. With topper. Stern free topper. Y'all, it's got the topper and mods. 491 out of 500 so it's at the end of the run so you know it's probably got all the fixes you need for only $28,000 I can't hear you who you gonna call Crack Masters the boys are back in town I mean Pirates of the Caribbean sold for 30 grand back in not that long ago I mean the artwork is really nice on this game. It's beautiful artwork, but unfortunately the game sucks. Oh, Slimer. Looks so good. Okay, one more. How much was that one? That was, what, $30,000? $27,000? $28,000? Would you pay for that? No. Of course not. I had one. Well, I didn't have an LE, but I had one that was basically the same, except it didn't have green trim or a real back glass. Here we go. 1-4-5. 1-3-1. 676 169 Okay. We have a newer one. We have Godzilla Limited Edition Pinball from our friends at Orange County Pinballs again. This is Ellie Limited Edition. Every mod you want to have on this thing. Every mod. Well, that makes it more acceptable, that price. Of course it does. $25,000. Now, if you look at the first picture, the head, and you really enlarge it, if you look at the right-hand side of the inner cabinet, it looks like this back glass has been out like 20,000 or 30,000 times. Yeah. Because it's all these gouges. Maybe it broke a lot. I don't know. This is just crack money. Bruce catches every little thing. I do. The art looks so nice. Yeah, those side art stickers and everything with the reflective foil, I mean, it looks really good. What's with the pop-upper? Yeah, I don't like that mod. No, I don't like that one either. It looks like the Stanley Cup. It makes it look like the Stanley Cup. Yes, which, yeah, it's the Stanley Cup upside down. Yes. Jesus, yeah, it does. But I do like the road next to it. Yeah. That's pretty cool, the highway. The highway. Yeah, they put a sticker on the shooter lane. But instead of the usual mod you see, which is just the ship, this one is actually levitating over the pop-up. Yes, and it looks like it's the Stanley Cup. It looks like the Stanley Cup. Well, they don't have every mod. They don't have the neon mod. No, they do not. For $25,000, I would expect that neon mod to be there. Oh, yeah, clearly. Of course. They got the upgraded Godzilla. Yeah, with the – I never liked that they put the flames coming out of his mouth. That's actually the Godzilla I have, by the way. But this is just the nuttiness of how much prices have gone up. And people – they might not get it today. They might not get it tomorrow. But if these places still keep on selling games, they're making more than what they – and it's just nutty. So what does that tell you, boys and girls? We just gave you a good fun fact for today. Buy every LE and you'll make money. Oh, well, everyone knows that. I know. They got the, whatchamacallit. You might get stuck with a couple turds. It's just nutty how all these prices have been lately. But is it worth $25,000? No. No. And that's the problem. So prices are not going, and all the rare stuff keeps on going up more and more. So it's just like, it's still a seller's market right now, I hate to say. Everyone's like, oh, no, prices are coming down. Yeah, maybe on an EM or an old common, like, hey, I can get a Mata Hari for $800. Good luck with that. You guys will like this. You know that guy, Changus, does the podcast or the videos. He just kind of recently was on with Kaneda. I guess they had a falling out. Oh, surprise, surprise. He has a Quicksilver, and I guess it's in pretty good condition. and somebody offered him a brand-new James Bond premium, or no, an LE James Bond in trade, and he declined. Well, he's stupid then. Because if it's brand-new in the box, I'd just flip it and go from there and then find another Quicksilver to buy or make one. Yeah, I don't know. He refused it. The guy even offered a second offer on top of that with cash on top, and he said that he just didn't even want to quote a price to the guy. Wow. Hey, Ron. Ron, there you go. Yeah, who is this guy? What? Check out the – it's a video. Check out the new Chingus. Yeah, I don't know if he says who the guy is, but there's a guy looking. I mean, he must really want a Quicksilver bad. Yeah, God. Holy cow. Well, don't forget, we did trade an LE for ours, our Quicksilver and Stargazer. Don't forget, Ron. What was it? That was – don't tell me. That was – was that like Aerosmith or something? Yep, Aerosmith. Wow, so long ago. And I know how much we paid for that Aerosmith LE, and I'd floor people on the price of that, but it was cheap. We paid $6,200 for an LE Aerosmith. And we traded it for Stargazer and – Damn, that's cheap, Bruce. Yep. I mean, I'm thinking how much we got – we paid for the Star Wars – no, Star Trek LEs. I know. They couldn't get rid of them at the end. So I said to the guy, I'm like, hey, you know, he wanted an LE. I'm like, what do you want? He's like, well, I'll