Oh, happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. I'm going to head to PJ Clark's today on 54th Street, and I'm going to drink some JMO. All right, so let's talk about pinball on this St. Paddy's Day. What a great March it's been for pinball. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had to like decompress the sheer amount of information, news and games that have come out this month. And I'm going to start with Pulp Fiction. If you haven't heard the Kevin Loza Kid Pinball Podcast, go listen to it. A lot of really great information on the game, the rule set, how many years they've been making this game. And also like the thing that I'm most excited about is David Thiel's work on this game. You know, that's what's interesting about this Pulp Fiction game. Not only is it like an incredible theme for pinball, but without a display, the sound effects and the music are going to be so important in creating the atmosphere for that game. And I think they're going to nail it. And David Thiel is like the greatest musical composer in the history of pinball. I mean it. When you stand in front of one of his sound packages, whether it's Alien or Pirates of the Caribbean, he's what made Jersey Jack pinball machines sound so good. And his departure is the reason why Jersey Jack pinball machines have sound so poorly and like slot machines ever since David has stopped working with JJP. Now, look, he's a hired gun. And it is shocking to me that Jersey Jack pinball never got him back on the roster. So Pulp Fiction, it's still crazy. This game is still basically sold out. You can't find a single limited edition version of Pulp Fiction anywhere. Now here's the craziest part. And as someone who has been like scalping machines for like six years now, here's the real scary part. Think about this. A thousand Pulp Fiction deposits have been paid. A thousand. How many of them have popped up for sale since people bought their spots? Zero. Bro, not one single person has tried to flip this game yet. And this is an easy window to go grab, like, I don't know, you could probably sell a spot now for at least $1,500 or maybe even $2,000. But we haven't seen one single person test the marketplace on this game. And the other reason why I think no one's actually listed a deposit spot for sale is nobody wants to lose that spot. And it's way too early. That's the other thing. I'm still kind of confused that this game, the LE of this game is not going to go on the line until sometime like September, October. Then why did they reveal the game now? Seeing the way people responded to this game, I think people would have responded to this game any time of year. And so CGC does not have a great track record of making machines and making them efficiently. They have a good track record of building a quality product. But when you get that quality product is the real issue. And they've got all this backlog on like Cactus Canyon games to make. And so if you're a Cactus Canyon guy right now, you're not really happy that they're going to now make Pulp Fiction. You're not really excited by this because now you might have deposits down for two games. You are going to wait forever. You want to hear a rumor I heard? I heard that Chicago Gaming Company's next game, it's not going to be Twilight Zone. Their next throwback game, and this makes total sense, I'm hearing the next game they're going to make is The Addams Family. Now, if you look at the popularity of Wednesday, it's the most popular Netflix show of all time. What a great time to rerun The Addams Family. But where would that even go into the schedule, right? You've got to make these Cactus Canyons. Then you've got to make all these Pulp Fictions. And think about it. They're going to sell so many Pulp Fiction machines that they're going to be making Pulp Fiction games well into 2025. And so if the next game is the Adams family, I wouldn't expect to see that machine until sometime in like 2026. Here's the problem, right? Here's the problem with these companies when you have a hit title. Nobody can really make games fast enough anymore. Like we have such ADD with all of these pinball machines. Like Stern Pinball is the only company that can basically make a few thousand games in a single month. And that is a crazy feat in pinball. After Stern Pinball, the next greatest efficiencies are what? Are what? Jersey Jack Pinball? How many are they making a week? Maybe 150, maybe 200 on an amazing week in which everyone is like soldering properly. Spooky Pinball is making like 50 or so a week. I mean, that's what's crazy is like it's really easy to show a game people want and take a few thousand orders, but then you got to go make them. Like Chicago Gaming Company, I have no idea. I think they're kind of like spooky pinball. I think they're around the 50 games a week standpoint. So think about it. If you sell 1,000 Pulp Fictions and you can only make 50 a week, it's a long wait to get to the games. And that's just the LE people. That's not the SE or the SE whatever standard that they're also making. They have three tiers of this game they're going to be taking orders on. I also just love the fact that people are excited by a game that doesn't have an LCD screen. I don understand why this would upset anybody And here why Because if you like an LCD screen guess what Everyone else is making games with an LCD screen You can go get a 27 screen with The Godfather You can go get Stern screen in every single one of their games. It is good to have options. I love the fact that pinball is