take this or an Aerosmith. So I told my, at the time, I called the vendor, who I knew, and I was like, hey. He's like, yeah, I can get you this, and I got to get rid of it. So here, here's the number. And I was like, really? So I made sure the guy was still up for the trade. He's like, then I talked to Ron. Ron's like, I'm like, Ron, you want halves? And we'll each get one game? He's like, yeah. Boom. And it all went really fast. Nice. We got our games. And I guess he was very happy with his game. Did you guys do quick silver play field swaps, yeah? Not yet. Nope. I'm waiting for Bruce to do his. I'm waiting for Ron to do his. No, wait for Bruce to do his. I'm trying to get through all my projects. That's my thing. I have now an extra project. So that's going to be starting this week, the wood on the bottom of the cheetah. Which five years ago, I bought the blue cheetah. The cheetah with the no bottom. Yep. I have to fix the cheetah. So I got wood. I got wood. And we're going to cut the holes and put it all in there and mount it up and then flip it over, put some legs on there, and let's put this thing back together. But as I said, right now it's free fall time, and I'm still working on split second downstairs. I just changed it, direct the fireboard, but I haven't powered it up yet. So that's my next step. So you're free falling. Yeah, free, free falling. You've got to say balling. Free balling, yes, we're free balling. Yes. Bruce, are you ready? I'm always ready. You know, if we had a trademark section of the show, this would be it. The mail ball bag. Trademark. Ready for the mail ball bag. Here we go. I love when my ball bag is filled. Well, we're going to empty it right now, Bruce. Yes. I like it better when it's emptied. On what? This is from Glenn. Hi, Glenn. Hi, Glenn. He says, hosts, I can never remember if I mailed the ball back. I'm often surprised by the faint memory of my words as you read them on the show. I waited for my potentially forgotten email to be read on May 31st, but as it turns out, I didn't write in last week. Bummer. What? So he forgot to write in, and he was listening to our show to verify that he wrote in. Yes, and now he's writing in to tell us he forgot to write in. Yes. But what were you going to write in about originally? We don't know. We don't know. We'll never know. It's a mystery. All right. Next one's for us from Daniel. Hi, Daniel. Hi, Daniel. It says, what's up, Slam Tilt guys? Thanks for your thoughts on Gorgar and Barracora. I'm going to stew on whether I buy one of those titles. I wouldn't wait for Stu McVicker to tell you. He'd probably tell you to buy Jokers or something. Jokers rocks. My friend isn't in a big hurry, so I have some time to think on it. I'm doing a partial restore on Elvira and the Party Monsters And I'm getting a little attached to her I'd have to sell Elvira to pick up one of these games One great perk to keeping Elvira Is that my wife seems to be getting more and more comfortable With pinball machines around that have some nice TNA I was a little worried about the reaction I would receive When I brought this pin home But it turns out my father-in-law is an Elvira fan And that makes my wife cool with the big old biddies. Who knew? Hey. On to first of my two tech questions. Oh, God. The first one's an Atari question. Oh, boy. Just get your fire extinguisher out by everyone. Both 50 point. Well, actually, this is the one that has the boards in the head. Okay. So you know which one it is. Well, it can be one of five or six. No. I thought only at the end they put it in the head. Oh, that's right. Well, two. Yeah, Hercules and it ain't that one. Yeah, that's Superman. It's a good one. Both 50-point rollover switches on Superman aren't registering. I adjusted the original switches, and that didn't fix the issue. Next, I swapped them out for new switches, but they still aren't registering. I'm not sure what to try next. Can you guys help me out there? I don't know nothing about Atari. Well, first, put it in switch test mode and make sure they're not registering in that, first thing. If it has diodes on the switches, make sure they're not backwards, installed the wrong way by somebody else. Who knows? That would be the second thing. third thing would then is to trace the wiring back up to the actual board and make sure it goes into the board properly no breaks no no drips no runs no breaks fourth thing would be because don't forget those usually the rollover switches are in series oh sorry they're in parallel parallel when they're all wired together you mean the power do you mean the power and also the ground well actually aren't they in a matrix i have no idea if atari works well they do have a matrix It's not a great matrix, but it is a matrix. It's not a great matrix? What's a great matrix? For instance, does it have to be bigger? Well, no. Like, look at the rotation 8, which is multiplexing, which is terrible, then compared to the 64 or, you know, that's what I'm kind of – I've been dealing with multiplexing, and it's just – but you want to make sure there's no breaks in the wires going up to the head. If the wires are all good at the head, at the CPU board or the driver board, whatever it's going into, then it could be a chip that's a possible problem. And good luck with it. What's his name? John Ed Robertson? Yeah, John Ed Robertson does still do. He does rotation A boards, and he also does Atari. So, yeah. Is he on pin side, or is he still on RGP? He's still both. He's actually on both now. All right, yeah. So you can look for John Ed Robertson. He's in Canada, the west side. Yes. Yep, he's right up above us. Yeah. He's up in Vancouver. Vancouver. Yay. Eh? So there's a lot of things. I think there is an Atari section on PinWiki. There you go. Try that out, too. Let's see. Last questions. Have you guys found a solution to the shitty headlock hinge in this era of Bally Machine? The head is more wobbly than I would like and has fallen down in the past. Which machine is this? Yes, it's this era of Bally Machine. Does he mean Superman? Because that's Superman. Oh, maybe he means Elvira. Oh, Elvira. They're so top-heavy, those fucking games, with the speakers up top and everything. And the lock is up on top. So, yeah, they do suck. Black Rose has the same problem. So does Transporter. So does... There's really not much you can do with it, you know. What kind of lock is it? Is it like one of the Sega locks with the 90-degree Allen key? No, no, no. It's actually... He's actually talking about the speaker section, I think. The headlock hinge. The head is more wobbly than I would like. To me, that means the whole head. The head can come off, I think. I don't know. I don't have to look real fast. But if it's hinged, you're kind of screwed with the hinges, except for, you know, retightening them, the bolts and everything like that. But, yeah, I don't remember. I remember our Zach. Zach's black rose is hurting in that area. Yes, it is, too. The head shakes all over the place. Yep. It's just, you know, the head is so tall on those and so heavy and so top-heavy. It's the same problem with Heavy Metal Meltdown and those kind of games. Oh, those games. Well, does it have head bolts in there? It has head bolts, doesn't it? They do have head bolts, but I think the actual square bottom is still not very secure, and the cabinets were just not great, you know? It was too tall. They were trying to be too ahead of their time. look we bigger we better look our sound coming down on you yeah so there not much you gonna be able to do with that unless just retightening all the bolts on the hinges if it is hinged and go from there we have a review we got a review bruce remember the um this week in pinball site has the reviewed like the section where you can review podcasts and stuff shitty one i can't wait And ours, like we haven't had a review in like three years. It's been nice. I think pre-COVID was the last time we had a review. But we got one from looks like Will. And it says, my must listen to pinball podcast is the Slamtoe podcast. When I see a Slamtoe podcast come out, I make sure to listen to it as soon as possible. They have a humor and companionship that at most times is endearing. Only a few times comes off as cringy. We call it douchey. We like to call it douchey, not cringy. Please. I love you, Bruce. I love your toe. I love that they cover repairs since this is one of my favorite parts of the pinball hobby. This is one of my favorite podcasts and will keep me coming back. I cringe every time. I love it. Fuck yeah. Super cringe. That's why I listen. That's why he wants to be a guest so he hears behind the scenes. See, Andrew sent an email with a link to the Space Paws. It's a homebrew. Homebrew, yes. Spaceballs! Oh, nice. So we have Spaceballs homebrew. We got a Beavis and Butt at homebrew. We want real stuff, though. Well, if the homebrew is good enough, maybe the American Dream at American Pinball. That's right, baby. David Fix with the American Dream. We can make it happen if we can get the licensing rights. Yes. All right. Keep working that ball bag. We have one from Chris Davis. Oh, you're here. Never mind. We have – okay, last one here. I have one after this too. Well, I have one that actually was from our – from Facebook. Yes, that's what I have also. So it says – this is from Parnell. It says, hey, I forgot if Bruce still had the games. Gone. Oh. But there's another one for sale. You can get one in Connecticut for $450, our best offer. Not working. Well, Bruce, someone is doing a rule. a rule sheet for the games on pin side. Yes, they're changing it. So someone was editing the rules and I, I figured he may have some input. So there you go. Bruce, get rid of time, the spinner out, time, the spinner out. Okay. So go to