now coming to us in many different forms. And look, I'm not a dummy. I'm reading the thread around James Bond 60th, and I'm telling you this right now. The game is phenomenal. Like, these owners are loving the game. Now, do we trust these owners, you know, these people who spent $20,000 on this single level game with barely any assets? I don't really believe them because, of course, they're going to justify the game. But some people are saying this is the greatest shooting pinball machine of all time. Do you believe that? Do you actually believe that this is the greatest shooting pinball machine of all time? It's the most expensive machine that's ever been sold by a pinball manufacturer to anybody, but I'm not so sure it's the greatest machine of all time. But what I do like about these single level games, it's reminding people what pinball used to be and how you used to be able to walk up to a pinball machine, know what to do and find enjoyment in the game on a single level machine that wasn't ultra confusing. And when you hear the way they're developing Pulp Fiction, it sounds like it's going to be a lot like that. Like you're going to walk up to it. You're going to know what to do. You're going to know how to start the different modes, but it's still going to be really challenging to get through the entire game. And that will keep you coming back for more. What I don't like about a lot of the modern pinball machines now is like, there's so much happening on the screen. There's so much you have to memorize. And also there's just so much you'll never see. There's so much you'll just never see or want to engage with. And the reason why you don't want to engage with it is it's just too much. It's too confusing. And look, some people like those ultra deep and I would say ultra complex rule sets. I would argue the majority of us do not. We don't want a game to be too easy. We don't want to see everything right away. Like you could have Tales of the Arabian Nights and you could finish that game in one weekend and there's never going to be anything new in the game you haven't seen. But I think modern pinball coders are smarter and they know how to add stuff that is really challenging to get to. And that's all you really want, right? You want that Valinor, you want that thing to reach for, you want that final wizard mode that requires you to do a lot of really crazy stuff with three balls on a pinball machine. And we're going to get that in all of these games. The thing I don't know when we're going to get is Galactic Tank Force. Where is this machine? It is at the point now where on Pinside, people are debating whether or not a screw on the trans light is a freaking camera. There is no camera in this game, people. It's just a black screw. Can we please stop imagining bonus features in this game that do not exist? Look, it was Dennis Nordman's birthday yesterday. It would have been a great day to reveal the game on his birthday. It is now Friday, St. Patrick's Day, and we still don't know where this game is. The word on the street is that American Pinball is going to release this game the week leading up to Texas Pinball Festival. Well, guess what? It is the week leading up to Texas Pinball Festival. I was told this game was going to be at Jack Bar tomorrow. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. John does not have the game. I doubt it's going to be shipped to him on a Saturday unless someone's going to drive it over to him. I think we're going to see the final reveal tomorrow. If we look at the other teasers, when do they drop them? They've been dropping them all Saturday morning at like 9.30 in the morning or 9 a.m. They've been dropping them all right before my spectacular. So I fully expect to see the full game tomorrow. What I've been hearing is they've been wrestling with how much to price the game at and how many to make. And the thing with American Pinball is this. I think they need to shy away from making too many of these deluxe tank additions. Because I think they need to make them really unique and rare. And when you have an original IP like this, I don't care if it's a Dennis Nordman game. It's a really hard sell next to Pulp Fiction, next to Foo Fighters, next to Scooby-Doo. If you have an original IP game, you got to work extra hard to get the FOMO into the game. And the other thing is this, looking at that damn game, people, there is no way that game is going to be less than $10,000, that freaking full tank edition. There's no way. I mean, there's just so much more in this game. Everybody, you got to remember, Legends of Valhalla, I would say is a pretty empty game. Legends of Valhalla was $8,700. And you're telling me with that freaking tank and the turret and all this stuff on that playfield. You're telling me that game is just going to be like $1,000 more than Legends of Valhalla was? Get out of town, people. I expect this tank version to be closer to $13,000. I think they're going to make somewhere between like $150 to $250 of them. If they make $500 of them, good luck trying to sell $500 at $13,000. There's no FOMO there for such a unique quirky thing. And then the other edition of the game, which is the one most people are going to buy because most people are not going to need this freaking tank thing in their house. I think we're going to see that at like $9,200. Again, I'm going off of what Legends of Valhalla was. What I wish American Pinball would do is just release this damn thing. So hopefully we see it today All right what else is going on in pinball Godfather LEs are going out the door Now I been reading people reviews of Godfather I saw Kerry Hardy video I didn think it was fair that Kerry kind of reviewed it after only playing it three times Like he glows about Foo Fighters, and then he plays Godfather three times, and he's kind of sour on the game. I think if you're going to give your first gameplay impressions, you got to play it more. You got to play it at least like 20 to 30 times. You also, if you're going to play a Jersey Jack machine on location, you got to walk up to it with headphones. You have to hear the game the right way. You can't review a game in a loud arcade and really absorb what they put into the game. It's terrible. It's a terrible way to review the game. So I think there's going to be a lot more Godfather reviews popping up. I've been hearing a mixed bag thing about the game. Look, I haven't played the game. I can't indict the game on any other level than artwork, on theme integration, on light shows and sound, right? Because I've heard all that from the internet stream. So I'm allowed to give my opinions about that stuff. But what I've been telling all of my friends on the side, and you guys are all my friends, so I'll tell you this right now. I do think the flame on Godfather is going to go out pretty quickly. I do. I don't think this is going to be one of these games where people are going to be clamoring to have it for like six to eight months. It's not going to have the kind of frenzy that Guns N' Roses had. And I think people are going to get it. I think they're going to enjoy the way it shoots. But I think this campy gangster game that's not really the Godfather is going to wear thin pretty quickly in people's collections. And you're going to move on to other stuff. You know, and I think Jersey Jack Pinball is just in an interesting place. I've been speaking to many distributors and they're not happy with Jersey Jack Pinball right now because Jersey Jack Pinball sold 500 of the collector's editions directly from JJP. It's a much better margin if they sell it directly. The problem is those distributors, many of which are sitting on unsold Toy Story inventory, really wanted to get these CE sales. Because think about it, for every CE a distributor sells, They're probably making $1,500 to $2,000. So let's say you're a distributor and they cut your allotment of CEs by 10 games. That's $20,000 you are not going to make simply because Jersey Jack Pinball wants to sell it directly. Why would you be happy about that? And the other part I'm hearing is this, is that the LEs of this game are not selling very well. And the reason why they're not selling great is the price. It's not the game, it's the price. If this game was like 9,000 for an LE, I think a lot more people would be buying them, putting them in their homes, like checking the game out. But nobody wants to check out a game for $12,000. They really don't. And the CE just looks so much better than the LE. So that's the one everybody wants with that crazy topper with the Tommy guns. I'm just a little worried that Jersey Jack's going to do the same thing again. By the time the CEs go on the line, the game's excitement is going to wear a little thin. We will see what happens. I'm already seeing some Godfather CE spots pop up for sale, like deposits pop up for sale for like $2,200. So that's like a $300 loss. Again, I'm just measuring this game against the popularity of Pulp Fiction. And I think the Pulp Fiction excitement, this is crazy to say this, the Pulp Fiction excitement with no LCD screen, I think is like 10 times greater than the Godfather CE excitement. I never thought I'd be saying this, like that a game with no display could get people more excited about its theme integration than a game with a 27-inch screen. And when Eric Minier said, we have all of the assets and iconic scenes from the movie, I just don't feel that way when I watch someone play the Godfather. All right, so Godfather, Scooby-Doo. We've got 1,969 Scooby-Doos to make. Wow. I mean, when you say it like that, Kenead, it feels like they're going to be making Scooby-Doos forever. And I feel like 1,968 are going to be collector's editions. You notice how spooky still hasn't shown us the version of the game with no sculpts in it? I can't wait to see this thing. It's going to look so bad. And the reason why is they know that no one's going to want that game. Operators are not going to want it. Collectors are not going to want it. And it's going to end up being like the rarest version of the game, like the game with no scopes. Look, Spooky was smart. They were smart. They came out first. They locked in all of that money first. You can't get out of your Scooby-Doo order even if you want to. They're going to make so many of these games. They're going to be so easy to get that if you want a Scooby-Doo, you're going to be able to get one for like two to three thousand less than if you bought it on day one. And I think a lot of people are going to play the market like that. I think it's a buyer's market. I think a lot of these games are going to lose value right away. Is a Foo Fighters LE at $13,000? Is it going to be worth more than $13,000 in three months? I don't know. You know, look, I think everyone's feeling the same thing. Every game is overpriced right now. Just buy what you want. Buy what you want to keep. Buy what you want to keep in your collection for a long time. Don't run and buy everything immediately. I've been saying this to my friends who feel left out, right, of this freaking Pulp Fiction