Bruce. You need, you need to go to pin side and say, time, the spinner out in this threat. I don't have to, I, I am just Bruce. I'm just Bruce. So yes, we expect the people who are working on the rules. Yes. They just listen to Spock. Okay. Yes. So there you go. Time to spin around. Yes. And then through our messenger. Facebook. Yes. Facebook. And since he PM'd us, I guess I won't say the name. No. But it was like a tech question. Yes. So I'm having trouble getting to it, Bruce. So you read it. Hi, long-time listener, first-time messenger. Love the show. Really? I love when they all say really. Really? I'm not making this up. I actually do like it. I love it. I have a question I believe you guys could answer. Why on a game like Beatles, if you alternate music like other Beatles albums, does it break a node board? I think he's saying that if you pinball browser it and you change songs on it, you can brick your game or fry a node board. I have not heard of that. I have not heard that either. Specifically, I know Stern – Because they've done it with J.P. Well, they did it with – well, read on. I cannot think of another example of where software melts hardware rather than just developing an error code. Do you think companies like Stern are building the fault into the code to protect the license? I am curious to your thoughts. I know Stern, they put something in the system code that will look for a score bit. Okay. If I remember, they were deleting like one section of it. So score bit couldn't run. Couldn't pull. Yes. I know they don't like people fucking with the software because it gets them in trouble with their licensors. Yes. I'd have to see an example of this Beatles thing. Yeah, me too. I assume it's from Pinside somewhere. I haven't heard of this. I can see if you're using Pinball Browser to go in. And I know they try to encrypt the stuff, so it makes it harder to get in and change shit. And every time they do, the people who make Pinball Browser eventually decrypt it or whatever. And it's a never-ending battle. It's a never-ending battle, yes. Yeah, back and forth. I mean, Stern doesn't want you fucking with the shit. If you change the shit and you fry their game, they're going to be like, too bad. You voided the warranty. Screw you. This is the songs you're dealing with. That's it. You enjoy it or you don't enjoy it. But as far as them specifically putting something here to fry a node board, if it detects you've changed the song, I have not heard of that. I have not heard that either. And I do not see them doing something like that. Because I don't think they want to bother with it either. Yeah, I don't think they want to bother with warranty possible saying no to this customer. They just don't want to hear from the licensor. But I know straight up, if you – like technically, if you're putting mods in your game that plug into something, you've already voided the warranty. Yeah, you've already voided the warranty. So if you fry something and you're going to take pictures of your game, make sure there's no mods in it when you take the pictures that they can see. Even wrong shaker motors. Yes. If you're not using a factory authorized shaker motor. Anything that's electronic. Like if you put the flying saucer mod on top of your pop-up or – I mean, I don't think that's going to – or you change your Godzilla figurine out, I don't think they're going to care. But if you're putting – Hey, what if I put regular bulbs where the LEDs were? That's not good. Yeah, you could fry shit on that. Or you're putting – you're plugging stuff into the game. Yes. And yes, they're not – Unless it's factory authorized like a topper. Unless it's factory authorized like a topper or expression lights. or anything else. So you're always taking a chance when you're modifying something. It's just like modding your phone. You can break your phone. Yeah, jailbreaking your phone. Yes, you can really fuck it up, and then guess whose fault it is? It's yours. And I would see more, as we've seen in the past, phone makers screwing you than Stern. I don't think Stern would put enough time and effort to block that out. Yeah, there's threats out there, but I've got a couple of buddies that have done the changes, and it's fine. Nothing ever comes of it. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to do that, don't expect things like Insider Connected to work. No, no, no. And that stuff. I mean, honestly, if you're doing shit like that to your game, I wouldn't connect it to the Internet at all. Mm-hmm. Hey, Ron, speaking of Insider Connected. Yes? We have another game connected at the Rochester Pinball Collective. Oh, really? what game would that be bruce the worst game ever made by stern lately is this another star wars bash yes it is fuck you you mean one of their best games ever no but we did get a free kit for that we got the free kit for doing all the uh tournaments and that kind of stuff and showing them off the videos and everything that and you get credit towards i guess you really can't you have too many people there to do the home team thing because i think even home team has a limit to the number of people you only get eight eight yeah we can go more we can go yeah well well bruce clearly with star wars since everyone hates it you probably won't have eight people that would want to log into it so you could use home team well guess what there's only one person on it so far and the other games having So many more. Everyone's playing more other games than even Star Wars. Even more Bando, which is right next to it, than Star Wars with Insider Connected. Yeah, Home Team's not specific to each game either. It's like if Bruce has his Insider Connected, and he creates his Home Team, and it has eight, then any of the machines that are registered under his name would have that same Home Team. Yep, which in a home environment is pretty damn cool. Yeah, it is cool. But with us, we're a location site, so we can go blah, blah, as many as we want. I wish the dashboard was a little easier for setting up new tournaments, getting to it if you have to go look at it again. It is a pain in the ass. Well, I have to ask, Chris, how are you liking your Foo Fighters? I love the Foo Fighters. I still got my Godzilla Premium, and I don't know if I would say it's better than that. I still think Godzilla is probably the best game out. I agree. But Foo Fighters is just right there. The flow, everybody knows that. I mean, I thought I'd get tired of the Foo Fighters music being played over and over again, but I don't. It's just, you know, it's pretty, keeps you going. And the upper play field. so when I was playing it on the pro you can get that area 51 multiball just you know hit the right ramp a bunch of times yeah just hit the right ramp a bunch of times which I don't know it might be easier on the pro for some reason that doesn't make sense but on the premium it's harder to hit that ramp and just because you got to go up there and then also successfully hit the loop shot which comes quick on that flipper you're just not getting it as much which I like just because it adds some complexity of the game. The dead post is just awesome every time you hit it. A lot of my buddies that are here, they've played it three to four weeks worth, and some of them still aren't getting it. I don't understand, but that thing's great. I do like the Overlord shot on the premium with the magnets. That's the only glitch. Out of all the games I've bought new in box from Stern, I think this one has had zero issues except one thing. I've played it in a couple arcades before I got mine, and it's happened on all of them. You hit that Overlord shot right into those metal bars that come up, and sometimes it doesn't register what it needs to register, and the ball will sit there, and it sits there through two ball cycles. Yes, full circles. It's a minute, minute and a half. I have people actually come up to the front like, Hey, I've got a problem with the machine, and you're walking over, and there's the post going back down. Like, there you go. Yeah, you're going to be on the first search. It doesn't mean the second search. And you're like, yeah, literally a minute goes by. And you're like, okay, this could definitely change. I am the overlord. I'm not going to release your balls. Yeah. So I'm not sure what it is, if it's not hitting a switch or it's just something's happening so fast. Because a lot of times when it is, it's just like when the ball just launches in there and ricochets and then it gets screwed. I'm sure those stern programmers are on it. Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic. I like it. But, uh-oh. Gotta disagree with Bruce. I mean, sometimes I find myself playing the James Bond. I just can't break away from that. I love the shots. I love the shots. I love just that cue just annoying me like lightsaber battle. It really did. That's where I was like, take anything good from the past seven codes, and you picked this. They're still fledging it out. It'll be fine-tuned. I think it's strange. Every code update that comes out for Bond is like .01. I know, exactly. Little baby steps each time, which is... Well, you can't throw too much at Lonnie anymore. He's like, oh, wow! It's going to be like Stranger Things. It's going to be a sleeper hit. It is, man. It is. But Foo Fighters, just solid gold, I think, right off the bat. I think it's deserving all of its accolades. I'm wondering where all the pain they went through with the licensor, though. Is it going to be like Stranger Things where you're not going to be able to get it after a certain point anymore? Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for since I own one. Ah, very good. Yes. Ron, did you sign up for the 24-hour battle? Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. So, well, I signed up for the lottery. Yes, the lottery because it only is 100 people and we're up to 184. Yeah, in the lottery. Yeah. So they'll pick your names and... Big money, big money, big money. Stop. No whammies. Although, how far down was I last time? You were about 30, and you still made it in. Yeah, I was like 30 people down. Like, oh, I'm not getting in, and I got in. And I think I got in by a couple. Yes, you were like three or four. Probably what happens is because it's a lottery so limited, people just are like, you know what, do it. Put my name in, put my name in. Yeah, and then it gets close, and they're like, yeah, I can't do this. I can't do this, man. I can't take the time off. Yeah. What I think it should be is for this year's lottery, if you couldn't make it last year, you're down at the bottom. There you go. If you couldn't make it? You mean if you could make it? If you paid for a spot and then you had to back. Oh, you mean you backed out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. By the way, we're talking about the 24 hours at the Sanctum. It takes place in November, but they're going to do a drawing for it. When is the drawing? It's coming up. It's coming up. I think it's the 14th or 15th. Let me see. Hold on. What's the price to get in to the lottery? Give me two seconds. I'll tell you that, too. Well, there's no price to get into the lottery. I know I didn't pay anything. No, not for the lottery. But once you get in, you have 24 hours to pay. If you don't pay within that 24 hours, goes the next person. Next person, and you're screwed. Yep. That's why I kind of want to know the date, because I see it going in my spam folder, and I don't pay, and then I look like an idiot. but yeah this is all for the honor of playing 24 hours straight the lottery entries close this this wednesday the pick is monday 7 30 right before their weekly tournament so next monday 19th the 19th okay everyone you're obligated to pay how much uh hold on i don't even know how much it is this year uh did you enter in the lotto bruce i did i i don't know how much it is $150. $150. And that's over there in New York? That's actually in Connecticut. Oh, Connecticut. And it is a Stern Pro Circuit event, probably the last time I'm thinking, since they don't have... They don't have a finals component, so it'll only be 100% or however that works. I don't understand that stuff. I don't understand it either. We need to get Josh back on so he can tell us... He can tell us how he's ruined pinball? Why is he ruining pinball? Yes. And why he still banned Stu McVeacher, I don't understand. Yeah, I don't know either. He's got to unban him. And I hate Stu, but I don't think it's right that he's banned. Okay. That's all I got, Bruce. Oh, yeah. That's all I got, too. Working on games. That's all I'm doing. Working on games. I got one other thing to share. What do you got? What do you got? If you guys follow Stern on Instagram, you might have seen recently, for this month, the Starrcade was recognized as the Stern Game Room of the Month. The world-famous Starrcade. Wow. Even I haven't been recognized. Well, you know, it's a tough club to get into. I don't think they like me just sending a roll of my classic Sterns. I don't think that's what they were looking for. I think that's the issue. Congratulations. Yeah, thanks. I think it comes from me, you know, they had announced the winner last month, And I said, you know, congrats to the winner, but, you know, the room was just so boring. And I made a comment. I was like, oh, I see it now. I guess what has to happen is all of your games have to be stern. Otherwise, you're not the winner. No. And then I signed it, sore loser. And then, honestly, two weeks later, they announced mine as the, or three weeks, whatever. Three weeks later, they announced mine as the winner. I wonder if they had to do anything. Sore loser. Okay. So, yeah. So, you got anything you want to plug, Chris? Well, yeah, I'll plug. So everybody plugs Zach with Flip N Out Pinball. I just want to plug Next Level Pinball Museum again in Hillsboro, Oregon. It's where I go to get my games. And Jordan and Whitney are really awesome to work with. as well as Zach, and then just the crew out here at Starcade on Commando Island. Guys come out every Friday night for League. Shout out to those guys. Cool. I'll plug my other podcast. Yeah, okay, Bruce. Silverball Chronicles, which can be heard on the Pinball Network. We're trying to get some time scheduled to record the next episode. I'm excited about it. It's an exciting subject. At least a lot of stuff even I didn't know, Bruce. Wow. David Dennis, he does thorough research. And I'll bash it through. I'll bash the holes right through it every time. Oh, okay, Bruce. Anything you want to plug, Bruce? No. No? No, no. Don't forget, if you didn't get on board with the donations for Lyman's thing, you can donate yourself. I put it on our Facebook page. where the website is. You can donate in his name. Anything you donate, that's great. It really is a touching thing. And thank you again. When I told Ron some of these donations that were coming through, he was like, no fucking way. And then when I gave him the number one time, he's like, what? It just kept on growing and growing and it feels good to give. And guess what? We still are not taking money. Woohoo! I like the fact that it was 20 cents. Yes, because that was a big step. Because someone gave 420. 