LE. You're not going to have a hard time getting a Pulp Fiction LE, people. Trust me, trust me. There are many people out there that are holding on to them. There are distributors holding on to them There are a lot of people playing the market on the game And the good news is this is Pulp Fiction LE is not crazy expensive right It like less than 10 So even when people try to scalp one, they're not going to be scalping it for like 18 grand. I think you're going to see Pulp Fiction's go for like 11 to 1200 bucks. This was the good old days of scalping. We used to make a couple thousand dollars and everybody felt happy before it got stupid right before like a Stranger Things went from being $8,500 to $18,000. Like COVID made everything so stupid. All right, what else is going on in pinball? Is anybody even talking about? I didn't even see anybody talk about the fact on pin side that Twilight Zone is going to be remade by that Pendretti Gaming Company in Italy. Somebody go start that thread and throw me a freaking bone. Speaking of making new games, have you seen this Turner pinball video? I put it up on my Facebook page. I don't know what the heck he's doing. I see another guy with pinball stars in his eyes. I see this big factory with nothing being made. Again, what is it with these people? If there ever was a time we didn't need another pinball company, it's right now. We don't need any more. I mean, freaking think about it, people. We have eight new games coming to you from eight different companies. Eight. Eight companies, eight games. Who the heck would go into pinball right now. Stern is still going to clobber everybody. And now we have another person throwing his hat into the ring with absolutely no experience manufacturing a game. When I see this guy with his prototype, it's like nobody learns. It is so easy to make a pinball prototype. It is almost impossible to set up a pinball manufacturing company. Ask Dutch Pinball. ask haggis pinball ask pinball brothers i mean you can go down a list of the amount of startup pinball ventures their initial manufacturing attempts failed horribly so why would we be excited and then you look at this whitewood it's not exciting at all so why are you getting on a plane and spending money to go to texas to talk to people about what what are we going to hear from mr turner i don't care about his ambitions and his dreams in pinball i find it offensive I almost find it borderline offensive that he's going to have a booth at TPF and spend money to show us that freaking Whitewood. What's wrong with people? I mean, why is Haggis Pinball even flying to TPF? Why would they spend any money flying to TPF when they have all of these fathoms to make? That is a week where you are out of the office. It's just money you shouldn't be spending. It's just that simple. Don't travel and do any victory lap until you're done building the freaking games. Or there's someone back at the factory building the freaking games. I am curious to see if Haggis makes it to the next game. Everyone's forgotten my rumor. I'm going to say it again. Marty Robbins is making a game. Marty Robbins' game is War of the Worlds. The War of the Worlds story, like the Orson Welles-like story, it is open IP. so that is what I am hearing is Marty Robbins is making War of the Worlds do me a favor when John Youssi him at Texas be like hey Marty how's War of the Worlds coming along just scream it as loud as you can and see his reaction can someone do that for Kaneda I mean look I'm gonna walk around the show I was talking to Kim and Ed they're so nice I can't wait to get the TPF they've set me up with a media badge I'm gonna be able to play the games after the show closes because I hate trying to absorb these games when every game is on at the same time and it's super crowded in there is canada getting special treatment no i am not i've spent many years making a lot of content and promoting texas pinball festival i'm excited i'm excited to hang out with you guys at the happy hour at perry's i'm excited for the twippies even though i think the twippies should cut the length of the show to just an hour this year like nobody wants to celebrate last year's games with all of this excitement going on. Everybody, thank you so much for the support. We're almost at 580 subscribers. I mean, the Canadian Pinball Podcast keeps growing in popularity. I've been listening to the other shows, but man, man, everyone's going like 90 minutes again. Like, I just don't get it. Look, we're barely at 25 minutes, and we've covered off on everything going on in pinball. Well, let's just take another hour, and we'll just like debate more of this stuff. No, this is what you want. I love that you're here and we're going to do more shows. I hope Galactic Tank Force gets revealed today because then I'll do another show tomorrow. Oh, and also I am traveling to Las Vegas Sunday night for that Dodge last call event at Vegas Speedway. I might win a chance to buy like some thousand horsepower car or they might hand me a sweatshirt that says, thanks for your loyalty. I'm flying in Sunday night. The event is from like two to seven Monday and then I'm taking a red eye out of Vegas and land in New York Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. It's a crazy trip. And then I fly to Texas on Friday. It's going to be an incredible like week and a half. I'm so excited. Everybody have a great St. Patrick's Day and do me a favor, go get a glass of Jameson and raise a toast to our lives together in this pinball community later. Thank you.