420, but somebody screwed her because somebody gave $2. Oh, you wanted it like 420. She wanted the 420 to be at the end, but somebody gave $2 and screwed up her 420 at the end. It was 620. Oh, man. That's the happiest $2 we will ever receive. Of course. Hey, I'll take any money going toward a good cause. Thanks to everybody. Everybody. It blew me away. Yeah. And as Bruce said, we haven't taken any money ourselves. And Bruce is very happy about that. Yes. I'm sure he feels like he's won. I won again. I won again. No, this time our listeners made us winners. Yes. Yeah. As a listener, I do want to say, like, yeah, I can see why, you know, people would want to get paid. You know, there's a lot of time spent on it. And I know there's a lot of editing and this and that, but the people that have gone to Patreon, it's almost most of the podcasts now they talk about the Patreon. They spend at least 15 minutes talking about the Patreon. It gets annoying. I'm happy that you guys don't do it, but I would back you guys if you did. Nope. We'll never have. I will state this to the day. you know i'm on my deathbed fuck that patreon crap you bastards oh no it will never happen for me because guess what i make pretty good money i don't need people's money maybe guess what i won't i won't get a free pinball machine out of this whole thing well i'm rich remember so it's we know that all the mods you're getting yeah yeah i mean i just buy toppers and stuff so you know it's just it's just easy you know exactly like the software we're recording on right now you know what magic cost zero zero nice and it's pretty good yes it's it's worked pretty good yeah we're always screwed if someone ever wants to actually call in and they'd be like no no just use a computer come on dude computer computer but uh yeah so you know we don't put much money into this it shows yes i i agree on that on that note thank you chris yeah thank you thanks you're always welcome come on anytime you like our northwest correspondent yes our northwest correspondent he said oregon bruce not oregon i that's oregon yeah i agree with you okay i was waiting for that the whole fucking time all of this stuff yes and a computer that line you used a couple times that's Star Trek 4? Yes, it is. Is Scotty saying that? Just making sure I had the right reference there. Computer? How quaint. And this has been episode... Transparent Aluminum? Transparent Aluminum. This has been episode 208 of the Slam Tilt Podcast. And how did they get in touch with us, Ron? Geez, I was just going into it. I know, that's why I did the old Oh, hi, how you doing? You can reach us or write to us at our email address slam till podcast at gmail.com that's slam till podcast at gmail.com also check out our website www.slamtillpodcast.com all our links are in the upper right hand corner uh i might be streaming this week i don't know it's is it golden i'm gonna i'm gonna have trouble editing getting this done this it might be a little later this week because i just i'm not gonna have a lot of time at work I'm training someone, Bruce. You have no fear. Guess what? You have no problem with this because we're not charging anybody. So you can do whatever you want. I can do it whenever I want? Yeah. Okay. There's no expectations. There's no pressure? No. There should be some expectations. Expectations of quality. Well, we already failed at that. We failed at that. So who are you training? Who's the trainable one in your place? New guy. I can't remember his name, but he's starting Monday. I think Monday I'm supposed to meet him at like 8.30. Nice. I don't know what I'm really training him with right now other than just showing him around the building. So, yeah. What else? So thanks, everyone. Fun with Bonus. Hi, Zach. Hi, guys. Hi, everyone in the Cluster Vuck, et cetera. Thanks, everybody. Until next time, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Steve Matheson. We'll be right back. Meteor Level Zero Clusterfuck George Takei Timballs Bruce Isms Tournament Talk Carholer Cheetah Xanadu Cash Grab ELO Ball Break What You Buy It Game You Love Game You Hate Tournament Talk Pinball Princess Sir Oh my Oh my Oh my Oh my Oh, mama. Oh, mama. Can you boogie? Can you slide?
  • Johannes Ostermeyer won IFPA World Championships in nine games (4 out of 7 format) against Marcus Vertanen

    medium confidence · Ron discussing finals: 'Johannes won in nine games. It went the full. They do like four out of seven. Unless it's tied 3-3, then it's two'

  • “I immediately replaced the figure. I replaced it with the same figure I used on the play field. So yours cost $1,050.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~41:00 — Demonstrates how stock topper customization pushes cost even higher for users wanting better presentation

  • “They probably were still up in the air about it and then when they heard the crap about it oh let's do this... it's like an afterthought”

    Ron Hallett @ ~43:00 — Theory about Stern's reactive product marketing in response to community criticism

  • “Escher Lefkoff won. Surprise. Surprise... These guys have been playing so much. Just give them a day off or night off.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~58:00 — European tournament intensity and dominance patterns; commentary on competitive grind

  • Stern Pinballcompany
    Joel Engelberthperson
    IFPA World Championshipsevent
    European Pinball Championshipsevent
    Johannes Ostermeyerperson
    Marcus Vertanenperson
    Escher Lefkoffperson
    Freefallgame
    Straight Down The Middleorganization
    Zach Manningperson

    medium · Ron: 'I heard that they don't want to ship them either. They have three distributors and they're all in France' and 'don't forget, pins that are going into from the U.S. to France do get taxed very much'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern announced Godzilla topper with only 8-10 seconds of video showing static flame effect without demonstrating lighting/shadow interaction or King of the Monsters mode announcement

    high · Ron: 'they show the topper for I think it was eight to ten seconds total. And they don't really show it doing anything... they didn't show it doing anything in the video did they even mention in the video that about the extra mode or even show it'

  • $

    market_signal: Godzilla topper demonstrates value misalignment: $1,000 price point with estimated $300-500 production cost (70% margin), uses stock playfield figurine, lacks moving mechanics compared to Rush topper, and King of the Monsters mode announced only after community criticism

    high · Bruce: 'That's a nice little 70% markup on stupid people' and 'it wasn't like the rush one where it's like hey it actually moves it's got moving gears and shit cool this one was just like'

  • ?

    announcement: Straight Down The Middle video demonstrated Godzilla topper lighting effects and flasher shadow projection more effectively than official Stern announcement; implies Stern's marketing prioritized announcement timing over substantive feature demonstration

    high · Ron: 'Straight down the middle and Zach Manning did a video where it looked way better in the video like it actually showed what it does... when they heard the crap about it oh let's do this'

  • ?

    product_concern: Space Hunt mini-playfield design appears simplistic with repetitive mode layout (single shot lit repeatedly); plumb bob mechanic unclear and potentially gimmicky; excessive pink artwork (Pepto-Bismol) aesthetic concern

    medium · Ron: 'the one mode they were picking it lit one shot on the right side and you just hit it like five or six times over and over... I don't get what the little pendulum thing is... The color, and I've heard this mentioned... The first thing that popped in my mind was Pepto-Bismol'

  • ?

    product_concern: Avengers Premium spinning disc came from factory with improper adjustment (quarter-inch gap), causing constant point awards and ball holding issues resolved by simple bracket adjustment

    high · Chris: 'it came from the factory like that. Just that slight little adjustment there, it was causing the spinning disc to just keep awarding points'